I'd like to make a very small IoT device, ideally I design it and I'd find a company that can both manufacture and ship straight to consumer. Does this exist ? I understand that I'd still have to pay to finish the design and for a few prototypes, but I don't want to have to handle the full sales life cycle. I don't want to have to worry about inventory, funding, returns and all that stuff.
This is more of a passion project of mine than anything else. I plan on making all the software running on the device open source, and I'll encourage others to write their own software as well.
I basically want a raspberry pi zero( or possibly another small SBC) + a screen and a few buttons in an nice enclosure.
Hardware is very hard. e.g. https://www.luminary-labs.com/insight/why-hardware-is-hard/
When you have the financial resources to outsource the hard bits, it is doable.