Last month Hardi spoke at the Boston Hardware Workshop. He gave sage advice from his perspective as a successful startup founder. The event sounded interesting and extremely useful to hardware entrepreneurs. I decided to call up the founder of Hardware Workshop, Marc Barros, to find out more.
Who are you and what is Hardware Workshop?
My name is Marc Barros and I'm an entrepreneur. The first company I built was Contour and most recently we funded Moment on Kickstarter.
Hardware Workshop is a two day workshop for founders of hardware startups, taught by experienced builders. It’s purpose is simple: teach important lessons to the next generation of hardware entrepreneurs.
What makes this workshop unique is the quality of the content, the way it’s taught, and the operational experience of the teachers. Hand curated, each teacher covers a unique topic that falls within the startup life cycle - from idea to reaching market fit.
Why did you start running these workshops?
I created this because I believe that a key ingredient to an entrepreneur’s success is learning. Although hardware is an exciting new frontier, it is still considered the double black diamond of startups. It is hard and to be successful at it you not only need to learn a lot, you need to meet people who can help you.
The next Workshop is in Toronto. What can attendees expect to learn?
Lots. We will have 12 different 60 minute sections, taught by experienced operators. The topics will cover some of the following:
- Refining to an MVP
- Defining your brand
- Navigating patents and IP
- Funding your hardware startup
- Being retail ready
- Building a team
- Turning customers into fans
- What happens after crowdfunding
- Picking the right supplier
- Telling your story
- Hardware design process
- Succeeding at crowdfunding
Do you have any memorable moments so far?
Each event has been unique. What we are most proud of is that post event surveys have been incredibly positive. We run these workshops on the side to help the overall hardware startup community. It makes it worth the effort when people have a super positive experience.
What's coming up that you're looking forward to?
I love learning. The teacher list is amazing and spending two days with 100 passionate people about hardware startups is a lot of fun.
To see the full list of teachers and the rest of the event details, visit hardwareworkshop.com
The next event is in Toronto on May 2 - get over there!
