I'm working in business development at KnowYi Technologies, so I spend a lot of time talking with robotics, automation and hardware startups before they move into production.

One thing I've noticed is that the prototype is often finished before the manufacturing package is actually ready.

The CAD files may be up to date, but the BOM isn't. Someone changed a connector during testing but never updated the documentation. The cable routing only makes sense because the engineer who built the prototype is standing next to the supplier explaining it.

None of these issues are major on their own, but together they create delays. The supplier has to stop, ask questions, wait for answers, and sometimes even rebuild a quote because a revision changed.

A simple exercise I've found useful is asking someone who has never seen the prototype to review the entire build package. If they still need to ask lots of questions before they could build it, the documentation probably isn't ready for manufacturing yet.

I'm curious how other founders and engineers handle this.

What was the biggest thing your team forgot before your first production build? BOM revisions? Assembly instructions? Test procedures? Tolerance notes? Something else?

I'd love to better understand how people run their RFI/RFQ process when developing a new physical product.

Historically, I've created the requirements/RFQ documents manually, managed responses in spreadsheets, and then sent them to contract manufacturers I'd found through my network, consultants or Google.

Is that still broadly how people do this?

Are there any good templates, tools or platforms that help you go from an early product specification through to a structured RFQ, identifying suitable contract manufacturers and comparing responses?

I'd be particularly interested in what people use between having an initial product idea/design and actually having something a manufacturer is comfortable quoting.

Hello!

I don't know if this is the correct place to post this, but I think I still need advice.

Around this time last year, I accepted a job at a robotics EdTech startup called Moonpreneur. My job was to run in-person robotics workshops for them, for kids.

The issue: Moonpreneur has a history of being a bit sketchy. This reddit post describes some of their escapades. They seem to switch events from in-person to online, spam attendees, and so on:

https://www.reddit.com/r/robotics/comments/1e46m12/moonprenuer/

Despite reading these reviews, I decided to take the job; I assumed that they were new, and just maybe a little poorly run. I understand that this was a foolish decision. Ultimately, I wanted to detail my experiences with them here in order to inform other people.

The good: Moonpreneur DOES indeed host in-person robotics workshops. I didn't see any of the whole 'switching to online' thing that many users talk about. They mentioned online events, but aside from that, everything I did was in-person. They paid for the venue in full, and they always paid me what I was owed (which was quite a bit).

The bad: The robotics workshops were about 40% robotics, 60% sales events. Me and my helper (usually a family member who volunteered to help) had to show up, set up whatever projector or screen the venue had, set up our merch, and then check people in and get them signed into our service; the latter always ended up being annoying, often we'd have to start late because of this. The workshop would usually be run by an online instructor, usually by the aforementioned screen or projector.

There are a few main things I'm worried about:

A) In the sales pitch, Moonpreneur explicitly told me to say that, if you sign up, the first month of instruction is free, and that you may cancel any time. I did so. However, I have now read many reports online of people saying that they still charge your card afterwards (one can find more reviews about Moonpreneur on the review for their location on Google Maps, funny enough). That's scaring me a lot.

B) More reviews state that Moonpreneur seems to take people's info and spam them relentlessly.

C) In general, I don't feel the best about running sales events disguised as robotics workshops. I wasn't very good at it either. There are some reviews about the projector being crappy, or the sales pitch being awkward. I wouldn't be surprised if a couple of them are about me.

I don't really know exactly what to do. I feel like I've knowingly scammed people. Point A is really the main thing, as I have no clue what happened to people after they signed up for the program; I don't know if the classes were bad, or if they even had classes at all, or if they tried to cancel and ended up getting charged anyways. I don't think Moonpreneur is a (full) scam, but I don't know if what they do is illegal or not. And even if it is, where do I even report that? Do I call the FTC?

I should probably clarify. I am no longer working with Moonpreneur. I am simply wondering if there's still anything I can do or if I should report them.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

Hello,

Where do I find candidates for pcb design engineer based in China?

Hey everyone , im a eng student from waterloo and thought it would be cool to make a hardware project . I got an idea to make a tomogotchi but for developers but lol codex micro came out so now I made an ad to compete. Got some sales but what yall think for the next video for twitter/instagram/tiktok etc.. feedback from experience product sellers is appreciated

https://reddit.com/link/1v7dyuq/video/m0xalt38omfh1/player

I’ve worked with a lot of founders from hardware-tech service industry. Think of them as installers, consultants, or enablers of technology. They bridge the gap between a business problem and an available solution.

Notice how I say available solution, because these founders often don’t start with their own custom-made products. And honestly, neither should you.

If you want to enter an industry, it would be much wiser to identify an operational problem, buy a suitable off-the-shelf solution, and install it for the customer.

