Hardly Working: Phase to Phase
‘Hardly Working’ is a journal of lessons learnt from my currently ongoing experiment of building a frugal/lean oriented hardware tech company in India. Written in no particular order.
April, 2016. We were moving at a comfortably quicker pace. I say comfortably because it gave us a certain level of comfort to know that there was some amount of work set in motion — anything is better than inactivity. We were on track to receive our first batch of freshly pressed PCBs. We had initiated contact with multiple vendors for the electronic components we’d need. Our packaging design process was underway, as was our micro-renovation project in our office (The Batcave) — just to make the room a little bit nicer to work in.
Phase 1: Design and Decisions
One of the most important elements of Electron Blocks is the connector system. The connector wire is responsible for, as anyone can guess, connecting the respective connector sockets on blocks to form working circuits. The final selection and design of the connector system was a result of almost three months of deliberation and experimenting. We’d started with the Berg type connector system way back in July, 2015 and had our first set of handmade prototypes fitted with USB connectors in October, 2015. About five iterations later, I took a call on the plug-like connector system that presently adorns (and, more importantly, connects!) our wee blocks.
As I’d mentioned earlier, the connector system had two parts — the male connector sockets which would go on the PCBs and the female connector plug-ends which had to be crimped onto wires (as shown in the picture below). The crimping format was quite simple — the plugs were 3 pin and the wires had to connect the two plugs in a straight line. No twisting, no winding, no complication. Pin 1 of Plug 1 to Pin 1 of Plug 2, and so on.
Phase 2: Helen Hunt. Minus Helen.
Under fortuitous circumstances, our two month long search for a connector vendor/manufacturer had borne fruit by the second week of April, 2016. Manish had his eye on this vendor right from the start, but I’d dismissed his idea under the assumption that this vendor would have proven expensive — owing to the affluent look of his office. We spent a good amount of time mucking about dingy shops and sub-staircase establishments, haggling with suspicious looking characters, until we thought that we’d reached the end of the tunnel. A not-so-affable proprietress of a fairly small, yet professional looking setup seemed to be our lifesaver after umpteen negotiations — albeit with rates that we had to grudgingly accept as market standard, given our requirements. This arrangement was, however, short lived.
Manish, as the man is prone to doing ever so often, dragged me along for a random visit to the vendor that I’d rejected earlier on the grounds of their facade of affluence (without having even entered into discussion). I entered the vendor’s office, resigned to pessimistic expectations, and asked the store-hand for samples of similar connectors. Again, Manish, as the man is also prone to doing ever so often, quickly cut to the chase and asked him about the prices. The store-hand quoted around one-fourth the amount that the cold proprietress had thrown at us. At retail volumes, no less! Wiping away the massive, hypothetical egg that was on my face, I verified his rates once more. A couple of days’ worth negotiations (with the proprietor) later, we settled the order value at just under 20% of the value of our estimate for connectors from the previous vendor. You read it right, 20% of (not off) the total value of the previous quote.
Phase 3: Phasing Problems
With the connector project seemingly on track, I jumped back onto the packaging project. Manish took over the reins and negotiated a very good deal for our specific requirements of connectors. I could say that I knew a little bit more about electronics and hardware than he did, but in the grand scheme of things, the truth was that we were both neck-deep in alien waters. To us, the connector conundrum was simple and straightforward — a conundrum with regard to the issue was literally non-existent in our minds. How could you go wrong, connecting one pin of a plug to the exact same pin on the other plug? We even picked up a catchy phrase to describe it (not sure when, or where from) — we called it Pin-to-Pin connections. Perfectly sensible stuff, innit? Turns out, it wasn’t. Having duly communicated the general idea of the connectors to the proprietor (and even having sketched it out before him, just to be safe), Manish triumphantly returned to the office with the vendor’s bank account details. We wired the advance amount and waited. Actually, it was less of waiting and more of consigning it as another task ticked off the list — as we drowned in our little deluge of pending projects.
A couple of weeks later, we were informed that the first batch of connectors were ready for collection. Frugality at the forefront of our minds, and with the horrible traffic in Bangalore aiding the decision, we decided to take the bus to go to the vendor’s office. While we were there, we thought we’d hit up one of our electronic components vendors en-route as well. How big could 8000 small connector wires be, collectively? Quite big, as we soon found out — the adage about many little drops of water forming an ocean sprung to mind. Four hours into our frugal gallivanting, we found ourselves grimy and sweaty, standing in the middle of a sea of blue-collared populace, like a couple of gainfully employed porters at the railway station! It was as if Fate had decided to compensate, all at once, for us not wanting to pony up gym fees over the last few months. Manish stood with a carton of small motors in one hand while I had a backpack filled with small motors and a bag with assorted components and accessories in one hand. Each of our other hands was occupied by our connectors. A large, sackful of small bunches of the deceptively heavy, little red monsters. I wish I was exaggerating, but the dreaded sack alone, with sockets and connector wires with plugs, easily would have weighed over 30 kilos. Even with the two of us sharing the burden, it was a pain. The rain that night made it seem even more heavier — oh yes, I’d forgotten to mention that, hadn’t I? It rained. To further compound our misery, I think the public transportation department had picked that night as a good time to tilt the economic see-saw a little bit and ration the supply end. The bus ride back is a blur but I remember aching joints and a sore back from that night. We dumped the merch in the office — too tired to do anything else.
Imagine our utter disbelief when we figured out, the next day, that the vendor had bungled the connectors! I’ll let the following image do the explanation.
All 8000 of them were unusable.We were past fury now, disappointment loomed larger than anything else. Two heated exchanges over the phone and a day later, we lugged the sack back to his factory — this time in Manish’s car, for most of the way. The proprietor had gone out, we were talking to a manager of some sort. We insisted that we had specifically asked for Pin-to-Pin connected wires, and surprisingly, he wholeheartedly agreed with us on that point and claimed to have delivered exactly that. Upon sketching the design once more to clarify things, it hit him. A classic case of miscommunication, he said. What we wanted, in connector-manufacturer parlance, was described not as Pin-to-Pin but as Phase-to-Phase. Again, I’ll rely on the services of a sketch to elucidate what had transpired.
Dumbfounded, we just looked at each other with dejected phases.. sorry, I meant faces. We later found out that our good proprietor had understood exactly what we wanted, but instead of correcting our mistake, had conveniently relayed our request verbatim to his manager. Suffice to say that we goaded the proprietor into correcting the flaw, at extra cost of course, because the only option left was to fix things and move forward.
Clarity is so hard to come by, especially when there is so much clutter in life. Sometimes, even seemingly obvious things to one are interpreted in ways unimaginable by another who is unaware of all the facts or the context. Life does seem like a game of Chinese Whispers in that way. How do you get better at communicating clearly? Perhaps, a culture of transparency and specificity, with other actors both within and outside the firm, improve the situation.
However, to really be in phase with other actors, nothing beats the good old face to face meeting. Take the best from it. You can leverage platforms like WhatsApp (even blue-collar workers use it), Google Docs or Slack. Or whatever else grinds your gears. But write as if you were having a face to face conversation. Even better, use images and sketches. And keep information consistent across all stakeholders, creating as little hierarchy and opacity as possible. Also, never create a cool soundbyte to replace an existing longer description in simpler language. Especially if you’re a noob. You could pick up some industry-specific jargon as you go, but who likes a buzzword enthusiast anyway? Say it the way it is, and make sure you say it loud and clear.
That’s about it, I guess. *Mic drop*
mohit nambiar is an artist + entrepreneur + hacker
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