Clueboard sells kits and parts for mechanical keyboards.
Mechanical Keyboards are a hobby that is hard to get into. Stores are often sold out and rarely have all the parts you need. Sorting out what you need to buy is not an easy process, and it’s made harder by how often opinion is presented as fact. Clueboard arose out of my desire to improve this situation.
It started with my 66% PCB, designed to fit into the Leopold FC660M. This allowed people to build layouts not originally supported by Leopold and to change the function for each key. Advanced users could write custom code to make their keyboards work in more sophisticated ways. While the original FC660M supported 2 key layouts I supported nearly 2-dozen. This extreme flexibility allowed my customers to build exactly the keyboard they want.
From there I worked with a product designer to design an aluminum case for my keyboard. The case was a first of its kind “integrated plate” and would be the primary product for Clueboard for years to come. We had plans to expand this design into other form-factors so that people who like design can get it in their preferred size.
Running a hardware business is hard. Running a business by yourself is hard. The odds were against me from the start.
Product Design, Engineering, Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Taxes, Accounting, Vendor Management, Inventory Management, the list goes on and on. When you’re self funded there’s a lot you need to learn how to do, and some things you should never do yourself. Some things I found success in hiring out (Accounting) while others went very poorly (Marketing, Manufacturing.)
I have been running my business for 5 years and am breaking even. I haven’t invested cash into the business in years, but neither have I paid myself. It’s time to admit that my technical skill far outweighs my business skill and to scale back Clueboard’s operations.
While I’ll still make the occasional kit or art project and sell it under the Clueboard name it’s time to end my Fusion 360 subscription and get back to the craft of programming.
I’ve always appreciated Sales and Marketing more than most tech people, but in an abstract way. Having to market my products and learn to sell people on them have helped me appreciate that there’s more to technology than how fast it is or how much it can scale. People buy a product because it fills a need in their life. It doesn’t matter how good your product is, if it doesn’t fill someone’s needs it won’t sell.
Budgeting and resource management is always more important than it’s given credit for.
The choice of what not to do is more important than the choice of what to do.
Do the important things in-house. Outsource everything else. Be brutally honest about what’s actually important.
If you aren’t paying most or all of their salary they’re not an invested part of your team.