
Ask Us Anything: Y Combinator Hardware Companies Crowdfunding - liseman
I&#x27;m the Director of Hardware at Y Combinator, and we have awesome companies in our current batch running crowdfunding campaigns. Ask their founders anything! 
Participating will be the founders of Tovala, Soundboks, Enflux, and Hykso.
Also joining me will be Philip Winter, CEO of Nebia, from our most recent batch.
======
louprado
Last month my hardware start-up was almost shut down because our power
supplies are CEC efficiency level 5 and not 6. Customs would have seized our
entire last shipment. Prior to that I got a cease and desist from the
Bluetooth SIG unless I immediately paid $2500 to $10000. I paid immediately.

I have no problem following regulations and paying for licenses. The problem
is getting blind-sided by it. I still don't even understand if I need a RoHS
certification to ship in my home state of California. Is there any resource
you found helpful ? Thanks in advance.

~~~
JonFish85
"I have no problem following regulations and paying for licenses. The problem
is getting blind-sided by it. I still don't even understand if I need a RoHS
certification to ship in my home state of California. Is there any resource
you found helpful ? Thanks in advance."

At least in my own work this has been something that pops up time & time
again. Not only are there regulations that are tricky to nail down, there are
things like intellectual property that you may not even be aware you're using.
Build a blinking LED to detect activity on a data line? Wouldn't be surprised
to receive a letter from a law firm. And unfortunately I don't know of any
great ways to avoid the nasty surprise of receiving patent-backed threats.
Personally I think this is why the big companies bulk up on patents, so that
they can at least promise Mutually Assured Destruction against each other. For
smaller companies & people selling products, you're probably infringing on
some patent that they own without even realizing it.

~~~
louprado
Random IP lawsuits aside, there are known
agencies/certifications/requirements, etc that may eventually require
compliance. Here's the ones I know:

RoHS, CEC?, UL, FCC, Wifi Alliance, Bluetooth SIG, please add if anyone else
knows.

I get that the OP is about pre-release startups and the general advice is
"don't worry certifications; just ship". But this became a problem just 90
days after our product launch. Had the timing been worse it could kill a new
company.

~~~
JonFish85
USB-IF, I2C (usually people will say "I2C-compatible", or Two-Wire Interface
to avoid paying a royalty) are two others that come to mind immediately.

Edit: Basically any interface logos you use (stickers above ports) are
probably owned by someone.

------
joshavant
Hi folks!

I graduated from a moderately-ranked undergrad program with a 3.0 in Computer
Engineering (the HW-centric flavor of CS), going on 6 years ago.

After graduation, I wanted to get into the embedded field, but was discouraged
by the employment options (hardware hadn't yet made the comeback it has been
making over the last 3-5 years... 'old' players like Intel still dominated,
which wasn't particularly attractive to a bright-eyed 21 year old).

In the interim 6 years, I've been doing iOS development, and believe I've
amassed a CV that speaks well to my dedication and work ethic (and is
moderately accomplished, at that!).

My question is... how far off am I from being a viable candidate for embedded
job opportunities? What kinds of projects/side-work would you like to see to
prove that I 'still have it' and/or could sufficiently think on my feet, and
get back into embedded development?

FWIW, I have resume experience at Apple, Microsoft, and Google (I actually was
hired at Apple out of college to do hardware QA but, once I realized the path
from QA to embedded development would be a near impossible feat, I quickly
moved on to iOS development).

Thanks! And good luck with your respective products!!

~~~
Hykso
The best candidate we had just asked us to work for free for a month to see if
we would like him. We could not say no. And today he's a co-founder :D

~~~
RoyTyrell
I guess your candidate was ok with volunteering, but it seems like that would
very likely violate tax and/or labor laws or IRS regulations.

------
thebiglebrewski
I have a bunch of hardware stuff lying around. Arduino kits, soldering
equipment, even a pocket oscilloscope! I had good intentions with it but now
it's mostly just sitting there. Any small cool project ideas to build? Also I
always have this problem where I'm missing one tiny component (I live in NYC
in Brooklyn) and have to run to a store in Manhattan or wait for an online
order to fill it...any tips on things to keep around that everyone should have
(I have different types of resistors, etc).

Mostly I feel like a software guy that's a bit of a hardware wannabe and it
feels like I'd never get to the point where I could build a legit product, and
would love some guidance on how to ideate in this space.

