Nonprofit Forge is bringing ‘Nearshoring’ to US startups
There is a persistent theory in hardware that manufacturing overseas is the cheaper/better/more efficient option. You build there, assemble elsewhere, and finally get approved and put on the market in the United States.
But it turns out that it is possible to build closer to home. With supply chains in the news more than ever, “nearshoring” is an option for startups; It turns out that you can make many of the same things in your own backyard that you can make overseas, with surprising benefits along the way.
To learn more about how to bring your creation back to life — or establish a local supply chain in the first place — we connected with Forge, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit that helps innovators build relationships with makers and designers. is on a mission to help. For home. So far, it has supported over 600 startups with their manufacturing, product development and supply chain needs, and it is looking to help many, many more.
“We help innovators, people with innovative products, companies, individual inventors, specifically in their product development, manufacturing and supply chain,” said Laura Teicher, Forge Executive Director. “There are a huge number of support organizations in the ecosystem, but many of them are focused on business planning, fundraising, all these other aspects of business. And hardware is tough. It has a higher failure rate. It has additional challenges. And that’s where Forge Ledger -Focused.
Hardware is really hard. Inventions are not created entirely from the minds of their inventors, and large-scale manufacturing is particularly challenging. So let’s take a closer look at Forge, how it works and how it’s helping founders potentially build on the other side of town instead of the other side of the world.