This lecture was a bit different from most of the course lectures and not because it was hardware focussed. I felt like it was a lot more 'high level' with less tactical startup takeaways as compared to other lectures. His slides were very elaborate, but lacked real actionable content. In many ways, they were what I'd call "business school" or "management consultant" style case study slides geared towards bringing design thinking to a larger organization. He even mentioned a couple of times- the difference between him needing to force people from different disciplines in a room together versus being able to do it sitting at a table when you're just starting out. I think that was a prime example of the difference between 'startup' thinking and 'growth' thinking. I would've loved to hear more about his process for thinking about design when they just started the company.<p>In any case, I did find value in his lecture and thought process around treating everything as a system (instead of looking at hardware, software, data all discretely). I've tried to capture my takeaways via publishing 22 Quotes that I took away from the lecture here: <a href="https://medium.com/@RajenSanghvi/22-quotes-from-hosain-rahman-on-how-to-design-hardware-products-dcd995e4aefd" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/@RajenSanghvi/22-quotes-from-hosain-rahma...</a>
Bright guy. Fast talker. Intricate
slides. Astoundingly laborious
detailed, high quality product
development process. High emphasis on
user experience and making the product
a <i>habit</i> in the lives of the customers.<p>To him, everything is a <i>system</i>;
apparently even
if he were making a five prong garden
weeder, a snow shovel, or a tennis ball,
he'd find a way to make it better by
regarding it as a system.<p>Gave good
insight into all the work involved.
Good lecture. Likely amazing products.<p>One of the best people Sam put in front
of the class.
I love Hosain's story.<p>Until Startup School, I had no idea that the ideas for Jawbone date back to 1997, the company launched in '99, and over the last 15 years their team have endured some pretty crazy highs and lows - including Jawbone getting shut down and the team being locked out of their own offices by the board in the mid 2000s.<p>Video here:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpINPjfSlZc" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpINPjfSlZc</a>
I am super keen to make a hardware product (I know only software), and started watching this with great anticipation. It would have been great to hear the story about their journey from 1995-2001<i>. Thats would have been hugely valuable in itself. I am stuck at : How do I take my hardware idea, and make it real? How do I make a prototype (it requires an e-ink display) to know if someone will actually like it/use it? Since there are a number of HW startups on this page, thought I will ask my question. Specifically, I want to make a photo frame with an color e-ink display.<p></i>Edit: in a sense the journey from 1995-2001 was covered in the startup school video (linked in another comment), but that was mostly about the "company". He didn't cover the "How-to" of specifically how they did prototyping, manufacturing and development in the early days. 'how to start' this stuff is what I am interesting in.
As a HW entrepreneur starting to move into software-enabled devices, his comments about the opposing forces of rapid iterating software teams and slower more conservative release hardware teams is really on point.
as a hw startup founder, its amazing how heavy this feels. Obviously this is a mature, successful business but wow, its almost amazing anything gets built. Granted, what gets built is awesome.
Sorry for being blunt, but this is an MBA-style slideshow with a lot of talk about abstract phases and very little substance. I feel that even for hardware entrepreneurs starting out in the same space this lecture has close to zero takeaways.