A few years ago, I remember reading about the Coolest Cooler, a nice product that raised an amazing amount of money on Kickstarter: over 6,000 people bought it for a total of 13 million USD!! Yet, they went bust leaving a lot of frustrated backers and interested onlookers scratching their heads as to where it all went wrong for one of the most famous hardware startups of recent times and indeed the most funded Kickstarter campaign of 2014. In this post, I'll explore what went wrong for them … [Read more...]
The Danger of Developing your Custom Product with an ODM Factory
We often talk to people who have a great idea to improve on an existing product. They have thought of special features that differentiate it from the competition, but they see a large amount in front of them, to develop their own new product. They are often tempted to go for a shortcut: working with a manufacturer that has been making very similar products (an Original Design Manufacturer, or ODM), and that's when things get pretty risky for the buyer. … [Read more...]
Making Prototypes In China: 5 Key Steps And Objectives
By Fabien Gaussorgues Are you going to manufacture a mechanical and/or electrical product in China? This article will help you plan for the steps to follow. You might need a concept of the product, to show investors and to launch a Kickstarter campaign. You might need a prototype that is close to the final version of the product, in order to run testing (including usability testing) and validate the design before going into production. When making prototypes in China, the usual … [Read more...]
Example of Indiegogo Project Made in China: NAOX
The number of new products to be launched on Kickstarter or Indiegogo has grown very quickly. It seems not a week passes without a start-up team contacting us over at Sofeast for either developing a new product or for help on their production in China. Some projects are very successful and raise important amounts of funding on these platforms. Most projects raise more modest funds and don’t receive much publicity. However, some are worth studying. Not just because their products can be pretty … [Read more...]
Helping a Chinese Factory Improve While Still Holding Them Accountable
You might discover that helping a Chinese factory improve makes sense if you have quality requirements that are challenging to one of the factories you work with, or if you are working with them to develop a complex new product. Actually, it sometimes makes very good business sense. Spending 10,000 USD might save your company 1 million USD in the end! And yet, there is a point where you can't keep "helping" them all the way, as they start to take the habit of being "baby-sat" and they … [Read more...]
4 Tips for Production Launch of an Electronic Product in China
These days it seems more and more "hardware startups" are coming to Shenzhen and working with Chinese manufacturers to launch production of electronic products. And they typically find out that their supplier hasn't prepared correctly for the launch process. Many of these startups have little manufacturing experience and don't know where to pay the most attention. They tend to rely too much on the OEM supplier and overlook several critical factors that we listed below. … [Read more...]
Successfully Launching Production In China: 12 Steps For Buyers
Every year, thousands of inexperienced buyers are coming to China to find a supplier and launch production. However, getting a perfect pre-production sample is not enough. Do you know who is going to make your products, and in which conditions? Launching production in China soon? Follow these steps... Here are the steps buyers should be following when launching production in China in order to maximize success and avoid the major pitfalls: Visit a factory (and write its address down), … [Read more...]