This is not the case because being able to make a widget cheaper than everyone else doesn't guarantee that you will be able to secure funding for your operation

This is not the case because being able to make a widget cheaper than everyone else doesn't guarantee that you will be able to secure funding for your operations and secondly, it doesn't guarantee that you will be able to capture enough people's attention from media to make enough sales to keep you afloat or gain the required initial traction. Thirdly, your bigger competitors may deny the quality advantage of your solution (ruling out an acquisition), they might defensively take the position that "You're cheap and low quality". Quality is a subjective metric; if both products were put in front of a consumer, the consumer may very well confirm that your product is higher quality but that doesn't matter if you lack the means to get your product in front of enough people to begin with. Your know-how and abilities are worthless until a certain (very high hurdle) is cleared in terms of funding, media coverage and adoption. Also, it's possible that your product could be cheaper to produce than your biggest competitor, but you won't know for sure until you reach the same scale as them; which you may never reach due, again, to the massive hurdles you have to clear to get started. The software sector is full of high quality software which nobody uses and low quality software which everyone uses. There are software companies worth billions of dollars which produce software which all users nag about constantly. Sometimes software which people have to use daily, many hours per day. They hate it, they all agree they hate it, but they have to use it anyway because the boss says so and the boss doesn't need to use it. Don't even get me started on the hurdle of regulations/compliance. The idea that the most efficient solution wins is a myth. Mostly, they lose and they don't just lose a bit, they literally lose completely and get NOTHING, not even recognition of their work. Our society is full of highly skilled, capable, ambitious people who are totally broke. It's relatively feasible to get a corporate job paying a high salary contributing basically nothing of value... But try to do the BEST WORK of your life working for yourself and there's a very high chance you will get precisely $0 after your 5th startup.