As a sole founder, and yes I realize that is in itself a problem, hardware is hard.
I've taken a few "purely digital" projects to the masses, but doing that with hardware on your own is freaking hard.
On the one hand, we as starters are supposed to hack, grind, iterate until we have something we can show people and gain feedback. Somewhere in there we are supposed to find other starters that are willing to take the plunge with us.
In the digital realm this is easy because you can make fruitful progress in a few night's work.
The the hardware side you can work for months to demonstrate something that looks like dogshit and does what you say it does.
In the pure digital world, you don't usually have to separate "looks like" from "works like", unless you are just at the absolute earliest stages.
So is hardware hard? Hell yes.
Is it harder than "pure digital". Hell yes.
Are things making it easier, and does exposure to fab labs and maker spaces make it easier? Yeah, a little bit.
I've taken a few "purely digital" projects to the masses, but doing that with hardware on your own is freaking hard.
On the one hand, we as starters are supposed to hack, grind, iterate until we have something we can show people and gain feedback. Somewhere in there we are supposed to find other starters that are willing to take the plunge with us.
In the digital realm this is easy because you can make fruitful progress in a few night's work.
The the hardware side you can work for months to demonstrate something that looks like dogshit and does what you say it does.
In the pure digital world, you don't usually have to separate "looks like" from "works like", unless you are just at the absolute earliest stages.
So is hardware hard? Hell yes.
Is it harder than "pure digital". Hell yes.
Are things making it easier, and does exposure to fab labs and maker spaces make it easier? Yeah, a little bit.