Today, we’re talking about the intersection between the software eng & hardware eng communities with Jessie Frazelle, Co-founder & CEO @ Zoo. She shares her founder story with us, along with what the early days of building a hardware and hardware-adjacent company looked like. Jessie dissects the differences between building in software & hard tech and what those differences mean when it comes to VC fundraising, identifying building models, and more. Additionally, we speculate on what the future of this world looks like, tips for selling a product in a sector you’re unfamiliar with, and how to identify / address unexpected areas of toil for your customers.
Today, we’re talking about the intersection between the software eng & hardware eng communities with Jessie Frazelle, Co-founder & CEO @ Zoo. She shares her founder story with us, along with what the early days of building a hardware and hardware-adjacent company looked like. Jessie dissects the differences between building in software & hard tech and what those differences mean when it comes to VC fundraising, identifying building models, and more. Additionally, we speculate on what the future of this world looks like, tips for selling a product in a sector you’re unfamiliar with, and how to identify / address unexpected areas of toil for your customers.
Jessie Frazelle (@jessfraz) is the Co-Founder and CEO at Zoo, the world's only company to develop advanced tools for hardware design Frazelle acts as lead engineer and architect for the Zoo ecosystem alongside other co-founders Jordan Noone and Jenna Bryant.
With an impressive background including over ten years in the tech industry, Frazelle is also a software engineer and advisor to Embedded Ventures – a next-generation venture capital firm investing in early-stage deep tech startups. With a thesis that takes a commercial-first approach to investing in early-stage startups with applications that can serve the Department of Defense, Embedded has a first-of-its-kind partnership with the United States Space Force.
Previously, Frazelle was co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Oxide Computer Company and has also held roles at Google, Docker, and Microsoft, among others, and has spoken at many conferences including CERN, QCon, and LinuxConf AU.
"Chips today aren't optimized for a single-thread. They are optimized for multi-thread. So every time you upgrade your computer, you're going in the opposite direction. You want a computer from 30 years ago to run this thing. I was like, 'This is so messed up. If no one cleans this up, we will be stuck with the coolest technology in 10 years, but still these shitty old computers have to run CAD and it makes no sense.’”
- Jessie Frazelle
Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host
Jerry Li - Co-Host
Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/
Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/
Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/