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You are here: Home / Guest Appearance / #437 – An Interview with Chrissy Meyer

#437 – An Interview with Chrissy Meyer

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Welcome Chrissy Meyer, partner at Root Ventures!

  • We previously had talked to Avidan Ross, the founder and partner at Root Ventures. 
    • 0h 0m 30s
  • They try to target talented founders and not the company
    • 0h 3m 21s
  • Rose Hulman
    • 0h 8m 10s
  • Lincoln Labs
    • 0h 8m 49s
  • Went back to school at Stanford for an EE MS/PhD
    • 0h 10m 42s
  • She started at Apple and the iPhone launched the first week on internship
    • 0h 11m 27s
  • Started as a PM
    • 0h 12m 55s
  • Anti-GANTT charts
    • 0h 13m 29s
  • Baijiu
    • 0h 15m 10s
  • Chrissy helped ship 3 generations of iPod touch, one nano and the beginning of the Apple Watch.
    • 0h 16m 38s
  • Apple makes scaling look easy
    • 0h 17m 5s
  • They have developed the formula over decades
    • 0h 17m 28s
  • Walking into Foxconn
    • 0h 18m 37s
  • Dealing with the different layers of manufacturing
    • 0h 21m 5s
  • Final assembly and PCBA is normally the same location
    • 0h 21m 20s
  • Vertical integration is more competitive at scale
    • 0h 22m 22s
  • DJI is a good example
    • 0h 22m 30s
  • Early stage startups have access to higher levels of integration…but it doesn’t always make sense
    • 0h 23m 37s
  • “Think really long and hard about who you’re choosing, make sure [the manufacturer is] a good fit for your size and complexity”
    • 0h 24m 41s
  • 1 in a million problems are actual problems for high volume production.
    • 0h 26m 17s
  • Tiger team
    • 0h 26m 45s
  • The problem is getting a line moving
    • 0h 28m 8s
  • Glue machines
    • 0h 28m 56s
  • HDDG talk
    • 0h 30m 1s
  • DfM
    • 0h 33m 25s
  • Mechanical parts seem to have less consistency
    • 0h 37m 38s
  • Electrical is a bit more cut and dried
    • 0h 38m 43s
  • Big companies are talking to suppliers from day one
    • 0h 41m 43s
  • With companies like Apple, these discussions are shrouded in secrecy
    • 0h 42m 33s
  • “You have to be high touch if you want to be fast”
    • 0h 43m 47s
  • Joined Square with 300 people
    • 0h 46m 9s
  • Cost was everything
    • 0h 46m 46s
  • Developing hardware for businesses was different
    • 0h 47m 15s
  • Sales cycles can take a while
    • 0h 48m 24s
  • It requires the perfect spacing between iterations
    • 0h 49m 24s
  • Was a founding member of the startup Pearl Automation
    • 0h 50m 41s
  • They made wifi based backup camera for users
    • 0h 51m 42s
  • So much of startup success is timing
    • 0h 52m 28s
  • Learned about how to be a startup, which was useful for her time now at Root.vc
    • 0h 54m 30s
  • Different for VCs that write lots of checks
    • 0h 56m 41s
  • Root invests in 6-8 companies per year
    • 0h 57m 25s
  • Instrumental.ai
    • 0h 59m 18s
  • They do final inspection that can automatically flag anomalies 
    • 1h 1m 0s
  • What are you Interested in the hardware space now?
    • 1h 3m 24s
  • Chrissy is interested in tools for manufacturing, like supplier discovery
    • 1h 4m 7s
  • We’re far away from the promised “dark factories” in the world of automation
    • 1h 4m 53s
  • Reach out about opportunities, either on LinkedIn or via their site.
    • 1h 6m 30s
  • The next step is to come in to brainstorm!
    • 1h 7m 47s

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