
YC for Hardware - sama
http://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-for-hardware
======
pcmonk
I'm a bit out of the loop on hardware startups, but has YC funded many
successful hardware startups? The only one I've heard of is Pebble.

Lowering the barrier to hardware startups is an awesome thing, of course.
Hardware has a greater potential to directly impact lives at this point than
software. There's tremendous software power locked up in the small, awkward-
to-use computing devices we call phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, and
servers.

~~~
beambot
Pebble, Boosted, Cruise, Double Robotics, Pantelligent, Thalmic, UPower,
Helion, Terravion, SoundFocus, SwapBox, Amulyte, Coin, IxiPlay, TrueLink,
Estimote, Senic, ... <there are more>

~~~
apendleton
Not to nitpick, but at least some of these arguably haven't gotten far enough
along yet that they can reasonably claim to be "successful." Thalmic is just
getting early products to market, Helion hasn't yet built a commercial fusion
reactor, etc.

~~~
acgourley
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.

~~~
redthrowaway
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.

~~~
jeorgun
Sure, but it _does_ mean that "few successful companies so far" shouldn't be
taken as a death knell for YC's forays into hardware. By fairly direct
analogy, the majority of startups not making a profit in their first month
will fail, but the majority of successful startups weren't making a profit in
their first month.

~~~
redthrowaway
Sure, that's a fair statement. I'm not saying that the lack of success so far
is a knock against YC for hardware startups. Rather, the similar lack of
success for software startups in YC at the same stage of development, and the
subsequent success they did enjoy, is not a point in favour of YC's
suitability for hardware startups.

Hardware and Software startups are sufficiently different in their needs and
life cycles that it would be specious to use the success of a particular
program for the one as indicative of its suitability for the other. Similarly,
the sorts of b2c startups that YC typically funds are sufficiently different
from b2g startups like Palantir that I don't think you could claim Palantir
would have benefitted from YC based solely on the experiences of b2c startups.

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anujdeshpande
I read it twice to see if there was any mention of the word 'Shenzhen'. It's
difficult to not keep that in the loop, for a hardware startup anywhere in the
world. Even SF.

~~~
hugs
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.

~~~
codemac
> try not to let location dominate your world view of what is easy or
> difficult

Didn't YC move?

~~~
hugs
Yes. Of course, I wish YC would take my advice, too! ;)

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lnanek2
Interested hardware startups should be sure to check out Wearable World as
well: [http://www.wearableworld.co/](http://www.wearableworld.co/)

They have a similar focus on hardware, great numbers re the percent of each
class that gets funded, and have had some big successes like the Skully AR-1
intelligent motorcycle helmet:
[http://www.skully.com/](http://www.skully.com/)

WW recently toured the AQS facility in Fremont where a lot of well known
products are being made like Makerbot and the Lift Labs tremor defeating
spoon, and class members get frequent introductions to everyone from investors
to Perkins offering billing for law services only on funding. It has been a
pretty kickass program so far.

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trsohmers
Is there any interest in (fabless) semiconductors? Traditionally thought as
ridiculously capital intensive, there are a lot of new developments that have
brought the time and costs involved down dramatically... My experience trying
to fundraise for one shown there are a lot of misconceptions and (10-15 year)
old ideas in the silicon valley investment space regarding fabless semi.

~~~
super_sloth
Very interesting.. Do tell. What kind of misconceptions are there and how have
they changed?

I still labour under the assumption that NREs make doing anything like that
_extremely_ expensive.

~~~
trsohmers
NOTE: I am the founder of REX Computing (check my submission & comment history
for more info), and thus a bit biased for this.

The standard thing I have heard from VC's that don't know anything about
semiconductors (Or have not been involved in it in this century): "It will
cost $100 million and take 3 years to have your first silicon. You have a 50%
chance of even making it that far, and even then you only have a 10% chance of
success (e.g. making any sales)"

So basically, the VC assumption is that it is a minimum $100 million and 3
years to see ANYTHING come out of it... and even if you get to silicon, there
is only a 10% chance you'll be able to sell it. This is ridiculously
pessimistic if you actually have a real design innovation.

Some of the new developments: New tools: High Level Synthesis an "Hardware
construction languages" (such as Chisel...
[http://chisel.eecs.berkeley.edu](http://chisel.eecs.berkeley.edu)) radically
bring RTL development time down. My team (consisting of just two of us) were
able to complete the RTL of our new processor core in under 4 months (working
on the weekends)... and that includes a lot of redesign and working on things
other than the RTL itself. Chisel also brings the testing/verification time
down significantly, as it can auto-generate Verilog optimized for either VLSI
or FPGAs, and a high speed cycle accurate C++ simulator of the chip that is
~10x faster than the industry standard Verilog C Simulator. Even though Chisel
really is this amazing, virtually no one outside of UC Berkeley knows about
it.

2\. FPGAs have gotten a lot better... I can say the synthesis tools still
suck, but in terms of speed and testing ablility, you can test your chip on
very cheap (Ours is $300) FPGAs these days.

3.Shuttle run/Multi project wafer services... a "block" (6 mm^2) on TSMC 28nm
process is $90,000... and you get 100 chips back. A 16 core version of our
chip is just two of these blocks.

4\. Older process nodes are getting cheaper. Most fabs in the US are not going
below 65nm or 45nm, and need to keep full utilization of their fabs. There are
a lot of deals that can be had on these smaller fabs which are perfect for
prototyping... A similar block size can be as cheap as $3 to 5k.

5\. Moore's law dying is one of the best things that can happen to the
industry. Instead of the ridiculous investment getting to the next process
node, the fabs can invest in making the current process better and cheaper.
This will bring down the cost of very good, proven processes (like 28nm, and
potentially 14/16nm in ~3 to 5 years), making fabrication even cheaper and
more widely available.

I'm happy to answer any questions!

EDIT/TLDR: Based on my own startup's current plan and estimates, it is
possible to prototype (get 100 chips back) an entirely new processor
architecture for under $2 million, and it is possible to go into mass
production with that design for $10 to $15 million.

