There are plenty of ways to make your BOM work in your home country, but at least in the US it's surprisingly difficult to get low volumes (<5k units) manufactured economically.
Only because of the nature of your product...
It's all about the product type, its price range, and the availability of reaching the customers.
A US company that made a general consumer-level (non-pro) 1 milligram scale (e.g., accurate on the weight to within 1-3mg) outsourced its manufacturing to China, which then had the same production lines make 2x the order, placed its own brand/sticker on the additional units, got it into the US, and had the various distributors provide it at a price that was 80% less than the company was selling them.
I bought one off Amazon. Why pay $200 when I can pay $20-$40?
If this is legal or not it does not matter - if it can be done it will be done.
In your case, the time is not just right. But the moment when everything aligns and they think they can compete with you...
Anyway, I am glad to hear that you're having good experiences, and I'd love to hear more about it. How can I contact you?
It's also about the strategy of your development--you can take a few very small actions early on that will make it orders of magnitude more difficult to copy your product. But, generally, it's not worth a factory's time to clone your product, especially if it integrates manufacturing processes they don't have access too. I have this benefit because I work mainly with small factories and while they do cooperate with each other, there isn't the infrastructure or margins to allow them to do anything other than focus on building parts as quickly as possible.
My email should be in my profile, drop me a line!
Look on ebay or aliexpress now...
Boy is he pissed about that.
Interestingly though the product that contained this ended up being built in the UK for only about 20% more. Shafted on import costs of components though.
I have seen too many Kickstarter projects crash and burn because they read guides like this, speed dated some factories, and then lost all their money in a bad production run, by a factory who doesn't really care about them.
Unless you work with a factory who you not only trust, but know that they have an extremely strong motivation to not steal your product, they will both screw up your product, and your design will be cloned in a matter of weeks.
Even friends I have who are Chinese, living in Hong Kong, have warned me that even for them, it is hard to find trustworthy suppliers and factories in Shenzhen.
We are going to be doing all our manufacturing and assembly here in Europe. Luckily we're making a more expensive item and we have this choice.
" But if you’re undertaking a serious endeavor and you’re looking to make mission-critical parts, you have to visit to really know the situation at your suppliers, to establish relationships with factory owners and staff, and to get a sense of their quality control standards. " NO NO NO NO NO. Unless you are going to MOVE THERE AND LIVE THERE, then you need to absolutely forget about manufacturing there. You WILL lose.
I don't want to sound down on Shenzhen - it is where almost all our beloved electronics come from - but seriously - it is an environmental catastrophe, there is ZERO intellectual property protection, it is full of scam artists, there is a nearly insurmountable language barrier, and yes, there are in fact plenty of completely competent, worthwhile, trustwothy electronics manufacturing assembly companies in nearly every country of the world. Unless you are going truly mass-market (>200,000 pcs) then you should absolutely not even consider taking it to Shenzhen.