Strategy for EU bootstrapping hardware startups: Don't sell to anyone in EU
Published in 2024, this chronicle by @zkirill details the mechanics of building a profitable, self-funded business without venture backing.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Charging customers from day one acts as the ultimate filter for building software that solves genuine, high-urgency problems.
Keeping fixed overhead low and leveraging lean infrastructure allows founders to stay alive until market tailwinds kick in.
Small, repetitive improvements in customer retention and conversion rates yield massive returns over multi-year horizons.
Community Debate Themes:
The community focused on B2B customer acquisition channels, cold email vs SEO distribution, and balancing full-time employment with side-project development.
CATEGORY Bootstrapping & MRR →
HISTORICAL ERA Post-ZIRP & AI (2023–2026)
COMMUNITY SCORE ★ 14 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 4 comments
You're deeply confused about CE (also in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40848745).
CE is not a certification or a test, it's a self declaration.
You declare to be compliant with all relevant European regulations by marking your product CE. You could even mark your product CE without doing any tests, if you're very confident.
You also decide what tests you need to run, which of them to run in-house, and which of them to outsource.
You decide whether or not to trust components' CE marks. Or maybe retest them. It's your decision, you're liable for everything in your product.
Now, why are Chinese companies so cheap? Maybe they are very cost-efficient. Maybe they don't really test at all and just send you a fake report. Maybe they test only a small sliver of relevant things. Who knows?
The thing is: unless you know what you need to feel good about your product, price-shopping is senseless.
Usually you do pre-tests before doing the expensive ones.
Recently on HN was a link to https://www.nutsvolts.com/magazine/article/low-cost-emi-pre-compliance-testing that allows you to do your own pre-tests.
Also there are companies to do these pre-test measurements as a service which has the same result but is _way_ cheaper than a "certification" test.
It is easier to sell crap in markets with no customer protection or safety rules.
It is cheaper to make stuff without regulations or worker rights.
But, well, that's not really the point you want to make, is it ? :)