Strategy for EU Bootstrapping Hardware Startups: Don't Sell to Anyone in EU
Published in 2024, this chronicle by @JoshTriplett 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 ★ 44 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 29 comments
People are going to point out flaws or loopholes they know about that would be even easier, but they’re missing the point: it was not possible for someone genuinely in the process of launching a product to find out.
My side business was a small tool which was just a 3d printed case with an ESP32 I programmed w/ some small electronics and I sold it as is online. US + local government made sure there was zero friction even down to dealing with USPS shipping pickup issues. If I was still in Germany they would have shut me down and fined me personally for even trying.
It is crazy that the best business plan for a European starts at buying a plane ticket to America.
The EU is at the end of the day still 27 countries with their different laws and regulations each trying to protect their own little market. The way the ‘single market’ is constructed is by slapping a bunch of eu wide regulations on top of this mess.
So yes it is much easier to sell to single big countries like China or the USA if you can, and it always will be
This is not going to be solved soon as EU countries are responding to this pressure by voting for even more protectionism at the national level
I would love for the people to stop being ignorant and finally realise that "The UE" is not a country... it's a union of 27 diverse countries/economies/cultures... Each one having own interests so managing (and sometimes pushing) to integrate that is just plain difficult... And if you apply to much force the counterforces emerge…
I think article lack of research, and shows EU as less hardware friendly that is in reality.
1. You can do self-certification for CE.
2. You can find many companies that will do assembly in EU, so you can controll quality.
3. If you are selling kit as DIY, you don't need any certification at all (look at first years of Prusa)
Then add in the 15 million euro fine if do fail to comply to the cyber security resilience act. You’ll love it here!
For that reason alone I expect increasingly less willingly to offer more than the basic guarantee due to risk of not being able to carry out upgrades at a certain point to be CRA compliant.