This article was taken from the October 2014 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Jumping on the maker bandwagon has never been easier, thanks to all the scanning, milling and printing tools available -- and that's causing a boom in physical-stuff startups. "London has lots of people making great hardware, but it's hard to find each other because of how spread out the city is," says Matt Webb, cofounder and CEO of design studio BERG. So Wired and Webb set out to map the community. Crowdsourcing data via Twitter, Facebook and Google+, we highlighted independent startups bringing a physical product to market, locating 50 firms within the M25, 21 of which were founded in the past year. "Breaking into distributors without a track record is very, very hard," explains Webb. "But Kickstarter allows you to sell directly to customers." It's also becoming easier for startups to find manufacturers. London-based Blaze brought its cycle laser-light (WIRED 08.13) to market via PCH International's accelerator programme (06.14), which opened up the product-making and -supply company's Chinese manufacturing links. "Blaze's path is something we see happening a lot," says Webb. "They have an idea, Kickstart it, move to east London, then start manufacturing in east Asia."
And of course there's the nature of the capital itself. "London offers a brilliant convergence of overlapping scenes," explains Webb. "Cambridge is up the road, so we've got access to that technology, there's lots of great design colleges and Tech City has the investor base. It's such a vibrant sharing scene."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
