S3 E1: Mastering Tech Adoption and The Hardware Development Workflow with Jon Hirshtick

The Builder Circle · 30 Sept 2025 · 1h 16m

What this episode covers

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.

Mentioned

Companies
PTC, Sonos, ANSYS, SimScale, Neural Concept, Physics
Products
SolidWorks, Onshape, Creo, Pro/ENGINEER, AutoCAD, Solid Edge, Codebeamer
Tools
WebGL, Slack, Teams, Jira

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