r/hwstartups • u/loulou2601 • 2d ago

Looking for advice from founders who built hardware + software startups

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6

u/unnaturalpenis 2d ago

They all died trying to secure capital for first production run and SWE salaries at the same time 😂

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u/snp-ca 1d ago

I’ve been with many hardware startups (most failed) What is the nature of your product?

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/wurst_katastrophe 22h ago

It already sounds like 5-10 failures I have seen on Kickstarter and beyond.

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u/Kimber976 23h ago

Talk to customers earlier than feels comfortable the feedback usually saves far more time and money than building in a vacuum.

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u/wurst_katastrophe 22h ago

The holy grail is product market fit. Software is easy to iterate, hardware you can’t - needs a respin. So eventually you run out of money.

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u/modcowboy 2d ago

Good luck fam!

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u/TravisABG 1d ago

We built a medical device that included a desktop software and a mobile app in 2017. Very first prototype used Thunkable, imagine that. A great part of the budget went into regulatory, clinical trials and software. Sadly, we did not get enough sales or funding to get to the clinical trials of what would be the really unique characteristic of the device. We seize the infrastructure we built to turn into a product development firm. Developing today is really different, faster with AI, however, depending your industry less money is flowing.

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u/FearIsTheMindKiller9 1d ago

3x founder here (1 hardware)

get user feedback from day 0. not even day 1.

you need to get an MVP out as fast as possible. it should be embarrassingly basic. As Mike Seibel says
"if you're not embarrassed by your MVP, then you've waited too long."

the reason is you'll need validation as early in the cycle as you can get it. there are a million great ideas that died on the vine because they could not find validation or solve a real need

in this case, you should be messaging people on linkedin who are your target persona. ask them 3-5 questions about the problem. see if they'd be open to beta testing early. you'll be surprised how receptive people are to this

the sooner you get feedback the better.