~~~
sounds
Put this in a blog post and it should rise to the top of HN tomorrow. Thanks
for posting it!

~~~
trsohmers
I've been wanting to do this for a while... I think I may now. Thanks.

~~~
kbart
Please do and post it on HN, I'd really like to hear more stories from a
hardware startup world.

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TheMakeA
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.

~~~
bravo22
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 protos
(1 week turn). That should be doable for most start-ups, even if they need 3-4
spins.

~~~
mwoodworth
They also are working on getting the tools that you need to design your
prototype. Like Upverter (YCW2011)
([https://upverter.com/](https://upverter.com/)) for designing your PCB.

~~~
bravo22
It would be better if they offered discount pricing on something more mature
and broadly used as well, like Altium.

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minimaxir
Wait, why is Tilt on the list of startups helping out with hardware expertise?
Aren't they a crowdfunding company?

[https://www.tilt.com](https://www.tilt.com)

~~~
npkarnik
A lot of the very recent, surprising successes in hardware (Oculus, Pebble)
were crowdfunded (specifically for those, Kickstarted). I would go as far to
say that using a premier crowdfunding platform to test the market may be the
best, lowest risk way to validate a hardware idea. Or at least crowdfunding
lowers the barrier for hardware success from "damn near impossible" to "really
really hard."

~~~
zmitri
Exactly correct.

Side note for companies like Indiegogo, success at attracting device makers to
use their platform is key to their growth. At CES alone they have something
like 14 booths.

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NextPerception
As a mechanical engineer who works in this area and already follows hacker
news due to colliding interests, this is very exciting.

------
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.

------
dthal
>and we don’t shy away from expensive hardware--we’ve funded companies
building things like nuclear reactors and rockets, which will require hundreds
of millions of dollars in funding to succeed

How does this make sense for YC to do?

~~~
taylorwc
I'd guess that it's part of a diversified approach. Yes, they are capital
intensive, but YC isn't the one who will be investing the hundreds of
millions, and if one of these is successful, then I'd say it's likely to be
_hugely_ successful and a worthwhile return for YC.

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robwormald
This can't come soon enough. I'm helping out on a hardware 'startup' (though I
guess we don't really use that term) - coming from software its an incredibly
challenging realm to work in.

Simply getting a functional prototype without easy access to a 3d printer, $$$
in compiler licenses for BT stacks, freakin custom batteries, etc etc.

Our thing: [https://www.fitguard.me/](https://www.fitguard.me/)

~~~
FD3SA
Hi Rob, just saw FitGuard for the first time and it's a phenomenal idea.

I'd recommend getting in touch with motorcycle helmet manufacturers
(particularly MotoGP and WSBK sponsors) because concussions are a huge issue
in motorcycle racing. As your site states, concussion severity is very
abstractly diagnosed without data, and your product can make a big difference.
The doctor has a tough time deciding whether the athlete is fit to race if
he's had a crash and a concussion, and it ultimately comes down to a
qualitative decision made by the rider and doctor. Data can definitely help
save lives here.

If I have time for the track this season, I'll definitely sign up as a tester.
I've never had a concussion, but I sure as hell would want to know how fast my
head decelerates after a crash before getting back on the bike.

Good luck, and cheers on a great idea.

~~~
robwormald
Can't take credit for the idea, one of the founders is a Rugby player and had
his clock cleaned on the field one too many times.

Data is my thing - there's a number of these types of products out there
(Shockbox et al), the issue is that they all keep the algorithm quite close to
their chest (fairly, I suppose!)

My role (in addition to helping out with the hardware) is the ecosystem around
it. It's BLE capable, so while we can't make a diagnosis (all kinds of legal
issues there), the hope is to aggregate impact data, improve the detection
algorithm and be able to feed it back to the device as it improves - We're
currently using a TI MCU that allows us to OTA update from the app.

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aceperry
Sounds great! Question I have is, are these services only available to yc
companies? What about startups that are not a part of yc?

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jfb
I would love to start a hardware startup (I even have an idea!) but I have no
idea how to assess the feasibility of my idea, or how to hire h/w engineers.
And it's not a billion dollar idea, so maybe it's not in the YC wheelhouse,
but I sure as hell think it'd be fun.

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swamp40
Are there any new advantages or opportunities for Bolt portfolio companies?

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cpg
This adds to the already exciting hardware situation.

I'm interested in the personal media/storage/app server space!

If you are hardware startup founder material and are interested, please get in
touch.

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spiritplumber
Do I qualify? [http://www.robots-everywhere.com](http://www.robots-
everywhere.com) The article is scant on details about who do I talk to.

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zhanjie
Appreciate！I’m doing a hardware startup now,and I believe some areas in YC's
RFSs will be solved better with a software&hardware model.

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yousifa
This is wonderful! Can't wait to see what future batch companies look like

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icki
From first paragraph: Bolt’s partners and engineering stuff

*i think you meant staff

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oldpond
No mention of open hardware. Definitely a market there.

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Eleutheria
I'd like to see electric buggys for under $5K.

That would be really disruptive.

[https://imgur.com/UlrV8FT](https://imgur.com/UlrV8FT)

