From Weekend Projects to Reinventing Hardware Design

Early Days: Can we build a predator drone?

Matt and I met at camp when we were thirteen and quickly became mates. We chatted the whole twelve hour bus ride home, scheming about the enormous drone we were going to build, looking back at it, we were a bit ambitious.

The next decade of weekend weekends Matt and I spent together stand out. They weren't filled with typical childhood pastimes; instead, we immersed ourselves in building and creating. Our projects were modest – from simple drones to CNC machines. I'll never forget our attempt at a liquid-fueled rocket motor. Igniting it was a disaster, but everything else from the servo-controlled throttling to the large blast shield worked quite the treat - not bad, for about a week's worth of evenings after work!

Stepping into the Professional World

Our first proper tech jobs were at Tesla and Lilium. We were eager to translate our weekend tinkering to the real world. At these companies, we learned a lot about manufacturing and bringing products to market. The technology and talent were inspiring, but we noticed the pace of innovation was slower and more traditional than we expected.

Facing Industry Realities

Eventually, we both ended up at Tesla together, during which time we met Tim. We quickly found common ground in our experiences. Even though we were part of some exciting projects, the reality of day-to-day work often meant dealing with a lot of repetition and slow-moving processes. The job started to feel less about innovation and more about navigating through routine procedures. It wasn't the dynamic environment we had dreamed of, it was becoming just a job.

A Shift in Perspective: The Seed of an Idea

Continuing the trend of the CNC machines we built growing up - our personal projects often revolved around making things to make things. It was clear there must be a better way to describe hardware. Mulling this led to pivotal realization: What if we could streamline hardware design using language-based descriptions? In my day job, our team was managing 10+ designs each disconnected from the other, meaning it could take us years to roll out improvements across all of them. The idea of simply making a PR for each to update that particular module sounded too good to be true.

Our Vision: A Humble Hope for Change

We’re not claiming to have all the answers or to revolutionize the industry overnight, but we do have a vision: a future where tools keep engineers in their flow state - whether working on teams small or large, no matter how complex the project. We believe this will make the design process significantly faster and less costly, bringing us closer to the agility and joy of those weekend projects from our youth.

An Invitation to Join Our Journey

This journey is just beginning, and there’s a long road ahead. We’re sharing our story not just to talk about our idea, but to invite collaboration, feedback, and shared learning. Together, we can explore ways to bring a new level of dynamism and creativity to hardware design. We’re excited about the future and we hope you’ll join us in this endeavor.

Narayan