How to Start (And Run) Your Own Business

[@Hyphonetics]

It's been wonderful watching this journey through your videos, really appreciate your insight. You've inspired me to start designing my own hardware with the intention of building a small business around it so I really appreciated your insight into this side of things.

[@atanisoftware]

Three small pieces to add: 1) Don't be afraid to fail, not every idea will work and the best way to determine that is to try it (usually). 2) be flexible where you can, you may need to adjust your idea to make it a reality. 3) The most important part: START!

[@stephen_hawes]

Heck yeah, agree on all points. Before Opulo I tried to start two companies that both failed. Learned a lot from those two that helps me quite a bit now!

[@Standbackforscience]

On so many levels, it's been wonderful following you on this journey. It's just generally nice to see someone positive succeed at something, but you're also pro-open source and about empowering local manufacturing, both things very dear to me. Keep up the amazing work, and godspeed.

[@ericlotze7724]

It’s been great coming along on this journey, and i think your promotion of Open Source / Collaborative work, as well as Mod-Scale Manufacturing will be a HUGE help for the movement as a whole, so you’re definitely achieving that “why” in my opinion! I think I’m going to start a makerspace+microfactory type thing myself, so this template will be helpful, thanks!

[@arjenroodselaar1495]

This is really high quality/accurate advice, condensed in just 14 mins of video. Well done! Re: (venture) capital; a good quote I heard when working through this for myself a few years ago was “(venture) capital is like rocket fuel; it can get you where you want to go faster, but make sure the rocket is oriented in the right direction (the “why” and some of the “how”) before igniting it”. Re: handoff. This is crucial if you want to be successful in your career long term, whether as a business owner, exec/manager or high flying engineer. I’ve spent over a decade in Silicon Valley companies and all the good engineers and engineering managers I know learned and applied this lesson. Always work towards handing things off to someone else so you have the time and mental space to work on the next step, new thing etc.

[@draco5991rep]

I love these videos, not because I am aiming to start my own company in near future in any way but because I love to see the process of your company growing from idea into a real thing. You have every right to be proud of your achievements so far and it is fantastic to be able to follow you along this journey. Thank you for everything you and your team do.

[@scooterareyouready3535]

I'd like to further this help and suggest the Idea for both you and Lucian to do the Myers Briggs personality test. It would be good to see how and why you two are such a good match for each other and the company. I can see that you're the "alpha leader type" and Lucian is your follower, but not everyone is so lucky to find a perfect hierarchical business partner match. Cheers, good work. FYI I am a INFJ.

[@stephen_hawes]

I believe I'm an ENFP, but I haven't taken the test in a while! This is a cool idea, thanks for the suggestion!

[@alanjrobertson]

Really interesting video, thanks Stephen. As an aside I hadn't realised the unique role for Delaware in US corporate law (I'm in the UK), so that was an interesting nugget! Would you be able to tell us more in another video about how you have gone about hiring staff? How and where did you advertise? How did you run interviews, etc? That's the bit about scaling up that I would find really useful/interesting 👍

[@jonasvlamijnck6895]

Amazing and helpfull! I'm starting my own company at the moment and all of the legal stuff is so complicated. Great video

[@barbasbandas6665]

I am finishing my master degree on electrical engineering and I have been working on biomedical electronics R&D, which helps me fund my own projects on guitar pedals. However, it is really hard to get them out there... So I really appreciate your work! Cheers!

[@MM-tr9zn]

Hi Yours videos are great! But, can you speak more slowly? I am French and therefore as you must know not very good in English

[@phantomhck]

It's all about the business system. You can either build a machine or build a machine to build machines. Great to watch your company grow, it fills an immediate need in my business for sure. And I work directly with 3 electronics assemblers, even have an office in one, and I still need mid scale assembly tools.

[@angelovalerio9984]

It is astonishing that you already have such comprehensive view at your age. Dang, in an early video I told you I want to invest in your company ;). Can you open a round of fund rasing for people like me who want to invest in the company? We need more speed and a broader set of products for the mid-scale production!

[@mrday60]

Mr Hawes, very inspirational. I am hoping to some day soon deploy these to manufacture my vast array of tech products. great wins await us; await you.

[@MatthewKanwisher]

You should make a company shirt you can wear inside the video ;) so you don’t advertise other companies instead

[@JohnSmith-hn6kv]

5 employees. Whoa, congrats.

