New electronics retail/design company - thoughts please?

[Dave Rowntree]

Hi all,

So I recently got laid off by my company of many years (I was an IC designer) and since I'm not getting any younger, have always wanted to run my own business, and am heavily involved with So make it (Southampton Makerspace) I thought "Sod it, I'm going to setup an electronics design and retail company"

So I did :)

I'm currently starting up a business selling a mixture of products (that I design) to support electronics prototyping, as well as just general electronics supplies and modules in the spirit of Adafruit and Sparkfun (amongst many others)  I don't want to be as big as these guys, make vast sums of money, nor employ vast numbers of people, I just want to work from home, and earn and honest living being my own boss.

I wonder If I may poke some of your brains, and ask what you think are the main problems with the way we hackers build electronic things?

1. What products do you never find exist, but wish did?

2. Which things to do you find are poor quality (when cheap) or too expensive (from Adafruit for example) ?

3. Would a prototyping system based around a breadboard with snap on modules be of interest?  

4. What would you like to see done better with regards prototyping systems?

5. What do you do when you want to transfer from breadboard to something more permanent?  

6. What if you're using modules with hard to solder parts (e.g. fine pitch QFN, BGA etc) ?

7. Anyone getting fed up with ordering items of eBay from 'UK' sellers, only to find they are actually shipping from China? (I'm still waiting on an Amazon order along these lines...)

8. Do people buy mainly from eBay?  Do people use Amazon to source electronics?  Or do people stick with known and trusted brands like Adaruit, Sparkfun, Pololu?

What are your thoughts?

Many thanks!

Dave.

[Samwise Wilson]

Good luck!

Companies you described are great at getting people into electronics. They are however pricey and almost all non-UK. That being said I have often wished for a larger-stocked version of http://oomlout.co.uk/.

I think the main issue is that of margins vs learning - after people know what they are doing they can source from cheaper sources. 

[tho...@tgohome.com]

On Friday, 20 November 2015 11:23:12 UTC, Dave Rowntree wrote:

It's great to hear someone trying to start a business. This is something I too plan to do when I finish university.

I would say the biggest hole in the market is the lack of affordable test equipment with just average specifications. For example many people would be quite happy with an assembled signal generator that had specifications better than the £20 eBay kits, but cost a lot less than a £1,500 Agilent unit.

It would be nice if someone could make soldering QFNs and BGAs easy, but I don't see how that could be done.

I usually give eBay sellers negative feedback if they lie about their location. It doesn't happen often.

I usually buy from eBay but have started to prefer Amazon due to the generally higher standard of widgets you can get. For parts I pretty much always go to Farnell, I'm 10 minutes away from the trade counter while at my university address so it's pretty easy!