Hardware Podcasts

Ep. 3 - Tools While Scaling Up; How Much Structure is Too Much?

Open Hardware Manufacturing Podcast · 24 Aug 2023 · 51m

What this episode covers

Steven Oz and Lucian Shape Park of Opulo discuss their strategy for selecting software tools versus building internal projects as the company scaled from a garage startup to a growing manufacturing business. They detail specific decisions to buy off-the-shelf solutions like Gusto for payroll and Shopify for e-commerce to avoid reinventing the wheel, while choosing to build custom tools for CAD workflows around FreeCAD to support their open-source community. The hosts also explain their transition from Google Sheets to Liney for inventory management and their pragmatic approach to managing technical debt and testing infrastructure.

Most relevant to

companies scaling up

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Opulo, LulzBot
Tools
Gusto, Shopify, SolidWorks, FreeCAD, MkDocs, Liney, Guru, HubSpot, Dzuki, Fusion 360

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