My own private idaho (self employ)

[Phil Hobbs]

On 2020-01-26 15:49, Rick C wrote:

On Sunday, January 26, 2020 at 2:09:40 PM UTC-5, George Herold wrote:
On Saturday, January 25, 2020 at 8:54:02 PM UTC-5, Robert Baer wrote:
George Herold wrote:
So I've been in this kinda dark place... partly due to BS from my PPoE.
(need not be discussed)
But that looks to finally be behind me!

I went down to visit with Phil H. for a day, (wonderful people!),
and when I came back there was all this good news in the mail.
One says that I can use my unemployment insurance benefits
to apply for the Self-employment Assistance Program.
And I'd like to explore that idea here. (starting own company)
* Look carefully at ALL of the gotchas, (may i swear) FEEs, interest
rates,etc.


First off it seems like a big lift. Spit balling numbers, if
I'm going to take ~$100k in profit (to pay myself and health insurance
and taxes and..) I'm going to need ~$300k in sales.
(most of my ideas involve fun physics teaching stuff, where
price is paramount.) And I don't see any selling enough.

Maybe I need to think about selling to industry too?
I think my number one, this could sell enough, idea
is a LN flow cryostat*. With a bare-bones cryostat for
~$1-2k, (Dewar, minimal probe and pump.) Then people
could make their own probes, and I can sell different probes
(and electronics).
probes could sell for much more money....

The other bad thing about selling stuff is you've got to
spend ~1/2 your time on marketing... maybe more early on.
* Create a memorable name to use, and register a website using that.
The website is your sales tool.

No matter how good that website may be, expect hundreds of SEO types
that will diss it, saying what they can do to improve it. The scam part
is placement of your site name in hundreds of (what i call referral) ad
sites; damn near all of them are completely unknown (and unused).

Have a good developer, maybe one paid Manta and Google ad, use GA for
tracking.

Use PayPal for selling; any other merchandiser will charge a rather
large MONTHLY _fee_ just to exist.

Formally copyright the site name; that is cheap insurance.
See circular 4:
Registrations online
$35 Single Application (single author, same claimant, one work, not for
hire)
$55 Standard Application (all other filings)

Yeah... thanks for all of that Robert. I know nothing about
making my own website.. so that's another thing.
At my PPoE I always wanted to make a 'repair/problem' online forum...
which I pictured as mostly my email correspondence with customers
made public.

What is PPoE??? I can't find any reference to it that doesn't say it isn't a misspelling of PPPoE.
"previous place of employment", cf. "CPoE". It's a SEDism AFAIK.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

http://electrooptical.net
http://hobbs-eo.com

 

[Rick C]

On Sunday, January 26, 2020 at 2:09:40 PM UTC-5, George Herold wrote:

On Saturday, January 25, 2020 at 8:54:02 PM UTC-5, Robert Baer wrote:
George Herold wrote:
So I've been in this kinda dark place... partly due to BS from my PPoE.
(need not be discussed)
But that looks to finally be behind me!

I went down to visit with Phil H. for a day, (wonderful people!),
and when I came back there was all this good news in the mail.
One says that I can use my unemployment insurance benefits
to apply for the Self-employment Assistance Program.
And I'd like to explore that idea here. (starting own company)
* Look carefully at ALL of the gotchas, (may i swear) FEEs, interest
rates,etc.


First off it seems like a big lift. Spit balling numbers, if
I'm going to take ~$100k in profit (to pay myself and health insurance
and taxes and..) I'm going to need ~$300k in sales.
(most of my ideas involve fun physics teaching stuff, where
price is paramount.) And I don't see any selling enough.

Maybe I need to think about selling to industry too?
I think my number one, this could sell enough, idea
is a LN flow cryostat*. With a bare-bones cryostat for
~$1-2k, (Dewar, minimal probe and pump.) Then people
could make their own probes, and I can sell different probes
(and electronics).
probes could sell for much more money....

The other bad thing about selling stuff is you've got to
spend ~1/2 your time on marketing... maybe more early on.
* Create a memorable name to use, and register a website using that.
The website is your sales tool.

No matter how good that website may be, expect hundreds of SEO types
that will diss it, saying what they can do to improve it. The scam part
is placement of your site name in hundreds of (what i call referral) ad
sites; damn near all of them are completely unknown (and unused).

Have a good developer, maybe one paid Manta and Google ad, use GA for
tracking.

Use PayPal for selling; any other merchandiser will charge a rather
large MONTHLY _fee_ just to exist.

