The Hardware Startup: Building Your Product, Business, and Brand - Paperback

by Renee DiResta (Author), Brady Forrest (Author), Ryan Vinyard (Author)

Thanks to the decreasing cost of prototyping, it's more feasible for professional makers and first-time entrepreneurs to launch a hardware startup. But exactly how do you go about it? This book provides the roadmap and best practices you need for turning a product idea into a full-fledged business.

Written by three experts from the field, The Hardware Startup takes you from idea validation to launch, complete with practical strategies for funding, market research, branding, prototyping, manufacturing, and distribution. Two dozen case studies of real-world startups illustrate possible successes and failures at every stage of the process.

• Validate your idea by learning the needs of potential users
• Develop branding, marketing, and sales strategies early on
• Form relationships with the right investment partners
• Prototype early and often to ensure you're on the right path
• Understand processes and pitfalls of manufacturing at scale
• Jumpstart your business with the help of an accelerator
• Learn strategies for pricing, marketing, and distribution
• Be aware of the legal issues your new company may face

Author Biography

Renee DiResta is Vice President of Business Development at Haven, a marketplace for ocean freight shipping, and a cofounder of the IoT Syndicate on AngelList. She was previously a Principal at O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures (OATV), where she spent four years as a VC investing in seed-stage technology startups. Prior to OATV, Renee spent seven years an equity derivatives trader at Jane Street Capital, a quantitative proprietary trading firm in NYC. For fun, she plays with data sets, helps run The Maker Map open-source project, and is an avid crafter. Renee holds a B.S. in Computer Science and Political Science from the Honors College of SUNY Stony Brook. She lives on the web at http: //noupsi.de and @noupside.

Brady Forrest (@brady) runs Highway1, PCH's accelerator. You can see his day-to-day work with hardware startups on Syfy's Bazillion Dollar Club (to be released Fall 2015). He cofounded and shepherds Ignite, a global talk series, and is part of the team currently organizing Ignite SF. He's a Venture Advisor to 500 Startups and helps arts organizations via CAST-sf.org. Formerly, he worked on a number of things at O'Reilly Media, including the Radar blog, Web 2.0 Expo, Where 2.0, ETech, and Foo Camp. Most years, you can find him on the playa.

Ryan Vinyard is the Engineering Lead at Highway1, a hardware-focused startup accelerator located in San Francisco under parent company PCH International. He is a mechanical engineer who came to PCH through its consulting arm Lime Lab, where he developed consumer products for Fortune 500 brands. Previously, Ryan worked at startups in the cleantech and electric vehicle space, where he developed novel powertrain, motor control, and thermal systems. Ryan holds a B.S. in Product Design from Stanford University.