Overview
For fun and exposure, Andrew and Ruben made a prototype of a bluetooth-enabled bike bell designed to help find one’s bike. It was so well received, they decided to turn it into a product. In this talk, they share their experience doing so. They’re aiming to launch the bell’s Kickstarter just prior to this talk, so the endeavour will be fresh on their minds!
At FROLIC Studio, the focus has mostly been on getting ideas to feel ‘real’, where the process is to take projects up to the point before manufacturing, but then let clients take care of the actual production. This last jump to go from a working prototype to an actual product in people’s hands is a huge one. It takes a lot resources, time, basic knowledge of a many topics and capital for manufacturing. All this can really overload a design studio, especially a small one like FROLIC Andrew and Ruben will share the invaluable lessons they’ve learned up to this point.
Objective
To share – and learn from – the experience of what it can be like to get a hardware product into the market.
Target Audience
Design studios and practitioners who want to bring an idea to market.
Assumed Audience Knowledge
Knowledge of design and prototyping but new to production.
Five things audience members will learn
- The experience of getting ready for a Kickstarter campaign and how this works in practice.
- All about the manufacturing process (finding suppliers, getting samples made, etc.)
- The cost/profit breakdown of where the money goes.
- Marketing - how to get people to want the product.
- Distribution – getting the product to the backers and then into shops.
