product, vision, hardwareI’ve considered starting a new company which builds and sells a hardware (e.g. Nest), but I don’t know how to find a hardware engineer to build the product. If it’s just a question like “Hey, I have a good business idea and want to get people who write code, how can I find those engineers?”, it’s easy enough because there’re many, many people out there who are freelance software engineers and they also show up at a local tech conference or hackathon, and most of those apps can be developed by a couple of or only one person in a small company. However I think there are very few or no such people as “freelance hardware engineers” and I also think most hardware engineers work for a company (usually a really big company), and I cannot get in touch with them easily.
So what do people who are going to incorporate a hardware startup do to find a hardware engineer? Most app developers might be able to write code in all of iOS, Android, Web, and server as long as you give him some time in a small company, but is that also true of hardware engineers? In other words, how is it possible for people who build a Nest product to also build a tablet, headphone, or an air-conditioner?
Also, how many people are required to build hardware? Is it possible to hire only one, talented engineer and let him do everything? I think that the job of hardware engineers is prescribe how to build it, and the actual people who builds it are employees of companies like Foxconn, right?
Lastly, I’ve even considered enrolling at an university again to learn about it myself. There are some departments that seem relevant, such as mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and materials science and engineering, but which one is the best to enroll in? Are the resources learned in universities enough to leg up building the hardware?
Forgive me if some (or all) of questions above are ridiculous, but I have no knowledge in hardware…
I want to establish something here, because I think there is a fundamental flaw in your thinking.
You say you want to hire a hardware engineer to build some hardware-related product.
I'm led to believe you must know at least something about hardware in general, or at least enough that you have interest and enough specific understanding to see some market need (although I don't see any direct evidence of the latter in your post).
a. More directly - you're clearly establishing you also lack some fundamental knowledge to get the product built:
"but I have no knowledge in hardware"
These being said, I want to pose the question: Are you really in the position to start this company by yourself?
From my understanding, you need to find your own personal value (and be very affirmative with it) before finding a co-founder with a hardware background. It's probably been brought up on startups before, but codeventures is a great resource for finding a technical co-founder.
In other words: You speak as if you need to hire an employee, but what I believe you may need is a founder of high expertise who is capable of hiring employees, if it is necessary. Otherwise, you will have no way to measure the success and progress of your employees, since you lack the knowledge you're looking for.
I just want to make sure you know what you're getting into before developing a hardware product. Some major questions to consider, since I don't know your present state of knowledge: - Is the product realistic (economically and physically)? - If you don't have the knowledge to confirm both of these, do you at least have a valuable reason to believe someone does?
You need to answer both of these realistically to move forward with your idea.
Furthermore, as for your schooling, you will be better off focusing on either education or work - never try to do both successfully, because in the end, both will probably suffer if you don't manage your time extremely well.
Beware: Here, There Be Dragons.
Software is not hardware; pretty obvious, though get the feeling that you're attempting to compare the two, when they're really very different.
For starters, roughly speaking a hardware venture will cost 10-100x more than a software venture would. Cashflow to me is the largest barrier to over come, not finding the staff for the venture; which with a bit of Googling you should figure out.
My suggestion would be at this point to teach yourself and get a feel for how much there really is to learn:
And to study some companies that have manages to raise fair amount of capital to back their ventures:
Good luck, watchout for the monsters!
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