@danielmitchelli
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cofounder & cto @ Takton 🏭 ex-superfactory engineer building tech to make every factory super. 100s of factories visited, 1000s to go. also @nextbytepodcast.
Washington DC, USA 🇺🇸
Joined February 2015
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we're hiring like crazy to build out our sales team at Sense MFG
join us to help bring machine intelligence to millions of industrial machines
we're building the fastest way to give manufacturers real-time 24/7 visibility into what their equipment is actually doing. on any machine. of any age. in minutes.
what you get:
- uncapped commission and uncapped career growth
- work directly with the founding team every day (and learn from the most talented sales leader i've ever worked with)
- join a company with a mission that matters
- deploy real technology onto real factory floors
if you want to help modernize American MFG instead of slinging yet another saas tool.... DM me
me with Fable and Astra
Kellen Moore says the Saints will rotate their running backs with weekly package-dependent responsibilities
Kellen Moore: “I think it's important to rotate these guys. We gotta rotate all these running backs, and there'll be different packages or responsibilities from week to week that are different. But I think it's important. Really, my one year in Philly is probably the only year I've ever been with where a running back just kind of takes everything until he can't. Everywhere else, you usually rotate in these guys.”
“freeCAD”
I think we'll see 5x the number of people become hardware and robotics founders over the next 18 months
Why? Because you can rent every step, from design to manufacturing:
DESIGN
- Astra to drive Blender, FreeCAD, and KiCad the way a person would, so you get editable geometry instead of a dead render. Zoo dot dev's text to CAD API if you want it programmatic.
- Or have Claude write build123d code, which is Python parametric CAD, and there's a Claude Code plugin that runs it and exports the STL for you.
PROTOTYPE
- Bambu A1 mini is $299, P1S around $399 on sale. Or skip owning one, JLC3DP prints and mails it for about $20. PCBWay does resin, SLS, and CNC if plastic won't cut it.
ELECTRONICS
- KiCad for the board, Astra can drive it. JLCPCB fabricates and assembles, often under $100 for a small run. ESP32 for wifi, Raspberry Pi if it needs a brain.
ANYTHING THAT MOVES
- Unitree sells a Go2 with a full SDK for about $2,500.
- Hugging Face put out a $399 open-source biped.
- LeRobot gives you the whole train in sim, deploy to real pipeline, and Physical Intelligence open-sourced π0 so you're fine-tuning instead of starting from zero.
- Prototype the policy in MuJoCo or Isaac Lab first.
MANUFACTURING
- Alibaba RFQ for the first 100 units. Check 1688 to see what the factory actually charges domestically, then negotiate. Pietra or Sourcify if you want someone to handle it.
FULFILLMENT AND SELLING
- ShipBob or Amazon FBA. Shopify for the store, TikTok Shop for distribution, Kickstarter if you want the money before you build it.
How to think about starting your own robotics or hardware company:
1. Pick a niche that's already buying weird gear. Cyclists, tabletop gamers, beekeepers, home baristas, dog people with mobility issues. These groups spend money on specific objects and complain in public about what doesn't exist. Or grab ideas off Ideabrowser.com
2. Go read the complaints. Reddit, IG etc Search "I wish someone made," "does anyone make," and "modified my." That last one is the best signal, because someone already hacked the product together and you're just manufacturing what they built by hand.
Also check Etsy!! If 3 sellers are doing a janky 3D printed version with 400 reviews each, the market is validated.
3. Make one. Describe it to Astra or Claude, get the CAD, print it in ugly gray PLA, use it, fix it.
4. Only go to Alibaba or similar once you've sold a few. Message 10 suppliers through RFQ, take the third cheapest, always pay the $50 for a sample before the real order.
5. Film everything from day 1. The first ugly print, the failed version, the box of 100 arriving. That's your entire marketing budget, and hardware is one of the few categories where people actually want to watch the thing get made.
6. Raise the price. Almost everyone here anchors on what the plastic cost. Your customer is comparing you to nothing, because the alternative is the product doesn't exist. Start at 5x COGS and go up.
THIS GOAL OF THIS POST IS JUST HERE TO GET YOUR CREATIVE JUICES FLOWING. Of course, you can build robotics/hardware in a bunch of different ways.
One thing I've learned is data couldn't be more important when you're building a hardware/robotics startups.
These models learn from first person video of a human doing the task, and that footage doesn't exist for almost any job.
So basically you pick one repetitive job people quit over, film someone doing it for 2 weeks, fine-tune π0 on that footage, use organic to sell the first few units and figure out scaling,
5 years ago you needed a factory, a supply chain, and a $1M just to find out if anyone wanted the thing.
Now, anyone can become a hardware/robitics founder.
And I suspect a lot of people will become one!
Vibe manufacturers.
daniel scott mitchell retweeted
what a privilege it is to be exhausted by an ambition of your own choosing
normies complaining in replies don’t realize this is a FANTASTIC thing for US manufacturing
they’re missing the important part: guaranteed POs
far too many apex customers, especially automotive (ask me how I know), pressure suppliers to sign Production Supply Agreements that allocate a minimum dedicated capacity for them without guaranteeing they’ll actually buy anything
that puts suppliers in a brutal spot. hard to justify a new machine, building, or sometimes even headcount when the demand can disappear overnight.
guaranteed POs change that…
when you are turning down new work, but have guarantees in your back pocket, you can finance against the demand, forecast around it, and actually go build more capacity.
this is how domestic manufacturing capacity grows
MORE
daniel scott mitchell retweeted
America is 250. Who's inheriting America's infrastructure?
First screening in the foundry where it was filmed next month
daniel scott mitchell retweeted
young americans protesting datacenters forget we offshored
-uranium enrichment in the 90s and spent 30 years buying fuel from Russia
-same story in rare earths and China controls 90% of magnet production, making it impossible to build robotics without Chinese parts
-same with pharma precursors, all your drugs are from China
if you don’t want compute built here i hope you like renting it from countries that want to win
the "wild" in question: our first (and arguably favorite) customer @aashaykumar92 and his awesome shop TFI!
daniel scott mitchell retweeted
tremendous alpha in deciding something will happen instead of wanting something to hapen
daniel scott mitchell retweeted
Looking for a Senior Machinist to join our team at Miltech Manufacturing in Norton, KS
Must have milling and turning experience.
Must relocate, compensation available.
Idealy this candidate will join our quoting team, order metals / tooling, be a knowledge resource for the shop crew, and be backup for running machines if others are out.
contact us at miltechmanufacturing.com or DM me here
the more i learn about the JB komfit bracelet, the more i want one for my speedmaster
- one of the few steel bracelets sanctioned by NASA astronauts
- adjustable w/o tools to fit over a spacesuit & back down to bare wrist
- flew in both Gemini and Apollo (Aldrin & Armstrong pictured)
- carried a tiny clip-on calendar for quick date reference
like the speedmaster itself... it's less of an art piece and more of a beautiful functional tool
this, exactly nitter.cf/JoshuaSteinman/status/…