Episode Summary

“The future is going to be more like the past than it is the present. With AI taking over so many jobs, it will likely take over all jobs involving staring at a computer. The people that are actually making things—I think we’re just going to want more and more of it.”

Michael Korn spent 15 years being known as “the screen guy.”

He built KwickScreen—hospital screens that scaled massively during the pandemic. He worked in factories worldwide. He studied manufacturing at Cambridge and design and innovation at the Royal College of Art. He has lived the entire journey from prototype to a production-scalable business.

And the whole time, he kept asking: why does inventing have to be so lonely, so expensive, so gate-kept?

This conversation begins with a problem that most people never consider: you spend years at university with access to lathes, mills, welding equipment, and 3D printers—everything you need to create things.

Then you graduate. It’s gone. Now you’re in your shed with limited tools, alone. This is where most hardware inventions die.

Five minutes from Lewisham Station, behind big blue doors, Michael built what he wished existed when he started. Blue Garage is a microfactory, innovation hub, and maker space designed specifically for ambitious scale-up hardware businesses.

Not hobbyists. Not artists. The inventors who want to take something from the prototype stage through to a production-scale business.

The equipment list sounds like a maker’s wildest dream: 3-metre UV printers, CNC routers, a Zünd cutting bed, powder coating rooms, textiles labs, and electronics fabrication suites. Industrial tools that used to be locked away in universities or costly facilities are now accessible through a coworking-style membership model.

But here’s the tension Michael’s navigating: his friends from Cambridge and the Royal College of Art mostly got jobs at consultancies and banks. Higher salaries, higher status—at least it used to be. The number of people who actually go on to be inventors, start businesses, build jobs, and change things? Surprisingly few.

Bernie and Michael dig into why making things matters more now than ever—not despite AI, but because of it. When desk jobs are automated, when fast fashion collapses under Vinted and a repair culture emerges, and when we finally face the reality of pollution we’ve exported to someone else’s rivers, local manufacturing stops being nostalgic and starts being essential.

The episode explores the lean startup approach to hardware (you don’t need perfection to start), the importance of community in solo manufacturing journeys (motivation matters when you’re hitting walls), and why universities are both brilliant incubators and often struggle to help graduates continue making things after they leave.

This is for anyone who’s ever wanted to create something but didn’t know where to begin. For coworking operators curious about what innovation really looks like when it’s more than just a buzzword on a website.

For community builders who understand that the tools and equipment matter less than the network of people using them together.

You’ll leave understanding why manufacturing creates better jobs with multiplier effects that financial services never will, why the imperfection in the story often sells better than polished corporate products, and what happens when you give inventors the tools and community to do the work together instead of alone in their sheds.

Timeline Highlights

* [00:04] Bernie’s opening: “This is where most hardware inventions die” — the shed problem after university

* [01:34] Michael’s shift: “I’ve been known for 15 years as the screen guy, now I want to be the Innovation Hub Scale-up Accelerator Hardware Inventor guy”

* [02:23] Blue Garage defined: “A place where people who make things can exceed their expectations and ambitions”

* [03:25] The equipment list: lathes, mills, welding, 10-metre screen printing table, powder coating room, Zünd cutting bed

* [05:35] Michael’s origin: “Blue Garage is a place I wish were around when I started”

* [07:21] The loneliness of inventing: “There’s something intrinsically good about making stuff, but it’s been done on your own in your shed with limited tools”

* [08:38] The theory that changes everything: “The future is going to be more like the past than the present”

* [12:56] Bernie asks about cost: “Do you need £1,000 to make a prototype happen?”

* [14:30] The lean startup approach: “You can start selling based on a rough concept, then raise money to do it properly”

* [17:22] Bernie’s cruel joke: university friends go work for McKinsey or Deutsche Bank

* [18:49] The university gap: “They leave university and there’s nowhere to make things anymore”

* [21:37] Bernie’s breakthrough: “Blue Garage is one of the few places using the word ‘innovation’ that doesn’t make me roll my eyes”

* [24:29] Why manufacturing matters: “It creates jobs with a multiplier effect you don’t get in financial services”

* [28:11] Michael’s ambitions: helping 45 companies instead of the planned 10, thinking globally while building nationally

The Shed Problem Nobody Talks About

Every engineering and design student knows this feeling, even if they don’t recognise it until it’s too late.

