Once we had shipped the product, we knew the next phase wasn’t about CAD or tooling. It was about continuity. It was about building a team that could nurture Native and raise it beyond launch.
In design, our first hire was Shreyas. He joined as an industrial design intern. He had full-time offers from other companies. But he chose to work with us. Not because we were offering more money or titles. But because he believed in the vision. He wanted to design great products and didn’t care about how polished our pitch was. He had a deep interest in smart hardware. He understood that this was an opportunity to build something from scratch.
The second was Krishna. He was a senior industrial designer with a mechanical engineering background. What stood out was not his resume but his ability to think structurally. He brought a mindset where form and function didn’t need to argue. He could sketch a concept and simultaneously visualise the fixture constraints it would run into.
We didn’t attract people with perks. We didn’t have a fancy office. We weren’t Google. We weren’t Apple. We weren’t even an established hardware company. So why would good people join us?
What we did have was a story. And I told it honestly. Native wasn’t just a product. It was a system-level rethink of something ignored.
I told every candidate the same thing: "Imagine if you were among the first 50 people at Apple. Native could be that kind of company for India. You could be in that first 50."
It worked. Because it was true.
If you’re early at a hardware company, your fingerprints are on everything: the button feel, the hinge geometry, the mould angles, the serviceability of parts. That’s an opportunity very few companies offer.
Looking back, this is one of my biggest learnings. We had ID. We had product thinking. We had execution drive. But we lacked the mechanical engineering depth that would’ve made our life easier in prototyping and manufacturing.
From tolerance stackups to screw boss design, these are decisions that need serious ME expertise. And although we partnered with great vendors and manufacturers, having an internal DE (design engineering) team early would’ve saved us cycles and helped us build tighter products.
It’s a classic early mistake in hardware: underestimate the role of mechanical engineering.
Over time, we started investing in an internal ID/DE team. We didn’t want to be dependent on agencies. We didn’t want to pitch a concept and wait 3 weeks for CAD changes. Hardware needs to be hands-on. We wanted the designer who sketches to be in the same room as the person who is doing R&D of components as well as with the person who is looking at service or machine issues every day.
Hiring was slow. Most portfolios were either generic or overly polished. What we looked for was people who had built actual things. Not just renders. But exploded views. Plastic parting lines. Tolerance stacks. BOM breakdowns. Every hire was a bet. But we were clear what kind of bets we were making. People who cared more about how it works than how it looks.
My leap into hardware
Before Native, I had spent over a decade building digital products. Apps. Interfaces. Flows. I knew how to reduce friction in UI. I knew how to run user research. I had written a hundred PRDs.
But hardware was alien. Nothing prepares you for hardware like doing it. What’s a core? What’s a cavity? What angle ensures two mould halves separate cleanly? What’s a hinge that flexes without breaking? How well does ABS withstand sunlight? How much does a PC+ABS part shrink after moulding? Tolerances, parting lines, shrinkage, snap-fit design, draft angles, mould flow. I didn’t know.
The first time I saw a mould flow simulation, I had no idea what I was looking at. But I kept learning.
But I wasn’t afraid. I started learning like a college student. YouTube, books, teardown videos, Skillshare, Udemy. I sketched like mad. Took photos of appliances in homes. Stared at fan remotes and mixer knobs and tried to guess the mold direction.
I learned how tolerances affect assembly. I learned why ejector pin marks appear. I learned what happens when your snap-fit holds too tight or your ribs are misaligned.
I watched videos of Dyson and Braun. I studied exploded views of old Sony Walkmans. I read 10+ books and still reading. I listened to teardown reviews. And I began to see.
Hardware is slow. It’s stubborn. But it’s real.
Being an engineer helped. I wasn’t scared of circuits or mechanical constraints. But what helped more was probably the past experience from digital design:
Observation: The way users interact with interfaces, they also interact with buttons, bottles, and trays.
First-principles thinking: If something feels wrong, you can trace it down. You can ask: What’s the real job this part is doing?
That helped me ask better questions in reviews, and drive the team towards clarity.
The real moment it clicked was when I mentally separated the hardware pipeline into three roles. Industrial design is how the product looks and feels. Mechanical engineering is how the product works and fits together. Manufacturing is how the product actually gets made at scale.
Once I saw these as distinct but collaborative functions, I could work better with experts in each. I didn’t have to do everything. I just had to know what mattered.
When the product finally launched, my parents saw it in the app, then in person. They smiled and said something funny: "Oh, so you make ROs!!? This looks futuristic!"
For over a decade, they couldn’t quite explain what I did. Now they could point to a physical thing and say, “Our son helped make that.” Sometimes, validation doesn’t come from LinkedIn posts. It comes from your mother filling a bottle from the machine you built.
When Native M1 and M2 launched, we had a machine we were proud of. But one machine does not make a company. And one launch does not make a roadmap. What we had was a well-designed, well-engineered product. What we needed was people to could carry it forward, grow the idea, spot the next 50 problems, and build the next five machines.
If you’re someone who wants to build real things that last, things that matter, you’ll find your place here.
And if we do this right, years from now, someone will look at the Native M1/M2 and say: That’s where it all began.