

The scope of hardware startups - samkochhar

It&#x27;s always amazes me to see almost every startup being software based. Is there still room for hardware startups? What does a hardware startup need to make it as big if not bigger than a software startup?
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kjs3
There is always room for a product start up. Force10, Fire-eye, etc., prove
that. And products are monumentally cool. My brother-in-law is the product
start up guy, and we always marvel at the low barrier to entry I have (as a
services startup guy). The issue is that a hardware start up requires an order
of magnitude or more more resources to get off the ground than a software
startup.

Consider the process for developing the product. For software, that's a
development issue. For hardware, it's (usually) also a development issue, but
it's also a logistics issue. Where do you get the components? Who is going to
assemble it? How are you going to make sure they don't suck? How are you going
to get over the regulatory compliance issues in all the markets you want to
sell to (like FCC certs, ROHS in the EU)? How are you going to package and
ship. Do you use a channel model to support sales/deployment/support or do you
build that yourself?

Consider the support issues. For software, it's a test/patch/deploy issue. For
hardware, it's probably that, plus how do you stock spares? How do you deploy
a tech to service a customer? How do you handle a bad production run? Where is
the feedback loop between reliability in the field vs the test environment? If
you use one, how do you support the channel?

Product just has more of everything.

