# S6E23 Mihir Shah | Buying & Growing a High Performing Machine Shop

- Show: [Being an Engineer](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/being-an-engineer)
- Published: 2025-06-06
- Length: 39m
- Episode: 23
- Page: https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/being-an-engineer/2025-06-06-s6e23-mihir-shah-buying-growing-a-high-performing-machine-shop

## Summary

Mihir Shah, President of TOMI Engineering and Principal at Shah Capital Ventures, discusses his journey from engineering roles at Tesla and Axon to co-founding the AR debugging tool inspectAR (acquired by Cadence) and acquiring TOMI Engineering. He emphasizes first principles thinking in business, detailing how he applies it to cost analysis, leadership, and investment criteria. Shah also explains the rapid growth of his Hardware FYI newsletter to 12,000 subscribers and shares lessons from past failures, particularly the difficulty of starting a new venture.

## Chapters

- [0:00](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/being-an-engineer/2025-06-06-s6e23-mihir-shah-buying-growing-a-high-performing-machine-shop#t=0) Introduction and Engineering Origins
- [4:01](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/being-an-engineer/2025-06-06-s6e23-mihir-shah-buying-growing-a-high-performing-machine-shop#t=241) First Principles Thinking in Business
- [11:00](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/being-an-engineer/2025-06-06-s6e23-mihir-shah-buying-growing-a-high-performing-machine-shop#t=660) DFM and Manufacturing Challenges
- [15:28](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/being-an-engineer/2025-06-06-s6e23-mihir-shah-buying-growing-a-high-performing-machine-shop#t=928) Building and Exiting inspectAR
- [19:06](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/being-an-engineer/2025-06-06-s6e23-mihir-shah-buying-growing-a-high-performing-machine-shop#t=1146) Investment Strategy and Ground Control
- [26:46](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/being-an-engineer/2025-06-06-s6e23-mihir-shah-buying-growing-a-high-performing-machine-shop#t=1606) Engineering Trade-offs and Hardware FYI
- [36:38](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/being-an-engineer/2025-06-06-s6e23-mihir-shah-buying-growing-a-high-performing-machine-shop#t=2198) Lessons from Failure and Starting Up

## Topics

- [Leadership, teams & culture](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/leadership-and-culture)
- [Design for manufacturing & NPI](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/design-for-manufacturing)
- [Fundraising & investors](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/fundraising)
- [Marketing & brand](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/marketing-and-brand)
- [Careers & education](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/engineering-careers-and-education)
- [Connected products & IoT](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/connected-products-and-iot)

## Most relevant to

companies scaling up, early-stage companies

## Mentioned

- TOMI Engineering (company)
- Tesla (company)
- inspectAR (product)
- Cadence (company)
- Shah Capital Ventures (company)
- Hardware FYI (product)
- Ground Control (product)
- Royal Circuits (company)
- Unity (tool)

## Related episodes from other shows

- [T-25-009 : Sera Evcimen - Mechanical Engineer to Host of The Builder Circle™ Podcast](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/tradeoffs/2025-10-08-t-25-009-sera-evcimen-mechanical-engineer-to-host-of-the-builder-circletm-podcas) (TRADEOFFS)
- [Why Hardware Startups Are Finally Investable Again](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/ontrack/2026-02-10-why-hardware-startups-are-finally-investable-again) (OnTrack)
- [An Interview with Ben Einstein](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-amp-hour/2018-08-06-an-interview-with-ben-einstein) (The Amp Hour)
- [#016 - Developing with a hardware engineering company, with Karoly Molnar of ProDSP Technologies, Hungary](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-hardware-entrepreneur/2017-03-08-016-developing-with-a-hardware-engineering-company-with-karoly-molnar-of-prodsp) (The Hardware Entrepreneur)
- [Ep. 8 - Ryan from V1 Engineering](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/open-hardware-manufacturing-podcast/2023-11-09-ep-8-ryan-from-v1-engineering) (Open Hardware Manufacturing Podcast)

## Citing this page

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