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Hardware Is Hard

 When looking for startup advice, you are usually given standard advice, like "Focus on your strengths", or "Start in a field you currently work in". These are both solid pieces of advice, given that you actually have these strengths and you are able to notice what's inefficient in your line of work. However, I took the initiative to decide to completely disregard that advice and go into a field that I had no experience and limited knowledge of. That's when I decided to try a hardware startup. 


For those of you who have any sort of experience in hardware, you'll know that it's not something you can just pick up along the way. Starting a hardware startup is hard enough if you have a background in electrical engineering, but throw in an overconfident business major like myself, and you have a recipe for disaster. I have had some experience with programming, but in a different language than what's required to start working with hardware. I was thinking maybe a couple YouTube videos and a weekend of practicing Arduino code, and I would get the hang of it. If you're picking up anything so far at this point, it should be that I have a tendency to jump into things woefully unprepared and just assume that things will fix itself. This was definitely not the case in this scenario. 


Weeks go by, and although I am able to make progress with the Arduino code and lighting up the LCD screen I had purchased, I still was greatly underestimating all of the elements that need to line into place when it comes to working hardware. You can't just have one aspect of the device working. If all of the parts aren't working, then none of it really works. After all of this, it's probably best to stick to something you at least have some knowledge in.



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