13 Open Source Hardware Companies Make $1+ Million

kkleiner writes "Selling products whose design anyone can access, edit, or use on their own is pretty crazy. It's also good business. At the annual hacker conference Foo Camp East this year, Phillip Torrone and Limor Fried from Adafruit Industries gave a rapid fire five-minute presentation on thirteen companies with million+ dollar revenues from open source hardware. The thirteen add up to $50 million this year. While this business model is counter-intuitive for those accustomed to our current patent- and copyright-encrusted system, Torrone and Fried estimate that the industry will reach a billion dollars by 2015."

Comments

Open Source

[sopssa]

How much does proprietary software/hardware make? It's hard to examine, but it's probably more than $50 millions.

Re:$1M revenue is not "making a million"

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't apply sound business techniques to the open source discussion.

That said, what book or books represent the definitive "this is the open source model"?

One MILLION?

[Stiletto]

You know, Dr. Evil, a million dollars isn't exactly a lot of money these days. Virtucon alone makes over nine billion dollars a year!

It's dot com again (but it doesn't work anymore)

[clarkkent09]

$50 million today => $1 billion in 5 years! You'd have to be crazy not to invest EVERY PENNY YOU OWN in these companies!

Re:Why $1B in 2015??

[JorDan Clock]

This is Open Source Hardware not Open Source Software. A completely different industry, with completely different numbers to make up.

1 Simple way to become a millionaire with FOSS

[Cryacin]

Start by being a billionaire.

Re:$1M revenue is not "making a million"

[abigsmurf]

I make £20,000 and I still lose my shirt. I really should organise my laundry better...