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For point 4, that could be a pretty smart move on their part and the reason they're able to keep going. Selling directly to consumers/setting up the distributio

For point 4, that could be a pretty smart move on their part and the reason they're able to keep going. Selling directly to consumers/setting up the distribution and marketing for that etc would be really difficult and a lot of D2C hardware companies have not done too well recently. It's unfortunate that it results in it being difficult to access for hobby markets, but relying on large, stable contracts from a lot of big manufacturers that already built up marketing and distribution over decades of operations is probably one of the better ways to commercialize a hardware innovation today.

hedora 6y ago
I feel eInk’s marketing strategy has really held the technology back. They seem to want to force the technology into a few well-defined verticals that they came up with themselves instead of letting an army of smaller companies innovate rapidly. They were founded in 1997, so their earliest patents have probably expired. I wonder when the clones will arrive. Maybe they’ll have a better marketing and sales strategy.
jjeaff 6y ago
Those don't seem like valid reasons not to offer for sale to consumers. Distribution is a non-issue. Literally ship in a case of them to FBA or one of the countless other fulfillment operations and put up a listing. Amazon handles the customer service. As for the marketing, just don't do any. Let the hobby market find it on their own and then just set a minimum order for anyone that wants to work directly with the company for their small project. I think getting into the hobby market would amount to a huge long tail market of kickstarter style projects and other small products with potential to blow up. I really don't see how their current strategy could be that great considering how rare it is to see products out there that are e-ink.
- bsder 6y ago
  > I think getting into the hobby market would amount to a huge long tail market of kickstarter style projects and other small products with potential to blow up. I'm trying to think of a single kickstarter-style project that generated a volume above even 100K units let alone a million. I can't think of any. BeatBuddy is probably the most successful by unit volume project I can think of, and they're probably under 10,000 units. So, the evidence is that the hobbyist market is completely useless to manufacturers.
  - owenversteeg 6y ago
    Well yeah, but that's not where the money is in selling to hobbyists. If you want someone to invent something that uses them, you'll have to have them in the hands of people that invent stuff. Maybe you only break even on your small scale sales to hobbyists, but eventually one of those hobbyists will be the one to invent the next big thing.
    - bsder 6y ago
      My point was that over the last 5-10 years, we have seen ZERO hobbyists create the Next Big Thing(tm) out of a kickstarter-like. And, I would argue, for two good reasons. 1) When you think about things like the Homebrew Computer Club or the Tech Model Railroad Club, the point is that the membership were engineers. Yes, they were hobbyists, but they were already professionals in the field. Kickstarters don't seem to attract that engineering crowd. 2) Anybody with actual knowledge of hardware laughs at the amounts that kickstarters raise. Most engineering professionals can personally move the amounts of money that most kickstarters can raise. The combination of the two is death for the Next Big Thing(tm) coming out of a kickstarter.
      - nitrogen 6y ago
        Kickstarters don't seem to attract that engineering crowd. As an engineer whose project proposal (with proof of feasibility in the form of working and one-at-a-time manufacturable fully functional prototypes) was rejected by Kickstarter back in 2017, maybe their selection criteria are the reason.
        bsder 6y ago
        Interesting. I didn't even know kickstarter had selection criteria given the amount of pure slop I've seen on there. But, yeah, if they do, that's simply going to kill the feedthrough as nobody can predict what's going to become big.
        nitrogen 6y ago
        For the sake of accuracy: that 2017 was a typo and should have been 2012 or 2013.

hedora 6y ago

I feel eInk’s marketing strategy has really held the technology back. They seem to want to force the technology into a few well-defined verticals that they came up with themselves instead of letting an army of smaller companies innovate rapidly. They were founded in 1997, so their earliest patents have probably expired. I wonder when the clones will arrive. Maybe they’ll have a better marketing and sales strategy.

jjeaff 6y ago

Those don't seem like valid reasons not to offer for sale to consumers. Distribution is a non-issue. Literally ship in a case of them to FBA or one of the countless other fulfillment operations and put up a listing. Amazon handles the customer service. As for the marketing, just don't do any. Let the hobby market find it on their own and then just set a minimum order for anyone that wants to work directly with the company for their small project. I think getting into the hobby market would amount to a huge long tail market of kickstarter style projects and other small products with potential to blow up. I really don't see how their current strategy could be that great considering how rare it is to see products out there that are e-ink.

bsder 6y ago
> I think getting into the hobby market would amount to a huge long tail market of kickstarter style projects and other small products with potential to blow up. I'm trying to think of a single kickstarter-style project that generated a volume above even 100K units let alone a million. I can't think of any. BeatBuddy is probably the most successful by unit volume project I can think of, and they're probably under 10,000 units. So, the evidence is that the hobbyist market is completely useless to manufacturers.
- owenversteeg 6y ago
  Well yeah, but that's not where the money is in selling to hobbyists. If you want someone to invent something that uses them, you'll have to have them in the hands of people that invent stuff. Maybe you only break even on your small scale sales to hobbyists, but eventually one of those hobbyists will be the one to invent the next big thing.
  - bsder 6y ago
    My point was that over the last 5-10 years, we have seen ZERO hobbyists create the Next Big Thing(tm) out of a kickstarter-like. And, I would argue, for two good reasons. 1) When you think about things like the Homebrew Computer Club or the Tech Model Railroad Club, the point is that the membership were engineers. Yes, they were hobbyists, but they were already professionals in the field. Kickstarters don't seem to attract that engineering crowd. 2) Anybody with actual knowledge of hardware laughs at the amounts that kickstarters raise. Most engineering professionals can personally move the amounts of money that most kickstarters can raise. The combination of the two is death for the Next Big Thing(tm) coming out of a kickstarter.
    - nitrogen 6y ago
      Kickstarters don't seem to attract that engineering crowd. As an engineer whose project proposal (with proof of feasibility in the form of working and one-at-a-time manufacturable fully functional prototypes) was rejected by Kickstarter back in 2017, maybe their selection criteria are the reason.
      - bsder 6y ago
        Interesting. I didn't even know kickstarter had selection criteria given the amount of pure slop I've seen on there. But, yeah, if they do, that's simply going to kill the feedthrough as nobody can predict what's going to become big.
      - nitrogen 6y ago
        For the sake of accuracy: that 2017 was a typo and should have been 2012 or 2013.