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The Effect Of Covid-19 On Hardware Startups

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Remote work has received some overdue consideration in response to Covid-19, but unlike the software industry, hardware faces the obvious and unavoidable obstacle of manufacturing physical goods. As many startups accelerate into the future of work with total zeal, on average, hardware companies have to adapt in more substantial ways.

Lucid Drone Technologies, a YC-backed business that offers a modern sanitation solution, has confronted a series of challenges and discovered new opportunities under the circumstances. CEO Andrew Ashur explains, “We heard stories about China at the end of 2019. In early 2020, we began to hear more about the coronavirus here in the United States. Then, a week before shelter-in-place took effect, a friend of our founding team tested positive for Covid-19, and because we had direct interaction with that individual, we personally had to go into a 14-day quarantine.”

Fortunately, everyone at Lucid stayed healthy and the isolation gave them a chance to plan ahead. According to Ashur, “It was personally scary, and professionally too since we’re a startup that builds hardware. We were out of the office for two weeks, which made it difficult to physically interact with our product. But during this time, we hit the pause button and thought more holistically about what we were doing at Lucid. We generally want to create technology that positively impacts as many lives as possible. Covid really lit a fire under us again and got that passion burning all the brighter because it reminded us of why we started this company and why there's so much joy in the work we do. We love seeing the meaningful impact we have on others.

As you would expect, a drone sanitation company is in high demand as we value cleanliness more than ever before in our lifetimes. Ashur highlighted a specific opportunity, “Of the many different use-cases, we have seen significant interest from athletic facilities. Within the last week, our drones have performed sanitation flights at a college football stadium and NFL stadium.”

Meanwhile, CoLab, a YC-backed software startup in Newfoundland, has seen a spike in business. They build software for engineers and designers to collaborate remotely. (Think GitHub or InVision for hardware.) CoLab’s CEO, Adam Keating, has been surprised by the influx of new business, “We're seeing things evolve rapidly right now. The effect Covid-19 has had on companies in our space, especially digital cloud tools, has been drastic. Companies that used to say they weren’t sure if they were ready to use our platform have since come back and said they have no other option. That shift is going to have a significant long-term impact on the industry.”

Even though both startups — one a hardware company, and one a software startup that builds tools that support hardware companies — have seen new opportunities emerge. I asked Ashur if he worried about Lucid’s supply chain and he replied, “There aren't any immediate concerns. The big question comes around scale — which customers want drones and how many. We’re currently talking to the military regarding several applications. And if they want drones, we're not sure how many they would want, but it could be a very large order. So if we reach a point that we need to produce hundreds or thousands of drones very quickly, we might have some supply bottlenecks, but they could certainly be resolved by sourcing raw materials.”

Short-term complications aside, CoLab’s CEO believes the design and engineering process in the industry will never be the same again, “There are extreme challenges as hardware manufacturers make this transition. We're on the incline right now, we're going up the hill. I look forward to coming down on the other side of this mountain sooner than later.”

Both teams are doing their part in fighting the novel coronavirus. As Lucid provides a dynamic cleaning solution for this new era in sanitation, CoLab has just extended a special offer for teams that create personal protective equipment, tests, and/or ventilators. Its software is free to use for these purposes until at least June 30, 2020.

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