Google Glass, Lean Startup and VotC - Initializing Instructed Interviews

Jun 26, 2013 · 1 hr 19 min · Episode 151 · 41.6 MB

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Chris got his notice that he can pick up his Google Glass! Now to find the money for it...
If all works out, we'll have a meetup in NYC the weekend of July 6th.
We'll start giving away T-shirts for stories on the /r/TheAmpHour subreddit. Each story we talk about will be put into a drawing and drawn for a shirt.
You have to be careful with product definition. Woodshedding is easy when you ask large groups of people what they think.
Similarly, "Voice of the Customer" (VOC) can be stupid because even your target customers mostly say they want what they already have with incremental improvements.
So what can you do? Design and iterate...then show it off and do it again! (Chris realized after the fact that this is basically the ideas of The Lean Startup.
Dave calls this WYSIWYG engineering.
Google admitted their interview questions don't really do anything. Instead, the author of this TechCrunch article suggests you have a portfolio and weed people out with simple questions.
Should you put everything on your resume? Even if you're at a short run job? Dave says no, but Chris says you should explain and talk about what you could have done differently or if you were in charge.
MakerBot was bought by Stratasys for $403 million.
Is it possible to start an industrial hardware company these days? There is a lot of interest in hardware startups, but even Zach from HAXLR8R tweeted about not needing any more apps that turn on lights.
Tesla Motors is a possible example, except they had lots of government funding and Elon Musk's money. And old infrastructure to build on. (and of course, beautiful design and great engineering)
Energy Micro and Touchstone both started as fabless semiconductors because of the investment it takes to start a wafer fab. (links go to the shows where members of those companies were on The Amp Hour!)
Oh yeah, and Energy Micro was bought by Silicon Labs!
"Speaking of crack"... Dave doesn't know the difference between drugs, Chris suggests he would if he watched Breaking Bad.
Coffee is basically just legalized crack right? There was a lifehacker article recently called Beer for big ideas, coffee to get them done.
The next PCB type might be...cells? The next big market for electronics will be the body. IEEE Spectrum has an article about a pacemaker for your digestive system.
Shonky town of the week? There is a town in West Virginia where people can "escape electro magnetic exposure"
Dave says the inverter on the solar panel in that town will kick off some radiation. Chris suggests they lose efficiency and move to a sinusoidal waveform driving the transformer/switcher.
Heathkit is back...again? Maybe? We doubt it, but who knows?
We have a new idea! If you are interested in helping interview experienced people in the electronics industry and gather their stories, please let us know! This will be similar to Story Corps which is stored in the Library of Congress and airs on NPR.
We said that to send us an email (and you always can at chris@theamphour.com and dave@theamphour.com) But a better way is to fill out the survey below: