PRIVATE PROTOCOL · SHENZHEN · 7 DAYS

Build your hardware
product in 7 days

From napkin sketch to factory-ready prototype. In the hardware capital of the world. A 7-day sprint for funded founders who need to move at the speed of software.

Apply for Private Protocol → See the method
7
Days
8
Spots
SZ
Shenzhen
0%
Equity taken
THE REALITY

You've raised the money. You've got the design. And you're stuck.

01

Datasheets locked behind NDAs and 50K-unit MOQs

You can't even see the specs for the chip you need without signing an NDA and committing to a purchase order that would drain your entire seed round.

02

Months of cold emails to manufacturers who ghost you

You found three factories on Alibaba. One replied. They quoted you 10x what you expected. The other two? Still waiting. It's been 11 weeks.

03

Your runway is burning while nothing gets built

Every month without a prototype costs you $50-200K in burn. Your investors want to see hardware. Your competitors are shipping. You're still on email thread #47.

75% of hardware projects miss their deadlines. The average delay is 2.4 months. 42% of hardware startups fail because development takes too long. Not because the product was bad. Because they ran out of time.

CASE STUDY

A funded AI startup needed a custom board
with a specific chip.

Same founder. Same product. Same chip. Different city. Different result.

Without Blitzbuilding
×Months of cold emails to chip manufacturers
×NDA required before anyone would share specs
×50,000-unit minimum order just to see a datasheet
×No local contacts, no factory relationships
×6+ months in, still no working prototype
With Blitzbuilding
✓Visited the chip manufacturer's JV office — Day 1
✓Found vendors with existing boards — Day 2
✓Connected with a 16-year hardware veteran
✓Custom board engineering path identified
✓Full prototype timeline: 7 days

"One week in Shenzhen equals one month anywhere else."

— HAX Accelerator (SOSV)
THE BLITZ METHOD

Seven days. One prototype. Zero bullshit.

Each day is engineered for maximum velocity. You arrive Monday. You leave with hardware.

D1

Ground Zero Briefing

Alignment & intel
D2

Supply Chain Immersion

10M+ components, one district
D3

Rapid Specification Lock

BOM finalized
D4

Factory Floor Protocol

Behind closed doors
D5

Engineering Integration

Real-time iteration
D6

First Article Review

Touch your hardware
D7

Production Handoff

Ship-ready
WHY SHENZHEN

Your factory is a bike ride away

90% of the world's electronics flow through this city. The factories, the component markets, the engineers — all within a 30-minute drive.

Traditional Hardware

3-12 months from design to prototype
Cold emails to factories on Alibaba
PCB turnaround: 2-4 weeks
Language barrier at every step
Fly home, wait, hope for the best
Pay the "laowai tax" on every quote

Blitzbuilding

7 days from landing to prototype
Warm introductions to vetted partners
PCB turnaround: 24-72 hours
Bilingual fixer in every room
Iterate in person, same afternoon
Insider pricing, no middlemen
TWO WAYS IN

Choose your speed.

Zero equity taken. Ever.

Invite only 1 FOUNDER · 1 PROJECT · 7 DAYS

The Private Protocol

Your project. Our entire network. Full operational control. We don't just open doors — we walk through them with you. Every meeting, every factory, every negotiation. Built around your hardware, your timeline, your specs. Nothing shared. Nothing compromised.

Dedicated Sprint Team

Hardware engineers, bilingual fixer, sourcing specialist — all focused on your project for 7 days straight.

Your team

Pre-Sprint Deep Dive

We reverse-engineer your BOM, map your supply chain, and pre-negotiate with vendors before you land.

Before Day 1

Full Network Access

Chip manufacturer JV offices, factory floors, testing labs, government contacts. Hand-picked for your specific project.

5+ years of doors

Emergency Engineering

On-call hardware engineers who modify, re-spec, or troubleshoot in real time. Something doesn't fit? Fixed that afternoon.

Same-day iteration

Negotiation & Deal Structure

We sit across the table on your behalf. Pricing, MOQs, NDAs, payment terms. No laowai tax.

Your advocate

60-Day Post-Sprint Bridge

Factory relationships maintained, deliverables tracked, follow-ups handled in Mandarin. Your sprint doesn't end when you fly home.

60 days after

Logistics & Concierge

Visa guidance, airport pickup, hotel, SIM, internal transport. You focus on your product. We handle the country.

Turnkey

Permanent Network Access

After your sprint, you stay in. Future intros, sourcing questions, return sprints. One sprint gets you a prototype. The network gets you a supply chain.

For life
Investment discussed on strategy call
Apply →
Coming soon 8 FOUNDERS · 7 DAYS · STRUCTURED

The Sprint Cohort

8 founders. Same week. Shared infrastructure, individual projects. You get the Shenzhen immersion, the factory access, and the network — at a fraction of the Private Protocol price. Plus something money can't buy: 7 other hardware founders building alongside you.

