Hardware startups.

1 points by kwoks ↗ HN
what are the main challenges facing hardware startups? Why are there not many hardware startups as compared to software startups?

1 comment

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-They generally have a higher capital investment costs. Most high tech devices cannot be prototyped by a guy in his spare time, unlike a web app.

-Difficult to scale from prototype to production

-Most high tech manufacturing happens in Asia, which makes it difficult for US based startups to find and communicate with reliable partners

-High capital investment costs mean that it is difficult to decrease the per unit cost to the point where high margins can be reaped

These are just a few of the considerations, and aren't applicable in every situation.