Jim Mayer: Hello and welcome back to the Manufacturing Culture Podcast. I'm your host, Jim Mayer. And if you're new here, this show is simple. I sit down with people in the world of manufacturing and we talk about how they got where they are, why they've stayed, where they've screwed up, what they're proud of. if you've been on this journey before, thanks ⁓ as always coming back. and regardless if this is your first time or you're hundredth, please take some time to rate and review the show on whatever platform you're listening to it on. whether Apple or Spotify or any of the hundreds of smaller podcast platforms, or if you're even watching it on YouTube, thanks for being here watching it on YouTube. just hit pause wherever you are, rate and review the your the show. It's not for our egos. It's not for my ego. It's not for my guest ego. it's So that more people can find us because the algorithms out there are funky and it's beyond what I actually comprehend. every time you rate and review the show, more people find it. so without further ado, we're today talking with Alex Huckstep. Alex is a and chief commercial officer of Uptool, ⁓ an AI quoting built for machine shops and fab shops. Before UpTool, Alex spent over a decade leading commercial strategy at some of the most ambitious manufacturing technology startups in the country, including carbon, digital alloys, aeris composites, and machine labs. He studied mechanical engineering at USC and has spent his entire career at the intersection of new technology and the people who actually make things. Huxtep, welcome to the Manufacturing Culture Podcast. How are you doing today, man?
Alex Huckstepp: Hey slot, Jam. I'm good. How are you?
Jim Mayer: I'm doing wonderful, man. I've got a lot of energy. I drank maybe a little too much coffee for a Friday, but that's okay. we'll get through it.
Alex Huckstepp: I'm halfway through a nice icy one right here.
Jim Mayer: There you go. Cheers, man. Cheers. ⁓ so Alex, ⁓ we talked about the icebreakers that we do.
Alex Huckstepp: Cheers.
Jim Mayer: You were recently a guest on the Manufacturing Connector, talking all about Uptool. At the end of the recording, you said, Hey, I didn't get to answer the movie question. this is your chance to answer the movie question. So Alex, if your life were a movie, what genre would it be? Who plays you what's the opening scene?
Alex Huckstepp: Yeah, I struggled with this one because there's so many good options. I you know, I I landed on the Terminator. And to be honest, I can't remember if it's Terminator or Terminator 2, maybe two. But you know, the scene with the ⁓ the metal enemy character, you know, when in that sort of manufacturing, like I think it's like a casting environment. ⁓ and so obviously, you Schwartz Schwarzenegger, that's me.
Jim Mayer: Okay. Yeah. It is, yeah.
Alex Huckstepp: that's that's the genre, that's the movie, that's the scene.
Jim Mayer: Got it. I like it. I like it. That's a that's a very descriptive movie for I'm gonna say anybody over thirty, thirty-five years old. if you haven't seen the Terminator series, if you're Gen Z or younger, please go watch that series because I think it really drove a lot of us into this industry. So great, great job there. Alex, icebreaker number two. ⁓
Alex Huckstepp: Yeah.
Jim Mayer: Just as much fun for me. I don't know if it is for everybody else, but nobody's complained about it, so I keep doing it. there's a lot of definitions of culture out there. there's dictionary definitions, all of that. I wanna know what my guests what their definition is. So Alex, what's your definition of culture?
Alex Huckstepp: You know, I think culture is think culture is sort of ⁓ really the manifestation of of how people behave and the decisions they make and what they do. Like kind of in in aggregate across company. ⁓ I've a you know, in Silicon Valley, there's a whole
Jim Mayer: Okay. I liked it.
Alex Huckstepp: I don't know if if if your viewers have seen the Silicon Valley TV show, it's like so classic, you know. Like in Silicon Valley, companies talk a lot about culture. maybe too much. They think about it, they're very philosophical about it. but the end of the day, a lot of things are said. ⁓ It's the saying, you know, when is when all is said and done, much more said than done. ⁓ culture is like ⁓ it's it's it's it's
Jim Mayer: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Alex Huckstepp: You know, do how I do, not how I say. Like l leaders, you know, can can say, hey, this is our culture and this is what we want it to be. But really it's just it's just how they act and how that trickles down through the company and the the the the policies, the rules, the investments, the the that they put in place. ⁓ Right. And the the sort of that's built around that. So I know this is like kind of squishy and I'm throwing a lot of words out there, but what I found is like it doesn't really matter what people tell you that the culture is or what they even tell you what they want the culture to be. It's really the culture you create through a l through all those little actions and decisions and who you hire and why you hire them and how you empower them and And and all these things just stack up, I think, to you know, culture is like constantly evolving, right? It's like you start with, you know, when you found a company like I did with Benny two years ago, you know, the there's no real culture. It's just you and you and your co-founders how and how you guys interact and how you guys behave. But then of course, as you have teams and then you have multiple levels of teams, the culture kind of ⁓ diffuses and and gets created and evolves, right, as the company evolves.
Jim Mayer: Yeah. Absolutely. I I mean I started my company to people their culture, thinking that I had the cultural answers, right? And what I realized over time is culture is very ⁓ individualistic. something like
Alex Huckstepp: With every person.
Jim Mayer: And this is why I do this icebreaker is because what it means to you could mean something different to somebody else. and ultimately what I found in in research and and studying and going into shops and talking with a hundred and seventy some odd people on this show is really down to an alignment of values. So you could have two employees, you could have two hundred employees. If those employees are Aligned and and believe the same and then act in a way that is in accordance with those values, then you've a good culture. But to your point, when Silicon Valley machine I don't care who it is, what kind of facility it is, if if they're not ⁓ the way they they beliefs. Then you've got a mismatch of culture and it could be toxic for one person or another. Does that make sense? Right on. So Alex, been in some major startups. you went to school at USC. So did my wife. ⁓ I'm a Devil. Go devils. We rarely beat you at anything, but that's okay. ⁓ fight on
Alex Huckstepp: For sure. I agree. ⁓ cool. High down.
Jim Mayer: Alex, how you get into engineering? 'Cause that was your degree, right? You were you went to school for mechanical engineering. How did you even know that was a path that you wanted to go down?
Alex Huckstepp: I you know, I I gravitated towards kind of this the hard sciences and like in in high school. and I think lot of lot like a lot of people that are kind of more technically oriented, you have kind of a decision to make when you go to college, ⁓ if you go to which is like do you kind of the more academic path? You know, do you study physics or chemistry, or do you go kind of the more applied path? And you know, I've I've always been kind of a a pragmatist, right? I always wanted to like make money and build things and focus on my career. And I just it felt like mechanical engineering was kind of this nice intersection of of sort of physics, ⁓ and I always like into kind of like things and physical things and tangible things. and so it's it felt like kind of like that that that right mix of ⁓ like kind of technical and tangible stuff. that you know, there's all these great the the the obviously is of the biggest engineering disciplines, but then you know it ⁓ you can go and work virtually any industry, right? ⁓ almost everyone that's making any custom physical mechanical thing these mechanical engineers. So it's pretty it's like a pretty broad base too.
Jim Mayer: Yeah. so so graduating USC, how did you land in first shop and and what what was it like or or your first role and what was it like walking in on first day?
