[HH] Limor Fried interview

[Tom Metro]

A 20 minute interview with Limor Fried, Founder of Adafruit. Part of
TechCrunch's Disrupt conference.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9b_K2kmCTDI

Mostly introductory material - going through Adafruit's educational
products for kids - and then covering the manufacturing issues covered
in the article below.

An associated article:

Limor Fried Explains Why Adafruit Industries Likes Manufacturing In
North America
http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/01/limor-fried-explains-why-adafruit-industries-likes-manufacturing-in-north-america/

  There's a long-held notion that China should be the go-to place for
  those in need of inexpensive manufactured products, but some prominent
  makers don't buy it. Our own John Biggs sat down with Adafruit
  Industries founder Limor Fried (perhaps better known as Lady Ada) for
  a chat on the Disrupt NY stage that quickly turned to deal with the
  benefits of manufacturing hardware close to home.

  When Adafruit needs to make some injection-molded cases, they don't
  run to China -- they turn to an experience Canadian supplier. The same
  goes for the multitudes of printed circuit boards that Adafruit needs,
  except they reach out to a company in Colorado instead. One would
  imagine that the end results aren't quite as cheap as if Adafruit has
  just linked up with Chinese vendors, but Fried says the price
  difference isn't as substantial as it used to be.
  ...
  Makerbot founder and CEO Bre Pettis said that makers who produce
  relatively small 50,000 to 100,000 unit product runs were better off
  keeping the manufacturing process in the United States because of the
  benefits of proximity.
  ...
  It's a refreshing take on the process of hardware production and
  sales, and it seems to be doing rather well -- Adafruit Industries saw
  $4.5 million in sales in 2011, and Fried was named Entrepreneur
  Magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year at the end of 2012.


 -Tom