Hackster & Avnet: Making The Future

Today we announced that Hackster and Avnet are joining hands. As we move into the future with Avnet, we wanted to share more about our story, how we started, as well as what’s next for Hackster and the community we call home.

Hackster first started with Ben Larralde and Adam Benzion with a vision to create a better place for learning, playing and connecting people who are Makers or professionals seeking to tinker with a fun weekend project or are on their way to shipping a finished product. Our hope was that the technology created on Hackster would trickle down to solve big issues affecting our planet and all its life.

Three years later, Hackster is one of the largest online platforms dedicated to learning hardware, with a user base nearing 200,000 creators from 104 countries, aged 7 to 77. These Makers and builders have access to open-source technology and hardware, 90+ technology partners, like Arduino, SparkFun, Make:, Adafruit, Microsoft, Amazon, NXP, Samsung, Seeed and Cypress, and nearly 100 ambassadors from Mumbai to New York.

We owe much gratitude to our extended team, from Alex Glow to Monica Houston and Cory Asato, Alessandra Nölting, Zack Dean, Nick Echols, Maggi Yang, Artie Beavis, Drew Alden, Jeremy Cook, and Cynthia De Jesus. They brought in fresh ideas, worked around the clock and even struggled financially to bring the Hackster vision to life. We are also grateful for the support we received from our advisors Idan Beck and Cyril Ebersweiler, as well as industry support from Massimo Banzi, Nathan Seidle, Phillip Torrone, Eric Pan, Eben Upton and the one and only Dale Dougherty. Last but not least we are grateful to all the wonderful humans at Microsoft, Amazon, Samsung, Cypress, Intel, NXP, Particle and many more who supported us over the years. And hey, the best is yet to come!

In just a few years, we have visited seven Maker Faires around the world and held a team offsite in Bali. We even owned a DeLorean, which became the focus of a “Hack to the Future” hackathon series across the United States. Last but not least, we always said that our community comes first and we will keep our commitment to providing value, learning and playfulness to the incredible people who are the heart and soul of Hackster.

As our entire team stays on and joins Avnet today, the mission and values that drove us from the start remain the same, and we will have the backing and resources to grow even larger and make a bigger impact.

To quote William Amelio, Chief Executive Officer of Avnet:

We are fully committed to helping start-ups bring their ideas to market. The addition of Hackster’s online platform will enable users to accelerate their hardware knowledge and time-to-market.

Together with Avnet, Hackster will become an even richer platform for learning and bringing ideas to life. Peace & love, Adam and Ben