A Conversation on Hard Tech with Eric Migicovsky

TL;DR

Eric Migicovsky (Pebble founder, YC partner) recounts his hardware startup journey, emphasizing that early 1-by-1 manufacturing enabled rapid iteration and that spending all capital on inventory after YC nearly killed the company. He distinguishes two valid crowdfunding phases (early validation vs.

Key insights

• The first 700–800 Pebble watches were assembled by hand one-by-one, which allowed the team to catch and fix defects (e.g., exploding plastic backs) without losing hundreds of units.
• After raising $250k post-YC, Eric spent it all on manufacturing 3,000 units via a contract manufacturer; the process took 6–8 months instead of 3, demand dried up (customers switched from BlackBerry t
• Crowdfunding serves two distinct purposes: (1) very early – raising $25k–$50k for an idea/render to get to a prototype, using platforms like Tindie or Discord rather than big campaigns; (2) later – as