At university, you have access to everything. Lathes, mills, 3D printers, laser cutters, welding equipment, electronics labs.

You design things, prototype them, and manufacture them. The facilities are included as part of your tuition and degree. You don’t necessarily appreciate it because you’re focused on your projects and deadlines.

Then you graduate.

Suddenly, all those tools are gone. You’re in your shed—or more likely, your flat—with maybe a drill and some basic hand tools. You have an idea for a product, something you want to develop, but the gap between what you can imagine and what you can actually make has become massive.

This is where most hardware inventions die. Not because the ideas are bad. Not because the inventors lack skill or motivation. But because inventing hardware is lonely, expensive, and gate-kept in ways software development never was.

Michael Korn lived this. He studied manufacturing at Cambridge, design and innovation at the Royal College of Art with Imperial. He had all the facilities, all the training. Then he was out in the world, building KwickScreen—hospital screens that would eventually scale massively during the pandemic—and doing it the hard way.

Starting in the corner of a friend’s factory in Pinner with just a lathe. Building relationships with manufacturers abroad. Learning the expensive, slow, frustrating process of taking something from prototype to production when you don’t have institutional resources backing you.

Blue Garage is Michael’s answer to the shed problem. It’s what he wished existed when he started 15 years ago. Not a maker space for hobbyists or artists—there are plenty of those.

A facility designed specifically for ambitious hardware businesses looking to scale. For individuals in the perilous gap between a university graduate with an idea and an established company with manufacturing capacity.

The model is simple: coworking-style membership gives you access to industrial equipment. You pay for your desk, you get the tools. The community is included.

Why the Future Looks More Like the Past

Michael has a theory that sounds nostalgic until you think about it for more than 30 seconds.

AI is coming for desk jobs. Not just some jobs, not eventually—it’s already taking over work that involves staring at computers and processing information. The jobs that survive will be those that AI can’t do: caring for people in hospitals and making physical things.

We’re going to want more manufacturing, more making, more local production. Not less.

This isn’t Luddite resistance to technology. It’s recognising what happens when you can’t see where things are made, who makes them, and what pollution they create. Right now, so much of that is hidden—happening in factories across the world, polluting rivers we’ll never see, affecting communities we’ll never visit.

The economy is fragile. When a ship gets stuck in the Suez Canal, we suddenly realise how many components go into everything we buy.

When a pandemic strikes, we recognise our vulnerable reliance on manufacturing done elsewhere. The whole system is more vulnerable than we pretend.

But there’s something deeper happening, too. The fastest-growing clothing brand is Vinted. People buying from each other, repairing things, fixing them up. Bernie’s 14-year-old son is making money finding vintage Ralph Lauren shirts and flipping them on Vinted. Fast fashion is facing an existential crisis, as customers are increasingly opting to repair and reuse rather than consume new products.

This shift creates space for local manufacturing to become economically viable again. When people want to know where things are made, who made them, what the environmental cost was—that’s a market opportunity for UK-based hardware businesses that can tell those stories honestly.

Michael’s betting everything on this shift. Blue Garage isn’t preparing for a nostalgic return to the past—it’s building infrastructure for a manufacturing renaissance driven by technology, environmental awareness, and economic necessity.

The people most likely to lead this? University graduates with technical skills and no access to equipment. Inventors working alone in sheds. Ambitious entrepreneurs who can see the opportunity but don’t have £500,000 for a factory setup.

Give them the tools, give them the community, and watch what happens.

The Innovation Word That Finally Works

Bernie has a visceral reaction to the word “innovation” these days.

Ten years ago, he encouraged coworking spaces to put it on their websites. Community, collaboration, innovation—the holy trinity of coworking buzzwords. But then every group of desks in Hounslow started calling themselves innovation hubs. The word became meaningless.

Until Blue Garage.

This is one of the few buildings in London that uses “innovation” without making Bernie want to roll his eyes. Because it’s not marketing speak. It’s not aspirational corporate language trying to make hot-desking sound revolutionary.

