The Hardtech Podcast

ClearObject - Turning Vision AI Into a Wearable

Derek Bleyle and Tim Hagan of ClearObject join the show to explain how a software and vision AI company built its first piece of production hardware, a wearable that gives highway crews a warning when a vehicle enters their work zone. It is part vision AI deep dive, part honest account of what a software team learns the first time it has to ship atoms.

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Babba - Heating and Cooling Baby Bottles at Scale

Heating and cooling a baby's bottle sounds simple, but it is one of the hardest problems in consumer hardware. Dan Evans, CEO and founder of Babba, joins DeAndre Harakas and Grant Chapman to unpack the nonlinear world of thermoelectric cooling, the technology he first mastered at RecoverX (acquired by Hyperice) and carried into the baby space. It is part engineering deep dive, part founder's playbook on prototypes, customer feedback, and the grind of fundraising and go-to-market in hardware.

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Nuvio - Putting a PT in Your Walker

For many older adults, the hardest thing isn't walking. It's standing up. Matt Cumella, founder and CEO of Nuvio and a doctor of physical therapy, joins Grant Chapman and Drew Westrick to explain how he reinvented the walker around that moment, and then turned it into a sensor-driven platform that puts a physical therapist's eye right inside the device.

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Special Episode - The AIM IN Summit 2026

The next decade of technology may hinge less on AI itself than on the factories, batteries, and machines that make it real. In this special episode, Grant Chapman goes solo with Ben Wrightsman, founding board member of AMVIC, for a 30-year tour through electric race cars, the battery pedigree behind modern EVs, and the hard-won lessons of scaling hardware, all building toward the upcoming AMVIC AIM IN Summit.

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Lexia Solutions - Giving Everyone a Seat at the Table

What if the most powerful accessibility product in a stadium was not built into the building, but wheeled up to your seat in under a minute? Jeff Runnels, co-founder of Lexia Solutions and inventor of Uplift, joins DeAndre Harakas and Grant Chapman to trace a remarkable arc: from the "blue group" and an undiagnosed learning difference, to a battery-powered lift that gives wheelchair users a real seat at the table, and a business model that makes venues want to provide it.

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Eight Sleep - Building a $1.5B Sleep Company the Hard Way

Your bed may be the most under-optimized eight hours of your day. Sam Kang, Chief Product Officer at Eight Sleep, joins DeAndre Harakas and Grant Chapman to unpack how the Pod heats and cools your bed, why cooling is so much harder than heating, and his framework for latent demand and the art of the MVP. It is part engineering deep dive, part product masterclass from inside a company that has turned sleep into a $1.5B category.

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ohSnap! - The Engineering Behind Invisible Design

Most mobile gaming accessories feel like bulky, clunky afterthoughts, but ohSnap set out to build a magnetic phone controller that feels like a natural extension of your device. Shafae Ali, Head of Engineering at ohSnap, joins DeAndre Harakas and Grant Chapman to break down the electromechanical craftsmanship behind their products. From mastering tactile snap-fits and magnetic latches to balancing obsessive user experience with cold engineering math, this episode explores what it really takes to

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Alenthia Run - From PT Clinic to Wearable Device

Most runners only get their form analyzed after an injury, in a lab full of motion-capture cameras. Cooper Boydston, CTO of Alenthia Run, joins DeAndre and Grant to explain how his team shrank that lab into a small sensor that lives on your sacrum and reads your running biomechanics on every run. It's part running-science deep dive, part candid hardware-founder story about prototypes, UX, and the long road from "it works" to a product people love.

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Venture Declassified - Moats & Multiples in Hardtech

What actually changes when you raise money for a hardware company instead of a software one? In this Hardtech Podcast crossover with the Venture Declassified crew (Jacob Schpok of Elevate Ventures, Mike Kelly of Start Something Ventures, and Ben Pidgeon of VisionTech), Grant plays the founder and asks three active investors to grill him on how hard tech is underwritten differently at pre-seed, seed, and Series A: the metrics, the moats, the multiples, and why the same traits that make hardware s

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Articulate Labs - Turn Everyday Movement Into Physical Therapy

Most muscle-stim gadgets work best when you do nothing. Articulate Labs built the opposite: a wearable that fires your muscles in sync with how you move, turning a walk or a grocery run into real strength training. Co-founder and CEO Josh Rabinowitz and hardware lead Herbie (Larry) Kirn join DeAndre and Grant for a rare deep-technical episode on the device, the science of recovering properly after knee surgery, and the messy, honest reality of funding and selling hardware.