Cohort 01 dates announced soon. Join the waitlist below.

Apply for Private Protocol →

Or join the cohort waitlist.

WHO WE WORK WITH

This is selective. By design.

We keep cohorts small. 8 spots. We choose founders as carefully as founders choose us.

This is for you if

✓You have funding (seed stage or above)
✓You need a hardware prototype in weeks, not months
✓You're willing to fly to Shenzhen for 7 days
✓You move fast and make decisions
✓You have a design or spec, even if rough

This is not for you if

×You don't have funding or revenue yet
×You want someone to hold your hand
×You're afraid of moving fast and breaking things
×You need 6 months of "exploration"
×You want to do it the "safe" way
THE ORIGIN

I'm building this page at the dinner table. Right now.

March 30, 2026. Shenzhen. I'm walking to dinner and checking my phone. A founder I've been helping — ex-OpenAI, building custom AI hardware — texts me "German speed." Someone replies "blitzkrieg."

I wanted to type something with "blitz" and thought: Blitzbuilding. That's literally what people say about how I work. And it's what Shenzhen makes possible.

I bought the domain before I sat down. Now I'm at the table, laptop out between the plates, building this page while we eat. The founder across from me? He flew from San Francisco because he couldn't get a single datasheet back home. 50,000-unit minimums just to look at specs. In 48 hours here, we had him in the chip manufacturer's JV office and connected with a hardware veteran who can deliver custom boards in 7 days.

That's the energy. You're looking at it. This page is the proof — built in one sitting, at a restaurant in Futian, because that's how things move here.

Dr. Dominik Dotzauer — German doctor turned hardware operator. Based in Shenzhen. The network you're about to access took years to build. The sprint takes 7 days.
Dominik building the Blitzbuilding page at the dinner table in Shenzhen
QUESTIONS

You're thinking one of these things.

US, EU, and UK citizens currently enter China visa-free for up to 30 days (extended through December 2026). You book a flight, you land, you start building. If your country requires a visa, we provide an invitation letter and guide you through the fastest application path.
Neither did the last founder we sprinted with. Your fixer is bilingual, hardware-native, and in every room with you. You talk product. We translate everything else.
Some projects ship a finished prototype in 7 days. Some leave with a validated design, confirmed manufacturer, and a production timeline measured in weeks instead of quarters. What "done" looks like depends on your project. We scope it on the pre-sprint call.
We don't source from whoever's cheapest on Alibaba. We source from engineers and factories we've worked with repeatedly. Reputation is the currency in Shenzhen. We don't spend it carelessly.
Valid concern. We work with partners who sign NDAs, have track records with Western startups, and understand IP sensitivity. We also advise on what to share and what to keep internal at each stage. The founders we work with are building complex, defensible products — not commodity gadgets.
You could. Bring a Mandarin interpreter, a hardware engineer, a sourcing agent, a local phone number, a WeChat account with manufacturer contacts, and about 6 months of relationship-building. Or apply below.
BUILT IN SHENZHEN

The companies that started here.

Every one of these was built using the same ecosystem you're about to access. Same factories. Same component markets. Same city.

DJI
Drones. 70% global market share. Started in a dorm room.
Bambu Lab
3D printers. Ex-DJI engineers. 5.5B yuan revenue by year 4.
EcoFlow
Portable power. Founded by 4 ex-DJI engineers. Global leader.
Insta360
360 cameras. $10B valuation. Leica & NASA partnerships.
Anker
Consumer electronics. Ex-Google founder. Amazon #1 in multiple categories.
UBTECH
Humanoid robots. Public company. Tencent-backed.
Creality
3D printers. 90% of global entry-level market. 2.3B yuan revenue.
Roborock
Robot vacuums. Global #1 by volume. AI-powered hardware.
Western startups via Shenzhen
Pebble — Smartwatch. $10M+ Kickstarter. Manufactured in Shenzhen.
Opentrons — Lab robots. HAX alum. $1.8B peak valuation.
Formlabs — 3D printers. HAX-affiliated. Multi-billion valuation.
Nura — Personalized audio. HAX alum. $1M+ Kickstarter.
The accelerator track record
HAX (SOSV) — 257+ hardware startups graduated. $9B+ portfolio value. 11+ projects raised $1M+ on Kickstarter. Their motto: "One week in Shenzhen = one month anywhere else."

Shenzhen Capital Group — 510B RMB AUM. 200+ portfolio IPOs.

"Design in the morning. Prototype in the afternoon. Mass production the next day. Overseas shipping within a week."

— 深圳速度 (Shenzhen Speed)

Not ready for a sprint?

The Blitzbuilding Community is for hardware founders who want Shenzhen access without flying there yet. Sourcing leads, network intros, and the waiting room for your sprint.

Join the Community →

Build with us
in Shenzhen

Private Protocol spots are limited. Sprint Cohort waitlist is open.

Apply Now →
apply@blitzbuilding.com · Strategy call follows.