A Conversation on Hard Tech with Eric Migicovsky
Video from Y Combinator. Watch on YouTube.
What you'll get
Adora Cheung questions Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky about building a hardware company, and the chapter list covers how Pebble paid for a first small run and how many units it sold before full manufacturing, when to crowdfund, what to outsource, and finding the first customers, with audience questions on protecting a product, subscriptions versus one-time sales, hiring and why hardware needs financing. He built a smartwatch, so the examples are electronics, and at an hour it is long, so use the chapter list to jump to crowdfunding timing, outsourcing and first customers.
Do this week
Work out the size of a first production run you could pay for yourself and its total cost, then write how many early buyers you would need to line up before placing the order.