#011 - Accelerate with an IoT accelerator, with Bay McLaughlin of Brinc, Hong Kong

My guest is Bay McLaughlin, co-founder and COO of Brinc, a remarkable hardware accelerator focusing on IoT. This is the first interview on an accelerator on this show.

Brinc is a global IoT accelerator and platform based in Hong Kong with offices in Shenzhen and Guangzhou.

Bay, who co-founded Brinc about 2.5 years ago, has long years of startup experience. He has spent half of his career in or founding startups. He was founding team member of Apple’s global SMB channel and founder of their first Entrepreneurship Evangelism channel. With 8 software and 14 hardware portfolio holdings, he’s successfully made the transition from digital to physical and from San Francisco to Asia.

In this episode we bring you the story of Brinc. Raw transcript is available at: https://www.thehardwareentrepreneur.com

Show highlights can be seen below:

• Definition of an accelerator - [1:55]
• What is Brinc? - [2:42]
• The strengths of their program and challenges of hardware startups - [4:04]
• A free program feature - [6:23]
• The motivation behind founding Brinc - [7:10]
• Competition among hardware/IoT accelerators - [9:34]
• Two main things that make Brinc stand out among other accelerators - [11:48]
• The importance of Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Honk Kong - [13:07]
• “Trial by fire” - [14:30]
• Exits in hardware - [15:15]
• Biggest challenges for a hardware startup - [16:20]
• Are you seeing the entire chess game? - [17:15]
• Internet of Sh and how Brinc picks the topics to concentrate on - [19:00]
• Why are investors scared? - [21:38]
• Who is Bay inspired by? - [22:27]
• If you could time travel back to the time when you were younger, what notes would you give back to yourself so that you can improve? - [24:20]
• Books which had the biggest impact on his career - [24:44]
• His hardcore routines - [25:26]
• Critical and memorable cultural experiences Bay has seen globally - [26:55]
• What is the best way for listeners to reach him? - [28:07]