Listen Here

| |

Conversation
Highlights

 

Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from tech’s most innovative B2B founders. In today’s episode, we’re speaking with Michael Corr, founder and CEO of Duro Labs, a product lifecycle management company that has raised $4 million in funding.

  • Michael’s Multifaceted Background: Starting as an electrical engineer, Michael has over 20 years of experience designing and manufacturing products ranging from telecom equipment to IoT devices, showcasing a rich history in manufacturing.
  • Shifting Innovation Focus to Hardware: Michael discusses the stagnation in hardware innovation over the past 20 years and his envy of the software industry’s agile renaissance, expressing excitement over the impending hardware innovation renaissance.
  • Cultural and Technological Shifts in Hardware: He highlights the cultural shift where software-centric companies are now developing formidable hardware products, blending software and hardware innovation.
  • The Cost of Failure in Hardware vs. Software: Michael points out the traditionally high cost and time associated with failure in hardware, and how the industry is moving towards more agile feedback loops, lowering the cost of failure and fostering innovation.
  • Duro’s Approach to Product Lifecycle Management: Duro is reimagining PLM by focusing on hardware data management, aiming to streamline the data entry process and reduce inefficiencies by leveraging automation.
  • Market Recognition and Adoption: Despite initial doubts about the viability of Duro due to early market conditions, the company has gained significant recognition and adoption among hardware startups and established companies.
  • Balancing Innovation with Legacy Support: One of the go-to-market challenges Duro faces is supporting both legacy customers and a growing market that demands agile, cloud-hosted solutions.
  • Vision for the Future: Michael envisions a future where setting up a hardware team’s toolchain is as easy and fast as setting up a software developer’s environment, marking Duro’s impact on the industry.

Actionable
Takeaways

Embrace Cross-Disciplinary Expertise:

Michael's transition from physics to computer science and finally to electrical engineering showcases the value of cross-disciplinary expertise in innovation. For tech founders, embracing diverse educational backgrounds and experiences can fuel creativity and enable the development of groundbreaking solutions.

Identify and Address Industry Stagnation:

Just as Michael observed stagnation in the hardware industry and sought to introduce software's agile principles, founders should look for sectors exhibiting a lack of innovation. Identifying such gaps can reveal opportunities for disruptive startups.

Leverage Cultural Shifts in Technology:

The convergence of hardware and software, as seen in the IoT space, represents a significant cultural shift. Founders should stay attuned to these shifts, adapting their products and services to meet evolving market demands.

Focus on Data Management and Automation:

Dura Labs' success highlights the importance of efficient data management and automation in product development. Startups in the hardware space should prioritize tools and processes that streamline data handling to accelerate innovation and reduce time to market.

Balance Legacy Needs with Modern Innovation:

Successfully navigating the transition from traditional to modern methodologies is crucial. While innovating, consider the existing ecosystem and the needs of legacy users, gradually introducing them to new, more efficient workflows.

Build Trust and Expertise Within Your Market:

Dura Labs' growth was fueled by the team's deep industry knowledge and their commitment to solving real problems faced by hardware developers. Founders should strive to be seen as trusted experts in their field, offering solutions that are both innovative and deeply informed by industry-specific challenges.

Recommended Founder
Interviews

Alan Shreve

CEO and Founder of Ngrok

Alan Shreve, CEO and Founder of Ngrok: $50 Million Raised to Help Devs Deploy SItes, Services, and Apps

David Siegel

David Siegel of Glide

David Siegel, CEO of Glide: Over $20 Million Raised to Power the Future of No-Code Application Development

Tom Hacohen

CEO and Founder of Svix

Tom Hacohen, CEO and Founder of Svix: $10.5 Million Raised to Power the Future of Webhooks

Egil Østhus

CEO and Co-founder of Unleash

Egil Østhus, CEO of Unleash: $16.5 Million Raised to Build the Future of Feature Management

Gary Hoberman

CEO & Founder of Unqork

Gary Hoberman, CEO & Founder of Unqork: Over $400 Million Raised to Pioneer the Codeless as a Service (CaaS) Category

Marcin Wyszynski

Co-Founder and CPO of Spacelift

Marcin Wyszynski, Co-Founder and CPO of Spacelift: Over $22 Million Raised to Build the Future of IaC Management

Paolo Fragomeni

CEO of Socket Supply

Paolo Fragomeni, CEO of Socket Supply: $3.5 Million Raised to Build the Future of P2P Computing

Mike Malone

CEO and Founder of Smallstep

Mike Malone, CEO and Founder of Smallstep: $26 Million Raised to Build the Future of Certificate Lifecycle Management For DevOps

Dylan Etkin

CEO and Co-Founder of Sleuth

Dylan Etkin, CEO and Co-Founder of Sleuth: $25 Million Raised to Make Engineering Teams More Efficient

