Knectiv

Tariffs — perhaps predictably — were paused on April 9 on all countries except China. Still, experts told the Austin Business Journal that companies should continue to evaluate their overall global strategies as the world undergoes a fundamental shift in trade. Nick Frank Knectiv Roman Belotserkovskiy McKinsey & Company Chris Siepmann Weller James

🔁 The hardest part about the new tariff policy isn’t just the proposed changes, it's the uncertainty. We’ve spent the past few days fielding call after call from hardware founders, ops leads, and supply chain managers asking: 👉 “What do we do now?” Here’s the reality: 🛠️ Moving production from one country to another is not like flipping a switch. ⏳ It takes 6–12 months to rebuild tooling, re-qualify parts, transfer knowledge, and pass audits. 💸 It often costs tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to shift a line—especially for complex products. ❓ And companies are being asked to make those decisions with no clarity on whether tariffs will even go into effect or last more than a few weeks or months. We’ve seen: → 🤯 Founders stuck between honoring Kickstarter and Indiegogo presales and potentially absorbing huge unexpected costs → 🚧 Companies who just moved out of China now being penalized in Vietnam → 🧩 U.S.-based brands realizing that even their “domestic” builds rely on tariffed components → 💥 Ops leads blindsided by overlapping tariffs on both raw materials and machinery → 📉 Startups who built their margins around old rates now scrambling to avoid financial collapse → 🧾 Manufacturers delaying shipments while they try to calculate what tariffs even apply → 🏗️ Teams with no realistic path to reshore due to labor shortages and lack of tooling support → 🧭 Founders holding off on strategic decisions—not because of lack of vision, but lack of visibility This puts small and early-stage companies in an impossible bind. Unlike big corporations, they can’t afford to guess wrong. And unfortunately, that’s exactly what the current environment is forcing them to do. 💬 We’re telling our network: don’t panic. Let the dust settle. Tariffs can rise, fall, or disappear with a signature. Rash moves today could become costly mistakes tomorrow. We’re here to help however we can—whether that’s gut-checking your strategy, talking through your options, or just making sense of the chaos. If you’re navigating this uncertainty, we’d love to hear how you’re approaching it. 👇

🚀 Hard-Tech is Hard ... yup. And we want to ensure you no longer need to face the major risks of engineering, executing and scaling alone! Over the past few decades, we as a team and collective network have helped create and deploy thousands of hard-tech products to the market. And in doing so, we have survived (debatable) the struggles, woes and complexities of building technology for the real world....so we decided to synthesize our wisdom and the strategic relationships that we've cultivated into a single hard-tech execution and scalar platform --- Conduit Beacon. 📚 A veteran team, leveraging tested playbooks and processes to asses, plan and help execute on delivering hardware to market 🙋🏽 A integrated network of over 180+ Hard-Tech advisors, founders, operators, designers, product development, engineering, suppliers and manufacturers. What started as a strategic initiative inside our studio aimed to support our in house portfolio companies pre and post spin-out... is now available to those early-stage startups that align with our Conduit "vibe and thesis". 👉🏽 Please reach out Susan Paley or Amish P. if interested. 👇🏽 Application form in article Adelene Tan David H. Tan Bilal Zuberi Lior Susan Allan Stephan Anders Brown Raja Subramoni Pankaj Kedia

Walking the halls of #CES2025, I was struck by the sheer force of human ingenuity. Lynn Conway's words echoed in my mind: 'If you want to change the future, start living as if you're already there.' The future isn't some distant destination; we build it with each step we take. At Knectiv, we're committed to empowering those who dare to dream big. We partner with brilliant minds, providing the expertise and support to transform their groundbreaking ideas into reality. The innovations on display at #CES – from incremental improvements to exponential leaps – are a testament to the collective capacity to shape what comes next. To play even a small part in this journey, alongside so many talented founders and creators, is a profound privilege.

Thanks to everyone who came out last night for the 4th Austin Hardware Meetup! We had a fantastic time connecting with all of you, and we're so grateful for the amazing community we have here in Austin. Special thanks to Alex Levine from Xebec for letting us use his incredible offices for the event. If you haven't already, definitely check out Xebec's amazing products—they're helping redefine productivity on the go! Also, a big thanks to Alok Mohindra, Nate Padgett and Kristin Frank for their help in organizing and making everything run smoothly. Your support is invaluable! Finally, thanks to Knectiv for sponsoring the event and supporting our growing hardware community. If you have any asks or offers for the community, or if you'd like to be connected to anyone from the event, feel free to reach out. We're here to help facilitate those connections! We can't wait to do it all again soon—stay tuned for details on the next meetup! #AustinHardwareMeetup #AustinStartups #HardwareCommunity #Networking #ThankYou

My time starting and running a business in 🇨🇭 Switzerland gave me unique insights into international markets and manufacturing. A 🇨🇳 Chinese contract manufacturer backed us in establishing their presence in the mecca of precision engineering and manufacturing, where we oversaw manufacturing for some of the leading Swiss industrial electronics companies. This partnership offered turnkey solutions, which was a huge advantage, but it wasn’t always the perfect fit for every project. 🧩 We sometimes found ourselves trying to fit a square peg into a round hole— our factory wasn’t designed for everyone's specific needs. That’s when we realized that having a single factory, even your own, isn’t always a plus. Flexibility is key. 🌎 Since then, Knectiv has expanded its partner network to over 150 factories worldwide, allowing us to handpick the best one for each job. This approach ensures that every project gets the specialized attention it deserves, without the limitations of a single facility. 🔌 Flexibility in choosing the best partners means delivering the highest quality solutions, tailored to each customer's unique needs. Have you faced similar challenges when working with a single factory setup? I’m curious to know how others have approached this issue. #Manufacturing #GlobalBusiness #Hardtech #ProductDevelopment #TurnkeySolutions