It’s a 3-metre Zünd cutting bed that can cut, crease, fold, and perforate anything from film to cardboard to felt. It’s a powder coating room where you can paint metal and cook it in an oven downstairs. It’s a textiles lab with plans for a dye lab and a garden to grow the plants that make the dyes.

Innovation is what happens when someone figures out how to make composite materials from squashed leaves. When an inventor creates microphones that can identify malaria-carrying mosquitoes by listening to them. When a hardware startup prototypes thermos flasks using equipment that would normally require a six-figure investment to access.

The difference between Blue Garage and most “innovation hubs” is specificity. Michael can list the equipment, which includes lathes, mills, welding stations, a 10-metre screen printing table, 3D printers, a UV roll-to-roll printer, and electronics fabrication suites.

He can tell you about the 45 textiles startups they’re supporting instead of the planned 10. He can show you the university partnerships with UAL, the Royal College of Art, and Goldsmiths.

This is what innovation actually looks like when it’s not just a website claim. It looks like messy prototypes, failed experiments, and people covered in sawdust, helping each other solve problems at 9 pm on a Wednesday.

It looks like making things.

What Universities Get Right and Catastrophically Wrong

Michael and most of his Cambridge and Royal College of Art cohort had everything they needed to become inventors and entrepreneurs.

World-class education. Access to incredible facilities. Technical skills. Design thinking. Manufacturing knowledge. The works.

Most of them got jobs at consultancies and banks.

Not because they didn’t want to make things. Not because they lacked ambition. Because the path of least resistance led to higher salaries and higher status—at least it used to. The infrastructure for continuing to make things after graduation didn’t exist.

This is what universities get catastrophically wrong: they’re brilliant incubators and terrible at launch pads.

During your degree, you have access to equipment worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. Band saws, welding stations, CNC machines, and 3D printers. You design, prototype, iterate. The technical barriers to making things are removed, so you can focus on learning and creating.

Then you graduate, and all that infrastructure vanishes. If you want to continue developing a product you invented during your degree, you’re suddenly facing enormous barriers.

The equipment costs tens of thousands to buy. Renting workshop space in London is prohibitively expensive. You’re probably in debt from tuition. The safe choice is to take the consultancy job.

The number of people who actually go on to build hardware businesses, create jobs, and manufacture products that change things? Surprisingly small, given the talent and training universities produce.

Blue Garage partners with universities specifically to bridge this gap. UAL, Royal College of Art, and Goldsmiths students are eligible to access the facility. They can use Blue Garage equipment for their final projects. They can continue using it after graduation.

The model creates a pathway from education to entrepreneurship that doesn’t require either wealth or institutional backing.

When you join as a member, you gain access to equipment and build your business alongside others who share the same goal.

What universities do brilliantly is create cohorts—groups of people going through the same journey simultaneously, supporting one another, and learning together. What they often fail to do is help those cohorts stay connected and supported after graduation.

Blue Garage replicates the best part of university (the community and equipment access) whilst removing the worst part (the cliff edge when you leave). It’s not a new idea—it’s just being appropriately done for hardware businesses in London for the first time.

The Lean Startup Approach to Making Things

Bernie asks the question that every potential inventor worries about: Is this going to be very expensive?

If you want to make a thermos flask prototype, do you need £1,000 just to get started? Is hardware development locked behind financial barriers that exclude most people?

Michael’s answer reveals how much the manufacturing landscape has changed over the past decade.

It’s easier now than it’s ever been. AI can help with computer modelling. Cloud-based software has democratised design tools. 3D printing has collapsed prototyping costs. The lean startup approach—once revolutionary for software—now applies to hardware.

You don’t need perfection to start. You can prove a concept without having a fully working product. You can sell something based on a rough prototype that shows what’s possible, then raise money to manufacture it properly.

This approach is now understood and accepted. Crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter normalised buying products that don’t exist yet based on concept videos and prototypes. The Pebble Watch became famous for raising millions before manufacturing a single unit.

The imperfection in the story often becomes the selling point. Big companies can’t do this—they need polish, legal approval, and marketing departments. Small inventors can share the messy, human story of development. That authenticity sells.

