Karan Gupta

Everyone said hardware is hard. They were talking about firmware. I was not ready for tool-room delays, a customs line that ate a month, and a CA asking whether we were a manufacturer or a trader for GST.

FieldMeter is a handheld device plus software for small factories that still log machine hours on paper. The first prototype cost about 3× the spreadsheet and arrived looking like a brick. The first paid unit went to a job-shop owner in Pune who cared about one number: overtime he could not prove to customers.

We incorporated as a Pvt Ltd because we needed vendors to treat us like a company, and because a grant application wanted CIN and DPIIT. SISFS through an incubator paid for a short production run — not the full dream, a run. That constraint was healthy. We stopped adding sensors and fixed the enclosure that cracked in June heat.

Investors who like SaaS multiples bounced. A deep-tech angel who had shipped devices did not. I learned to split the pitch: software subscription is the business; the device is how you earn the right to that subscription.

If you are touching atoms, budget time for BIS, import classification, and warranty. My “MVP” was not an app screenshot. It was a unit that survived a week on a shop floor without me standing next to it.