A 20 minute interview with Limor Fried, Founder of Adafruit. Part of TechCrunch's Disrupt conference.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9b_K2kmCTDI Mostly introductory material - going through Adafruit's educational products for kids - and then covering the manufacturing issues covered in the article below. An associated article: Limor Fried Explains Why Adafruit Industries Likes Manufacturing In North America http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/01/limor-fried-explains-why-adafruit-industries-likes-manufacturing-in-north-america/ There's a long-held notion that China should be the go-to place for those in need of inexpensive manufactured products, but some prominent makers don't buy it. Our own John Biggs sat down with Adafruit Industries founder Limor Fried (perhaps better known as Lady Ada) for a chat on the Disrupt NY stage that quickly turned to deal with the benefits of manufacturing hardware close to home. When Adafruit needs to make some injection-molded cases, they don't run to China -- they turn to an experience Canadian supplier. The same goes for the multitudes of printed circuit boards that Adafruit needs, except they reach out to a company in Colorado instead. One would imagine that the end results aren't quite as cheap as if Adafruit has just linked up with Chinese vendors, but Fried says the price difference isn't as substantial as it used to be. ... Makerbot founder and CEO Bre Pettis said that makers who produce relatively small 50,000 to 100,000 unit product runs were better off keeping the manufacturing process in the United States because of the benefits of proximity. ... It's a refreshing take on the process of hardware production and sales, and it seems to be doing rather well -- Adafruit Industries saw $4.5 million in sales in 2011, and Fried was named Entrepreneur Magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year at the end of 2012. -Tom _______________________________________________ Hardwarehacking mailing list [email protected] http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/hardwarehacking