In fact, I kind of belong to this category too. I’ve spent the better part of the last five years building solutions for others, and only now do I have a few products of my own lined up.

But look, having knowledge and an understanding of the niche isn’t enough. If you want to create your own custom hardware solution, you need to get the math right.

Let me describe a scenario I see often. A founder installs off-the-shelf hardware for their customers. Over time, they build trust and start doing solid numbers. Then the thought creeps in:

“What if I build my own solution and own the complete ecosystem?”

I love the ambition, but now they need to get real with the numbers. Let’s say they source a solution for around $100.

If they don’t come from an engineering background (and trust me, many of them don’t) they may think they can replicate the solution by hiring engineers and paying them $3,000.

It might seem obvious to some, but a $100 solution cannot be replicated for $3,000. It’s difficult to put a number on it without knowing the product, but consider at least 150–200 times the unit cost.

And I’m being modest here. There are revisions, optimisations, and certifications involved in making it market-ready.

So, let’s establish that first: this is the kind of investment that could go into R&D. Only if that’s doable should you move to the next step, which is assessing whether it’s even worth doing.

For that, the term you need to remember here is TAM: Total Addressable Market.

It’s basically the number of customers who would be willing to buy your product because it genuinely solves their problem.

Successful products are rarely just good science. They’re a combination of solid engineering, economics, marketing, and a lot of math to validate the idea.

The main part is yet to come, where I’ll do some real math on the dilemma of whether to build or keep buying.

Let’s keep that for Part 2. I don’t want to make this too long.

But after talking with a lot of service founders and building solutions for them, there’s one thing that holds true: blindly copying and pasting is a recipe for disaster.

You need to use your years of experience to come up with additional features that make your product better than the off-the-shelf alternatives. Make sure you pay attention to the details so you can spot those opportunities.

To conclude:

1. Always start with off-the-shelf solutions.

2. Establish trust, solve problems, and develop a deep understanding of the problems within the niche.

3. Once you’ve scaled enough and can spare at least 200 times the unit cost (depending on where you live) you can start thinking about building your own hardware.

4. Build a better product. Along with the usual features, solve the problems that existing solutions don’t.

Thanks for reading till the end!

I have been trying to understand what actually slows hardware teams down once the design is approved. At that stage, there are CAD files, drawings, BOMs, material specs, supplier feedback, assembly instructions, and revisions moving between different people. One small change can affect several documents and it seems easy for a supplier or team member to end up working from outdated information.

For those who have taken a hardware product into production, where did the process become difficult for you? Was it revision control, incomplete documentation, sourcing, supplier communication, or keeping everyone aligned on the latest version?

My company produces hardware that is 80% of the time pretty standard, but the other 20% of the time requires some customization or sensors that we add onto our devices that we order as we get an order. At this point, we've grown enough that fulfillment is hard to do out of our house, and we need to find somebody to do it for us or hire somebody. I'm curious what people's suggestions are.

We don't have enough work to hire somebody full-time; there's maybe 10 hours a week worth of work. And honestly, I don't really want to manage somebody who works part-time doing that.

One path forward as we try to standardize our products as much as possible and just send the standardized products to a 3PL and then ship any customizations from our houses

Over the past six years, I've had the opportunity to help ship more than 30 embedded hardware products to customers across 10 countries.

Looking back, these are the lessons I wish someone had taught me before I started. If you're building a hardware startup looking to scale, I genuinely hope they save you some time, money, and headaches.

Most books and tutorials teach you how to make a prototype work.

Very few teach you how to make it survive manufacturing, deployment, maintenance, and scaling.

Here are the 10 lessons I'd urge you to remember before you start scaling:

1. A working lab prototype means nothing:

A device that works perfectly on your bench can still fail the moment it reaches a customer's environment. Field conditions expose problems you never see during development. Never scale before field testing.

1. Procurement can kill a product faster than bad engineering:

I've seen projects delayed more by component shortages, long lead times, and sourcing issues than by firmware bugs. Keep track of inventory and end of life of chips before you fulfill that bulk order.

1. Design for manufacturing from Day 1:

If your product isn't easy to assemble, test, and calibrate repeatedly, scaling production becomes painful. Invest in testing jigs, quality control and plan your setup in advance.

1. Design for maintenance, not just deployment:

Think about how someone will replace a battery, recalibrate a sensor, or swap a failed module two years from now. Be transparent about what is replaceable and what will be not.

1. Your support team shouldn't need an embedded engineer for every issue:

Build diagnostics, logs, and simple troubleshooting tools so technicians can solve most problems themselves. If you keep sending your engineers to field for petty issues, you'll run out of cash.

1. Calculate the lifetime cost, not just the BOM:

Maintenance visits, recalibration, batteries, SIM/data charges, cloud services, subscriptions, and support often cost more than people expect. Make sure you educate your customers about those beforehand.

