What does two million pounds actually buy a hardware founder, and what does it cost?

This compilation pulls together nine Season 4 guests, founders, owners and senior leaders building physical products, on the money side of the business they don't usually put in the pitch deck: the near miss on running out of cash, the grant that only exists for companies younger than theirs, the licence that handed away creative control, and the acquisition or private ownership that bought speed a round never could.

No trailer, no host narration in this cut. Just nine guests, in their own words, on raising, not raising, and what it actually costs to keep control of what you built.

Join the Why Design community to keep the conversation going: teamkodu.com/whydesign

What You'll Learn

• 💸 Why raising too much too early can do more damage than raising too little
• 📉 How one bad round pushed a bike brand to sell at a loss until it went bust
• 📝 What a public grant's age rules can cost a growing hardware company
• 😴 Why staying debt-free changes how a founder sleeps at night
• 🤝 How an acquisition can hand a small business resources no round can match
• ©️ What licensing an invention actually costs a designer in creative control
• 💰 Why revenue generation from day one is a deliberate alternative to raising
• ⚡ How private ownership lets a leadership team commit fully instead of stopping and starting

Memorable Quotes

"Soon you're a puppet.", Paul Metaxatos, Motive Design

"It wouldn't work. No, it just wouldn't work. We're too long term.", Will Butler-Adams OBE, Brompton

"Really the fundraise is just ridiculous.", Joachim, FutureWave

"I'm not eligible anymore to this public funding.", Remi, Diplik / Bitpong

"This is my main job now, albeit one with zero salary.", Paul Marshall, Rapid Fluidics

"We've got to grow to survive. That's how a business survives, is risk by growth.", Paul Marshall, Rapid Fluidics

Resources & Links

🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube & Amazon - https://whydesign.club/

👥 Join the Why Design community - https://teamkodu.com/whydesign/

📸 Follow @whydesign on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/why.design_/

📸 Follow @_whydesign on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@_whydesign

📸 Follow @kodurecruitment on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/kodurecruitment/

🔗 Follow Chris Whyte on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrchriswhyte/

About the Episode

The Money Side of Hardware | Why Design: Investment and Fundraising is a compilation episode of Why Design, the podcast hosted by Chris Whyte, founder of Kodu. Each episode brings together founders, engineers, and design leaders working at the frontier of physical product to talk honestly about what it takes to build hardware teams that ship.

About Kodu

Kodu is a specialist recruitment partner dedicated to physical product development.

We connect hardware brands and design consultancies with the very best design and engineering talent, from industrial designers and mechanical engineers to senior leaders across product, technology, and R&D.

Our clients range from well-funded start-ups and scale-ups under investor pressure to deliver, through to established businesses building serious hardware or innovation arms. They share a common challenge: they need to hire people who have actually built physical products before, and they cannot afford to get it wrong.

Average time-to-offer: 5 to 6 weeks on senior hardware roles. Retention at 12 months: 97%. All-time NPS: +92.

The fulfilment of all the different concepts that have gone in the past.

Some have gone into production,

some haven't, some have been offered to big companies and be

not invented here syndrome, you know.

What it actually takes to raise capital when you're building something physical.

This is the Y design investment and fundraising compilation.

We we used to walk around central London when we were scratching our heads when

I say we, I mean me and my co founder,

and we you know, we were running out of money.

And we used to walk around London,

we used to look up and you'd be walking in central London,

you'd look at the shard and you'd go,

Hmm, that building is however many stories high.

It is a feat of engineering genius.

And there it is, and no one, you know,

no one died making it. At least I don't think they did.

~ and it's incredible. Or beyond that,

they put men on the moon. So surely,

you know, that's how the

kind of entrepreneur brain goes,

why don't why can't we do it? and and it did come quite close to us

not being able to do it 'cause we nearly ran out of money,

like I say. But ~ but the the the money thing aside,

and we managed to scramble over the line just about and then we raised some more

money because we'd done it. Hard question because like I think that

I had already some contacts with Ed It S even before starting at ~

and and some other larger companies.

But I guess the after one year we had a first

larger contracts. ~ I think I think it's it's

but I think significantly ~ with larger project because you know

you can have big big companies working with you but you know like when it's become

a bit more significant in terms of budget and in terms of ~ redundancy of work,

you know, like ~ I mean ~ and I think yeah I I would say that the shift came more

last year.

where we decide to move more towards ~ larger companies.

