Yeah. Getting early revenue or at least commits is key for anyone.
That said, I think I'd still want to have a bigger bank doing hardware. If you kickstart or take pre-delivery payment for something at ~cost, and you need to respin a few times, you may become the next Wakemake. Being able to just take your $50k reserve fund and buy all new parts or pay for an expedited mold or something could make a big difference early on.
I wish I had enough silicon-valley-version-of-Wasta to raise a $2-5mm microfund. Being able to finance hardware projects or other obviously capital-intensive YC projects on START terms with an extra $100-200k early on would be a pretty decent investment. It would still be a much more algorithmic decision than "which teams do I think will win", which probably wouldn't work as well. The ideal LP for this would be Jeff Bezos and maybe a few other guys who made bank off hardware or retail.
You'd almost be a bank, vs. an investor -- you would be investing based on a specific credible expenditure. Do it as debt + warrant coverage, or secure against revenue. Just be easy about it -- it should take 5 minutes to make a decision, and you should be adding hardware/distribution/retail/logistics clue to the process to help the founders.
YC hardware companies (and, honestly, all startup hardware companies) kind of sucked before the $150k START in W11.
That said, I think I'd still want to have a bigger bank doing hardware. If you kickstart or take pre-delivery payment for something at ~cost, and you need to respin a few times, you may become the next Wakemake. Being able to just take your $50k reserve fund and buy all new parts or pay for an expedited mold or something could make a big difference early on.
I wish I had enough silicon-valley-version-of-Wasta to raise a $2-5mm microfund. Being able to finance hardware projects or other obviously capital-intensive YC projects on START terms with an extra $100-200k early on would be a pretty decent investment. It would still be a much more algorithmic decision than "which teams do I think will win", which probably wouldn't work as well. The ideal LP for this would be Jeff Bezos and maybe a few other guys who made bank off hardware or retail.
You'd almost be a bank, vs. an investor -- you would be investing based on a specific credible expenditure. Do it as debt + warrant coverage, or secure against revenue. Just be easy about it -- it should take 5 minutes to make a decision, and you should be adding hardware/distribution/retail/logistics clue to the process to help the founders.
YC hardware companies (and, honestly, all startup hardware companies) kind of sucked before the $150k START in W11.