Alex Huckstepp: Yeah, when I graduated it was twenty ten if people remember we had like a pretty big economic downturn in two thousand nine. And so a lot people that I was graduating with, you know, had all these big ambitions of all these f places that they wanted to work. But in in reality, it's like well, you actually just need to get a job. You were lucky to actually find a job in in early twenty ten. And so I knew I wanted to be kind of involved in technology and innovation. I knew I wanted to be in the Bay Area. So I was applying to like any any set of job involving, you know, ⁓ mechanical engineering, manufacturing, process engineering up in Silicon Valley and was lucky enough to to get a job at a company called OSI Soft, where we were developing software for kind of process industries, manufacturers, oil refiners, energy generation companies. To be honest, it like kind of boring software. It was like big data, like data historian, you know, you're interfacing with all this equipment, you're collecting all this data, you're storing it, you're analyzing it. most people haven't heard of s OSI software, they've heard of like Splunk and s and and you know some of these others now that are like time time series data oriented companies. But that's where I got my start and it was great. And you know, ev everyone your first job In a lot of ways, like you can't really go wrong. Like you're gonna learn a ton from wherever you land. and it ⁓ choose how long you wanna stay there and how what you wanna make of it. But I know, I feel like that first job is kind of like a mulligan, like when you're out on the golf course. It's like just get job and figure out what it means to work in a company and a team because you know, college and school doesn't really prepare you for this stuff, for the real world. but great people learned a lot, spent spent I think almost three years there, and then actually moved into the world of manufact like real manufacturing from there and started doing ⁓ some printing stuff. went to Stratasys, if people have heard of them, went to then Carbon when they were a young startup doing polymer 3D printing, and then did actually Did another 3D printing startup doing metal metal additive called digital alloys. And then I did two robotic kind of automation startups where we're developing new manufacturing processes using kind of advanced robotics. So I did four in a row that were all like somewhat similar, like where we're building essentially new ways of making things. whether it was 3D printing or using robots and using molds and forming metal or cutting and And forming composites, at the end of the day, like it was fundamentally sort of new ways of making physical things. And I've always found that really, really fascinating, which is probably why I to keep doing the same thing. It kind of felt like Groundhog Day, but like, you know, four different startups, but but so many similarities there. and yeah, it's it's been fun just, you know, applying mechanical and engineering in the real world. I've been kind of more on I move I move towards like the dark side, as I call it, of like go to market and sales and commercial and it's it's ⁓ where the rubber meets the road in terms of where the technology meets the customer. And that's what's always been most interesting to me. It's not like toiling away in in the back of a lab. It's like out in the real world, like applying new tech and seeing what sort of impact it can make.
Jim Mayer: Yeah, I get that. it takes from my experience, I've never worked in a startup, but I know people who have, and I my brother ⁓ somebody who loves working for startups in early stages. Once they get large of funding or they go public or something like that, it it's just not the right spot for him. and so I've learned that it's a very ⁓ like specific type of person who is drawn to that life. is that what ⁓ are drawn to? Is it that startup feel, that that the the push, the the hustle to get product out, is that what draws you to the ⁓ that world?
Alex Huckstepp: I think there's two elements to why at least I love startups. ⁓ building from nothing is is a rewarding you know challenging experience. that it's hard to yeah, it's hard to get that. You know, some even in big in big companies, there are some very innovative teams. That are sometimes given the autonomy and authority to go and, you know, s new things. But there's something really pure about building something kind of from scratch as a standalone business at the same you're building the business at the same time, you're building a product, right, or a service or a technology. and there's something nice about that, like kind of clean sheet. you're sort of by all the history and legacy and systems and br bureaucracy that you get right in a bigger company. And for people that are people that like to build new things, that like to innovate, that want to move fast and break things ⁓ yeah that that is that is something that's really exciting about it. You know the other element is kind of the it's obviously related but like The operating in like an unknown kind of environment, I think certain people are are wired for and certain people are not. Like it's it's more stressful. every day is different. You don't know what you're gonna wake up to and deal with that that day necessarily. You don't know how things are gonna go. It's very hard to plan, it's very hard to think very into the But I think that's kind of an interesting way to to live. and I I think you you you learn more and and and you challenge yourself and you develop yourself more that way. It's like it's like some people like to, you know, drive on the the big open long freeway and and sort of know what where they're going and when they're gonna get there. And some people like to like to off-road, ⁓ Or some people like to, you know, when you go hiking with someone, they're like, Yeah, let's take let's take this trail. This is a nice paved trail. And then some people are like, No, you see that, you see that mountaintop?
Jim Mayer: Yeah. Yeah.
Alex Huckstepp: Let let's just go try to get up there. You know, let's let's go this way. You can't see what's you know, you can't what's see what's in between here and there, but like I bet you bet you'll it'll be fun.
Jim Mayer: Yeah. Absolutely. so you with those companies, and how did you get idea? Where where did the inspiration come for Uptool and and where you're at now?
Alex Huckstepp: Yeah, so my co-founder Benny and I both have spent about a dozen years building, know, manufacturing technology startups. In my case, in his case, a startup called Velo 3D, a metal 3D printing startup he founded and was CEO of, and had just taken public. And we both happened to be thinking about we were doing next. And ⁓ we kind knew each other thro through the 3D printing industry, but not super well. We were actually kind of re- ⁓ ⁓ reacquainted through an investor, one of our an an investor at the time wasn't an investor in us yet, but then became an investor in in Uptool. And that was Simon Lancaster at Omni Ventures. And he both of us. And he was like, hey guys, I think we had both talked to Simon in like the same week. And he was like, hey guys, like ⁓ it sounds you both want to build sort of similar things. Like you're both kind of going in this trajectory of, you know, in a similar trajectory here in terms of like the problems you want to solve and what you're interested in. You guys should you guys should chat. And then so Benny and I started just meeting up and and and talking about we'd both been in manufacturing our whole careers and we'd seen a lot of types of manufacturers and different types of problems. And we were we we just found that we were like very energized by ⁓ same kind of problem sets and thought about kind of company building and problem solving in similar ways. And, know, one other common theme was that like we both were kind of burnt out on ⁓ on hardware startups. We had, you know, both spent the last decade begging investors for money to, you know, build some big, complex, long lead time piece of hardware, you know, with a lot of uncertainty around when was going to be ready and validated and saleable and and then even once you Once you had made something that works, it's like, okay, now know it's just like Elon talks about, like making the prototype is easy. Then you gotta then you gotta scale it, right? And then there's a whole new set of challenges. And we a little bit like kind of in this grass is always greener mentality of like, man, what if we could find a a set of problems that we could solve with pure software? where we could do it with a smaller team with less money, where we could move faster, where once we got it working, we could scale it out faster. And I think a lot of hardware people people flip-flop between like software and hardware, and you kind of forget, you know, the pros and cons of both. But we had both just spent a long time in in sort of the hardware heavy world. And were towards that we thought we could solve with software. And those problems were within small high-mix manufacturers, which we have all you know, tens of thousands of these small, very small high-mix manufacturers like shops and fab shops in the US. And Benny and I had both spent a lot of time with these with these guys throughout our careers as customers, as partners. And we just thought, like, hey, Uptool has the ability to really help US manufacturers like this leverage AI to to leverage AI to compete, to move faster, to Because we just we've all seen, you know, a lot of our industrial base get kind of hollowed out over the last couple of decades. And and and one key component we thought was sort of the the the capability, the speed, the responsiveness, the digitization that a lot of small US manufacturers lacked. They kind of got left behind in in a few different technological shifts, you know, that basically like the ⁓ the really left a lot of them behind. They just kept operating like they used to. So we said, with Uptool, how can we leverage AI to help these small manufacturers compete, compete and and bring them online and help them be more productive and profitable? And and the impact could make then on the broader supply chain, on bigger companies that to get parts made quickly so they could it iterate and innovate and they're willing to pay the speed. And they're willing to pay for the quality. but it was really hard to work with these small a of small local manufacturers because ⁓ they couldn't get the visibility, the responsiveness. ⁓ there's a lot of friction, right, working with your local machine shop versus just farming it out to Asia.
Jim Mayer: Yeah. Yep. Yeah, absolutely. so what what did you learn going from selling hardware to AI ⁓ the people. I mean you you just ⁓ that you learned a lot from the in these shops. What what specifically did you learn from them?
Alex Huckstepp: So before we built before we wrote a line of code, Benny and I probably spent probably two to three months with 20, machine shops, gone pretty deep, kind of just to be like fly on the wall, just like observing how they operate. But then of course, you know, our curiosity got the better of us and we start peeling the onion and asking lots of questions and distracting them. But but it was all part of like this learning process of like, how do know your typical machine shops and fab shops in the US operate today? What are the challenges? What are the bottlenecks? how can we help them? How can we help them accelerate? How can we help them win? So through that lens, we formed a thesis of like Kind of needed to build some sort of operating system that was common and adaptable enough that it could plug in very quickly. Because the first, you know, the first thing a small manufacturer will tell you is we don't really like software, most of them, right? We don't really care for software, it hasn't really served us. ⁓ We no budget for software, we certainly have no time. to do like months-long IT projects, which is how most most industries adopt, you know, business operational software. It it's a long, painful process of custom configuration and ⁓ training. And it's like we knew that model didn't work for small manufacturers. And so said basically like, you know, we saw the same, we saw so many like, although everyone used different words or or or you know, described s sort of their challenges and their workflow slightly differently. There were some really fundamental processes that happened in terms of how a small manufacturer with customers, gets RFQs, creates quotes, gets orders, purchases materials and tools and whatever else they need to execute that order, plans that order, you know, programs, set up sets up the the machines, manufactures, measures quality, ships, like there's some really fundamental steps there. And so we said, look, let's let's try to build an operating system that's very AI first, that can really up that that can that can work for the vast majority of small high mix manufacturers that are doing a lot of quick turn quick turn work where where you can't spend like hours of data entry like massaging every order the system. ⁓
Jim Mayer: Yeah.
