Hardware Podcasts

#052 - Student (hardware) entrepreneurship in Switzerland and worldwide, with Gregory Inauen of ETH Entrepreneur Club, Switzerland

The Hardware Entrepreneur · 11 Apr 2018 · 29m

What this episode covers

Gregory Inauen, president of the ETH Entrepreneur Club at ETH Zurich, explains the organization's three pillars: inspire, educate, and accelerate. He highlights specific success stories, including Chris McCall of Photo Kite and the Blinkers team, who leveraged the club's speed dating and EC Award to launch hardware startups. Inauen also discusses the Swiss startup ecosystem's strength in engineering and craftsmanship, contrasting it with Silicon Valley's software focus, and emphasizes the importance of embracing failure as a learning tool for student entrepreneurs.

Most relevant to

early-stage companies

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Velohop
Products
Photo Kite, Blinkers
Also
ETH Entrepreneur Club, Chris McCall, Javi, Gary Vaynerchuk, Crush It

Related episodes from other shows

Other shows on the same ground, closest first.

  • Product Startup · 26m

    102: How Students Start Successful Hardware Businesses

    Scott Evans, Director of InventionWorks at the University of Texas, explains how his 23,000 square foot facility supports student hardware startups through prototyping resources and a 40-member student staff. He emphasizes the importance of student-to-student collaboration, leveraging campus experts, and participating in entrepreneurship competitions to build networks and persistence. Evans advocates for 'practice-centered engineering education,' where students learn by building prototypes that fail, blurring the lines between academic study and professional product development.

    Prototyping & iterationStarting a product company
    8 chapters

  • EE Times Current · 47m

    Startupalooza: The Silicon 100 | Humanitarian Engineering | Horses to Starships

    Peter Clarke, editor of EE Times' Silicon 100, discusses the expansion of the list from 60 to 100 startups, driven by a surge in AI and semiconductor ventures, and analyzes the cultural and funding differences between startups in California, China, and Europe. Mary Pilotte, a professor at Purdue University, explains the university's Humanitarian Engineering program, which trains students to apply engineering skills to global infrastructure and disaster relief challenges. The episode concludes with a retrospective on the transformative impact of the Sony Walkman and the iPhone on consumer electronics.

    Starting a product companyCareers & education
    6 chapters

  • Being an Engineer · 22m

    S2E51 The Hardware Academy | John Teel

    John Teel, founder of Predictable Designs and The Hardware Academy, explains his platform which bridges electronics engineering and entrepreneurship for hardware startups. He details the academy's tiered subscription model, ranging from $49 to $249 per month, offering courses on PCB design, power management, and go-to-market strategy. Teel draws on his 15 years at Texas Instruments and his experience launching a consumer lighting product to advise engineers on avoiding the common pitfall of ignoring customer validation until after development.

    Validation & product-market fitStarting a product company
    8 chapters

  • EE Times Current · 22m

    CES 2019 Special: Stas Gayshan, CIC-Boston

    Stas Gayshan, Managing Director of the Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC), discusses the role of shared physical spaces in fostering hardware innovation and collaboration. He highlights specific companies like Travis the Translator, which successfully launched via crowdfunding, and Vesper, a maker of tiny microphones for smart speakers, as examples of successful ecosystem members. Gayshan also addresses the reality of startup failures, citing a 'Uber for Vans' concept that failed due to infrastructure scaling mismatches, emphasizing that the collaborative environment helps founders regroup and iterate.

    Starting a product companyCrowdfunding & preorders
    8 chapters

  • Product Startup · 28m

    108: Hardware Design Tips from Apple & Intel Leader

    Kapil Kane, Director of Innovation at Intel and former Product Design Lead at Apple, explains how startups can apply the rigorous validation processes used by tech giants to their own hardware products. He details Intel’s internal accelerator, Growth Acts, which uses a business model canvas and validation plans to test assumptions before prototyping, contrasting this with Apple’s focus on pure technical execution for products like the iPod Shuffle and MacBook Air. Kane emphasizes that successful hardware requires a triad of solid technology, user experience, and a viable business model, urging founders to be coachable and demonstrate conviction through working prototypes rather than just ideas.

    Validation & product-market fitIndustrial & consumer product design
    7 chapters

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.