#063 - Your (hardware) product is not your product - think in terms of business models, with your host Balint Horvath, Switzerland

The Hardware Entrepreneur

This episode features me and I’ll talk about topics that are especially relevant for technical founders.

Your product is not the product. Many of us in high tech entrepreneurship have a technical background, with years of academic training where we’ve been educated about how to build products, with all the technical skills needed for that. We know how to calculate many things, such as mechanical properties, we know how to create CAD drawings, and how to actually translate theory into practise by actually building stuff. But is entrepreneurship really about these technicalities, specifically hardware entrepreneurship?

In this episode I address 3 questions:

(i) if it’s not your product that matters, what matters than more?

(ii) once you have the basics of your business, should you rush to build and publicly release a fully-fledged product which perfectly reflects your vision?

(iii) what are some of the frameworks for some of the well-known hardware startups that make their business tick?

In this episode you can learn about how to find good ideas, why and how not to fall into the product trap, how Audi won the Le Mans competition without having the fastest car, how Tesla rolls out its products and many more.

Enjoy this episode!

Raw transcript is available at: https://www.thehardwareentrepreneur.com

Show highlights can be seen below:

• How to hang a picture on the wall [2:00]
• Why constraints are actually helpful [5:18]
• Elements of a story about how an organization creates, delivers and captures value [8:00]
• How smart it is to tackle the biggest risk first [10:51]
• Typical business models for hardware startups [13:46]