The creator shares the development story behind “nice!nano,” a compact microcontroller board for custom keyboards that has generated over 160 million yen in sales

Nick Winans shared the origin story of nice!nano, a microcontroller board he built to fix laggy, power-hungry wireless keyboards in his dorm.

He created a thin Pro Micro-compatible nRF52840 board, then moved from prototypes to group buys and a growing keyboard community.

The project later helped drive ZMK development and the launch of Typeractive, expanding well beyond a personal side project.

By 2025, nice!nano had surpassed 50,000 units sold and over $1 million in revenue, showing the scale a niche maker product can reach.