#016 - Developing with a hardware engineering company, with Karoly Molnar of ProDSP Technologies, Hungary

The Hardware Entrepreneur

My guest is Karoly Molnar, co-founder and CEO of ProDSP Technologies, Hungary.

ProDSP Technologies, a hardware engineering company, which works with many hardware startups as advisors, contract developers, as well as giving manufacturing services.

Running the company as CEO in Budapest, Hungary, Karoly Molnar, is an electronic engineer in his heart and soul. The company supports the whole product life-cycle: specification, embedded hardware and software design, algorithm development, prototyping, product realization and manufacturing.

Karoly and I studied together in Hungary so I have known him for quite some time. In this episode, we will talk about his company’s mission, circumstances that pushed them to found the company, choosing organic growth, details about their sources of revenue, types of prototypes they develop, and many many more.

Raw transcript is available at: https://www.thehardwareentrepreneur.com

Show highlights can be seen below:

• Short definition of the company’s mission – [2:42]
• Circumstances that lead to founding the company – [4:32]
• Comparison of running the company to a certain game – [5:52]
• The not so romantic steps of founding – [7:34]
• Slow but organic growth – [9:09]
• Startup scene in Budapest – [12:14]
• Domination of one source of revenue – [13:52]
• Menu for hardware startups to choose from – [15:46]
• Two types of prototypes explained – [17:02]
• Merging the two prototypes into one – [20:13]
• The importance of working together, and their company’s added value – [22:49]
• Karoly’s sources of inspiration, experts to follow – [23:55]
• What notes he would give to his 20 something self – [25:40]
• The book that impacted his career – [28:28]
• Habits, productivity techniques he uses: email processing, time-management – [29:54]
• Critical cultural difference he has come across and how he creatively solved it – [31:42]