~~~
spacebug
Try doing some connected device, esp8266 that turns on an led when you POST to
a server (minimal soldering maximal programming). And develop from there. Also
there are a lot of tuts for this things. Later try to integrate some sensors.
A lot of hardware today is software inside a plastic box.

------
franciscop
I won a worldwide NASA contest with a friend designing and building a Space
Helmet in a weekend [1] and my friends won two of the Hyperloop categories
[2]. We have created a community of students [3] in our University in Spain
and now we are launching a robot competition [4].

Would you consider sponsoring our community or the contest? We are operating
with a budget under 1000$. Both money and products would be awesome :D

[1]
[https://2014.spaceappschallenge.org/awards/#globalwin](https://2014.spaceappschallenge.org/awards/#globalwin)
Next Vision (Space Helmet)

[2] [http://hyperloopupv.com/](http://hyperloopupv.com/)

[3] [http://makersupv.com/](http://makersupv.com/)

[4] [http://orchallenge.es/](http://orchallenge.es/)

------
spacebug
What is Your thought on shiping prototype stage products to early backer as a
way of getting user feedback. Even if product is not yet certified, with the
promise that you will ship them the finished product?

This way you are not selling the product you shipped them, so I'm not sure
what are regulations regarding this strategy. The product would be clearly
labeled as prototype version and not fit for end use.

Bonus points for complexity: The product is intended for children age 6+.

------
grape_
YC and many other incubators provide startups technology incentive programs
(Digital Ocean providing $250k credits, Azure providing $500k in credits,
etc.). Are any of the hardware startups here utilizing any of the incentive
programs? If so, how so? Very interested to hear about cloud strategies,
especially as they relate to hardware companies (APIs, IOTs, etc.).

~~~
jonesb6
From my brief research digital ocean only provides credits to YC companies
unlike Microsoft, Azure, and even IBM's SoftLayer. I'd just like to point that
out. That immediately disqualifies DO for large cloud products due to their
pricing and product offerings.

~~~
grape_
You're absolutely right. I haven't really read through many of the DO use
cases, so maybe I can start there. But, Microsoft also has a separate program
for YC ($500K instead of $60k I believe for startups outside of YC). And I
know Amazon and Google both have programs that are not exclusive to YC ($100k
both). I'm very curious to see how hardware companies are using cloud, and if
these incentives are even working.

------
gourneau
Is building an IoT product based on the ESP8266 (esp-12e) a reasonable thing
to do? Would there be any hidden fees or licensing issues?

------
ogreveins
Serious question: How do you keep your stuff from getting replicated, tweaked
and crushed by people with possibly better tooling and more machines than you?
China comes to mind tbh.

~~~
drabie
Honestly, you don't. You just need to focus on building something that people
want and making sure that the experience you deliver is better than any other.

Further, if you start to think about your hardware as a means of delivering
something else (for us, that's food), then getting copycatted on the hardware
won't be as hard to deal with from a business standpoint.

~~~
Hykso
+1 with the boys above! By the time someone replicates you, you should have an
improved version of your stuff on both software and hardware.

~~~
hongquan
Depends on your development cycle, but this is one area that startups should
have an advantage over bigger competitors. We got copied on a few things
(logo, tagline, product) by a bunch of people in 3, 6, 9 months time. Of
course we're already working on our second model, so no worries!

------
thirru
Hey Martin from ShapeScale (S15) here.

Did any of you attempt any influencer marketing? (celebrities or connectors on
Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat)

If so, how well did it work and did you pay them (if so what was the model,
commission, or up-front payment). Would you do it again?

~~~
Hykso
Hi Martin,

We actually went through some influencers on our side (known fighters or
coaches).

It definitely helped gain a lot of credibility on our end because if it was
that much of a revolutionary product, why would pro athletes not use it amd
endorse it. so for us it helped a lot convince our customers that it was a
legit product.

