| Hi. I'm formerly of both startups and Artwork Automation tech. Your idea sounds great & good luck with finding a co-founder. @YC W10 I have a few comments 1. CutBots :: Installed base of cutting machines Can you offer a service to post the results to your customers who don't have a cutter? Frequent or On Demand customers may still want a discreet device but experimenters may be prepared to wait for the post. -- 2. Established Competition Shapeways.com and others. Their big trade is vanity bracelets. -- 3. Suggested Reading Crossing the Chasm - Moore. Specifically this book details the difficulty of going from the Hackers who search for your "Hack CriCut" to the Early Majority who do scrap-books. The Early Majority will need specialist tactics and Moore's Whole Product solution. -- 4. Business to Business My Artwork Automation tech was B2B rather than your B2C focus. I would say that you should consider refocussing away from customer facing to White Label provision. Consider that anyone can now have Nike shoes made with your own name on them[1], and lots of people have heard of Nike versus whoever did their implementation for them. Try to imagine selling your tech to say a Crafts Magazine where the magazine can promote their cutter tool and you provide the technology & delivery and take a cut of any transactions. ----------- [1] http://missgeeky.com/2008/04/03/nike-id-design-your-own-shoe... |