Nothing you just described requires an entanglement with full-time technical cofounder. I could get a ROM estimate on, say, your lathe from a product design/eng

Nothing you just described requires an entanglement with full-time technical cofounder. I could get a ROM estimate on, say, your lathe from a product design/engineering firm for a few thousand bucks, use that as PRD + go/no-go, then take it to prototype/evt/dvt/pvt with any number of experienced partners on contract. Don't know why we're having this argument. Outsourcing is a very common thing.