The Quiet Return of Hardware Startups

Hardware was supposed to be the hard path. Long cycles, thin margins, unforgiving physics.\n\nThat calculus is shifting. Contract manufacturers now take on small runs, and prototyping costs have fallen far enough that a two-person team can iterate monthly.\n\n## Where the demand is\n\nIndustrial buyers, not consumers, are driving the current wave: energy, logistics and manufacturing all need instrumentation that did not exist five years ago.