Jun 03, 2026 08:00:00

The creator of 'nice!nano,' a small microcontroller board for custom keyboards that has sold over 160 million yen, shares the story behind its development.

Nick Winans , the developer of the ' nice!nano, ' a small microcontroller board for DIY keyboards that has recorded sales of over $1 million (approximately 160 million yen), wrote a blog post about 'the time I created nice!nano in my university dorm room' when he was a freshman.

I Made a Million Dollar Product from My Dorm Room - Nick Winans
https://nick.winans.io/blog/nice-nano/

During his first winter break at university, Winnans built a small wireless keyboard. He used the Adafruit 32u4 Bluefruit LE microcontroller board to make it wireless, but the typing lag was so bad that it was unusable, and even with a large built-in battery, the charge only lasted a few days.

Seeing manufacturers like Logitech and Apple releasing wireless products with low latency and long battery life, Winnans thought he could make an even better wireless keyboard, and spent the next two months immersed in the world of wireless microcontrollers and custom keyboards.

In the process, Winnans learned that the Pro Micro was the standard in the world of small microcontroller boards for wireless keyboards, and that there were versions available that tried to fill in its shortcomings. However, the small microcontroller boards available at the time had problems with price and interference with keyboards, so Winnans decided to create his own small microcontroller board that suited his needs.

Over the weekend, Winans spent all his time glued to his desk except for eating and sleeping, and created a prototype of nice!nano, referencing the nRFMicro Wiki and the schematics and drawings of the Adafruit nRF52840 Feather . This is the thinnest nRF52840-based board compatible with Pro Micro, and its name is derived from Winans' handle name, 'Nicell.'

Over the next week, I contacted several PCB assembly companies I found, and the lowest price for manufacturing five units was $100 (approximately 16,000 yen). After spending several days carefully reviewing the design, I placed an order. A few weeks later, the first nice!nano arrived and, according to the owner, worked perfectly.

Over the next few weeks, Mr. Winnans assembled and tested the split keyboard

Lily58 , and found that the nice!nano's 110mAh battery lasted for several weeks on a single charge. He was thrilled to post his fully wireless Lily58 on Reddit , where it garnered considerable attention.

Over the next few weeks, Winans' Discord server grew into a large community focused on wireless keyboard innovation. By mid-June 2020, they were ready to launch a group purchase, raising funds from people to buy a total of 1,000 nice!nano keyboards. With the help of his family, Winans was able to ship the large quantity of nice!nanos, and the group purchase was a success. However, the experience of managing funds from so many people was mentally draining, and he decided never to do another group purchase again.

Winnans' father is busy shipping out a large number of nice!nano devices that arrived at his home.

Furthermore, because the nice!nano lacked proper firmware, Winnans sent a prototype to Pete Johansson, who was developing firmware for wireless keyboards, in parallel with the group purchase. By early 2021, Johansson's small community had successfully developed

ZMK , a new wireless-first firmware that prioritized low power consumption.

In 2022, Winnans, along with his father, launched Typeractive , an e-commerce site specializing in wireless keyboards, and also created a 3D interactive configuration tool that allows users to obtain all the necessary parts. This seamless operation has been a great success, and by 2025, Typeractive is one of the largest retailers of split keyboards.

By 2025, nice!nano had sold over 50,000 units in total through online retailers worldwide, generating over $1 million in revenue. Winnans stated, 'I personally put in a lot of effort, but I also recognize that timing and luck played a big role. The growing interest in wireless keyboards and the limited options in the DIY market created the perfect environment for nice!nano's success.'

Winnans' blog also became a hot topic on the social news site Hacker News , where he himself appeared in the thread. In his post to the thread, Winnans commented that while nice!nano's success was partly due to luck, such as the increased activity on Discord during the lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, actively communicating and frequently sharing information in the early stages was also a contributing factor to its success.