Validate your problems, startup ideas to create products which people want

Finding makers for our product #hardware #freelancer

Fri, 05 Nov 2021 06:07:00 +0000

Developing IoT or other hardware products at scale as a small startup or as a solopreneur is hard as building hardware involves various nuances such as design, development, supply-chain, logistics, manufacturing, quality control etc.

The freelancer ecosystem for software is robust enough that a minimum viable software product could be built using Gig workers, But assessing a gig worker for a hardware product is not as easy because unlike a software not two hardware product is exactly same and the freelancer marketplaces lack specific features to address issues with employing the gig worker for hardware development.

I think there's a need-gap for a marketplace which enables end-to-end hardware product development using gig workers.

3 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Online marketplace for hardware-tools in India #eCommerce #hardware

Mon, 16 Aug 2021 13:44:00 +0000

There aren't any large scale McMaster-Carr type online supplier for hardware, tools or raw materials in India. With eBay gone, there seems to be an absolute vacuum in this space.

Large businesses can bulk-order hardware tools and materials directly from the source but makers, tinkerers and small businesses are dependent upon importing through overseas eCommerce sites which are often plagued with shipping issues and exaggerated costs.

eCommerce businesses selling electronics components and compute hardware catering to makers and tinkers in India seem to be doing very well, In fact Raspberry Pi foundation sells its product in India on day one through several suppliers like in developed markets and so there's no reason for why an online hardware marketplace catering to the same people shouldn't work out.

Now that Chinese eCommerce websites are also banned in India, It seems like a perfect opportunity to address the need-gap in online hardware marketplace

3 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Democratisation of AI/ML/DL hardware #ArtificialIntelligence #hardware

Mon, 18 Nov 2019 03:48:00 +0000

Organisations like OpenAI are doing a commendable job in democratising Artificial Intelligence software stack i.e. opensource AI tools accessible to anyone and not just the big firms. But democratisation of hardware required for Machine Learning or Deep Learning is nowhere in sight.

GPU is already a big bottleneck for an individual/startup from a poor economic region. Considering, even entry level Software Engineering jobs now expect the candidates to know ML; it is imposing a huge disadvantage over a large sector of students from poor countries. AI accelerator hardware like TPU, Graphcore AI available to only big cloud companies would further worsen this.

This issue has largely to do with how semiconductor industry by itself is structured. With only handful of fabrication plants capable of mass producing semiconductors of this nature and they being integral part of 'soft power' in Geo-politics; it's hard for a startup to enter this space and when they do, they have no option to tie-up with these cloud companies.

Not only 'AI powered end product' will increase the inequality; but the ML education/research already has.

3 points posted by Abishek Muthian