Alex Huckstepp: And and what we've built so far was just like kind of the first module of that that we released around quoting. But think we've built it in a way that like it plugs in very quickly. Usually within minutes, we get new new customers up and running where it's it's adaptable, it kind of learns from them as they're using it and it basically works out of the box. And then they kind of tune it. And then they kind of tune it as they're using it. And it gets better and it gets more accurate for them. But it's sort of like it there's instant ROI in the sense that most of them were doing this stuff in spreadsheets or pen and paper before. And it's like it is instantly better than that. And then it gets even better as they use it. So it's sort of a no we tried to build something that was sort of a no-brainer that could really help them right away.
Jim Mayer: Got it. Alex, why I mean on your LinkedIn, which is where I do a lot of research for this show, ⁓ you you talk about why US manufacturers are losing work ⁓ Asia. And it sometimes counterintuitive. I understand what you're talking about, right? But but walk us through your thesis. I mean you you've talked about
Alex Huckstepp: Worse.
Jim Mayer: It's not necessarily cost, it's more based on speed. And how does Uptool help the ⁓ manufacturers fill that gap?
Alex Huckstepp: Yeah, so obviously it's a big, complicated, hairy topic. it's not just Asia, right? It's it's any any low-cost region. You know, Mexico, a lot of our manufacturings moved to Mexico for right for better for better or worse. But in the world of if I can kind of like at least focus us in, because I don't want to make like really broad political statements, right, that are kind of vague. If I can focus us in on the world of like custom low volume ⁓ mechanical parts, right? Machined parts, turned, EDM parts, metal, you know, cutting, bending, welding. this is a real like these are really large market segments and but they're specific kind of processes. And the same thing probably applies to like ⁓ molding and some volume molding, casting, forging, some of these processes. There's no fundamental reason ⁓ why ⁓ we ⁓ can't be more competitive here. ⁓ why we shouldn't make things here, right? Versus them on the other side of the world and then having to put them on ships planes get them here. One obvious like difference what's the right? Between making something here versus making it in let's say China. Labor is a piece, you know, 20 years ago Yes, labor, labor was like a tenth of what it was here in China. And like that was processes were much more manual, right? There was less automation. And so like that was, yeah, it makes total sense why why a lot of stuff why a lot of stuff went over there. but know, labor is is is has has ⁓ n still of course, in China, but it's it's much more similar. I think something like two to three X probably here now. versus a skilled, like highly skilled labor in China. so that ⁓ you is different, but the the playing field has been leveled more there. And with automation, it gives us the ability to to obviously displace you know of that labor cost to make it more efficient, more productive. now the other you know components ⁓ are of course like materials ⁓ There's a lot of work we have to do here to to to to lower the cost of materials because I think there's some games that are played overseas with subsidization of materials, of energy as a core input to material. A lot a lot of people don't realize, like a lot of the cost of materials is actually the cost of energy to process that material. so it's very interrelated, but we got to bring our energy and material costs down here. and then ⁓ and then, you those are those are two of the most fundamental, ⁓ you pieces of what w what does it cost to make, you know, some custom thing, right? There's the the labor that goes into it, there's the material. Of course, there's the the equipment and the capex, right? And and we also have to work to lower the cost of machine tools and automation equipment. And part of that may be more US-based manufacturers those things, but Not necessarily. Like although most of the high-end machine tools come from Germany or Japan, we need to figure out like like we shouldn't be tariffing machine tools, right? Like that's like kind of a no like this makes no sense. if want to build an ⁓ a manufacturing base here, we should be subsidizing if anything. We should be giving tax incentives ⁓ for that wanna invest in in infrastructure like that, right? In our in our manufacturing capacity. And then there's the
Jim Mayer: Yeah.
Alex Huckstepp: The overhead. this is one of the biggest killers for the US, which is like the regulatory burden, the paperwork, the benefits, the all the all the sort of indirect costs involved with making a thing here have just inflated in incredibly over time. and that's one that
Jim Mayer: Okay.
Alex Huckstepp: That Uptool is one of many things that Uptool is is really trying help improve. we're we we're not changing like regulatory stuff anytime soon. We don't ⁓ we have big lobby budgets, but but just the when we walk into a typical machine shop today, you know, let's just say that the you know the median machine shop, I think is like eight or nine people, you'll see two or three people that are tied to their desks doing Paperwork, basically. I I I say paperwork, but you it's like e it's email, some some of it is physical paper. But it's just like coordination, overhead, paperwork. and that ratio you do not see if you go to China, right? Or somewhere like that. there's you know, smaller teams that ⁓ that are supporting like there's more manufacturers and they're spending more time actually doing the manufacturing work. And ⁓ that that's one big thing that we need to do to to really compete is like reducing that kind of overhead overhead burden. And then, you know, that's just from a cost perspective and then from a speed perspective, it's related, but it's like, how do we actually if you take cost and quality and capability out of the equation, we're all human and we have to get jobs done, and you have a task in front of you and you You have a build coming up next week. You're building that next version of your new product. And you got to get those three different custom parts in and assembled. And you could spend all days like emailing machine shops across the US, begging them for quotes, following up with them, trying to get firm commitments around lead times, and still and still end up short, right? And end up just like.
Jim Mayer: Yeah.
Alex Huckstepp: Just sourcing it overseas because you're getting like service, you're getting response, you're getting someone on the end of the phone other end of the phone line or or email. so there's just the you know, practical fact of like we we need we need people to to really offer like a an experience, a user experience and a trusted kind of responsive partner ⁓ on the other end to to to bring stuff back or to do stuff here.
Jim Mayer: Yeah.
Alex Huckstepp: So sorry I'm rambling a lot, but but I think I kind of covered all elements of that.
Jim Mayer: no, I I love those kinds of rants, man. ⁓ I look I look at you know, a lot of the situations that we're in, ⁓ whether be the workforce shortage gap, tsunami, whatever you want to call it, you look at our capacity issues, you look at our infrastructure, a lot of all of this is self imposed bullshit that we did to ourselves starting in the nineteen seventies, right? I when I at historically
Alex Huckstepp: Okay.
