[uptown]

The trick is finding somebody that has both shares your vision for your products, and the chops to sell. I don't think you're wrong to go with the percentage-of-sales angle, but you're selling a niche product that doesn't have widespread appeal, so it's important that your salesperson has access to the right potential customers. That may not be the friends you've already asked, so they're right to turn you down.

Some other things to try:

1. List the parts needed to build X and sell them as a kit.

2. A/B test showing and hiding your stock levels

3. Get engaged (if your'e not) in websites and blogs with communities of people that buy this kind of stuff. You're likely to meet someone that may be interested in coming aboard on one of those sites.

4. If you get a decent-sized community of customers, hold a contest to build the best thing using your parts. Winner gets a prize of some sort and their parts-list/instructions featured. You reap the rewards from sales of components to compete. (This one may not be feasible if your user-base is small)

[upgradeind]

Hmm those are good ideas. At the moment, a rather strange side effect of having these boards mass produced is that the completed boards are cheaper than the boards + parts separated. So I'd actually make much less money selling deconstructed kits.

But yeah it's kind of strange, I frequently hear complaining that start ups can often seem to be marketing people looking for a technical founder to deliver their product on a silver platter. For me, it's just the opposite. I've got the product now I just need somebody to help put it on the map.