Factors that can influence your hardware business
(and you don't think about when you start)

   If you have a physical product that needs to be put in customer's hands , there are a lot of factors that are outside your control ,and this can have a big impact to your business. When the sales are tiny ,and you are trying to grow the business , every bit of help is necessary to succeed.


1.Easy incorporation (depends on government)
Depends on where you are this process might be a pain , very expensive and will take a long time , or might take a minimum amount of time and money.
This process should be as efficient as possible because after all is your time , and that time should be spent developing your product and your business. In this part of the world is about 100$ for a LLC ( Limited Liability company) company and it consists of sending a form and also creating an IRS account (Internal Revenue Service).

2.Fast shipping (depends on government /commercial companies)
Everybody loves to complain about USPS , how big and inefficient it is , but the reality is that probably USPS is the least un-efficient postal service from world. Also is probably the cheapest way to send a package.
Customers love when their product appears in a few days ,and not in 3 weeks.We receive a lot of inquiries about how long will take to send something  in some part of the world. Unfortunately this is not the case for some other postal services around the world . We heard cases that shipping to a location from US will take a week but from
that location to US it takes 2 weeks.
 
3.Credit (depends on banks)
    After a few weeks after we received the incorporation papers , we received in the mail an offer from American Express for a credit card to which we applied promptly.
We got a credit line , which is very important when you just started. Until there is any revenue some credit could go a long way for example to pay for shipping,
some equipment and parts.

4.Online Banking (depends on commercial companies)
    The majority of items that are bought from us are payed through PayPal, which is very convenient and as well as scary. The first time when we applied for an account they deleted our account and forbid us to use it ever , without any explanation . Fortunately the second time it was successful.I am afraid to think what would happen if they decide to cancel the account again. On the other side Google Wallet was a very nice experience , but not too many people  are using it.

5.Customs (depends on government)
    Customs can be a pain and can delay your merchandise indefinitely. We learned early that to ease the process to put the packing slip outside the box unless we want the package to stay in some customs for a while. Also the customs forms ,which need to be filled for each package that is shipped internationally , can vary as complexity. From businesses point of view is just time wasted to fill some forms.


6.Culture/Laws
   Some cultures are very entrepreneurial and the government tries to help  small businesses , but there are some countries that everybody tries to avoid because of high taxes or the laws that makes very hard for businesses to grow . Also some employment laws are made to favor the employee , which is a big deal for a small business. Also some governments are so corrupt that every process requires paying bribes and losing time.


7.Access to parts/production
   Even though everybody says that the best place to be if you are in hardware business is Shenzhen in China , it is not always the case. If your company is in US, then is very close to customers. Depending of the volume of the production meaning is the number of parts made are small then other factors are driving the cost. US still has a huge industrial base . People are not seeing it because they don't see the smokestacks pushing fumes. But there are plenty of companies that produce machinery  and electronic products locally. This means that the ecosystem is here with all the talent that can help the business to grow.

8. Access to people
Maybe your company has a single employee which is you ,but if the company is growing you might need to hire people.Experienced people are hard to find , especially today when Google and Facebook siphons everything.

Products

Accelerometer/Gyro Shield

2Axis Encoder Shield