Formally copyright the site name; that is cheap insurance.
See circular 4:
Registrations online
$35 Single Application (single author, same claimant, one work, not for
hire)
$55 Standard Application (all other filings)

Yeah... thanks for all of that Robert. I know nothing about
making my own website.. so that's another thing.
At my PPoE I always wanted to make a 'repair/problem' online forum...
which I pictured as mostly my email correspondence with customers
made public.

What is PPoE??? I can't find any reference to it that doesn't say it isn't a misspelling of PPPoE.

I wouldn't bother too much with the web site to start. I believe the best web site is not one you will think up. Engineers tend to be rather geeky about it. I think it's better to have something with generic images that convey a stable company and not worry too much about geeky details. Maybe some shots of your work not on the main page. Try not to make them too geeky..

That's just my opinion.

What would you want to see on a web site if you were looking to hire someone? I've never identified anything that would impress me. So better left to the first contact.

--

Rick C.

-- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Winfield Hill]

Rick C wrote...

What is PPoE??? I can't find any reference to it that
doesn't say it isn't a misspelling of PPPoE.

PPPoE: Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet?


--
Thanks,
- Win

 

Winfield Hill <winfieldhill@yahoo.com> wrote in news:r0molq02t29
@drn.newsguy.com:

Rick C wrote...

What is PPoE??? I can't find any reference to it that
doesn't say it isn't a misspelling of PPPoE.

PPPoE: Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet?

The "point" being that the ports are now 'fully addressable', which
adds security to a system. Someone cannot simply plug in to an open
port on the router if you have them all shut off and hard assigned so
that only a certain MAC addy can plug in to a given port.

And they added power capacity over Ethernet too with PPoE

 

[George Herold]

On Sunday, January 26, 2020 at 4:39:26 PM UTC-5, Phil Hobbs wrote:

On 2020-01-26 15:49, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, January 26, 2020 at 2:09:40 PM UTC-5, George Herold wrote:
On Saturday, January 25, 2020 at 8:54:02 PM UTC-5, Robert Baer wrote:
George Herold wrote:
So I've been in this kinda dark place... partly due to BS from my PPoE.
(need not be discussed)
But that looks to finally be behind me!

I went down to visit with Phil H. for a day, (wonderful people!),
and when I came back there was all this good news in the mail.
One says that I can use my unemployment insurance benefits
to apply for the Self-employment Assistance Program.
And I'd like to explore that idea here. (starting own company)
* Look carefully at ALL of the gotchas, (may i swear) FEEs, interest
rates,etc.


First off it seems like a big lift. Spit balling numbers, if
I'm going to take ~$100k in profit (to pay myself and health insurance
and taxes and..) I'm going to need ~$300k in sales.
(most of my ideas involve fun physics teaching stuff, where
price is paramount.) And I don't see any selling enough.

Maybe I need to think about selling to industry too?
I think my number one, this could sell enough, idea
is a LN flow cryostat*. With a bare-bones cryostat for
~$1-2k, (Dewar, minimal probe and pump.) Then people
could make their own probes, and I can sell different probes
(and electronics).
probes could sell for much more money....

The other bad thing about selling stuff is you've got to
spend ~1/2 your time on marketing... maybe more early on.
* Create a memorable name to use, and register a website using that.
The website is your sales tool.

No matter how good that website may be, expect hundreds of SEO types
that will diss it, saying what they can do to improve it. The scam part
is placement of your site name in hundreds of (what i call referral) ad
sites; damn near all of them are completely unknown (and unused).

Have a good developer, maybe one paid Manta and Google ad, use GA for
tracking.

Use PayPal for selling; any other merchandiser will charge a rather
large MONTHLY _fee_ just to exist.

Formally copyright the site name; that is cheap insurance.
See circular 4:
Registrations online
$35 Single Application (single author, same claimant, one work, not for
hire)
$55 Standard Application (all other filings)

Yeah... thanks for all of that Robert. I know nothing about
making my own website.. so that's another thing.
At my PPoE I always wanted to make a 'repair/problem' online forum...
which I pictured as mostly my email correspondence with customers
made public.

What is PPoE??? I can't find any reference to it that doesn't say it isn't a misspelling of PPPoE.
"previous place of employment", cf. "CPoE". It's a SEDism AFAIK.

Right.. I guess I learned it from KRW.
George H.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

http://electrooptical.net
http://hobbs-eo.com

 

[George Herold]

On Sunday, January 26, 2020 at 3:50:04 PM UTC-5, Phil Hobbs wrote:

On 2020-01-26 15:42, George Herold wrote:
On Sunday, January 26, 2020 at 11:16:31 AM UTC-5, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Sun, 26 Jan 2020 09:21:58 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 25/01/20 21:22, George Herold wrote:
The other bad thing about selling stuff is you've got to
spend ~1/2 your time on marketing... maybe more early on.

