问HN：大多数可接触的硬科技初创企业有多不可避免？
我试图理解反事实：对于许多不需要极其复杂技术的硬科技初创公司来说，如果第一个发明者不存在，其他人可能会在多晚的时候做出类似的事情？
我所说的“无需极其复杂技术的硬科技”是指可以在典型的本地创客空间中创造的物理产品（即不需要专门的纳米技术、先进的制造方法等）。例如，智能温控器和基础机器人就属于这一类别。
我希望答案通常是“几年后”，但我也能想象这个延迟可能只有几天到一个月，因为：
许多硬科技创始人正在积极寻找创业想法；
许多潜在问题已经为人所知；以及
如果技术相对易于获取，那么似乎尤其可能会有多个人在同一时间尝试解决同样的问题。
这种直觉是否正确？
如果有人知道任何定量分析，估计这种“延迟”在可获取的硬科技初创公司中的情况，我将非常感激。我曾试图在网上寻找，但没有找到相关资料。如果严格的研究很难找到，那么轶事或历史例子也将非常受欢迎。
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I’m trying to understand the counterfactual: for many hard-tech startups that do not require extremely sophisticated technology, if the first inventor had not existed, how much later would someone else likely have done something similar?<p>By “hard tech that does not require extremely sophisticated technology,” I mean physical products that could be created in a typical local makerspace (i.e. without specialized nanotechnology, advanced fabrication methods, etc.). For example, smart thermostats and basic robotics would fall into this category.<p>I would like to believe the answer is often “years later,” but I can also imagine the delay being only a few days to a month, because:<p>many hard-tech founders are actively looking for startup ideas;
many of the underlying problems are already well known; and
if the technology is relatively accessible, it seems especially likely that multiple people would try to solve the same problem around the same time.<p>Is this intuition correct?<p>If anybody knows of any quantitative analysis that estimates this kind of “delay” for accessible hard-tech startups, in particular, it would be deeply appreciated. I’ve tried looking online but haven’t found anything. If rigorous studies are hard to find, though, anecdotes or historical examples would also be greatly appreciated.