Jim Mayer: a like a root cause for all of this. It all started when we abandoned the gold standard in 73 or whatever that was, right? And then from there, that led it gave the ability to manufacturers to start offshoring. And when we started offshoring, that's when we lost our capacity. That's when we, you know, you talk about that whole, you know, concept of we've got to get jobs out the door and and the speed at which China can respond to some of these jobs. We work off a backlog right now, right? Like a lot of our shops are out and days ⁓ from when get an order because of the capacity constraints and the the way that we value the the work that comes in and and is held and then goes out, right? So I I love rants like that, man. I I think it this is this is why I started the show because I love having these kinds of conversations. ⁓ so
Alex Huckstepp: Ha ha ha. For sure. Yeah. And I didn't even and and I'm like ashamed that I didn't even touch on kind of like the workforce. I think 'cause it's sort of more of like a like a predicate of the problem. Like of course we need to have skilled workers to compete. and I'm just like very focused on like I'm a I'm a very like short-term thinker of like I go into a shop and I'm like How can we improve this shop today? And of course, like you're not hiring someone today, but but you need to get the right team there. You need to get the people with the skills that can that can execute. And there's a whole lot of work we have to do there. then you know, obviously very, very germane to our conversation here about culture. we a lot of work to do to up upskill, right, and our workforce and and get get people like excited about ⁓ wanting to careers in manufacturing. How d how can we make it kind of fun and interesting and and sexy, my friend Christine likes to say. Like how do we make manufacturing fun, cool and sexy? ⁓ yeah. ⁓
Jim Mayer: Yeah. Yeah. But I think ⁓ real quick on that point, even that can go back to that gold standard, right? Because when we started offshoring, we started telling kids in school and middle school that there was no future in manufacturing. And we a lot of the the societal contract, the the community pride that come that came from ⁓ having a factory job in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, right? Those those were people who were able to their family on ⁓ income, right? And they had the picket fence and and they were but we when we told kids there was no future in that, we started to diminish the people who were already there working there. ⁓ And so s as a society, we stopped caring. I just did a a lot of research a couple weeks ago about how many people care about where their parts are made ⁓ Americans, and ⁓ 30, like I think it was 32, maybe it was 38% of Americans actually care about their stuff is made. And that is bonkers to me. so
Alex Huckstepp: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jim Mayer: Yeah, I think it can all
Alex Huckstepp: It's a little cra yeah. It's a little you know, it's a little crazy to me too, but I think I have a slightly different perspective than you do, which is we're n we can't convince Americans to care where their shit is made. I I don't believe that that is the solution. I would love if they did. But I don't think you can I don't think there's anything we can go out there and and the same applies to like our kids. The the li you know If you wanna if you want our kids to go into manufacturing, we should probably tell them not to go into manufacturing if you know how kids think, right? th there's no word there's no words. I don't think there's any real like like propaganda that's gonna get that's gonna get our country like ⁓ really manufacturing I think it's gonna be a very slow but like process of just doing it. like like k Kids have to see and we should talk more about like Elon and SpaceX because I think this is a great example, but kids have to ⁓ see in their communities that are respected, that are successful, that are wealthy, that have built careers in manufacturing to want to go into manufacturing. It like so it doesn't matter what what what we tell them, I think. and so how do we do that? And and it's that it's not straightforward. But I think like seeing the SpaceX IPO, when was that last week? It's pretty exciting because it's like, man, we got this like the most ⁓ valuable now in the world or something like that, sixth most valuable, you know, was started a couple decades ago. that it like manufacturing is so core to its to its competitive advantage to to how they succeeded. And And now we got the wealthiest person in the world that, you know, got got to that point because they built some sort of fundamentally really manufacturing heavy industrial businesses that that really transformed and reshaped like two of our biggest, you know, markets in in the US or in the world. so I think we need more of that. You know, that like people and and those leaders need to go out there and talk about manufacturing and how critical it is. But yes, I'm ranting again. But ⁓ but I think we both feel strongly about this. ⁓
Jim Mayer: Absolutely. Yeah. That's why you're a guest on the show, man. I just yeah, I I like people who have strong opinions about this industry and and like to talk about it. ⁓ Alex ⁓ gears a little bit as wrap up and a and we will talk a little bit about culture here. I don't think this episode will come out by the time this event happens, but you're hosting a a physical event.
Alex Huckstepp: Yeah, yeah.
Jim Mayer: ⁓ a week from today in Santa Clara, and beers or or something along those lines. ⁓ I'm a massive fan of community and building community events in this space. talk to us about why you're doing this and and what people can expect to hear about when they hear this episode and then go check out your LinkedIn.
Alex Huckstepp: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. For sure. So, you know, one thing that we've that we've learned in terms of how to connect with these small across the US is that showing in person, showing them that you're, you know, ⁓ there in community, that you wanna like actually build a real relationship with them, ⁓ like a And like kind of physical, you know, relationship with them in the sense that you're there, you're present. so important for for building out the networks and in this in this sort of manufacturing community. And like these these these manufacturers are just getting bombarded all day by cold calls and ⁓ email everyone is right? Like like cold emails and LinkedIn messages and like They're they're great at like everyone's getting really good at just like filtering out the noise. And so what we found is like one of the best ways to like actually really connect with with with small manufacturers and it is to just up like literally sometimes we just knock on their door. Hey, here's a Yeti mug, here's here's donuts, right? But also just but but also just like having an event like we're doing next week where we just ⁓ we're actually doing it in one of the densest pockets of machine shops in the Bay Area. There's a square mile, like literally it's one square mile. It's just north of the San Jose Airport that has about a hundred machine shops there. And most people like, yeah, they don't believe it. And like I could show you the map. ⁓ you go to my you can go to our website actually USA Machineshops.com and we've out all the machine shops in the in the US and you can in on this area just north of San Jose Airport in the Bay Area.
Jim Mayer: Wow. That's awesome.
Alex Huckstepp: And there's, I think, 110 machine shops in a square mile. we're just, you know, we got a barbecue food truck coming and we're gonna have coolers of cold beer. And we said, like, hey guys, there's not a lot of agenda here. Just like you guys most of you ⁓ don't even know each other. You don't know that of you guys are even here in the same area. Some of do, some of you outsource some work to each other. You know, it's great. We got like one that focuses a machine shop focuses on milling. next to one that focuses on turning, next to one that does sheet metal, next to one that does finishing. And like ⁓ be honest, coming back to like how do we compete as a country, that's one of the key things that like China, Shenzhen, all these other areas have have like done what these ecosystems, right? That emerge. But so many of our manufacturers are kind of just like offline. Like they don't even know who their neighbors are, they don't have a website, they're not very digitally present. They're not very present on social media.
Jim Mayer: Yeah.
Alex Huckstepp: So we're gonna try to do more events like this where we're just like, guys, know, we're right around the corner. Come meet your friends and neighbors and other shops. And we're gonna bring some like potential customers there too, because we talk to a lot of engineers and buyers that are like, man, I wanna find more great local shops. How can we, you know, do you have any recommendations? How can we meet them? How can we find the right ones that have the right capability? And so we're inviting some of them out there too, just to say, hey, come come meet your local shops and trying to build just helps.
Jim Mayer: That's awesome. That's awesome.
Alex Huckstepp: piece by piece, right? Little little bit by little bit, like build this ecosystem up. Yeah.
Jim Mayer: That's awesome. ⁓ I love that man. Congratulations. I can't wait to see the content that comes out of that, ⁓ that you post on LinkedIn. Alex, as we like are wrapping up, one of the things that I do want to mention is people go watch the episode about Uptool that Alex and I did over on YouTube on the manufacturing connector page.
Alex Huckstepp: Thanks.
Jim Mayer: you can learn more about his tool or that tool over there. Alex, what to you, what is the future of manufacturing? What what do we what are we gonna see in three, five, ten years down the road?
Alex Huckstepp: Coming back to like to this moment we saw with SpaceX last week, I think we we're gonna see more of, you know, maybe the the outcomes will not be that big and and glorious, but like we're gonna see a lot of little SpaceXs really our industries here. There's so critical industries that we have to excel in to to keep America at the forefront. So we have like space. We have automotive and autonomous vehicles and EVs, but we have like robotics now, right? With humanoids and and how AI is going to transform kind of some of this, ⁓ some of these physical industries. semiconductors, chips, data centers, energy generation to to power all these data centers, critical mining and stuff that we're ⁓ gonna need to here. ⁓ to be more self-sufficient and and drive these industries forward. like the foundation of so much of this is like the the the small manufacturers that make this whole work, the whole thing work. And think that ⁓ you know gonna see this kind of renaissance ⁓ of of of small manufacturers that can serve these sort of next gen hardware companies. Right. There's there's tens of hundreds of billions of dollars that are going into reshape all these big physical industries they're all demanding ⁓ They're all demanding a ⁓ supply with speed and and like digital threads to tie it all together and new levels of sort of automation and connectivity. And so ⁓ I'm s I'm excited about the future. It's not going to happen overnight, but but we're going to try to empower the small high-mix manufacturers with the tools they need to be part of that future and to compete and win and thrive. hopefully to help build up this whole the whole ecosystem, the whole economy on top of it.
Jim Mayer: Love it, man. Love absolutely love it. Alex, what didn't I ask you that you want to share with the audience?
Alex Huckstepp: I think just, you know, where if if people wanna if people wanna learn more about Uptool, ⁓ whether, you know, they're running a shop or if they think this may be a fit for them or someone, you know, someone they know or work with, you know, please check out our website, Uptool.com. find us on on LinkedIn or X or wherever. and then if if people are going to IMTS, you know, we have a big manufacturing show coming up in September. That will be the first show that Uptool at.
Jim Mayer: Yeah.
Alex Huckstepp: Right as a startup. And and we're gonna show up there in a big way with a lot of the team, with live demos, with a booth in the software section there of IMTS. So we'd love if any of your listeners will be at IMTS, I imagine many of them will be. We'd love we'd love to connect with them there and you know, make that in person physical connection and ⁓ and and chat more about if there's ⁓ opportunities to to work together.
Jim Mayer: Absolutely. Very cool. Very cool. Alex, appreciate you coming on, being so open. it a great conversation. Thank you for being here. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, that was Alex Huck Step. if this conversation resonated with you in any way, shape, or form, please share the episode with somebody who may be in may not be in manufacturing.
