#StartupsEverywhere Profile: Nathan Seidle, CEO & Co-Founder, SparkFun
This profile is part of #StartupsEverywhere, an ongoing series highlighting startup leaders in ecosystems across the country. This interview has been edited for length, content, and clarity.
Creating and manufacturing open source hardware to enable other creators and innovators
SparkFun, headquartered in Niwot, Colo., designs and manufactures electronic development tools used to build new technological innovations and enable research. We sat down with Nathan Seidle, CEO and Co-Founder, to learn why he launched the company, the challenges for a small business of navigating the U.S. intellectual property landscape, and how startups looking to support educational communities can face significant structural barriers.
Tell us about your background. What led you to SparkFun?
SparkFun started because I was completely enthralled by building, hacking, and tinkering with electronics. When my home-brew GPS data logger blew up, I needed more parts. At that time (2002) there weren’t many websites selling parts and those that did were really dismal. I thought maybe I could sell some parts to friends in college to fund my own needs!
What is the work you all are doing at SparkFun?
We design electronic development tools—boards and products that engineers use to build prototypes and do research. Our products cover the gambit from wireless devices to electronic sensors and global position system trackers—all sorts of stuff. We design and manufacture approximately 500 different products in Boulder, Colorado, with a team of about 100 employees and two surface-mount device (SMD) lines. We’re building nearly half a million electronic devices right here in the USA. All of our products are what's called open source hardware, which means we have no patents on our products. We were sharing schematics and firmware before there was a formal name for “open source hardware” but once the Open Source Hardware Association(OSHWA) came into being, we became a big champion of the movement. Since then SparkFun has become a sort of poster child for open source hardware, including the policy issues we encounter, for example in the areas of trademark and intellectual property.
As a developer of these open source products, what kind of challenges have you faced navigating the intellectual property space?
In one instance we were importing 4,000 multimeters—a standard device for measuring electrical properties—but our shipment was stopped at the border because the devices were yellow. Citing a multi-billion-dollar company’s broad trademark, customs blocked our shipment because of the color. This is an example of one of the many landmines small business owners can step on: I had no idea that anyone could own such a broad trademark and there was little recourse for a small company like ours once we found out about the allegation our supplier infringed.
We were also recently targeted by a patent troll—a company that just purchases rights to a handful of patents and uses them to sue others (including small businesses) to try and extract money out of baseless accusations. These sorts of accusations can have a real consequence for our bottom line. In our case, the troll accused us of infringing a patent that expired in 2018, and that company was only even formed three months after the patent expired. We hired a lawyer and fought back, and the troll dropped the case and went away. But, in the end, that still cost us over $12,000. I think it is important to fight these lawsuits and invalidate these bad patents, though—and it is especially important for bigger companies that can afford it. When companies settle with trolls it hurts small businesses, because that settlement money just funds more abusive lawsuits, and small businesses don’t have the same budgets to fight back.
SparkFun produces a number of products that can be used in STEM education. Do you have thoughts on how policymakers can do more to support the talent pipeline—for example improving the ability to get technology into student’s hands or otherwise?
We produce a lot of technology and hardware that can be used in K-12 environments, and there’s a big potential to influence STEM education there. We have tried very hard to get products into public schools, but from a business perspective, it was extremely difficult because the purchasing timelines for schools are 12-24 months of budgeting, contracts, etc. You have to shake hands and be on a first name basis with purchasers in government and they are not set up to work with our type of e-commerce, small business model.
One of our best STEM education customers was Puerto Rico because the entire island is one educational district. We had this incredible order roll through for a batch of educational hardware we had co-designed with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The fact that we were working with a single district made it much easier to work with PR as a customer. When you're talking about thousands of individual districts across North America, that just isn’t a reachable market. But we would love to be a resource to STEM classes and see those become even more prevalent, particularly for women and underrepresented minorities.
Are there any other startup policy issues that you think should receive more attention from lawmakers?
I have looked at Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants over the last 20 years. It has always been a daunting application process that encompassed more paperwork than the potential funding was worth. The overhead is pretty tremendous and if you’re really going to help small businesses with these types of grants, that process needs to be retooled.
We have talked to the National Science Foundation (NSF) about open source hardware in the past, and the need for different application processes. At the time, NSF was valuing any applications that contained patents or ideas with potential patentability very high, nearly a requirement. Through a collaboration between SparkFun and OSHWA we were able to host a series of workshops to show the NSF that the quality of applicants increases if open source based projects are allowed in the process.
What are your goals for SparkFun moving forward?
More! Faster! Bigger! There’s always new technologies like millimeter precise location sensors, time-of-flight LIDARs and more powerful processors being released. We love playing with all of them. There’s also some new tools we’re developing to allow non-engineers to manufacture their own tools using SparkFun À La Carte (ALC). It’s a really fun time to be in electronics and to be a manufacturer. I just want to focus less of my time on silly lawsuits and more time on building!
All of the information in this profile was accurate at the date and time of publication.
Engine works to ensure that policymakers look for insight from the startup ecosystem when they are considering programs and legislation that affect entrepreneurs. Together, our voice is louder and more effective. Many of our lawmakers do not have first-hand experience with the country's thriving startup ecosystem, so it’s our job to amplify that perspective. To nominate a person, company, or organization to be featured in our #StartupsEverywhere series, email ian@engine.is.
