Launch HN: ProvenMetal (YC S26) delivers circuit boards in days instead of weeks

Hey HN, we’re Will & Johnny from ProvenMetal ( https://provenmetal.com ). You send us design files or specs and we give you assembled boards domestically in days. The US produced 30% of PCBs globally in 2000, now they produce 4%. Chinese manufacturers have completely dominated this space at 55% of global production. Now, the need for a domestic PCB supply chain is higher than ever before, yet the infrastructure has been dissolving over the last 2 decades. What is left is mostly small family run manufacturers (CMs) that have been operating in largely the same, labor intensive way since the early 2000’s. When you place an order through a CM it typically takes several days to receive a quote and complete design for manufacture review, and then you have to source all of the components (the hardest part) and bare boards yourself, then wait anywhere from a few days to several weeks for the assembly and testing of those boards. We started off assembling circuit boards out of a garage with prosumer grade equipment (NeoDen YY1, Glenbrook X-ray, solder paste stencils, and manual rework stations). We believed that by owning the manufacturing process, we could turn all the front of house automations inwards. But here’s the thing… manufacturing circuit boards with prosumer grade equipment out of a garage takes a huge amount of time. Suddenly we were spending 90% of our time assembling circuit boards instead of growing the business. We were completely capacity constrained, with fancy software automations that are not the binding constraint at low volumes. Then we got our heads out of the weeds, took a step back, and realized that we were trying to solve the wrong bottlenecks. These manufacturers are good at manufacturing and terrible at the front of house (quoting, DFM review, and part procurement). When you look at the full process, you realize that assembly is not the bottleneck. So we stopped trying to solve the problem that we can’t solve at this stage. We measured the bottle