Very true. That's a pretty strong statement for Techcrunch; they could go from a one-man blog to a blog/event and now hardware "empire" in just 4-5 years. Even if the tablet is crap, that's quite an accomplishment.

There's a few others that have found success with similar methods:

  1. Build a blog, get large readership, convince them you're *awesome*!
  2. Release reasonable product
  3. Sell to blog readership

Very clever businessmodel.

Can you provide some examples? I'm curious.

I would say 37signals and FogCreek/Joel On Software.

I was thinking about the same thing when reading the comments on TechCrunch: there is a big following that would buy it in big part because it's from TechCrunch. Or let's say that, in all these cases, the blogs are used as a great advertising platform.

You can't blame them, building a following is hard work too.

Ah thanks. I was in the mindset of a hardware product.

Any blogger who has published a book of their "best" blog entries.

Not exactly in the tech product area, but Wil Wheaton has spun his relative fame from Star Trek into a widely read blog, and then a couple of books, and speaking appearances, and other writing for the LA Times, Suicide Girls, various comic books, etc.

Through is blog/twitter he's managed to associate himself with all things "geek" and found an audience who will buy his work.

many webcomics make money off t-shirts, books, etc etc with a similar model.

It's one thing to build a prototype.

It's an entirely different ballgame to put a prototype into production.

Someone has to print out boards, solder stuff on the boards, burn an OS on a drive, order parts from suppliers, and have a rigerous testing program.

Then you need to package up these puppies in pretty boxes and get them shipped out.

Oh, don't forget a crew of folks to man phones and deal with new orders and support issues. Don't forget the salespeople you'll need to get these into the hands of big suppliers.

Prototypes ain't hard. (More accurately: they tend to be inexpensive and you can fit everything you need into your two-car garage.) It's the business model that wraps around it that gets expensive and time-consuming.

Best of luck though to the crew. I like to see new competitors. It pushes everyone's game up.

While all this is true, the process of moving from a prototype into production is a more or less solved problem. For example, there are a lot of companies that one can outsource the actual pick-and-place, assembly and packing to. The same goes for support and sales, I'd imagine. If the VC money is in place, this part should just be turning the crank.

By your logic, you could have outsourced the design as well.

Design is less of a commodity.

More:

Documentation has to be written. Then there are legal fees, and perhaps an entire permanent legal department. Regulatory fees must be paid. Taxes must be paid. Tooling costs. Electricity costs. Insurance costs. Advertising costs.