And all the other administrivia Even if someone
else is doing all that guff, and engineer operates
at full throttle for about 30%-40% of their time.
The rest is "unproductive" meetings etc. Hence in
the absence of better information, multiply your
first estimate by 2.5-3.5

I've seen a couple of startups make one mistake;
I suspect you are too smart, but here it is anyway...

The founder(s) are trapped by the glitz of being
"self-employed CEOs", and spend money on unnecessary
/visible/ trappings, e.g. cars, boardroom furniture,
and the like.

Some people think that the appearance of success (hence buying all
that glitzy expensive stuff) is success. It's the opposite.

One guy that I know of got some investors to join up, and first thing
bought a private jet. Next thing, they fired him.

(One common mistake is to give up too much equity early on, often to
less than savory/competent partners.)


They feel great and "energised", but none of that
gets money in the door.

More successfully...

I've also seen successful R&D consultancies that
only buy the minimum of equipment, i.e. equipment
that is guaranteed to be useful on every project.

General-purpose equipment is good to have around. These days, a suite
of good test equipment isn't very expensive.


Any equipment that doesn't fall into that category
is bought on a project-by-project basis and after
the project it is part of the deliverable to the
client.

NO! Keep all the toys! Well, you can provide custom test sets at large
additional cost. Price them separately; they may find that they want
several.
Yeah, a bad thing about losing my job, was losing most of my toys.
(I've got some power supplies, rigol scope and rigol sig. gen.
and as you say parts are pretty cheap these days.)

George H.



Good luck; all startups need that.

One can certainly be a consultant, and sell the IP and designs and
equipment on a one-time basis. That gets a company started, and some
people can do that forever. But that requires constant selling, and is
often feast-famine stressful. Selling products is a better long-term
force multiplier.
Right, you need a few horses in the stable for sales (at least at the
low volume level I'm contemplating.) to be semi-stable.

The other thing I think about is fun little pcb's and a part's bag/ list.
There's lot's of rather mundane circuits you can think about,
(gain, filtering)
fun ones are rev. biased led spads, and fast edge TDR's

Some standard box for little circuits would be nice.
Phil, what do you pay for your 'stomp' boxes.
(two piece dicast )

They're cheap--five or ten bucks depending on size. BTW once you have a
web site up, you can do pretty good SEO by adding your contact info and
a few keywords to your Usenet posts--SED is widely mirrored. (See below.)

Huh thanks for the SEO tip.
Re: SED mirroring. I do find it weird how many times I'm searching some
electronics thing and I get sent to a few years old SED discussion.
Sometimes that's good, cause it's a discussion I missed or skipped.

George S. Herold
unemployed instrument builder

Cheers

Phil Hobbs


--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

http://electrooptical.net
http://hobbs-eo.com

 

On Mon, 27 Jan 2020 08:47:12 -0800 (PST), George Herold
<ggherold@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, January 26, 2020 at 3:50:04 PM UTC-5, Phil Hobbs wrote:
On 2020-01-26 15:42, George Herold wrote:
On Sunday, January 26, 2020 at 11:16:31 AM UTC-5, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Sun, 26 Jan 2020 09:21:58 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 25/01/20 21:22, George Herold wrote:
The other bad thing about selling stuff is you've got to
spend ~1/2 your time on marketing... maybe more early on.

And all the other administrivia Even if someone
else is doing all that guff, and engineer operates
at full throttle for about 30%-40% of their time.
The rest is "unproductive" meetings etc. Hence in
the absence of better information, multiply your
first estimate by 2.5-3.5

I've seen a couple of startups make one mistake;
I suspect you are too smart, but here it is anyway...

The founder(s) are trapped by the glitz of being
"self-employed CEOs", and spend money on unnecessary
/visible/ trappings, e.g. cars, boardroom furniture,
and the like.

Some people think that the appearance of success (hence buying all
that glitzy expensive stuff) is success. It's the opposite.

One guy that I know of got some investors to join up, and first thing
bought a private jet. Next thing, they fired him.

(One common mistake is to give up too much equity early on, often to
less than savory/competent partners.)


They feel great and "energised", but none of that
gets money in the door.

More successfully...

I've also seen successful R&D consultancies that
only buy the minimum of equipment, i.e. equipment
that is guaranteed to be useful on every project.

General-purpose equipment is good to have around. These days, a suite
of good test equipment isn't very expensive.


Any equipment that doesn't fall into that category
is bought on a project-by-project basis and after
the project it is part of the deliverable to the
client.

