111–115 of 115 posts
Honestly though, can you imagine recovering from a video of your product smoldering and smoking, a product that people attach to their arms while sleeping? After having seen that video that's all I'm ever going to think about when someone mentions the product. And can you imagine recommending it now to anyone? How do you think WakeMate has spread? Probably word of mouth, which if that channel hasn't closed forever wi…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was under the impression that they refunded most (all?) pre-order money?
They did. And even before they did, it was just $1 or $5 depending on when you preordered.
It's likely that the chargers that were tested and the chargers that actually ended up shipping are quite different inside. This seems to be a constant battle when going the Chinese route. You have to cut open a few from every shipment and check to see if inferior components have been subbed in since last time.
"...The USB chargers were sourced through a Chinese vendor. We paid to have the proper certification and safety tests performed here in the U.S. for the chargers. However, tonight we were informed by a customer of a safety incident with the black USB chargers..." You think it is appropriate to say this in a recall notice... and this is why you fail. Sony has problems with their products, so does Apple. Neither of the…
I tried to start a hardware startup last year and actually made it to the interview with PG & co. At the end of the meeting, while the idea was good, it came down to the obvious question of assembling and sourcing the hardware. At that stage, after a lot of research and thinking, I decided to cut my losses and shelf the idea for the time being. Why? Because hardware is hard. I may be an engineer, but scaling producti…
The challenges of designing production capable hardware and software, manufacturing, testing, packaging, shipping, supporting, handling failures (hardware or software problem? let the fighting commence!), managing inventory and cash flow are immense. So much so that I never want to ship hardware again.
The problem here is they are probably not making any money in the low volumes they are producing this at. Any cash they do have is probably tied up in inventory, and in a startup it's really hard to predict what sales will be 3 months from now. Guess too high and all your cash is tied up in inventory and now your empty for payroll. Guess too low and you might have a 3 month backlog. (sure, that's a 'good' problem to have, but it's not all good in the hardware world because now you need cash to buy the parts to build the hardware. Banks won't talk to you without years of operating experience under your belt, and you had better hope your investors are willing to help finance inventory growth)
My advice: Find a niche market who will appreciate this device and quadruple your price. Perhaps this more expensive version comes with 3 months of a 'sleep expert' (who is an actual person) who analyzes my sleeping patterns and 'customizes' a wakeup/sleep plan just for me (i.e. allow 3rd party experts to improve the experience and thus add value). Or maybe there is margin built in for 'sleep doctors' to sell to their patients/customers.
Could the microphone detect and track severe snoring? Sleep apnea affects 6% of our population.. that's a big number.
The problem here is people's lives are only being marginally improved, and for $60, too low for any profit after you factor in warranty, support and failures, they are expecting something more. These are not good customers for you.
For everyone bashing Chinese manufacturers, it's really unfair unless you qualify the statement. All of the big EMS companies have a significant presence in China (Celestica, Jabil, Flextronics, Sanmina-SCI) and Foxconn is part of a Taiwanese holding company. They, and many smaller EMS providers, will build exactly to spec and many of them are happy to do ODM/JDM work, too (ref: Quanta & Compal, the two biggest lapto…
They have the UL logo certification logo. They also say they are manufactured by one of the big vendors you name, I think it was Flextronics. The text is nearly illegible and smudged, leading me to think it is fake.