S5E52 Jon Hirschtick | Founding & Developing the Solidworks and Onshape CAD Systems
Jon Hirschtick, founder of SolidWorks and Onshape, explains how he used winnings from the MIT Blackjack Team to fund SolidWorks' early days and overcame investor skepticism by targeting the Windows PC market with a 3D CAD tool. He details the technical challenges of building a solid modeler on Windows and licensing Parasolid, then describes the user pain points with file-based CAD that inspired him to build Onshape as a cloud-native, database-driven platform. Hirschtick discusses Onshape's real-time collaboration, feature script customization, and pricing model, while offering advice on persistence and embracing failure for engineer entrepreneurs.