Currently developing our product from Africa for the Gas industry! By God grace it is going well! We have challenges on supply chain to get components from China! Like 10 - 14 days before receiving a part to be tested! We haven't reach the manufacturing stage, after this testing with our product, we are surely entering the manufacturing phase! Thanks for the vide, really helpful!
I am developing small gesture recognition module ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-WC7pRgTtBOE.html It goes well. I am sure that I can sell some of those, but already planned two more modules which will sell better: radar and machine vision modules. Also, I've applied to some competition/investor(s), but doubt that can get any money prize/help, because I am competing as an individual, and most participants are companies with multiple employees. Why with an "s", because according to some people my ideas not good/mature enough. Will see.
I was very happy to spend some time talking to Robert about product development and bringing it to market :) Robert has so many awesome and VERY technical lectures (I still need to watch them all myself), that we thought it might be fun to do something about designing and bringing a product to market. Hope everyone likes the discussion and learns something!
I want to thank both of you for helping me learn about PCB design and development. I first took Andre course from Udemy (Crash course electronics and PCB design if i remember correctly) in which i learned a ton, even after spending 3 years in hobby electronics. His course is the best material on the planet for learning basics of electronics so i recommend it to anyone who is a begginer. Andre also replies to ALL of the questions that you ask him in the course which is a big plus for students. Also thank you Robert for making videos about PCB design where i got to deep dive into this rabbit hole and managed to find a job in PCB design. Thank you both, wish you all the best!
Awesome interview Robert: I love the format, the questions and the fact you put bullet points in the video. Great answers from André as well. I am a big fan of André and took his Udemy course as well. You two are my inspiration for creating a product that I plan to sell and I have been watching both your teachings as I started from scratch. My day job is far from anything hardware or software related but after two years or so I can say that I ‘understand’ electronics, created 2 functioning PCBs with microcontrollers from scratch, designed my own components on CircuitMaker, programmed everything on Arduino IDE, and debugged my prototypes, all due to your awesome content ! Can’t wait for part two of this series. Keep the collaborations going !
Robert, I think that having the bulletpoints is a great idea. The video is spot on and as always very informative. Can't wait for part two now! Keep up the good work Dario
I agree with Andre' on protecting your product. I don't concern myself with others copying my products. The effort of manufacturing and selling is the bulk of the work.
I never expected to see Andre on your channel but I loved both of your courses on Udemy, it's awesome to be able to learn from industry experts. Thank you !
I had problems getting basic help and advice. Ended up having to learn and do everything myself. It has taken 4 years, but the result is worth it. Just asking was a pain as people were more concerned with finding problems that solutions.
Andre's ia personal friend and an excellent engineer. His knowledge is dispensed in a way that it will help serious developers get started in developing, manufacturing and selling their products for profit.
Interesting would also be: - Legal Compliance (FCC/CE) Handling - Customer Support Effort - Product Maintenance Effort - Revenue, over all. Say if you make 20 USD profit (30 USD Retail, 10 USD production) with 100 pcs. => 2000 USD profit for 1/2 yrs work. How does this pay off?
Very interesting. Over the last 2 years or so, I've developed and sold a few small electronic products. The process worked pretty well, but I avoided many of the problems stated: * The products are aimed at (robot) makers so they are bare PCBs with little else (sometimes cables) * I exclusively use market-specific distributors, with whom I have a good relationship. I let my distributors work out end-user packaging in a little bag, with some heatshrink or labelling etc. * I have, thankfully, had enough mark-up on the products even though they are fairly simple to make There have been a few problems along the way, one of my products has been (slightly) redesigned twice due to component availability. I have had units returned with faults, I have found firmware bugs and added new features. I am also not really an electronic engineer, I just do software in my day job. It's been a lot of fun though.
@@maciekgaa5215 They are combat-robot specific, so I knew the distributors personally. It is a very niche product which is used in tiny combat robots. The resellers of course take a typical margin but it saves me work of printing labels, stuffing boxes, which I don't really want to do.
