Blue
Blue (YC S25) · 2025–
Blue is a small USB-C plug-in for iPhone. It lets a voice assistant tap and type in any app on the phone, so you can get something done without picking the phone up.
- 55 days whiteboard drawing to sealed boxes
- 100 finished units in the first build built in time for Y Combinator Demo Day
- 4 places the parts and work came from the Bay Area, Argentina, Taiwan and Shenzhen
I am a co-founder and I run the hardware. That means the case, the parts inside it, the factory that makes them, and the box it ships in.
The first hundred units went from a drawing on a whiteboard to sealed boxes in 55 days, in time for Y Combinator Demo Day. The parts and the work behind those units came from four places: the Bay Area, Argentina, Taiwan and Shenzhen.
Chinese New Year closes factories in Shenzhen for weeks. If a part is not ordered before the doors shut, you cannot get it until they open again, and paying more does not help. We had built the schedule around our own design reviews and had not looked at the factory’s holidays. The last day the factory was open became the date we worked back from, and we ordered the parts that take longest to arrive weeks early. I plan around the factory’s year now, and I keep in closer touch with the people there.