Nonprofit organization FORGE is bringing nearshoring to US startups.
there is a lingering theory in hardware that manufacturing overseas is the cheapest/best/most efficient option. You manufacture there, assemble elsewhere, and finally get approved and get to market in the United States.
But it turns out that it is possible to manufacture closer to home. With supply chains in the news more than ever, “locating near” is an option for startups; It turns out that you can build in your own backyard a lot of the things you can build abroad, with amazing benefits along the way.
For more information on how to scale back your manufacturing, or to establish a local supply chain in the first place, we connected with FORGE, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit on a mission to help innovators build relationships much closer with manufacturers and designers. to home. So far, it has supported more than 600 startups with their manufacturing, product development, and supply chain needs, and it wants to help many, many more.
“We help innovators, people with innovative products, companies, individual inventors, specifically with their product development, manufacturing and supply chain,” explained Laura Teicher, CEO of FORGE. “There are a lot of support organizations in the ecosystem, but a lot of them focus on business planning, fundraising, these other aspects of the business. And the hardware is tough. It has a higher failure rate. It has additional challenges. And that’s where FORGE lasers in.”
The hardware is really hard. Inventions do not emerge fully formed from the brains of their inventors, and manufacturing at scale is particularly challenging. So let’s take a closer look at FORGE, how it works, and how it helps founders potentially build on the other side of town instead of the other side of the world.
