Hardware Podcasts
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The Builder Circle

Designed to empower hardware entrepreneurs, engineers and builders to overcome challenges, reduce risk and succeed in bringing their products to market through expert insights, practical advice, and engaging discussions on relevant topics.

28 episodes · 30 hours · since 2023

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The Builder Circle is filed under manufacturing, founder stories, product development and interviews. Its most recent episode published on , so it is still actively publishing. Listeners have left 9 ratings on Apple Podcasts, averaging 4.8 out of 5.

Latest episodes

The 10 newest episodes of The Builder Circle, each with a summary and chapters.

  • · 1h 24m

    S3 E9 Scaling Mission-Critical Hardware: Ops Lessons from Space & Fusion with Darby Dunn

    Darby Dunn, Vice President of Advanced Manufacturing at Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) and former SpaceX leader, discusses scaling mission-critical hardware operations. She details the design and manufacturing of superconducting magnets like the TFMC and CSMC, the strategic decision to insource magnet production while outsourcing the vacuum vessel, and the importance of defining core competencies and key metrics like cost per kilowatt-hour. Dunn also shares lessons on hiring exceptional talent, maintaining safety culture, and the critical 'test as you fly' mantra derived from a valve failure incident at SpaceX.

    Scaling productionManufacturing partners & offshoring
    9 chapters

  • · 1h 14m

    S3 E8: Navigating and Managing Contract Manufacturers with Peter Russo

    Peter Russo, a hardware mentor and entrepreneur with 15 licensed brands and $250M in retail sales, shares strategies for managing contract manufacturers (CMs). He emphasizes treating CMs as internal departments, securing IP and tooling ownership in contracts, and avoiding single-source dependencies. Russo also discusses cultural fit, exclusivity negotiations, and how startups can overcome being perceived as 'crappy customers' through storytelling and respect for the supplier's time.

    Manufacturing partners & offshoringIntellectual property
    8 chapters

  • · 55m

    S3 E7: Building Bootstrapped Hardware That Sells with Christian Reed

    Christian Reed, CEO of Reekon Tools, explains how he bootstrapped the company from a side project to an 8-figure business without VC funding, validating the idea with a $1.2M Kickstarter campaign. He details the manufacturing lessons learned at Formlabs, including how a supplier's factory fire forced a mid-cycle component swap, and describes building a 3M+ social media following through consistent, raw content creation. Reed emphasizes the importance of engineers thinking like entrepreneurs, focusing on product benefits and brand building rather than just invention.

    Crowdfunding & preordersManufacturing partners & offshoring
    9 chapters

  • · 18m

    For Hardware Startups by Hardware People: Building The Builder Circle with Host, Sera Evcimen

    Sera Evcimen, a mechanical engineer and startup mentor, explains the mission of The Builder Circle podcast to support hardware founders through case studies and practical advice. She details her background working on diverse products like satellites and robotics, which led to her hypothesis on common hardware failure modes. Evcimen outlines upcoming affordable resources, including 'The Building Blocks' strategy packages, designed to democratize high-quality hardware decision-making for startups with limited budgets.

    Starting a product companyManufacturing partners & offshoring
    1 chapters

  • · 1h 06m

    S3 E6: Building Innovation Moats with Open Hardware with Andrew "Bunnie" Huang

    Andrew "Bunnie" Huang, a hardware hacker and author of *Hacking the Xbox* and *The Hardware Hacker*, explains how open hardware creates structural innovation moats through community engagement rather than secrecy. He contrasts the Chinese Gomban ecosystem with Western models, citing his startup Chibitronics and products like Arduino and Raspberry Pi as examples where openness accelerates adoption and brand loyalty. Huang also details a manufacturing failure involving swapped microphone wires due to poor documentation and advises against using AI-generated code in critical embedded systems without rigorous review.

    Intellectual propertyDesign for manufacturing & NPI
    7 chapters

  • · 1h 13m

    S3 E5: AI in Hardware: The Future of Design, Manufacturing, and Innovation with Kristen Edwards

    Kristen Edwards, CTO and co-founder of Pensa Technologies and MIT PhD candidate, discusses integrating AI into hardware engineering workflows, emphasizing the need to track decision reasoning and manage data governance. She explains that while AI acts as a 'co-pilot' to augment human expertise, high-consequence tasks require human oversight due to liability and explainability concerns. Edwards highlights specific challenges in spatial reasoning, design-for-manufacturing translation, and IP security, suggesting techniques like federated learning and retrieval-augmented generation to protect sensitive engineering data. The conversation covers practical applications in CAD, automated testing, and quality assurance, noting that AI will likely replace repetitive tasks rather than creative engineering roles.

    AI & machine learningSecurity & privacy
    9 chapters

  • · 39m

    S3 E4: An Impact Hardware VC's Playbook with Carlota Ochoa from Extentia

    Carlota Ochoa, Principal at Extentia Capital, explains that the fund looks for hardware startups with low residual R&D risk, step-change innovations, and a clear path to cost parity, rather than marginal green improvements. She highlights the importance of customer validation, focusing on a single initial market segment, and managing supply chain risks by avoiding rare earth elements where possible. Ochoa also warns against relying on crowdfunding for VC-backed companies, noting it creates dead equity, and advises founders to understand their financing partners' definitions of technology risk when scaling to commercial scale.

    Fundraising & investorsValidation & product-market fit
    7 chapters

  • · 1h 00m

    S3 E3: Accelerators, Incubators and How to Leverage Them with Raphaele Leyendecker

    Raphaele Leyendecker, Managing Director at Techstars Sustainability Paris, explains the distinction between incubators and accelerators, advising hardware founders to target accelerators only when reaching Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 4 with commercial traction like LOIs or revenue. She warns against 'accelerator-hopping' and outsourcing core IP without maintaining internal expertise, citing her own experience with a biomass company that failed due to supply chain delays. Leyendecker emphasizes that founders should prioritize business de-risking over pure technology development and evaluate equity dilution based on the specific market expansion opportunities, such as entering Europe via a Paris-based program.

    Fundraising & investorsValidation & product-market fit
    9 chapters

  • · 1h 05m

    S3 E2: Export, Import, Tariffs, and Trade Compliance for Hardware Startups with Gabrielle Griffith

    Gabrielle Griffith, Director at BPE Global, explains the critical importance of HTS codes, country of origin, and substantial transformation for hardware startups navigating global trade. She details how tariffs are calculated based on these factors and warns against common misconceptions, such as assuming moving assembly to Mexico automatically avoids Section 301 tariffs on Chinese components. The episode covers practical strategies for tariff engineering, including working with customs brokers, understanding USMCA rules, and maintaining audit-ready documentation to avoid costly penalties.

    Policy, trade & tariffsSourcing & supply chain
    8 chapters

  • · 1h 16m

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

    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.

    EDA & CAD toolsValidation & product-market fit
    13 chapters

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