Startups, I think I think on some point on some level,

~ we really enjoy to work with startup because it's new ideas,

it's this fresh field, you know,

it's it's something you can build from scratch.

~ obviously the problem is that you have a lot of budget limitation.

~ and especially in Belgium, this is

One of the the the things that we also decided to do since the last year

is to shift from small startups ~ companies based in Belgium

to larger startups ~ based internationally.

~ I think I think in in Belgium but it learned us something quite is is in you know,

it's like in the in this complex startup

environment in Belgium where

budget are totally I w I would say absurd.

There's no there's nothing really that is built for hardware ~ startups

in in Belgium. Really the the the fundraiser is just ridiculous.

if you want to do a bike if you I I don't know,

they they it it's super hard to even raise more than than hundred or two hundred K.

It it makes no sense. I mean how is how are you going to build your your company

based I mean with with so so I think that

that on that aspect it it learn us to to be quite agile in the way we work,

to work step by step, ~ to iterate very fast,

to be quite ~ flexible also

and to be competitive. that is something that that so that's why now when when

we approach l ~ larger startups that are based internationally,

~ they find it interesting the the the approach that we have because it's less

risky. It's

It's ~ it's it's also iterating fast through prototype fast prototyping.

~ it's it's it's it's a bit of a tech mentality,

you know, like you you test, you do errors,

you retest, and then then built by bit you you you you refine.

What I mean took also a lot of time to develop.

So along the way I I also realized actually maybe it's more of a

B2B product and then ~ yeah.

But yes, of course I have to do ~ a lot.

I mean I actually developed ~ together with ~ engineering office here

in Berlin called Constructive.

Really good ~ people who are really good for actually prototyping

new ideas and trying to make proof of concept.

~ Yeah,

so ~ but I started like four years ago and it took much more time

and much more money than what I thought.

So that's also like a big learning is like

It always takes more time and it's more expensive to what you first think.

~ yeah. And this is also like a complex product.

It's maybe I should have started with something a bit easier and smaller,

like like this is a bit challenging from the technical side and it's also big.

So like in terms of logistics when you need to shift the product,

it's it's also a lot of challenges that I didn't anticipate at the beginning.

The j I guess the truth is, Chris,

on that the the market f into which we are going is growing

and growing exponentially. Seventeen point five percent is

the compound annual growth rate projection by all the big and anal analysers

of this stuff, the Deloitte's and the and the McKinseys of the world,

they all go by the way, globally,

micro mobility is going gangbusters and there's nothing anyone can do to stop it,

nor should they. ~ but w and our view is that that's good.

We have created a product which is gonna is is about convenience

and keeping you safe.

So that's you know, that is that is why we've managed to keep going,

why we've managed to gather best part of two million pounds of investment

to to get the product into the market.

~ you know, which is so, you know,

and and and Yeah.

We're approaching five thousand now.

We we have two more ~ orders,

~ two more ~ lots of helmets ordered,

so parts of it come from China,

~ most of it is made and injection molded in the West Midlands in Birmingham with

a company called Cameron Price.

So we we have another six thousand four hundred on order.

~ and we will we will we will go and and sell all of those hopefully by

the end of the year and introduce product range,

you know, variations and

thing we're working with company many people who ride a bike will know

of called MIPS multi directional impact protection system which has

a little yellow dot for those who are watching there's a little yellow

dot and and it will become the first folding product of any kind

to integrate their system which is is a pretty ~ a significant differentiator

for us. So I mean it depends what you're doing.

I mean if you are a software company where you can copy and paste you've developed a

A product and you need to get market share.

Maybe you need to raise capital,

and maybe that's the right way to go.

And you have to move fast, you need to get market share.

If you're in an engineering company where you raise lots of capital,

a really good example was Van Move.

So they were a bike brand, they raised well over 100 million pounds,

and that put huge pressure on them to grow top line.

As a result of that,

They were prioritizing turnover vanity over sanity profit.

And they hadn't developed the product.

They hadn't finished the engineering.

But they were under so much pressure to sell more bikes.

