Kit complexity and support issues

Get help, and assist others in with open source kits and running a business! Do not ask for legal advice or for consulting services in this forum, only general biz questions!

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a. square
 
Posts: 41
Joined: Mon Dec 17, 2007 12:51 pm

Kit complexity and support issues

Post by a. square »

First of all, thanks for setting up this forum. Ladyada, I appreciated your comment on my blog regarding kits, and am now trying to approach selling my first kit in a less haphazard manner. So, for me, the arrival of this forum is timed perfectly!

One of the (many) questions I have is what I can reasonably expect from my customers, and how to make sure that purchasers don't get in over their heads; more generally, I want to make sure that people are satisfied with the finished product and don't give up in frustration. The comments of a couple of people I respect (ladyada's comment on my blog and Brian from monome) warned me about having to provide tech support for people, and, after trying to walk someone through the process of duplicating one of my projects that they were having trouble with, I really see what they mean!

Of course, the obvious solution is to start out with simpler kits, which of course makes perfect sense for the time being. But, for me at least, more complex kits are a lot of fun, so I'm still interested in how people deal with the issues that complexity causes.

I know that ladyada has experience with everything from very simple kits, to much more complex ones (I'm thinking of the x0x here), and I'm wondering what people's thoughts on the matter are.

Thanks!

- Jonathan

adafruit
 
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Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2006 4:21 pm

Post by adafruit »

i think the most important thing is to set up people's expectations properly.
if your kit requires an oscilloscope, SMT soldering station, etc.
make it clear!
second, excellent documentation is -key-. the x0xd0x kinda sucked because it was my first kit. im _slowly_ redoing it but id say make sure:
1) there are many steps, maybe every half hour, that you can do a test on. multimeter tests are best. scope tests are good too as long as its clear you need one. see the wavebubble dox for an example of this.
2) lots of hirez pictures of what it should look like
3) if you set up a forum, people can help each other.
4) use the forum to constantly update the documentation
i modify the online documentation about every other day. thats why i dont have printed out dox: its a constant process.
finally, be OK with the fact that some people will not succeed. it does happen and its outside of your control. as long as 1/2 of your customers are getting it up and running you're doing ok :)

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