Alex Huckstepp: I enjoyed it. Thanks a lot, Jim. Great to talk to you.
Jim Mayer: they may not know what they want to do in the next stage of their career. Alex a great person to listen to about the the progression of of careers. ⁓ Send it your grandma. Grandma would love to hear Alex talk about manufacturing and and ⁓ where we've gotten in the hollowing out of. So yeah, share it with somebody is the moral of the story. also, like I said at the top of the show, rate and review the show wherever you're on. Help us find more people, find the show. thank you all for being on this journey with me. we'll see you next time. Keep making things.
Alex Huckstepp: Hey slot, Jam. I'm good. How are you?
Jim Mayer: I'm doing wonderful, man. I've got a lot of energy. I drank maybe a little too much coffee for a Friday, but that's okay. we'll get through it.
Alex Huckstepp: I'm halfway through a nice icy one right here.
Jim Mayer: There you go. Cheers, man. Cheers. ⁓ so Alex, ⁓ we talked about the icebreakers that we do.
Alex Huckstepp: Cheers.
Jim Mayer: You were recently a guest on the Manufacturing Connector, talking all about Uptool. At the end of the recording, you said, Hey, I didn't get to answer the movie question. this is your chance to answer the movie question. So Alex, if your life were a movie, what genre would it be? Who plays you what's the opening scene?
Alex Huckstepp: Yeah, I struggled with this one because there's so many good options. I you know, I I landed on the Terminator. And to be honest, I can't remember if it's Terminator or Terminator 2, maybe two. But you know, the scene with the ⁓ the metal enemy character, you know, when in that sort of manufacturing, like I think it's like a casting environment. ⁓ and so obviously, you Schwartz Schwarzenegger, that's me.
Jim Mayer: Okay. Yeah. It is, yeah.
Alex Huckstepp: that's that's the genre, that's the movie, that's the scene.
Jim Mayer: Got it. I like it. I like it. That's a that's a very descriptive movie for I'm gonna say anybody over thirty, thirty-five years old. if you haven't seen the Terminator series, if you're Gen Z or younger, please go watch that series because I think it really drove a lot of us into this industry. So great, great job there. Alex, icebreaker number two. ⁓
Alex Huckstepp: Yeah.
Jim Mayer: Just as much fun for me. I don't know if it is for everybody else, but nobody's complained about it, so I keep doing it. there's a lot of definitions of culture out there. there's dictionary definitions, all of that. I wanna know what my guests what their definition is. So Alex, what's your definition of culture?
Alex Huckstepp: You know, I think culture is think culture is sort of ⁓ really the manifestation of of how people behave and the decisions they make and what they do. Like kind of in in aggregate across company. ⁓ I've a you know, in Silicon Valley, there's a whole
Jim Mayer: Okay. I liked it.
Alex Huckstepp: I don't know if if if your viewers have seen the Silicon Valley TV show, it's like so classic, you know. Like in Silicon Valley, companies talk a lot about culture. maybe too much. They think about it, they're very philosophical about it. but the end of the day, a lot of things are said. ⁓ It's the saying, you know, when is when all is said and done, much more said than done. ⁓ culture is like ⁓ it's it's it's it's
Jim Mayer: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Alex Huckstepp: You know, do how I do, not how I say. Like l leaders, you know, can can say, hey, this is our culture and this is what we want it to be. But really it's just it's just how they act and how that trickles down through the company and the the the the policies, the rules, the investments, the the that they put in place. ⁓ Right. And the the sort of that's built around that. So I know this is like kind of squishy and I'm throwing a lot of words out there, but what I found is like it doesn't really matter what people tell you that the culture is or what they even tell you what they want the culture to be. It's really the culture you create through a l through all those little actions and decisions and who you hire and why you hire them and how you empower them and And and all these things just stack up, I think, to you know, culture is like constantly evolving, right? It's like you start with, you know, when you found a company like I did with Benny two years ago, you know, the there's no real culture. It's just you and you and your co-founders how and how you guys interact and how you guys behave. But then of course, as you have teams and then you have multiple levels of teams, the culture kind of ⁓ diffuses and and gets created and evolves, right, as the company evolves.
Jim Mayer: Yeah. Absolutely. I I mean I started my company to people their culture, thinking that I had the cultural answers, right? And what I realized over time is culture is very ⁓ individualistic. something like
Alex Huckstepp: With every person.
Jim Mayer: And this is why I do this icebreaker is because what it means to you could mean something different to somebody else. and ultimately what I found in in research and and studying and going into shops and talking with a hundred and seventy some odd people on this show is really down to an alignment of values. So you could have two employees, you could have two hundred employees. If those employees are Aligned and and believe the same and then act in a way that is in accordance with those values, then you've a good culture. But to your point, when Silicon Valley machine I don't care who it is, what kind of facility it is, if if they're not ⁓ the way they they beliefs. Then you've got a mismatch of culture and it could be toxic for one person or another. Does that make sense? Right on. So Alex, been in some major startups. you went to school at USC. So did my wife. ⁓ I'm a Devil. Go devils. We rarely beat you at anything, but that's okay. ⁓ fight on
Alex Huckstepp: For sure. I agree. ⁓ cool. High down.
Jim Mayer: Alex, how you get into engineering? 'Cause that was your degree, right? You were you went to school for mechanical engineering. How did you even know that was a path that you wanted to go down?
Alex Huckstepp: I you know, I I gravitated towards kind of this the hard sciences and like in in high school. and I think lot of lot like a lot of people that are kind of more technically oriented, you have kind of a decision to make when you go to college, ⁓ if you go to which is like do you kind of the more academic path? You know, do you study physics or chemistry, or do you go kind of the more applied path? And you know, I've I've always been kind of a a pragmatist, right? I always wanted to like make money and build things and focus on my career. And I just it felt like mechanical engineering was kind of this nice intersection of of sort of physics, ⁓ and I always like into kind of like things and physical things and tangible things. and so it's it felt like kind of like that that that right mix of ⁓ like kind of technical and tangible stuff. that you know, there's all these great the the the obviously is of the biggest engineering disciplines, but then you know it ⁓ you can go and work virtually any industry, right? ⁓ almost everyone that's making any custom physical mechanical thing these mechanical engineers. So it's pretty it's like a pretty broad base too.
Jim Mayer: Yeah. so so graduating USC, how did you land in first shop and and what what was it like or or your first role and what was it like walking in on first day?
Alex Huckstepp: Yeah, when I graduated it was twenty ten if people remember we had like a pretty big economic downturn in two thousand nine. And so a lot people that I was graduating with, you know, had all these big ambitions of all these f places that they wanted to work. But in in reality, it's like well, you actually just need to get a job. You were lucky to actually find a job in in early twenty ten. And so I knew I wanted to be kind of involved in technology and innovation. I knew I wanted to be in the Bay Area. So I was applying to like any any set of job involving, you know, ⁓ mechanical engineering, manufacturing, process engineering up in Silicon Valley and was lucky enough to to get a job at a company called OSI Soft, where we were developing software for kind of process industries, manufacturers, oil refiners, energy generation companies. To be honest, it like kind of boring software. It was like big data, like data historian, you know, you're interfacing with all this equipment, you're collecting all this data, you're storing it, you're analyzing it. most people haven't heard of s OSI software, they've heard of like Splunk and s and and you know some of these others now that are like time time series data oriented companies. But that's where I got my start and it was great. And you know, ev everyone your first job In a lot of ways, like you can't really go wrong. Like you're gonna learn a ton from wherever you land. and it ⁓ choose how long you wanna stay there and how what you wanna make of it. But I know, I feel like that first job is kind of like a mulligan, like when you're out on the golf course. It's like just get job and figure out what it means to work in a company and a team because you know, college and school doesn't really prepare you for this stuff, for the real world. but great people learned a lot, spent spent I think almost three years there, and then actually moved into the world of manufact like real manufacturing from there and started doing ⁓ some printing stuff. went to Stratasys, if people have heard of them, went to then Carbon when they were a young startup doing polymer 3D printing, and then did actually Did another 3D printing startup doing metal metal additive called digital alloys. And then I did two robotic kind of automation startups where we're developing new manufacturing processes using kind of advanced robotics. So I did four in a row that were all like somewhat similar, like where we're building essentially new ways of making things. whether it was 3D printing or using robots and using molds and forming metal or cutting and And forming composites, at the end of the day, like it was fundamentally sort of new ways of making physical things. And I've always found that really, really fascinating, which is probably why I to keep doing the same thing. It kind of felt like Groundhog Day, but like, you know, four different startups, but but so many similarities there. and yeah, it's it's been fun just, you know, applying mechanical and engineering in the real world. I've been kind of more on I move I move towards like the dark side, as I call it, of like go to market and sales and commercial and it's it's ⁓ where the rubber meets the road in terms of where the technology meets the customer. And that's what's always been most interesting to me. It's not like toiling away in in the back of a lab. It's like out in the real world, like applying new tech and seeing what sort of impact it can make.
