Crowdsourcing has become a go-to for independent and open-source hardware creators hoping to turn a cool prototype into a polished product. But many projects fail along the way, often for nontechnical reasons.
Helen Leigh Helen Leigh is Crowd Supply’s director of business development and its former head of community. She helms the annual Teardown hardware conference.
Helen Leigh is the director of business development at Crowd Supply. A division of Mouser Electronics, Crowd Supply is a crowdfunding site for small hardware manufacturers making novel products. Leigh spoke with IEEE Spectrum about what makes a crowdsourcing project successful, and how Crowd Supply is trying to help.
What are some of the biggest mistakes applicants make?
Helen Leigh: Here’s a big one: setting your price too low. Engineers tend to focus just on the product and the cost of the bill of materials, right? But logistics is expensive. Putting your product on a shelf, taking it off, putting it in a box, putting a label on it, all of that.
Another one is when people say they’ve made something for X market, but they’ve never spoken to a single person in their target market. We advise people to throw themselves to the wolves of Reddit and social media.
How does Crowd Supply help applicants?
Leigh: We help with all the nonengineering parts of bringing a product to market, including financial spreadsheets, fulfillment guidance, and product photography. If a campaign is successful, we typically place a house order for at least as many as were sold in their campaign, paid in advance. But what’s become very important in the last few months is navigating compliance. Incoterms are really important now.
What are Incoterms?
Leigh: Say you were manufacturing some watches in China and shipping them to our warehouse in Texas. What happens if the boat goes down? Who bears that risk?
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