We reached out to Jesse Vincent (Co-founder and CTO of Keyboardio) to learn more about the development of Model 01. They successfully raised more than US$650,000 on Kickstarter for Model O1 and it is available for pre-orders. Support them here. In August , HWTrek sponsored 30 hardware creators and accelerators to visit Taiwan, Beijing, and Shenzhen on Asia Tour 2015—and also in April 2014. We’re doing it again this April 2016. Jesse participated in Asia Tour this past August.
Please register on the HWTrek platform and create a project to apply to join the next Asia Innovation Tour 2016 cohort destined to meet manufacturing industry experts, see assembly lines, and gain insights about China’s market in Spring 2016.
HWTrek: Please introduce yourself and your project?
I’m Jesse Vincent, cofounder and CTO of Keyboardio. Our first product is the Model 01, a hackable keyboard designed for programmers, writers and other folks who type to much. We had a very successful Kickstarter campaign this summer and are currently working toward delivering the first 2500 units in April, 2016.
HWTrek: What’s the inspiration for your project? What problem does it solve or address?
As so many things do, the Model 01 started off from a personal need. I’ve had bad wrists as long as I could remember. I’d been through pretty much every ergonomic keyboard out there and none of them ever really worked all that for me. A couple years ago, I decided that I might be able to design myself a better keyboard. It was only a few months into the project that we started to realize that there might be a broader market for what we’re building.
HWTrek: What solutions did you use for hardware design?
We’ve been through all sorts of tools for hardware design. On the mechanical side, we used OpenSCAD, Omnigraffle and Solidworks before settling on Autodesk Fusion 360.
For electrical design, we spent time with Upverter and EAGLE before discovering and falling in love with KiCad.
HWTrek: What solutions did you use for prototyping?
Early on, we spent a lot of time skilling up on 3D printing before realizing that what we had was a 3D printer maintenance hobby, not a useful way to make prototype products. We also spent a lot of time figuring out how to make prototypes out of layers of laser-cut wood or acrylic. More recently, we’ve been using CNC milling to make most of the prototypes for our mechanical parts.
On the electrical side, we did a lot of point to point soldering using embedded microcontroller boards like Arduinos and Teensys before starting to build our own PCBs.
HWTrek: What are the takeaways and lessons learned from working on this project that you’d like to share with other hardware startups?
Folks coming from the software world often describe hardware as being difficult. Hardware isn’t hard, it’s just slow. In the software world, we’ve gotten used to being able to iterate through a dozen prototypes in a day. In the hardware world, a prototype might take a week or two to put together. And the closer you get to production, the longer your iterations are.
HWTrek: What trend do you see that is changing your sector/industry or what shift would you like to see happen?
The biggest thing I’ve been seeing that affects the entire hardware startup ecosystem is the movement toward low-cost prototyping techniques and efficient short-run manufacturing. Its much, much easier and less expensive for a startup to make 1, 10 or 100 of an item than it was a decade ago. It’s certainly not _easy_, but it’s definitely easier.
HWTrek: What’s next for your project?
We’re currently at the very end of the vendor-selection phase for our initial production run. We’ve talked to a couple dozen potential OEMs, including a very, very strong candidate introduced to us by HWTrek. By the time this interview is published, we’ll have made our decision and will start work toward mass production.
HWTrek: What are your ‘go-to’ sources for tech information and news? (Do you have any recommendations for a must-read/watch/listen article, book, blog, film, or podcast, etc.?)
In general, I don’t find that electronics _news_ really affects my product design. In general, I’d much rather build using tools and components that are better understood and at a competitive point on the value curve. As Maciej Ceglowski, founder of bookmarking site Pinboard, is fond of saying: If I’m excited about it, it doesn’t belong in production.
For electronics newbies, I’d recommend Chris Gammell’s /The Amp Hour/ podcast. Other than that, I find that endless curiosity is probably the most valuable resource. Take things apart. When you get a new product, just pay close attention to how it’s packaged and how that packaging is made.
Jesse doing elevator pitch to engineers in elevator at Xiaomi HQ in Beijing.
