In yet another Tindie seller interview, I was able to catch up with Paul Evans, who runs the “Leonerd” store. Though you might think that his store caters to extremely smart lions, he instead describes his site as having “tools and equipment that might be used by electronics hobbyists and professionals.” He adds that his products are generally something that he makes for himself, then decides to sell to the public later.
Though certainly designed for function, one of his more visually appealing tools is shown in the image above, an oscilloscope current probe adapter. You can find out more about it here. As for more about Paul and his store, here are a few more bits from our email “interview.”
How did you get started?
I decided to try using a commercial PCB manufacturer to make a board
design, instead of just using stripboard – mostly because a part I
wanted to use only came in SOIC8 and not DIP8. The manufacturer would
do 3 boards, but I only wanted 1. So then I decided I’d try building up
the other two and selling them anyway. It all went from there – I now
mostly design things I want with the aim of also selling them, so I
tend to try to make them a bit more generic, or better documented.
What is the best thing about selling on Tindie?
Low volume specialism. You can make literally just one or two of a
thing, and manage to sell it. Other more commercially-oriented methods
would be looking at runs of 100 or 1000 at least, before they’d even
consider it.
What is the worst?
Probably writing descriptions for new products. Or at least,
thinking up what wording to put. I’m terrible at it. I often spend
hours thinking and rewriting a bunch of times, then usually I’ll still
end up editing it a bunch more times after it’s published.
Any tips for other sellers?
I find a lot of variation in “productisation” between sellers; the
amount of effort that’s gone into changing that one-off personal
prototype into something to sell. A few little things can go a long way.Consider the fact that other people have to work out how to use your
product. Maybe put some more time into careful design of silkscreen pin
names, or even a little printed instruction leaflet.Consider the overall look-and-feel. Maybe a case is appropriate;
usually moreso for self-contained equipment than things like modules
and breakout boards.Also, laser-cut solder-paste stencils have become really cheap lately.
Consider using those. The quality of my soldering went up noticeably
when I switched to that for surface-mount components. Faster too š
Thanks Paul, for your thoughts on Tindie! Hopefully it will help other sellers with their stores, and we wish you the best with yours.
