Hardware innovation, prototyping & strategic support

Hardware innovation is hard. We feel your pain, because we have gone through it many times! This is why we can help you to avoid the pitfalls of hardware innovation start-ups.

You have a great idea for hardware-based innovation. But you find that getting to an actual commercial product is so much more difficult than casual bystanders can fathom or investors can accept. Your company’s first PowerPoint projected the product on the market within a year, or two at most, and early angels have already bought into it. Yet your straight path towards market entry in actuality proves to be more of a bumpy road, one obstacle following another. For example:

• You need engineering, prototyping and testing, but don’t have the budget to hire the number of people that you need to make the headway as fast as you would like: so you are bootstrapping, slowing progress.
• The actual performance and cost of your prototype may not exactly address the pain that the customers are experiencing, and you have to go back to the drawing board, multiplying cost.
• You need to certify your system, requiring a different attitude in your team towards processes and adding at least another year to market entry.
• Engineering – not empty sales talk – lies at the heart of your company, yet you need a business plan that is both technically thorough and financially convincing. You need to get subsidies and investors on board while still being able to deliver on your roadmap.
• You got the funding, but now you need to deliver: how fast can you grow, what should you maintain as safe runway, how to best spend your money?
• Your team is growing fast and beyond 15–20 people or so, the flat organizational structure is no longer effective, yet you still want to maintain that high level of personal involvement. What will work?