WNT Ventures Hardware Series

We know that building a hardware business is hard. It is unusual for hardware founding teams to have the full set of skills required to be able to support them to bring their product from concept all the way to market. We have planned six key workshops that will help give the foundational building blocks for any budding hardware entrepreneur.

The Hardware Rollercoaster

There are many high and lows that are encountered on this journey. It’s important to understand that a lot of the things keeping you up at night as a Hardware Entrepreneur, have kept people up at night before! This series is here to answer some of the questions you have but also to give you partners and networks that you can reach out to and ask questions so that you don’t have to go on this journey alone.

What are in the sessions?

In each session, we will be bringing together industry experts and experienced entrepreneurs to help give you a toolkit to help you through some of the sleepless nights that building a company can bring.

Whether you are already on your hardware startup journey and have questions about certain areas or just thinking about embarking on that startup journey there will be useful insights, networks and case studies that you will get from the series.

#1 in the series - Create a Product Customers will Love

Solving a real problem and finding your initial target market

We know that the world is already full of lots of products. Let’s make sure the product you are building is solving a real problem and that you know who your early adopter is going to be, so you can ensure every one of your products makes it into the right hands.

Led by WNT Investment Manager, Niamh Given, this workshop will give you tools and tips you need to talk to your market and ensure you have problem-market fit before you go too far on your journey. There will be an opportunity to ask questions, talk about market validation challenges you have had in the past and learn from companies who have been through the process.

Speaker Bio - Daniel Mak

Daniel is a PhD Candidate at the University of Canterbury, working on the development of analytical microfluidic devices for applications in the wine industry and beyond. Daniel is passionate about the commercialisation of his technology and has received multiple commercialisation awards and grants to further the technical and commercial development. Daniel recently finished up with the Kiwinet Emerging Innovator programme, for which he participated in WNT’s Market Validation workshop among other commercial skills-building workshops.