And now for something completely different.

I’ve been kicking around ideas for a new blog for almost two years, never quite landing on something solid, and last week it finally dawned on me that I’d been working towards it all along.

Over the past month I attended two fantastic events: the second edition of XOXO in Portland and my first experience at Brooklyn Beta. It was such a thrill to be in the presence of like-minded thinkers and creators. For the longest time Jesse and I flew by the seat of our pants building Lumi. Our first Kickstarter campaign, back in 2009 was a stab in the dark. Many of the tools and software platforms we used to launch the business were brand new. There was no blueprint to follow.

Yet meeting fellow creators in Portland and Brooklyn, it became obvious that we all chose to follow a similar path. It simply made common sense. Reading Chris Anderson’s book “Makers” last year, I felt he had crystallized this new way to build modern products and launch creative ideas. It made me feel a lot less crazy—in a good way.

Throughout my work at Lumi, I’ve never stopped being involved in product strategy and industrial design. Jesse and I have often taken to platforms such as Skillshare and Google Hangouts to share our experience of using Kickstarter and building Lumi. We’ve advised project creators, and have been deeply involved in the product design stage (soon I’ll be able to announce a couple big new projects).

But after a few great conversations with Andy Baio, Barton Smith and Rusty Meadows, it occurred to me: I could be doing a whole lot more to help independent creators gain a foothold in hardware and physical products.

There are a lot of great things already in motion. Pioneers like Studio Neat and MNML, or projects such as Pebble, OUYA, MYO, Oculus Rift, Lockitron and many more. We’re living in an age where almost anyone with a good idea and enough moxie can build a product and take it to market. But by the same token, people are now approaching it from radically different backgrounds: inventors, designers, developers, engineers, entrepreneurs… and many who simply have a passion and a problem they’re eager to solve.

This is where the rubber meets the road. If you want to take on a big new project, especially one that concerns making physical goods, you better be ready to learn. None of it is easy. Prototyping, raising money, manufacturing, marketing, shipping. It’s all hard stuff.

My goal for Edgemade is to invite you in diving deep into the next Industrial Revolution, provide you insight into the successes and failures of this burgeoning movement, and continue to practice its values. In addition to the blog, the first episode of its companion podcast, You Can’t Eat Bits For Breakfast launches today. I hope you’ll join me!