[avidanr]

As the founder of one of the hardware focused firms listed (ROOT/VENTURES -- http://root.vc) I couldn't be happier that the crew at bolt.io wrote this article. I'm also a huge fan of HN, so if anyone has specific questions to ask about the VC approach to hardware, lets hear em.

[6stringmerc]

Hi there, I've been active in my own thread asking a couple questions relating to a consumer device that I wish to pursue. It's one of several things I've worked on, so I'd like to use this opportunity to toss out a question of sorts:

For one project, an influence has been the Bloomberg Terminal. The concept relates to aggregating large amounts of publicly accessible data, using a proprietary system of sorting and arranging, and then present the customer with a batch (folder?) of useful information relating to their business pursuits. It's kind of like a business intelligence / lead generation platform, but that's simplistic and misses the value of the concept.

Now, how this relates to hardware! As a musician I'm very familiar with the iLok USB-key concept used for certain software suites (some of which have gone cloud-based). This also gets back to the Bloomberg Terminal. Would pursuing a "Subscription Service Requiring Desktop Box/Key" type design be an initial Negative or Positive?

I do feel like this isn't exactly a hardware question, but with the amount of data and investment that would be involved to build the system in mind, having a physical, subscription component seems practical. I suppose that's about the extent I can describe at this point without getting explicit about how it works, what it works with, and who the target audience is/will be. My apology if it came out as a bunch of jibberish. Please feel free to ask for clarification or point out examples similar or drastically different. Thank you for your time!

[avidanr]

Ok. I think I understand. I'm gonna step right out there and show my bias. I absolutely HATE the iLok. I bought myself a laser cutter for my wedding (she got a ring, i got a 90watt), and it came with an iLok for the horrible software that the chinese company built. It just takes up a USB port i could otherwise use.

That being said, its a great tool for very big, old software companies that have to protect from pirating.

I think that you have an entirely different play at hand. Because you are building a platform, you dont care if people pirate. What you just want to be sure of is that people aren't sharing logins. Soooo....just make the logins tie to personal info. Back in the day, when I used to send sensitive PDFs, I would just make the password on the PDF the recipients last 4 of their SSN. I could basically guarantee they wouldnt send the PDF around. The equivalent in your situation is to use Oauth with something like LinkedIn or Google. For the users to share your account, they would need to create an fake LinkedIn or Google account...and if you system is all about lead generation, that becomes crippling.

Overall, i dont care about iLok vs another form of protection. For me, the most important thing you are thinking about is can you create an amazing amount of value for your customer. Can you get them hooked, and improve their (business) life. If you can, then you can put a dollar amount on that improvement. I used Bloomberg terminals many moons ago, and it was not the best software in the world, but the data was immensely valuable. So we paid.

Good luck!

[6stringmerc]

Great response and thanks for your time and input. You're not stepping on my toes noting a dislike of the iLok - it actually finished off my interest in ProTools and sent me deep into Ableton Live years ago. I think you definitely grasp what I'm going for in concept, and parlayed that into useful guidance.

As you mentioned about Bloomberg, it's the data that's primarily of value, and from what I've experienced, the communications platform limited access via other terminals are two driving factors for why they're used.

Your point about value to the customer is good for me to keep in mind. The whole idea I have is an intersection of publicly available financial information, marketing, government business, and with a scope of service that would span over several months to possibly more than a year. It could be enhanced by arragements for data sharing with certain established industry players (ex: Thomson Reuters). I'm reluctant to call it an SaaS platform, but maybe I should just frame it as such for practical reasons.

On a different note, how interested would you be in a concept for a recreational personal flight device?

It's what I'm going to submit for the Intel Curie contest, but that's like a TV show thing and could go sideways on me. I'm pretty proud of my R&D thus far on the concept and would probably like the challenge of putting together a pitch for it (that I could also use in my contest entry). Just curious!

[avidanr]

ill give you a great quote on building planes (or human carrier drones).

"When failure is not an option, success becomes very expensive" -chris lewicki

[CrackpotGonzo]

Ben wrote about Kickstarter traction != product-market fit. What're your thoughts on this? What would you want to see from a startup that has a somewhat successful crowdfund campaign before you would invest?

[avidanr]

I agree that its not a forgone conclusion that kickstarter traction == product market fit....but if your KS campaign is well executed, it could be. Essentially, i see KS as much more of a community builder and low cost testing grounds for market development. A really great KS campaign can tell a great story of audience discovery through advertising purchases. For example, when we launch Spark (now Particle), we thought it would be hardware hobbyists. After looking through the list of backers, we found out that it was actually professional engineers, looking for a good wifi solution for prototyping. Had we focused on shipping before talking with our audience, we would have put our energy into the wrong place. With Prynt for example, we found a specific demographic (young female) was the best click thru we had...this changed our collateral and retail conversations.

Then there is the question of what qualifies as a "successful campaign"? If you sell your product at a loss (I can point to some examples) and sell over a million, i dont know if i consider that a success. Whereas, Particle has done multiple 600k plus campaigns. For a consumer product that might be OK, but for a developer kit, that represents a massive amount of LTV.

All in all, i would say that I dont invest entirely based on a kickstarter campaign (and most often commit before the campaign happens) but the more data the better, and the more action the team has done, the better to learn their behaviors.