Inside The Hard Tech Startups Turning Sci-Fi Into Reality

YC has become a surprising force in the hard tech world, funding startups building physical products from satellites to rockets to electric planes. In this episode of Lightcone, we go behind the scenes to explore how YC advises founders on their ambitious startups. We also take a look at a number of YC's hard tech companies and how they got started with little time or money.
00:00 - Coming Up
02:42 - YC's Model for Hard Tech
04:19 - Mindset Shift and Proving Technical Feasibility
08:30 - Examples
21:09 - Evaluating Risk in Hard Tech
22:18 - More Examples
37:12 - Vision Breakdown
44:09 - Mission-Oriented and Prototyping
46:25 - Robotics and Fundraising
47:58 - Outro

[ycombinator]

What big, ambitious hard tech startup are you building?

[chriswilfrid]

Hope this help:
• LOI (Letter of Intent)
• Sell showcase products
• Build prototype fast
• Show clear path actions
• Work with credentials
• 3D printed scale model
• GOV location demand
• Government grant
• CAD simulation test
• Innovate specific MVP
• Chunk size beginning
• Big Market To Derisk
• Good Excite Storyteller
• Be Frugal and Smart

[nickd]

Andromeda Surgical (YC S23) - autonomous surgical robots. We’ll be on here next time!

[chapterme]

Chapters (Powered by ChapterMe) -
00:00 - Coming Up: YC's Focus on Vision
01:32 - Demonstrating Commercial Attraction
02:42 - YC's Model for Hard Tech
03:24 - Shifting Focus in YC
04:19 - Mindset Shift in YC
05:40 - Proving Technical Feasibility
06:37 - Presenting Progress Effectively
08:30 - Example: Boom
11:16 - Example: Cruise
16:43 - Example: Astranis
19:12 - Example: AstroForge
21:09 - Evaluating Risk in Hard Tech
22:18 - Example: Relativity Space
23:38 - Example: Heart Aerospace
25:29 - Example: Remora
26:40 - Example: Seabound
27:50 - Chemistry Example: Solugen
30:00 - Example: K Scale Labs
33:39 - Example: Astro Mechanica
37:12 - Vision Breakdown
44:09 - Mission-Oriented Solutions
45:01 - Prototyping Advancements
46:25 - Robotics Frontier
46:39 - Fundraising Strategy
47:58 - Outro

[UsSpiritual]

What I would really want to see the panel do is to discuss in detail one specific company let's say Sea Bound and tear down, how the young college graduate went about building their team, day-in-a-life kind of experience but on podcast will be a good video.

[M_OE.]

Being someone who is building a hard tech startup, this was a phenomenal & incredibly relevant video.
Keep up the brilliant work, YC!

[BagOfNeurons]

Being a hard tech founder is simultaneously the most painful and fulfilling thing in the world

On one hand, you know that you are literally going to change the world if you make your company work
And on the other, you're regularly fighting to make the business and the science work (and btw, these two not working is a default setting that you have to manually change 💀 )

Very painful, but very worth it :)

This coming from a guy running a bootstraped biotech startup that's trying to make humans biologically immortal.

Good luck hard tech founders !!! Wish you all the best.

[rira]

The whole thing at 3:00 is all fun and game, the question is how to get into YC at all with 0 money until then? I mean let's take the the rocket ship example: how far would that thing have to be to get into YC? Prototype? LOI? schematics? idea?

[shoaibux]

Wow, looks like I've finished this at 4:47 AM without taking a single pause. Loved it!

[GustavoFerreira-rloo]

As a seed hardtech cofounder I founded this conversation quite iluminated.

[valterszakrevskis]

I actually won a pretty big hackathon with a TEA-making robot :D. For my startup, I'm building something much bigger, cooler and more important

[gomini]

Very interesting to see YC becoming more and more interested in hardware VS software

[chriswilfrid]

This is what I'm talking about!
• Hard Tech
• Solo Founder
• Compound Startup

Things that YC always skeptical, guys open up your mind!!! Think no box.

[astnv]

Good thing YC is becoming more open… I pitched my space company 6 years ago and it was a no. Guess I’ll apply again….

[thanks]

Premises security as a service in SF as test grounds, seasonal farm hands as robots as a service, green energy hydrogen fuel vehicles, deep sea mining.

[ashwin]

Folks, more hardware content please, Thank you for this !!

[christianbelloso]

Great episode! finally something for hardtech founders.

[qet-lab]

Anybody noticed the innovation juice was not orange this time but darker. Hard tech is on another different level 😂😂😂😂

[Manickavasagam-nuzt]

y combinator create a whatsapp option so instead of fill form and procedure directly send a idea, also tell it in next video after added it also single founders with idea dont have experience so help for next steps.

[mvegaarance]

A friend is starting a company to grow wood in a laboratory instead of cutting trees: New Dawn Bio 🤓