Unlike software products, a startup with hardware products involves a lot of operations and every decision that you make is very crucial as it invokes a chain of events that impact the final quality of the product. In the technology space, when someone plans for a hardware product then by default it would be either directly or indirectly connected to the “Internet of Things”.
For better understanding of what, why and how of a hardware product, Hosain Rahman, the founder and CEO of Jawbone explains the operations involved from the idea to the final product outcome in a startup.
“I always like to start with the broadest thinking. The way we [Jawbone] look at the world is we think of ourselves at this intersection of really crafted innovation in engineering that’s almost invisible to the user in terms of its functionality, even beyond design.”
When it comes to product startups, it is not just about thinking what is the real need of the hour at present but also about the future. What you need to keep in mind is that by the time you start working on the idea, you need to figure out how your product is going to stand for coming years and where the world is going. In order for the vision to come true, you need to be amazing at everything. For a product startup, particularly like in the field of “Internet of Things” you need expertise in the Design, Hardware, Software, Engagement and other cogs in the wheels of motion.
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Typically people who are great at hardware understand mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and how those things interact. They understand how you build tools at scale. They’re not typically great at building software and services. It’s a very different discipline and requires a very different skill set. For Jawbone, their software and application team was so used to moving really, really fast and iterating, whereas in the hardware world you’ve got to take your time because your iteration cycles are much more deliberate. You have tooling that takes sixteen weeks. You can’t just tweak stuff and you can’t hack it in the same way. It would be interesting to see that when you put all these pieces together, the interesting friction produced and how slowly each one adapts and comes to an equilibrium for smooth functioning.
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For the actual process on how Jawbone thinks about and builds products, you need to listen from the man himself shedding some interesting insights on the operations crucial for the success of his company.
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