I am super keen to make a hardware product (I know only software), and started watching this with great anticipation. It would have been great to hear the story about their journey from 1995-2001. Thats would have been hugely valuable in itself. I am stuck at : How do I take my hardware idea, and make it real? How do I make a prototype (it requires an e-ink display) to know if someone will actually like it/use it? Since there are a number of HW startups on this page, thought I will ask my question. Specifically, I want to make a photo frame with an color e-ink display.
Edit: in a sense the journey from 1995-2001 was covered in the startup school video (linked in another comment), but that was mostly about the "company". He didn't cover the "How-to" of specifically how they did prototyping, manufacturing and development in the early days. 'how to start' this stuff is what I am interesting in.
I suspect the answer to "will people pay ~$100 for a washed out colour photo frame that is slightly less inconvenient than normal LCD digital photo frames" is "no", but you're welcome to try.
I used to work for a consultancy that did hardware product prototyping as a design service. We were good and very wide ranging but not at all cheap. The cheap DIY end is probably covered by the maker/hackerspace/arduino/rasberrypi movement which has evolved from the older ham/model railway ecosystem.
Another wrinkle is that if you want to sell electronic goods you need to consider FCC/CE/UL certifications, and there is no minimum quantity for the rules to apply. That increases the cost of the MVP greatly.
You make a prototype by cobbling stuff together and show off the user interaction points, not by making a finished product or by dealing with FCC/UL/CE/etc. This will likely cost a few thousand USD worth of parts/assembly/tools/etc if you are counting your time as free (but could be done for less if you already have a decent amount of electronics around).
Once your idea has been validated with potential customers, then you start designing. If you will have low sales numbers (ie: 10k or less/year) then look for having high value and high margins (few hundred dollar price and 50% gross margins). If you will have high sales numbers (100k+ or 1M+ per year) then you can get down below the $100 price point and lower your margins somewhat (but I suggest staying above 25% gross margin).
Expect that your BOM (bill of materials) for the electronics parts, when priced at your yearly volume pricing, will be 1/3 of the cost of your product. Then add your margin to get the sale price. If you're selling retail, account for 25-50% margin for the retailers in addition to your margin (so customer may pay 3x what it costs you to build the product for).
Regarding eInk screens, going to large sizes (ie: Kindle DX range) is going to cost you a lot for the screen. Assume Amazon make very little profit on Kindle devices and you're in the ball park for how much their BOM costs them. Your competition for electronic picture frames are under $100 sale price retail, so I suggest you focus on differentiation so that customers aren't comparing your product to the <$100 picture frames if you want to be successful.
Edit: in a sense the journey from 1995-2001 was covered in the startup school video (linked in another comment), but that was mostly about the "company". He didn't cover the "How-to" of specifically how they did prototyping, manufacturing and development in the early days. 'how to start' this stuff is what I am interesting in.