Brilliant video! I've tried a hardware project once but I fell in the "taking too long" trap, even if I had a MVP working in the first couple of weeks. My issue was fear of certification. I'm in the EU and from what I can tell you need a CE marking to sell at all, which an official set of tests is pretty expensive for a single dude making stuff in his garage (testing for my product was quoted at around 5k€, which is a lot for what's essentially a simple USB powered calculator). I know you can get away without it for small productions, if you test your product and follow EMI mitigation techniques during PCB design, but I don't know how many small makers actually go ahead with selling without certification. Should I have worried so much about it?
It's self certification and low voltage devices are exempt from alot of the EU rules. Just look at similar products and read up on the directives they use. We do not pay for ce testing on our products at work, we have only ever paid to have approval with some agencies to expand our customer base but it's rarely even used. We have had the odd complex device emi tested but not on any smaller devices.
Like luke, for not 230v powered product, this is not very useful to pay for certificate. Maybe if you sell to very big companies, they will ask you to prove you are compliant with the CE, otherwise, it doesn't matter if it's not a dangerous device.
We're designing a wearable smart ring. It ain't easy. Already took 2+ years and just this week we got the PCBA prototype on a rigid-flex board that will go into the product. That alone cost 5k USD, not to mention previous PCB prototypes and tools. Early on we made a prototype in a big Arduino form factor but the point about this product is for it to be small and sexy, so here we are ;)
Well, isn't this nice... I'm just in the process of creating my very first prototype of my very first product, and now this video comes along :) Thank you very much for that, and since we are at it, also for the other great videos I already watched here!
More than just testing it, you really aught to use the product yourself for a while. This not only tests endurance but it's the way you use it. You always find something you had not thought of on paper.
Awesome 😍😍😍 Really helped me to organize many things which I need to consider while going into real manufacturing.. Thankyou Robert and Andre for sharing this ❤️
About "playing with prices". Keep in mind that in a lot of countries, a proper invoice towards the customer IS mandatory. Within this invoice you have to state the product costs, shipping as well as consumer TAX/VAT. In most countries the prices of standard shipping are very well known by people. So it's not really gonna flow when they know they can ship something for 10 bucks, but you stated 15 bucks in your invoice. There is a bit of play here for international shipping. Which is a bit of a pain with shipping to EU with the new import regulations.
Patents are next to useless as long as you dont have millions to defend them, in my opinion they only make sense for big companies with endless cash and an army of legal experts. Because are you gonna do if some company from the other side of our planet just starts to sell your product?
“If you could just ship an empty box…”, reminds me of something which I think a fast food CEO said once. “If we could just sell soda, that’s absolutely what we would do”. Soda has by far the highest profit margin, is the simplest to manufacture, etc. the only reason they sell food is because they can’t retain customers on soda alone.
Wait people think you get product from scratch to finished in a year? I've been working on my 'startup' (more a hobby out of hand) project seriously for about 5 years now, if you count the it being purely hobby double. But I've spend at least a year firstly properly testing over 13 designs and then sourcing parts, adjusting because parts are never all available and I've been testing and tweaking my prototype for about a year now. To be fair I'm in no rush and I take way more time testing and tweaking than in should.
The problem with a long development time is that ideas are time-dependant. If you have identified a need in the market, so have other people. This has happened to me several times.
Have you thought about just selling or licencing your design and letting someone else struggle with such concerns? If it is 3D printable, you have a marketplace.
Hardware/Software seems like such a brutal business... On software, anyone can look at your code or reverse engineer it decompiling it and stealing the code that you had to think hard to figure out... And on hardware anyone can open the case and see what components you are using, copying your assembly and selling for cheaper. Brutal...
Copying a small simple product is not a problem. Problem is when they copy a just a bit more complex product, because when something goes wrong they will go on your website and contact you and you have to deal with them. Maybe the copy company removed or changed some components and it works a bit different...you are then bashing your head and think it is a software issue but it is hardware that you don't have.
Arduino had the same issue when the first clones appeared with the FTDI chip requiring a different driver. This adds insult to injury when you have to deal with someone else's nearly identical board.
I designed and tried to sell a 3D printer mainboard Raspberry Pi "HAT". Failed to advertise and commit to spending money on prototypes, so it eventually fizzled out.
If I make a better design of an automotive tool and make it from a product that I bought on Amazon that I altered to work for its new purpose (tool). Can I get in trouble for copy rights?. There is only one design similar to what I want to invent. My design is electric and the other one is pneumatic.? I hope you get what I'm saying? 😮😮