However, we have been offered to post on a few famous people pages for 5k but
we didn't do it as we thought it would actually be seen as paid advertising
instead of genuine and authentic love for the product. We're still exploring
those avenues though.

~~~
pmalynin
"why would pro athletes not use it amd [sic] endorse it",

Well, you could have paid them.

------
rdl
What do you do when a hardware startup/kickstarter/etc. has raised, say,
$150/unit, but needs $250-300/unit to ship? I se this a lot with crowdfunded
projects -- either they underestimated costs, or had a single huge setback.

~~~
compumike
The answer is basically that the company dies and customers get nothing.

We (Pantelligent, YC W13) did a Kickstarter, then successfully shipped to
customers, and are now transitioning to normal orders. Our actual production
costs and timeline were within ~15% of our before-the-fact spreadsheet
estimates, but then again, we were experienced engineers who know how to ship
hardware & software products, which is quite unlike most new entrants.

Just within the "temperature controlled cooking products" space, I could name
a bunch of "competitors," but not a single one besides ourselves has shipped,
with the exception of the existing sous-vide field which has had more time to
develop and is fairly simple from an engineering perspective. Most of these
products will likely never ship.

Sadly, crowdfunding usually leads to dramatic overpromising on features (some
of which are not even manufacturable!), and severe and unsustainable
underpricing, in order to drive pre-orders. That's just a recipe for
disappointed customers and dead companies.

------
dfox
What is your approach to low-volume prototyping? Do you use same components
for prototypes that you intend for volume manufacturing? How do you source
them? (for example LCD panels, where there seems to be nothing in the
intersection of "long-time available", "available in unit quantities",
"available in bulk" and "reasonable quality")

And another question for the business side of things: where is the line for
consumer products that are not meaningful to crowdfund? niche-ness? complexity
of installation? does it make sense to crowdfund what is essentially an B2B
product?

~~~
wilcoxbr
We approach prototyping as a process.
[http://www.themacro.com/articles/2016/01/minimum-viable-
prod...](http://www.themacro.com/articles/2016/01/minimum-viable-product-
process/)

Early prototypes use whatever we have laying around to get the most
fundamental feature of the idea vetted.

Right before production, you will build a prototype that we call a First
Article. This is a Golden Sample, and every production unit should be just
like the First Article.

Prototypes in between those two are built to answer specific questions and we
spend no extra resources on sourcing special components that do not directly
impact accurate answering of the question.

For things like displays, wireless modules, etc. we work with the
manufacturer's Field Application Engineers. They can get you insight on what
will be available for production, documentation for the components, etc. They
can also probably get you samples for your development work.

McMaster-Carr, DigiKey, Mouser, AdaFruit, SparkFun, etc. are your friends for
making those early prototypes.

Crowdfunding is essentially pre-ordering on a social platform. If your market
is there and interested, crowdfunding can be a viable market validation step
for any business model.

------
cbw5
Great hardware has the tradeoff of being "built to last" but then not re-
engaging the customer for new purchases for quite some time. How do you think
about re-engaging customers who purchase a Nebia shower?

~~~
pwinter28
Great question. Fortunately showerheads are often something that people need
more than one of for different bathrooms in their home. So if they like one,
hopefully they will buy more.

Further to that we have plans for making the Nebia experience more
customizable. And so in future versions there will be features that allow you
to make the experience even more personal, and these will allow for repeated
brand interactions with the customer.

------
anujdeshpande
A lot of the advice seems to be geared towards B2C startups. Most startups
[http://www.ycombinator.com/hardware/](http://www.ycombinator.com/hardware/)
seem B2C too. A lot of the reports/blogs/opinions of the Interweb suggest that
connected hardware will make the most sense in industrial and smart city kind
of environments (which are probably more B2B than B2C) in the early days.
Would you advise differently for people working on B2B?

\- Getting early prototypes out there has kind of been decremental for us.
Even the smaller bizs are willing to pay higher for a more "field-tested"
device. Which seems like a recursive problem ;). Should one spend more time on
getting v1.0 done ? \- Is there anyone who you'd recommend to handle global
shipping and taxes? The way that Pebble had tied up with distributors in
different places depending on your country, etc.