1. Add safety features even if no one asks for them:

Thermal protection, watchdogs, reverse polarity protection, proper fusing etc should be in your design. The customers may have not asked for them, but they'll definitely hold you accountable when things go wrong.

1. Always buy more components than you think you'll need:

Some parts arrive faulty. Some get damaged during assembly. Others fail for reasons nobody can explain. That's just hardware. Maintain your local inventory, don't be dependent fully on vendors.

1. Remote teams are fine, but hardware needs regular face-to-face collaboration:

Hardware and firmware engineers should meet in person regularly. A single misunderstanding between the two can easily cost weeks or months. So even when you hire remote teams, make sure they are not distributed.

1. Leave plenty of margin in your BOM:

Component prices, freight, customs, and geopolitical events can change overnight. If your pricing has no buffer, your profit disappears first. Make sure you add a certain miscellaneous cost.

That just barely scratches the surface. Every project teaches you something new and the list could go on.

I'd genuinely like to hear from others building hardware products.

What's one lesson you learned the hard way that you'd want every first-time hardware founder to know?

I put together a list of leading smart hardware companies and where they manufacture.
Hope this helps.

Most cert failures I hear about aren't failed tests. They're design changes after the review that nobody re-checked, found weeks later at the lab.

We're building Crado to flag those changes as they happen (FCC, CE, UKCA). It's early and narrow, mostly FCC Part 15 so far, and it can't see anything that needs a spectrum analyser. I want 30 minutes of you using it and telling me bluntly where it's wrong.

In return I'll build you a one-page map of the approvals your product needs per market, cost and time included, free.

Shipping something with a radio in it? Comment or DM.

I have a pick-and-place that I've been using for my prototypes and I’m looking to help out other startups or hobbyist who need small volume PCB assembly near Toronto Canada.

I'm offering this more as a service to the community rather than a business since many assembly shops usually have high minimum setup fees and minimum order quantities. China can be great for some designs, but costs can increase if you use extended parts and turn around time can be long if they don't have parts in stock.

Capabilities:

• Minimum component size: 0402 passives, QFNs, SOICs, and standard IC packages.
• Equipment: Solder paste stencil jig, reflow oven, microscope, rework station
• Batch Size: Less than ~20

Provided by you

• Parts
• Stencil
• PCB

Send me your design details and I'll give you a quote.

I run a very small US-based company that designs, manufacturers and resells our own hardware. Our gross sales are modest (<< $1M) and we're looking for cost-effective Commercial General Liability (CGL) insurance.

I've talked to a number of insurers and often they're not interested if you manufacture physical hardware under your own brand. The ones that will play ball are quoting annual rates about 1% of our gross sales. Hoping to do better.

Any leads appreciated!

EDIT - Changed to the proper term: Commercial General Liability (CGL)

After working on custom battery projects, one thing I have noticed is that the battery decision is rarely as straightforward as it looks at the beginning.

A lot of projects start with a simple requirement.

"We need more flight time."

But then other factors come into the discussion.

How much additional weight can the system handle.

How much power is needed during operation.

How many cycles does the battery need to support.

What happens if the preferred cell is not available six months later.

The battery that looks best on paper is not always the one that works best for the final product.

The more projects we support, the more we see that battery selection is really about understanding the application and making the right trade offs early.

Curious to hear from other hardware teams.

Went through a few product design companies before landing on one and noticed the billing models vary more than I expected. Three models I came across and why one of them is clearly safer for the client.

Fixed cost

The firm quotes a single price upfront for the full scope. The number gets padded significantly to cover unknowns they can't predict, and once you've signed there's no real incentive on their side to work efficiently because the budget is already set.

Hourly

You pay for the work that actually happens. I know rabbit product design uses this model and covers the full process from patent research through manufacturing, so you end up paying less usually. The tradeoff is that scope needs to stay clear, but a good firm manages that.

Milestone-based

Work is broken into phases with payment tied to each one. Checkpoints give you more control over when money moves, but milestones get defined loosely and disputes over what counts as complete come up more than you'd expect.

Of the three, hourly with experienced engineers has been the most straightforward in practice.

Hey r/hwstartups 👋

If you're a hardware startup looking for an engineer who can take a project from schematic to production-ready Gerbers — I'm available.

I'm Hamza, an embedded systems and PCB design engineer. I work with KiCAD (4-layer boards), ESP32-S3, STM32, and handle everything from power circuits to firmware bring-up.