They were selling bikes, knowing that those bikes weren't good enough

and they were going to lose money.

So for every bike they sold, they were losing even more money.

But they were pushing to sell more bikes to make the top line look good,

to help the investors feel confident,

and eventually the company went.

Bust. And actually,

compound growth. Warren Buffett,

for a long time, one of the richest people on planet Earth.

I think he delivered 20% year on year compound growth for 60,

70 years. Yeah. That'll do. Anywhere between 15 and 20% compound growth is insane.

Be patient. And a business, an engineering business,

can sustain 15 or 20%.

Try and grow an engineering business by a hundred percent a year because you've

got loads of cash. Well, you bring in so many new people,

they don't know what you're doing,

half your guys on the shop floor haven't got a clue.

You're growing too fast. So I think,

you know, being sensible, retaining control in an engineering business where there

are longer lead times makes sense.

And certainly from an equity perspective,

you want to make your mistakes when you're small.

And and and you will make plenty of them.

And when you get the money in,

you're under such pressure to scale,

you want to scale when the thing is rock solid.

And if you put the money in too early,

you give away too much equity at too low a valuation.

And then you're forced to scale something that you haven't completely bottomed out.

So yeah, compound growth, be patient.

And most of the businesses,

you look at great businesses around the world that are still here after 15,

20 years. And

The vast majority of those had a sh a a slow incubation period.

You think about Apple, you think about Dyson,

you know, so many great brands,

they had a period of of learning.

And then yes, they've gone bananas and you think,

wow, aren't they amazing? But if you look back in the early years,

the initially it was relatively steady.

Yeah. But yeah, so we blundered and stumbled and kind of found people.

~

And our networking capacity is is has definitely been helpful.

But, you know, it it someone said to me,

and I think I might have told you this at Eurobub,

it's quite a kind of helpful ~ kind of story around the journey.

The day before we passed the test,

which was the eighteenth of December 2023,

we had an expensive idea, which we'd spent a million pounds,

a million plus pounds on. And and

before we passed the test it was just that,

you know, God, you spent a million quid with an idea.

Well, you know, who gave you that money?

You you know, how did you persuade them?

And the day after we passed the test,

we had a cheap innovation. Because even though we spent a million pounds

to do what we'd done for that kind of money,

all of a sudden it was a cheap innovation.

You know what I mean? So because it was real and sellable

and commercializable and all those things.

So ~ but we definitely blundered along the way and made decisions which we

Josh is more regretful than me.

I'm like, Yeah, whatever, we've still got some money in the bank,

let's go. He's like, we should have done it like that.

I'm like, Well that's what can we do about that?

That's why I try to stay on the positive side of those things.

But it is frustrating to know that we could have done it in a different order,

probably done it for half the price.

I mean this somehow I think it because it it took some time to develop,

it also was good to have a lot of time to maturate a little bit and to ~

so I think now we launch a product and it was already there was

lot of maturity already. So that's also like people are sometimes like impressed,

like wow okay ~ yeah that's impressive or I just such a small team and

But they don't see like all the work which is and all the time.

And things I would have done differently,

yes, of course. ~ I mean especially ~ raising money.

I would do it differently now.

~ I mean I very early I founded the company because I wanted to get some

~ in like some grants that are available,

but you need to have a proper company for that.

~ but now

Because now the company is already four years old and a lot of these grants

are actually just for young company which are one or maximum two years old.

So I I I'm not eligible anymore to this public funding.

So I thought maybe I I should have put my own money first and then

~ found the company once the product is already there and then get some public

it would have been easier. So now I cannot go anymore to this public

France because officially the company is too old already.

I I I can't share everything,

but this this ~ grant which I got just after COVID

~ was really exciting because it allowed me to take one of the many concepts which

I've been working on for years ~ in the bike world ~ into a lot more depth than just

thinking about the geometry. So we've got really good concept for geometry.

~ but

Grant and for my own kind of motivation,

it had to be low cost as well.

And so that's where I started looking at,

you know, these other manufacturing processes rather than cut weld and bend kind

of processes which are commonplace,

or carbon fiber or or whatever.

So ~ that was half the project,

and the other half of the project was was,

I suppose.

the fulfilment of all the different concepts that have gone in the past.

