I'm doing a hardware startup at the moment. While the article seemed to focus on electronic hardware, I am developing a product that advances the state of the art of scuba diving (an automatic buoyancy compensator). I couldn't have done this ten years ago. I have hired an engineer in a different country on Freelancer.com, pay him with Paypal, make our designs on Sketchup, am printing our prototype on a Solidoodle 3D printer, and am ordering various hardware from manufacturers' interactive websites. I am literally working out of my basement. I will likely license it to major scuba equipment manufacturers, but may make and sell the product myself, probably borrowing heavily from Tim Ferriss’s book, "4-Hour Workweek". Thanks for all the commenters' input. I have bookmarked a lot of these links for future use.