What I learned selling 2,500 MIDI recorders: Hardware is not so hard

The author successfully launched Jamcorder, a MIDI recorder for pianists, selling 2,500 units while discovering that building hardware was far easier than expected—the real challenge was developing the software, which required over 3 years and 200,000 lines of code. Despite conventional wisdom that "hardware is hard," the author found hardware development smooth sailing by deliberately keeping the design simple with minimal components and straightforward assembly. The key takeaway is that hardware difficulty is largely self-imposed; with proper design choices and margin protection, building hardware products is more achievable than its reputation suggests.