I'd suggest that there is a huge opening for a startup that does manufacturing process. This company could earn money by selling its process to others, and dogfooding its own product in a few lucrative niches.
For example, the company might start by pulling all the open source EDA, CAD, CNC, and similar, software into a cohesive whole. It would then bring in one of the open source ERP systems and integrate it with the engineering toolchain. Keeping on doing this for every part of the process: ordering, inventory, manufacturing/robotics, testing, sales, distribution, support, financials. The idea is to (as nearly as possible) completely automate the process of scaling hardware based business from a prototype to a product. Achieve this goal and hardware becomes as easy to scale as software.
I've been building hardware for the last 30 years, and invariably most of the work goes into making the process run smoothly (ie. designing the process) rather than designing the product.
For example, the company might start by pulling all the open source EDA, CAD, CNC, and similar, software into a cohesive whole. It would then bring in one of the open source ERP systems and integrate it with the engineering toolchain. Keeping on doing this for every part of the process: ordering, inventory, manufacturing/robotics, testing, sales, distribution, support, financials. The idea is to (as nearly as possible) completely automate the process of scaling hardware based business from a prototype to a product. Achieve this goal and hardware becomes as easy to scale as software.
I've been building hardware for the last 30 years, and invariably most of the work goes into making the process run smoothly (ie. designing the process) rather than designing the product.