TRADEOFFS: The Hardware Startup Podcast

Lessons from a Recovering Hardware Founder | Bluesmart, ROOM, Kite Compliance | Brian Chen

For this episode, we sat down with Brian Chen [https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-chen-3104a1a], founder and CEO of Kite Compliance [http://kitecompliance.ai/], an AI-powered product-compliance platform built to make certification faster, safer, and less painful to scale. We discuss building hardware during the last hardware renaissance, surviving lockdowns while running a business dependent on in-office work, and how regulators can make life very difficult for hardware founders.  Brian dropped out of MIT Sloan after one semester to co-found Bluesmart, the YC W15 smart-luggage startup that raised $2.2M on Indiegogo before airlines banned non-removable batteries and grounded the category entirely. He then co-founded ROOM, creators of those modular office phone-booths we’ve all taken calls from. There he scaled the business to $60M in annual revenue before selling it to contract-furniture maker OFS in 2023.  Today Brian is focused on helping companies solving hard problems overcome compliance and regulatory hurdles. On the side, he's an active angel investor backing other founders. Learn more about Kite Compliance at http://kitecompliance.ai/ [http://kitecompliance.ai/] For more information on the podcast, check out https://tradeoffs.fm [https://tradeoffs.fm/] Episode: T-26-014

Building Teams That Scale And What Happens When They Don't | Will Blaze

On this episode, we sat down with Will Blaze [https://www.linkedin.com/in/willblaze], technical recruiter and founder of Blaze Talent [https://www.blazetalent.com/], where he helps hardware and AI companies scale their engineering teams. Will shares his journey from scrappy startup recruiting at Birchbox to scaling Peloton from 150 to nearly 10,000 people, and getting laid off twice in 2022, including once while on paternity leave. Today, Will brings that experience to companies like CoreWeave and Andium, helping them hire the right people at the right time. Throughout our conversation, Will shares lessons on when to hire full-time versus contractors, why structured interviews matter more than most founders think, and the trade-offs you have to make when you can't check all 10 boxes. Learn more about Will and Blaze Talent: www.blazetalent.com [https://www.blazetalent.com/] For more information on the podcast, check out https://tradeoffs.fm [https://tradeoffs.fm]

T-26-012 : Founders From The Show Floor - CES 2026

Chris and Nate come to you from the Eureka Park at the Consumer Electronics Show for their first ever video pod! Eureka Park is the show’s designated area for early stage hardware startups and products too weird for the rest of CES. Check out the video version on YouTube [https://youtu.be/ZM8IvF3h0N0]. Thank you to the founders who spoke with us: Rajeev Ramanath [https://www.linkedin.com/in/rramanath/] - Blueberry Technology [https://www.blueberry.technology/] Cole Ashman [https://www.linkedin.com/in/cole-ashman/] - Pila Energy [https://pilaenergy.com/] Scott Hickle [https://www.linkedin.com/in/scotthickle/] - Throne [https://www.thronescience.com/] Eric Migicovsky [https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericmigi/] - Pebble [https://repebble.com/] Aaron Pollack [https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronpollack/] - Roam [https://roamsmarttracker.com/] Jakub Popowski [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakub-popowski/] - Modue [https://modue.com/] Niclas Bertelsen [https://www.linkedin.com/in/nbertelsen/] - Naya [https://naya.tech/] Neil Olien [https://www.linkedin.com/in/neil-olien/] - The Haptics Company [https://www.linkedin.com/company/thehapticscompany/] Amit Kumar Gupta [https://www.linkedin.com/in/amitkugupta/] - Nosh [https://us.letsnosh.io/] Cody Soodeen [https://www.linkedin.com/in/codysoodeen/] - Kara Water [https://www.karawater.com/] Zach Sweitzer [https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachary-sweitzer-44779573/] - Hummingbird [https://www.hummingbirdsmarthome.com/] Michael Churchill [https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-churchill123/] - Kombu [https://thekombu.com/] Rachel Osnos [https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelosnos/] - Fotostax [https://www.fotostax.com/] For more information on the podcast, check out https://tradeoffs.fm [https://tradeoffs.fm/]

T-26-011 : Happy CES-mas

In this episode of TradeOffs, Nate and Chris ring in the new year with a look back at some headlines from 2025 and a preview of CES 2026. They discuss the "hardware renaissance" gaining momentum—from the Re-Industrialize conference to renewed national focus on domestic manufacturing—and Chris shares his most memorable hardware story of the year: Samsung pushing ads to smart refrigerators (and what it signals about the economics of connected devices).  The conversation turns to CES strategy, including why the real value isn't on the show floor but in the networking, how to navigate the sprawling venues from Eureka Park to LVCC, and survival tips. For more information on the podcast, check out https://tradeoffs.fm

T-25-010 : Ioannis Papamanoglou and Narayan Powderly - Engineers transforming how we design, test, and build hardware with atopile

In this episode of TradeOffs, Nate and Chris sit down with Narayan Powderly [https://www.linkedin.com/in/narayan-powderly-21949a180/] and Ioannis Papamanoglou [https://www.linkedin.com/in/ioannis-papamanoglou/], co-CEO’s of atopile [https://atopile.io/?utm_source=tradeoffs], a circuit design tool bringing software development practices to hardware. Narayan shares how his frustration with slow board development cycles led him to question why schematics remained an "impenetrable box" immune to automation. Ioannis traces his path from hacking PlayStation Portables and building Minecraft redstone circuits to studying operating systems and working on smart bike locks for the Dutch railway system. Together, they discuss why their real competitor isn't other code-to-electronics startups but legacy tools like Altium and Cadence, and their vision for a future where full-stack engineers own everything from PCB design to firmware. They also explore how LLMs will transform electronics design and why the open-source hardware community is more collaborative than competitive. Find out more information about atopile at atopile.io [https://atopile.io/?utm_source=tradeoffs] Join the atopile Discord [https://discord.com/invite/CRe5xaDBr3] Check out the atopile Github [https://github.com/atopile] For more information on the podcast, check out https://tradeoffs.fm [https://tradeoffs.fm/]