NO! Keep all the toys! Well, you can provide custom test sets at large
additional cost. Price them separately; they may find that they want
several.
Yeah, a bad thing about losing my job, was losing most of my toys.
(I've got some power supplies, rigol scope and rigol sig. gen.
and as you say parts are pretty cheap these days.)

George H.



Good luck; all startups need that.

One can certainly be a consultant, and sell the IP and designs and
equipment on a one-time basis. That gets a company started, and some
people can do that forever. But that requires constant selling, and is
often feast-famine stressful. Selling products is a better long-term
force multiplier.
Right, you need a few horses in the stable for sales (at least at the
low volume level I'm contemplating.) to be semi-stable.

The other thing I think about is fun little pcb's and a part's bag/ list.
There's lot's of rather mundane circuits you can think about,
(gain, filtering)
fun ones are rev. biased led spads, and fast edge TDR's

Some standard box for little circuits would be nice.
Phil, what do you pay for your 'stomp' boxes.
(two piece dicast )

They're cheap--five or ten bucks depending on size. BTW once you have a
web site up, you can do pretty good SEO by adding your contact info and
a few keywords to your Usenet posts--SED is widely mirrored. (See below.)
Huh thanks for the SEO tip.
Re: SED mirroring. I do find it weird how many times I'm searching some
electronics thing and I get sent to a few years old SED discussion.
Sometimes that's good, cause it's a discussion I missed or skipped.

George S. Herold
unemployed instrument builder

Sometimes I google a subject and find my own old SED posts.

Want to do some occasional research for us? Email me.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

The cork popped merrily, and Lord Peter rose to his feet.
"Bunter", he said, "I give you a toast. The triumph of Instinct over Reason"

 

[Robert Baer]

Piglet wrote:

On 26/01/2020 00:15, George Herold wrote:
Sure with pressure as the pusher.  The one thing I hate about any
magnetic valve ideas.. is that it will f with any magnetic measurements.

George H.

Good luck George.

Getting movement without magnetic fields makes me wonder again about
Nitinol* "muscle wire" - always seemed a great solution looking for a
problem to solve. But possibly not right for your app, as far as I know
it is bang-bang only with no proportional control, slow in the hundreds
of milliseconds, and being thermally driven probably a complete mismatch
for cryo N2 valves!

piglet

*For those unfamiliar a shape memory alloy wire that switches between
two states and corresponding lengths with temperature. Passing a current
to self heat makes a sort of electrical-mechanical transducer.

....and i would think get too hot for LN use, assuming they would work at
such a low temperture.

 

[Rick C]

On Monday, January 27, 2020 at 1:33:34 PM UTC-5, Robert Baer wrote:

Piglet wrote:
On 26/01/2020 00:15, George Herold wrote:
Sure with pressure as the pusher.  The one thing I hate about any
magnetic valve ideas.. is that it will f with any magnetic measurements.

George H.

Good luck George.

Getting movement without magnetic fields makes me wonder again about
Nitinol* "muscle wire" - always seemed a great solution looking for a
problem to solve. But possibly not right for your app, as far as I know
it is bang-bang only with no proportional control, slow in the hundreds
of milliseconds, and being thermally driven probably a complete mismatch
for cryo N2 valves!

piglet

*For those unfamiliar a shape memory alloy wire that switches between
two states and corresponding lengths with temperature. Passing a current
to self heat makes a sort of electrical-mechanical transducer.


...and i would think get too hot for LN use, assuming they would work at
such a low temperture.

I don't think the control motor is immersed in liquid N2, only the gaseous stuff and then only 80%.

--

Rick C.

-+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[George Herold]

On Monday, January 27, 2020 at 1:33:34 PM UTC-5, Robert Baer wrote:

Piglet wrote:
On 26/01/2020 00:15, George Herold wrote:
Sure with pressure as the pusher.  The one thing I hate about any
magnetic valve ideas.. is that it will f with any magnetic measurements.

George H.

Good luck George.

Getting movement without magnetic fields makes me wonder again about
Nitinol* "muscle wire" - always seemed a great solution looking for a
problem to solve. But possibly not right for your app, as far as I know
it is bang-bang only with no proportional control, slow in the hundreds
of milliseconds, and being thermally driven probably a complete mismatch
for cryo N2 valves!

piglet

*For those unfamiliar a shape memory alloy wire that switches between
two states and corresponding lengths with temperature. Passing a current
to self heat makes a sort of electrical-mechanical transducer.


...and i would think get too hot for LN use, assuming they would work at
such a low temperture.

Sure, it'd need some thermal/ electrical insulation.
Still compared to a human male at room temperature,
the piece of metal has only so much force.. (which I get to design)
1% of the time the human male will go get the vice grips and break
the valve. 1% x Y-times/year x 10 years... I wonder how much a
torque ratchet thingie costs?

