I’ve had a very special guest, who I got to talk to. My interviewee, Dr. Milton Chang, is a serial entrepreneur with an impressive, long track record of building hardware companies.

Milton is currently managing partner of Incubic Venture Fund. He was president of Newport and New Focus, which he took public. In addition, the companies he incubated resulted in six IPOs and close to 10 acquisitions. He currently works with several companies, including Aurrion (acquired by Juniper Networks), MBio Diagnostics, YesVideo, and Protein Fluidics. He’s a Trustee of the California Institute of Technology and has recently served on the SEC Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies. He writes a business and management column for Laser Focus World.

Milton is also the author of Toward Entrepreneurship, a book that I consider as one of the best books on entrepreneurship - find out in this episode why.

You can find out in this episode what it means for him to found a company, to grow slowly or fast. You can also learn what you should pay attention to if you come out of academia to start a business, what separates a good from a bad business idea and many many more.

Raw transcript is available at: https://www.thehardwareentrepreneur.com

Show highlights can be seen below:

• Toward Entrepreneurship - Milton Chang’s book – [3:48]
• Starting a niche business modestly versus rapidly growing a business in a hot field - [6:48]
• Bootstrapping explained with two examples from his own experience - [8:52]
• What were the critical ingredients that helped Milton start his companies? - [11:51]
• Ingredients that are typically missing in founders who start out right out of school, e.g. after a Master’s or PhD program? - [14:13]
• Self-actualization inside a company - synchronizing the employees’ and the company’s needs [19:02]
• What separates a good business idea from a bad one? - [21:50]
• Pros and cons of different sources for financing a start-up - [23:50]
• Fueling your own dreams - [27:37]
• The field of photonics as an enabler for other industries - [29:18]
• If you could time travel and go back in time, what notes would you give yourself? – [32:48]
• Which book had the biggest impact on his career? – [30:07]
• Milton’s morning routine – [34:43]
• Milton’s observations on Asian and European cultural differences – [35:30]
• What is the best way to reach Milton? – [37:10]

My guest has recently been Scott N. Miller, co-founder and CEO of Dragon Innovation, a company based in the US helping hardware companies.

Scott has a pretty remarkable career behind him so far with at least two decades of experience in hardware field, so many of you have probably heard from him.

A few companies they have worked with are e.g. Pebble which was the topic of episode 8 of this podcast or Bose, the audio equipment company. We’ll discuss manufacturing in China vs in USA regarding salaries, unit numbers to work with, and also the future of manufacturing in China, as well as why the current trends can be beneficial to manufacturing in the US. Scott will elaborate also on their latest soon-to-be released software tool, and their latest announcement of a joint effort with Kickstarter. We have many more topics to cover so enjoy this episode.

Raw transcript is available at: https://www.thehardwareentrepreneur.com

Show highlights can be seen below:

• Differentiating factors between U.S. and China manufacturing in terms of quantity, wages and vertical integration - [3:42]
• China as seen through the manufacturing triangle - [6:09]
• Scott’s journey of learning how manufacturing works - [8:05]
• What does Dragon Innovation do? - [8:58]
• “A fishing guide” to help customers grow their business  - [10:58]
• Benefits of using Product Planner and how it’s different from Dragon Standard BOM - [13:00]
• Launching an initiative in partnership with Kickstarter - [17:43]
• Things you need to know and do before starting a Kickstarter campaign, as seen through the manufacturing triangle - [18:36]
• What is the future role of robots in manufacturing? - [22:25]
• The trends millennials are setting are good news for startups - [24:38]
• “That which does not kill us makes us stronger” - [27:12]
• If you could time travel and go back in time, what notes would you give yourself? – [31:24]
• Which book had the biggest impact on his career? – [31:57]
• Scott’s creative [morning] habits – [33:01]
• Observations he made while working and living abroad about cultures and people – [34:05]
• What is the best way to reach Scott? – [36:00]