Looking for advice on: Planning/production strategy for physical product
Currently we are working on Aquawake, an alarm clock inspired by cold shower. It serves an ice cold glass of drink (we recommend water) when the alarm goes off in the morning. You drink it up to hydrate your body and due to the ice cold temperature it kickstarts your body and mind. Getting you ready for a productive day.
The first major milestone was reached recently: a working prototype. This alpha product is built with an off-the-shelf portable dumb cooler. The cooler is controlled by a ESP8266 dev board. Custom firmware is loaded onto this board so that the user can configure the device over wifi.
Most projects here on IH are software oriented as far as I can tell. At least most of the archives are. As we are moving closer towards production we are wondering on what strategy to take.
Here's our current strategy:
- Private beta: re-produce and distribute ~10 units off-the-shelf components and gather feedback
- Public beta: re-produce and distribute ~50 units units with off-the-shell components and gather feedback (with improvements over private beta).
- Public release: Mass production of the device.
For mass production, ideally we would like to send the specifications + designs to a manufacturer and have them produce and pre-package the device. So in this case the following must be done on the production line:
- import ESP8266 modules
- produce a small breadboard with socket for the ESP8266 to be installed in it together with some small electrical components like sensors, switches etc.
It's also doable to have the components built by several manufacturers (Device enclosure, pre-fabbed breadboard with the basic sensors and small electrical components) and we assemble the actual units in our office in Europe.
We would like to avoid reaching out to investors if possible so we try to keep the expenses low. We are willing to throw 10k EURO at it to kick start mass production.
What are your thoughts or experiences?
