Time to Market vs Common Sense
Designing for the Internet of Things
This is the fifth article in a series of six on designing connected devices, the previous article in the series is “Remember the Physical Environment,” and discusses deployment issues. The next and final article is “Security is Your Job,” and talks about security and the Internet of Things. Links to all six articles can be found in the series overview.
For many startup founders coming to hardware manufacturing with a software background the time to market for a product can come as a shock. Used to agile development methodologies, with significant product milestones at the end of a one or two week sprint, the timescales it takes to develop a hardware prototype can appear stretched. A consumer electronics product, like a wearable or connected device, can take six to nine months to move from concept to the start of production. It can take longer.
Manufacturing as a Startup
Startups are under-financed, and usually short on staff. Lack of capital, and time, makes manufacturing the most dangerous periods in a startup’s life. Even very small mistakes at this stage — in design, tooling, or even in quality control — can lead to large cost and time overruns that can kill a early stage company.
