Hardware startup ecosystem – The difficulties

One of the main drawbacks of smaller companies not easily getting into the product phase in India is the delay encountered and the lack of proper ecosystem !

From my personal experience, compared to a place like Shenzen (China) where there are readily available stocks of components, and facilities, India lacks a proper ecosystem. In a proper ecosystem, it takes few hours to a few days for iterations and designs, whereas, for us, it takes at least a week for the components to arrive, and then a few more days for one iteration of design !

Also to be shared, is the reluctance of the vendors to deal with small orders, and also the lack of proper expertise in their fields, though they have been working in the field for years, or at least claim to be so. When placing a small order, especially for the prototypes, most vendors either charge you very high price, or may even not reply to your request as their margins are much lower on your order.

On an average, the probability of getting a positive reply is 1/5, and that of getting the item you searched for at an affordable rate may be about 1/10. So, to the people who are tired of trying, you should be tying harder !

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