Ask HN: Is it Madness to do a Hardware Startup?
It seems that hardware startups have an even greater chance of failure compared to software startups. Startups are hard - I get that(!) - but is it completely mad to be considering a hardware startup?
[0] http://pioneers.io/blog/hardware-startups-to-succeed-you-hav...
Survivorship Bias
There are many success stories of hardware startups (pebble[2], fitbit[3], nest[4]) and as far as I can tell, they all have the same qualities: they are beautifully designed and have done very well on crowdfunding sites like kickstarter. Are these requirements for a successful hardware startup or am I succumbing to an observation/confirmation bias?
Knowledge and Resources
There aren't that many resources to help hardware startups in terms of product design, manufacturing and marketing. There is a wealth of information available for free on the internet for software startups including design, content marketing, seo and growth hacking but not much for hardware startups[5]. Some VCs appear to be getting in to Hardware Startups (I know pg / YC does a few and Tony Hsieh of Zappos hasthe Nimbus Portfolio) but slowly.
[5]: http://www.berkeleysg.com/2014/02/a-great-list-of-helpful-re...
The Little Guys
There are many great products out there that get some exposure but perhaps not the amount they should (CubeSensors[6], GetNarrative[7], TinyHardwareFirewall[8] are great examples). Ultimately, perhaps some/most will fail. Is there any hope for the little guy if they have a good product in terms of utility but don't make that 'break'?
Crowdfunding seems to work best with hardware startups.