174: Agile Product Development & Additive Manufacturing

Product Startup · 4 May 2023 · 24m

What this episode covers

Jon Hirschtick, co-founder of SolidWorks and Onshape, explains why hardware startups and large enterprises are adopting agile product development to handle volatility and leverage modern tools. He details how Onshape’s cloud-native architecture enables real-time collaboration and rigorous version control, solving the 'ski boot' friction of traditional desktop CAD. The conversation highlights how additive manufacturing facilitates this agility by allowing high-fidelity prototyping that closely mimics final production materials and processes.

Other shows on the same ground, closest first.

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  • Being an Engineer · 1h 15m

    Jon Hirschtick | Founding & Developing the Solidworks and Onshape CAD Systems

    Jon Hirschtick, founder of SolidWorks and Onshape, and current Chief Evangelist at PTC, explains how he used personal funds from his time as a professional blackjack player to launch SolidWorks in 1993, targeting the gap between expensive Unix-based 3D CAD and 2D AutoCAD. He details the technical challenges of building a solid modeler on Windows and licensing Parasolid, leading to its success, and later founded Onshape to solve persistent user pain points like version control, installation failures, and file-based collaboration by creating a true cloud-native CAD and PDM system. Hirschtick discusses Onshape's features, including real-time collaboration, FeatureScript, and its subscription model, arguing that cloud-native architecture enables faster innovation and better security than legacy file-based systems.

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    Jon Hirshtick, founder of SolidWorks and Onshape, discusses the evolution of hardware development tools, emphasizing that software is a tool rather than a solution. He explains how customer visits and inferring needs drove the creation of features like the feature manager and cloud-native workflows. Hirshtick advises software founders to focus on usage metrics, understand market size realistically, and avoid the gap between demo and real-world complexity. He also shares lessons from his time on the MIT blackjack team regarding failure, persistence, and team dynamics.

  • Being an Engineer · 55m

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