George H.
(Who is as guilty as the next guy of 'grabbing the big wrench'
and breaking something, rather than fixing it.)

 

[George Herold]

On Monday, January 27, 2020 at 12:02:52 PM UTC-5, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Mon, 27 Jan 2020 08:47:12 -0800 (PST), George Herold
ggherold@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, January 26, 2020 at 3:50:04 PM UTC-5, Phil Hobbs wrote:
On 2020-01-26 15:42, George Herold wrote:
On Sunday, January 26, 2020 at 11:16:31 AM UTC-5, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Sun, 26 Jan 2020 09:21:58 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 25/01/20 21:22, George Herold wrote:
The other bad thing about selling stuff is you've got to
spend ~1/2 your time on marketing... maybe more early on.

And all the other administrivia Even if someone
else is doing all that guff, and engineer operates
at full throttle for about 30%-40% of their time.
The rest is "unproductive" meetings etc. Hence in
the absence of better information, multiply your
first estimate by 2.5-3.5

I've seen a couple of startups make one mistake;
I suspect you are too smart, but here it is anyway...

The founder(s) are trapped by the glitz of being
"self-employed CEOs", and spend money on unnecessary
/visible/ trappings, e.g. cars, boardroom furniture,
and the like.

Some people think that the appearance of success (hence buying all
that glitzy expensive stuff) is success. It's the opposite.

One guy that I know of got some investors to join up, and first thing
bought a private jet. Next thing, they fired him.

(One common mistake is to give up too much equity early on, often to
less than savory/competent partners.)


They feel great and "energised", but none of that
gets money in the door.

More successfully...

I've also seen successful R&D consultancies that
only buy the minimum of equipment, i.e. equipment
that is guaranteed to be useful on every project.

General-purpose equipment is good to have around. These days, a suite
of good test equipment isn't very expensive.


Any equipment that doesn't fall into that category
is bought on a project-by-project basis and after
the project it is part of the deliverable to the
client.

NO! Keep all the toys! Well, you can provide custom test sets at large
additional cost. Price them separately; they may find that they want
several.
Yeah, a bad thing about losing my job, was losing most of my toys.
(I've got some power supplies, rigol scope and rigol sig. gen.
and as you say parts are pretty cheap these days.)

George H.



Good luck; all startups need that.

One can certainly be a consultant, and sell the IP and designs and
equipment on a one-time basis. That gets a company started, and some
people can do that forever. But that requires constant selling, and is
often feast-famine stressful. Selling products is a better long-term
force multiplier.
Right, you need a few horses in the stable for sales (at least at the
low volume level I'm contemplating.) to be semi-stable.

The other thing I think about is fun little pcb's and a part's bag/ list.
There's lot's of rather mundane circuits you can think about,
(gain, filtering)
fun ones are rev. biased led spads, and fast edge TDR's

Some standard box for little circuits would be nice.
Phil, what do you pay for your 'stomp' boxes.
(two piece dicast )

They're cheap--five or ten bucks depending on size. BTW once you have a
web site up, you can do pretty good SEO by adding your contact info and
a few keywords to your Usenet posts--SED is widely mirrored. (See below.)
Huh thanks for the SEO tip.
Re: SED mirroring. I do find it weird how many times I'm searching some
electronics thing and I get sent to a few years old SED discussion.
Sometimes that's good, cause it's a discussion I missed or skipped.

George S. Herold
unemployed instrument builder

Sometimes I google a subject and find my own old SED posts.

Want to do some occasional research for us? Email me.

Sure, but I've got satellite internet not the fastest. :^)
I seem to have lost your email address. (your card was stuck to
a tunnel diode on my parts shelf... but it might have been left behind,
or in a banker box in the study.)

You can email me at ggherold@gmail.... com

Hey here is sorta a crazy idea I had emailing with Clifford H.
How about designing/ building (as kits?) analog front and back
ends for the labjack?
https://labjack.com/
There's a bunch of stuff to do... from simple to sublime :^)
On the simple front I imagine a thermal loops lab,
different detectors, different plants, and different delays
between the two.
Sublime? (well first I need to find the fastest clock input...
but perhaps photon counting.)

And a million things in between.

George H.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

The cork popped merrily, and Lord Peter rose to his feet.
"Bunter", he said, "I give you a toast. The triumph of Instinct over Reason"

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Tuesday, January 28, 2020 at 4:02:52 AM UTC+11, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Mon, 27 Jan 2020 08:47:12 -0800 (PST), George Herold
ggherold@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, January 26, 2020 at 3:50:04 PM UTC-5, Phil Hobbs wrote:
On 2020-01-26 15:42, George Herold wrote:
On Sunday, January 26, 2020 at 11:16:31 AM UTC-5, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Sun, 26 Jan 2020 09:21:58 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 25/01/20 21:22, George Herold wrote:
The other bad thing about selling stuff is you've got to
spend ~1/2 your time on marketing... maybe more early on.

