3 ms·
I’d have bought it as a raspberry pi in a cardboard box. Is there a “fail faster” lesson to consider? Would a lesser initial product have helped reduce the scop
by jmbwell 3y ago
I’d have bought it as a raspberry pi in a cardboard box. Is there a “fail faster” lesson to consider? Would a lesser initial product have helped reduce the scope for manufacturing and maybe helped avoid some of these pitfalls?
- detaro 3y agoMaybe not quite cardboard, but I had similar thoughts reading that. Relatively fancy industrial design, entirely custom board apparently (i.e. not using an SBC or SoM) sounds expensive up front. But it's hard to judge without more background knowledge (estimated volume, covering up-front expenses is what venture funding is kind of for, exact requirements software-side ... if there is a more indepth breakdown I'd love to read it!) and in the end it'd been a good chunk of luck to hit the right path at the right time to avoid the pandemic struggles.
- brk 3y agoHaving been involved in many hardware startups, the story reads like they spent WAY to much on industrial design for a unit that was going to mostly sit in a dark corner, and WAY to much on bespoke hardware when COTS stuff would have been fine. They also seemingly had nobody on the team heavily experienced with OEM/ODM supplier arrangements. There is no reason to wind up as an extortion victim to your suppliers if you go into the arrangement properly.