Comment by konschubert
3 years ago
Hehe, those are really important questions you're asking.
I'm looking at the EU and the US market. I know I need to get CE and RoHS and a bunch of other certificates. I know this won't be easy.
If you know somebody who has experience with that, ideally in a boutique/startup environment, I'd love to hear the advice they have to give.
I run a small business selling a piece of open source hardware I designed a few years back (total sales around 10,000 units do far).
I haven't got a single certificate - FCC, CE, RoHS or otherwise. Your customers don't give a fuck, the governments don't give a fuck, and neither should you.
That goes for all forms of official certification. Unless some bureaucrat actively gets in your face and demands you do paperwork (EU VAT registration for FBA sellers is a good example), focus on good logistics and a solid product.
Just in case anyone is considering taking the above as advice..
Everything is entirely correct. Focus on a great product. However, avoiding certification 'because noone cares' - is incorrect. People don't care until something goes wrong.
Correct, you can skirt standards and certifications, or buy CE ratings from less-than-reputable firms - but if something goes wrong - and you're unable to produce appropriate certifications - you open yourself to a world of risk.