I tried to start a hardware startup last year and actually made it to the interview with PG & co. At the end of the meeting, while the idea was good, it came down to the obvious question of assembling and sourcing the hardware. At that stage, after a lot of research and thinking, I decided to cut my losses and shelf the idea for the time being.

Why? Because hardware is hard. I may be an engineer, but scaling production of a hardware unit from a prototype to shippable products en masse is an extremely hard challenge if you're trying to source your hardware from somewhere like China. Its harder if you're not Apple or HP..or Sony for that matter. I think its unfair to judge wakemate to Sony or Apple standards.

Coincidentally, I met the Wakemate guys when I crashed at the SF hacker house during that time. While they're brilliant and dextrous folks, I certainly felt the vibe that they were finding it extremely challenging to design, produce and ship this thing. The idea of wakemate sounded great, but I wasn't convinced that being non-tech founders, they were entirely aware of the technical and logistical challenges of producing and scaling a hardware unit from scratch to the production line.

I wish them luck though. While they could learn a lesson or two about PR, they've been at it for over an year and have persisted. Customer patience may be running thin after these series of setbacks, but I still believe that they will eventually pull it off.