Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Produce and Sell Products
Hardware comes with a natural business model, regardless of whether those products are
opensource orclosed source: yousell physical objects. Itmight beeasy toargueabout who
the owner of an MP3 file is, but buying and selling a physical chair is a very straightfor-
ward process. This is the classic business proposition: I have this thing for sale for $19.95.
You may be able to raise the sheep to create the wool yourself, or hammer the fork into the
correct shape, or solder the resistors together, but is it really worth your time? Can you pro-
duce the thing with the same quality or with the tools you currently own? It doesn't matter
if your product is open or closed: people are willing to spend money so they can save time
and focus on larger projects. If you design an open source product that people need, they
will pay real money for it. People are always searching for reliable, warrantied and high-
quality products and are willing to pay for them.
“The secret to open source is innovation. If your company cannot innovate
quickly, it will lose to the competition. This is the essence of a capitalistic market-
place. Behind every open source company, you will find people innovating quickly
and freely. Open source entrepreneurs make money quite simply because they are
innovating faster. Surprising to many people outside the open source community,
these companies are making more money than their closed source competitors.”
(SparkFun Electronics)
Make your open source product easy to purchase, keep it in stock, and describe it
clearly. Focus on business basics, and customers will choose to shop with you simply be-
cause you run a good business; open source will be the surprise filling in your pastry that
they didn't know they would enjoy.
How much should you sell a product for? In his keynote speeches and his topic
ics. According to Anderson, he learned this concept from others: set the price for your
product by taking its production costs and multiplying them by 2.6, and you will be able
to sustain your business by selling the product. This markup also incorporates a margin
for all people in the distribution chain; they are part of the community as well.
Don't give up if your business is not the cheapest source in the marketplace. Many
factors cross a customer's mind when deciding which company to purchase from. Price is
important, but so are quality, availability, sustainability, support, and ease of use (just to
name a few!).
