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On any given day, 20mission looks and feels kind of like a dormitory — under minor construction, for now. Energetic tenants scurry from unit to unit, shuffling past screwdrivers and sanders on the unfinished hardwood floors. The smell of new wood, paint and primer fills the hallways. There are 40 residents and each gets his or her own standard-size bedroom for $1,400 per month. Residents range between their mid 20s and mid 40s. They share five bathrooms, four showers, a washer and dryer and a massive office space downstairs. Rent pricing is that of a typical studio in San Francisco.

any designer now has the ability to quickly experiment with new product designs using low-cost 3-D printers. These printers can churn out objects to make prototypes quickly — a fork, wall hooks, mugs, a luggage clasp — by printing thousands of layers of wafer-thin slices of plastics, ceramics or other materials. Products can be made quickly in contract assembly plants overseas, usually in China.

All of this has given designers and engineers a fast-forward button advancing this technological flip-flop.

It’s become much less painful to build gadgets, even for the little guy. Marc Barros, a co-founder of camera maker Contour, says retailers like Best Buy (BBY) might eat up $70 on a $200 device. In the age of social media and e-commerce, he can sell directly to consumers. If professional investors won’t risk their money on a hardware startup, entrepreneurs can turn to Kickstarter or another crowdfunding site and walk away with millions.