(We are building talking posters. One's with BLE play prerecorded messages,
and you can interact with them, and the one's with WiFi are connected to the
Internet and are more interactive.)

Thanks !

~~~
erohead
\- stick through it! You should be able to find early customers who are
willing to work with early prototypes, even when asking them to pay. Just make
sure you give them insanely good customer support. Consider flying out to get
them set up! Don't wait til v1.0 to sell, get out there sooner.

\- I'd recommend sticking to a local fulfillment service that has great
customer support for your early shipments. There is absolutely no need to
optimize for cost in the early days. Just make sure you have someone you can
call to sort out shipment delays, lost packages, etc. You can always expand to
more fulfillment centres later.

Sounds like a cool idea! Are the posters epaper or static?

~~~
anujdeshpande
Static for BLE as we do a battery pack kind of a thing and don't want to do
something very power intensive. The WiFi one's are 2 types, RGB panels, as
well as static posters with capacitive touch in certain regions (apart from
the voice).

------
martinushk
Hi guys. What did YC helped you the most with? I guess none of you had the
product on the market while being in the batch (maybe I'm wrong?).

~~~
dalanmiller
Would also like to hear this.

------
cfederico
Hi Guys, we are a hardware startup developing a smart LED lamp. We plan to
launch a Kickstarter campaign late Q3 and now we are testing the product with
our early adopters.

\- What is the best way to get traction on the product before launching the
campaign?

\- How much money you need to set up a good marketing Kickstarter campaign ?
Is it needed to use a good PR agency ? (Any suggestions about a good PR agency
? )

Thank you so much!

Federico

~~~
Hykso
Build an email list! And try to pump up the subscriptions with different sales
channels - you'll be able to know which ones work best for your business
before launching your campaign

~~~
noer
I'm going to have to disagree with part of this. Collecting emails is a good
strategy when there's a concrete availability date and that date isn't too far
off from the present. I recently had a client who was trying to sell a
similar(ish) product. Collected emails for 6+ months. When they announced that
their product was available, it took them 3 months to get to 50 orders from
nearly 10k emails. Looking back, keeping the email subs engaged might have
helped increase conversion from subscriber -> customer, but It ended up not
working out nearly as well as we had hoped.

~~~
Hykso
Don't get me wrong selling and getting real product validation is the best.

But emails are one of the most valuable resource for marketing. You can always
email people. But even advertising to the people that liked your page will
cost you money and will be competing with tons of information.

------
jmcmahon443
What do I do if I need to use another company's patent in my product? How do I
approach the situation/negotiation?

~~~
liseman
Don't copy people's products. Other than that, companies spend too much time
too early worrying about (and spending money on) IP. Prove demand for your
product by launching; you've got a year post-disclosure to file a provisional
patent.

~~~
beambot
I think you're wrong. You have a year after disclosure to file a FULL UTILITY
PATENT. Provisionals give you a 1-year priority date.

------
thirru
For those of you that did Kickstarter and not Indiegogo or a selfstarter
(Celery/Tilt/Shopify) campaign:

How happy were you with the experience so far? There are a few up and
downsides as drabie had mentioned before.

Taking all of that into account, would you use Kickstarter again if you had
the choice again?

~~~
pwinter28
Yes, we would use Kickstarter again. It drove a lot of our traffic and the
community of backers seems to have a unique cohesion. People on KS know what
they are getting in to, and are there to help. It has it's downsides, but in
my opinion the pros outweigh the cons.

I think each company is different though, and you have to consider your
strengths, as in do you have a strong online acquisition strategy/team, in
which case a campaign on your own site may make more sense.

Now that our campaign is over we use Celery for pre-orders on nebia.com

------
elijahparker
I'm just about to launch a new hardware product and was planning on using
Kickstarter (it would be my 2nd time), however a partner (and reseller) in the
industry brought up the option of them preordering my entire Kickstarter goal
so I can get to selling/shipping the final product sooner at retail price.

Seems like an enticing option, my main concern is how much of the Kickstarter
market might I miss?

Are people who buy on Kickstarter a subset of those who buy a finished
product, or is it an entirely separate group?

I can see pros and cons of both ways, and I know a lot has to do with my
specific market (niche time-lapse), but would love to hear any comments or
insight. Thanks!

------
mrshuptrine
Do you think US companies have any ethical obligations to manufacture in the
US? On that same vein, is there a marketing value of saying, "American-made"
that could justify the higher manufacturing costs?

