BDH is Seven Years Old
Time for my yearly year in review, and quite a year it’s been.
On a personal level, I had a skydiving crash last December and broke about everything you could break and still live. I was lucky beyond belief to not have any brain damage or be paralyzed. An incredible team of surgeons and doctors put me back together, but it was three months before I could even stand up again. In parallel with an ongoing physical recovery, managing the financial aspects of the accident, and just putting my life back together in general, I was running this business to the best of my ability. It’s incredible how draining being in constant pain is.. fighting for energy, fighting for creativity, and fighting just to get my brain & body out of atrophy became a months-long journey. Here we are almost a year later; finally I’m confident again with my knowledge of industry technology (it moves fast!), my ability to close deals, and most importantly, our ability as a company to continue to deliver stellar results.
The business didn’t die, but it is in a sense, rising from the ashes. When you stand still, the world moves on quiclkly. This year is in many ways, similar to our founding year. My mission is clear: to make it known that we’re here, and if your project is the right fit, we will deliver a service / product / cost value that is as good as you can get.
Lastly, I’ve received so much love and support from our clients and industry partners. To you guys & gals, thank you. You make it a pleasure to be here doing this.
We're six!
Yearly update time! Another year of evolving and adapting. Covid has been eye-opening; now more than ever, I’m beyond thankful for our customers who continue to trust us to bring their ideas to market.
Speaking of such, one of the more recent challenges with transitioning products to volume production has been ensuring an uninturrepted tiered chain of suppliers. Our go-to contract manufacturers have been fantastic with material sourcing, even as supply chains crumble in most industries.
Overall, its been business as usual. I’m excited to continue working with our longstanding clients, as well as form new relationships with businesses doing cool things in the hardware space!
Looking forward to another productive & educative year!
- Sam
We're five!
This was a crazy year. We’re powering through and we’re forever grateful for our clients that are supporting us throughout this time. Seeing so many small business close during this economic blip is eye opening, and I certainly don’t take for granted that we will sustain through this. I had to put some internal projects on hold, but looking forward to gaining growth momentum again soon.
Aside from that, since my last report, we’ve done some cool projects! Some with long-term clients, some with new clients. We’re always learning and have no complaints!
FOUR!
We’re approaching four years old! Every year, I write one of these posts to give a summary of everything BDH (formatted as a collection of random thoughts). This is the first year I’m writing it a bit early; I’m inspired because this is the most exciting update for me yet.
The last year has really been fantastic.
The most valuable lesson of the year for me has been creating time (relative to Sam of the past). I haven’t been close to as busy as I’ve been in years prior, yet our output has exceeded all previous metrics.
I took some time this summer for leisure travel. After nine countries in a few months, my biggest takeaway is that I’m so thankful to be based in Los Angeles. There’s lots of polarizing societal noise surrounding this place, but for me, it’s difficult to deny that LA cultivates creativity like no other. The weather, variety, & quality of life are more than just a bonus.
I should touch on business health & happiness. We’ve had a huge variety of client projects this year, most of which have been really fun! All sorts of niches, materials, client product goals, & people. My sincerest thank you to all of you who chose to engage with us. We’ve bought a bunch of fun new tools this year as well, 3D printers, camera’s etc. Yay, new toys are fun & we’re continuing to be on the forefront of utilizing new technology, both in hardware and software. Speaking of which, much love to my suppliers, vendors, partners, mentors, & friends who make this business fun.
BDH is at a point where I am able to make a run at a goal I’ve had since high school. More to come, but I’ll leave you with this:
What To Know About Launching New Products
Enjoyed sharing some of our thoughts on launching hardware products with IndustryStar. Check out the article here, there’s some great info! Also, we’re happy to be featured on Bold Patents 21 Best Resources for Entrepreneurs in Los Angeles.
We're 3!
Well I’m very happy! BDH is 3 years old.
We’re not yet in major media, known in pop-culture, or IPOing. Though still a far cry from what we’ll be doing in the future, I think there’s something to be said for growing for 3 years as a 100% bootstrapped business doing innovative things with happy clients.
Some personal reflections & realizations from the last year:
Besides seeing clients get to market with products we’ve helped them design, learning is by far one of the most rewarding parts of this endeavor.
This coincides with the prior point, but the physiology & sociology of engineering / business / life is fascinating. The technical stuff is really cool, but everything we do is human-centric.
Tough times in entrepreneurship can be really tough. The number of zeros after the dollar sign changes, the risk generally doesn’t. Shits crazy let me tell you.
Life sure is cool! There’s a lot of people doing things that make our time here a great window in history. It’s really inspiring & I’m working hard to be one of them.
In the interest of not taking up too much of your time, I’m keeping this short.
As always, & most importantly, a huge huge thank you to our clients, vendors, industry partners, & friends that have done so much to support BDH. I mean this from the bottom of my heart, it really means a lot.
Looking forward to checking back in when we’re 4!
Touring Welch Allyn
It was great to chat with Welch Allyn about the progression of medical technology & current design challenges within their professional & consumer product lines. Looking forward to the opportunity to collaborate in the future!
Additionally, they have some really cool volume manufacturing efficiencies in their line layouts.
Thank you Raz for the tour!
Idea to Product in Five Hours
Had time for a little personal project here. Love the Leica, never loved its lens hood so designed & printed a few in an evening.
CAD & Render.
SLA 3D printed and painted matte black.
Also, we’ve been recognized as a top product design company on DesignRush!
Advanced Design & Manufacturing / MD&M Expo 2018
Had a great time for our 3rd consecutive year attending the UBM Manufacturing Expo 2018 in Anaheim. This is one of the biggest shows of the year for us and it's so fun to see our local and global vendors & friends all in one place.
Great seeing these guys from the small town I'm from in NY - I interned here in college!
Our friends at Racer had a great booth as always!
Great to see some of the latest injection molding tech.
Waterjet companies usually take the cake for coolest product demos.