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I have so much respect for her. I tried to start an open hardware business and even with a big successful kickstarter I couldn’t do it. I always wanted to make

I have so much respect for her. I tried to start an open hardware business and even with a big successful kickstarter I couldn’t do it. I always wanted to make great products and fun easy to follow tutorials, but I failed. Seeing her company dominate was at first discouraging but has become cathartic. Even though I never made those helpful products and tutorials, someone has. It helps me feel like my failure wasn’t that bad. I’m so glad Lady Ada and her team have been doing so well.

baybal2 7y ago
I can remember a great lot of people who managed to fail even on "hello world" level hardware businesses. Don't take this as some kind of discouragement. The prime majority of successful small electronics businesses do very simple things like utilitarian "bare PCB" gadgets. Olimex for example manages to get quite a lot of business despite being quite far away from Silicon valley's commotion (located in Plovdiv, a 350k people town) I knew a teen who managed to spin a simple WiFi tester on ESP32 commercially. Also, just a PCB with a lipo battery and an MCU. He's doing great despite amateur level EE and it being a very niche product (professional WiFi installers are much the only buyers) My own opinion, in electronics business you are always in between the Scylla and Charybdis of big and unprofitable businesses (commodity OEMs,) and niche/meme/fad products (hoverboards, vapers, and of course... the juicer)
- Junk_Collector 7y ago
  It's a brutal space to operate in and seems to be getting worse all the time. Investment capital is scare. Product copies are rampant and hitting the market faster and faster to the point I even sometimes see copies reach store shelves before the original. Suppliers are increasingly consolidated and manufacturers can be hostile to little guys who need delivery schedules. Anyone who finds success in such a market has my respect and the fact the Limor has managed to not only succeed, but thrive in such an environment is a testament to how incredible she is.
  - bigiain 7y ago
    And things move really fast underneath you. I was part of a team who build (one batch only of) a hardware IoT product that I'm _still_ really proud of. Our bill of materials was ~$70, maybe 50% or so of that on our cpu/microcontroller board (the kinda standard "RaspberryPi plus an Arduino" kind of design). By the time we failed to raise funding for a second production run and threw in thew towel (amongst internal infighting), we could have functionally replaced that with the at-the-time brand new ESP8266 (this was 2013/14) for a few dollars. But we already had (expensive) plastic injection moulds made up that fit our boards so we couldn't even switch our insides easily. Hardware is hard. Major respect to anyone who get it right at small scales.
- TaylorAlexander 7y ago
  Yeah I’m definitely not really kicking myself anymore, but it was a brutal downhill slide to failure when it was happening. And even though I tried to do a simple PCB product, I offered a lot of different accessories and kit options, and the product itself had an onboard radio that needed certification. I just didn’t appreciate how much complexity these little things add. I did know full well that I was unaware, and planned to figure it out by doing. It was painful though.
- cbanek 7y ago
  Just to chime in I've only had great experiences with Olimex!
cushychicken 7y ago
I'd have to guess that a large part of Adafruit's success is that they are always. Hustling. They have a weekly Youtube video detailing the 20+ new gadgets they unveil every week. That's super impressive.
JMiao 7y ago
I relate to your sentiment so much! Do you think you’ll try again?
- TaylorAlexander 7y ago
  Thanks! Well I sure won’t try doing a kickstarter business essentially solo again. Recently I’ve found a job with someone who values open source, so while some details have yet to bear out, it seems like we might be open sourcing our work. So I may be able to get regular income working on open source. So far it’s all really great. I don’t want to do a solo business again, but I’m always trying to make sure my time is spent doing ethically sound work. Open source is a big part of my philosophy there.
SexyCyborg 7y ago
Limor is an amazing woman who has been very good to me. I honestly think she does not get enough credit for- A. having viable hardware manufacturing in the US and B. investing in good IP protection in China so that her products have never been cloned here. She has an absolutely uncrossable moat around her product line (at least as far as China is concerned) because of the massive knowledge base built by both creative, and technical professionals that it's tied to.

baybal2 7y ago

I can remember a great lot of people who managed to fail even on "hello world" level hardware businesses. Don't take this as some kind of discouragement. The prime majority of successful small electronics businesses do very simple things like utilitarian "bare PCB" gadgets. Olimex for example manages to get quite a lot of business despite being quite far away from Silicon valley's commotion (located in Plovdiv, a 350k people town) I knew a teen who managed to spin a simple WiFi tester on ESP32 commercially. Also, just a PCB with a lipo battery and an MCU. He's doing great despite amateur level EE and it being a very niche product (professional WiFi installers are much the only buyers) My own opinion, in electronics business you are always in between the Scylla and Charybdis of big and unprofitable businesses (commodity OEMs,) and niche/meme/fad products (hoverboards, vapers, and of course... the juicer)

Junk_Collector 7y ago
It's a brutal space to operate in and seems to be getting worse all the time. Investment capital is scare. Product copies are rampant and hitting the market faster and faster to the point I even sometimes see copies reach store shelves before the original. Suppliers are increasingly consolidated and manufacturers can be hostile to little guys who need delivery schedules. Anyone who finds success in such a market has my respect and the fact the Limor has managed to not only succeed, but thrive in such an environment is a testament to how incredible she is.
- bigiain 7y ago
  And things move really fast underneath you. I was part of a team who build (one batch only of) a hardware IoT product that I'm _still_ really proud of. Our bill of materials was ~$70, maybe 50% or so of that on our cpu/microcontroller board (the kinda standard "RaspberryPi plus an Arduino" kind of design). By the time we failed to raise funding for a second production run and threw in thew towel (amongst internal infighting), we could have functionally replaced that with the at-the-time brand new ESP8266 (this was 2013/14) for a few dollars. But we already had (expensive) plastic injection moulds made up that fit our boards so we couldn't even switch our insides easily. Hardware is hard. Major respect to anyone who get it right at small scales.
TaylorAlexander 7y ago
Yeah I’m definitely not really kicking myself anymore, but it was a brutal downhill slide to failure when it was happening. And even though I tried to do a simple PCB product, I offered a lot of different accessories and kit options, and the product itself had an onboard radio that needed certification. I just didn’t appreciate how much complexity these little things add. I did know full well that I was unaware, and planned to figure it out by doing. It was painful though.
cbanek 7y ago
Just to chime in I've only had great experiences with Olimex!

cushychicken 7y ago

I'd have to guess that a large part of Adafruit's success is that they are always. Hustling. They have a weekly Youtube video detailing the 20+ new gadgets they unveil every week. That's super impressive.

JMiao 7y ago

I relate to your sentiment so much! Do you think you’ll try again?

TaylorAlexander 7y ago
Thanks! Well I sure won’t try doing a kickstarter business essentially solo again. Recently I’ve found a job with someone who values open source, so while some details have yet to bear out, it seems like we might be open sourcing our work. So I may be able to get regular income working on open source. So far it’s all really great. I don’t want to do a solo business again, but I’m always trying to make sure my time is spent doing ethically sound work. Open source is a big part of my philosophy there.

SexyCyborg 7y ago

Limor is an amazing woman who has been very good to me. I honestly think she does not get enough credit for- A. having viable hardware manufacturing in the US and B. investing in good IP protection in China so that her products have never been cloned here. She has an absolutely uncrossable moat around her product line (at least as far as China is concerned) because of the massive knowledge base built by both creative, and technical professionals that it's tied to.