~~~
pwinter28
Good question. I'll take this one since we are trying to do all of our
manufacturing in the US. I do not think companies have an ethical obligation
to manufacture in the US at all. Make the product where you can make it BEST.
And you have to self-define what BEST is. In our case we care a lot about high
quality and cosmetics. So it made sense to focus on the US, where you can have
more oversight and be on the line.

As for marketing value of "American Made" I think it can be very helpful, but
you have to make that a part of your brand. Otherwise it won't make much of a
difference.

------
gabsong
During crowdfunding, we're busy taking orders, talking to press, making sure
we update our users with marketing campaigns, etc. How do you manage customer
care during the time of the campaign?

~~~
pwinter28
It's really important to have a plan for this. We were not prepared and got
blindsided and it took basically the whole teams effort for a couple of days
before we systematized it.

Here is a direct quote from the guy who set up and manages our customer
service system "be meticulous but also efficient".

The best platform we've used is "Front" also a YC company. Clean and super
fast interface.

~~~
gabsong
That's great. Thanks for the sound advice -- we'll also look into it :)

------
cfort6
Lots of platforms exist for home automation, control of IoT devices, etc...
HomeKit, Nest, Wink, etc.

How worth it is it to integrate with these platforms? Should new IoT devices
"cover all the bases", or is it not worth the extra cost & development?

Currently I'm doing an IoT project and I think I may just skip all those
platforms. The HomeKit app costs $14.99, a Wink base station or a Nest costs
money... Personally I'm doubtful consumers want to pay those extra costs.

Thoughts?

~~~
liseman
I believe we're in the earliest days: there's no dominant platform, and no
'killer use' for home automation / iot. I'd focus on your product, maybe
adding support for platforms later.

------
MechSkep
I have a plan for overhauling/replacing Geometric Dimensioning and
Tolerancing. The way it's done now consumes way too much design time, and
honestly is a bit silly considering the inputs and outputs of the system.

I'd like to talk to someone with experience interfacing with factories in
China about how the current approach could be replaced. Any suggestions?

Also, if I developed this tool-chain, what is the best way to attach to the
market?

------
jonbarker
What are some cost effective options for rapid prototyping (preferably mostly
doing it myself in a shop type environment) in the bay area?

~~~
fudged71
There are lots of hackerspaces/makerspaces in the bay area! Plenty of
equipment available for next to nothing.

------
elijahparker
Does anyone have a recommendation for how to go about WEEE [1] compliance
across Europe apart from registering in every country individually?

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Electrical_and_Electro...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Electrical_and_Electronic_Equipment_Directive)

------
jmcmahon443
What are the pros and cons of crowdfunding, vs. self-funding, vs. VC-funding
for a hardware startup?

When should I be using which sort of funding?

~~~
Hykso
Hi jmcmahob443,

My name is Khalil, CEO of Hykso (www.hykso.

Are you talking about product crowdfunding like Kickstarter and Indiegogo or
equity crowdfunding?

~~~
thirru
Hey Khalil,

What was the main reason for you going with a selfstarter (your own website)
over IGG/KS? Would you do it again?

------
thetli8
Do you think hardware IoT companies should eventually open source their
hardware to solely focus on the software? (Based on the belief that if we can
make it, there's always someone who can make it better for cheaper). How would
we go about doing that in a way that does not greatly damage revenue streams?

~~~
wilcoxbr
The honest answer is that it depends. There is not a clear cut answer for this
because it highly depends on the market, business model, value proposition,
etc.

Development and production of hardware is fundamentally different than
software. Thinking and making are separated much further in time and
resources, and copy-paste simply doesn't work the same way.

The statement of open sourcing hardware and focusing solely on the software
implies someone out there is magically going to make high-quality hardware for
your software to run on. That's a thorny assumption.

Most IoT is more than just PCB's. There are also enclosures, actuators, and
physical UI/UX. Relying on someone else to provide that much of the user-
experience is a brittle proposition for a business.

------
thirru
What are some good strategies you guys used to narrow and improve your
messaging for your crowdfunding campaigns?

Did you rely on qualitative feedback (by real people or usertesting) or on
quantitative results (A/B conversions testing on ad copies and landing pages)?
Or did you just go with your gut?

