This is the 'write everything in assembly' argument.
Productivity and prototyping gains that allow you to proof of concept, manufacture and sell small runs of (expensive) toys, enables large scale investment to manufacture more mature products.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with this approach, and, honestly, the 'big bang' approach of writing it all in C and producing 500,000 units before actually getting them out to anyone is extremely risky.
That's why hardware doesn't get investment.
Just look at kickstarter; great ideas popping up, people wanting them, people getting them.
If you only ever end up making 5000 units for your 5000 backers, so what? Great idea. Prototyped a thing. People who wanted one got one. Not a mass market thing? Ok. We're not not $4,000,000 in debt.
How terrible.