# #017: Building and Scaling a Startup in the Ultra-Competitive Health Wearables Market

- Show: [Coredump Sessions](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/coredump-sessions)
- Published: 2025-10-29
- Length: 57m
- Episode: 18
- Page: https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/coredump-sessions/2025-10-29-017-building-and-scaling-a-startup-in-the-ultra-competitive-health-wearables-mar
- Listen: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/memfault/episodes/017-Building-and-Scaling-a-Startup-in-the-Ultra-Competitive-Health-Wearables-Market-e3a7te8

## Summary

Vatsal Singhal, co-founder of Ultrahuman, explains how the company transitioned from a software-first background to building health wearables by adopting rapid iteration cycles, including changing the PCB design roughly 20 times in a year. To support this velocity, Ultrahuman built its own manufacturing facilities in Bangalore and Texas, allowing for close collaboration between R&D and production. Singhal details the critical role of edge machine learning for biomarker analysis and the use of Memfault for firmware observability to manage the complexity of multiple hardware revisions in the field.

## Chapters

- [0:01](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/coredump-sessions/2025-10-29-017-building-and-scaling-a-startup-in-the-ultra-competitive-health-wearables-mar#t=1) Introduction: Vatsal Singhal and Ultrahuman
- [3:21](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/coredump-sessions/2025-10-29-017-building-and-scaling-a-startup-in-the-ultra-competitive-health-wearables-mar#t=201) Transitioning from Software to Hardware
- [5:53](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/coredump-sessions/2025-10-29-017-building-and-scaling-a-startup-in-the-ultra-competitive-health-wearables-mar#t=353) Hardware Iteration and A/B Testing Challenges
- [21:40](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/coredump-sessions/2025-10-29-017-building-and-scaling-a-startup-in-the-ultra-competitive-health-wearables-mar#t=1300) Building In-House Manufacturing Facilities
- [29:48](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/coredump-sessions/2025-10-29-017-building-and-scaling-a-startup-in-the-ultra-competitive-health-wearables-mar#t=1788) Managing Complexity of Multiple Hardware Revisions
- [35:07](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/coredump-sessions/2025-10-29-017-building-and-scaling-a-startup-in-the-ultra-competitive-health-wearables-mar#t=2107) Firmware Velocity and Memfault Observability
- [43:42](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/coredump-sessions/2025-10-29-017-building-and-scaling-a-startup-in-the-ultra-competitive-health-wearables-mar#t=2622) Regulation, Medical Devices, and Shared Codebases
- [50:38](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/coredump-sessions/2025-10-29-017-building-and-scaling-a-startup-in-the-ultra-competitive-health-wearables-mar#t=3038) Custom Manufacturing Machines and AI Strategy

## Topics

- [Scaling production](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/scaling-production)
- [Embedded firmware](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/embedded-firmware)
- [AI & machine learning](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/ai-and-machine-learning)
- [PCB design & layout](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/pcb-design)
- [Manufacturing partners & offshoring](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/manufacturing-partners)
- [Medical & health devices](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/medical-devices)

## Most relevant to

companies scaling up

## Mentioned

- Ultrahuman (company)
- Memfault (company)
- Zomato (company)
- Runner (company)
- Nordic Semiconductor (company)
- iPhone (product)
- Samsung (company)
- Apple (company)
- CGM (product)

## Related episodes from other shows

- [350: The State of the Empire Is Good](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/embedded-fm/2020-11-06-350-the-state-of-the-empire-is-good) (Embedded.fm)
- [Rapid Hardware Iteration with Luka Mustafa](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-pragmatic-embedded-podcast/2023-04-19-rapid-hardware-iteration-with-luka-mustafa) (The Pragmatic Embedded Podcast)
- [293: Skateboard Tricks](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/embedded-fm/2019-06-27-293-skateboard-tricks) (Embedded.fm)
- [Cellular IoT with Jared Wolff](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-amp-hour/2020-09-20-cellular-iot-with-jared-wolff) (The Amp Hour)
- [Agile at Growing Hardware Startups with Matt Cole](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-pragmatic-embedded-podcast/2022-04-19-agile-at-growing-hardware-startups-with-matt-cole) (The Pragmatic Embedded Podcast)

## Citing this page

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