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.
Chapters (Powered by bit.ly/chapterme-yc) -
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?

[@paycooagent]

Paycoo & Astroforge, Vision of the future

[@fryderykchopin1381]

Rainmaker

[@williammorris1763]

Give me money and I'll tell you.

[@SR-ti6jj]

I run a local donkey show that I'm looking to expand into other counties soon. In time, I will have an empire.

[@pereckerdal]

Building the first microphone with human-level hearing

[@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

[@nickd717]

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

[@AlexWilkinsonYYC]

Cool idea. Auto (high quality, non-realtime) subtitling/close captioning in every language for videos would be handy too. 🤔

[@shoaibux]

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

[@christianbelloso4250]

Great episode! finally something for hardtech founders.

[@M_OE.101]

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

[@millingabani]

Amazing, what are you building. Would love to learn more

[@tigerrx7]

What are you building? I’m also building a hard tech startup.

[@M_OE.101]

Hey both -- I'm building a VTOL backpack drone. Applied to YC S24 batch. Hoping for the best. Would love to know about you guys?

[@M_OE.101]

What are you guys building?

[@zeljkapotoku275]

Very inspiring, thank you!

[@AsapPapi]

Amazing content 🔥

[@Friday4]

Perfect timing

[@mjmikaelson]

Another great episode! ✨😉👍

[@royykahangwe]

This is fascinating!

[@gomini3707]

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

[@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.

[@ast0nv8]

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….

[@OSINDIA-uo2cy]

I wish you the best g..never give up

[@J35Y1]

1% acceptance rate, good luck!

[@jpmaureira]

Pretty encouraging!

[@ashwin7002]

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

[@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

[@shoaibux]

Haha, congratz! btw I've made a note that I'm not going to build a tea-making robot. :D

[@valterszakrevskis]

@@shoaibux thanks, it was a fun super over engineered cup, random fun hack

[@VoltHaul]

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?

[@colin_kakama]

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.

[@AlexWilkinsonYYC]

Haha, good startup idea :D

[@resoluation345]

Hey man, I love entrepreneurs and stuff, but there’s a limit between “ nearly impossible “ and “ impossible for the mean time “. As an entrepreneur, it is crucial to be a bit delusional, but there’s Steve Jobs and theres Elizabeth Holmes. Consider what you are doing with these words, i dont understand what you are doing but take those words into account

[@AlexWilkinsonYYC]

@@resoluation345 Just because Elizabeth Holmes company could not do it, does not mean it was/is impossible to do. The reality is, in the future - with advanced technology - it's more inevitable than impossible. It's hard to label something as impossible if you include the dimension of time, with ever advancing technology. Her idea and talking about it was not the issue - the unethical execution of the idea (lying) was the problem. Otherwise it would've been just another failed startup, which is completely fine. Had she been successful, she would be regarded as a hero like Steve Jobs, whether she had gotten there ethically or not. Like Churchill. He fire-bombed Dresden for no coherent reason - but no one remembers that part. 🤷‍♂️

[@resoluation345]

@@AlexWilkinsonYYC At the time it was, you need more understanding of biology mate, one drop of blood in and of itself is impossible for all those claims biologically. She was no where near a certified biology researcher with a single idea about what exactly is possible that was why she was aiming for nonsense goal - biology immortality sound nothing diff to me. You might as well start building time machines to the past. There’s a limit between whats possible and not. Yes there’s that limit and companies who are way too delusional in the extreme spectrum sure collapse.

[@resoluation345]

@@AlexWilkinsonYYC if you can’t realize something as being in the hilarious end of delusion spectrum thats one path to doom.

[@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.

[@thanks600]

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.

[@Manickavasagam-nu5zt]

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.

[@hadithitv7517]

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

[@BlueBirdgg]

Wasnt Garry out till 12 August?

[@GarryTan]

LOL it takes a week or so to produce these things

[@omidanari9133]

​@@GarryTandon't you look for the next ai revolutionary company? we are here 😊. just needs to be seen.

