This should be called "Why You Can't Build a Smartphone Ecosystem"

Building the phone itself is easier, license the software from google, develop some cool hardware, build and sell it.

Admittedly, selling it is probably the hardest part, hard to innovate on features, you can innovate in packaging, price, assembly place, any number of other things.

If you have a big enough bucket of money, you could build a new ecosystem, it wont be easy though. Even without the bucket of money you could build a new ecosystem - but you might only capture 2-5% of the market.