Predictable Designs Podcast

In this episode of the Predictable Designs Podcast I speak with Steve Szymeczek from Penumbra Engineering. 

Steve is a mechanical engineer that specializes in 3D printing and additive manufacturing.

In our call we discuss the pros and cons of additive manufacturing compared to the more traditional injection molding process. 

Although many people consider additive manufacturing to be the future of plastics manufacturing, we look at the practical uses now for low to medium levels of production.

In this episode I speak with Joshua Hsu who is a co-founder of a hardware startup named Introhm that is developing a fitness product.

In our call we discuss a wide variety of topics including prototyping, product validation, patents, fundraising, marketing, and sales.

In this episode I speak again with Dave Millman of BizDev.Global. This time we discuss some hardware startup horror stories and how to avoid the same outcomes for your own startup.

Dave has decades of experience helping hardware startups and he specializes in helping them find their first customers. He was originally my guest back in episode #2, and he has also taught a couple of live workshops inside my Hardware Academy program.

In this episode I speak with Scott Miller who is a mechanical engineer and the founder and CEO of Dragon Innovation. 

Dragon Innovation specializes in helping hardware startups transition from the prototype stage to mass manufacturing in China. They are well known for helping successful hardware startups such as Pebble and Ring.

Scott is also a partner at Bolt which is an early stage investment company that focuses specifically on hardware products.

Scott and I discuss his experiences working with Pebble, his story about Dragon being bought by a multi-billion dollar company, the biggest challenges of transitioning manufacturing to China, tips for designing a product for manufacturing, and his suggestions when seeking professional investors, and so much more.

In this episode I speak with Duane Benson from Screaming Circuits which is a PCB assembly company located in the U.S. in Oregon that produces both prototypes and small volume production runs. 

Duane and I discuss the process of manufacturing assembled PCBs, how to ensure their quality, the infeasibility of at-home PCB prototyping, and then we review various Design for Manufacturing (DFM) tips to help make your project go more smoothly.

My guest for this episode is Marty Zwilling of Startup Professionals. Marty has been involved with startups for many years even working with Bill Gates in the early days. He’s now a consultant and angel investor. We’re going to be discussing business plans, getting investors, the pros and cons of patents, and much more. 

In today’s episode I’m continuing my conversation with hardware entrepreneur Allen Walton of SpyGuy.com. Allen successfully brought his new hardware product called the Scout to market in only about one year.

My conversation with Allen was so valuable that we talked for nearly two hours. So I’ve split up my conversation with Allen into two podcast episodes.

In part one we spoke about his experiences of starting with an eCommerce store selling products of the same category as the Scout. We also discussed the boost he received from appearing on the Tim Ferriss Podcast, the pros and cons of being a non-technical founder, the advantages of competition, trademarks, patents, online marketing, and more.

Now in part two we discuss the pros and cons of selling on Amazon, prototyping, development, the transition to manufacturing, and lessons learned.

In this episode I’m speaking with hardware entrepreneur Allen Walton of SpyGuy.com. Allen successfully brought his new hardware product called the Scout to market in only about one year.

Allen has taken a rather unique path to market with his new product that has given him a big advantage. We’ll get into all of the details in my interview where we discuss all things from product validation, to development, to manufacturing, and to marketing and sales.

This is a value loaded interview. In fact, Allen had so much great information to share that our conversation lasted for nearly two hours. So my interview with Allen will actually be split into two episodes with part two releasing next week.

In this episode I speak with Nick Frank who is the founder of Knectiv, a company based in Austin Texas that offers product design services as well as manufacturing in China.

In this episode I speak with hardware entrepreneur, Erik Hunter of InD Creation. Erik successfully raised over $40,000 in a recent Kickstarter campaign for his frozen fish food feeder product. We discuss both his experiences with crowdfunding and strategies for developing and manufacturing his product.