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We live in an era of centralized manufacturing. The prototyping and manufacturing ecosystem is dominated by massive companies that invest a ton of capital in warehouses full of machines that can fulfill demand. When I was at Ford’s Silicon Valley Innovation Lab working to speed up development cycles, I realized there are real problems with this system. […]
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Back in the 1990’s, virtual reality (VR) was a big thing. The next big thing, the media sang enthralled. Trouble was, the technology infrastructure wasn’t built out to allow any sort of appreciable user base to develop, and so VR stayed on the fringes, its tentative flames kept alive by a small contingent of diehard […]
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Entrepreneurs are known for falling so hard for their own products that they can’t see past all the fancy features. Not to knock all those labors of love, but when it comes to building products that work (and brands that last), a little cool-headed distance goes a long way. Certain industries lend themselves better to […]
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When you set out to prototype a new hardware product design, it might seem like there are an overwhelming number of features to test and develop. You want your product to be the best it can be, but the path to get there from a great idea isn’t always clear. While prototyping hardware is a difficult and […]
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Steve Jobs once said, “You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.” Apple makes beautifully functional—and functionally beautiful—products that people are passionate about and cannot seem to live without. The company would famously keep all of […]
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Most hardware-focused startups have only one chance to build a product that users will value, enjoy using, and adopt into their lives. If a user has difficulty using a new device or isn’t able to seamlessly integrate it into her life, chances are it will end up in the home ‘electronics graveyard’, banished to the closet or basement to […]
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It’s one thing to design a product that improves the way something works, makes things fun, or helps you explore new ways of doing things. It’s quite another to change routine, daily behavior, like typing or using a keyboard. That’s the challenge Gest is taking on. Gest is, in the company’s own words, a digital […]
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We talk a lot about iteration here at Fictiv because it’s the foundation for lean hardware development and lean hardware development is the key to bringing successful hardware products to market. Iteration refers to the cyclic process of refining a design until you’ve achieved the established product requirements, outlined in your PRD (product requirements document). […]
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Every startup knows about accelerators, but not every startup knows how to read between the lines of an accelerator experience to transform those golden nuggets of expertise, resources, and connections that these organizations offer into a viable new brand. In this week’s Spotlight we share the story of Peeple, the smart caller ID for your front […]
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We’ve all heard of the digital divide. But in Silicon Valley, there’s another kind of gap—the chasm between software and hardware. Hardware developers have watched for years as their software dev friends pulled down free pieces of code from GitHub, spun off app after app from their dorm rooms and garages, and wooed millions of […]
