#019 - Chairless chair, with Keith Gunura of noonee, Switzerland

The Hardware Entrepreneur

My guest is Keith Gunura, co-founder and CEO of noonee, producers of an exoskeleton-like device.

Keith developed the Chairless Chair® at the ETH Zurich in 2009 to help now production line workers.

We’ll discuss with Keith what Forrest Gump has to do with noonee’s technology, how the company was started, Keith’s way of simplifying things to attack a real problem. Keith will talk about how they got into CNN and how it happened that some people didn’t like this much. We’ll cover the future of exoskeletons, why they are working with an engineering company, a similar company to the one that was featured in episode 16 of this podcast.

Learn more about this episode via the highlights as seen below.

Raw transcript is available at: https://www.thehardwareentrepreneur.com

Enjoy listening.

Show highlights can be seen below:

• What problem does chairless chair solve and for whom? – [2:20]
• The story behind founding noonee - [4:29]
• Iron Man as main topic others focus on vs simplifying the problem? - [5:40]
• How to be featured on CNN – [7:31]
• What good could happen when journalists don’t keep their promises? – [ 10:35]
• BMW and Audi, the first supporters of the chairless chair, and their views on the publicity of the idea – [13:05]
• What is an exoskeleton? – [15:03]
• How do you know you’re on the right wagon? – [16:19]
• From a university spin-out to working closely with an engineering company or why you can’t do everything yourself?– [18:36]
• Chairless chair current stage of development – [20:43]
• What’s the near-term future for exoskeletons? – [22:22]
• If you could time travel and go back in time to your early 20s, what notes would you give yourself? – [23:28]
• Which book had the biggest impact on Keith’s career? – [24:02]
• Co-founders’ habits – [24:52]
• The way they do business – [26:08]
• What is the best way to reach Keith? – [28:32]