2
points
zkirill
Joined 746 karma
- > do you mean sell an electronic product as a kit?
Not quite. The person who would do the soldering would not necessarily be the end consumer. They would do it as part of a network of assemblers, for a fee or pro-bono as a community service. I wrote about this in more detail on the project page [1].
[1] https://flyingcarcomputer.com/posts/flying-car-mechanic-netw...
- 1 point
- I was going to ask if there is a good list of C books and then answered my own question. It categorizes _Modern C_ as Intermediate level.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/562303/the-definitive-c-...
- 3 points
- The SBC is called Banana Pi M1+. Thank you for introducing me to Helios (Kobol). Their blog and wiki were a very useful and humbling read.
After I posted my question I learned that BPi didn't open source their PCB layout. It looks like I will need even more help than I originally planned.
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- 35 points
- As far as I know the first Apple computer was not really a computer but a box of parts that the customer had to assemble themselves. The early days of Apple is probably the best example of "building in public" because so much of it was actually just selling the dream. In any case, the opposite is infinitely worse. Too many people wasted away for years "building in private". If and when they did finally release it was to the sound of crickets. Hacking for pleasure is one thing. If you're trying to build a business then you must be always be selling and marketing.
- I have always been curious about a different approach. Let's say that I interview you and a few other people, and then match you in a party with someone whose skills and character are complementary to yours. Then I match both of you with an idea that suits your party's combined skill set and also has a chance of making money. You're welcome to pivot and try something else after reasonable time and effort was put in. Everything else is boilerplate like 49/51 equity split and vesting schedule so you can focus on delivering maximum value.
- 2 points
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- 5 points
- Be careful not to mistake "real users" with paying customers. If your aim is to build a business, then making that distinction early on is crucial. As far as your first sale is concerned, ask yourself who is your target customer, where are they, what do they do, and how do they do it. Then, simply walk up to them and tell them that you understand that they have an urgent problem which requires an immediate solution. And that you are able to provide that solution to them today at a price that they will find agreeable. Good luck!
- 2 points
- The plan is to first figure out how to legally market, distribute, and sell this physical thing. It's more difficult than I imagined as you can read in my blog. Feedback from Hacker News has been invaluable to me during this process. I will replace the placeholder website as soon as I can start accepting payment.
- It's tricky because the kind of buyer I have in mind would feel uncomfortable with that operation despite having the best instructions. It would lead them to pass on this product at this stage thereby ruining my market validation.
I want to make the experience as seamless as possible given the constraints, and popping the SD card in the slot is the best I came up with so far.
Having said that, the comment by tjohns below made me rethink some things. I may end up providing both the download link, and also mail the SD card.
> Mailing SD cards in their final form in a regular envelope is not secure. An adversary could intercept and reformat, and it'd be tough to tell. I realize this is unlikely, but still, I'm like.. why?
I agree. It's a poor medium for many different reasons. However, if I can sell these, then I can sunset them and start working on the actual electronic device, which will house the OS and software on eMMC or SSD.
This is the kind of comment that I was hoping to read here. Would you mind elaborating? What is considered straightforward? Can a PCB be designed or printed in such a way that makes it straightforward to surface mount components? Does the number of PCB layers factor into this?