If Kickstarter isn’t a solution to everything, you may turn to these Asian platforms.

Platforms like Kickstarter have become the first nowadays hardware makers would turn to for crowdfunding and early adopters. But in the past year or so backers on those platforms would find themselves always waiting to receive the real thing. Delays were largely due to hardware design and manufacturing issues.

That’s where some Asian original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) see the new business opportunities. The key problem, from their perspective, is some software developer-turned makers have little knowledge in hardware design and have no idea how much time is needed for producing certain parts.

Taiwan-based HWTrek looks like every another crowdfunding site. But the big difference is it offers to help makers around the world, with resources in OEM sector across Asia, understand which ideas associated to hardware manufacturing won’t work before they build a prototype or reach out to manufacturers.

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