6. Conclusions

People who get inspired nowadays to start a hardware company have a lot more help to make it a success than ever before. Crowdfunding makes raising capital for the prospective product essentially straightforward compared to before. Prototyping is getting better every day, as more platforms are available, they are more sophisticated, and targeted directly at prototyping (as opposed to mere tinkering). The community knowledge is building up regarding hardware and technology, making learning new things faster.

All the changes that make hardware creation faster make startups be more resilient too, as they need much less capital now than before, increasing their chances to survive till launch day and beyond. Accelerators are also there to further improve their odds, and the rise of hardware-focused accelerators will be able to provide much more tailored advice to entrepreneurs.

The ecosystem around hardware is changing very quickly as well, and all stakeholders will need to think in their place in tomorrows economies. Factories and manufacturers start to open their doors to smaller customers (startups instead of the traditional large multinationals), and a lot of effort goes into finding a common (economical) language on both sides.

Consumers are thinking about hardware in a different way too. Pre-sales are much more acceptable and often products can be brought out earlier to eager beta testers to ensure that the final design will be a big hit. This new transparency, seeing the work going on previously behind the scenes also inspires a lot of people to become creators from consumers, driving a strong entrepreneurial feedback loop.

Many previously “dumb” products and industries are poised to become “smart”, by people applying technology in helpful and unusual ways. Companies at the top of industries like kitchenware and agriculture will likely look very different in a few years than they are now. Companies in passion-driven industries like fitness can benefit a lot by the ability to drive further engagement through providing interactivity, data, and intelligence to their customers. Whole new industries will be created by gadget categories that didn’t exist before, as we have illustrated it with the development around drones.

The Asia-Pacific economies have a lot at stake, as they are the center of traditional manufacturing, which is poised to undergo large changes in the near future. While the upcoming changes are uncertain, there are steps that can ensure long term flourishing of economies in almost any scenario, based on lessons learned from the quick rise of the hardware startups.