You can start any company (over here) for a few hundred bucks
and a couple of forms. It's survival, that's trickier and wants the
skills.
You need to have an offering of value. For the shoestring startup
that's probably engineering services, until you can find or provide
the huge up front capital for fab runs, product development and
then to ride out a few years' worth of design-in cycle (at risk).
Engineering jobs, if you find the right ones, can take you a long
way (or all the way) through product development. This means
skill and luck in finding, qualifying, and landing customers /
opportunities that have as part of the plan, them buying end
product soon and over the long haul. As you might guess, these
kinds of jobs are more rare and more competed. So skills in
defining and pitching a program are valuable, and doing this
with zero track record on your own probably wants some skill
at creative writing.
It's often the curse, that small time startups only win jobs
that everybody else no-bid for good reason (technical or
customer). These may be jobs you regret winning, so be sure
you take them right (like, the impossible should always be
bid as cost-plus, indefinite delivery). Or, word the contract
so smartly that when things go sideways you have an "out"
and/or the right to change-of-scope (and the ability to do
some hard-nosed negotiating).