http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/1630025963.html
Link: 15 steps to starting your own electronic kit business - PowerSource - Blog on EDN - 1470000147 .
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"So when I got to Maker Day at Maker Faire yesterday afternoon, I was happy to find that Limor Fried, the founder of Adafruit, was giving a presentation on how to start your own business selling kits. This is a growing business right now, as people look for reasons to teach their kids how to solder, or just want to build a neat device. (Adafruit teamed with the Maker Store to offer the infamous TV-B-Gone kit that garnered a lot of attention at CES this year.)"
Limor offered the following 15 steps to get your hardware kit business started. With her permission, here they are.
First, three assumptions:
-There is only one of you. Or, if you are a couple, married or whatever, you work as one. Multiple people in a business make everything way too complex. (((I'm liking this already.)))
-You have a current job providing your own seed capital.
-You are computer literate and the internet doesn’t scare you.
1. You need an expertise/skill set/interest that you can parlay into a product. For example, Adafruit’s newest product seems to be a GPS system that operates off an Arduino platform. (((Hey! THAT'S SO EASY!)))
2. Think of a memorable name for you company.
3. Register a domain name based on your company name. And don’t just get the .com version – also get the .net and .org versions.
a) File a DBA (doing-business-as). This lets you do business under your new business name rather than your own personal name.
b) Open a bank account under you DBA name, with (free) checks
c) Get a credit card under your DBA name. Keep all you business accounts separate from your personal one to simplify matters at tax time.
d) Go to the library and read every relevant book by Nolo press.
5. Get a straight-forward digital camera (nothing fancy, doesn’t need to be SLR) and start learning how to take good pictures of your projects, which will ultimately become your products.
- Make a lot of stuff: Here’s a verbatim: “Make a lot of stuff. The only way is to – make a lot of stuff. Don’t tell people about the failures (yet). Get maybe 2-4 projects under your belt. Purchase everything related to your biz on the biz on your biz bank account/credit card. This makes your accounting hella easier than stuffing receipts in a box. But hopefully you’ve already done some of this [project work.] Take lots and lots of photos of your progress.” (This whole development/documentation stuff takes anywhere from 2-12 months.)
7. Photos. This is very important to communicate what your self and your projects are all about to your audience. Learn to take good ones. Be prepared to spend hours learning what makes a good photo and how to take it. Use video if that’s what it takes. Learn to use the freebie software available to adjust lighting, values, etc. And come up with a “moneyshot,” the one photo that perfectly explains your project. Another great suggestion: Don’t take a picture of the parts on a PCB – take a picture of what the project allows you to do, like put on a lightshow, or looking good on your coffee table, or whatever.
8. a) Do basic documentation of your project and put it online. You can even use a freebie wordpress site, or instructables. Put the picture at the top of the project page. Below that, have a one-paragraph description of the project with stats. Example, if you built a DMX-controlled RGB LED light, your paragraph should describe how bright it is, that it’s dmx controllable, how many LEDs, and in general why it’s cool.
b) About the website: steal a neat website idea from one you like. There’s no reason to put a lot of design effort in at this point to the website, since you’ll scrap the first one anyway.
c) Her point here is the people who will give you publicity are very, very lazy/busy, and you should make it as easy as possible for them to copy and paste your photo and description to their blog post. ((("Hey yeah! Thanks a lot!" – overworked blogger)))
OK, now repeat this step for each of your projects.
9. Fill out the rest of your website with info about yourself to give visitors a sense of who you are. Put up a picture of your cat. (((Okay, that's where she lost me.)))
