Pocket

Most AI wearables never survive first contact with a shipping label. HeyPocket is different enough to notice: the company claims $27 million in annual recurring revenue from a voice-capture pendant sold out of Y Combinator — in a category littered with vaporware. Independent app-store listings show real consumer pull behind the headline, which is exactly why the revenue story demands scrutiny instead of applause. The seductive part is obvious: if a pocket recorder can compound into software-scale recurring revenue behind a lifetime-usage promise, this is the rare hardware-adjacent launch that could look fundable on paper. The part worth paying for is whether those economics survive contact with anything outside the founder narrative — or quietly invert as adoption scales. We held the public record up against the company's own numbers without treating either as diligence. Read the teardown before you let the headline become the whole memo.