TRADEOFFS: The Hardware Startup Podcast

For this episode, we sat down with Brian Chen , founder and CEO of Kite Compliance , an AI-powered product-compliance platform built to make certification faster, safer, and less painful to scale. We discuss building hardware during the last hardware renaissance, surviving lockdowns while running a business dependent on in-office work, and how regulators can make life very difficult for hardware f...

On this episode, we sat down with Will Blaze , technical recruiter and founder of Blaze Talent , where he helps hardware and AI companies scale their engineering teams. Will shares his journey from scrappy startup recruiting at Birchbox to scaling Peloton from 150 to nearly 10,000 people, and getting laid off twice in 2022, including once while on paternity leave. Today, Will brings that experienc...

Chris and Nate come to you from the Eureka Park at the Consumer Electronics Show for their first ever video pod! Eureka Park is the show’s designated area for early stage hardware startups and products too weird for the rest of CES. Check out the video version on YouTube . Thank you to the founders who spoke with us: Rajeev Ramanath - Blueberry Technology Cole Ashman - Pila Energy Scott Hickle - T...

In this episode of TradeOffs, Nate and Chris ring in the new year with a look back at some headlines from 2025 and a preview of CES 2026. They discuss the "hardware renaissance" gaining momentum—from the Re-Industrialize conference to renewed national focus on domestic manufacturing—and Chris shares his most memorable hardware story of the year: Samsung pushing ads to smart refrigerators (and what...

In this episode of TradeOffs, Nate and Chris sit down with Narayan Powderly and Ioannis Papamanoglou , co-CEO’s of atopile , a circuit design tool bringing software development practices to hardware. Narayan shares how his frustration with slow board development cycles led him to question why schematics remained an "impenetrable box" immune to automation. Ioannis traces his path from hacking PlayS...

On this episode, we sat down with Sera Evcimen , mechanical engineer, hardware startup strategist, and host of The Builder Circle™ Podcast where she interviews hardware founders, investors and other professionals in the hardware startup ecosystem to provide practical takeaways for anyone building hardware. Sera shares her journey from watching "How It's Made" with her hardware-savvy father to work...

In this episode of TRADEOFFS, we sit down with Justin McAfee, mechanical engineer turned hardware entrepreneur who's fostering a manufacturing renaissance in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Justin shares his unconventional journey from getting burned on a grenade launcher for firefighters at age 23 to developing advanced electric propulsion systems at Wright One Inc. He discusses how tariffs are forcing...

Nate and Chris chat with Valentina Ratner, co-founder and CEO of Allspice.io, a collaboration and automation platform that brings software development workflows to hardware engineering. Valentina started her career as a mechanical engineer at Amazon before founding Allspice to transform how electronics teams design PCBs. The three discuss the challenges hardware engineers face with outdated collab...

In this episode of TRADEOFFS we connect with Yohan Jacob, Founder and President at Retail Bound, the largest retail channel management consultancy in North America. Yohan and his team help brands launch and scale their products into the top retailers across the continent. Drawing from over thirty years of experience, Yohan shares his insights about helping brands navigate the complexities of retai...

In this episode of TradeOffs, we sit down with Kaleen Canevari, founder and CEO of Flexia, a Techstars backed connected fitness company building the world's first smart Pilates reformer. With a background in mechanical engineering and Pilates instruction, Kaleen shares her journey of launching a hardware startup during the pandemic, navigating manufacturing challenges as a female founder, and deve...

In this episode of TradeOffs we connect with Tom George, former Head of Pebble at Sidewalk Labs, and now a Product Team Lead at Google focusing on Sustainable Cities. We’ll hear about Tom’s journey from working on speech compression technology for BlackBerry accessories to developing satellite communication systems for ships, and eventually leading hardware teams at Quadlogic and Sidewalk Labs. He...

In this episode of TradeOffs we connect with Christina Perla, co-founder and CEO of Makelab, an on-demand 3D printing service. Christina discusses her journey from working in corporate design at Converse to co-founding Makelab, emphasizing the challenges and successes of running a hardware startup. She highlights Makelab's growth strategy, including a hub-and-spoke model for expansion and the impo...

In this episode of TradeOffs, we sit down with Kevin Lavelle, founder of Mizzen and Main and Harbor, to discuss the challenges of building and scaling two very different companies—one in apparel and the other in pediatric telemedicine. Lavelle shares candid insights on navigating U.S. manufacturing hurdles, the importance of strategic networking, and the relentless persistence needed to bring inno...

In this first episode we speak with Haytham Elhawary. Haytham is a founder of Kinetic Insurance and has a PhD in Mechanical/Biomedical Engineering from the Imperial College of London. He has been working at the intersection of hardware and biomechanics for close to a decade, and we sat down to discuss his connected product journey and his team's transition to hardware-enabled insurance. Find out m...

Trade-Offs explores the trials and tribulations of designing, building, and manufacturing hardware, and the people that make it. Each month, we sit down with founders, engineers, and other hardware professionals to understand the unique trade offs inherent in building a business that makes physical products. Join hosts Chris Rill and Nate Padgett as they dig deeper into the complexities of hardwar...