Ken Sobel (Hyperframe) — Moving to Ohio and Constructing The Future of Steel Framing

Ken Sobel — Co-founder and CEO of Hyperframe. Ken is a repeat founder and engineer whose path into construction followed an earlier startup journey through Y Combinator and an acquisition by Visa. With Hyperframe, he’s taken a first-principles approach to one of the most fundamental components of construction — steel framing — reimagining a process that’s been slow, manual, and largely unchanged for decades, and redesigning it into a snap-together framing system that’s faster, safer, and far more efficient. After years of development and real-world validation, the company has achieved strong product-market fit and is now scaling manufacturing. That journey led Ken and his team to relocate Hyperframe from California to Ohio, where they are building their first large-scale production facility. In our conversation, we discuss: Ken’s path from startup founder to construction entrepreneur  Why construction remains slow, manual, and resistant to change  The insight behind Hyperframe — redesigning building products themselves  What it actually looks like to use Hyperframe on a job site  The challenge of scaling a hard tech company  Why credibility is everything in construction adoption  The decision to move to Ohio — and what it enables  This is a conversation about reindustrialization in practice — and what it takes to rebuild physical industries from the ground up. ——— For more on The O.H.I.O. Fund: check out & subscribe to future content @ www.theohiofund.com ——— LINKS: linkedin.com/in/ken-sobel https://www.hyperframe.com/