I had as guest Greg Fisher of Berkeley Sourcing Group (BSG) and Hardware Massive.

Greg is very experienced in the hardware field, since he’s been running BSG for more than a decade, assisting more than 900 hardware startups, operating from the US and from China. There is tons of information on manufacturing in China, but I think information on this topic never seems to be enough. Greg talks about typical timelines for developing consumer products, the different steps one has to take; he gives tips on how to stay lean and agile. He’ll talk also about Hardware Massive platform, how it all started out and the yearly event that connects to it called Hardwarecon, the premier global meeting for startups, taking place actually in April this year. The lineup and topics look pretty amazing so you might want to check out that event soon.

Enjoy this episode as much as I did interviewing Greg!

Raw transcript is available at: https://www.thehardwareentrepreneur.com

Show highlights can be seen below:

• His first successful hardware project and marketing tips obtained during Tour de France - [3:15]
• The essence of BSG and the types of companies Greg works with - [4:55]
• Manufacturing in China vs the U.S. – which direction to take? - [9:12]
• From first production run to shipping – a standard timeline overview - [12:00]
• Do it right the first time - [16:47]
• Best ideas are born in early morning hours - [19:08]
• A premier hardware innovation event that gets it all together - [22:49]
• What makes a business successful, according to Greg - [25:39]
• If you could time travel and go back in time, what notes would you give yourself? – [28:20]
• Which book had the biggest impact on his career? – [28:43]
• What is a frog doing in Greg’s daily routine? – [29:30]
• Some cultural differences that Greg observed throughout his career – [30:45]
• What is the best way to reach Greg? – [34:36]

I sat down with Ashley Faulkes of Mad Lemmings, who’s passionate about the internet, on how products are showcased and how they can be found.

We wanted to address two challenges: how can you bring a visitor to your website and how can you convert them from visitors into a buyer? These are not exactly hardware topics, but for sure these days they’re relevant to everyone doing business.

There is tons of information around about tools, so it’s not an easy job to find the right one(s). We’re all biased to some degree. We’re all selling. As Seth Godin recently wrote, if you say you’re not selling, at least you’re selling possibility. The possibility Ash was selling is that you don’t need need to pay constantly a web-developer to do all the work. You don’t need to pay a lot of money to do only Google AdWords.

Raw transcript is available at: https://www.thehardwareentrepreneur.com

Show highlights can be seen below:

• Quick overview of the most used CMS’ - [3:45]
• CMS’ pros and cons depending on the stage of development - [8:11]
• How did Ashley get into website design? - [11:24]
• Thrive Themes versus other similar tools - [15:29]
• How to be found on Google and where to start from? - [19:54]
• Examples of why you should choose your battles on Google wisely - [27:20]
• If you could time travel and go back in time, what notes would you give yourself? – [39:44]
• Which book had the biggest impact on his career? – [41:03]
• Ashley’s daily non-routine – [42:40]
• Some cultural differences that Ashley has observed throughout his career – [44:30]
• What is the best way to reach Ashley? – [46:58]