When it comes to the consumer-facing industries like e-commerce, media or ride apartment sharing, it is not new to suggest that the software is eating the world. In the past years, the parallel explosion of the digital tools and services has taken place in the manufacturing world as well, drawing in computer assisted designs and 3D printing equipment’s to open the source operating systems, the cloud, and internet things.
Many things have been made of the software powered hardware renaissance as it has discovered the local maker movement and the hardware hobby community, but now the scale and focus of the activity are changing. Just like 15 years ago, start-up manufacturing is beginning to graduate longer time. Resources, new tools, and the intermediaries are allowing the new generation of serious entrepreneurs start with the words of hacker and industry. So, the software enabled manufacturing start-ups are going to have a large economic impact.
An example of this type of trend includes Pebble, a Kickstarter-funded project that has now sold over one million watches. Nebia, a start-up showerhead maker in San Francisco, has recently scored the investment money from Apple CEO and Google Chairman family foundation. There’s also drop, a startup that makes $100 iPad-connected kitchen scale and software app that is now widely available in Apple stores and website, and also the well known Fitbit.
Lots of lifestyle businesses used not to be able to get started in the larger run manufacturing which is a pitfall for any small scale industry. Now access to the tools, capital, and other supports make the manufacturable products like Oru kayak possible.
The rise of the hardware start-ups still has the feel of the insurgency. But, after the conversation with hardware entrepreneurs, it has been noticed that many developments have put the manufacturing start-up activity on a faster and commercial track.
Firstly, Kickstarter and the other funding resources have opened new options for the first finance. Secondly, many of the significant inputs have got cheaper. The operating systems, secure designs, and 3D printing are making the development and prototyping easier. The crashing pieces of microchips, sensors and the other components have now make it possible for the small company to design sophisticated, commercially compatible devices at cheap cost.
Third, the hardware entrepreneurs in some cities can now access the advanced supporting infrastructure that includes an ecosystem of hardware studios, accelerators and service providers that have proven to be the best start-ups in many cities like Austin, Providence, and Miami.
For example, last year, the creator of Android mobile operating system said that the new company Playground Global LLC would serve as the sort of incubator studio where the entrepreneurs and small businesses can focus on building new gadgets. While the play ground takes care of physical world challenges, manufacturing, engineering, financing, management, and distribution.
Some companies are now available to manage the contract manufacturing and make it feel secure to the entrepreneurs or small businesses. The hardware setups that enter the Y Combinator or other accelerators can now take advantage of labs full of equipment for prototyping.
The big and medium-sized manufacturers are taking an interest in the movement and is looking to work with the startups in a way that there were not five years before. The same type of tools and support systems that have fostered the software boomers now becoming available in the world of hardware and are opening their new avenues.
There will be an age where the new products, actual physical products will go from the idea to store shelves in just the matter of months. The age could be very beneficial for U.S given the nation’s advantages in software, creativity, and cloud-based business organization, even if resulting in the new production winds offshore.
The surge can also help different cities. Currently, urban startup communities remain oriented heavily to the ideas of software and consumer internet ventures that leave the urban economies narrow then they might be. The emergence of the new cloud enables, incubator supported manufacturing start-ups can widen the aperture. The new opportunities will be possible if the real world inventors and entrepreneurs gain traction with the virtual ones. Manufacturing enterprise can flourish without needing any significant space. The cities and their innovation districts will benefit if they can channel more of the hardware-oriented tinkering and entrepreneurship that launched the Silicon Valley and other technology corridors.
It seems like both national economy, and U.S metropolitan areas can benefit if the advanced industry sectors become potent meet-ups of the software and hardware competency. Given the U.S digital dominance and hacker dexterity, digital entrepreneurship looks fineto energize the manufacturing industries further and give them a new way of competitiveness.