An interesting short article by Chris Quintero, about what goes wrong when hardware startups are ready to start selling actual production units.  The company faces simultaneous “manufacturing hell” and “fundraising hell.”

My response: It’s a good analysis, but it’s symptomatic of the problem that the author does not include a single recommendation about manufacturing.

Manufacturing 1000 units is a whole different world than making 10, and I’ve seen many idealistic startups founder because the team thinks they can outsource all the manufacturing issues (and, to the least expensive contract manufacturer). Not understanding tolerances and not designing for manufacturability, for example, cause months of delay, that eat cash needlessly and often fatally. But some startup teams don’t have this expertise. If you are in that situation, work with an appropriate US-based partner such as Leardon.com. (No affiliation except that one founder is a former student of mine.)

Source: The Hardware Startup Valley of Death — Bolt Blog — Medium

You can guess that this author knows mainly about finance and marketing. Classic MBA profile!  (I don’t know CQ and don’t know his background.)