本文探讨了2012年Y Combinator观察到的硬件创业趋势兴起。文章指出，尽管投资者长期以来对硬件创业存在偏见，但硬件创业在过去一批创业公司中表现出色。这一趋势的兴起并非单一因素导致，而是多种因素共同作用的结果，包括众筹平台的兴起、平板电脑的普及、电动机技术的改进、无线连接的普及、制造业的简化以及零售渠道的变化等。作者认为，硬件创业一直以来都很有吸引力，只是软件创业在过去几年发展更快，但这种优势可能只是暂时的。作者鼓励更多人投身硬件创业，并表示Y Combinator对硬件创业项目尤其感兴趣，相信未来会有更多硬件领域的创新者涌现。

🤔2012年Y Combinator观察到硬件创业趋势兴起，在84家公司中，有7家是硬件创业公司，并且表现优于其他公司。

💡硬件创业趋势的兴起并非单一因素导致，而是多方面因素共同作用的结果，包括众筹平台的兴起、平板电脑的普及、电动机技术的改进、无线连接的普及、制造业的简化以及零售渠道的变化等。

🚀硬件创业一直很有吸引力，只是软件创业在过去几年发展更快，但这种优势可能是暂时的，硬件创业的时机可能已经到来。

🛠️硬件创业的门槛降低，Arduino、3D打印、激光切割机和CNC铣床等技术的普及使得硬件原型设计变得更容易。

🤝Y Combinator对硬件创业项目尤其感兴趣，鼓励更多人投身硬件创业，相信未来会有更多硬件领域的创新者涌现。

October 2012One advantage of Y Combinator's early, broad focus is that wesee trends before most other people. And one of the most conspicuoustrends in the last batch was the large number of hardware startups.Out of 84 companies, 7 were making hardware. On the wholethey've done better than the companies that weren't.They've faced resistance from investors of course. Investors havea deep-seated bias against hardware. But investors' opinions area trailing indicator. The best founders are better at seeing thefuture than the best investors, because the best founders are makingit.There is no one single force driving this trend. Hardware doeswell on crowdfunding sites. The spread of tablets makes itpossible to build new things controlledby and even incorporatingthem. Electric motors have improved.Wireless connectivity of various types can now be taken for granted.It's getting more straightforward to get things manufactured.Arduinos, 3D printing, laser cutters, and more accessible CNC milling are making hardware easier to prototype.Retailers are less of a bottleneck as customers increasingly buyonline.One question I can answer is why hardware is suddenly cool.It always was cool.Physical things are great. They just haven'tbeen as great a way to start a rapidly growing businessas software. But that rule may not be permanent. It's not eventhat old; it only dates from about 1990. Maybe the advantageof software will turn out to have been temporary. Hackers love tobuild hardware, and customers love to buy it. So if the ease ofshipping hardware even approached the ease of shipping software,we'd see a lot more hardware startups.It wouldn't be the first time something was a bad idea till itwasn't. And it wouldn't be the first time investors learned thatlesson from founders.So if you want to work on hardware, don't be deterred from doingit because you worry investors will discriminate against you. Andin particular, don't be deterred from applying to Y Combinatorwith a hardware idea, because we're especially interested in hardwarestartups.We know there's room for the next Steve Jobs.But there's almost certainly also room for the first <Your Name Here>.Thanks to Sam Altman, Trevor Blackwell, David Cann, Sanjay Dastoor, Paul Gerhardt, Cameron Robertson, Harj Taggar, and Garry Tan for reading drafts of this.