5 Tips for Startups to Work Smoothly with Electronics Manufacturers

TechDesign
Jul 27, 2017 · 4 min read

While a hardware startup is planning to realize their innovation, they might be overwhelmed by dozens of questions about the project implementation. How do I start a IoT project? Is there anything I should consider while finding the supplier? How to deal with the confidential issues as I contact with electronics manufacturers? How long does it take to produce the first prototype? We would like to share the 5 tips to help hardware startups to work with the electronics manufacturers smoothly and painlessly.

Before launching a new product, the hardware startup needs to find a reliable electronics manufacturer.

Tip 1: Contact Qualified Electronics Manufacturers in an Efficient Way
After having the ideas, the first challenge hardware startups face is to find resources to produce products. Some companies choose to outsource and find a contract manufacturer (CM) to help complete the production process. However, it takes lots of time and efforts to contact potential vendors one by one.

There’s a one-stop platform solution for the hardware startups to submit their request and find the qualified electronics manufacturers within a few steps. Instead of flying across the world to meet the suppliers individually, the hardware startup can effectively get the quotes from multiple suppliers and contact them at once. Then the startup can find the best solution to meet their requirements.

FIND verified electronics manufacturers!

Contact Qualified Electronics Manufacturers in an Efficient Way

Tip 2: Make the Best of Online Communication
Another challenge shows up. As the hardware startup decides to outsource their project in Asia, especially in non-English speaking countries, Language barriers may cause communication gaps and problems impacting on the manufacturing process and product quality. Thus, a smooth communication with electronics manufacturers undoubtedly definitely benefits startups’ mass production.

Online chat tools, such as Skype, Whatsapp, Messenger, etc, help the communication between electronics manufacturers and hardware startups. Using communication apps saves the time on waiting for email reply, and webcam help the startup and supplier to demonstrate the product more effectively.

Additionally, it’s also important to find the suppliers who have good English communication skills and have experience in helping small and medium-sized enterprises to manufacture products. The online platform provides dozens of certified electronics manufacturers.

FIND verified electronics manufacturers!

Tip 3: Never Under-estimate Manufacturing Time and Cost
For startups who have few experiences in developing hardware products, it’s quite difficult to estimate the time and cost on manufacturing. There are numerous factors affecting the manufacturing process. For example, after submitting your request to suppliers, it’s time-consuming to review the quotations and contact the suppliers one after another. Besides, the quantity of products the startups need might be much lower than established enterprises. As a result, the manufacturer would schedule the production line for the larger quantity order first.

To help ensure the products to be delivered on time, the systematic platform allows the startups to track the project milestone with electronics manufacturers in an effective way. Also, escrow protection service provided by the platform ensure that you pay only for the work you’ve received and approved. Thus, it’s more efficient for startups to manage the time for manufacturing.

In addition, NRE (non-recurring engineering), which is the one-time cost to design, develop, test the new product, should be considered while developing a new product. Unlike the production cost, startups do not have to pay the fee constantly, but that might affect the unit price of your product. However, in some cases, NRE is negotiable since some electronics manufacturers are willing to refund the NRE fee while you have mass production.

FIND verified electronics manufacturers!

Startups need to track the project milestone with electronics manufacturers systematically.

Tip 4: Find Available Resources
There are lots of available solutions for startups to utilize in their hardware projects. For example, when you’re building a drone and need a handheld controller to control the drone, you could apply the existing apps on smartphone directly.

Additionally, some electronics manufacturers provide reference designs for developers to use or customize to their own projects. For example, reference boards could help startups save efforts on developing basic functions, and the startup could concentrate on developing other unique functions.

FIND verified electronics manufacturers!

Tip 5: Intellectual Properties and Secure issue
Intellectual properties and money protection are both the issues hardware startups extremely concern. All the companies would like to retain the intellectual properties for sure, but the product design, concept, spec will be inevitably delivered to electronics manufacturers too. So don’t forget to sign NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) with the supplier to ensure your product idea will be protected from start to finish. Meanwhile, if you can have the payment protected by a third party and release the fund until you confirm the production, it will definitely reduce risks.

FIND verified electronics manufacturers!

Qualified Electronics Manufacturers Assist Your Hardware Implementation
To get products manufactured successfully, there must be tons of stuffs the hardware startups need to deal with. Firstly, you need to find qualified electronics manufacturers, and build a good communication way with the supplier, keep tracking the project, use the existing solutions, and protect your intellectual properties for sure. However, all the tasks can be accomplished effectively once you find a suitable electronics manufacturer and optimize all the resources. So, ready to start your own hardware project?

You may also like: 10 Point Checklist for Hardware Startups to Evaluate Electronics Manufacturers

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