The ReForge Podcast

In this episode, Matthew Chang and Colin Russ go without a guest to call two things: structural steel is now the critical path on American factory builds, and the customer-funded founder is the one most likely to survive the reindustrialization wave. If you care about manufacturing, construction, supply chain, policy, founders, this one is for you. What we cover Why you now order steel before you submit the building permitDock lock hooks as an unofficial reindustrialization indexData centers ...

In this episode, Matthew Chang and Colin Russ talk with Mason Hensley (Managing Director at American Stator) about why the stator is the real bottleneck in American robotics, and what it takes to build that supply chain here from the steel coil forward. If you care about robotics, supply chain, manufacturing, automation, domestic production, this one is for you. What we cover Why roughly 80 percent of small stators come out of ChinaDie lead times of 20 weeks here versus a third of that in Asi...

In this episode, Matthew Chang and Colin Russ talk with Ryan Ray (Director of Partnerships at Ad Astra Equity Advisors) about why so many small manufacturers are worth far less than their owners expect, and why removing the owner from the business is the work that fixes almost everything else. If you care about manufacturing, capital, automation, and succession, this one is for you. What we cover - Owner dependency and the Thailand test - The twenty percent customer concentration rule - Using...

In this episode, Matthew Chang and Colin Russ talk with Caleb Chamberlain (Co-Founder and CEO at OSH Cut) about building a fabrication company that competes on predictability and software instead of cash burn, and why that model scales across the country. If you care about manufacturing, automation, supply chain, industrial AI, capital, this one is for you. What we cover Monte Carlo simulation for capacity and bottleneck planningWhy OSH Cut picked Cincinnati for site twoDropping shops where t...

In this episode, Matthew Chang and Colin Russ talk with Will Alverson (Managing Partner at Accurate Metal Products) about running a second generation steel plate business with no leverage through a demand boom he thinks is real, driven almost entirely by AI CapEx, and fragile enough to have a single point of failure. If you care about manufacturing, capital, supply chain, workforce, policy, this one is for you. What we cover Copper as a macro barometerCapEx without leverageRaw material prices...