Piet Morgan, Hammerhead // Building a Successful Hardware Company

Six Things you must do to build a successful hardware company

14HAMMERHEAD Hardwired NYC Talk 24 March 2015 HAMMERHEAD.IO [email protected]

6 Key lessons from this process

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1. Understand why Hardware is different

• Governed by physical realities

• Design -> Manufacture -> Ship

• Highly sequential

• Decisions are set in steel

• Static once produced

• Requires more specialized team

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2. Default to Action

• A state of not feeling ready yet fearing being late

• If General McChrystal feels unprepared, you will too

• When in doubt, take action

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3. Concentrate your Innovation

• Reach the first piece of a huge market

• Do a few things really well and then grow

• Facebook started as a website for Harvard kids

• Leverage software to update hardware

• Tesla does this magnificently

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4. Anticipate

• To overcome the advantage of the incumbent, your solution must

be much better

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Design

Manufacture

Fulfill

12 - 24 months

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Design

Manufacture

Fulfill

12 - 24 months

Market evolves

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4. Anticipate

• You must aim 12 to 24 months down the road

• Your solution must still be much better than the alternatives will be

by then

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5. Harness your insight

• We all are expert at something

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Athlete & Entrepreneur

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5. Harness your insight

• Fighting time and obsolescence

• To anticipate as much as necessary, you need insight

• Give yourself every advantage and leverage what you already know

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6. Be like Gore-Tex

• Selectively permeable

• Resolute as well as receptive to advice

• You are often measured todays realities not future realities

• Advice can be both sound and irrelevant

• Ask for help

• Someone somewhere has faced the question you face

• Surround yourself with a great team

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