informal

Another milestone in the books for Millie Blumka and Taylor Borenstein! What a month you've had! We love it when one of our favorite brands is recognized for its innovation. ??♀? ??

In this newsletter, we touch on how we've been navigating hardware’s future, we take a look at one of our rockstar members who has been manufacturing products of all sizes for decades, and we share more about one of his?informal?client's who’s deep in the thick of manufacturing and building a global supply chain. We hope you enjoy!

?? We had the pleasure of sitting down with hardware engineering powerhouse Steve Remy for this week's informal member profile. Here's a few highlights, plus the full interview below! ???? 18+ years of engineering experience designing consumer, medical, and industrial products, and founder of Concinity Product Design and Engineering. ?? A key member of the informal hardware collective, Steve has contributed to projects for Dharma Dr. , EchoTech, and Guardian Bikes. ??? From medical devices to sporting goods, he’s done everything from prototyping to mass production. ?? Steve is listed an an inventor on 10+ utility patents! Read more about Steve's capabilities and professional journey below. Want to work with Steve on an upcoming project? Let us know! ?? https://lnkd.in/e2cNMUEc

One of the companies and projects we've most recently enjoyed watching evolve and grow has been tifh (Take It From Here) - guided, play-based kits designed to spark meaningful conversations between grown-ups and kids ages 4-7. For all of our #NYC and #NJ members, clients and friendlies with kiddos - they are hosting a free, hands-on story time event on Saturday, March 29 at 2 PM at the Hoboken Public Library. Additional details below!

This post is for the San Diego hardware community. If you are not the San Diego hardtech community then please keep scrolling. Kidding, you can stay too. We're hosting a Hardware Meetup! Wooooooo! When: Tuesday, March 25 - 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm Where: Eppig Brewing - North County Vista Tasting Room - Vista, California Why: Optimizing Hardware for Manufacturing: Automation and EOL Tooling With Whom: Simplexity Product Development, Inc. Performant Manufacturing informal SEACOMP For Whom: "... Founders, engineers, and other hardware professionals to network, share insights, and collaborate with each other." Link in the comments to sign up! Hope to see you there. PS - Do you like free beer?! All you have to do is share this post, come to the event, show me that you shared it, and your first pint is on me!

Check out these hexagonal features on the underside of my Bambu Lab A1 printer. Although they look really cool, they have a functional purpose: stiffness, flatness, and flow. ?? STIFFNESS: Plastic #injectionmolding parts can only be made so thick before it is difficult for molten plastic to flow to all corners of the part. For materials like ABS, it is recommended to stick to under 3mm of thickness. A 3mm thick plate of plastic is fairly weak if you bend it, which can be problematic when making strong plastic parts. To make the plastic parts beefier, we add features called "ribs". These ribs increase the cross-sectional area of the part, making it stiffer. ?? FLATNESS: Typically, long ribs are added in the direction that you want to add stiffness to maximize their impact. However, we run into another challenge with injection molding by adding long ribs. As molten plastic cools, it also contracts - which can cause the part to warp or bow. In order to achieve a flat, stiff part, the engineers here used hexagonal ribs instead of long ones. The hexagonal ribs cool and effectively cancel out each others bending forces, helping maintain a flat part. ?? FLOW: The hexagonal shapes also help ensure molten plastic will flow to all corners of the part before it cools. NEAT! This part is full of very cool features like sliders, lifters, multiple gates, and various ejector pins and blades. The amount of work that goes into a single plastic part is crazy. Design for #manufacturing is really fun

Let’s say you’re starting the hardware company of your dreams and need to go from idea to production. Let’s also accept the reality that you’re probably underfunded and need a ton of help to get there. You have a few options for how to build your team: 1??Hire for the roles you need. Pay competitive wages to attract the top talent, cover their insurance and 401K contributions, buy the hardware and software licenses they need, and start development. 2??Find top-notch freelancers who you can pay by the hour to build your hardware. 3??Go to a freelance marketplace, choose the cheapest option, and watch them like a hawk for the next 18 months — leaving you almost no time to sell or grow the business. 4??Find a design or engineering firm, pay a large lump of cash upfront, and wait for updates. ??By partnering with informal, we pair you with the talent you need, when you need it, and can ramp up or down as needed, bringing your costs of Hardware Development down from $2.75MM to under $500,000. Want to learn more??Drop us a line! ?? https://lnkd.in/eUnEA__Z

Freelancing can be stressful, lonely and confusing - which is exactly why Nate Padgett and Sam Holland built informal - to make it suck less. ?? ?Join our 500+ network of top-tier hardware experts and get access to legit, interesting projects, matched to your skillset and personality. We handle the boring stuff—billing, proposals, negotiations—so you can actually do what you love. No BS, just better work with great people. ??Know of someone who would be a good candidate? Start by getting involved with your local #HardwareMeetup group, or have an existing informal member send over a referral to Sam, Nate or Lindsey Gideon!

It's always fun to see a product we worked on get highlighted in pop culture. It's not everyday that it's on such a groundbreaking show like Severance! Congrats Millie Blumka and to the Stakt team. What a fun spotting :)

informal member and marketing guru Lindsey Gideon is heading to Austin this weekend on our behalf to scope out all of the startup goodness going down at SXSW this year! If you are a member, client or friendly of informal, comment here or DM her to meet up! We also hope you can make it over to the unofficially official after party at Xebec that our #AustinHardwareMeetup group is partnering around (more details below) to kickoff the action packed week! What’s in it for you? ????Free entry with RSVP ???Free drinks ?? DJ set by VACE ???Exclusive pricing on Xebec products ???Limited-edition Xebec gear—don’t sleep on our new hats!?(available for purchase) ??Starts at 8 PM—get here early or get in line.