~~~
drabie
I would do both qualitative and quantitative. 100%. That's hugely critical.

------
dsl
I'm currently considering a startup that is 90% cloud software, and 10% on
site hardware (think a small custom designed sensor).

Having no experience or expertise in custom hardware design, how would you
recommend finding someone who could handle design and production?

------
milani
What is the process choosing a manufacturer? How do you choose between them?
Another question is, do you outsource the production to an EMS? If not, how
one should handle assembling parts and packaging the product?

------
thirru
I have a question for Hykso: You guys had a progress bar of units sold. Did
you see that this was creating urgency? Also did you find it hard to create
traffic to your own site? What was your strategy? And why Shopify over
Tilt/Celery?

~~~
Hykso
No we did not see it had much of an impact. But what we saw had the biggest
impact is our website! We refined it a lot based on customer interviews to
make sure to convey the worth of the product (which was lacking in the
previous version). Also customers had a lot of questions, which is not good
for sales. As soon as we put the new website up, sales increased!

~~~
thirru
Interesting.

1- Was there a reason why you chose not to use a promo video? 2- What has been
main driver in sales so far? Like what was the split between PR, Email List
and Ads? Any other channels? 3- Why Shopify over Celery/Tilt then? Did it give
you more control over the experience?

Sorry lots of questions. We are currently deciding between selfstarter vs
crowdfunding.

-Martin

------
dchmiel
What is your approach to looking at security for your hardware and data during
prototyping and testing with early clients? How would you minimize what data
is collected to maximize what you can learn to improve your product and
service?

------
cbw5
Great hardware has the implicit trade-off of being "built to last" and
consequently not requiring the customer to upgrade the product for quite
sometime. How do you think about re-engaging customers in the short to medium
term?

~~~
drabie
Great question. With Tovala, our model is a little different. We anticipate
most of our customers will order our meal delivery service - and be delighted
by the experience and taste. That'll give us a touch point to our customers
throughout the life of their smart oven.

------
prbuckley
How much do you think about a post crowdfunding customer acquisition strategy
before launching a crowd funding campaign? It seems like crowd funding can get
initial attention but doesn't necessarily make a sustained business.

------
lindseya
Did you make your own videos or work with a video production company?

~~~
pwinter28
We made our own storyboard, Carlos, my co-founder is very creative and a good
storyteller so he crafted the arch of the video. We studied Nancy Duarte's
stuff. We worked very closely with our videographer who also put his heart and
soul into it. In short, storyboard/script in-house, filming/editing
outsourced.

------
lindseya
At what stage should your product be before you launch your campaign?

~~~
pwinter28
I think it depends a lot on the product. If you ask @liseman or Kevin Hale
they'll say launch NOW! That was the advice we got. :) In all seriousness I
think you obviously need a working prototype, and clear validation that people
like your product! Most importantly you should know what it's going to entail
to deliver on your promise.

------
dookahku
I've lots of embedded linux experience. It's less consumerist products but
more embedded systems experience.

Where do I find people's problems to solve that can be addressed by HW?

~~~
nappy
I'd start with thinking about things you deal with as a consumer and have
problems with. After that, start asking other people about their experience
with the same problem/issue.

------
mariusz331
Thanks for doing this!

How do I get started with hardware? I'm a software engineer trying to break
into the hardware field. What resources can you recommend for someone in my
shoes?

~~~
drabie
Happy to help. My background is actually in food and business, so I didn't
have any hardware background. Your best bet is to immerse yourself in the
hardware world - meet as many people as you can; join maker groups; go to
local universities to meet engineers; and read as much as you can online.
Ultimately, try to find a co-founder that has the skill set and knowledge to
complement you.

------
jpcorica
How can we balance effort, risk taking and authorship protection vs holding
progress back because of the blocking some patents create? Product revenue
will be enough?

