Two years to ship… I'm going back to software!
by Mark JefferyMy first 9" wood-carved globe was delivered to a backer in California this week, two years after I launched my crowdfunding campaign!
I always knew the promise of a physical product that I hadn't yet created was going to be hard to fulfill, but in the end it took twice as long as I'd imagined, two years instead of one.
Physical products are hard… I'm going back to software!
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the globes look good though :) good work. Are they manually done? Could it work if you 3D-printed them? or sold the 3D plans? I don't know much about the space, these might be stupid questions.
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Thanks Fernando! These are good questions. They’re not manual, but not 3D printed; rather, they’re robotically carved using a CNC router. That has the advantage over 3D printing that they’re made of solid wood, which makes them much more beautiful, I think, than anything made from 3D printed materials. There’s much manual work to be done to assemble and finish the globes after the pieces come out of the CNC router, so it might be hard to sell the plans. Good thinking, though!
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As someone currently building a robotics company I feel you on this one. Everything is 100x harder and its not worth it if you don't absolutely believe your product will have a huge impart on the world and you love the day to day work. You seem to have gotten fairly lucky with just static wood. Try hardware that is "alive" that comes with problems in every area from hardware all the way up the stack to software ;), where screw ups turn your creation into a lump of hardware on the ground. Congrats on delivering to the backers though, so many of those never come to fruition.
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I went through Kickstarter with my previous company. We used the Onion Omega to control our PCBs and it was still mega hard (had to have other custom internals and shell etc though).
Also, the margins in software are a lot better. So, yeah like you said, you need a lot of conviction for the project. -
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Yes, absolutely: I get to use someone else's production-ready robot to make my globes. You have my sympathy building your own robots: hardware is really, really hard. You're right, it's the impact - creating something of value in the world - that makes it all worthwhile. Thanks for the support, and good luck with your robotics!
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Good luck sir!
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Thanks Chris!
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Hi Mark,
Thanks for sharing your story. It would be great to hear more about the tribulations you went through. I bet you have some good lessons for all of us.
All the best,
John-
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Thanks John! I'll keep you updated!
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