Well, this sounds remarkably similar to our story. We were fortunate that we didn't experience serious manufacturing issues. We had built in some padding for inevitable delays and cost overruns. We ended up shipping all of our units on time (most well in advance, actually!) but our unit costs were about $60 over our initial expectations of $85.
Like Helm, we identified a sizable audience for the product. However, we didn't - and couldn't - anticipate the serious run up in acquisition costs which were largely attributed to Facebook in 2017-2019 (there was another article written about this on HN some time back). This made it impossible to grow the customer base within the slim margins afforded with hardware.
And because hardware is so massively capital intensive, without impressive M/M growth numbers, it was quite difficult to attract Series A investors.
IIRC we had discussed a marketing partnership with the Helm team at one point, though I'm not sure if that ever got off the ground.
Like Helm, we identified a sizable audience for the product. However, we didn't - and couldn't - anticipate the serious run up in acquisition costs which were largely attributed to Facebook in 2017-2019 (there was another article written about this on HN some time back). This made it impossible to grow the customer base within the slim margins afforded with hardware.
And because hardware is so massively capital intensive, without impressive M/M growth numbers, it was quite difficult to attract Series A investors.
IIRC we had discussed a marketing partnership with the Helm team at one point, though I'm not sure if that ever got off the ground.