Circuit Board Design For a Small Startup?

Patrick Bowman writes "I'm with a small (okay, it's just me) startup planning a camera-related USB device for the mass market. It's probably patentable so I can't give details. I can handle the software but have no hardware design or manufacturing experience. Does anyone have any recommendations for a company to handle the PCB design and manufacture? Instead of starting from scratch I've also considered approaching one of the companies (mostly in China) that make similar devices and asking them to modify their hardware for my requirements, and to provide their source for me to modify. Has anyone taken this route before? How did it work for you?"

Comments

Find some partners

[u38cg]

If you're serious about producing something that has the potential to be mass market, I suggest you bring some partners on board. For product development, find an electronic engineer that can cope with the hardware side; and also someone that can speak marketese and has experience in accessing the kind of markets you're talking about.

It's nice and all to think you can be the next Richard Branson by doing it all yourself, but in reality very few businesses go from zero to IPO with a single guy pulling all the strings.