Jim Mayer: Yeah, I get that. it takes from my experience, I've never worked in a startup, but I know people who have, and I my brother ⁓ somebody who loves working for startups in early stages. Once they get large of funding or they go public or something like that, it it's just not the right spot for him. and so I've learned that it's a very ⁓ like specific type of person who is drawn to that life. is that what ⁓ are drawn to? Is it that startup feel, that that the the push, the the hustle to get product out, is that what draws you to the ⁓ that world?
Alex Huckstepp: I think there's two elements to why at least I love startups. ⁓ building from nothing is is a rewarding you know challenging experience. that it's hard to yeah, it's hard to get that. You know, some even in big in big companies, there are some very innovative teams. That are sometimes given the autonomy and authority to go and, you know, s new things. But there's something really pure about building something kind of from scratch as a standalone business at the same you're building the business at the same time, you're building a product, right, or a service or a technology. and there's something nice about that, like kind of clean sheet. you're sort of by all the history and legacy and systems and br bureaucracy that you get right in a bigger company. And for people that are people that like to build new things, that like to innovate, that want to move fast and break things ⁓ yeah that that is that is something that's really exciting about it. You know the other element is kind of the it's obviously related but like The operating in like an unknown kind of environment, I think certain people are are wired for and certain people are not. Like it's it's more stressful. every day is different. You don't know what you're gonna wake up to and deal with that that day necessarily. You don't know how things are gonna go. It's very hard to plan, it's very hard to think very into the But I think that's kind of an interesting way to to live. and I I think you you you learn more and and and you challenge yourself and you develop yourself more that way. It's like it's like some people like to, you know, drive on the the big open long freeway and and sort of know what where they're going and when they're gonna get there. And some people like to like to off-road, ⁓ Or some people like to, you know, when you go hiking with someone, they're like, Yeah, let's take let's take this trail. This is a nice paved trail. And then some people are like, No, you see that, you see that mountaintop?
Jim Mayer: Yeah. Yeah.
Alex Huckstepp: Let let's just go try to get up there. You know, let's let's go this way. You can't see what's you know, you can't what's see what's in between here and there, but like I bet you bet you'll it'll be fun.
Jim Mayer: Yeah. Absolutely. so you with those companies, and how did you get idea? Where where did the inspiration come for Uptool and and where you're at now?
Alex Huckstepp: Yeah, so my co-founder Benny and I both have spent about a dozen years building, know, manufacturing technology startups. In my case, in his case, a startup called Velo 3D, a metal 3D printing startup he founded and was CEO of, and had just taken public. And we both happened to be thinking about we were doing next. And ⁓ we kind knew each other thro through the 3D printing industry, but not super well. We were actually kind of re- ⁓ ⁓ reacquainted through an investor, one of our an an investor at the time wasn't an investor in us yet, but then became an investor in in Uptool. And that was Simon Lancaster at Omni Ventures. And he both of us. And he was like, hey guys, I think we had both talked to Simon in like the same week. And he was like, hey guys, like ⁓ it sounds you both want to build sort of similar things. Like you're both kind of going in this trajectory of, you know, in a similar trajectory here in terms of like the problems you want to solve and what you're interested in. You guys should you guys should chat. And then so Benny and I started just meeting up and and and talking about we'd both been in manufacturing our whole careers and we'd seen a lot of types of manufacturers and different types of problems. And we were we we just found that we were like very energized by ⁓ same kind of problem sets and thought about kind of company building and problem solving in similar ways. And, know, one other common theme was that like we both were kind of burnt out on ⁓ on hardware startups. We had, you know, both spent the last decade begging investors for money to, you know, build some big, complex, long lead time piece of hardware, you know, with a lot of uncertainty around when was going to be ready and validated and saleable and and then even once you Once you had made something that works, it's like, okay, now know it's just like Elon talks about, like making the prototype is easy. Then you gotta then you gotta scale it, right? And then there's a whole new set of challenges. And we a little bit like kind of in this grass is always greener mentality of like, man, what if we could find a a set of problems that we could solve with pure software? where we could do it with a smaller team with less money, where we could move faster, where once we got it working, we could scale it out faster. And I think a lot of hardware people people flip-flop between like software and hardware, and you kind of forget, you know, the pros and cons of both. But we had both just spent a long time in in sort of the hardware heavy world. And were towards that we thought we could solve with software. And those problems were within small high-mix manufacturers, which we have all you know, tens of thousands of these small, very small high-mix manufacturers like shops and fab shops in the US. And Benny and I had both spent a lot of time with these with these guys throughout our careers as customers, as partners. And we just thought, like, hey, Uptool has the ability to really help US manufacturers like this leverage AI to to leverage AI to compete, to move faster, to Because we just we've all seen, you know, a lot of our industrial base get kind of hollowed out over the last couple of decades. And and and one key component we thought was sort of the the the capability, the speed, the responsiveness, the digitization that a lot of small US manufacturers lacked. They kind of got left behind in in a few different technological shifts, you know, that basically like the ⁓ the really left a lot of them behind. They just kept operating like they used to. So we said, with Uptool, how can we leverage AI to help these small manufacturers compete, compete and and bring them online and help them be more productive and profitable? And and the impact could make then on the broader supply chain, on bigger companies that to get parts made quickly so they could it iterate and innovate and they're willing to pay the speed. And they're willing to pay for the quality. but it was really hard to work with these small a of small local manufacturers because ⁓ they couldn't get the visibility, the responsiveness. ⁓ there's a lot of friction, right, working with your local machine shop versus just farming it out to Asia.
Jim Mayer: Yeah. Yep. Yeah, absolutely. so what what did you learn going from selling hardware to AI ⁓ the people. I mean you you just ⁓ that you learned a lot from the in these shops. What what specifically did you learn from them?
Alex Huckstepp: So before we built before we wrote a line of code, Benny and I probably spent probably two to three months with 20, machine shops, gone pretty deep, kind of just to be like fly on the wall, just like observing how they operate. But then of course, you know, our curiosity got the better of us and we start peeling the onion and asking lots of questions and distracting them. But but it was all part of like this learning process of like, how do know your typical machine shops and fab shops in the US operate today? What are the challenges? What are the bottlenecks? how can we help them? How can we help them accelerate? How can we help them win? So through that lens, we formed a thesis of like Kind of needed to build some sort of operating system that was common and adaptable enough that it could plug in very quickly. Because the first, you know, the first thing a small manufacturer will tell you is we don't really like software, most of them, right? We don't really care for software, it hasn't really served us. ⁓ We no budget for software, we certainly have no time. to do like months-long IT projects, which is how most most industries adopt, you know, business operational software. It it's a long, painful process of custom configuration and ⁓ training. And it's like we knew that model didn't work for small manufacturers. And so said basically like, you know, we saw the same, we saw so many like, although everyone used different words or or or you know, described s sort of their challenges and their workflow slightly differently. There were some really fundamental processes that happened in terms of how a small manufacturer with customers, gets RFQs, creates quotes, gets orders, purchases materials and tools and whatever else they need to execute that order, plans that order, you know, programs, set up sets up the the machines, manufactures, measures quality, ships, like there's some really fundamental steps there. And so we said, look, let's let's try to build an operating system that's very AI first, that can really up that that can that can work for the vast majority of small high mix manufacturers that are doing a lot of quick turn quick turn work where where you can't spend like hours of data entry like massaging every order the system. ⁓
Jim Mayer: Yeah.
