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Comment by geerlingguy | Hacker News Reader

That's the biggest regret; but I've backed 6 Kickstarter projects over the years. Median time to deliver is 1 year.

Somehow I've actually gotten every item I backed shipped at some point (which is unexpected).

Hardware startups are _hard_, and after interacting with a number of them (usually one or two people with a neat idea in an underserved market), it seems like more than half fail before delivering their first retail product. Some at least make it through delivering prototypes/crowdfunded boards, but they're already in complete disarray by the end of the shipping/logistics nightmares.

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Seriously. Imagine the fractal nature of software problems (you do need firmware right?), and add that on top of a layer that has poorly documented errata and non standard peripheral variants. I'm currently making a board to solder onto an existing production run because we finally found the 1 sentence in a 1700page data sheet that explained why many of our MCUs are overheating. Had the datasheet simply labeled VREFP as VDDA, it probably would have triggered a review of the power schematic. Oh, and the CPU overheating was masked by component variation, and CPU binning, which means the overheating wasn't obvious on any of the early prototype boards...

And then, there's the sourcing problem. Components that looked like they were in big supply when the hardware was specced, can end up being in short supply, or worse end of lifed while you're trying to get all the firmware working.

The stories hardware devs have about individual chip datasheets causing hours or weeks of pain...

It's most fun when you can prove the vendor's datasheet is lying about some pin or some function, but they still don't update it after a decade or more. So everyone integrating the chip who hasn't before hits the exact same speed bump!

A junior EE can build the circuits from the examples in the datasheet. A mid-level EE can build configurations NOT shown in the datasheet. A Senior EE can tell you where the datasheet is wrong.

Not completely related, but do you know if hardware kickstarters typically have any IP protection? I'm surprised there haven't been any cases of large companies creating patents for ideas from kickstarter at least that I've seen

One cannot (or at least, one is not supposed to be able to) patent someone else's invention.

You theoretically have a year before you even have to apply- but patents are expressly "first to file."

Public use of an idea still prevents someone else from patenting it.

Sounds like You're conflating sale of a product prior to filing with "prior art"

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