219: Hiring Your First Team Members at a Hardware Startup

Kevin Lavelle, the Co-Founder and CEO of Mizzen + Main, a renowned men's apparel company that has its products distributed in hundreds of outlets and boasts 10 thriving retail stores, has embarked on a new venture: Harbor. Harbor is a pioneering pediatric device startup that recently secured $3.7 million in seed funding. Today, Kevin shares the insight he gained while successfully scaling his product business by imparting modern inventors, startups, and small-scale manufacturers with tips for hiring your very first team members and expounding upon the quintessential attributes to seek in inaugural hires in the hardware startup realm. He delves into discerning characteristics that hold significance, dispelling common misconceptions, and underscores the paramount importance of never sacrificing quality within the consumer product domain.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://www.makodesign.com/podcast/219-hiring-your-first-team-members-at-a-hardware-startup/

Key Takeaways in This Episode:

• What foremost principles are the most important to prioritize when hiring?

• Can your potential hire survive in a fast-paced entrepreneurial environment?

• People from large organizations are not typically great fits for very early-stage hardware startup businesses.

• Can this hire operate without a team and spearhead decision-making on their own?

• Get to know a potential hire beyond just one interview.

• Does your potential hire fundamentally understand what they are getting into in joining a hardware startup?

• Knowledge gained on the job is an intangible benefit of working for a startup that can also outweigh the compensation.

• Never sacrifice your quality when developing a hardware product!

• Avoid feature creep in early-stage startups!

MAKO Design + Invent: www.makodesign.com

Kevin Mako: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevmako

Producer: MAKO Design + Invent is the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Simply put, we are the leading one-stop shop for developing your physical product from idea to store shelves, all in a high-quality, cost-effective, and timely manner. We operate as one powerhouse 30-person product design team spread across 4 offices to serve you (Austin, Miami, San Francisco, & Toronto). We have full-stack in-house industrial design, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, patent referral, prototyping, and manufacturing services. We also help our clients with business and product strategy, marketing, and sales/distribution for all consumer product categories.