1 year ago (Jan 2025) I quit my job as a software engineer to launch my first hardware product, Brighter, the world’s brightest lamp. In March, after $400k in sales through our crowdfunding campaign, I had to figure out how to manufacture 500 units for our first batch. I had no prior experience in hardware; I was counting on being able to pick it up quickly with the help of a couple of mechanical/electrical/firmware engineers.
The problems began immediately. I sent our prototype to a testing lab to verify the brightness and various colorimetry metrics. The tagline of Brighter was it’s 50,000 lumens — 25x brighter than a normal lamp. Instead, despite our planning & calculations, it tested at 39,000 lumens causing me to panic (just a little).
So with all hands on deck, in a couple of weeks we increased the power by 20%, redesigned the electronics to handle more LEDs, increased the size of the heatsink to dissipate the extra power, and improved the transmission of light through the diffuser.
This time, we overshot to 60,000 lumens but I’m not complaining.
Confident in our new design I gave the go ahead to our main contract manufacturer in China to start production of mechanical parts. The heatsink had the longest lead time as it required a massive two ton die casting mold machined over the course of weeks. I planned my first trip to China for when the process would finish.
Simultaneously in April, Trump announced “Liberation Day” tariffs, taking the tariff rate for the lamp to 50%, promptly climbing to 100% then 150% with the ensuing trade war. That was the worst period of my life; I would go to bed literally shaking with stress. In my opinion, Not Cool!
I was advised to press forward with manufacturing because 150% is bonkers and will have to go down. So 2 months later in Zhongshan, China, I’m staring at a heatsink that looks completely fucked. Due to a miscommunication with the factory, the injection pins were moved inside the heatsink fins, causing the cylindrical extrusions below. I was just glad at least the factory existed.
I returned in August to test the full assembly with the now correct heatsink. At my electronics factory as soon as we connect all the wiring, we notice the controls are completely unresponsive. By Murphy’s Law (anything that can go wrong will go wrong), I had expected something like this to happen, so I made sure to visit the factory at 10am China Standard time, allowing me to coordinate with my electrical engineer at 9pm ET and my firmware engineer at 7:30am IST. We’re measuring voltages across every part of the lamp and none of it makes sense. I postpone my next supplier visit a couple days so I can get this sorted out. At the end of the day, we finally notice the labels on two PCB pins were swapped.
With a functional fully assembled lamp, we OK mass production of the electronics.
Our first full pieces from the production line come out mid October. I airship them to San Francisco, and hand deliver to our first customers. The rest are scheduled for container loading end of October.
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