我从Phlock那里学到的东西，我的硬件启动公司消失了

by Tomiwa

通过Tomiwa

我从Phlock那里学到的东西，我的硬件启动公司消失了 (What I learned from Phlock, my hardware startup that disappeared)

Prior to starting my current company, I founded a startup called Phlock. I built a device that let you unlock doors using your phone and share keys with friends in real time. Phlock didn’t actually fail, but something much worse happened: it simply disappeared.

在创办我目前的公司之前，我创建了一家名为Phlock的创业公司 。 我开发了一种设备，可让您使用手机打开门并与朋友实时共享钥匙。 Phlock实际上并没有失败，但是更糟的事情发生了：它消失了。

Here’s a video of an early prototype:

这是一个早期原型的视频：

In the summer of 2017, I came up with the idea for Atila (a platform to search for and apply to scholarships). Without ever actually making a conscious decision, I gradually started spending less time on Phlock and more time on Atila.

在2017年夏天，我想到了Atila(一个搜索和申请奖学金的平台)的想法。 在没有真正做出明智决定的情况下，我逐渐开始花更少的时间在Phlock上，而花更多的时间在Atila上。

By the time school started in the fall, Atila had a fully functional prototype and we were planning on launching soon.

到秋天学校开学时，Atila拥有了功能齐全的原型，我们正计划很快推出。

Meanwhile, the Phlock Github repo hadn’t been touched in over 2 months. I had been so busy with Atila, and Phlock was still so obscure, that few people actually knew or cared about it. It had quietly slid into the abyss.

同时，超过两个月没有触及Phlock Github仓库。 我对阿提拉(Atila)一直很忙，而福洛克(Phlock)仍然如此晦涩，几乎没有人知道或关心它。 它悄悄地滑入深渊。

In this article, I’d like to share with you some things I’ve learned from starting a company that disappeared.

在本文中，我想与您分享一些我从创办一家消失了的公司中学到的东西。

• Start with Software - it’s called Hardware for a Reason ?
  从软件开始-出于某种原因被称为硬件？
• Web Apps over Mobile Apps
  通过移动应用程序的Web应用程序
• Quitting is Underrated
  戒烟被低估
• Share the Journey
  分享旅程
• Love the Process
  热爱过程

Let’s look at each one in more detail.

让我们更详细地看看每个。

从软件开始-出于某种原因被称为硬件 (Start with software - it’s called hardware for a reason)

One of my biggest lessons is that if you are a first time entrepreneur, you should really consider starting with a software as a service company. There are too many variables in a hardware startup. If it’s your first time starting a company, some of the challenges in hardware will finish your company before you even start. Or worse, after you’ve started.

我最大的教训之一是，如果您是第一次创业，则应真正考虑从软件即服务公司开始。 硬件启动中的变量太多。 如果这是您第一次创办公司，那么硬件方面的一些挑战将在您甚至还没有成立之前就完成了公司。 更糟糕的是，开始之后。

有什么问题？ (What are the problems?)

The single biggest challenge is a lack of iteration speed and the long feedback cycles. When you are starting a company, you need to be able to have a hypothesis, test the hypothesis, and iterate quickly on the response you get.

最大的挑战是缺乏迭代速度和反馈周期长。 在创办公司时，您需要有一个假设，测试该假设，并快速迭代获得的响应。

Starting a company can be so counterintuitive that, most of the time, it’s better to just release something that doesn’t even fully work yet. That way, at least people can show you why it doesn’t work and you can quickly give them a better version.

成立公司可能是违反直觉的，以致在大多数情况下，最好发布甚至还无法完全发挥作用的东西。 这样，至少有人可以向您展示为什么它不起作用，并且您可以Swift为他们提供更好的版本。

However, with hardware you typically have a hypothesis based on what the market wants. You work on it for a long period of time, then get feedback on it. The problem is, by the time you get the feedback, your company may no longer have the money, motivation, or market interest to iterate on the feedback.

但是，对于硬件，您通常会根据市场需求做出假设。 您需要长时间处理它，然后才能获得反馈。 问题是，当您获得反馈时，您的公司可能不再有金钱，动力或市场兴趣来迭代反馈。

The other problem with hardware is that there are too many variables that are out of your control. We entrepreneurs like to be masters of our own destiny and captains of our ship, and hardware can turn you into a wimpy leaf. When you start a company, it feels like there are so many little things that can go wrong and your company will fall.

