We Went Looking for Duct Tape (with Daniel Scott Mitchell) | ReForge 025

In this episode, Matthew Chang and Colin Russ talk with Daniel Scott Mitchell (Co-Founder & CTO at Takton) about what he learned touring 150-plus American factories before building anything, and why the future of American industry depends on keeping small shops alive rather than waiting for them to fail. If you care about manufacturing, machine monitoring, industrial IoT, small and midsize shops, family businesses, or reindustrialization, this one is for you. What we cover Spending the first six months after launch touring factories instead of selling, and why that took investors who were actually aligned Going from Tesla Skunk Works and Rivian's van launch to tier two and tier three suppliers, and how different that world is Shops running thousands of SKUs on whiteboards and paper while still hitting 99 percent on-time delivery Getting tribal knowledge out of Frank's head, and the low-friction approach of handing him a pair of smart glasses instead of asking for an SOP manual Takton Sense: non-invasive power and vibration sensing, a 15-minute install, air gapped from the machine, checking every minute whether the machine is running and whether it is running well Why it is closer to an Oura Ring than a diagnostic, and what "symptom radar" means for a machine The 20 percent of advanced manufacturing technology that delivers 80 percent of the impact, and building the Kirkland brand version of the manufacturing tech stack Why MT Connect is great and still not enough when a shop's newest machine has telemetry and the other 28 have none A customer running a machine he thinks dates to the 1890s, originally belt driven off a water wheel, and the only two questions that matter before installing Why vendors built for Fortune 500 procurement make technology impossible to try, and what no minimum contract and a hardware buyback actually unlock 98 percent of US factories have fewer than 500 employees, and why that ecosystem does not exist anywhere else in the world Pushback on the idea that American industry needs the boomers to retire before it can recover Looking for duct tape as a product research method, and the a la carte versus prix fixe test for manufacturing software Chapters 00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro  01:36 150 Factories Road Trip  05:11 Capturing Tribal Knowledge  07:49 Takton Sense Explained  17:17 Adoption Barriers and Trust  31:38 What's Next and Wrap Up Hosts: Matthew Chang and Colin Russ  Guest: Daniel Scott Mitchell, Co-Founder & CTO at Takton Find Daniel Scott Mitchell:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielscottmitchell/ | https://x.com/danielmitchell Find Matthew Chang:  https://x.com/MatthewChang | https://www.instagram.com/the.matthewchang | https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewachang/ | https://www.tiktok.com/@the.matthewchang Find Colin Russ:  https://x.com/ThaaatColin | https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinruss/ Find Chang Robotics: https://changrobotics.ai Resources mentioned Seven Steps to Reindustrialize America: https://www.thereforgepodcast.com/7steps Follow ReForge LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-reforge-podcast/ X: https://x.com/thereforgepod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thereforgepod/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thereforgepod Website: https://thereforgepodcast.com/ Want to be a guest or partner? If you're building, funding, operating, or shaping the future of U.S. manufacturing, we'd love to hear from you.  Email: [email protected] About ReForge ReForge is a podcast featuring conversations with the leaders reindustrializing America.  This show exists to prove American reindustrialization is possible, pivotal, and pressing.  Hosted by Matthew Chang and Colin Russ. Produced by Chang Robotics.