Some have gone into production,

some haven't, some have been offered to big companies and be

not invented here syndrome, you know.

But the combination of all those ideas ended up with this one particular product,

which ~ I've put on hold at the moment because ~ the bike industry isn't doing

particularly well. But it's it's a bike that actually folds into its own wheels.

So basically you get support or you get ~ yeah,

fundings for fresh young company,

but if you are already four years old and they look at the number,

they're like, but you just spent money,

you didn't make money. Yeah, yeah,

of course. I mean we are doing innovation and they're like,

Yeah, okay, but that's ~ we only finance either like really fresh company

or like company that are three,

four years old but already generate ~

That was I mean now we start to generate money,

but ~ last few years it was just spending ~ for development

and prototyping and the license did actually come back to me and it went through

a couple of hands and ended up in Taiwan.

So I don't own the IP to Strider.

I I I get small royalty on it now and ~ I don't get any influencing

in this design direction, but heyho,

there's little to change so

Please excuse this short interruption.

We'll get back to the episode in a moment,

but I first wanted to share something really exciting that we're working on.

Kodu are proudly partnering with Vax and TTI Floorcare to rebuild their

UK engineering and innovation function in Droitwich.

A quick bit of history first. Vax started in Droitwich in 1977 when Alan Brazier

built the first machine that let people wash the carpets in their own home.

A Milkchurn.

A shower pump and a water heater.

A world first. By 1987,

it was the best selling vacuum cleaner in Britain.

So the company was founded on wet,

and wet product development is now being built in the UK from the ground up.

Pumps, impellers, ceiling, ingress protection,

mechanism design, plastics. Alongside it,

an advanced development team standing up as its own function,

and an industrial design and design research team.

That owns the front end. Here's three things worth knowing if you work

in physical product development.

You'd be building the team rather than joining it.

The people going in now decide how this works.

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If you'd spent the last three years executing decisions somebody else made,

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And it sits inside TTI, a group turning over fifteen billion dollars with Milwaukee,

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The scale behind it is real. Roles run from design engineer through

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Every live vacancy is over at teamkodu.com slash jobs.

That's teamkodu.com slash jobs.

Right, let's get back to the episode.

You're absolutely right. Many times if you're in a smaller business

and you get acquired, the the shift is one of the amazing things,

I'll I'll I'll start with that,

is that you y you suddenly have a ton of resources at available to you,

especially if there is potential within your brand or your business,

that all of a sudden i manufacturing partners and distribution networks

and salespeople and all all kinds of finance and and things like that,

you you know, instead of having to go to the bank or or or a group of investors and

Gravel for the next tranche of of of investment.

Y you know, here there's a a relative pot of money.

It's not not just laying around in most corporations,

but it's there. ~ that that you you have access to,

right? And and so and you have a access to a much broader team.

Like ~ you may have you may not have had a regulatory team and and all

of a sudden you do, you have a team that can can deal with that.

You may not have had a a team that can deal with ~ importing and exporting

and and things like that. So that's one of the beauties of of of

being pulled into a a greater situation like that.

The the there are other difficulties that go along with it.

As you can imagine, if you had a job that had 10 chunks of responsibility,

you may only have one now. All of a sudden you've got to specialize in in a

in a way that you haven't done before.

And you have to go deep within one one particular area.

So so that happens as well. ~ and yeah,

I I and I I I'll say it this way too,

right? I I think the people who

make it through those situations and and do well in those situations

are the people who are open to change and who have a broader way of thinking.

So I I think of myself as as as as a designer,

a technologist, a a business leader,

but I think of myself as all those,

right? I I don't think of one or the other and and I've had a a a design role

and I've been probably the most technical designer in that role,

or I've had a ~ a a technology role,

I've been the most people based role or a or a business role,

I've been the most

design and technology kind of based person.

So a ability to s shift in those situations is is really helpful.

And and look, it's gonna happen,

right? You w whether whether it happens in a acquisitional situation like that

or it happens in some other area,

~ change is coming it's coming for you.

And ~ you know, whether it's AI or or whatever,

you you can probably go to my brother and I had this conversation about

my my grandfather who was born,

you know, it

largely in a world of horses, right?

Cars were around but they were unattainable for for him and and they were

you know i in in that area, right?

