Monetization: What that means for my project

Your project is done, and after a screencap and a quick description written in Notepad, you create a LinkedIn post. There are a reasonable number of likes, impressions, and at least one positive comment so it looks like there is interest. You push it to production. A few days later your assembled boards arrive and then 6 months later you have all this stock, and very few have sold.

What went wrong?

Who We Are vs Who we need to be

We embedded developers are just that, we have ideas we have the skills so we build things. We confuse a like or community interest with a market. The problem? We are not business people.

Business people are by their nature networkers and opportunists - they may also seem to have dubious morals, or that lateral way of thinking which makes you cringe. While we can debate the integrity of a business person, the truth is that business by its nature is shady. You have to be able to think in terms of the money.

No offense to the salespeople, we love you and need you :).

If we always think about saving the world or making someone's life better, that by definition is altruism. Nothing wrong with it in principle, but with no one paying, the fuel that charges your business fails - money.

What we need to do is find either a partner, or a friend who can keep you on the money or you have to develop those skills. Product Development and Market Development are disciplines on their own, and you would seldom have time to do both well. Picking the one you excel at does offer the opportunity for someone else to tow the line in the other where you do not excel.

Where the Embedded Genius Fails

To say we fail is not fair, it's just a catastrophic slip-up that costs us the opportunity or the sense to make money or to recognize the opportunity and make the most of it. Remember:

• A great idea is not necessarily a great product
• Deliver on client need, not what you think they need
• Value must be added by replacing a system or way of doing things, supplementing is not enough
• The product must promote change and convenience or be fun and expensive

How to Fix it

Can you? At times these topics feel like anachronisms. It's something we all experience and so does everyone else.

It's really up to the embedded developer to make the call on what you want to achieve. Shrewdness in business is essential, and the ability to see the opportunity.

A high level of realism is needed to see beyond a pet project or an idea and transform it into that product which everyone will buy, or more importantly has a market.

What does this mean for your project?

If you are happy to fund your hobby and that is all it is, then if something bigger happens it's an unexpected turn of events.

The more challenging lesson is that if you want your system to be a product and for a company to grow into an organization, investment lays the foundation but sales pays salaries, development costs, operational costs, and everything else.

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