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What is your approach to low-volume prototyping? Do you use same components for prototypes that you intend for volume manufacturing? How do you source them? (fo

by dfox 11y ago

What is your approach to low-volume prototyping? Do you use same components for prototypes that you intend for volume manufacturing? How do you source them? (for example LCD panels, where there seems to be nothing in the intersection of "long-time available", "available in unit quantities", "available in bulk" and "reasonable quality") And another question for the business side of things: where is the line for consumer products that are not meaningful to crowdfund? niche-ness? complexity of installation? does it make sense to crowdfund what is essentially an B2B product?

wilcoxbr 11y ago
We approach prototyping as a process. http://www.themacro.com/articles/2016/01/minimum-viable-product-process/ http://www.themacro.com/articles/2016/01/minimum-viable-prod... Early prototypes use whatever we have laying around to get the most fundamental feature of the idea vetted. Right before production, you will build a prototype that we call a First Article. This is a Golden Sample, and every production unit should be just like the First Article. Prototypes in between those two are built to answer specific questions and we spend no extra resources on sourcing special components that do not directly impact accurate answering of the question. For things like displays, wireless modules, etc. we work with the manufacturer's Field Application Engineers. They can get you insight on what will be available for production, documentation for the components, etc. They can also probably get you samples for your development work. McMaster-Carr, DigiKey, Mouser, AdaFruit, SparkFun, etc. are your friends for making those early prototypes. Crowdfunding is essentially pre-ordering on a social platform. If your market is there and interested, crowdfunding can be a viable market validation step for any business model.

by dfox 11y ago

wilcoxbr 11y ago

We approach prototyping as a process. http://www.themacro.com/articles/2016/01/minimum-viable-product-process/ http://www.themacro.com/articles/2016/01/minimum-viable-prod... Early prototypes use whatever we have laying around to get the most fundamental feature of the idea vetted. Right before production, you will build a prototype that we call a First Article. This is a Golden Sample, and every production unit should be just like the First Article. Prototypes in between those two are built to answer specific questions and we spend no extra resources on sourcing special components that do not directly impact accurate answering of the question. For things like displays, wireless modules, etc. we work with the manufacturer's Field Application Engineers. They can get you insight on what will be available for production, documentation for the components, etc. They can also probably get you samples for your development work. McMaster-Carr, DigiKey, Mouser, AdaFruit, SparkFun, etc. are your friends for making those early prototypes. Crowdfunding is essentially pre-ordering on a social platform. If your market is there and interested, crowdfunding can be a viable market validation step for any business model.