http://marcbarros.com/how-to-fund-a-hardware-startup

You should consider the following to calculate the right amount of capital.

• Product: After shipping an MVP you need to follow up quickly with version 2 to fix all the bugs and poor customer interactions. You’ll want to calculate what it costs in people and production to make your existing product F*#$ing great.
• Customer Love: A key part to reaching market fit is having customers that can’t stop using your product. Understand what it takes to fully engage your existing customers, including offering amazing customer support.
• Cost to Acquire Customers: One of the hardest parts of making a successful hardware business is profitably reaching new customers. You need enough capital to try a variety of tactics with financial systems to measure which are and aren’t working.
• Limited Distribution: Reaching market fit has nothing to do with building successful retail channels. To be great in-store it requires experienced people and a heavy investment in training. On top of that, it will strain your cash with delayed payment terms and lower margins. Save retail for after you reach market fit.
• Working Capital: Your most important cash consideration is your working capital (the time between collecting cash and paying your supplier). Managing your cash flow is critically important as you try to grow from an interesting product to a profitable business.

When you are ready to look for capital you can consider:

• Cash Flows: You don’t have to raise money. If your business is driving great cash flows you can use that cash to fund the business.
• Debt: Banks will give you about 80 cents for every dollar in receivables and 50 cents for every dollar in inventory. The key is that you have to be profitable. If not, it will be hard to get bank debt.
• Factoring Receivables: If you have strong receivables, but are not yet profitable you can factor your AR. It’s insanely expensive, up to 20% interest, but it can work to move cash flow if you get stuck. This is a last resort option.
• Your Supplier: Continuing to work with your supplier to improve your payment terms is critical to minimizing your cash requirements. You can offer to pay more per unit in exchange for better terms.
• Angels: If you are raising a smaller amount, say $1.5M, then you can approach angels, but asking for more will be an uphill climb.
• Venture Capital: Find a partner with experience investing in hardware and a belief that founders can become great CEO’s. You want the right partner so don’t make this choice lightly. Once you raise institutional capital, the requirements change dramatically.

“Research is the process by which we understand problems.

Design is the process for which we solve problems.”

-farrah bostic

elon musk

If other people are putting in 40-hour workweeks, and you’re putting in 100-hour workweeks, then, even if you’re doing the same thing, you will achieve in four months what it takes them a year to achieve.
- elon musk

georgina chapman

"Marchesa is everything to me. I’ve spent years and years building this brand."

"I’ve seen Georgina grow a lot in the nine years I’ve known her,” says Weinstein. “Each success makes her more and more confident about her place in the world. When I first met her, she idolized Alexander McQueen and John Galliano, but I think now she feels, as everybody talks to her in the world of fashion, that she’s coming into her own.”

"What I love about my husband is that he really allows me to be the best person I can. He's never, ever tried to stop me or keep me down. He's just so supportive. He's got this amazing ability where I always feel safe with him, and that allows you to go forth in life and do things that perhaps you wouldn't have had the courage to do before. He is also extremely business-savvy and an incredible sounding-board. Being older, he has a lot more experience than I do. He has this huge wealth of knowledge. He's like an encyclopedia, and he's got such an exciting mind, which I find very attractive."

"I approach designing for both Marchesa and Pearl with the same level of respect and the same intention: to help women look and feel beautiful. I pay close attention to detail to make sure that both collections embody my signature style and design sensibility."

"We borrowed other designers’ machinists at night. We could only start sewing after 
6:00 p.m., and we had to dye everything in the bathrooms in these public areas.” She pauses before flashing a mischievous smile. “We got it together. It was tiring, but it was fun.”

drexler

I think it's all not being full of shit.

The goods speak, the ideas speak.

How many people actually say what they think?
Stop giving me BS!

I could not tolerate people who didn't "get it."

If you're running a big company, you must be short on patience.
The winners respond to honest passion in a business.


I think young people love people who get mad, who are passionate, who are honest,
who don't sit back and don't care that much.

rosen

In walks Andrew, and he had a pair of pants in his hand, and he said, "I am starting this company, and I am calling it Theory, and I am going to sell this pant."

He has the flair not necessarily to create the product but to react to it, and to understand where there is an opportunity.

He will say, "There seems to be a hole in the collection. I feel like we are missing an indoors jacket. I did one of those and it sold really well-- maybe you should find a way to do that."

I like this coat. But I love the fabric.