Ask HN: Is it Madness to do a Hardware Startup?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7304923

by charlieirish • 12 years ago

3 4 12 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

It seems that hardware startups have an even greater chance of failure compared to software startups. Startups are hard - I get that(!) - but is it completely mad to be considering a hardware startup?

charlieirish• 12 years ago

I've seen articles saying that to do a hardware startup you need to sleep in the factory in China![0]

[0] http://pioneers.io/blog/hardware-startups-to-succeed-you-hav...

Survivorship Bias

There are many success stories of hardware startups (pebble[2], fitbit[3], nest[4]) and as far as I can tell, they all have the same qualities: they are beautifully designed and have done very well on crowdfunding sites like kickstarter. Are these requirements for a successful hardware startup or am I succumbing to an observation/confirmation bias?

[2] https://getpebble.com/

[3] http://www.fitbit.com/

[4] https://nest.com/

Knowledge and Resources

There aren't that many resources to help hardware startups in terms of product design, manufacturing and marketing. There is a wealth of information available for free on the internet for software startups including design, content marketing, seo and growth hacking but not much for hardware startups[5]. Some VCs appear to be getting in to Hardware Startups (I know pg / YC does a few and Tony Hsieh of Zappos hasthe Nimbus Portfolio) but slowly.

[5] http://www.berkeleysg.com/2014/02/a-great-list-of-helpful-re...

The Little Guys

There are many great products out there that get some exposure but perhaps not the amount they should (CubeSensors[6], GetNarrative[7], TinyHardwareFirewall[8] are great examples). Ultimately, perhaps some/most will fail. Is there any hope for the little guy if they have a good product in terms of utility but don't make that 'break'?

[6] http://cubesensors.com/

[7] http://getnarrative.com/

[8] http://tinyhardwarefirewall.com/

sharemywin• 12 years ago

Not if you have the capital.

JacobH• 12 years ago

The best way to go is getting preorders to fill orders. You won't have to deal with leftover inventory, or debt. You'll also know in advance if people would buy your product.

Crowdfunding seems to work best with hardware startups.

quarterwave• 12 years ago

Whatever you do, please don't design your own chip.

Ask HN: Is it Madness to do a Hardware Startup?

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