Alex Huckstepp: And and what we've built so far was just like kind of the first module of that that we released around quoting. But think we've built it in a way that like it plugs in very quickly. Usually within minutes, we get new new customers up and running where it's it's adaptable, it kind of learns from them as they're using it and it basically works out of the box. And then they kind of tune it. And then they kind of tune it as they're using it. And it gets better and it gets more accurate for them. But it's sort of like it there's instant ROI in the sense that most of them were doing this stuff in spreadsheets or pen and paper before. And it's like it is instantly better than that. And then it gets even better as they use it. So it's sort of a no we tried to build something that was sort of a no-brainer that could really help them right away.
Jim Mayer: Got it. Alex, why I mean on your LinkedIn, which is where I do a lot of research for this show, ⁓ you you talk about why US manufacturers are losing work ⁓ Asia. And it sometimes counterintuitive. I understand what you're talking about, right? But but walk us through your thesis. I mean you you've talked about
Alex Huckstepp: Worse.
Jim Mayer: It's not necessarily cost, it's more based on speed. And how does Uptool help the ⁓ manufacturers fill that gap?
Alex Huckstepp: Yeah, so obviously it's a big, complicated, hairy topic. it's not just Asia, right? It's it's any any low-cost region. You know, Mexico, a lot of our manufacturings moved to Mexico for right for better for better or worse. But in the world of if I can kind of like at least focus us in, because I don't want to make like really broad political statements, right, that are kind of vague. If I can focus us in on the world of like custom low volume ⁓ mechanical parts, right? Machined parts, turned, EDM parts, metal, you know, cutting, bending, welding. this is a real like these are really large market segments and but they're specific kind of processes. And the same thing probably applies to like ⁓ molding and some volume molding, casting, forging, some of these processes. There's no fundamental reason ⁓ why ⁓ we ⁓ can't be more competitive here. ⁓ why we shouldn't make things here, right? Versus them on the other side of the world and then having to put them on ships planes get them here. One obvious like difference what's the right? Between making something here versus making it in let's say China. Labor is a piece, you know, 20 years ago Yes, labor, labor was like a tenth of what it was here in China. And like that was processes were much more manual, right? There was less automation. And so like that was, yeah, it makes total sense why why a lot of stuff why a lot of stuff went over there. but know, labor is is is has has ⁓ n still of course, in China, but it's it's much more similar. I think something like two to three X probably here now. versus a skilled, like highly skilled labor in China. so that ⁓ you is different, but the the playing field has been leveled more there. And with automation, it gives us the ability to to obviously displace you know of that labor cost to make it more efficient, more productive. now the other you know components ⁓ are of course like materials ⁓ There's a lot of work we have to do here to to to to lower the cost of materials because I think there's some games that are played overseas with subsidization of materials, of energy as a core input to material. A lot a lot of people don't realize, like a lot of the cost of materials is actually the cost of energy to process that material. so it's very interrelated, but we got to bring our energy and material costs down here. and then ⁓ and then, you those are those are two of the most fundamental, ⁓ you pieces of what w what does it cost to make, you know, some custom thing, right? There's the the labor that goes into it, there's the material. Of course, there's the the equipment and the capex, right? And and we also have to work to lower the cost of machine tools and automation equipment. And part of that may be more US-based manufacturers those things, but Not necessarily. Like although most of the high-end machine tools come from Germany or Japan, we need to figure out like like we shouldn't be tariffing machine tools, right? Like that's like kind of a no like this makes no sense. if want to build an ⁓ a manufacturing base here, we should be subsidizing if anything. We should be giving tax incentives ⁓ for that wanna invest in in infrastructure like that, right? In our in our manufacturing capacity. And then there's the
Jim Mayer: Yeah.
Alex Huckstepp: The overhead. this is one of the biggest killers for the US, which is like the regulatory burden, the paperwork, the benefits, the all the all the sort of indirect costs involved with making a thing here have just inflated in incredibly over time. and that's one that
Jim Mayer: Okay.
Alex Huckstepp: That Uptool is one of many things that Uptool is is really trying help improve. we're we we're not changing like regulatory stuff anytime soon. We don't ⁓ we have big lobby budgets, but but just the when we walk into a typical machine shop today, you know, let's just say that the you know the median machine shop, I think is like eight or nine people, you'll see two or three people that are tied to their desks doing Paperwork, basically. I I I say paperwork, but you it's like e it's email, some some of it is physical paper. But it's just like coordination, overhead, paperwork. and that ratio you do not see if you go to China, right? Or somewhere like that. there's you know, smaller teams that ⁓ that are supporting like there's more manufacturers and they're spending more time actually doing the manufacturing work. And ⁓ that that's one big thing that we need to do to to really compete is like reducing that kind of overhead overhead burden. And then, you know, that's just from a cost perspective and then from a speed perspective, it's related, but it's like, how do we actually if you take cost and quality and capability out of the equation, we're all human and we have to get jobs done, and you have a task in front of you and you You have a build coming up next week. You're building that next version of your new product. And you got to get those three different custom parts in and assembled. And you could spend all days like emailing machine shops across the US, begging them for quotes, following up with them, trying to get firm commitments around lead times, and still and still end up short, right? And end up just like.
Jim Mayer: Yeah.
Alex Huckstepp: Just sourcing it overseas because you're getting like service, you're getting response, you're getting someone on the end of the phone other end of the phone line or or email. so there's just the you know, practical fact of like we we need we need people to to really offer like a an experience, a user experience and a trusted kind of responsive partner ⁓ on the other end to to to bring stuff back or to do stuff here.
Jim Mayer: Yeah.
Alex Huckstepp: So sorry I'm rambling a lot, but but I think I kind of covered all elements of that.
Jim Mayer: no, I I love those kinds of rants, man. ⁓ I look I look at you know, a lot of the situations that we're in, ⁓ whether be the workforce shortage gap, tsunami, whatever you want to call it, you look at our capacity issues, you look at our infrastructure, a lot of all of this is self imposed bullshit that we did to ourselves starting in the nineteen seventies, right? I when I at historically
Alex Huckstepp: Okay.
Jim Mayer: a like a root cause for all of this. It all started when we abandoned the gold standard in 73 or whatever that was, right? And then from there, that led it gave the ability to manufacturers to start offshoring. And when we started offshoring, that's when we lost our capacity. That's when we, you know, you talk about that whole, you know, concept of we've got to get jobs out the door and and the speed at which China can respond to some of these jobs. We work off a backlog right now, right? Like a lot of our shops are out and days ⁓ from when get an order because of the capacity constraints and the the way that we value the the work that comes in and and is held and then goes out, right? So I I love rants like that, man. I I think it this is this is why I started the show because I love having these kinds of conversations. ⁓ so
Alex Huckstepp: Ha ha ha. For sure. Yeah. And I didn't even and and I'm like ashamed that I didn't even touch on kind of like the workforce. I think 'cause it's sort of more of like a like a predicate of the problem. Like of course we need to have skilled workers to compete. and I'm just like very focused on like I'm a I'm a very like short-term thinker of like I go into a shop and I'm like How can we improve this shop today? And of course, like you're not hiring someone today, but but you need to get the right team there. You need to get the people with the skills that can that can execute. And there's a whole lot of work we have to do there. then you know, obviously very, very germane to our conversation here about culture. we a lot of work to do to up upskill, right, and our workforce and and get get people like excited about ⁓ wanting to careers in manufacturing. How d how can we make it kind of fun and interesting and and sexy, my friend Christine likes to say. Like how do we make manufacturing fun, cool and sexy? ⁓ yeah. ⁓
Jim Mayer: Yeah. Yeah. But I think ⁓ real quick on that point, even that can go back to that gold standard, right? Because when we started offshoring, we started telling kids in school and middle school that there was no future in manufacturing. And we a lot of the the societal contract, the the community pride that come that came from ⁓ having a factory job in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, right? Those those were people who were able to their family on ⁓ income, right? And they had the picket fence and and they were but we when we told kids there was no future in that, we started to diminish the people who were already there working there. ⁓ And so s as a society, we stopped caring. I just did a a lot of research a couple weeks ago about how many people care about where their parts are made ⁓ Americans, and ⁓ 30, like I think it was 32, maybe it was 38% of Americans actually care about their stuff is made. And that is bonkers to me. so
Alex Huckstepp: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jim Mayer: Yeah, I think it can all
Alex Huckstepp: It's a little cra yeah. It's a little you know, it's a little crazy to me too, but I think I have a slightly different perspective than you do, which is we're n we can't convince Americans to care where their shit is made. I I don't believe that that is the solution. I would love if they did. But I don't think you can I don't think there's anything we can go out there and and the same applies to like our kids. The the li you know If you wanna if you want our kids to go into manufacturing, we should probably tell them not to go into manufacturing if you know how kids think, right? th there's no word there's no words. I don't think there's any real like like propaganda that's gonna get that's gonna get our country like ⁓ really manufacturing I think it's gonna be a very slow but like process of just doing it. like like k Kids have to see and we should talk more about like Elon and SpaceX because I think this is a great example, but kids have to ⁓ see in their communities that are respected, that are successful, that are wealthy, that have built careers in manufacturing to want to go into manufacturing. It like so it doesn't matter what what what we tell them, I think. and so how do we do that? And and it's that it's not straightforward. But I think like seeing the SpaceX IPO, when was that last week? It's pretty exciting because it's like, man, we got this like the most ⁓ valuable now in the world or something like that, sixth most valuable, you know, was started a couple decades ago. that it like manufacturing is so core to its to its competitive advantage to to how they succeeded. And And now we got the wealthiest person in the world that, you know, got got to that point because they built some sort of fundamentally really manufacturing heavy industrial businesses that that really transformed and reshaped like two of our biggest, you know, markets in in the US or in the world. so I think we need more of that. You know, that like people and and those leaders need to go out there and talk about manufacturing and how critical it is. But yes, I'm ranting again. But ⁓ but I think we both feel strongly about this. ⁓
Jim Mayer: Absolutely. Yeah. That's why you're a guest on the show, man. I just yeah, I I like people who have strong opinions about this industry and and like to talk about it. ⁓ Alex ⁓ gears a little bit as wrap up and a and we will talk a little bit about culture here. I don't think this episode will come out by the time this event happens, but you're hosting a a physical event.
