As the Maker revolution continues there are new opportunities for businesses to ride the wave. It didn’t start out with the Maker movement in mind, but Tindie is one startup that will benefit from the explosion of ‘prosumerism.’
Tindie is an online marketplace for DIYers to sell their hardware. It began in 2012 as a place for doing away with left over bits from projects, but, as orders reached 10,000 after seven months more, the site started to grow into an all around Maker mall.
As a place for prosumers to sell their various electronics, The company’s CEO, Emile Petrone believes that it can act as an incubator for entrepreneurs that allows them to avoid the sometimes difficult world of crowd funding.
Tindie, can be a testing space for the hardware that Makers are working on. The CEO says that most Tindie shop owners only sell less than 100 units, giving them the chance to prototype their designs over the course of multiple iterations. Tindie’s model may actually be a welcome relief for would-be inventors whose products may only appeal to a limited number of people.
At the moment, Petrone isn’t exactly sure what the future growth of his company will look like. He can see that there is a demand for such a site, particularly as the Maker movement continues to grow.
Tindie model is an interesting one and is evidence that entrepreneurs and small business people need alternatives for launching their products. As the Maker movement grows, this will become increasingly true for those developing their own electronics. Tindie seems to be one great route for speciality manufacturers that would face inevitable failure on a crowdfunding site.
