To first-time entrepreneurs

When my partners and I started building our first product at Bossa Nova, we craved information about the hardware business. We collected every last piece of knowledge we found by interviewing other entrepreneurs, hiring consultants, and reading reports, but this barely scratched the surface. We wished someone had written the book that explains all the steps required – alas we found none.

With hindsight, much of what we learned over the years at Bossa Nova can be codified for the benefit of others. These writings attempt to capture this knowledge and make it available to first-time entrepreneurs. Hopefully it will give you visibility into what it takes to build a hardware business, and offer guidance and tools to the extent possible.

You should bare in mind that the experience related here was gathered in the toy business (Bossa Nova built and sold about half a million robotic toys), so some processes and practices are characteristic of that industry. Nevertheless, I believe that much of these lessons can be applied to hardware businesses in general.

I will post articles here gradually, writing as time permits. The articles will not cover the business in chronological order, but rather by category.

I will also try to post template documents. At the time, these were hard to come by, so hopefully they will save you time and resources.