Conversation
Highlights

A lot has changed since the dot-com boom lured engineering talent away from hardware and into software development. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Michael Corr, founder and CEO of Duro Labs, reveals how a cultural shift is finally bringing software’s agile principles to hardware development – and why this could trigger an unprecedented wave of hardware innovation.

The Cost of Innovation Gap

The reason we’ve seen exponential growth in software innovation but not hardware comes down to one crucial factor: the cost of failure. “One of the contributing factors to why software excel so rapidly was because the agile movement allowed for rapid iterations and trials, creativity,” Michael explains. “The cost to fail, the cost to make a mistake was so low because you could try something with code, put it out there in the world, learn from it and then adopt in very rapid short cycles.”

This same rapid iteration hasn’t been possible in hardware, where mistakes are expensive and time-consuming to fix. As Michael notes, “In the hardware space, those similar kinds of feedback loops are possible, but the costs and times associated with are too high, that the cost to make a mistake is too prohibitive to take risks.”

When Software Companies Build Hardware

Perhaps the most fascinating development in hardware innovation isn’t coming from traditional hardware companies at all. “You’re seeing that culturally, some of the best hardware products are now being developed by software companies where not the Apples or the Samsung, but companies like Google and Facebook and Amazon who are originally software companies are now developing very impressive and very formidable hardware products,” Michael observes.

This shift is significant because these software companies are bringing their agile methodologies and workflows to hardware development, accelerating the industry’s transformation.

The Five-Year Journey to Product-Market Fit

When Duro Labs launched in 2017, Michael saw early signs that the industry was ready for change. However, the market wasn’t quite there yet. “I can’t tell you how many calls I had with prospective customers who were yelling at me that what we were providing was not a true PLM, because we didn’t have these buttons or these processes that they had been using for 30 years,” he recalls.

Rather than compromise on his vision, Michael stayed focused on the future he saw coming: “The fundamental thing that kept me going is I really see the future and I see this, like, utopia of a much better place for hardware designers, engineers, and manufacturers to get to.”

This persistence paid off after about five years, when the market caught up to Duro’s vision. “Now I can certainly say that there is no problem finding viable candidates to use our product,” Michael notes.

The Cultural Shift Driving Innovation

The hardware industry’s transformation isn’t just about new tools – it’s about a fundamental shift in how teams think about building products. Michael explains, “You’re starting to see that software centric culture of your workflows and agile workflows and get flow coming into the hardware space.”

This cultural change is being driven by a new generation of engineers who expect the same efficient workflows they’ve experienced in software development. They’re not interested in maintaining decades-old processes just because “that’s how it’s always been done.”

The Future of Hardware Development

Looking ahead, Michael envisions a future where starting a hardware company is as frictionless as launching a software startup. “A software developer, even a mid level developer, they can set up their entire tool chain in an hour… What I’m looking forward to is the day that you can do the same thing in the hardware space.”

This vision isn’t just about making things easier – it’s about unleashing innovation by lowering the barriers to entry. When hardware teams can move as fast as software teams, with similar costs and risks, we’ll likely see an explosion of hardware innovation similar to what we’ve witnessed in software over the past few decades.

The transformation is already underway, driven by software companies bringing their agile mindset to hardware development, and new tools that automate traditionally manual processes. For hardware founders and teams watching this shift, the message is clear: the industry is finally ready for its software moment, and those who embrace this change early will have a significant advantage in the coming hardware renaissance.