<i>“There is no ‘minimum viable product’ in hardware,” he says, referencing the trendy notion in software that you should launch the first “good-enough” version of your idea. “One screw can put you out of business.”</i><p>Indeed; scary stuff I learned while working for Lisp Machines Inc. I heard one believable legend at the time of a company with one or more boards that used a particularly pretty blue type of bypass capacitor (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoupling_capacitor" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoupling_capacitor</a>). I think the original Multiwire Lisp Machine memory boards also used them, they were quite sharp looking, evidently a naturally popular choice.<p>Anyway, the guy in charge in procuring parts suddenly found them unavailable, or with too long a lead time, and was tearing his hair out before he asked the engineers what could be done. After noting it was chosen for esthetics and there were many less pretty ones that would work just as well, the problem was solved.<p>But if you've got something more complicated than ubiquitous capacitors and the like, not having it available at all halts you in your tracks, and that's true for every one of the zillions of parts in your products. There has been a lot of what appear to be subpar hardware designs (e.g. the DEC RK-07 disk system) that were made because of parts availability, which gets more acute the bigger the scale of your production.
What I'm hoping for is a new group of services that help with permission seeking and politics.<p>I don't really need help fining an expensive laser cutter to use or even a Chinese guy to make products for me. I need help getting an FCC cert for an intentional radiator. A UL listing for a power supply design. CE for Europe, whatever for Australia and Canada.<p>Then patent protection. Mostly protection <i>from</i> patents, not filing for.<p>Import/Export. There's countries that its a federal crime to ship electronic gizmos to. Which ones, what kinds? What forms do I have to fill out so that my products don't spend 6 expensive months in a bonded warehouse in New Jersey while I get permission to receive them?<p>Do I need product liability insurance? What kind? Where do I get it?<p>These are the thing I think makers that want to convert into businesses need help with the most. Making the actual product seems like the easy part.
This is awesome. I am really looking forward to the sensor technology moving forward and how the world will change when everything begins to be measured.<p>I just purchased a Babolat Play racket which tracks every shot you hit when playing tennis. For the first iteration, its very impressive. To walk over during a water break and see the longest rally and stuff is pretty cool. Plus, different players definitely bring up completely different stats, which is also good to see. The future for tennis I suspect is something like playsight[0], which is cameras and a base station that can record you play, give you live serve mph, and even call the lines. But for now, the Play is the most amazing thing to happen tennis. 1662 balls hit this week.<p>[0] <a href="http://www.playsight.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.playsight.com</a>
"Making Silicon Valley Go Crazy" is a bit of hyperbole, no? I would guess a quick poll amongst SV-dwelling HNers will reveal >90% haven't heard of this.