Zoltan Hoppar wrote:
> @Werner: If the community has dissolved, and Sharism take an another
> direction - what could be the next step?
Well, given that you're basically starting with a clean slate,
the first step would be to think about your objectives. What
do you want ? Another Nanonote ? Something different ?
The next step would be to find a project that already does
something close enough to what you're looking for, or gather
likeminded people.
What follows would depend on the structure and the resources of
the project. There are many things you need to pull something
like this off, some of which may be readily available in the
project, others not.
A typical "shopping list" would include:
- electrical:
- design experience,
- lab equipment for prototype development,
- sourcing (usually including direct vendor contacts),
- production (and testing) experience.
- software:
- kernel-level development experience (the amount of work
there can be relatively small if the chip is already well
supported),
- user space base software maintenance ("distribution"),
- tools for use during R&D,
- development of any product-specific applications.
- mechanical:
- design experience,
- prototype development tools,
- further steps towards production to be defined by
someone who knows that field (I know mechanical only
until the prototype stage).
Packaging and such also goes here.
- marketing:
- product characteristcs,
- product presentation (definition and execution),
- customer acquisition,
- setup of sales channel(s),
- planning of production volume and financing,
- financing:
- prototype hardware (components, assembly),
- production test hardware,
- initial production run (could be kickstartered),
- certifications where required,
- compensation for salaried project positions (if any),
- cost of any other commercially outsourced tasks (if any),
- advertizement (if any).
- logistics:
- purchases for prototype/production runs,
- order outsourced tasks,
- distribution of prototypes and similar items,
- stocking, sales processing, shipping, returns.
- other:
- project coordination,
- IT infrastructure for R&D, customers,
- keeping the community entertained,
- customer support, documentation,
- taxes and bureaucracy,
- reporting to backers.
Sorry for drifting between skills and tasks. I tend to think
more in terms of the latter, but the former are better for
identifying roles.
Not all projects need to pay much attention to all of this, but
it's important to make sure the things you don't pay attention
to don't surprise you later.
Also, this doesn't necessarily take an army of people to do.
One person can fill several roles and some things you can
simply outsource/delegate without loss of control over your
project.
- Werner
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