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Fisher Wallace - One Device for Depression, Anxiety & Insomnia

Kelly Roman went from a Harvard English degree and a graphic-novel adaptation of "The Art of War" to running one of the only brain-stimulation companies on a path to FDA approval. He joins Grant Chapman and Drew Westrick to unpack Fisher Wallace's nearly 17-year journey: designing a sham device you genuinely can't feel, why depression is regulated as a Class III device, and the brutal economics of clinical trials, reimbursement, and IP in prescription hardware.

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QCI - Quantum Computing & the Future of AI

Quantum computing, finally explained without the hand-waving. Cesar Martinez Delgado, hardware engineering manager at Quantum Computing Inc. (QCI), joins DeAndre and Grant to break down how quantum machines actually work, why QCI is betting on photonics to make them run at room temperature, and how 15 years of building things, from 3G networks to drones, shaped the hard-won engineering lessons every hardware founder needs to hear.

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OCTO - The Art of the Hardtech Agency

Justin Sirotin, founder and CEO of OCTO, industrial designer, and the seasoned agency owner, joins DeAndre and Grant for a candid, founder-to-founder breakdown of what it really takes to build a product agency that lasts. From surviving 2020 without firing anyone, to why sales is the hardest job in the building, to knowing when to let a client "graduate," it's a masterclass in the unglamorous economics of relationship-based businesses.

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gBETA - Building Hardtech Founders Nationwide

In this episode of The Hardtech Podcast, host DeAndre Harakas sits down with Davide Dantonio, Director of gBETA Accelerators in Indiana, to unpack what it actually takes to build a successful hard tech startup. Davide shares his journey from Naples, Italy through France, Spain, London, Kraft Heinz, and Amazon Pay, to running one of the Midwest's most active accelerator programs. They dig into customer obsession, the difference between customer discovery and "sales discovery," doing things that d

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AliveCor - From Clinician to $100M MedTech Giant

Dr. David Albert, founder of AliveCor and pioneer of digital health technology, joins DeAndre Harakas and Grant Chapman for a deep dive into building a regulated medical device company from scratch. From prototyping the first smartphone EKG using a gutted Mophie case and ultrasonic signal transmission to bootstrapping early revenue by selling to veterinarians, Dr. Albert shares the guerrilla engineering and entrepreneurial grit behind one of the most impactful consumer medical devices ever creat

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CAIRE Medical - Modernizing Legacy Medtech

Join hosts Grant Chapman and DeAndre Harakas on this episode of the Hardtech Podcast as they welcome Norbert Leinfellner from CAIRE! In this conversation, Norbert shares his firsthand insights into the world of medical device development. We dive into the engineering challenges behind hardware miniaturization, the critical role of intuitive industrial design, and how integrating IoT is actively improving patient outcomes. Tune in to discover the unique hurdles, lessons learned, and future trend

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Electra - Solving Grid Peaks from the Kitchen

How do we bridge the gap between high-level climate policy and the appliances in our kitchens? On this episode of the Hardtech Podcast, DeAndre Harakas and Grant Chapman welcome Bert Muthalaly, a leader at Electra who is doing exactly that. The conversation explores the technical and philosophical journey of moving away from fossil fuels toward a battery-backed future. Bert Muthalaly breaks down the engineering behind Electra’s innovative induction stoves and explains why the safety and efficie

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Power Tee - Revolutionizing Golf Training

In this episode of the Hardtech Podcast, host DeAndre Harakas and co-host Grant Chapman are joined by Martin Wyeth, the visionary founder of powerTee. Martin shares the fascinating story behind inventing powerTee and transforming it into a leader in golf training technology. He opens up about the gritty reality of entrepreneurship, discussing how he navigated the company through financial crises and the challenges of scaling hardware. The conversation also looks ahead to the future of golf tech

Informal - From Sketch to Scale in Hardtech

Join hosts Grant Chapman and DeAndre Harakas on this episode of the Hardtech Podcast as they welcome Sam Holland from Informal! In this conversation, Sam shares his expert insights on the nitty-gritty of product development, client relationships, and navigating the unique complexities of hardware startups. Whether you are an aspiring founder or an experienced engineer, tune in to gain practical, actionable advice on choosing the right partners, managing expectations, and ultimately building suc

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August Home - Unlocking Smart Home Innovations

In this episode of the Hardtech Podcast, hosts DeAndre Harakas and Grant Chapman engage with Tiffany Mayo, the Director of Product Management for Connected Devices at Yale and August home. The conversation traces Tiffany's professional transition from marketing to product management, highlighting the unique complexities of managing hardware products compared to software. Tiffany breaks down the critical need for effective communication between hardware and software teams and emphasizes the impo

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