Casey Rosenthal

CEO of Verica

Casey Rosenthal, CEO of Verica: $17 Million Raised to Build the Future of Chaos Engineering

Stoyan Zulyamsky

Co-Founder of Costimize

Stoyan Zulyamsky, Co-Founder of Costimize: $5 Million Raised to Revolutionize Cloud Finance Management

Andrew Wolfe

Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Bloomfilter

Andrew Wolfe, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Bloomfilter: $7 Million Raised to Power the Future of Process Mining

Ron Efroni

CEO and Co-Founder of Flox

Ron Efroni, CEO & Co-Founder of Flox: $28 Million Raised to Empower Developers with Reproducible Environments That Span the Enterprise SDLC

Honey Mittal

Co-Founder, CPO & CEO of Locofy.ai

Honey Mittal, CEO of Locofy.ai: $3 Million Raised to Build the Future of Frontend Development

Lasse Andresen

CEO and Founder of IndyKite

Lasse Andresen, CEO and Founder of IndyKite: $10 Million Raised to Empower Teams to Move Beyond Legacy Identity and Access Management

Liam Randall

CEO and Founder of Cosmonic

Liam Randall, CEO and Founder of Cosmonic: $8.5 Million Raised to Power the Future of WebAssembly

John Li

CEO and Co-Founder of Vimcal

John Li, CEO & Co-Founder of Vimcal: $7 Million Raised to Build the Future of Calendar Productivity

Omri Gazitt

CEO & Co-Founder of Aserto

Omri Gazitt, CEO & Co-Founder at Aserto: $5 Million Raised to Build the Future of Authorization

James Hawkins

CEO of PostHog

James Hawkins, CEO of PostHog: $21 Million Raised to Build the Future of Product Analytics

Romaric Philogene

CEO of Qovery

Romaric Philogene, CEO of Qovery: $4 Million Raised to Help You Deploy Your Apps on AWS in Seconds

Sophie Novati

CEO and Founder of Formation

Sophie Novati, CEO and Founder of Formation: $9 Million Raised to Build a Virtual Fellowship Program for Software Engineers

Evan Kaplan

CEO of InfluxData

Evan Kaplan, CEO of InfluxData: Over $170 Million Raised to Build the Leading Time Series Provider

Gil Feig

CTO of Merge

Gil Feig, CTO of Merge: $75 Million Raised to Help B2B Companies Build Customer-Facing Integrations via It’s Unified API Platform

Chetan Venkatesh

CEO of Macrometa

Chetan Venkatesh, CEO of Macrometa: $38 Million raised to Build the Hyper Distributed Cloud for the Next Generation of Applications

Anish Dhar

Co-Founders of Cortex

Anish Dhar and Ganesh Datta, Co-Founders of Cortex: Over $52 Million Raised to Improve Developer Productivity

Matt Butcher

CEO of Fermyon

Matt Butcher, CEO of Fermyon: $26 Million Raised to Power the Future of WebAssembly

Zach Lloyd

CEO and Founder of Warp

Zach Lloyd, CEO and Founder of Warp: $70 Million Raised to Build a Better Terminal

Ori Keren

CEO and Co-Founder of LinearB

Ori Keren, CEO and Co-Founder of LinearB: Over $70 Million Raised to Build the Future of Software Delivery Management

Ben Kliger

CEO and Co-Founder of Zenity

Ben Kliger, CEO and Co-Founder of Zenity: $21.5 Million Raised to Build the Future of Security and Governance for AI, Low-Code, and No-Code Development

Jacob Moshenko

CEO & Co-Founder of Authzed

Jacob Moshenko, CEO & Co-Founder of Authzed: $15.9 Million Raised to Build the Future of Authorization Infrastructure

Ayal Yogev

CEO and Co-Founder of Anjuna

Ayal Yogev, CEO and Co-Founder of Anjuna: $42 Million to Build The Future of Confidential Computing

DeVaris Brown

CEO and Co-Founder of Meroxa

DeVaris Brown, CEO and Co-Founder of Meroxa: Over $19 Million Raised to Empower Engineering Teams with Better Stream Processing

James Evans

Co-Founder and CEO of CommandBar

James Evans, Co-Founder and CEO of CommandBar: $24 Million Raised to Build the Leading AI-Powered User Assistance Platform

Holly Tate

CMO of Leadr

Holly Tate, CMO of Leadr: Building the Future of People Development Platforms

Johnny Dallas

CEO and Co-Founder of Zeet.co

Johnny Dallas, CEO & Co-Founder of Zeet.co: $6M Raised to Power the Future of CI/CD & Deployment

Kevin McNamara

CEO & Founder of Parallel Domain

Kevin McNamara, CEO & Founder of Parallel Domain: $44 Million Raised to Power the Future of Autonomy