And all the other administrivia Even if someone
else is doing all that guff, and engineer operates
at full throttle for about 30%-40% of their time.
The rest is "unproductive" meetings etc. Hence in
the absence of better information, multiply your
first estimate by 2.5-3.5

I've seen a couple of startups make one mistake;
I suspect you are too smart, but here it is anyway...

The founder(s) are trapped by the glitz of being
"self-employed CEOs", and spend money on unnecessary
/visible/ trappings, e.g. cars, boardroom furniture,
and the like.

Some people think that the appearance of success (hence buying all
that glitzy expensive stuff) is success. It's the opposite.

One guy that I know of got some investors to join up, and first thing
bought a private jet. Next thing, they fired him.

(One common mistake is to give up too much equity early on, often to
less than savory/competent partners.)


They feel great and "energised", but none of that
gets money in the door.

More successfully...

I've also seen successful R&D consultancies that
only buy the minimum of equipment, i.e. equipment
that is guaranteed to be useful on every project.

General-purpose equipment is good to have around. These days, a suite
of good test equipment isn't very expensive.


Any equipment that doesn't fall into that category
is bought on a project-by-project basis and after
the project it is part of the deliverable to the
client.

NO! Keep all the toys! Well, you can provide custom test sets at large
additional cost. Price them separately; they may find that they want
several.
Yeah, a bad thing about losing my job, was losing most of my toys.
(I've got some power supplies, rigol scope and rigol sig. gen.
and as you say parts are pretty cheap these days.)

George H.



Good luck; all startups need that.

One can certainly be a consultant, and sell the IP and designs and
equipment on a one-time basis. That gets a company started, and some
people can do that forever. But that requires constant selling, and is
often feast-famine stressful. Selling products is a better long-term
force multiplier.
Right, you need a few horses in the stable for sales (at least at the
low volume level I'm contemplating.) to be semi-stable.

The other thing I think about is fun little pcb's and a part's bag/ list.
There's lot's of rather mundane circuits you can think about,
(gain, filtering)
fun ones are rev. biased led spads, and fast edge TDR's

Some standard box for little circuits would be nice.
Phil, what do you pay for your 'stomp' boxes.
(two piece dicast )

They're cheap--five or ten bucks depending on size. BTW once you have a
web site up, you can do pretty good SEO by adding your contact info and
a few keywords to your Usenet posts--SED is widely mirrored. (See below.)
Huh thanks for the SEO tip.
Re: SED mirroring. I do find it weird how many times I'm searching some
electronics thing and I get sent to a few years old SED discussion.
Sometimes that's good, cause it's a discussion I missed or skipped.

George S. Herold
unemployed instrument builder

Sometimes I google a subject and find my own old SED posts.

Want to do some occasional research for us? Email me.

Jim Thompson seems to be dead, so John Larkin will have to find some other right-wing lunatic to to tell just who has just e-mailed him privately.

James Arthur might serve.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Clifford Heath]

On 28/1/20 7:16 am, George Herold wrote:

Hey here is sorta a crazy idea I had emailing with Clifford H.
How about designing/ building (as kits?) analog front and back
ends for the labjack?
https://labjack.com/

It's a bad idea(*) for a startup to be completely dependent on the
existence of any other single product or company. The Labjack looks like
a packaged version of the plentiful AD8706 modules, with some software.
Why wouldn't you just make those too, so you aren't dependent?

Search AliExpress for AD8706 and you'll see modules with parallel
interface for around $40, with USB for $60-ish. That gets you 8 channels
of 16-bit data at reasonable speed, which should be enough for many of
the lab projects you have in mind.

(*) The problem is that as soon as you become successful at some add-on
product, the company can easily duplicate your work and undercut you.
That's almost instant death when you're relying on their installed base.

Clifford Heath

 

[Rick C]

On Monday, January 27, 2020 at 5:41:44 PM UTC-5, Clifford Heath wrote:

On 28/1/20 7:16 am, George Herold wrote:
Hey here is sorta a crazy idea I had emailing with Clifford H.
How about designing/ building (as kits?) analog front and back
ends for the labjack?
https://labjack.com/

It's a bad idea(*) for a startup to be completely dependent on the
existence of any other single product or company.

That is a generalization and like most isn't worth a damn. It can be a great way to start out or even as a total base. When you do that you need to be in touch with thee product and company and it is great if you can have their blessing.