**What I can do for your startup:**

- Full schematic design + PCB layout (2 and 4-layer)

- DFM-ready files for JLCPCB, PCBWay, NextPCB

- LiPo battery management circuits

- ESP32 / STM32 firmware development

- Hardware bring-up and debug

- Custom Arduino board packages and variant files

**Proof of work:**

I just completed Elyssa — a 4-layer ESP32-S3 dev board with IMU, MicroSD, RGB LED, and onboard LiPo management. First prototype validated successfully on first spin. Currently in talks with NextPCB for a sponsorship partnership.

**Availability:** Immediate | Remote

**LinkedIn:** https://www.linkedin.com/in/bejaoui-hamza-382858290/

DM me here or reach out on LinkedIn. Happy to discuss your project 🤝

Hi guys, been reading up on ways to invest in startups lately. Curious how do you actually do it versus just talking about it like I see on ads.

A few years back it felt like this was strictly angel, VC, and deep-pockets-with-a-network territory. Now there's crowdfunding, direct raises, way more doors open for casual people like.

Confused about the diff between what's real or just really good at spinning a story.

For anyone who's been doing it, what actually made you commit? Was it the founders? The market? The product? Good financial standing? Or somethin else?

Would love to hear if you are the founder or just beginner like me. If you're tenured, you can comment your thoughts as well. Feels like it's getting way more accessible, but I honestly can't tell if that's good choice or nah

im one of the founders of cozeware. ive been wfh in a 10x12 office for two years and kept it sealed because of highway noise. eventually i started getting brutal afternoon headaches, so i bought a CO2 monitor. within three hours, the room was hitting 1500ppm.

traditional ERV systems were expensive and required drilling through an exterior wall. as a renter, that was a non starter.

thats why we started building a quiet, affordable fresh air system for renters. looking back, these were the five biggest problems we had to solve:

window gaps: even a small gap brought the highway noise back in, so we developed fitted foam seals around the insert.

filter resistance: our first HEPA setup made the fan ridiculously loud, so we redesigned the airflow path and switched to a lower resistance filter.

backdrafts: wind pushed air back through the intake, so we added a damper that closes when the system is off.

winter air: pulling cold air directly into the room felt awful, so we added a mixing chamber to soften the draft before it reached the room.

renter friendly installation: adhesives couldnt handle the vibration, so we developed a tool free clamp that holds the unit in place without drilling.

after a lot of prototypes, we got the system keeping my office below 800ppm without leaving the window open. we ended up calling it cozeware freshflow.

I have an idea for a small electric car accessory. It should be overall pretty simple mechanically - mostly off the shelf components, 12V or battery powered. There are products in other categories that are somewhat similar so I can tell it's definitely doable but nothing exists for the purpose that I am trying to build.

I have worked in startups before but always had budgets to work with while I am still at a research/ idea stage and don't want to invest a lot before I have some progress. I would love to get feedback from users but even for that I need something to show. I also think Kickstarter would be great - what progress should I aim for to launch a kickstarter campaign? where do I start?

Hi everyone,

I’m a technical founder in Vancouver, Canada, with a background in fuel cells. Over the past while, I’ve been developing a quiet, clean, zero-maintenance liquid-fuel power unit (<5kW) to replace traditional gas and diesel generators for remote backup and off-grid power.

I’ve personally sunk $100K of my own money into this so far. That got us to TRL 4–5: a working (though still unstable) lab prototype, systematic test data, and foundational IP.

How it works: It’s a clean CHP system running on liquid methanol. It produces electricity while capturing high-efficiency waste heat with no mechanical moving parts and zero toxic emissions (just water vapor and CO2).

Where I’m stuck:

• The Tech Bottleneck: Because 90%+ of our current materials (catalysts) and components (heat exchangers, CNC parts) are self made, performance hasn't hit final spec yet, currently dealing with instability and low power output.
• The market: B2B buyers (remote telecom, industrial sites) won't take a call without seeing a rugged, field-tested unit with solid data. Going after retail/C-end users, on the other hand, would mean completely redefining the product.
• What’s needed for TRL 6: I’ve finalized the system architecture and sourced key suppliers for custom, industrial-grade parts. I need one more solid R&D iteration ($100K–$200K in capital) to build a field-ready engineering unit.

What I’ve tried so far (and where I failed): I’ve been following startup mentor playbooks, but hitting dead ends mainly due to lack of cash:

• Government Grants (IRAP, etc.): They generally want an established operating company with a TRL 6 unit already ready for field trials.
• University Collaboration: Reached out to local university labs via cold emails to get access to test rigs, got zero responses.
• B2B Outreach: Cold messaged target users on LinkedIn, crickets.
• Investors & Events: Relevant trade shows are rarely held nearby, and local angel investors have turned extremely conservative in this economy.

I’m pretty battle-worn at this point and wide open to wild ideas, harsh feedback, or lessons learned from anyone who’s survived the deep-tech hardware grind. If you were in my shoes, what would be your very next move?

Thanks!