It was asked in a forum if Gadget Factory is “financially poor”. Our response was to tell the Gadget Factory story so that people have a better idea about who we are and what we are about.
Our response:
“You are absolutely correct in the statement that Gadget Factory, and the Papilio One, is financially poor! I just realized that the website may make us look like we have more resources than we truly do. Let me take a minute to tell the Gadget Factory story.
The idea for Gadget Factory came about a couple years ago as I sat in a cubicle working as a Network Engineer at a large company making a pretty comfortable living. I came to the realization that I had no real passion for the work I was doing and that life is too short to spend it just trying to be comfortable. What I really wanted to be doing was to become an “Inventor” and make Open Source Gadgets. I spent the next year saving every penny I had and paying off all my debt. A year ago I was finally to a state where I had enough savings that I could survive for a couple years if my family lived very frugally and pinched every penny. I quit my job and Gadget Factory was born!
Gadget Factory has been about bootstrapping since day one. Every penny from sales has gone right back into the company to pay for parts and pcb’s and new prototypes. We pinch every penny and try to stretch every sale as far as possible. I personally am still living off savings and am no where near being able to live off the income that Gadget Factory generates. So you can see, Gadget Factory is about the passion to invent new things and the hope is that it will one day be able to support my living expenses. So it is entirely accurate to say that Gadget Factory is financially poor but rich in passion.
Jack.”
To date the Gadget factory team consists of the following primary contributors:
Jack Gassett – Westminster Colorado, USA
Founder of Gadget Factory who works full time from his basement. Professional background is in IT as a system architect/engineer/adminstrator. Degree in Sociology from the University of Colorado.
Girish Pundlik – Pune, India
Regular contributor of advice and electronics designs from the beginning of Gadget Factory. Runs the India branch of Gadget Factory which is structured as a sister company to Gadget Factory World.
Other contributors:
Bryan Pape – Westminster Colorado, USA
Filled a sales/product development role for a while before moving on to other opportunities.
IPPenguin – Germany
Provides very much appreciated business advice, general help, and electronic design contributions.
Jochem Govers
Cleaned up the Papilio Loader and implemented a very much needed SPI Flash programming mode.
There are many others that have contributed in ways that are greatly appreciated. From all the developers of GForge, LAMP, EAGLE, and all the other Open Source software we use to those that have provided Linux ports of tools. Without the contributions of the Open Source community Gadget Factory would not be possible.
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