硬件的另一个问题是，太多变量无法控制。 我们的企业家喜欢成为我们自己命运的主人和我们的船长，而硬件可以将您变成w弱的叶子。 当您创办公司时，感觉好像有太多小事情会出错，并且您的公司会倒下。

Fortunately, with software companies, you have a lot of control over making a product that the market wants, and that gives you leverage. With software, if something doesn’t work it’s usually your fault. This is actually a liberating feeling. In hardware, there are too many external suppliers, vendors, investors, distributors and so on that have leverage over you and can impact the future of your company.

幸运的是，在软件公司，您可以控制市场所需的产品，从而可以充分利用产品。 使用软件，如果某事不起作用，通常是您的错。 这实际上是一种解放的感觉。 在硬件方面，有太多的外部供应商，供应商，投资者，分销商等对您有影响，并可能影响公司的未来。

My friends often pitch me on business ideas they have. When it involves anything hardware-related, and they’ve never started a company before, I often give them the same advice.

我的朋友经常向我介绍他们的商业想法。 当涉及与硬件相关的任何事情，并且他们从未创办过公司时，我经常给他们同样的建议。

Keep the same idea you have, but think of a subset of that problem which could be solved by a purely software solution through a web or mobile app. Build that first, and then once you know you can deliver a tangible product (and, more importantly, make something people want), you can start adding the hardware components to your idea.

保持与您相同的想法，但请考虑该问题的一个子集，该子集可以通过纯软件解决方案通过Web或移动应用程序解决。 首先构建它，然后在知道可以交付有形产品(更重要的是制造人们想要的东西)之后，就可以开始将硬件组件添加到您的想法中了。

Web应用程序比移动应用程序 (Web apps over mobile apps)

If I was to redo Phlock, I would have made the mobile app into a web app or added a “phlock-lite” version that was a web app. This advice is not strictly relevant to Phlock, because there was a hardware component so a native mobile app was necessary. But I think that the future of software will be delivered through web apps over mobile apps.

如果要重做Phlock，我会将移动应用程序制作为Web应用程序，或者添加了一个“ phlock-lite”版本的Web应用程序。 该建议与Phlock并不严格相关，因为其中包含硬件组件，因此有必要使用本机移动应用程序。 但是我认为软件的未来将通过网络应用程序而非移动应用程序交付。

I wrote another post about this (see the Progressive Web Apps section). The punchline is that web browsers, JavaScript, and web apps are becoming more powerful. But at the same time, people are becoming increasingly reluctant to download new apps from app stores. As a startup, many companies take themselves out of the game, because many people won’t download the app before they can even find out if its bad or good.

我为此写了另一篇文章 (请参阅渐进式Web应用程序部分)。 最重要的是，Web浏览器，JavaScript和Web应用程序变得越来越强大。 但是与此同时，人们越来越不愿意从应用商店下载新应用。 作为一家初创企业，许多公司将自己从游戏中淘汰了，因为许多人甚至在发现应用程序的优劣之前都不会下载该应用程序。

戒烟被低估 (Quitting is underrated)

One of the things I learned from Phlock was a new way of thinking about quitting. There were a couple weeks when I kept working on Phlock in the name of “finish what you started” and “never give up.” But this may have been a mistake.

我从福克中学到的一件事是关于戒烟的新思维。 有几周的时间，我以“完成您的工作”和“永不放弃”的名义继续从事Phlock的研究。 但这可能是一个错误。

People either quit because something is too hard, or because what they’re doing is taking them down the wrong path. Of course the great Jedi mind trick is that many people quit the right path because it’s too hard, and then they convince themselves that they quit because they were going down the wrong path.

人们要么因为某事太难而辞职，要么是因为他们正在做的事使他们走错了路。 当然，绝地绝妙的招数是很多人因为太难而退出正确的道路，然后他们说服自己因为走错了道路而退出了。

I myself have this issue sometimes. But then I ask myself “If this was easier, would I still want to do it?” I don’t think I consciously knew I was doing it at the time, but in retrospect, that question helped me realize my time was better spent on Atila.

