OT: I've just become Joerg-asmed ;-)

That's interesting: an electronic design consultant who delivers a built working PCB prototype, not just a design. Sounds like a family business, sort of what Phil seems to be doing maybe.

The thing about cold calling, or selling in general, is that your hit rate may be 5%. So keep trying and learning. Most people don't marry the first woman that they meet.

I went to one photonics trade show with a prototype digital delay generator, and hit the booths of all the people who make ICCD cameras. The first seven sneered and tossed us back into the aisle. The 8th said "where have you been?" They buy about 150 per year now.

No. My suggestion is that you research businesses in your area and a find a few that might need help, prefably companies whose expertise isn't electronics. A medium-sized company run by scientists is ideal, because they usually won't have an entrenched engineeing culture to compete with. Study up on their technology, competitors, buzzwords, whatever you can learn about their speciality. Ideally they should be making money and growing, but you can gamble on startups if you can afford to; most won't make it. Then find a technical contact and call them, ask if you can help. Offer help, or a prototype, for free maybe. The attitude is "what you do is interesting, and I'd love to help you if I can." Keep at it. Beats sitting around.

We do that, cold-calling, say, laser companies, asking if they need timing or laser drivers. And we seed our web site with keywords that might attract the sorts of people who could use our help. An individual could do that, too. Non-electronic trade shows are a good place to find customers.

It's amazing that companies, often all the competitors in a niche, sometimes give up performance, like a 30 dB s/n margin, because they have rotten electronics.

Ummm...you're talking about top-dollar products there, for farming operations requiring serious cash flow.

I think the Toto stuff is made in China or SEA. Maybe Japan for the really high-end commode-ities.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Hmm, visiting a trade show may be a good idea. The idea I have about myself is that I'm much better at selling myself when I speak to someone face to face than over the telephone. Therefore I always try to get an appointment to visit a potential customer so they can show what they do and what their problems are. Cold calling hasn't been very productive for me.

I'm sure if there were thousands of companies doing electronics within a 1-hour drive you'd have plenty of choice. How far away is the closest decent-sized university with a good engineering program?

It's not a problem yet, but I see a lot of the high-end machining capability moving offshore along with the high end tool, die and mold shops, so the choices are not as great as five or ten years ago.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

There's a "Rule of Seven" that people have to be "touched" at least that many times to make a substantial purchase. Maybe there is something cosmic about the 6-9 number, like Pareto's Principle and 1/f noise.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

I could change one of those faster than going down the road!

But for any slightly complicated board I get my assembler to (hand) make prototypes. I can do it but it takes half the day and it is fiddly work that leaves me tired to do much else.

Luckily my assembler is in fact down the road :)

Trade shows may have marketing types in the booth, and one needs to get past them to the technical decision makers. But they will often give you names, so you can call the tekkies and drop the names of the booth droids as references.

It only works a tiny fraction of the time, so you have to keep trying.

There aren't thousands but dozens. Silicon Valley is 2-3h drive. Too far.

UC Davis, but mostly biomedical. Nowadays most students wouldn't even be able to wield a soldering iron properly.

The fact that Blackberry is about to croak up there probably wont' help. I just hope Waterloo won't turn into another Mini-Detroit.

It's also a bit rude to go around trying to sell to the guys who have spent tens of thousands of dollars for a booth, other rentals, airline tickets, hotels, labor etc. to sell their stuff, so don't ever get in the way of an interaction with a real customer, no matter how much you hope they will need and want what you have.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

I don't have the requisite tools and my eyesight doesn't erxactly get better with age. Plus I just don't have the time.

Lucky you.

Well, I often carry my designs all the way through until there are working prototypes. But I do not build them myself and do not wish to. I'd need a bigger place for that.

Cold "emailing" is another option. Sometimes I write proposals, mostly when I see what John wrote, rotten electronics holding back the performance of an otherwise good system design.

Most proposals fizzle but when one takes off it can be major. Seen purely from a Dollar perspective proposals were my #1 success mechanism, closely followed by my web site (just for having it, doesn't need to be fancy).

That is the problem. Welfare breeds laziness and combined with a bad busines climate that can snuff out a lot of infrastructure. Out here they could set up shop in Nevada but that can be an issue in Winter when the pass towards Lake Tahoe closes.

I would not want to deal with a service provider like that. Legally it all has to be on the up-and-up.

One can politely inquire when the VP of Engineering or some other engineering manager might be there, or when there is a lull in booth traffic. A well run trade show booth has a "concierge desk" where one can inquire.

Another option is to drop a brief letter and business card for the VP of Engineering at the concierge desk, with the number of the cell phone you are carrying on that day.

UC Davis used to have a good EE department. Some years back I made a special trip there to discuss brushless DC motor controls with their expert professor.

...Jim Thompson

It is a great university, I like the people there. But AFAICT there is no infrastructure for serious hardware work, that needs to be done outside. Just like in most companies.

It really baffles me that no technician is offering that, despite companies closing or moving out of CA left and right. I would do that immediately if I was a tech. You could turn a profit within or right after the first month.