#028 - Meet the creators of FitBit for medication, with Peter Havas of PillDrill, USA

The Hardware Entrepreneur · 31 May 2017 · 39m

What this episode covers

Peter Havas, co-founder and CEO of PillDrill, discusses his journey from a successful food-tech startup to creating a medication management system inspired by the Fitbit. He explains how PillDrill’s design principles of simplicity, flexibility, and dignity address the psychological stigma of medication, while leveraging a direct-to-consumer strategy to gather critical user feedback. Havas also details his reliance on the Brinc accelerator for manufacturing connections in Shenzhen and his philosophy on managing startup risks and investor relationships.

Other shows on the same ground, closest first.

  • Being an Engineer · 51m

    S2E13 Relentless Empathy & Going Deep On Understanding The Problem | Ryan Eder

    Ryan Eder, Founder and CEO of Include Health, explains how his senior thesis project, the Access Strength Machine, evolved into a hardware-agnostic digital health platform. He details his process of 'relentless empathy,' which involved renting a wheelchair and visiting gyms to understand the barriers faced by disabled users, leading to a gold-winning design. Eder describes the transition from a proprietary physical machine to an IoT sensor system that digitizes existing fitness equipment, addressing both physical and administrative barriers in healthcare. The episode highlights the challenges of integrating software into clinical workflows and the strategic decision to make the technology compatible with third-party hardware to scale impact.

  • Predictable Designs Podcast · 37m

    The Journey from Idea to Success with Mike Morena of AdhereTech

    Mike Morena, co-founder of AdhereTech, explains how his team built a smart pill bottle to improve medication adherence for patients on specialty drugs. The device uses cellular connectivity (LTE-M) and sensors to track doses, sending data to a backend platform that triggers interventions like text reminders. Morena details the transition from a rough 3D-printed prototype to a mass-manufactured product, highlighting the challenges of antenna design when migrating from 3G to LTE. The company’s business model relies on recurring revenue from pharmaceutical companies for the service, rather than one-time hardware sales, which facilitated fundraising and scaling.

  • How I Built This · 1h 08m

    Headspace: Andy Puddicombe and Rich Pierson (2019)

    Andy Puddicombe, a former Buddhist monk, and Rich Pierson, a former advertising executive, co-founded Headspace to demystify meditation. They pivoted from an unscalable live events business to a digital app, securing early funding from Pierson’s father and leveraging partnerships with Virgin Atlantic and The Guardian for user acquisition. The episode details their journey from London to Los Angeles, Pierson’s battle with cancer, and the strategic decision to raise venture capital to scale the company to over $100 million in annual revenue.

  • How I Built This · 41m

    Stripe: Patrick and John Collison

    Patrick and John Collison, founders of Stripe, explain how they identified the friction in online payments and built a developer-focused API to solve it, starting with a prototype in 2009 and launching publicly in 2011. They discuss overcoming investor skepticism by partnering with Peter Thiel, navigating complex financial regulations, and building relationships with banks to create a scalable payment infrastructure for companies like Lyft and Shopify. In a separate segment, Robert Armstrong, founder of G Mommas, describes turning his grandmother's cookie recipe into a commercial product, detailing the challenges of scaling from home baking to industrial manufacturing and securing retail distribution in the Southeast U.S.

  • Core77 Podcast · 1h 14m

    Afterschool Podcast, Episode 14 - Pencil by FiftyThree (12/17)

    FiftyThree co-founder John Harris and industrial designers John Ikeda and Audrey Louchart discuss the creation of Pencil, the company's first hardware product designed to complement their Paper app. They detail the transition from Microsoft's Courier project to building a startup, focusing on the industrial design choices like the carpenter pencil form factor and the integration of wood and aluminum materials. The team explains the 'Kiss to Pair' connection mechanism, the engineering challenges of fitting electronics into a tight form, and the logistical hurdles of manufacturing and direct-to-consumer fulfillment.

The summary, chapters and topics are generated from the episode’s audio by this directory, not written by The Hardware Entrepreneur. The episode itself belongs to its publisher.