Ep. 14: How to build and manage a great team w/ Eli Hughes of Tzero Labs

On this episode, we chat with CircuitHub customer, Eli Hughes. He tells about how his work at the Penn State Applied Research Lab and background in acoustics led to the founding of Tzero Labs.

We also have a great conversation with him about the importance of building strong relationships with both your teammates and suppliers. The trust that comes out of it will ultimately help everyone work through the mistakes that inevitably pop up during the manufacturing process.

Show notes:

-Chris discusses a unique, recent situation where Worthington was having difficulty placing a part even though the customer did everything correctly in designing their footprint.
-We're talking to Eli Hughes, co-founder of Tzero Labs, which makes a real time fermentation monitoring system.
-Eli talks about his perspective, as an engineer, of what happens when things in manufacturing go wrong and how he's tries to prevent those errors.
-Eli: "While technical skills are important, understanding how to interact with other humans to build truly great organizations is the #1 key to success. Communication, curiosity and culture are of upmost importance in today's organizations. Get those three things right and groups of ordinary people can do extraordinary things."
-When you build a relationship with people, the fact that you made a mistake isn't what you're worried about.
-Founders of Tzero Labs came out of the Pennsylvania State Applied Research Laboratory (ARL) which is a U.S. Navy University Affiliated Research Center.
-Eli discusses the story behind Tzero Labs was formed and what exactly their product does.
-We touch on the importance of building trust in your business relationships.

We had such a great time chatting with Eli that we ended up with nearly 3 hours of recording. The second half of our conversation will be coming out in the new year.

Thank you to each and every one of you who tune into our show. It truly puts a smile on our face when we hear you tell us you've been enjoying it. We have a ton of content to talk about in 2021 and we can't wait!

We hope everyone has a wonderful and safe holiday season!
-Melissa and Chris