Hard Tech Startups
This is the hardest thing to explain to people about companies like ours. When I say that machine vision systems are comparable to building hardware people can&#x27;t conceptualize that because they have never really worked with novel CV&#x2F;ML systems.<p>I think this post has it right too in that finding a small application of the technology is a good approach to sustaining yourself while you get to a bigger goal. This however adds a magnitude of complexity - which means funding requirements aren&#x27;t that much smaller. For example you have to build a product while also building the technology - vs just building a product on exiting technologies, which is hard enough itself. It&#x27;s also a risk because if that one product is not a winner, then it poisons the larger play - even though it might be itself very valuable.<p>The challenge comes when you have to explain that, no actually this first thing is just the POC for a larger thing we&#x27;re trying to do - especially when you are building the market for that larger thing.<p>I think the best path for hard tech companies is to have a lot of money from the start. I know that sounds obvious, but I think it&#x27;s true specifically for hard tech companies.<p>Unfortunately that usually means you as a founder are a known entity in the venture world. Whether that means you use your own money from a previous exit (like Musk) or convince someone to fund a lot of it (probably because you had a previous exit and have connections) you need a lot of capital up-front.<p>So if you are an unknown to the people with cash, with hard tech plans, prepare for a tough time ahead.