The Lean Hardware Startup with Cyril Ebersweiler
Cyril Ebersweiler, the founder of HAXLR8R & venture partner of SOSventures, joins us to discuss the lean hardware startup in Asia and the metrics that investors look at to evaluate a hardware startup. He shares with us the concept of the lean hardware startup and why hardware is the new black. We also discuss the lean hardware startup concept which they pioneered to build, grow and accelerate companies in the incubator and his thoughts on how to run a successful Kickstarter campaign. Lastly, we tapped on his perspective as an investor to understand what investors are looking for in hardware startups.
Here are the interesting links for our discussion:
- The story of Cyril Ebersweiler (@HAXLR8R)
- From France to China: his career prior to HAXLR8R & SOS Ventures
- The origins of HAXLR8R, the hardware accelerator, Chinaccelerator and SOS Ventures.
- Hardware startups from the viewpoint of an accelerator.
- Hardware is the new black: Why got you interested into hardware?
- The rise of hardware startups: hardware funding, % of startup funding. What are the important trends to note?
- The Lean Hardware startup:
- The life of the hardware startup: Concept -> Minimum Functional prototype (MFP) -> Complete Functional Prototype (CFP) -> Design for Manufacture (DFM) -> First Factory run (FFR) -> Retail
- What are the rules from prototype to production?
- What are the best practices to ensure success?
- Why do some founders fail at retail even with good hardware prototypes?
- How to run a successful kickstarter campaign
- What are the things that a founder should and should not do on Kickstarter?
- An Investor’s perspective into hardware.
- What is the checklist for an investor to look at a hardware startup? What kind of metrics? How many times money raised from hardware startup against software startup?
- What are the 12 “wares” to avoid?
- How do we invest in hardware companies?
- Hardware Trends:
- Software is from the Bay, Hardware is from Shenzhen
- What are the important questions for hardware:
- “Will every object become ‘sentiment’ and connected? Will every object become ‘intelligent’ and autonomous thanks to onboard processing?”
- Reference: HAXLR8R slideshare (worth reading if you want to know everything about hardware startups, investing and also the Shenzhen hardware ecosystem). They have a great navigation map for hardware startup founders on Huaqiang Bei.
Podcast Information:
The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bleongcw) and are sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) and Linkcious (and check out their other product, Chiibi).