~~~
Hykso
Somebody once told me: you'll deal with patent infringement once you're
successful, which is already a big milestone...so to try to get there first.

------
jeiting
Did you have experience in hardware before this? Do you think that experience
building hardware products is a pre-requisite to starting a hardware company?

~~~
wilcoxbr
Yes. I've had about 10 years working in hardware. Some of those years were at
other startup companies.

Experience helps, but as in most endeavors, is not required. You gain
experience by doing.

The most important thing you can do is get started and figure it out as you
go.

------
zkirill
Is it a good idea to sell your first small batch of functional prototypes as-
is while still in the market research stage to get user feedback?

~~~
drabie
Depends on what you are trying to prove. If there are questions as to whether
people will pay for your product, then yes, proving that that is the case with
a functional prototype will go a long ways. If, however, you are trying to get
feedback, build up brand evangelists and learn, then selling your prototype is
not hugely important.

~~~
dfox
By selling few our of prototype units we got both meaningful feedback and
evangelists (not consumer, as the thing itself is mostly useful for government
institutions).

On the other hand we also got interesting support headaches, as the final
production version includes all the feedback and thus is completely different
in overall architecture, hardware and software and thus probably only thing
that is compatible are pinouts of I/O connectors (and voltage levels on them
are only mostly compatible).

------
liseman
Lots of great questions! Thanks for joining us. Email me (
luke@ycombinator.com ) after you apply for YC with your next big hardware
thing:)

------
mbruschi
How do you managed to get your campaign to the press? Any advice if there is
no time for building up relation-ships with the journalists?

~~~
drabie
The best option is to get warm introductions and develop relationships early.
Getting people to hear about your product, give you feedback and feel invested
before you launch is critical.

However, that's not always possible. If you're scrambling and haven't had time
to do that, you can always reach out blind or use services/agencies to help.
There's a YC company called PRX that helps with this and does it at a very
affordable price. Another cool site that was on Product Hunt recently ranked a
bunch of media outlets -
[http://presshour.co/?ref=producthunt](http://presshour.co/?ref=producthunt).
Lastly, take a look at your competition and who covered them - those are
probably your best targets.

~~~
mbruschi
Thank you, will check that out! Did you sent the whole story in the first
reach-out or how much information do you recommend to send the first time?

~~~
nappy
Building early relationships is better, but you also want to be reaching out
with something interesting, real, or actionable. I think it depends on the
situation - happy to chat about it some more, just email me at
hello@getenflux.com

------
lindseya
What do you plan to do as a next step post-crowdfunding (other than delivering
your product, of course)?

~~~
drabie
Most important is to deliver our product (both hardware and food). However,
we'll also be able to run some testing on our website to see what
content/messaging/copy converts best into additional pre-sales.

We (Tovala) will also be hiring for some software, operations and food roles
:)

------
thebiglebrewski
Would it be possible to post links to all of the crowdfunding campaigns and/or
product pages?

~~~
liseman
See [http://www.ycombinator.com/hardware](http://www.ycombinator.com/hardware)
for current campaigns + products actively shipping. Nebia et al aren't on the
list: companies get dropped post-crowdfunding and re-added when shipping:)

~~~
pwinter28
You can learn more about the Nebia shower at nebia.com

------
shishir1
When is the right time/scale to start knocking doors to find partners at
schenzen?

~~~
drabie
Not sure there is a black and white answer to this, but that piece of the
puzzle takes time. When you're getting close to a prototype that you think is
manufacturable (and that is a big assumption that you should vet as much as
possible), start reaching out to partners and CMs.

------
lindseya
What strategies did you use to get the word out about your campaign?

~~~
pwinter28
We built up a big email list. Starting with the team we had ~12k emails
collectively (team of 6 people). Everyone we had ever emailed. And tiered the
emails/frequency. We also did a lot of pilots beforehand and gathered interest
from people who had ACTUALLY interacted with the product. And in our case had
showered with Nebia!

------
creativecomm2
We want to partner, contact us foodbyprint at gmail.

------
creativecomm2
We want to talk to Tovala about a partnership

~~~
drabie
Cool. Shoot us a note - hello@tovala.com.

