Fika Bytes: Tales of Hard Tech

✍️ Show Notes In this episode, we get an inside look into the mind of a high performing Big Tech engineer-turned hardware founder. Dhaval Patel began his career at Apple, working through the ranks from an intern all the way to senior manager. At one point, he started to feel the itch to build his own product - and so he made the leap. What gave him the confidence in starting from scratch? How did...

✍️ Show NotesMark Condon built the iPupPee device to address a very personal pain point he felt with his chocolate lab, Champ. Not long after he started sharing his product with the people around him, he realized that what he had built had much bigger, life-saving possibilities within the service dog community.🔗 iPupPee.com🔗 @ipuppee on Instagram🔑 Bytes:- Be willing to listen to the market and...

✍️ Show Notes Jana Rieger of Breth Tech is a clinician-scientist who turned her research into a hardware product, co-founding and becoming CEO of True Angle. She shares her story and her passion to see more research outcomes turning into useful consumer products 🔗  Breth Tech: the Fitbit of breathwork 🔗  @bretchtech on Instagram 🔑 Bytes Think specifically about the people you are helping and le...

✍️ Show NotesNaom graduated from an Ivy League and was scrolling through his 'Ideas' notes page trying to figure out what he wanted to do next when he decided to create a heated vibration massager to help his jaw pain. This is the story of how he built the product and the business, myTMJ Relief.🔗  Noam’s YouTube - great example of building hardware in public (https://www.youtube.com/@noam...

✍️ Show Notes Carter Fowler, CEO & co-founder of Totem Labs, shares the incredible journey of going viral and building hardware tech for music festivals. Carter shares valuable lessons in building not only a brand, but also an engaged community of loyal fans, with thoughtful product design and exceptional customer service. 🔗  Article about where Totem is at today 🔗  totemlabs.com 🔑 Bytes: I...

✍️ Show Notes Mahesh Krishnamurthi, co-founder of Vayu Robotics, gives an inside look at the journey of creating an AI-powered delivery robot. Important questions we discuss: how to know when you have product market fit, how to grow a talented team, and how to know when you should raise money. 🔑 Bytes: Prototyping should always start with off-the-shelf components to minimize cost and speed up dev...

✍️ Show Notes Tobias Butler shares his journey of building Tuneshine, blending software and hardware. He talks about the challenges of switching to hardware, the importance of prototyping, and what he learned along the way. He also dives into supplier relationships, scaling smart, and the emotional rollercoaster of entrepreneurship—all while finding joy in creating something meaningful. 🔗 Check o...

✍️ Show Notes Joining us this week is Ethan Pollak, co-founder of Pulse Device, a small nifty device that incorporates the idea of muscle tapping to help you get the most of your weightlifing workouts. Ethan quit his job in finance to go full-time on his idea, partnering with a design studio and building his network along the way. As a non-technical founder, he shares a lot of valuable insights in...

✍️ Show Notes: Loewen Cavill joins us this week to share her story as the founder and CEO of Amira, a health tech company helping women unlock their full potential. We touch on all things product development including prototyping, meeting manufacturers, and raising venture capital. It's an exciting time for Amira as they begin to ramp up manufacturing and start seeing their product improve liv...

✍️ Show Notes Cade Spector was just a sophmore in college when his brother tragically took his own life due to substance abuse. With no formal engineering or business background, Cade knew he had to find a way to honor his brother's legacy, and he has done exactly that. He is now a college graduate working full-time on GreySun Technologies, and is gearing up to run a Kickstarter campaign and h...

Jon Fawcett created Sugar Pixel: He saw a problem at home, solved it for his family, and then discovered it would help millions of people around the globe. ✍️ Show Notes: Jon Fawcett went from running an engineering design company to accidentally creating an iPhone accessories company that shipped globally. He then channeled all those learnings into Sugar Pixel, his newest creation that provides r...

✍️ Show Notes: While working from home during COVID, Greg Klein wanted to sit on the floor. But he couldn't find a desk that actually allowed for that. So, he scratched his own itch and brought to life the world's first electric floor-sitting to standing desk. Listen to Greg's entrepreneurship journey as well as his advice for those looking to build and sell their own hardware products...

✍️ Show Notes: Dan Casciato and his team at Lightbrite are building mostly in stealth, but Dan has some strong perspectives on the interplay between engineering and the Earth - our environment, our home, and our place in it. This is a thought-provoking episode about sustainable product development. 🔑 Bytes: There's no work life and personal life. There is only one life. Make sure the problem...

Greg from Helight joins this week and talks about his background as an audio engineer, and how that translates over to light engineering, as well as some of the challenges and lessons learned while building and shipping Helight (over 70,000 units sold in the past few years!). The science behind this is fascinating, and what really caught my attention was their attention to customer detail. Greg fl...

Karl joins us with his amazing storytelling to share how he manifested fun and wonder into his latest invention, the Truest North Compass. 🔗 Check out  truestnorthcompass.com 🔑 Bytes: Do childish things with an adult focus and energy :) Use storytelling to capture your audience and truly reach them. Find your core principle (e.g. not another app) and problem-solve around it (mobile browser)

Mitch joins the show this week to talk about his journey hopping between corporate and startups, and now starting his own venture — GreenPWR. His first product, the SunHopper-D, aims to utilize existing water tanks as thermal batteries. Their goal is to make products that work with renewable energy sources when available, and fall back to other sources if needed. 🔑 Bytes: Look for inspiration fro...

This week I'm chatting with Jonathan, who is reimagining fitness tracking specifically for sports in order to measure things like steps, jumps, and pivots. The origin story is a fun one - sometimes building hardware just happens serendipitously! Takeaways: Go after the underserved. For example: Fitness tracking for youth sports. Think about who the purchasing decision maker is for your product...

The dynamic duo, Alex & Ian join me from Ganance, where they're bringing fitness metrics to classic watches, combining sensor tech with stylish choices. We dig into the inspiration and ideation process as well as some really technical details with fellow firmware engineer Ian. My 3 takeaways: Find a partner that can immediately share your vision. It's worth waiting for the right person...

Sam joins us on Fika Bytes this week to talk about developing the sun-a-wear UV tracker going from prototyping to production. My favorite part was what he decided to do when they were having difficulty getting a battery into the design... Listen to the episode to find out what he did. My 3 Takeaways: -Good engineering follows the rules. Great engineering knows the rules well enough to bend them. -...

Nick from Calibrex talks about combining his passion for fitness and hardware into this pocket-sized coach. 3 Things To Takeaway A crowdsourced feature board to gather ideas from users and prioritize development Offload heavy computation to the phone app so the device can be lean, mean, and efficient Take care of your first customers. Handwritten notes, special features, and access to exclusive pe...