Crowdfunding

or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb Hardware

NOTICE

All opinions appearing in this work are mine. Any resemblance to real companies, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Crowdfunding celebrities

10,266,845$

13,285,226$

Relevant Crowdfunding celebrities

$1,731,475

$578,478

$2,071,927

$898,921

Why crowdfund?

  • Upfront costs are high
  • Validates user requirement
  • Low overhead

Why not crowdfund?

  • Breaking even is tough
  • People on the Internet are not nice
  • You still have to go to retail

What went right with Tah ?

What went wrong with Tah ?

1. Picking a platform

Kickstarter

  • Community
  • Doesn't support Indian creators

Indigogo

  • Supports Indian creators
  • Poor rep

Crowd Supply

  • Niche - open source hardware
  • Great SNR

2. Name, logo, etc.

Video - Tried outsourcing.

Ended up reworking everything.

3. BOM

  • No alternative but China
  • Language barrier - TQFP QFN

aka how to shop on alibaba

3. Made in पुणे

  • Shogini for PCB
  • Thuse for assembly
  • Lead times as per auto industry

Make in India - before it was cool

4. Custom is expensive

  • White PCBs 
  • 2.4mm thickness

Want to make in India?
Deal with it

5. Indian mentality

  • Preorder? Huh? 
  • कोपरे  का भैय्या तोह सस्ते मैं देता है |
  • I want to do project. Plz halp.

6. Software

  • Make it super easy
  • Edge cases are a pain - limit
  • Android
  • iOS

7. Logistics

  • Shipping to obscure countries
  • Returns
  • Local Taxes 
  • iOS 

8. Support

  • Forum - Discourse
  • GitHub issues & PRs
  • Email
  • Docs - website

9. Its not just tech

I really like you, but only as a friend side project

Final thoughts

Crowdfunding

By anujdeshpande

Crowdfunding

  • 1,882