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Is this a good product idea?

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wingnut87

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Hi everyone, I'm new to the forum and was hoping I could get some electronics / business advice.

I'm a mechanical engineer who tinkers in electronics all the time for work and for hobbies. Many of my circuits end up in cars, so I'm usually pretty careful about wiring and enclosing the board. In order to save time and improve quality and appearance, I took my two most common enclosures and designed protoboards that fit perfectly and screwed down to the plastic bosses. I now use these for 90% of my electronics prototypes.

So, a few months ago I thought, "Hmm...this might actually be a good idea for a product!" I ordered some more stock, built a website, and started a google adwords campaign. After spending almost $1000 bucks, I got a total of zero orders. Looking back, I realized I never really asked anyone else if they thought this was a good idea. Can anyone please tell me if they think this idea is: great, dumb, no value, tiny value, I'd never buy that, I wish I could buy that etc...? Please be honest, I greatly appreciate the time and help.

I hope nobody sees this as an attempt at free advertising. For that reason, I'm not including a link to the site, only a picture of a kit. If this business idea does end up working out, I'd be happy to work out a bunch of group buys or sell to this forum at cost for the help.

Thanks in advance!

Tom
 

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The problem I see is there are a million other places to get the same thing, and it's usually at the same place you get other electronic components too.
 
Hello there,


Well, it looks interesting enough but the board does not look like something i would be able to use. The kind of boards i use have at least one DIP pattern on them. This is usually important for modern hobby level projects and even most professional stuff these days, except the latter may include some SM patterns also.

My suggestion would be to include a board with DIP pattern layouts and/or possibly some SM part layouts too, or at least a selection of boards one of which has DIP and the other SM and the other as you already have it. SM might be hard to do though because there are so many variants.
 
Hey, I like the case, but the breadboard is just a Vectorboard with two cutouts and a couple of holes. In your case, where your using it for multiple projects it makes a lot of sense.

Now the BIGGEST problem: I should be able to find it and I can't even without a name. What do I search for?

Are the search terms in the proper spot on the webpage? Do you have meta name keywords and description defined on your webpage?
 
I guess I always had trouble finding enclosures that fit well after the circuit was built. Since I am working on show cars a lot, circuits need to be protected, but also as small and concealable as possible. I had much better luck starting with the enclosure, cutting out a protoboard, and then soldering the circuit (I already had a good idea everything would fit). Perhaps this is an uncommon problem though.

Thanks for the example photos. Can anyone please tell me how they leave their projects when they are finished? For example, do you put it into the next largest enclosure? Do you have no need for an enclosure? Something else? Altoids tins?

Thanks!
 
Well, please don't take this as a cheap shot at free advertising. I really am just looking for advice. I'm a few days away from taking the whole thing down.

**broken link removed**
 
When putting a kit together I'll make an effort to find an enclosure from a major manufacturer such as Hammond or PacTec and design the board to fit with minimal fuss.
 
Hi Wingnut87, I like what you're doing and I do think you can have success with some changes. Mr Al has an excellent suggestion. You're board just doesn't accomodate modern electronics. Also, you need to have a look into even more modern footprints, like LQFP and such. It's getting harder to work with the types of packages available, and whatever you can to do to make it easier is a desired product.

The other problem is selling to hobbists. There just ain't as many of us around as there used to be :(
 
Hi again,

Yes i agree BrownOut. Also, i checked out the site and is it me or do those prices seem just a *little* bit steep for the hobbiest market?
 
I like these.

I especially like the "Large ProtoBoard and Enclosure Kit" as it is bigger than ones I'd (to now) been able to find in the UK. The one I had tried, which was too small, was 3.2" by 2.0" so this would be good for me at 4.4" by 3.3". Maybe even the 6" by 4" would suit me better.

However, I'd echo the comment made re. the cost. For the (admittedly too small) project box I refer to above, I paid £1.93 on eBay. I realise I make absolutely no comments about quality here - that could differ wildly. But the small project box I bought worked fine (just not big enough for what I originally wanted to do) so $70.00 for the Tall version offered seems a bit steep for me as a hobbyist. But, then again, maybe they're not targeted at hobbyists like me?
 
> You're board just doesn't accomodate modern electronics.

On my last design, there are more than 100 parts, and 5 of them are thru-hole (capacitors), all the rest is SMD...

Can't find a decent SMD prototyping board (with ground plane) so maybe there would be a market for those !
 
Just before I closed my business I spent $10,000 and a lot of hrs invested which I will never get in return. I made an effort to keep it going after I lost my location due to circumstances beyond my control.

$1000 is cheap start-up cost in my opinion. After that, I tried to start an advertising company. It was a co-op. my idea was to have a Calendar with ads at the top providing coupons. I printed 600,000 and sold the ads myself 3 months later they were delivered. I made $3,000 dollars net profit. The idea caught on and someone with way more money printed a glossy version of what I had done and offered it as additional advertising. It happened to be one of the people I had sold a prime ad too.

Business is hard hitting and you have to be ready for anything. I learned that sometimes loss can be good if you learn from it, so don't always listen to your head or heart. Listen to those around you.

I meet once a week with a group of Engineers and Scientist, Para Military. We brain storm ideas. We collaborate with disclosure documents and don't care who is the riches among us. Some are money Men while others offer good ideas. We want to enrich peoples lives and find ways for them to survive under unreasonable conditions come what may.

That's what makes this country strong. Being fearless and bold. Learn Grow and Adapt, we don't dig our money from the ground we invent it.

kv

Edit: Consider this and build for the Electronics Designer each one is form factored to their personal project.

Build it for them not you
 
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Hey everyone, thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it.

Killivolt, thanks for the advice. I'm not sad about the $1000. I had basically set it aside and considered it a point where I would stop myself and reflect. I would love to find a group like yours.

Looking back, I think the problem is that the needs of this niche vary too much. I also realize that I'm in a weird place, where I'm doing hobbyist electronics within a company. So time is money here, but a hobbyist is more willing to spend time than money. Also, I knew pricing would be a problem, but those prices are based on me earning $0 after paying for adwords. I figured I could get going and optimize search engines and get a better conversion rate on paid clicks.

I'm new to this forum, but have gotten a ton of great help and advice. Thanks so much. I think I'll be spending much more time here. I do have some other ideas that are more complex and involve more risk. This was just a hunch. I'd love your advice on my other projects as well!
 
I like to dabble in car electronic too, and my suggestion would be:

possibly create a board that had some circuit already on it. eg the power supply. In car electrics you have protect against overvoltage, undervoltage, load dump ect. so a protoboard with an enclosure and nice clean power lines would mean that projects can get knocked up in no time :)
 
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