August 2026 in hardware podcasts

Roy Seiders explains why small Texas tackle and hardware shops agreed to stock a $300-400 cooler when big brands sold them for about $40.

“None of those guys were selling coolers. Although every single customer that was walking through their door was a cooler user. … it created a huge void in the market because a small sporting goods store with limited square footage, they can't make any money off of a $40 cooler. … We showed up with this 3 or $400 cooler. … they could put $100 in their pocket after they sold one.”

Roy Seiders, co-founder of YETI

Roy Seiders explains that small outdoor shops did not sell coolers at all, because a $40 cooler from the big brands earned them only a few dollars. YETI's expensive cooler gave each shop about $100 of profit per sale, so a high price was what won them shelf space. The insight is that a premium price can be a way to make retailers want your product, not just a way to signal quality.

How I Built This

YETI: Roy and Ryan Seiders. How Two Brothers Turned a $400 Cooler Into a $2 Billion Brand

44:43

After filming a startup meetup, Dave Jones could not find websites for two products pitched there: a squat tracker named "XTrainR" and an AI tool called Drop Bear.

“please, my rant is, name your startup so that people can find it. … they called it Drop Bear, right? … like that name is flooded. You can't trademark it. You can't trademark drop bear, right? So I couldn't find drop bear either. … You're a startup. Make people easy, make it easy for people to find you. … you just failed at the 1st hurdle.”

Dave Jones, EEVblog, co-host of The Amp Hour

Dave Jones spent ages failing to find the websites of startups he had just watched pitch, because their names were deliberately misspelled or shared with countless other things online. It is a hot take because founders often treat the name as an afterthought, and his point is blunt: if a curious customer cannot search for you, you have failed before anyone sees the product.

The Amp Hour

The Focus Knob Works

6:00

Choosing a brand name in 2006, Roy Seiders asked about 20 friends and family which of 10 names they liked, and got confusing, mixed answers.

“And I was way more confused than I went into it. … I went back to the same group of 20 people like 2 weeks later, and I had one question. I said, hey, out of my list of 10 names, which ones can you remember? That's the only question I had. And all 20 people, they could remember maybe one or 2 names at best, but the one constant they all could remember was yeti.”

Roy Seiders, co-founder of YETI

Roy Seiders describes how asking people which brand name they liked left him more confused, so two weeks later he asked the same people which names they could remember, and every one of them remembered "Yeti". Memorability, not popularity, settled the decision. It is a free test anyone can copy when naming a product or company.

How I Built This

YETI: Roy and Ryan Seiders. How Two Brothers Turned a $400 Cooler Into a $2 Billion Brand

39:09

Weeks after Nicole Bernard Dawes's father died, a bank called Late July's $3.5M equipment loan. A loan clause let it treat his death as a default.

“we had a death of a member clause in our loan agreement and we were an LLC and my dad was a member. So they used his death to put our loan in default. … the letter gave me, like, I can't even remember, like, 30 or 60 days to cure this default. So obviously incurable. … I tell everyone I talk to, like, if you get debt, get Keyman insurance.”

Nicole Bernard Dawes, founder of Late July Snacks

A clause buried in a loan agreement let the bank treat her father's death as a default, with 30 to 60 days to repay millions. Nobody had planned for a founder's death, and her advice is that any company with debt should carry insurance on key people. It is a concrete, painful lesson every founder with a loan can act on.

How I Built This

Late July Snacks: Nicole Bernard Dawes. Crackers and Cookies were Failing… Tortilla Chips Saved Them

39:13