The Labjack looks like
a packaged version of the plentiful AD8706 modules, with some software.
Why wouldn't you just make those too, so you aren't dependent?

Competing can be very difficult. I tried to compete in the DSP board level product area, but who was going to buy from a startup when there were a number of stable companies selling good product, with all the backing of a good company (support, documentation, enhancements and a customer base).

Complementing can be a great way to start out. Use the established customer base and provide them with something they don't have. Just don't become overly dependent on a single item.

Search AliExpress for AD8706 and you'll see modules with parallel
interface for around $40, with USB for $60-ish. That gets you 8 channels
of 16-bit data at reasonable speed, which should be enough for many of
the lab projects you have in mind.

(*) The problem is that as soon as you become successful at some add-on
product, the company can easily duplicate your work and undercut you.
That's almost instant death when you're relying on their installed base.

Often it's the other way around, you can undercut them! If they were going to sell cheaper than you, why would you want to go head to head with them?

It's best to identify a product that is too small a market for the bigger company to exploit but a small company can do well. Then they have no profit motive to try to compete with you.

--

Rick C.

+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Clifford Heath]

On 28/1/20 9:56 am, Rick C wrote:

On Monday, January 27, 2020 at 5:41:44 PM UTC-5, Clifford Heath wrote:
The Labjack looks like
a packaged version of the plentiful AD8706 modules, with some software.
Why wouldn't you just make those too, so you aren't dependent?

Competing can be very difficult. I tried to compete in the DSP board level product area, but who was going to buy from a startup when there were a number of stable companies selling good product, with all the backing of a good company (support, documentation, enhancements and a customer base).

A market only has room for 2 or 3 companies at the top. People will only
review that many before making a buying decision, so if you're not
dominant in your segment, you don't get seen - you need a smaller segment.

Often it's the other way around, you can undercut them! If they were going to sell cheaper than you, why would you want to go head to head with them?

George isn't proposing going head-to-head. He's proposing building
something they don't have - systems with a variety of useful front-ends.


> It's best to identify a product that is too small a market for the bigger company to exploit but a small company can do well. Then they have no profit motive to try to compete with you.

Yes, correct - find a niche you can dominate. But if you widen that
niche too much, you'll have trouble maintaining dominance.

I think we're mostly in agreement on these things.

CH

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christense]

tirsdag den 28. januar 2020 kl. 00.53.22 UTC+1 skrev Rick C:

I've wanted to make some items that are small and cheap, like Chinese made and sold sort of cheap. But I can't find a way to sell they way they do. There could be lots of competition, but not until the volume gets high enough. I would love to contract out the whole thing, but my understanding is I would never see much money from it because of the way they work.

look at things like arduinos, arduino shields, MCU boards,
usb logic analysers, etc. I don't see how anyone makes any money on those. The minutes it gets any traction you can buy a clone on ebay with free shipping
for half your BOM

 

[Rick C]

On Monday, January 27, 2020 at 6:13:50 PM UTC-5, Clifford Heath wrote:

On 28/1/20 9:56 am, Rick C wrote:
On Monday, January 27, 2020 at 5:41:44 PM UTC-5, Clifford Heath wrote:
The Labjack looks like
a packaged version of the plentiful AD8706 modules, with some software..
Why wouldn't you just make those too, so you aren't dependent?

Competing can be very difficult. I tried to compete in the DSP board level product area, but who was going to buy from a startup when there were a number of stable companies selling good product, with all the backing of a good company (support, documentation, enhancements and a customer base).


A market only has room for 2 or 3 companies at the top. People will only
review that many before making a buying decision, so if you're not
dominant in your segment, you don't get seen - you need a smaller segment..

Or cater to a niche. Find a variation that has a need and fill it. As long as it isn't a large enough share of the market for the other guys to bother with they won't use the resources to follow you.

Often it's the other way around, you can undercut them! If they were going to sell cheaper than you, why would you want to go head to head with them?


George isn't proposing going head-to-head. He's proposing building
something they don't have - systems with a variety of useful front-ends.

The Labjack looks like
a packaged version of the plentiful AD8706 modules, with some software..
Why wouldn't you just make those too, so you aren't dependent?

Maybe I don't understand, but it sounds like he is saying it's a bad idea to make an addon, but to make a duplicate device is a good idea.

Think of PCs. Lots of people made them in the early days. Only a few are still making them. There are many, many add on makers of cards for desktops and USB devices of all manner for other devices.

It's best to identify a product that is too small a market for the bigger company to exploit but a small company can do well. Then they have no profit motive to try to compete with you.