[@chriswilfrid]

​@@GarryTan let them cook ☕

[@NEPTUNENEWSPACE]

📈

[@Nitish-sp4vp]

Live sports streaming application

[@tanaylakhani]

Foundation of Search for the AI world

[@mvegaarance]

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

[@mindlessthoughts5592]

That’s extremely cool. I checked the site I believe but I didn’t see much there.

[@mvegaarance]

@@mindlessthoughts5592 he posts updates on LinkedIn mostly

[@AlexWilkinsonYYC]

Now there's an idea! Hardwood is insaaaaanely expensive. 🤔

[@chriswilfrid]

Real life Hashirama Senju

[@pmgrabki]

Nice idea but you need insane amount of free energy. On the oposite side you have free energy from the sun and water. In wright ecosystem trees grow without supervision and are still expensive. In lab you need energy, water from outside source. What do you think would be more expensive?

[@AlexWilkinsonYYC]

Does hard tech necessarily have to be physical? Does it stand for "hardware tech" or is it short for "hard to make tech"?🤔 For example, what if it's a software project moonshot like "I'm going to build a complete integrated system to run an entire democratic government" or something. Maybe "hard tech" should refer just to physical, and "moonshot-tech" or "moon-tech" should refer to any wildly ambitious project, hardware or software. 🌔🚀 Or maybe "frontier-tech" for anything which if successful, would change society, globally.

[@pereckerdal]

Hard tech is usually called deep tech in Europe

[@wandilekhumalo7062]

I like moonshot-tech😅

[@gomini3707]

It stands for hardware. Atoms of hardware VS bits of hardware. As Sam Altman said, trying to get funded for hard tech is easier than most believe.

[@AlexWilkinsonYYC]

@@gomini3707 they include bio companies under the umbrella as well. 🤔

[@iles663]

Imagine being born in Africa no VC funding just you God and your failing start up i think it's not fair if yc care they should try reach me in Africa so that I may have a chance to pitch my idea

[@pmgrabki]

No offence but Boom is not a very good example of a successful startup. Its an example of a startup that got good financing. They just burned a lot of money and 8 years later they are still developing. A lot of LOIs prove nothing when it turns out their plane is worth couple of Boeings. There is a reason why Concorde flew only couple of destinations, reason being cost of travel (10k per ticket from London to NY). Its like assumimg there is a huge market for 1 class tickets, there is not and 90% destinations you cant reach in 1 class. Your all acting out like they are next big thing and cant see the obvious, they are the next Theranos. Dont get me wrong its a greate idea but commercially its impossible to achive. Airline companies are on very thin margins and cutting cost on everything, so let's make smaller plane and 10x more expensive, but it is faster!!! Seems like a great idea said no one. I would rather give money to a company that is using new technologies to make a regular plane (e.g. carbon fiber cabin, hydrogen engines or modified engines so they can burn hydrogen, fly by wire, simplified design, planes made by 3d printing, this kind of stuff) so its lighter more efficient and costs half the money of a Boeing or Airbus. These old companies cant do that because they are old tech, huge and cant addapt that quickly to new conditions and new technologies.

[@noahloyd9]

@ycombinator hey yc, I’m a young man with big dreams, I have a great idea for a startup that I think could help change lives .. i’ve been trying to learn to start coding to create my mvp but I’ve come to realize the scope of the challenge at hand. I desperately want to pull this concept into creation , I have some money that I had saved for a car and was wondering if it would be wise to instead contract a developer to help produce my vision? - with much appreciation, Noah loyd

[@paulholsters7932]

What’s your idea? I am doing something myself, but I code it all myself. And you should too. (And learn to code.)

[@akilstokes3683]

Learn to code!!

[@paulholsters7932]

a coontractor doesnt understand your vision and is very expensive. which is why learning to code yourself is probably the only way to go.

[@gpshangari]

I just invest in asian companies to avoid pre IPO bullshit and the slowness of FNGU