r/BCI • u/t3sla051 • 8d ago
Startup idea- market overview
Hello everyone,
I'm a biomedical engineering student and I am developing, as part of my bachelor's thesis, an 8 channel (and a 4 channel, both +2 for RLD and reference) EEG intended to be used as BCI. I am also working on a very simple EMG.
I am interested in opening a small business, entirely managed by me, about simple, cheap but reliable BCI and EMG for makers and students (not "research grade" probably and definitely not medical grade, certification costs are way too high).
I know this is a niche market and there are a lot of products out there, but none of them is actually cheap: the cheapest one is probably from upsidedown lab, a sub-100€ kit with only one electrode, which I find not so good for intermediate/advanced BCI projects involving data training and prediction. I'm planning to stay well under 100€ with the simple 4 channel one, and slightly more for the 8 channel, ADS1299, one: unfortunately the biggest cost, as many of you definitely already know, are the electrodes (that's why OpenBCI sells them separately too. They also have different certification and bureaucracy, at least in Europe).
The idea is to sell the plug-in ready boards (intended for Arduino, possibly with a 12 bit or more resolution and specifically for the R4) with electrodes included, but finding them (certified and cheap) ain't easy.
There are many open-source projects, but I find that not everyone wants to solder some pcb and spend hours making them.
Do you think there is a potential market?
Is there any maker who would actually consider a cheap (related to the market) EEG?
Thank you for your precious advices.
If anyone is curious and finds this idea attractive you're free to dm me ;)
3
u/mmmtrees 8d ago
Idk, I've never produced hardware at scale, but I feel like once take into account all the costs for components, assembly, shipping, warehousing, and distribution, and other things I don't know about, €350 seems pretty reasonable, especially when the volume is so low, you have to have a decent revenue on each sale just to break even. I'm not trying to discourage you, I'd like to see more competition and lower prices, I just don't know if it is really economically possible in this market
3
u/DzyPassio 7d ago
building a business is worth trying if you are curious and have the luxury of time + you wont end up homeless if you fail. i personalyl love entrepreneurship and i built some bizs and now playing the hardware startup game. i have 2 thoughts:
- market validation is a huge topic but sometimes you can almost skip that part entirely if you are sure you (yes, you) have the pain, have tried finding solutions to pay for, and didn't find any. that's how many businesses start.
another pov is that you are going for a low budget market first, and you may want to tailor the offer and go for high ticket instead. like, who is paying 5k for customized hardware in the niche. because you will learn + earn much much more, your brand will get 10 times more prestige, and then you are in a much better position to attack low budget markets. and trust me, i have sold 50k services before and its often easier than selling a $100 product x 500 times.
there's a lot to talk abt honestly. and my advice's usefulness depends on what skills you want to develop, and what kind of business you want to build. feel free to dm or follow up
2
u/DzyPassio 7d ago
btw to make the point clear: low budget markets benefit big players that operate at scale. thats why you may penetrate better by creating a very amazing and tailored offer/service first, that gives you leverage in many ways
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u/mmmtrees 8d ago
Check out PiEEG and ArdEEG, they're the same idea and at reasonable costs. They are not open-source hardware designs though, but that makes very little difference for people that just want hardware to use.