piet morgan, hammerhead // building a successful hardware company
TRANSCRIPT
14HAMMERHEAD Hardwired NYC Talk 24 March 2015 HAMMERHEAD.IO [email protected]
6 Key lessons from this process
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1. Understand why Hardware is different
• Governed by physical realities
• Design -> Manufacture -> Ship
• Highly sequential
• Decisions are set in steel
• Static once produced
• Requires more specialized team
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2. Default to Action
• A state of not feeling ready yet fearing being late
• If General McChrystal feels unprepared, you will too
• When in doubt, take action
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3. Concentrate your Innovation
• Reach the first piece of a huge market
• Do a few things really well and then grow
• Facebook started as a website for Harvard kids
• Leverage software to update hardware
• Tesla does this magnificently
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4. Anticipate
• To overcome the advantage of the incumbent, your solution must
be much better
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Design
Manufacture
Fulfill
12 - 24 months
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Design
Manufacture
Fulfill
12 - 24 months
Market evolves
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4. Anticipate
• You must aim 12 to 24 months down the road
• Your solution must still be much better than the alternatives will be
by then
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5. Harness your insight
• We all are expert at something
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Athlete & Entrepreneur
HAMMERHEAD Hardwired NYC Talk 24 March 2015 HAMMERHEAD.IO [email protected]
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5. Harness your insight
• Fighting time and obsolescence
• To anticipate as much as necessary, you need insight
• Give yourself every advantage and leverage what you already know
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6. Be like Gore-Tex
• Selectively permeable
• Resolute as well as receptive to advice
• You are often measured todays realities not future realities
• Advice can be both sound and irrelevant
• Ask for help
• Someone somewhere has faced the question you face
• Surround yourself with a great team
29HAMMERHEAD Hardwired NYC Talk 24 March 2015 HAMMERHEAD.IO [email protected]