▲ ▼ Selling hardware products as a solopreneur
I want to sell hardware products internationally, But as a solopreneur meeting compliance for hardware locally and internationally is a nightmare and hence I settle for building SaaS products like most other indie hackers.
There are hardware product marketplaces like Tindie which help solopreneurs get their customers, But the seller has to still maintain the inventory and ship directly to the buyer. Today hosting a eCommerce website as an individual is not the limiting factor even for those who don't know to code, So the real need gap exists in removing the compliance and shipping hurdles.
With tough competition in SaaS industry, Building hardware products is a great way to differentiate our product line-up. With the rising number of solopreneurs I think it's high time this need gap gets addressed.
I have couple of ideas to address this which I'll share in the comments and would like to hear more from you.
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I think a marketplace connecting hardware gig workers and hardware solopreneurs is a great way to solve this problem.Here's the overview,
- The solopreneur supplies the design, build, QC requirements, buyers list to the marketplace.
- The marketplace finds the suitable gig worker for each country in the buyer list, Calculates the BOM plus build cost including the gig worker and marketplace fee. The marketplace sources the materials locally to the gig worker and acts as an escrow for their fee.
- Gig worker builds and ship the product locally using the logistics services of the marketplace. The market place releases gig worker fee.
reply I WILL PAY FOR THAT