The archive · Consumer Apps · Strategic decision · 2012–2013
Flutter's wave-to-control-media bet ends with Google buying the YC W12 team
Flutter built an app that changed songs and controlled media with hand waves in front of a webcam; Google acquired the YC W12 startup on 2013-10-02.
Flutter
What the business is
Flutter made a desktop app that read hand gestures from a computer's webcam to control media, letting people wave to change songs or skip between tracks instead of touching the keyboard.
How it started
Flutter came through Y Combinator's W12 batch. Paul Stamatiou met the team while they were interviewing at YC, waiting to pitch pg, and got a demo that left him speechless and mapping use cases for the technology; users later described changing songs with a wave and showing the app to non-technical friends as 'real magic'.
What happened
Before the acquisition the app had built a following: HN users said they used Flutter to change songs just by waving, and the product's page offered gesture controls such as previous and forward. Commenters connected the technology to Google Glass and living-room gesture control, and one recalled Google's 2007 April Fools' Gmail Motion joke — now apparently coming true.
How it ended up
On 2013-10-02 Google acquired the YC W12 startup, drawing 164 points and 24 comments on Hacker News. Commenters congratulated the team, pointed to obvious fits such as Glass and TV gesture control, and noted the product stayed usable on its website after the deal; terms were not disclosed in the thread.
Background
Flutter was a Y Combinator W12 startup whose app turned a computer's webcam into a gesture controller: wave your hand and the music skips, rewinds or changes without touching the keyboard. The demo was the product's strongest asset — Paul Stamatiou met the team while they were interviewing at YC, waiting to pitch pg, and the demo left him speechless and mapping use cases.
Users described Flutter as 'real magic': one said it made him feel like a superhero and that he showed it to non-technical friends, and the product's page offered gesture controls such as previous and forward. When Google's acquisition hit Hacker News, commenters connected the technology to Glass and living-room gesture control and recalled Google's 2007 April Fools' Gmail Motion joke — an interface Google had only pretended to ship now becoming real.
The acquisition thread drew 164 points and 24 comments on 2013-10-02. Community members congratulated the team, noted the app stayed downloadable on the company site, and speculated about where Google would deploy the gesture technology; the thread records no deal terms.
What has to be true
- Flutter picked a demo people feel — waving to skip a song — so the technology sold itself to users before it sold itself to Google.
- Going through YC W12 put the demo in front of influential early witnesses, before the app had real distribution of its own.
- The Google fit was platform math: gesture control is worth far more inside Glass, Android or the living room than as a standalone app.
- Google had publicly joked about gesture mail in 2007, so the acquisition read as a company finally taking seriously an interface it had already mocked.
What can be applied
A magic interaction layer is a feature until a platform owner adopts it: Flutter's gestures impressed users, but the visible exit came from Google absorbing the team and the technology.
Aftermath
As of 2013-10-02 Google had acquired Flutter: the Hacker News thread treated the deal as done, congratulated the team, and expected the technology to surface inside Google products such as Glass, while noting the Flutter app remained live and downloadable. No terms were disclosed in the thread, so the case stops at the acquisition.
Sources
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.
Your turn
You just read one. Describe what you are building, and see who is betting on the same thing.
Free account · 3 free questions · no card