//Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost? This is the most important question for any project or product. And the best answer is that we have a number of models to control cost and work with you. For example, you might want to hire us hourly? If so, depending on what we are doing for you, we charge a competitive industry rate of $75-150/hr. Or you might want to have us bid on a project for a specific figure, make payments on milestones. Another possibility, is that you want us to consult and then as you need us or the project changes we can engage more based on your needs and comfort level. The point is we WANT your business and we want to help you make a great product. But, that said, we will be honest with you, and this is quite a shock for a lot of clients. They aren't used to being told real costs and reality since many contract companies will say anything to get your business. But, we don't, we are going to tell you the truth, good or bad. And if you decide to use another firm that's a cheaper, faster, or has a better pitch -- then that's ok. Many clients are looking for the cheapest possible development and increasingly realize this is a bad idea, better to have something done correctly then done poorly and waste time and money.
I have an idea for a product can you help develop it? Absolutely! This is one of the primary things we do, work with a customer and develop the product specs and give the customer insight into the engineering challenges and decisions that must be made along the product development. In this case, we typically work for an hourly consulting fee. Then when the customer is ready to develop the product, we can do it, or he can take the spec somewhere else. No obligation at all.
What kind of technologies are you comfortable with? These days no one can possibly know everything, there is just too many technologies. That said, we are very comfortable with digitial, analog, processors, computer archicture, systems design, communications, linux, windows, pcb design, programmable logic, design for manufacturing and much more. But, if there is something we don't know, we can figure it out for you as part of the development. For example, there are literally tens of thousands of IC's out there and any VLSI chip usually has 50-1000 pages of documentation along with it. Thus, many times, we create a design then we have to go out and find a solution, chip, system, etc. that solves our problems and then try it out, read the docs and see what happens. This is what real engineering is about. But, this is what we do, and we love doing it!
We have a great idea, can you fund the development? Unfortuntely, we don't fund ideas, projects, or work for percentages of potential future profits. This isn't to say we would never consider it, but 99/100 times we simply can't afford to spend the enormous amount of money to design, develop, prototype, test, manufacture a product for you. On the other hand, we are open to considering partnerships where we give you a reduced cost for a percentage of manufacturing or sales. For example, say you are going to develop a new product and you want us to develop the main electrical design and PCB. We quote you $50K to do the work over a period of 6 months. You provide us with a business plan, and can show us you have a distributor that wants to buy $1M of product. We think this is going to work and feel you have something, we might be willing to cut our quote down considerably, maybe even half or less to make a larger amount on a royalty or profit sharing. Additionally, you sign with us as the sole manufacturer for a period of time then we might also consider a reduced development fee since we can make money down the road during manufacturing. However, these scenarios are far and few between. In most cases, we like to come up with a budget, milestones, and be paid as the work is accomplished.