insights archivos

05/11/2015

The fine line between hardware and software in the hardware industry

In this document I talk a lot about hardware, but now every product has an interface, or even an app that controls it. And that involves software, coding (probably back-end and front-end), design, usability… Software creation is also a strategy to differentiate your product from potential copies. Despite patents, any hardware device could be copied,

29/10/2015

How to validate and test the market in hardware startups

Sometimes we’re in a trap: without units there’s no validation, and you shouldn’t build more units without validation. Here it’s important to highlight that experiments could be done with interviews, smoke products, non-functional products, simulating by hand what machines will do automatically… so you can learn a lot without actual products. Really, to learn about

22/10/2015

Crowdfunding and hardware startups II

This is a follow-up to last week’s post It’s an important topic, so there’s a lot of information. I think many people love crowdfunding, and they are happy with not only for being a customer, but also for supporting new ideas. But it’s quite obvious, also for customers, that crowdfunding is based on promised, so

15/10/2015

Crowdfunding campaigns for hardware products

Today, crowdfunding seems to be the solution for everything, and that’s a good idea for hardware products. It’s usually the first idea that project owners have when they think about how to raise money. But being a good idea doesn’t mean it’s an easy one. It’s not necessary to mention that a campaign is a

08/10/2015

Hardware Startup focusing on a mass market

Many projects must go from 1 unit in testing to 10,000 units in first manufacturing. Manufacturing 1,000 units costs similar to 10,000 so there’s no real option. This means with only 1 unit you must validate everything, and that’s not easy. This is happening with cheap products going to a mass market, usually B2C. And

01/10/2015

Hardware startups and Lean Startup: a complicated but successful relationship

I’ve been working with many startups recently, mainly using Lean startup methods, and it has been quite accepted. But one industry where things seem to be different is hardware. I’ve been working with this kind of startup mainly in Berlin Hardware Accelerator, but also in Startup Weekend (Berlin, Paris…), and some training programs. I’ve also