About this episode

Daniel catches up with Ryan Nelson to discuss the challenges and opportunities in building a hardware startup that aims to disrupt the beverage industry.

Daniel is catching up with Ryan Nelson, founder of Refilled - the Australian hardware startup disrupting the global beverage industry with smart drink dispensers that eliminate single-use plastic waste. Ryan shares the brutal reality of building a hardware company from scratch: bootstrapping a prototype with duct tape and zip ties, landing Google before the product even existed, and scaling into companies like Netflix, Uber, Atlassian, and JP Morgan. Daniel and Ryan break down enterprise sales, raising capital, startup culture, and why hardware might be the next great opportunity founders are overlooking.

People in this episode

Host: Daniel Hakim

Guest: Ryan Nelson

Topics covered

• hardware startups
• enterprise sales
• capital raising
• startup culture
• sustainability
• innovation

Keywords

• hardware company
• smart drink dispensers
• single-use plastic waste
• bootstrapping
• scaling
• founders
• opportunity

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Refilled, Google, Netflix, Uber, Atlassian, JP Morgan

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