Nick Terzulli of Fellow on inventing Espresso Series One, why home espresso has stagnated for decades, and the physics of heating water on 120V.

Go/No-Go · 14 Apr 2026 · 40m

What this episode covers

Nick Terzulli, VP of R&D at Fellow, explains how he designed the Espresso Series One to overcome the thermal and pressure instability inherent in 120V home espresso machines. He details the novel three-stage heating architecture that achieves commercial-level stability with a two-minute heat-up time, a breakthrough for which he holds the sole utility patent. Terzulli also discusses the extreme difficulty of designing coffee burrs from scratch, the role of firmware and OTA updates in building a user community, and his journey from medical device engineering to becoming a barista to understand the craft.

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