Hardware Startups

Software alone is no longer hot enough. Hardware is in vogue now. Kickstarter, Indiegogo and other crowdfunding platforms are full of hardware startup projects. Personally I have back a dozen or two over the past 2-3 years. Their track record is very similar. They either completely fail to deliver or take twice the promised time, on average.

My experience with hardware tells me now no hardware startup can really commit to a delivery date. Or a precise budget. No matter how hard they are prepared to work. The reason is simple. You never are able to do the hardware completely in hous. You always have to outsource something. Which means you never have a complete control of the execution. And your subcontractors will have delays, your parts will be not what was expected. Then there is the formal testing and certification.

Shipping software is easy. Just upload to the application store. To ship the hardware you have to collect all the physical parts in one place, put them in boxes, the boxes in a container, the container on a plane. And before the plane lands, you need all these FCCs, CEs, RoHSs, TUVs, ULs and God only knows what else, depending on where your customers are.

Three weeks ago I was listening to Matt Rogers interview at the Demo Fall 2014. He was telling stories I have been been through, like smuggling thermostat housings in personal luggage to speed up the process. When your project fails, nobody will remember. When it makes a splash, they will think it must have been easy. I think every hardware startup has their own similar stories. And there is no greater satisfaction then when your product finally ships in volume.

The "not done until it ships" statement means even more for hardware. All other milestones are minor. This is almost an all-or-nothing game.