Alex Huckstepp: Yeah, yeah.
Jim Mayer: ⁓ a week from today in Santa Clara, and beers or or something along those lines. ⁓ I'm a massive fan of community and building community events in this space. talk to us about why you're doing this and and what people can expect to hear about when they hear this episode and then go check out your LinkedIn.
Alex Huckstepp: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. For sure. So, you know, one thing that we've that we've learned in terms of how to connect with these small across the US is that showing in person, showing them that you're, you know, ⁓ there in community, that you wanna like actually build a real relationship with them, ⁓ like a And like kind of physical, you know, relationship with them in the sense that you're there, you're present. so important for for building out the networks and in this in this sort of manufacturing community. And like these these these manufacturers are just getting bombarded all day by cold calls and ⁓ email everyone is right? Like like cold emails and LinkedIn messages and like They're they're great at like everyone's getting really good at just like filtering out the noise. And so what we found is like one of the best ways to like actually really connect with with with small manufacturers and it is to just up like literally sometimes we just knock on their door. Hey, here's a Yeti mug, here's here's donuts, right? But also just but but also just like having an event like we're doing next week where we just ⁓ we're actually doing it in one of the densest pockets of machine shops in the Bay Area. There's a square mile, like literally it's one square mile. It's just north of the San Jose Airport that has about a hundred machine shops there. And most people like, yeah, they don't believe it. And like I could show you the map. ⁓ you go to my you can go to our website actually USA Machineshops.com and we've out all the machine shops in the in the US and you can in on this area just north of San Jose Airport in the Bay Area.
Jim Mayer: Wow. That's awesome.
Alex Huckstepp: And there's, I think, 110 machine shops in a square mile. we're just, you know, we got a barbecue food truck coming and we're gonna have coolers of cold beer. And we said, like, hey guys, there's not a lot of agenda here. Just like you guys most of you ⁓ don't even know each other. You don't know that of you guys are even here in the same area. Some of do, some of you outsource some work to each other. You know, it's great. We got like one that focuses a machine shop focuses on milling. next to one that focuses on turning, next to one that does sheet metal, next to one that does finishing. And like ⁓ be honest, coming back to like how do we compete as a country, that's one of the key things that like China, Shenzhen, all these other areas have have like done what these ecosystems, right? That emerge. But so many of our manufacturers are kind of just like offline. Like they don't even know who their neighbors are, they don't have a website, they're not very digitally present. They're not very present on social media.
Jim Mayer: Yeah.
Alex Huckstepp: So we're gonna try to do more events like this where we're just like, guys, know, we're right around the corner. Come meet your friends and neighbors and other shops. And we're gonna bring some like potential customers there too, because we talk to a lot of engineers and buyers that are like, man, I wanna find more great local shops. How can we, you know, do you have any recommendations? How can we meet them? How can we find the right ones that have the right capability? And so we're inviting some of them out there too, just to say, hey, come come meet your local shops and trying to build just helps.
Jim Mayer: That's awesome. That's awesome.
Alex Huckstepp: piece by piece, right? Little little bit by little bit, like build this ecosystem up. Yeah.
Jim Mayer: That's awesome. ⁓ I love that man. Congratulations. I can't wait to see the content that comes out of that, ⁓ that you post on LinkedIn. Alex, as we like are wrapping up, one of the things that I do want to mention is people go watch the episode about Uptool that Alex and I did over on YouTube on the manufacturing connector page.
Alex Huckstepp: Thanks.
Jim Mayer: you can learn more about his tool or that tool over there. Alex, what to you, what is the future of manufacturing? What what do we what are we gonna see in three, five, ten years down the road?
Alex Huckstepp: Coming back to like to this moment we saw with SpaceX last week, I think we we're gonna see more of, you know, maybe the the outcomes will not be that big and and glorious, but like we're gonna see a lot of little SpaceXs really our industries here. There's so critical industries that we have to excel in to to keep America at the forefront. So we have like space. We have automotive and autonomous vehicles and EVs, but we have like robotics now, right? With humanoids and and how AI is going to transform kind of some of this, ⁓ some of these physical industries. semiconductors, chips, data centers, energy generation to to power all these data centers, critical mining and stuff that we're ⁓ gonna need to here. ⁓ to be more self-sufficient and and drive these industries forward. like the foundation of so much of this is like the the the small manufacturers that make this whole work, the whole thing work. And think that ⁓ you know gonna see this kind of renaissance ⁓ of of of small manufacturers that can serve these sort of next gen hardware companies. Right. There's there's tens of hundreds of billions of dollars that are going into reshape all these big physical industries they're all demanding ⁓ They're all demanding a ⁓ supply with speed and and like digital threads to tie it all together and new levels of sort of automation and connectivity. And so ⁓ I'm s I'm excited about the future. It's not going to happen overnight, but but we're going to try to empower the small high-mix manufacturers with the tools they need to be part of that future and to compete and win and thrive. hopefully to help build up this whole the whole ecosystem, the whole economy on top of it.
Jim Mayer: Love it, man. Love absolutely love it. Alex, what didn't I ask you that you want to share with the audience?
Alex Huckstepp: I think just, you know, where if if people wanna if people wanna learn more about Uptool, ⁓ whether, you know, they're running a shop or if they think this may be a fit for them or someone, you know, someone they know or work with, you know, please check out our website, Uptool.com. find us on on LinkedIn or X or wherever. and then if if people are going to IMTS, you know, we have a big manufacturing show coming up in September. That will be the first show that Uptool at.
Jim Mayer: Yeah.
Alex Huckstepp: Right as a startup. And and we're gonna show up there in a big way with a lot of the team, with live demos, with a booth in the software section there of IMTS. So we'd love if any of your listeners will be at IMTS, I imagine many of them will be. We'd love we'd love to connect with them there and you know, make that in person physical connection and ⁓ and and chat more about if there's ⁓ opportunities to to work together.
Jim Mayer: Absolutely. Very cool. Very cool. Alex, appreciate you coming on, being so open. it a great conversation. Thank you for being here. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, that was Alex Huck Step. if this conversation resonated with you in any way, shape, or form, please share the episode with somebody who may be in may not be in manufacturing.
Alex Huckstepp: I enjoyed it. Thanks a lot, Jim. Great to talk to you.
Jim Mayer: they may not know what they want to do in the next stage of their career. Alex a great person to listen to about the the progression of of careers. ⁓ Send it your grandma. Grandma would love to hear Alex talk about manufacturing and and ⁓ where we've gotten in the hollowing out of. So yeah, share it with somebody is the moral of the story. also, like I said at the top of the show, rate and review the show wherever you're on. Help us find more people, find the show. thank you all for being on this journey with me. we'll see you next time. Keep making things.