There’s someone at Blue Garage making thermos flasks right now. If Bernie wanted to prototype a new design, he could talk to that person directly—learn from their experience, avoid their mistakes, maybe collaborate. The knowledge sharing alone is worth more than expensive consultancy reports.

Different inventors approach the same problem in entirely different ways. One person would 3D print variations to test aesthetics.

Another would focus on materials—making composite materials from squashed leaves instead of using plastic. Someone else would add technology—such as smart sensors and app integration —whatever.

There’s no single correct way to prototype. The variety of approaches is what makes Blue Garage work. You see other people solving problems differently, and it opens possibilities you never considered.

The financial barrier hasn’t disappeared—manufacturing hardware still costs more than building software.

But the minimum viable cost has dropped dramatically. You can start with hundreds instead of hundreds of thousands. You can bootstrap, iterate,and prove demand before scaling.

This changes who gets to be an inventor. It’s no longer limited to people with institutional backing or personal wealth. If you have skill, motivation, and a membership to Blue Garage, you can start.

Why Manufacturing Creates Better Jobs

Michael makes a claim that sounds controversial until you think it through: manufacturing creates better jobs than financial services.

The multiplier effect is completely different.

One person in financial services sits at a computer, presses send, and the job’s done. There’s efficiency, but there’s no ripple. The value created remains concentrated in that one highly paid role.

One product manufactured in the UK employs three individuals: one to assemble it, one to design it, and one to ship it. Then there are the suppliers—people who provide components, materials, and tools.

Local businesses benefit. The community benefits. The jobs created aren’t just the direct manufacturing roles, but the entire ecosystem that grows around production.

These are inherently satisfying jobs as well. You’re part of making something. There’s tangible output at the end of the day—not just emails sent or meetings attended. The psychological difference matters.

Then there’s the environmental equation. When we manufacture abroad—usually China or Vietnam—we’re not adhering to UK regulations. The pollution happens somewhere else, in rivers we don’t see, affecting communities we don’t know. We export our bad behaviour, pretend we’re clean, then ship the products back across the world.

The cost is hidden but real. We push down prices, buy cheap products that break, and replace them yearly. The economic and environmental costs of that cycle are enormous; we don’t see them directly.

Local manufacturing makes all this visible. You can see where it’s made, who makes it, and what the environmental cost is. The transparency forces better practices. You can’t pollute your neighbour’s river and pretend you’re ethical.

This isn’t just Michael’s opinion—it’s the thesis of his professor’s book, “Your Life is Manufactured” by Tim Minshall. The modern explanation of how everything around us gets made and why local manufacturing matters more than we’ve been told.

Bernie’s invested in this being true because he’s seen it at Blue Garage. He’s seen the difference between innovation as marketing speak and innovation as actual making.

He has watched inventors support each other through the difficult times. He’s walked around what he calls “three bat caves in one” and felt the energy of people building things that matter.

The future might genuinely resemble the past more than the present. Not because we’re going backwards, but because we’re finally ready to face the real cost of how we’ve been doing things.

The Marathon You Don’t Run Alone

Michael employs a running metaphor that captures something essential about the process of inventing.

He’s done a half-marathon. He definitely runs faster and enjoys it more when it’s a race than when he’s alone. When he’s on his own, he’s more likely to stop, wander, and sit down. When there are lots of other people doing it with him—and people cheering and giving water on the side—he keeps going.

This is exactly what Blue Garage provides for hardware inventors.

The biggest impediment to success is often yourself. Your own doubts, your own repeated mistakes, your own blind spots. When you’re alone in a shed, you can hit the same wall over and over without realising there’s another way.

When you’re around other people making things, you see them doing it differently. You don’t even need them to tell you you’re doing it wrong—you observe and realise, “Oh, I could try that approach instead.”

The motivation piece matters too. People inventing hardware tend to have a strong internal drive, but it can still get tough. Lonely. The project that seemed exciting six months ago can feel like a grind when you’re stuck on a problem with no one to talk it through.

Being in a space with other people on similar journeys completely changes the psychology. You’re not alone. Your struggles aren’t unique. Someone else just solved a problem similar to yours and can save you three weeks of trial and error.