Harpreet Singh

Co-Founder and CEO of Launchable

Harpreet Singh, Co-Founder and CEO of Launchable: Over $12 Million Raised to Build the Future of Software Testing

Costa Tsaousis

CEO and Founder of Netdata

Costa Tsaousis, CEO and Founder of Netdata: Over $30 Million Raised to Power the Future of Infrastructure Monitoring

Matthew O’Riordan

CEO of Ably Realtime

Matthew O’Riordan, CEO of Ably Realtime: Over $82 Million Raised to Build the Future of Realtime Experience Infrastructure

Tomas Reimers

Co-Founder of Graphite

Tomas Reimers, Co-Founder of Graphite: $22.5 Million Raised to Build the Future of Code Reviews

Mike Long

CEO and Founder of Kosli

Mike Long, CEO and Founder of Kosli: $3.5 Million Raised to Deliver Secure Software Changes at Scale and Deploy to Production with Speed

Tommy Dang

Co-Founder & CEO of Mage

Tommy Dang, CEO of Mage: $6.3 Million Raised to Build a Modern Replacement For Airflow

Suresh Mathew

Founder and CEO of Sedai

Suresh Mathew, Founder and CEO of Sedai: $18 Million Raised to Automate Cloud Management for Critical Decisions

Paul Kim

CEO of Notifi

Paul Kim, CEO of Notifi: $12 Million raised to Build the Future of Web3 Communication Infrastructure

Paul Stovell

CEO and Founder of Octopus Deploy

Paul Stovell, CEO and Founder of Octopus Deploy: Over $170 Million Raised to Build the Future of Deployment Automation

Pascal Weinberger

CEO of Bardeen

Pascal Weinberger, CEO of Bardeen: $18 Million Raised to Build the Future of No-Code Automation

Lukas Gentele

Co-Founder & CEO of Loft Labs

Lukas Gentele, CEO of Loft Labs: $5 Million Raised to Build the Virtual Kubernetes Category

Yadhu Gopalan

CEO and Founder of Esper

Yadhu Gopalan, CEO and Founder of Esper: $100 Million Raised to Build the Future of Android Device Management

Tom Tovar

CEO and Co-Founder of AppDome

Tom Tovar, CEO and Co-Founder of AppDome: Over $26 Million Raised to Build the Future of Mobile App Security

Derric Gilling

Co-founder & CEO of Moesif

Derric Gilling, CEO of Moesif: $15 Million Raised to Build the Future of API Analytics

Martin Mao

CEO of Chronosphere

Martin Mao, CEO of Chronosphere: $250 Million Raised to Build the Future of Observability

Yingjun Wu

CEO and Co-Founder of RisingWave

Yingjun Wu, CEO and Co-Founder of RisingWave Labs: $40 Million Raised to Make Stream Processing Simple, Affordable, and Accessible

Saman Farid

CEO & Founder of Formic

Saman Farid, CEO & Founder of Formic: $60 Million Raised to Build the Future of Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS)

Tim Kraska

Co-Founder of Einblick

Tim Kraska, Co-Founder of Einblick: $6M Raised to Build the Visual Data Computing Category

Benjamin Wilms

CEO and Co-Founder of Steadybit

Benjamin Wilms, CEO and Co-Founder of Steadybit: $7.8 Million Raised to Build the Future of Chaos Engineering

Eden Full Goh

Founder & CEO of Mobot

Eden Full Goh, Founder & CEO of Mobot: Over $17 Million Raised to Power the Future of Mobile App Testing

Ramiro Berrelleza

Founder and CEO of Okteto

Ramiro Berrelleza, CEO of Okteto: $18 Million Raised to Build the Future of Cloud Development

Robert Whiteley

CEO of Coder

Robert Whiteley, CEO of Coder: $85 Million Raised to Power the Future of Developer Productivity

Yana Welinder

CEO and Founder of Kraftful

Yana Welinder, CEO and Founder of Kraftful: Over $3 Million Raised to Help Product Builders Create Better Products and Communities

Joshua Aaron

CEO of Aiden

Joshua Aaron, CEO Aiden, $3 Million Raised to Build the Future of Software Packaging and Deployment

Hersh Tapadia

Co-Founder & CEO of Allstacks

Hersh Tapadia, CEO of Allstacks: $16 Million Raised to Build the Value Stream Intelligence Category

Ravi Parikh

CEO and Co-Founder of Airplane

Ravi Parikh, CEO and Co-Founder of Airplane: Over $40 Million Raised to Build Better Developer Infrastructure For Internal Tooling

Prakash Chandran

Co-Founder and CEO of Xano

Prakash Chandran, Co-Founder and CEO of Xano: $5.4 Million Raised to Build the Next Generation of No-Code Backend Development