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Ask HN: Are you building a hardware startup?

3 points by mmanulis ↗ HN
I'm working on some ideas for hardware products and I'm curious what people have learned in their attempts to build hardware products.

To this end, I have two questions:

* What are the biggest challenges you're facing outside of finding a manufacturer? * What did you need to learn on the technology end that helped you the most?

5 comments

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tlb
Iteration is slow and expensive. With web software you can iterate (change - release - get user feedback) daily. Hardware takes weeks or months to iterate.

You always need more iterations than you think to get to a great product.

mmanulis
Good point about iteration. Outside of using a 3D printer have you found any tools that increase iteration speed, even if that increases cost?

I understand you can have a PCB fab house build a 4-layer board and have it to you in a couple of days for a large price, but I'm wondering if there are other alternatives.

tlb
GetScale and Upverter are both working to make the PCB iteration process faster and cheaper.

Sourcing components turned out to be a big source of delay for us at Anybots. It was hard to communicate with vendors, and some parts had 8-week lead times.

It's important to have a process for iteration. For example, trying a new component requires:

  - calling vendors
  - getting samples
  - doing mechanical integration
  - doing software integration
  - testing
Each of these steps required our engineers to focus on the issue for a while. Without someone managing the timeline, projects could easily stall.
mmanulis
Those are really great resources, thank you for sharing them.

One more question, did you build a multi-disciplinary team or did you teach yourself mechanical, electrical and software engineer?

tlb
My background is mostly software, but I taught myself enough electronics and mechanical engineering to be dangerous.