1 Year Back in Hardware
It’s been 1 year now since I returned to the world of hardware. If you haven’t read my previous post about the Appalachian Trail and my return to hardware, you should check it out here. Hitting the first year anniversaries of both my final trail summit as well as starting my own consulting business has made has made me reflective to look back on what I’ve worked on, how the hardware startup space has continued evolving, and how I have embraced the consulting lifestyle to remain engaged in the hardware and hiking communities.
I’ve worked on quite a few hardware projects, through 13 different companies (or groups of some sort), with ~5 primary clients being the bulk of my focus through 1–2 major projects at a time, while maintaining the trends of automotive, energy, and generally “sustainability achieved through hardware” that I set out to support. I’ve also made room for a fun project around pinball and time to focus on the hardware development process itself. I had the chance to collaborate on content around design for manufacturing and quality focused on impact engineering in emerging markets with E4C (Engineering For Change). I’ve been to conferences from CES (consumer electronics) to SOCAP (social capital), traveled to Morocco to help sustainable technology startups there, and been to the other typical hardware events in between.
I’ve also been a co-organizer of the SF Hardware Startup meetup, San Francisco’s oldest hardware meetup which has been an interesting experience to shepherd for the last year. It’s been great to pay it forward to the community, although event planning is much more challenging than I may have expected as an outsider. I’ve organized 4 meetups this year, and it’s actually one of the things I’m most excited about going forward to try and take these events to the next level and keep the hardware community thriving.
I went through the M&A (mergers and acquisitions) process for the first time early this year with one of my startups I had advised since Highway1 and consulted with up to and throughout their acquisition. Buoy was acquired into Resideo (spin-off of Honeywell) in order to scale up their home water monitoring product. It was fascinating to see the actual process of due diligence on technical data and then stick around to help through some of the initial integration. Taking a BOM from Google Sheets to SAP will definitely challenge your notions of hardware and complexity! This also made me reflect on the evolution of hardware startup models, as it was great timing in 2019 for an exit of a mature IOT startup 5 years in development, but I would never encourage a startup to start down the path of a new home IOT startup now. It was exciting to see a startup I love garner enough traction, talent, and data to exit on the other side of things into a company that can help them scale.
I’ve embraced the cyclical nature of consulting. After the surge of activity around M&A in the spring, it was nice to take the summer slower and keep hitting the trails. I’ve backpacked in Missouri, Michigan, and California this year and even did get to pay it forward by providing trail magic (surprise food, beverages, sun shade, and seating) for some PCT hikers.
I also spent a bit of time trying to “experience hardware” more given I always tell startups that hardware is about the user experience. So, I put myself in the shoes of the user in a few ways: trying out a Peloton bike at the mall, hacking on a 1960’s electronics kit, and wiring a radio into my car, which proved to be the most challenging of all.
These were enjoyable experiences to get out of my comfort zone and see how hardware is experienced by users that I may not necessarily be, as well as diving into the electronics side of hardware a bit more since I’ve always been more traditionally on the ME and PD side of hardware.
In some ways, it’s the same world hardware has been since I was a mechanical engineer cranking CAD over a decade ago, and largely the same as it’s been since modern CAD design tools and electronics surface-mount manufacturing both went mainstream in the 90s. In other more acute ways, the hardware bubble of the 2010s is over, which has changed everything. I don’t see any hardware startups creating consumer products as their first priority, meaning that they are all focused on B2B (business-to-business) applications of their technologies and finding ways to monetize through subscriptions rather than traditional cost multipliers. This has been a trend in hardware for a few years now, and while there have been negative connotations to this growth approach (e.g. scooters trashing sidewalks), I do believe the ramifications have been overall positive since it has meant hardware founders at the seed stage are more focused on technology development and developing a robust ecosystem that delivers real lifetime value to their customer. It has also yielded more complex solution spaces — robotics, automation, and genearlly more holistically considered product experiences.
Overall, looking back at both hardware and hiking in the past year, I am most grateful for community. I’ve re-engaged with the hardware community that is still thriving and found new ways to engage the hiking community!!