[@Gotchau]

Right now I'm designing easy to build 3d printers (and other CNC machines such as laser cutters, milling etc with RepRap philosophy) with the same reason "help to make mid-scale manufacturing easier". Your videos inspires me a lot. Thanks for sharing your thoughts)

[@TheTheMinions]

Man really nice glasses. Where can I buy them? hah

[@MakeItHackin]

You and the team have done wonderful!

[@andertenis]

YOU are doing the right thing, thank you

[@mikestaub]

Thanks for sharing!

[@ooooooo0]

This is good stuff 👏

[@SparkyJames]

Great work, and I think you've got a good idea with the Opulo, it's something that is needed/wanted, and I love the Open Source part, and all the information you put out there, keep it up.

[@Clark-Mills]

Maybe you guys should print some T-Shirts for your company staff; that way we can see "Your Logo Here" rather than someone else's?

[@fischX]

I like Odoo is great for midsized companies it has an open source approach and cheap plans for modules - think of it like a low cost SAP

[@JohnWeland]

B-Corp is awesome when you want to be a corp but also want to "do good" like a NPO would. B-corps are C-corps with a branch of their board ensuring that there is a task to do "good" in the community.

[@alexsemine1]

Super great video, man!! Absolutely love your channel and the content that you make and, above all, this awesome pick and place machine. I never got the courage to start my own business. Now I am working on some projects that will hopefully become something known. Cheers!!

[@ajaipal1]

Been following you since the beginning of you pnp. Really glad that you have achieved so much.

[@TheRadProd]

Hey Stephen, One of the best tool I had as an entrepreneur is Front! Replacing your regular mailbox with extra tools suuuuper useful. Keep it up, you are super inspiring 😊

[@hongotopiadada7574]

Thank you!

[@MaltandMake]

This is so helpful and came at just the right time. Thank you!

[@DerrickJolicoeur]

Yoooooo a casterboard! Not just any casterboard, a Razor Ripstik Air Pro! I have one and still ride it to this day!

[@TradieTrev]

Really appreciate the video mate. I found operating a small business by myself quite difficult and stressful, how do you stay happy all the time?

[@stephen_hawes]

I'm totally not happy all the time, things are super difficult and stressful as you said, and it can really wear ya down. I do what I can to be grateful that, despite the difficulties, I'm incredibly lucky and fortunate to be able to do this. But I definitely do get worn down sometimes!

[@justinkurban6708]

Absolutely love your channel. Ive love all your content. but id love to see more updates of the Feeder R&D and technical side of setting up in OpenPNP

[@stephen_hawes]

I totally hear that; we'll be getting back to that stuff soon! Keeping up with order demand has been taking up a ton of our time, but we'll get back to feeders in a bit.

[@mbarras_ing]

Really loved this video. Would be great to see more start-up advice from early stage hardware - most content out there seems to be SaaS focused

[@stephen_hawes]

Yeah, I've noticed the same. Lots on software, but starting a hardware company doesn't seem to have nearly the resources.

[@dami4335]

🥰

[@lunaumbra5179]

I'm curious, your kit is useful for only a subset of product types. If I'm going to manufacture clothing your product won't help me. Given this, would your why be better off being more specific? Or is keeping it broad a benefit somehow? Like what if it was, to help make mid scale manufacturing of circuit board easier.

[@cummibear69]

The thumbnail looks like those videos ala "Do this one simple trick and become succesful! Also buy my ebooks to become millionaire!!1!"

[@cummibear69]

Youre cool doe

[@stephen_hawes]

Making an appealing thumbnail that isn't just flat out dumb is hard as hell 😂

[@toremlabs4671]

Great video and great tips and tools! Thank you for sharing your progress and being so open about everything. As a new start-up, I definitely share the excitement. I think I would've liked to hear more about funding when you are still prototyping and basically just have an idea. Nobody wants to fund just an idea. I liked what you said about investing in a person, so food for thoughts... Speaking of which, I'd like to invite anyone reading to visit my channel and watch my weekly live stream on twitch called Let's Build a Start-Up. It's about innovation management and my little start-up if that sort of thing is interesting to you. Streaming every Thursday at 9 PM on www.twitch.tv/toremlabs I believe that when we share our knowledge and when more people start their own business, that the world becomes a better place because we are simply working on what we love. We can then give the opportunity to others to share the same vision, and it's usually one of a better world!