Y Combinator's Hardware Guy Leaves After 14 Months
<i>Still, hardware is, well, hard. Silicon Valley has produced a raft of world-changing software startups, from Airbnb (a YC veteran) to Facebook. But it&#x27;s a whole lot easier to beta-test an app than to prototype and then manufacture a gadget with a bunch of moving parts. Then you have to market the thing to the masses, who are already enamored of their Apple and Samsung products. Exhibits A and B: Fitbit, the fitness tracking company, and GoPro, maker of rugged little cameras. This week, both cut their sales forecasts for the crucial holiday quarter and watched their shares plunge. (Neither started life at YC.)</i><p>Fitbit and GoPro&#x27;s downturn is mostly fueled by mismanagement and poor decisions than hardware being intrinsically hard.<p>The hard part of hardware is building something that works well enough and is in demand. When you have your device on people&#x27;s wrist or mounted on their helmet, you have overcome the &quot;hardware is hard&quot; part. (for the most part).<p>After that it&#x27;s building on your original success, expanding your market and creating value for your customers; all of which are true for any other business, not strictly hardware. For fitbit and GoPro, the latter has proven more difficult.