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Making a Physical Product

b.jonw.com

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Re: Making a Physical Product

#81

Post by krschultz »

soggypenny wrote: post #43
willtheperson wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad runs a small plastic injection molding company. He's got a single bread and butter product they make, but he's always looking for new ideas. Is there a way for people to easily connect with manufacturers in the USA? My dads shop is really small and hungry vs some shop you could find in a google search with lots of machines (and expensive)

A solution to this problem is EXACTLY what my co-founder and I are working on right now. We're working to be Match.com for custom-made parts, and highly specialized shops like your dad's are the ideal use case for our product. Would you be willing to talk directly or put me in touch with your dad? We'd love to help out any way we can.

Have a landing page or someplace to signup for more info later?

Re: Making a Physical Product

#82

Post by muratmutlu »

Torrents wrote: post #68
muratmutlu wrote: post #37

Loved this post, great that he wrote a rails app and nice to get the costs at the end too. I tried to make a wi-fi kettle with a wifi module in that had a API, the prototype alone was a huge expense (£25k+) and to get it into production was around £200k (CE certified etc). In the end I just wrote up the blog post (here http://www.mobileinc.co.uk/2010/03/introducing-the-twettle-p... ) Props to anyone who makes somethi…

So did you make it onto kickstarter? You just spent the £25k out of pocket for the prototype?

No we didn't make it as at the time they wouldn't let UK residents apply to Kickstarter.

We didn't spend money on the prototype in the end, we just couldn't get the backing, it would probably be a lot easier these days tho (it was 3/4 years ago)

Re: Making a Physical Product

#83

Post by krschultz »

learc83 wrote: post #19
FigBug wrote: post #6

I liked this article and would like to see more like it. With the maker movement, Kickstarter, 3D printing, etc there now seems to be a lot more interest in making physical products. But the isn't a lot of public information about the costs and processes involved, compared to say the number of tutorials on how to build web app or a mobile app. I noticed that the actual cost of the 'product' is less than 40% of the to…

Do you mind if I ask what was the quantity for your injection molded part, and what company you ended up going with. Last time I tried to price injection molding it was way too much.

The best I've found so far for low (<10,000) unit injection mold runs is Protomold.

Re: Making a Physical Product

#84

Post by bigiain »

yajoe wrote: post #47

Really cool to see the numbers and congrats on making the product! One nit to emphasize the value in basic accounting knowledge for others when going down the manufacturing route: it's $11.37 _gross_ margin (aka gross profit, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_margin ), not _net_ profit ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_Margin ). While this may sound silly and academic, net confers a sense of finality -- it i…

Good analysis.

One comment though - if the intention is to get the game onto the shelf in retail stores, there's not enough margin in it at the current cost/pricing.

A store is going to require most (or all) of that margin - in most "dice game" type stores, if you want to put a product on the shelf at $20, you're going to need to sell it to the store for somewhere around $14 or they're not going to be interested.

Seems to me that at least an investigation into whether getting a run of 3,000 or 30,000 sets made up (and outsourcing the 80 or 800hrs of packaging work) would be a worthwhile exercise rather than being premature optimisation.

Re: Making a Physical Product

#85

Post by pbhjpbhj »

MrThousand wrote: post #51
gcheong wrote: post #20

Why make an iPhone app to keep track of planets owned when you could just make a simple paper based scorecard? Or am I missing something about the complexity of the game? An app might be useful but you want the game to be playable by the largest number of peopl possible and there could be some opportunity for recurring revenue from selling the scorecards.

I think the idea of an iOS app sounds great. Why waste paper when you can simply click "new game" on your phone?

I think there's scope for including the scoring as part of the packaging, no "waste paper". My first inclination is a two part sleeve - but I'm assuming then it's a two player game, more players requires some ingenuity - the sleeves start at zero score and cover the lower numbers, moving towards the highest possible score at the centre as the sleeves meet and cover the whole container.

Perhaps a graduated stick, like a long cocktail stick/drink stirrer, for each player, you pull the stick across a line (eg from under the box) to indicate the score. Another way would be to have a stack of counters, like tiddlywinks, you could upsell different counter sets then (half marbles, cut stones, metal, different designs). Counters might work for tie-ins - planets of the Starfleet federation, planets named for houses of GoT or such. Or yes d10's as a sibling comment mentions.

Doesn't mean you couldn't have an app too, but then why not simulate the dice, etc., if you're going to need an app to play the game?

Re: Making a Physical Product

#86

Post by amit_m »

Interesting post. The author could save another 0.83$ per package by skipping the included instruction manual.

I think it's safe to assume that very close to 100% of users will have an internet connection available when playing this game, unless they're on a vacation abroad. I would opt for: 1. Full manual + videos on spacedice.com, aimed for use before the first time one plays the game. 2. Abridged version of manual printed on the tube, mainly meant for recalling some specifics of the game.

Re: Making a Physical Product

#87

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

j0ncc wrote: post #17
munificent wrote: post #15

"In space, noone can hear you roll! The fate of the galaxy is in your hands, as you race your friends to create (or destroy) planets. Who will be the first to 10? Only the dice know." Ouch, two errors: "noone" -> "no one" "hands, as" -> "hands as"

Fixed this. Thank you!

In your instructions PDF (linked from the article), at the top of page 2 (under "How To Play"), it reads:

"The first to player is whoever..."

I think that should say "first to play".

Re: Making a Physical Product

#89

Post by curt »

curt wrote: post #33
FigBug wrote: post #6

I liked this article and would like to see more like it. With the maker movement, Kickstarter, 3D printing, etc there now seems to be a lot more interest in making physical products. But the isn't a lot of public information about the costs and processes involved, compared to say the number of tutorials on how to build web app or a mobile app. I noticed that the actual cost of the 'product' is less than 40% of the to…

Wrote a few articles a couple years ago for HN on physical products here's one of them: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1840896 elaborated a bit more here: http://curtgeen.com/post/7575880635/expanded-part1-design I've been out of it for a few years but if you have any questions I should be able to point you in the right direction.

they do a great job at explaining injection molding:

http://www.protomold.com/Resources.aspx

Re: Making a Physical Product

#90

Post by atlbeer »

amit_m wrote: post #86

Interesting post. The author could save another 0.83$ per package by skipping the included instruction manual. I think it's safe to assume that very close to 100% of users will have an internet connection available when playing this game, unless they're on a vacation abroad. I would opt for: 1. Full manual + videos on spacedice.com, aimed for use before the first time one plays the game. 2. Abridged version of manual…

It's hard to gesticulate wildly and throw digital instructions at your opponent while disagreeing on the rules.
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