And and then he died in a world of like,

you know, jets and mobile phones and and every other thing,

right? So it it's ~ it it's pretty pretty crazy to notice the change

in one person's lifetime. And then we're gonna live through the same thing.

You know, I I don't know what those changes will be,

but they're they're happening already and you know

Chris, I I think you're over the age where you probably the the internet

was not a big deal when you were young and now it's it drives an amazing part

of our culture and and and and business and and that's gonna happen with

AI and and and everything else that that that goes on.

And it'll be almost hard for us to imagine all that the change that

has happened o over that time period.

It it it actually you you have a what do they call it?

Sir survivorship bias. And the other thing I didn't mention with Westinghouse

is really the team. ~ you know.

Our CEO took the company private ~ a number of years ago and ~ he's very passionate

about the brand, the history. ~ just our our corporate leadership team

is very nimble, very decisive,

and it's an exciting thing to be a part of.

You know, we can really if we wanna go after something,

we go after it. We're not gonna talk about it for eighteen months and then,

you know, maybe pull funding for it two months or two years into it or reduce it.

We're gonna go after it full force,

which is real

That that's a rewarding, exciting part.

It it's always resources, right?

And and and choices because w we can't do everything and ~ even

at the biggest corporation you you you have limitations on the team

and and and where to put them.

So so going through the strat process to to think about you know,

where you're gonna have those those choices and and aligning really with

the interim team is a big deal.

So that that's that's one of the the things that I do in almost every role

is is hey, where are we gonna make our choices?

And

Very often I I try to attach an ask to that.

So when it if you're working with the executive team,

th they they may say, like, hey,

I want to do this and do this and do this.

It's ~ right away I'm asking for the resources to actually make those things happen

because that puts a little bit of pain into the conversation around the choice.

So if they want to do everything,

okay, cool, we need the resources to do that.

~ but it but that's that almost never happens.

Very, very rarely happens.

And the the the other way around that is to to work around the things that

you you want to focus on and the things that you can get the most out of.

So you know, that that is a an exercise within that that that I think ~

a lot of folks don't they sleep on.

They don't they don't really think too much directly about it.

They they people are asking for one focus in one area and then they just do it.

But it it it's worth looking at the whole portfolio of thinking.

It could be brands, could be regions,

could be consumers, whatever whatever you're

your thinking is you you can move in those areas and that will ~ that that's

a that's a worthy conversation to to talk about where where you're gonna

get the most bang for your buck and and and and it could be that that bang could

actually be dollars or it could be things like brand credibility or it could

be ~ leadership in in an area so so it may not just be about financial growth,

but it could also be ~ about other other goals that you may have as an organization.

What the point I'm trying to make is that ownership

of an idea is absolutely crucial.

And unless the the manufacturing partner or the business partner

has exactly the same kind of alignment of where they want to be with

the idea you've come up with, it's just not gonna work.

And I've been so lucky with some of the products that that

I have licensed where th that alignment has actually happened.

And a lot of it has been through chance,

you know, meeting at at shows like,

you know, ~ Eurobike and Taiwan Bike Fair and things like that.

And even, you know, moving from one manufacturer who wasn't so keen on

a product to another manufacturer was,

~ things like that. But I think the message would be is

to work in partnership.

with potential manufacturers. Or in fact,

not so much manufacturers, brand owners and and founders.

Because let's face it, manufacturing these days is easy.

If you know you can get anything made anywhere,

it's ~ the key first question that all these manufacturers ask is,

how many containers do you want?

And if it's like, we're just thinking of a few to start with,

the phone goes kind of dead. You know,

it it's all about holding. So it's more about

Who who's got the the the marketing ~ experience and and the brand

to push it through in in into the market.

And so working with ~ people with brands

and people who already have all this set up is probably the best way.

And the best example of that in my career has been working with Joseph Joseph.

Because they actually ~

we we met over a very early product I did a a folding cutting board.

But they used to come to me ~ and say,

Mark, ~ we want to get into and they came up with several scenarios,

but w w we want to come up with a ~ for example,

a can opener. And I know you've done a can opener before,

but we want to have to be A, B,

C, D. And so working with them.

To do this invention rather than inventing independently and proposing it,

work so much better. And so rather being paid to act as a consultant,

work with them in partnership.

