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YC for Hardware

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: YC for Hardware

#121

Post by jimduk »

bravo22 wrote: post #25
TheMakeA wrote: post #11

Are any of these resources available for anyone who isn't already a YC founder? Does that make sense? Wouldn't it be valuable to give interested folks who aren't yet in YC a place to do their prototyping, get discounts, and help, and then use it as lead gen for the next batch? Think of all the companies that could exist but don't because they don't have access to these resources.

What YC is doing is bundling discounts on PCB prototyping, and 3D printed parts. The rest of the offerings are further down the stack (testing, RF, etc.) so the only thing you would be missing as a non-YC company trying to build a prototype to get into YC is discounts. If you are hand assembling your prototypes then you only have PCB fabrication costs, which for a 2 to 4 layer board should be about $500 max for your…

What could also be valuable is having support accounts, escalation paths and relevant implementation docs/software stacks from the big CPU/Sensor/GPU/Bluetooth/Wireless companies. Getting information/support from these big companies if you have no track record can be excruciatingly inefficient.

Re: YC for Hardware

#122

Post by Gurkenmaster »

throwaway49873 wrote: post #69
bravo22 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with assertion about Apple and similar companies but they end up selling you a physical hardware product. Bufferbox offered a service and didn't sell you a product therefore I don't think they were "hardware" company. The hardware was means to an end. I don't think it lessens what they did. It was a good service. Walmart has a large IT infrastructure, with sys admins and in-house developers. They als…

I wasn't like it was a novel technology either. I've seen similar systems in Europe for at least a decade.

Yes. DHL the leading logistics company has scattered these: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Packstati... throughout germany.

Re: YC for Hardware

#123

Post by hugs »

swamp40 wrote: post #58
hugs wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I make robots in Chicago and sell them on Tindie. My top two competitors are in Finland and Japan. Yes, I hear Shenzhen is crazy awesome, but try not to let location dominate your world view of what is easy or difficult. Making a good hardware product is difficult, no matter where you make it.

>> I make robots in Chicago and sell them on Tindie. So, let's say now you need 10,000 of them. For 1/4 the price. Delivered next month. That's where Shenzhen starts looking really nice. Especially if you've already got reliable contacts there, like Bolt does with Dragon Innovation.

When I need to make 10,000 cheap and fast, yes, I'll most likely be making a pilgrimage to Shenzen. Totally agree with your point. But not every startup (especially low-volume, high-price, high-touch b2b) needs to focus at the start on making 10,000 units cheap and fast.

Re: YC for Hardware

#125

Post by jusben1369 »

redthrowaway wrote: post #31
acgourley wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll just point out that going into the 3rd or 4th year of YC's existence, everyone was asking this about the software companies they were funding.

It doesn't follow from YC's success with software companies that the model will be similarly successful for hardware companies. It's still very much an experiment at this point, and "it was once an unknown for software companies" doesn't imply that hardware companies will achieve similar success with the YC model.

And not to be overly negative but this announcement would appear to be recognition that HW startups in YC are struggling with a range of issues that required these steps to be taken thus making it even more challenging to assume success in SW will equate to success in HW.

Re: YC for Hardware

#126

Post by ChrisGammell »

seddona wrote: post #64
TheMakeA wrote: post #11

Are any of these resources available for anyone who isn't already a YC founder? Does that make sense? Wouldn't it be valuable to give interested folks who aren't yet in YC a place to do their prototyping, get discounts, and help, and then use it as lead gen for the next batch? Think of all the companies that could exist but don't because they don't have access to these resources.

We ( https://circuithub.com , YC W2012) are offering special terms to YC co's but we might be able to help you out too. Drop us an email at support@circuithub.com :-)

C'mon Andy, let that coupon code fly! I'll share it on the amp hour, we'll get your volume through the roof ;-)

Re: YC for Hardware

#127

Post by anujdeshpande »

An interesting thing that YC could do for hardware startups is provide discounted copies or license servers for some of the most commonly required but exorbitant softwares : Altium, Solidworks, Autodesk inventor among others.

Re: YC for Hardware

#128

Post by joshvm »

sbierwagen wrote: post #82
joshvm wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? I've used milled PCBs for commercial prototypes as they're an order of magnitude cheaper than a fab given the turnaround time. You can get down to 0.5mm pitch easily. You don't get soldermasks and vias are normally riveted (good enough). For most people, two layers is enough and if you can design the board well you shouldn't need much routing on the second layer.

What commercial products are you using that you don't do multilayer boards? Nothing that involves RF, or fast buses.

Remember there are plenty of companies who need the odd PCB, but aren't in the PCB business.

Simple power/control boards (weird voltage, multiple outputs) that aren't available off the shelf from RS or Farnell. None of those boards need to be more than two layers. I've designed lens focus control boards that only required a single layer.

Yes of course if you're doing RF or fast serial you'd be daft to do it on a milled board, but they are convenient sometimes.

Re: YC for Hardware

#129

Post by tjculbertson »

jusben1369 wrote: post #125
redthrowaway wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't follow from YC's success with software companies that the model will be similarly successful for hardware companies. It's still very much an experiment at this point, and "it was once an unknown for software companies" doesn't imply that hardware companies will achieve similar success with the YC model.

And not to be overly negative but this announcement would appear to be recognition that HW startups in YC are struggling with a range of issues that required these steps to be taken thus making it even more challenging to assume success in SW will equate to success in HW.

I think you're right. YC was lacking all of the resources that other HW accelerators provide (it's highly specialized). But looks like they now know what HW startups need, so look for YC to be a force in HW.

Re: YC for Hardware

#130

Post by tjculbertson »

bravo22 wrote: post #100
pj_mukh wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmmm. The difference between hardware a user buys and takes home versus hardware a user uses to engage a service seems very slight no?

I think there is a large difference. It requires a different skillset to manufacture 1000 of something that consumers will buy vs manufacturing customer touch points that are owned, and serviced by the company. Your manufacturing pipeline, volumes, service issues are all very different. So as great as BufferBox was I don't think they were a hardware company and certainly not for the purposes of this thread. I am not…

So would you consider SpaceX to be a service company and not hardware? They build rockets to deliver stuff for customers. I think defining whether a company is a HW company is too narrow. If you need to build HW to build a business of serving customers, or need to build HW to sell to customers, you need to build hardware in either case.
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