One Obstacle at a Time

First hurdle right out of the gate My current challenge is to get a development kit working. Not having messed with a ...


First hurdle right out of the gate

My current challenge is to get a development kit working. Not having messed with a development kit in 20 years, there’s certainly some unknowns and risks here. Either I can do it, and I continue, or I can’t do it, and I find help.

I reached out to a number of old colleagues for advice on development kits, I followed every lead, and ultimately decided on a rather robust kit from a large, well-known semiconductor company. I found a distributor who had it in stock and placed my order.

A week later the kit arrived, but with no information on how to access the quick start guides, user guides, and development tools and software.

I register with the semiconductor company but still couldn’t access the toolkit from their website.

I contacted the distributor (also a well-known national distributor). After days of back-and-forth emails, they finally understood that it’s on them to let the semiconductor company know that I’m a legit user.

Today I learn the semiconductor company says they won’t authorize me because I’m just a person, and I’m not operating under a legal business entity.

Spark23 is back, this time as a C Corp

Thankfully a week prior I re-connected with a long-time industry partner / colleague who’s an attorney specializing in startups. After a brief call, he’s helping me set up my Delaware C Corp, which I understand will take days-not-weeks (phew), and then I’ll go back to the semiconductor company. Meanwhile the distributor was nice enough to extend my return window.

In the meantime, I’m in the process of figuring out a better company name…

Many (many) more hurdles ahead

I suppose this initial effort is just a warmup for the myriad hurdles ahead of me on this journey. I just have to keep knocking down the obstacles, one at a time.


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