wilcoxbr

We approach prototyping as a process. http://www.themacro.com/articles/2016/01/minimum-viable-prod...

Early prototypes use whatever we have laying around to get the most fundamental feature of the idea vetted.

Right before production, you will build a prototype that we call a First Article. This is a Golden Sample, and every production unit should be just like the First Article.

Prototypes in between those two are built to answer specific questions and we spend no extra resources on sourcing special components that do not directly impact accurate answering of the question.

For things like displays, wireless modules, etc. we work with the manufacturer's Field Application Engineers. They can get you insight on what will be available for production, documentation for the components, etc. They can also probably get you samples for your development work.

McMaster-Carr, DigiKey, Mouser, AdaFruit, SparkFun, etc. are your friends for making those early prototypes.

Crowdfunding is essentially pre-ordering on a social platform. If your market is there and interested, crowdfunding can be a viable market validation step for any business model.

The honest answer is that it depends. There is not a clear cut answer for this because it highly depends on the market, business model, value proposition, etc.

Development and production of hardware is fundamentally different than software. Thinking and making are separated much further in time and resources, and copy-paste simply doesn't work the same way.

The statement of open sourcing hardware and focusing solely on the software implies someone out there is magically going to make high-quality hardware for your software to run on. That's a thorny assumption.

Most IoT is more than just PCB's. There are also enclosures, actuators, and physical UI/UX. Relying on someone else to provide that much of the user-experience is a brittle proposition for a business.

Yes. I've had about 10 years working in hardware. Some of those years were at other startup companies.

Experience helps, but as in most endeavors, is not required. You gain experience by doing.

The most important thing you can do is get started and figure it out as you go.

You have complete control over your oven through the app. You can control each and every cooking element individually. We do have some logic in there to make sure you don't accidentally pull too much power. Other than that, it's all yours.

We want you to cook your own meals with it. It's great for that.

The delivery service is for folks who do not want to spend time shopping, preparing, cooking, and cleaning. The smarts basically enable us to put a chef in your kitchen, without actually putting a chef in your kitchen.

Solder reflow recipes are a good idea! Although, in good conscience, I would not suggest using the oven for food after that.

Meals are delivered, fresh and uncooked, a la ingredient delivery services. In our case, they're already prepared and just need scanned and put in the oven. Modified atmosphere packaging helps with shelf life and stability.

(disclosure: I'm the CTO of Tovala)

How do you make sure the sensors are in the same spot every time? I assume that's important.