#023 - Developing consumer products with an all-in-one manufacturer in China that is just different, with Jacob Rothman of Platform88, China

The Hardware Entrepreneur

My guest was Jacob Rothman, co-founder of Platform88, which offers services from China.

Jacob has over fifteen years of experience working in China. He has founded several companies including Smart Products, Velong Enterprises, and his latest venture, Platform88. With Platform88 his goal is to help hardware entrepreneurs with their manufacturing, retail needs.

This is a first episode where a company which is based in China is featured. Since the world’s manufacturing base, especially for hardware, consumer products is in China, I find his topic extremely relevant for this podcast. We’ll discuss such topics as how much retail and manufacturing has changed in the world and in particular in China in recent years; how Jacob arrived to China and how he got to start his recent company. You’ll learn what differentiates them from accelerators, what products they specialize in, what kind of innovations they like very much. We also discussed what market trends he can see that can be significant opportunities for startups. We brought up also an example of a hardware startup called Stojo which they worked with.

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

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

• A different China – [3:03]
• What’s going on in the world’s manufacturing base? – [4:20]
• Jacob’s journey to Platform88 - [5:35]
• Changes in the retail sector that created opportunities for factories - [7:25]
• What do your factories do? - [9:14]
• What services does Platform88 offer? - [10:23]
• The key differentiators of Platform88 - [12:22]
• At what stage of development startups should reach out to Platform88? - [15:05]
• “If you're going to scale, eventually you're going to get to China” – [17:35]
• The benefit of working with somebody who is in your vertical - [18:52]
• Why does Jacob prefer to focus on more traditional products rather than technological marvels? – [21:00]
• What are some development and market trends that would allow new entrepreneurs to thrive, according to Jacob - [24:30]
• How does Platform88 deal with the cash flow issue of startups? - [26:41]
• If you could go back in time to the time when you were younger, what would you tell yourself? – [28:00]
• Which book had the biggest impact on his career? – [28:45]
• Jacob’s work related habits – [30:40]
• Some cultural differences that Jacob had to overcome in his work – [31:51]
• What is the best way to reach Jacob? – [33:48]