HN 提问：最容易获得的硬科技初创公司有多大的必然性？
2 分•作者: misterballer•3 个月前
我正在尝试理解一个反事实问题：对于许多不需要极其尖端技术的硬科技初创公司而言，如果第一位发明者从未出现，其他人可能需要多久才能做出类似的东西？
“不需要极其尖端技术的硬科技”指的是那些可以在普通的本地创客空间（即不需要专业纳米技术、先进制造方法等）中制造出来的实体产品。例如，智能恒温器和基础机器人就属于此类。
我倾向于认为答案通常是“几年后”，但我也设想延迟可能只有几天到一个月，因为：
* 许多硬科技创始人都在积极寻找创业点子；
* 许多潜在的问题已经广为人知；
* 如果技术相对容易获取，那么多人似乎很可能在同一时间尝试解决同一个问题。
我的这种直觉是否正确？
如果有人知道任何量化分析，能够估算这类“可获取的硬科技初创公司”的“延迟”时间，我将不胜感激。我尝试在网上搜索，但一无所获。不过，如果严谨的研究很难找到，轶事或历史案例也将非常受欢迎。
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I’m trying to understand the counterfactual: for many hard-tech startups that do not require extremely sophisticated technology, if the first inventor had not existed, how much later would someone else likely have done something similar?<p>By “hard tech that does not require extremely sophisticated technology,” I mean physical products that could be created in a typical local makerspace (i.e. without specialized nanotechnology, advanced fabrication methods, etc.). For example, smart thermostats and basic robotics would fall into this category.<p>I would like to believe the answer is often “years later,” but I can also imagine the delay being only a few days to a month, because:<p>many hard-tech founders are actively looking for startup ideas;
many of the underlying problems are already well known; and
if the technology is relatively accessible, it seems especially likely that multiple people would try to solve the same problem around the same time.<p>Is this intuition correct?<p>If anybody knows of any quantitative analysis that estimates this kind of “delay” for accessible hard-tech startups, in particular, it would be deeply appreciated. I’ve tried looking online but haven’t found anything. If rigorous studies are hard to find, though, anecdotes or historical examples would also be greatly appreciated.