Today, Karpfinger again has a potential hit on his hands–an iPhone “air guitar” pick that lets you jam on imaginary strings–but he’s determined to retain control of his product and thus its destiny. Thanks to rapidly falling hardware development costs, and thanks to a bundle of money he raised on Kickstarter, he can. His new company, Yobble, built its Air Guitar Move for just $32,000.
Karpfinger is one of a growing number of hardware startups leveraging crowdfunding, better tools and proliferating expertise to get to market faster and more cheaply than their predecessors. Between Kickstarter, amenable contract manufacturers, and fast-growing platforms like Apple’s iOS, hardware ventures are finally, really starting to sprout like software ventures.
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