My guest is Günter Faltin, professor of entrepreneurship from Germany and himself also a successful entrepreneur.

He’s an early pioneer of entrepreneurship education in Germany. He’s widely known in Germany because of his pioneering work connected to a concept called “component principle”. Last year I read his book “Brain vs capital” at around the same time as Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek book, and the connection between the two were obvious. Actually people in Germany buy these two books together, as I later found it out from Prof Faltin. Both books have been major eye-openers for me. Prof. Faltin and Tim Ferriss’ works are for ones who want to get results fast and sustainably, just prof. Faltin’s is more applicable exclusively to entrepreneurship. In the links below you can see actually an interview that Prof. Faltin did with Tim Ferriss, and it made me smile how much the two are in agreement.

Prof. Faltin is a very practical person despite being a professor. So by any means, he’s not sitting in his Ivory Tower. You’ll learn in this episode he’s had his quite successful business which is still thriving.

In this part 1 episode you can learn from Prof. Faltin how he systematically started his company, he’ll discuss his principles for how to stay lean and efficient even after the beginnings of a startup when one wants to scale. He’ll also bring up other examples besides for companies that use his principles. Enjoy.

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

Show highlights can be seen below:

• Who is Prof. Faltin and how does his book relate to Tim Ferriss? – [3:32]
• How do you become the world’s largest importer of Darjeeling tea? - [4:58]
• A business model that looks beyond conventions - [14:36]
• The basics of progress – the component principle - [16:08]
• Entrepreneurship Summit in Berlin and how can you win a free ticket to it? - [17:03]
• How is the component principle applied in Teekampagne? - [20:07]
• An example of building a company organized 100% by components - [21:38]
• The advantages of using outsourced talent - [24:02]
• Another example of a business which uses the component principle - [26:38]
• “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” - [28:19]

My interview guest is from the US from San Francisco, Nick Pinkston, founder and CEO of Plethora.

In case you’re into manufacturing, and you should be, if you’re into into hardware, then this episode is for you.

Nick is a central figure in hardware in the Bay Area which you’ll learn about in this interview. He’s behind CloudFab, the world's first manufacturing-as-a-service API, HackPittsburgh, a collective workshop for the makers of Pittsburgh and he’s co-founder of the San Francisco Meetup. These topics will all come up in this episode.

His latest venture is Plethora which provides rapid manufacturing services that give you real-time design feedback and pricing when you upload your 3D file. After this step, their on-demand automated factory programs itself to make your parts. He’s essentially transforming the way we do manufacturing via digital manufacturing.

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

Show highlights can be seen below:

• Where hardware startups fail when it comes to manufacturing and how to avoid that - [4:11]
• The God-like vision of Plethora and what it has to do with pizza delivery - [8:42]
• The company’s vertical approach and their 13 000 competitors - [12:27]
• How Plethora wants to scale the scaling itself - [16:18]
• Current situation of local manufacturing shops – the issue with specializing [18:20]
• The experience behind San Francisco Hardware Startup Meetup and how it has grown to other initiatives - [20:06]
• Escape velocity, or challenges in front of the company - [25:35]
• The main lesson the founders learned while growing the company and how the OODA loop concept applies to them — [27:04]
• If you could time travel and go back in time, what notes would you give yourself? – [30:45]
• Which book had the biggest impact on his career? – [31:34]
• Nick’s super structured routine – [32:27]
• Some observations Nick has made in terms of organizational culture – [36:45]
• What is the best way to reach Nick? – [36:2]