This is what our product dev ocycle looks like, if you learn anything well and good. If not still well and good.
Hardware isn’t called hardware for no reason, that shit is hard to build, add firmware to it and it becomes another story.
When you decide that brilliant idea you have been carrying in your head is worth building and you are innovating something this is what you will probably go through.
You ideally should build a simple contraption of what it is you want to build in a juakali way & just good enough to pass the message of what you want to do to your potential partners, customers and those people you want to do business with. This is the stage you validate or not many of your assumptions and hypothesis, at this stage do not think of making money from your contraption but rathet get as much feedback and criticism as possible, THIS IS GOLD!!! Then figure out what is important at this stage to build to what the customer wants, and move to building a refined product tht they can pay for. Its important to get some form of financing at this stage before going out looking for industrial & product developers, they can be bloody expensive.
Product developers are categorized into tiers from tier 1 (Frog design agency et al) to tier 3 (Small creative boutiques), you will want to go for tier 3 as they are more affordable and some can design better than the big boys. They will charge you a couple '000$$.
They usually begin with an thorough conversation of what you want to do to be on the same page and ensure that you are on the same page, background search for similar products and existing technologies to understand what will be your competitive advantage, can your product be built, costs, does the technology exist or do you build your own etc if you think there is a shot, then the work begins
I have always wanted to develop a coin-operated photocopying machine and put it in a stall somewhere for guys to self-service. Yaani unaweka 10bob and indicate 4 copies. Inakurushia change ya 2 bob (like those parking machines).
Do they exist? If they do import one, see how they do in market. It will be much cheaper than building one and you have no idea if the market wants such
Will not go into specifics, but we are in the renewable energy space, one product is for the B2C the other product is mainly B2B though trying to tweak fot the consumer market
Business2Consumer, Business2Business.
One more thing if you want to build a startupish kind of business, focus relentlessly on growth and gross margins, even if net margins are -ve. That is how you raise a ton of VC money because they look at your revenues and CAGR growth to warrant the all important VALUATION in business and potential exits. A good example is Haltons Pharmacy,I am sure kuna moja hio mtaa yenyu and also Mkopa, they sell themselves as growth companies hence their -ve net profits but insane revenues and growth rates
Ok, just at the top of my head, product dev will cost you a couple of '000,000s and 12 months+ you can begin then talking to libraries see what they think of it find an industrial design firm, in Africa many of them are in SA and talk to them, discuss the tech,uses, volumes et al
I went to high school with the founder of clad light, after clearing college built a single product and his fortunes have change for the better he is getting funding from all over.
@Work we use this Konika copier where you create an account an print wirelessly and the prints per account are monitored, they are a huge hit at office and corporate level
