Eric Migicovsky, founder of the Pebble smartwatch, has been posting updates about his journey to bring the Pebble back to market, 10 years later. The latest entry from a February trip to Shenzhen is full of interesting details. It also feels like a story, like so many, that isn’t really told or heard in the US:
The majority of electronic devices you use are manufactured in Asia. More specifically, global gadget production is centered around the city of Shenzhen in a region called the Pearl River Delta. I traveled there to spend time with the factories and suppliers who will help build the next watch.
The supply chain here is unparalleled. Odds are everything if you need a component to build your gadget like a chip, motor, display, metal or plastic part, glue, glass lens, buttons etc, someone nearby makes or sells it. You can get in a car, drive 1-2 hours and visit the supplier.
This is great but not even the best part - it’s the speed at which business is done. I’ve been in meetings where we realize that we need more information or an alternative supplier for a part, then within 10 minutes we have that new person on a call or chatting with us over WeChat, and later that day we have an answer to our question. This speed simply does not exist with Western companies. For example, I’ve been waiting for 3 weeks to get 100 samples from a chip company. The shipment has been tied up in various stages of bureaucratic SNAFUs that are carried out over email, across timezones, each with multi-day resolutions (first we needed a phone number for the shipping, then we needed an import number… etc etc). Another example, I asked 8 days ago for a quote on a part… still waiting.
There’s a lot more to the update, all of which is really interesting.