Ask HN: How to go from physical prototype to hardware product?

2 points by laserduck 2 years ago | 1 comment

I have made an Arduino prototype that addresses a somewhat niche household use case. I originally made it for fun, but after showing it to some friends who offered to pay money for it without any prompting - I realized I might have a potential business that I would like to explore further. However, I am too embarrassed of how ragtag the device currently is to make more prototypes and sell them (literally held together by tape, string, and a prayer). And I am just a Arduino hobbyist who does not know how to make a more refined product.

Has anyone gone through this process before and have useful advice/guide/readings? Thanks in advance!

georgeashworth 2 years ago |

> However, I am too embarrassed of how ragtag the device currently is to make more prototypes and sell them (literally held together by tape, string, and a prayer).

I work in software, so take this with the requisite grain of salt, but my first reaction to your post is:

Go ahead and start selling your ragtag device. Slap together a basic website + contact form + checkout page (figuratively held together by tape, string, and a prayer). Start posting about your device wherever interested parties gather on the internet. Be honest and transparent about how early you are in development and ask for feedback.

Even if nothing is sellable, you can at least gather contact info from interested parties.

Even if your device is total unsellable garbage and you sell 0 copies, you will learn so much from this process and the conversations with potential customers, and you can use that to steer your future development direction.