Some notes on niche products
This is our first day trying to build and develop the “Mayday Recorder”.
So far, it’s been devoted entirely to software infrastructure, without any interaction with hardware whatsoever. So maybe I should say it’s our first day trying to get ourselves into a position where we can imagine building and developing this thing?
Software tools
- AWS lightsail, smallest instance
- Trac wiki/task tracker
- Hugo static website generation
Stuff we still need
-
Email? I know that we could just use personal accounts, but it seems so bland.
-
Shared storage space – dropbox exists, but they want money.
Is this niche product feasible?
Well. . . I think so. It’s a thing that’s often come up, in conversation with friends. My estimate of the per-unit cost is under 5 USD, and I think could reasonably go for 20.
Costs so far
These costs assume I have some supplies (e.g., bench power supply, multimeter, wires, resistors, &c.) already.
At this point, these items are all for prototyping.
| Item | Qty | Total |
|---|---|---|
| 3.3v-5v bidirectional ttl level shifter | x5 | $2.66 |
| Digispark Attiny85 dev board | x5 | $13.89 |
| W25Q32B flash memory module | x5 | $7.00 |
| mini breadboard | x6 | $3.75 |
| total | $27.30 |
In addition, there are some travel costs, which I’m not going to detail here.
Time spent
About 4 hours scoping, about 4 hours system admin, about 1 hour writing.