It's about the app store, not the iPhone.

It's about the phone contract, not the phone hardware.

It's about the K-cups, not the Kurig.

It's about the cable subscription (and the ads), not the set top box.

Case in point: the Nest Dropcam uses backend services to do image detection and alerting, two things which require skills hardware manufacturers often don't have.

Find a way to get enough devices installed in the right places by the right people, or better yet take to seas.

Sell your sensor network data, which is analyzed with some type of machine intelligence to make it more valuable.

The ocean is a rich place to find such data.

Low power computing + motors + wires + rapidly prototyped printed, or machined or laser cut parts + low cost sensors + web backends + newly accessible ai libraries = infinite diversity in infinite combinations.

We won't run out of startups like that until we're living on a fully networked intelligent planet.