I'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.
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.<p>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.
Hi folks!<p>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.<p>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).<p>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!).<p>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?<p>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).<p>Thanks! And good luck with your respective products!!
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).<p>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.
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].<p>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<p>[1] <a href="https://2014.spaceappschallenge.org/awards/#globalwin" rel="nofollow">https://2014.spaceappschallenge.org/awards/#globalwin</a> Next Vision (Space Helmet)<p>[2] <a href="http://hyperloopupv.com/" rel="nofollow">http://hyperloopupv.com/</a><p>[3] <a href="http://makersupv.com/" rel="nofollow">http://makersupv.com/</a><p>[4] <a href="http://orchallenge.es/" rel="nofollow">http://orchallenge.es/</a>
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?<p>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.<p>Bonus points for complexity: The product is intended for children age 6+.
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.).
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.
Hey Martin from ShapeScale (S15) here.<p>Did any of you attempt any influencer marketing? (celebrities or connectors on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat)<p>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?
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.
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")<p>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?
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?
A lot of the advice seems to be geared towards B2C startups. Most startups <a href="http://www.ycombinator.com/hardware/" rel="nofollow">http://www.ycombinator.com/hardware/</a> 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?<p>- 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.<p>(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.)<p>Thanks !
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.<p>- What is the best way to get traction on the product before launching the campaign?<p>- 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 ? )<p>Thank you so much!<p>Federico
For those of you that did Kickstarter and not Indiegogo or a selfstarter (Celery/Tilt/Shopify) campaign:<p>How happy were you with the experience so far? There are a few up and downsides as drabie had mentioned before.<p>Taking all of that into account, would you use Kickstarter again if you had the choice again?
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.<p>Seems like an enticing option, my main concern is how much of the Kickstarter market might I miss?<p>Are people who buy on Kickstarter a subset of those who buy a finished product, or is it an entirely separate group?<p>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!
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?
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?
Lots of platforms exist for home automation, control of IoT devices, etc... HomeKit, Nest, Wink, etc.<p>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?<p>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.<p>Thoughts?
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.<p>I'd like to talk to someone with experience interfacing with factories in China about how the current approach could be replaced. Any suggestions?<p>Also, if I developed this tool-chain, what is the best way to attach to the market?
Does anyone have a recommendation for how to go about WEEE [1] compliance across Europe apart from registering in every country individually?<p>[1] <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Electrical_and_Electronic_Equipment_Directive" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Electrical_and_Electro...</a>
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?
What are some good strategies you guys used to narrow and improve your messaging for your crowdfunding campaigns?<p>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?
I'm currently considering a startup that is 90% cloud software, and 10% on site hardware (think a small custom designed sensor).<p>Having no experience or expertise in custom hardware design, how would you recommend finding someone who could handle design and production?
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?
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?
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?
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?
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.
I've lots of embedded linux experience. It's less consumerist products but more embedded systems experience.<p>Where do I find people's problems to solve that can be addressed by HW?
Thanks for doing this!<p>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?
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?
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?