What is this about? This is a book, that is being released with No Starch Press sometime in 2025/2026. This book chronicles many lessons learned in building NewAE Technology Inc, from how to deal with inventory and accounting systems to how you setup small-scale production in a spare room.
Achieve your most mediocre electronics production and sales dreams.
(Planned) Chapters:
- Setting Up a Hardware Business
- Costs, Pricing, and Accounting
- Protecting Your Idea
- Patents
- Electronics Prototyping and Through-Hole Soldering
- Surface-Mount Soldering and Equipment
- Repair Techniques and Equipment
- Static Control
- Protective Equipment, Cleaning, and Storage
- Production Soldering
- PCB Design for Small-Scale Production
- Contract Assembly Manufactures
- Testing and Inspection
- The JTAG For Testing Industry Standard
- Enclosures
- Milling Enclosures
- Connectors and Cabling
- Contacts and Crimping
- Product Packaging
- Barcoding and Tracking
- Compliance
- Product Security
- Marketing
- Fulfillment and Shipping
My Making Story
This book covers how I built a hardware business. It doesn’t guarantee to cover the only way you can do this, but I’ve tried to base as much of the book as possible on personal experiences.
The photo above for example is part of the ChipShover product, where in the book I discuss choice of buttons I made and how these cases were assembled:
The book spans both open-source and commercial hardware. When building NewAE we used a combination of open-source and commercial designs, and I think there is a very important discussion around building sustainable products that continue to exist for many years. The answer of just open-source designs does not make for for the most accessible tools in every space, and is something I explore (along with many other topics) in this book.
Interested in learning more? Please sign up here for announcements as I release more information, including previews, open-source content, and actual dates.
Check your spam for the confirmation – this is a new email address and may get flagged until it gets some more usage!