18 months later…the backstory
Before I even legally formed RedPost in Feb ’07, waaaay back in Nov ’06, I began looking for hardware that fit what I saw as a huge opportunity in the marketplace. All I wanted was a simple, 19-20″ LCD with a built-in PC for under $1,000.
I ended up piecing one together with an old laptop and a $99 (after rebate) 19″ LCD in my garage. Total cost to me: about $300. It looked homemade and definitely wasn’t production-ready, but hey, it did what I wanted it to do.
And still, I searched blogs, trade shows, websites, everywhere, looking for what I wanted.
Finally, after forming RedPost officially in February of 2007, in true entrepreneurial fashion, I tired of looking and decided to just build something myself. In June of that year, we began selling the RedPost/Kit, with a steel case, Eway minipc, and 19″ LCD. It was slow and heavy and $549. It displayed photos fine, but was too slow for Flash or video.
While selling the Kit, I continued my search. To no avail. So again, I decided to build a better version which would (hopefully) be my last attempt at hardware engineering. This one, our Sign(beta), was aluminum, much lighter, much faster CPU, better in many ways.
Except for one, of course: we were still building it.
See, we’re not a hardware company. We’re a software company.
By this point (February of this year) we were generating quite a bit of interest and could actually start to get some of the hardware vendors to listen to us. Some even could build exactly what we wanted — starting at $1,000 and up per unit. Too much.
But, through a strange series of coincidences, I happened on a company that, as we got further into negotiations, actually got we were trying to do and were able to do it at a price below $1,000. And they are coming from an industrial background, as opposed to the consumer companies who’s emphasis is on cheap over quality.
The search is (finally!) over.
We’re still going to build the frames and snap them on here in Goshen. But we’re not:
- buying LCDs and tearing off their plastic outsides anymore
- drilling ventilation holes because things are too hot
- switching the layout of components every other month to accomodate LCD model changes
- putting screws through motherboards (this, in case you were wondering, tends to make them unuseable)
- shocking me on electrical wiring (120V isn’t that bad, but it’s still scary)
I couldn’t be happier.
Tomorrow we send out our press releases. Today, you, our loyal blog reader, get the scoop on everyone else, Goshen News included.
