I've actually done a hardware startup, and it does face some unique problems that sofware doesn't. I found that the most time consuming and expensive was turna

I've actually done a hardware startup, and it does face some unique problems that sofware doesn't. I found that the most time consuming and expensive was turnaround time. If you have a bug in your software you fix it, compile, and go. 10 minutes of work. In hardware your turnaround time can be a week or more if you have to solder around on a breadboard to check changes or bugs. For the record we managed to build a display device using RGB LED's, a FPGA to control them, a microcontroller to talk to a mobile phone unit that would be able to send and receive updates from a central server, and of course the server that controlled the displays that were scattered around the country in around 1½ years using roughly $150.000. It was an advertising network - take the display, plug it in to a power outlet, and it would wake up and receive news and ads from the central server over the mobile phone network.