Yes, correct - find a niche you can dominate. But if you widen that
niche too much, you'll have trouble maintaining dominance.

I think we're mostly in agreement on these things.

I've wanted to make some items that are small and cheap, like Chinese made and sold sort of cheap. But I can't find a way to sell they way they do. There could be lots of competition, but not until the volume gets high enough. I would love to contract out the whole thing, but my understanding is I would never see much money from it because of the way they work.

--

Rick C.

++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Rick C]

On Monday, January 27, 2020 at 7:42:30 PM UTC-5, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:

tirsdag den 28. januar 2020 kl. 00.53.22 UTC+1 skrev Rick C:
I've wanted to make some items that are small and cheap, like Chinese made and sold sort of cheap. But I can't find a way to sell they way they do. There could be lots of competition, but not until the volume gets high enough. I would love to contract out the whole thing, but my understanding is I would never see much money from it because of the way they work.


look at things like arduinos, arduino shields, MCU boards,
usb logic analysers, etc. I don't see how anyone makes any money on those.. The minutes it gets any traction you can buy a clone on ebay with free shipping
for half your BOM

That's why I said "like Chinese". I mean tap into their process. Have them build it and sell it on eBay and Aliexpress and I get my $0.10 commission or however much. But I've yet to figure out how to do that without being cut out.

Actually, it might be practical to do this if the product has some aspect that requires connecting to the Internet to access a server. That would allow control and monitoring as long as the code is secure enough to not be hacked. That can be done in an FPGA...

I need to file that away for the deluxe version of a product I've wanted to build.

--

Rick C.

--- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
--- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christense]

tirsdag den 28. januar 2020 kl. 01.59.38 UTC+1 skrev Rick C:

On Monday, January 27, 2020 at 7:42:30 PM UTC-5, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 28. januar 2020 kl. 00.53.22 UTC+1 skrev Rick C:
I've wanted to make some items that are small and cheap, like Chinese made and sold sort of cheap. But I can't find a way to sell they way they do. There could be lots of competition, but not until the volume gets high enough. I would love to contract out the whole thing, but my understanding is I would never see much money from it because of the way they work.


look at things like arduinos, arduino shields, MCU boards,
usb logic analysers, etc. I don't see how anyone makes any money on those. The minutes it gets any traction you can buy a clone on ebay with free shipping
for half your BOM

That's why I said "like Chinese". I mean tap into their process. Have them build it and sell it on eBay and Aliexpress and I get my $0.10 commission or however much. But I've yet to figure out how to do that without being cut out.

and even if you don't get cut out from your manufacturer, if there is a market someone else will clone it cut few corners and sell cheaper and you are done

Actually, it might be practical to do this if the product has some aspect that requires connecting to the Internet to access a server. That would allow control and monitoring as long as the code is secure enough to not be hacked. That can be done in an FPGA...

I need to file that away for the deluxe version of a product I've wanted to build.

unless someone finds a flaw in your security scheme, or the hassle with being connected or problems with the server scares away your costumers

it isn't easy

 

[Rick C]

On Monday, January 27, 2020 at 8:37:51 PM UTC-5, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:

tirsdag den 28. januar 2020 kl. 01.59.38 UTC+1 skrev Rick C:
On Monday, January 27, 2020 at 7:42:30 PM UTC-5, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 28. januar 2020 kl. 00.53.22 UTC+1 skrev Rick C:
I've wanted to make some items that are small and cheap, like Chinese made and sold sort of cheap. But I can't find a way to sell they way they do. There could be lots of competition, but not until the volume gets high enough. I would love to contract out the whole thing, but my understanding is I would never see much money from it because of the way they work.


look at things like arduinos, arduino shields, MCU boards,
usb logic analysers, etc. I don't see how anyone makes any money on those. The minutes it gets any traction you can buy a clone on ebay with free shipping
for half your BOM

That's why I said "like Chinese". I mean tap into their process. Have them build it and sell it on eBay and Aliexpress and I get my $0.10 commission or however much. But I've yet to figure out how to do that without being cut out.


and even if you don't get cut out from your manufacturer, if there is a market someone else will clone it cut few corners and sell cheaper and you are done

Only if they know there is a market.

Actually, it might be practical to do this if the product has some aspect that requires connecting to the Internet to access a server. That would allow control and monitoring as long as the code is secure enough to not be hacked. That can be done in an FPGA...

I need to file that away for the deluxe version of a product I've wanted to build.


unless someone finds a flaw in your security scheme, or the hassle with being connected or problems with the server scares away your costumers

it isn't easy

Sure, anyone doing a job has to do it well. That's life. Can you do your job poorly and get away with it? Life isn't easy.

--

Rick C.

--+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
--+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209