And they're lovely guys to work with,

because they're both product designers.

And they are so enthusiastic about product design.

And

It i it became a a synergy, you know,

I'd I proposed something which they said,

a little bit crude, can you put a a nice button on there or make it

and honestly it was really a a kind of joint exercise.

And I think that meant that the ownership of the ~ products that came

out of those that that kind of journey were owned by them and me.

More more them than me, in fact.

And I think that's a that's a really ri a better way of thinking about licensing

and inventing. Yeah, that is something that is super hard when you are like

we say in French when you have La tête dans le guidon,

when you have the head in the in the steering wheel somehow.

It's like really you're so busy and focused on on what you have in front

of you that you ~ it sounds very cliche and better to say that because it's it's

but but honestly

it's more hard than we think to really keep and stay

~ as instinctive as possible. ~ and and then you keep focus on that.

You keep that dream and and because the focus is essential.

I think this is ~ maybe a second key for sure

is yeah you it's very easy to

To seize an opportunity, ~ well let's let's jump on that.

And sound sounds like like otherwise we might miss an opportunity.

Yeah, for for sure. But keep focused on the core.

On the core of what you want, of what you of what you dream of.

And I think this is probably what we struggle the most with future wave.

And I think it was more related to also the markets we because

The ecosystem in in in Belgium of hardware and tech products wasn't really there.

And one of the main thing everybody,

every business coach, everybody's gonna say is try to be the master

of your own country or your own and then then and then maybe expand later.

A lot of people would say that.

Try to be local first and and do do well there.

yeah and no.

Wow. ~ well I think for us it was probably if I really if

I step back and think as a business owner,

you know, like it was probably taking on ~ debt.

Yeah. I mean we run a we run a debt free cash flow business and you know

you have to think about how you sleep at night.

And everybody's different, everybody's risk profile's different.

I think being an entrepreneur,

you gotta think you're taking risk being entrepreneur.

Then then there's various qualities of that.

And the guy that we worked with prior to to Motive loved to take on

a lot of debt. He just he lived he he enjoyed running a business

off somebody else's money. And,

you know, i he he did a very good job of it for a period of time,

but then you know, you realize quickly when things turn

If you're leveraged, you have challenges.

And so it's not it's not the sunny day stuff,

it's the rainy day stuff. You really need to think very hard about it.

And if you're heavily leveraged,

you don't have control. And so I would say that was really one of the 'cause

th it's always offered. I mean,

money, especially if you go back a number of years,

money's harder to come by right now for sure.

But if you go back fifteen years when we founded this business,

people were throwing money. They're like,

sure, I want to be part of that.

Take on some money, you know, like

there's a couple of strings here and there,

and then soon you're a puppet.

And that's something that and you know,

there's probably th there could be other paths to gross with with leverage,

but you know, you get you just gotta pick what suits you.

And, you know, this is what suited my partner and I to really manage,

you know, manage our business,

manage our finances, and ~ you know,

run something that that we can feel comfortable with.

Because

You know, again, you you you really don't know.

You it's extraordinarily hard to project in our business.

You know, you have a guess, ~ and you have optimism,

but that's that's kind of thin.

And ~ so you have to really take out some other risk aspects.

So our profits have gone down,

but our EBITDA was at five and a half million last year,

our PBT was at zero. But PBT is a reflection of depreciation on investments

you made previous years. So

You know, our pot our cash flow is about zero and we have cash.

So it's not that's not ideal, but the sector's going through a really tough time

and we've chosen to continue to invest through the downturn rather than overreact.

~ it's not easy, it's challenging,

but that's my job. You know, if you can't navigate a few difficult periods,

well you're not you're not in the right person for the job.

And the the business is still privately owned,

isn't it? ~

So it's owned by the the inventor and his mates,

Andrew, me and my mates are staff.

Yeah. Staff own about twenty percent.

And then we've got BGF, which is a business growth fund,

which is basically a a British investment fund.

~ and they've got about a nine percent stake.

Okay. So nobody has control. We're we're we're all interested in

the long term success of the business.

Yeah, so you haven't got a big chunk of pro equity or venture capitalist kind

of It wouldn't work.