This is what coworking spaces are known for—the power of working alongside others, even if you’re working on completely different projects. The ambient accountability, the casual conversations that spark ideas, the sense of being part of something bigger.

Blue Garage applies this same principle to hardware manufacturing. The equipment matters. The microfactory on the ground floor matters. But the community of other inventors might matter most.

Bernie sees this as central to what makes Blue Garage work. It’s not just access to expensive tools—it’s access to people who know how to use them, who’ve made the mistakes you’re about to make, who understand why this matters.

The marathon metaphor extends further: you don’t show up to run 13 miles without training. You build capacity over time, in community, with support. Same with building a hardware business. The overnight success stories skip over years of development, iteration, failure, and learning.

Blue Garage is where the training takes place. Where you build the capacity to go the distance. Where the people cheering on the sidelines aren’t spectators—they’re other runners who’ve been where you are and want to see you finish.

The October 16th Moment

Michael invites people to an event happening at Blue Garage that reveals everything about what they’re actually building.

October 16th, 5:00–9:00 PM. Demo day for the Materialised programme. Forty-five textiles startups exhibiting—not the ten they planned to help, but 45. Universities turning up: UAL, Royal College of Art, Goldsmiths. Students exhibiting projects. Investors attending.

This isn’t a networking mixer. It’s proof of concept for Michael’s theory about UK manufacturing.

The Materialised programme focused on textiles—one of the industries most affected by the collapse of fast fashion and the growth of a repair culture.

These 45 startups are working on a range of projects, from developing new materials to offering repair services and local production methods. Some will pitch for investment. Some will show what they’ve built.

The event demonstrates what happens when you give ambitious hardware businesses access to tools, community, and a shared mission. In just one year, with a minimal budget, Blue Garage exceeded every target. The overachievement isn’t an accident—it’s what happens when you remove barriers instead of creating them.

Bernie frames it perfectly: “It sounds like all of that is happening on that evening at Blue Garage.” And Michael’s response captures the reality: “It’s all starting. We’re showing what we’ve done.”

This is Year One. The proof that the model works. The demonstration that university graduates want to continue making things if you give them somewhere to do it. The evidence that local manufacturing can compete globally when inventors have proper infrastructure.

Michael’s thinking globally already—talking about Blue Garage expanding across the UK, creating a network of hubs supporting hardware businesses nationally. The international expansion can wait for the next podcast.

But the ambition is clear: anywhere there’s opportunity for an innovation cluster, Blue Garage wants to be there. The network effect of connected hubs supporting each other, sharing knowledge, and building the UK manufacturing ecosystem together.

For now, it’s one building in Lewisham. Five minutes from the station. Behind big blue doors. It looks like a random building on a roundabout until you walk inside and find three bat caves' worth of equipment and possibilities.

If you’re in London on October 16th, go. If you’re not, watch what happens next. Because this might be the start of something that genuinely changes how we think about making things in the UK.

Links & Resources

Michael Korn’s Work

* Blue Garage Website

* Blue Garage on Instagram and LinkedIn

* Michael Korn on LinkedIn

* Blue Garage is located: 5 minutes’ walk from Lewisham Station, London

Mentioned in Episode

* KwickScreen: Michael’s hospital screens product that scaled during the pandemic

* “Your Life is Manufactured” by Tim Minshall: Book on modern manufacturing (Professor of Manufacturing)

* YouTube talk with Tim Minshall about the book concept.

* Materialised Programme: Textiles startup accelerator at Blue Garage

* Demo Day: 16 October 2024, 5:00–9:00 PM at Blue Garage

* ACTionism Film - request a screening.

Projects & Community

* Join this and other conversations with people in the LinkedIn Coworking Group.

* Unreasonable Connection Monthly online gatherings for Coworking Community Builders.

* FLOC LinkedIn Coworking Recognition Campaign

* Workspace Design Show London 2026

* European Coworking Day May 2026

* London Coworking Assembly

* European Coworking Assembly

Bernie’s Projects

* London Coworking Assembly 5-Day AI Crash Course for Coworking Spaces

* Free email course: 5 Biggest Mistakes Coworking Community Builders Make (And How to Avoid Them)

* Urban MBA

* Connect with Bernie on LinkedIn

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