A retrospection on original article written in 2014
Back in 2014, I was invited to speak as one of five innovators selected to present at NewCities’ “Making the Future City” at the Autodesk Gallery pop-up in Paris. It was moderated by my friend Thibaut Thomas, Communication and digital strategies consultant and who had been following my career for a few years. He now lives his dream life in Copenhagen and works at Mano as Partner and Head of Academy.
For the occasion, I wrote an accompanying article on the importance of visual and physical space needed to let the mind flow and prototype hardgoods: “Dreaming Big and Finding the Space to Create”. This was in contrast to other entrepreneurs’ projects around me who seemed to fit in an app, a pocket or a backpack.
I think often of this theory I have and still find it quite true to this day. I was triggered again recently by a Twitter duel between Elon Musk and Paul Graham discussing the difficulty of raising funds for hardware companies.
The striking thing about this list, to me, is the preponderance of software companies. Making physical stuff is hard. But don't let that deter you, if that's what you're interested in. If things go right for Helion, it could be the biggest of the lot. pic.twitter.com/fwzmPwfpNx
— Paul Graham (@paulg) April 9, 2023
Even at Super73 we had difficulty positioning ourselves as a hardware company raising capital. it may have changed a bit today, but where we are in California, few funds and VCs were familiar with manufacturing startups. They are also not so familiar with valuating brand-focused companies who find success on social media. They are more familiar with services and technology with fast prototyping and turnaround.
And today?
I look back at the time and remember how I did feel a bit out of place with my Nimble Scooter in Paris. I felt at odds having a California product in the French market, it was tough to fit in with the French Tech community. They also didn’t seem to relate to our inventory and production challenges. I did find solace in Hardware meetups in Paris, and got excited when Usine.io opened up. Looking back at my emails, I attended their launch event on Mercredi 1 octobre 2014. That was two years before we started Super73.
Since then though, i’m happy to see there are many more physical goods coming out of companies. Back then, Douze Cycles was starting up too – they build their cargo bicycles in Ladoix-Serrigny, right in the middle of beautiful wine country in Burgundy. I can imagine they have a lot of space to build and prototype their cargo bicycles over there.
Perhaps the 2020 lockdown and exodus to the countryside allowed more entrepreneurs to test their building skills and prototyping?
My friend and inspiring entrepreneur Arnaud Poulain had already started building his line of haute parfumerie brand Les Eaux Primordiales long before Covid-19, but he took the opportunity to invest in a little chateau in his home region near Arras in the north of France. He is, in my opinion, an example to follow. Frustrated by the lack of space, disturbance and distractions in Paris, he needed a place to build his dreams and let his mind run. Instead of losing focus while jetting around to meet clients all over the world, he built a beautiful top of the line factory, distillerie, showroom, garden, old-growth forest and cozy home all in one place, where clients actually WANT to come visit him and his creations. Today, he is pretty much building a village and employing the local community around his dream, thus sharing the opportunity with friends, family and beyond.
There are countless of new companies now that can be mentioned, but the general idea is that yes hardware is hard, figuring out the supply chain, building up relationships and managing production issues is still very much a challenge. It has been since the day of time and can be optimized, streamlined, but the reality is that – just like the world we live in – it’s like a box of chocolates and you never know what good news or bad news may show up.
The reward though is the satisfaction and feeling of accomplishment to build something physical that you can ride, hold in your hands, and see in the possession of other people you have never met before. I’ll always remember the first time I saw a Super73 in the wild in Paris, I stayed around for about 15 minutes trying to figure out if I knew the owner, where they may be and just super excited.
As a testament to this article, the Super73 was also created with enough space around it for prototyping, and enough parking lots and mountains to test. It too was conceived in a warehouse. In fact, the first two models and the following 350 handmade ones were built in the same place where the Nimble Scooters were built: a place set up with machines for cutting metal, bending tubes and welding pieces, even building jigs and with all the power tools and small hardware available to put them together. Beaches and trails to ride on were close by. One ride was enough to give us the feeling that this bike may just very well be also loved by millions of others too.