No. It just wouldn't work. We're too long term.

Yeah. But the way that we look at this business,

it is a personal business, you know,

like it's a private business. And so,

you know, we choose to run it and both of us just in the manner that we

run our own households, you know,

that we're we're not necessarily extravagant people and you know,

we're stay humble, stay humble and stay hungry.

So we we were always revenue generating from the moment we started.

That meant, you know, we could you know,

we we bought a couple of printers,

we rented a room, we had a rented room in a church in Biker in Newcastle where

we could actually set up and actually get stuff made.

And initially it was the three of us were working around our other jobs.

You know, Tom and I both had contracts.

Babbitz was working at the university doing postdoc research,

and we it was evenings and weekends,

make a few parts, sell a few parts,

enough money to pay the rent, buy some more material,

make a few more.

And he just kind of ticked over like that for probably the first six months or so,

gradually trying to learn more about what we need to do for a business.

~ then we got a larger, we had a couple of larger projects kind of come in,

~ enough that we needed some extra help.

So we took on a ~ an intern over the summer to help us with the manufacturing.

At the end of the summer he'd proved that actually it was really useful having that

extra pair of hands. So we offered him a job.

And that's the point where if we're gonna have employees full time.

I need to do this full time. And that's when I made that switch from rather than

renewing the contract that I was working on,

I let that go and said, Right,

I'm gonna do this full time. This is my main job now,

albeit one with zero salary and one which is a questionable decision number one.

~ but we you know, we thought the only way to grow this is to,

you know, commit to this and and make it happen.

So that would have been that must have been six months into actually having rapid

fluidics as an entity that

Yeah, I w I went full time to push it forward and to try and grow the company.

Yeah, I think it's just it's just easier.

There's no point hiding stuff.

~ you know, I I want everybody to know what's going on.

~ you know, we've there have been some tough months,

there've been some better months.

On average it's probably more tough than better,

~ as we've been growing. ~ as an optimist,

things are always gonna look better,

so that's fine. but it yeah, that's just the the way I like to to work.

You know, the if I look at my

Yeah, my management style for want of a better word,

it's based on the experience I've had from different managers I've worked with over

the years. I've taken the what I consider to be the good characteristics

~ and put that all together. ~ and equally the you know,

the the less good characteristics are the ones I've put to the side.

~ and and that's how I want to manage the team.

So yeah, we've we're we're growing.

~ we are we're six full time at the moment.

~

in let's say we're we're based in in Central Newcastle.

We're about to move office. We move into a nicer office,

which is good. ~ one w one with insulation,

so it doesn't cost a fortune to heat it in the winter.

and that's that the new place will give us an opportunity to expand as as

we as we can grow further. and but I'm I'm keen to keen to keep

the business here in the North East.

There's a growing biotech hub here.

You know I've I've been up here ~

I guess if you consider from when I started my undergrad degree,

it's getting on for thirty years,

~ with you know a few years in Cambridge and and Auckland as well,

in in between. ~ it's it's not the center of the biotech world by any means,

but it does the job and it's it's a nice place to live.

~ and you know, I I like it a bit so we'll we're we're staying up here,

but we are expanding, you know,

worldwide. You know, we've got we've got customers around the world.

The the US market is particularly important to me.

~ ultimately

Customers over there have bigger budgets and a quicker attitude

to spending those budgets. So it's important to to supply to them.

To improve things, we are looking into set up remote manufacturing in the States.

So we're in talks, the number of companies over there about how we

can partner with them to use their facilities and how they can help promote

us as a business. And it goes both ways,

you know, we can help promote them in in Europe.

~ so we we're finding ways

of how that may work out, which is again,

it's a whole massive, massive diversion in a way,

or something else to to consider about how do you run a business

in the States compared to running a small business here in the UK.

It's so very, very different. But you know,

we we've got to grow to survive.

That's how a business survives is based by growth.

~ and it'll just make life it'll make l aspects of life a lot easier.

~ you know, having a supply chain directly,

you know, geographically

located near to customers. ~ and it just makes life interesting as well.

Every founder in the show has had a moment when external validation changed what

was possible. Not just financially,

in how they saw what they were building.

All of them are linked below. If any of this resonates,

the full episodes go much deeper.

Thank you for listening.

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