As a hardware-intensive start-up, the journey from a product idea to a market-ready product can be an exhilarating yet challenging one. One critical decision to make is building your hardware team. The composition of this team can significantly influence the success of your product development and product engineering endeavors.

Before you start assembling your team, two major analyses are essential:

Identify the role of hardware in your business model

Generally, three major cases arise:

• First, your hardware may act as an enabler for your business but isn't central to your business model. You see this in hardware-enabled SaaS business models.

• The second scenario is when your hardware is an essential part of your business, but only a small part of it is unique and patentable. This is common in deep-tech start-ups that have patentable technology but need to build a product around it to reach the market.

• Lastly, your hardware may be the core of your business, with the entire product being crucial to your business model. This typically occurs in deep technology start-ups that sell their technology and product to third parties, B2B-focused companies with a significant design component in their products, and in regulated sectors like medical devices.

Consider your long-term company ambitions

Many hardware start-ups build a product and then must introduce that product to the market. However, only in rare occasions do these companies maintain a continuous flow of R&D or new product development. This is likely because bringing a product to market requires substantial capital, and investors prefer to see market traction before investing in developing, designing, and producing a new product line.

These elements significantly impact how you build your team, determining which profiles you need in-house as part of your core team, and which aspects you might prefer to outsource to third parties.

In the early stages of development and ideation, you need people with different profiles compared to the later stages where the focus shifts towards quality improvements, incremental improvements on your product, and strong service in the aftermarket.

Deep tech companies, where technology development and products are at the heart of the business, are likely to be more continuous R&D companies, consistently building new products and technologies.

Conversely, a product company would first aim to establish a profitable margin on their product before initiating the development of a new product line.

Building a robust hardware team for your start-up is a journey that requires strategic thinking, a clear understanding of your business model, and a vision for the future. It involves not just hiring the right people but also knowing when and what to outsource, all while keeping the business's long-term goals in focus.

At Voxdale, we understand these complexities and can help guide you through this process. Our team of experts is dedicated to turning your ideas into reality, using our cutting-edge technologies to design and engineer the future, today.

Want to know some more insights?

Don't miss this opportunity to get direct advice from a seasoned professional. Book a 15-minute call with Voxdale’s CEO, Tim Dieryckx, and let's start building your hardware team together.