[sdiy] Advice for a Startup

Tue Feb 21 16:50:44 CET 2023

Oh that book looks good, thank you for sharing.  Took a quick look around
and seems it's sold much cheaper here:

http://www.everettguitars.com/library.html

On Tue, Feb 21, 2023 at 10:29 AM DIY DSP via Synth-diy <
synth-diy at synth-diy.org> wrote:

> I would read this book.  It's about making guitars, but it all applies:
> https://www.amazon.com/Make-Living-Doing-Something-Crazy/dp/B005D2WBVG
> "How to Make a Living Doing Something Crazy ... Like Making Guitars."
>
> It's definitely worth $25 if you're going to throw 1-5 years at this
> project.  One conclusion of the book is to NOT do "vertical," top-to-bottom
> product delivery.  Find a niche, a slice/layer within it, and get good at
> that.
>
> Business is so much less about what you know and like than it is about
> what others know and like.  It is full of harsh lessons that you won't have
> time to dwell on; you simply have to move on to the next thing and not be
> attached.  It's also like an obstacle course.  You may go in thinking you
> have strong abs, but every stop along the way tests some aspect of you that
> you may or may not be prepared for.  E.g. when you go in with the ideal of
> "education," you may quickly find yourself making money in one area, and
> none in your original area and have to change quickly.  In fact, it's so
> much more about marketing - getting to know your customers, what their pain
> points are, and responding to those - than about following your initial
> ideal trajectory.  Any tendency toward perfection will absolutely ruin you.
>
> This is not to discourage you at all, but to direct you.  We are mostly
> (at least in the US) raised with a lot of idealized, crazy myths about
> "inventions," "running my own business," and "helping the world" with
> something you figure out.  But almost nothing actually happens that way.
> Eventually you'll see that those idealized myths are more about declaring
> one's values than a how-to guide for getting things done.
>
> I have some experience trying this and failing, btw!  I took a year off
> and worked with the SBA and the CWE.  I found the CWE much more useful but
> YMMV.  My impression of the SBA was they gave little to no encouragement
> and were very discouraging, particularly with artisanal ideas.  It appears
> to be a kind of system or scam in which the government sets up small
> business to support its own enterprises, such as a small company to perform
> a piece of a larger defense manufacture company.  It appears to me to be a
> strategy to create competitive pressure against their larger manufacturers
> to bring their prices down. They also have a money-lending arm which a
> mentor of mine got caught up in.  When his business failed he was not able
> to simply go bankrupt and was stuck paying off loans for a long time.  I
> also spent some time with their Intellectual Property experts but they
> weren't as experienced and skilled as they proclaimed.  Also they have no
> real investment in you succeeding.  Many of them are volunteers who have
> been successful and are now looking for something to do for fun, but have
> no skin in the game.  As you can see, this all fits nicely into the dream
> of "small business," but is really self-serving with entrepreneurs as
> pawns.  If they have classes though, they may be beneficial.
>
> The CWE was much more helpful in my experience.  I went through a 12-week
> class in which we used a great workbook.  Each chapter of the workbook was
> focused on an aspect of starting and running a business such as operating
> costs, branding, customers, accounting, competitors, capital, etc.  It was
> extremely helpful to see that some chapters I had figured out really well
> and others I was weak in.  And the workbook gave me the chance to focus on
> those weak areas.  The caveat there was that it was offered with discounts
> based on income so there were a few utterly broke people who got to take
> the class for free or nearly free and dominated the discussion with their
> shiftlessness.
>
> Again, not to discourage you!  Just try to learn as much as you can from
> others.  Probably much of the work has to be learned the hard way.  Which
> means your first few major attempts are likely to fail, but if you fold
> that into your next, you will eventually succeed.  If I could go back and
> do it again, I would not design products that were so much different from
> exists today.  I would work harder on the brand.  I would not make a
> product designed from scratch from the ground up.  I would also outsource a
> minimum of 75% of the work.  And I start by building smaller products that
> I could afford to get out the door.
>
> So if you have an idea about educating people how synths work, I would
> recommend not designing a synth and also the directions.  I would focus on
> explaining the directions of an existing product.  E.g. partner with
> another company who already does this.  Get good at that, come up with a
> mix of free and paid information, and build up a reputation/brand.
> Remember we're all too busy to actually evaluate things very well, so we
> buy based on the meaning behind the brand.
>
>
> Noah Vawter's futuristic electronic music instrument lab:
> youtube.com/diydsp
>
>
> On Tuesday, February 21, 2023 at 09:45:20 AM EST, Matthew Skala via
> Synth-diy <synth-diy at synth-diy.org> wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, 21 Feb 2023, grant musictechnologiesgroup.com wrote:
>
> > If memory serves, there was a short discussion here some years ago about
> > what one should try and sell something for versus your BOM. I don't
> remember
> > the whole thing but it seems to me the sell price was about 3x to 4x your
> > BOM price. There was more to the discussion, but that was my takeaway.
>
> This EEVblog video has a good run-down on product pricing:
>   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwrkfHadeQQ
>
> --
> Matthew Skala
> North Coast Synthesis Ltd.
>
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