我自己有时会遇到这个问题。 但是然后我问自己：“如果这样更容易，我是否仍然愿意做？” 我不认为我当时有意识地在做，但是回想起来，这个问题使我意识到我的时间最好花在Atila上。

分享旅程 (Share the journey)

One thing I wish I did more during my work with Phlock was documenting and sharing more of the thoughts I had and the things I made. I think this is beneficial for two reasons:

我希望在与Phlock合作期间做得更多的一件事是记录并分享更多的想法和所作所为。 我认为这样做有两个好处：

1. The serendipity of the Internet has allowed cool opportunities to come out of people finding the things I have shared.
   互联网的偶然性使人们找到了我分享的东西的机会很酷。
2. Documenting my ideas for future generations to see is pretty cool. I could also use it as a public archive that would give a snapshot of where my head was at the time, and how my thinking has changed.
   将我的想法记录下来，以供子孙后代查看是很酷的。 我还可以将其用作公共档案，以提供当时的头颅快照以及我的思维方式如何变化的快照。

Finally, I spend a lot of time in open source land and I’m always amazed by the stuff that people create and share on the Internet for free. This is why I think that giving back to the open source community whenever you can is a good thing.

最后，我在开源领域花了很多时间，人们总是免费在Internet上创建和共享这些内容，这让我感到惊讶。 这就是为什么我认为只要有可能就回馈开源社区是一件好事。

I have open-sourced some of the code I used to build Phlock. I’ve included the Java source code for the Android app that allowed users to share keys with each other in real time, and the code that controlled the microcontroller which locked and unlocked the door deadbolt.

我已经开源了一些我用来构建Phlock的代码 。 我已经包括了Android应用程序的Java源代码，该源代码允许用户彼此实时共享密钥，以及控制微控制器的功能，该微控制器锁定和解锁门锁。

There are a lot of files, and parsing what can and can’t be shared will take a bit of time. So I’ll be sharing the code ad-hoc and based on community interest. If anybody wants me to upload more stuff let me know (tomiwa@atila.ca).

有很多文件，解析什么可以共享和什么不能共享将花费一些时间。 因此，我将根据社区的兴趣临时共享代码。 如果有人要我上传更多内容，请告诉我( tomiwa@atila.ca )。

热爱过程 (Love the process)

Looking at my folder with all the Phlock code, I have these weird mixed emotions of indifference and concern. I spent so much time and cognitive load on Phlock that leaving it to do something else was kind of sad. But at the same time, I enjoyed building Phlock and I really feel like I left it for a good reason. This is why I feel good about my choice today.

看着我所有的Phlock代码所在的文件夹，我感到这些冷漠和关注的奇怪混合情绪。 我花了很多时间和认知上的负担在Phlock上，以至于让它去做其他事情有些令人难过。 但是与此同时，我喜欢建造Phlock，而且我真的觉得我有充分的理由离开了它。 这就是为什么我今天对自己的选择感到满意。

I really enjoyed the day to day grind and process of building Phlock, and the skills that I learned were effectively an investment in whatever I do next. When I have talks with people about career advice, I often ask them to focus on the median emotion of their decision. In other words, ignore the emotional high social validation of a prestigious job, and think of what a regular, unspectacular day and life as an entrepreneur would look like.

我真的很喜欢每天进行的工作和Phlock的构建过程，而我所学到的技能实际上是对下一步工作的一种投资。 当我与人们讨论职业建议时，我经常请他们关注他们决策的中性情绪。 换句话说，不要理会这份享有崇高声誉的工作在情感上的高度社交认可，而想想一个企业家平常，平淡无奇的日子和生活。

Imagine a rainy Monday morning waking up for a full day of work or a quiet Wednesday afternoon in the office. With Phlock, and now with Atila, there are many days where nothing particularly special happens, except “work stuff.” Often those are some of the best days. Finding happiness in normalcy is something that has helped me a lot, and maybe it might help you.

想象一个下雨的星期一早上醒来要整天工作，或者在办公室里安静的星期三下午。 对于Phlock，现在与Atila，在很多日子里，除了“工作内容”之外，没有什么特别的事情发生。 通常那些是最好的日子。 在正常状态下找到幸福对我很有帮助，也许对您有帮助。

最后的想法 (Final thoughts)

This post was more divergent than most of my other essays — and most of my other essays are already quite divergent. However, I think that by covering a wide range of thoughts, everyone can find a little bit of something that will be relevant to them. Thanks for reading, and have a great day.

这篇文章比我大多数其他文章更具分歧性-我的大多数其他文章已经相当分歧。 但是，我认为通过涵盖广泛的思想，每个人都可以找到一些与他们相关的东西。 感谢您的阅读，并度过愉快的一天。

Originally published at the Atila Blog.

最初在Atila博客上发布 。

翻译自: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/phlock-my-hardware-startup-that-disappeared-dde737fedea2/