Ask HN: Selling hardware company assets/IP

[monological]

I need some advice HN. I've been working on my hardware company for about 7 years (https://geminicomplex.com). I developed a benchtop tester that can do functional verification of chips/electronics. I designed all the hardware (main board, test board) and software (lib, driver, compiler, RTL cores, on-board website, simulation) myself, most of which I have recently open-sourced (https://github.com/geminicomplex). I've had a few potential deals fall through and now I'm thinking real hard what to do next.

I've tried to raise money from YC (interviewed twice). I didn't get in because I didn't have a cofounder and they wanted me to talk to potential customers, which I've now done. I know that what I need to do is raise like $10m and hire people that can do sales, part procurement, manufacturing and more. I'm just finding it difficult to get myself to do that. I also have a hunch that most angels/VCs wouldn't invest in something like this because it doesn't have the potential for quickly becoming a unicorn. I am understandably burned out. So I'm wondering what my options are in regards to selling/liquidating the company including all its valuable IP and assets?

P.S. this board is way more than just a tester. You can write vector programs that execute with perfect cycle accuracy and nanosecond latency. You can also write test programs using the power of Lisp to coordinate the running of vector programs. Both of these things would work quite well for robotics if some parallelism and IPC was introduced at the hardware level.

[thiago_fm]

I love the way you talk about the project. I can't help much with the selling part, but please don't forget to appreciate the work you've done on it.

Sometimes when things don't work out(which are mostly reasons beyond our control), we fail to give ourselves credit for having the courage and the effort to make those things happen. And the same when something good happens to us, we give us too much credit and forget the luck aspect of life.

Wish you a great day

[monological → thiago_fm]

Thank you. You're right sometimes we just need to stop and reflect on all that we've done. It's true, you can do everything right, but luck plays a big factor in how things turn out.

[metadat]

It sounds like you've really poured yourself into this project and it pains me to hear that this is the outcome you got.

I don't have any great advice but do want you to know I'm sorry for what you're going through and I can relate. Please know how amazingly talented you are to have pulled all this off!

[monological → metadat]

Thank you friend. I appreciate that.

[GianFabien]

Having read most of your websites, as your blog suggests: I am absolutely crazy.

More to the point I am in awe of what you have accomplished on your own. Curious as to how you funded the work to date. The book value of your work, equipment procured and product development costs would have to be very substantial.

I perceive Gemini Stimdeck as being a valuable, but very niche product. I'm not surprised that VCs are disinterested. High production costs and small highly specialised market. That is the exact opposite of being a potential unicorn.

Have you considered going down the aquihire path? Have you explored the option of selling the IP, etc to your former employer or one of their competitors?

Whatever you do, don't rush. You have created very valuable IP and deserve to profit from your years of dedication to your vision.

[monological → GianFabien]

> More to the point I am in awe of what you have accomplished on your own. Curious as to how you funded the work to date. The book value of your work, equipment procured and product development costs would have to be very substantial.

Thank you. It was a lot of hard work.

First off, I moved from the Bay Area to a cheaper city to cut back on my expenses. I was also able to get some seed money from family and I had some money saved up that I ended up using.

> Have you considered going down the aquihire path? Have you explored the option of selling the IP, etc to your former employer or one of their competitors?

Yes, I was approached by a former boss of mine from a well known semiconductor company. They were interested in purchasing a few units and having me work for them. I suggested they aquihire the company. They would get access to all the secret sauce IP and I could work for them. However, unfortunately they were not interesting in going that direction.

> Whatever you do, don't rush. You have created very valuable IP and deserve to profit from your years of dedication to your vision.

Good advice. I will only sell if the price is right and their vision matches with mine.

[b20000]

have you taken this to any FAANG companies? what about doing demos in asia for investors or chip companies?

i am in a similar boat as you. different tech/industry though.