Being an Engineer
Being an Engineer
S6E26 Katie Karmelek | How You Can Accelerate Med Device Development with Chamfr
In this episode of the Being an Engineer podcast, host Aaron Moncur interviews Katie Karmelek, a mechanical engineer and co-founder of Chamfr. Katie shares her journey from engineering to entrepreneurship, discussing her passion for medical device innovation and how Chamfr is revolutionizing component sourcing for medical device engineers.
Main Topics:
- Katie's engineering background and family influences
- The founding of Chamfr and its mission to accelerate medical device development
- Challenges of creating an online marketplace for medical components
- Personal experiences that highlight the importance of medical device innovation
- Advice for young engineers and entrepreneurs
About the guest: Katie Karmelek is a mechanical engineer and entrepreneur with nearly 20 years of experience in the medical device industry. She is the co-founder of Chamfr, an online marketplace that simplifies sourcing components and tools for medical device development by connecting engineers with qualified suppliers.
Before launching Chamfr in 2017, Katie held roles in product development and business management at companies like Olympus, Vention Medical, and TDC Medical. She also founded Karmelek Engineering, Inc., applying her technical expertise to further innovation in the field.
Katie holds both a Bachelor's and Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Northeastern University. She is committed to mentoring young engineers and frequently shares insights on materials and design trends through the Chamfr blog.
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About Being An Engineer
The Being An Engineer podcast is a repository for industry knowledge and a tool through which engineers learn about and connect with relevant companies, technologies, people resources, and opportunities. We feature successful mechanical engineers and interview engineers who are passionate about their work and who made a great impact on the engineering community.
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When you're developing those products, you realize that they're helping people, and you do and you know that, and that's so fulfilling, and we've already talked about that. But when it's somebody that you love so dearly, it is a whole different ball game. You
Aaron Moncur:Katie, hello and welcome to the being an engineer podcast. Katie karmalek is our guest today, a seasoned mechanical engineer and the co founder of chamfer, a game changing online marketplace that connects medical device engineers with in stock and custom components to accelerate prototyping and product development with nearly two decades of experience spanning hands on engineering and strategic business roles at companies like Olympus and vengeance. Medical Katie brings deep expertise in driving med tech innovation from concept to commercialization. Beyond her professional achievements, Katie is passionate about mentoring the next generation of engineers. She actively supports programs like the gallant engineering business program at Northeastern University, and contributes to various women in STEM initiatives. Katie, thank you so much for being on the show with us today.
Katie Karmelek:Thanks for having me, Aaron. I'm excited to talk with you today.
Aaron Moncur:Terrific, terrific. Now, we had your co founder on the show. It's been, it's been a few years now, maybe more than a few years, three years, something like that. Yeah, you had Julie Schulte on right? Yes, yeah. And, and she was lovely, of course, but a lot has changed in the past three years or so. Chamfer has been growing quite a bit. You have different offerings now, and so we're going to dig into all of that. But before we get into all of that fun stuff, let's start with the typical first question that we do here on the being an engineer podcast, which is what made you decide to become an engineer, sure?
Katie Karmelek:Yeah. So I was, I was influenced by my grandfather. First, he was a mechanical engineer. He served in World War Two, and he was always doing stuff around the house. One day, he would just say, okay, you know what? I think we need a new electrical outlet over there. And before you know it, an hour later, we'd be wiring a new electrical outlet, and he knew how to do everything, which just amazed me. I was captivated by him, his stories and really just, you know, how he approached everything from scratch, with confidence and knew how to do everything. But it really wasn't also just him. I I grew up with a mom who went a single mom who went to medical school when I was in first grade, and she was then an ER doctor, is now retired. My dad is a dentist, and my brother followed in my mom's footsteps and is now also an ER doctor. So I was surrounded by medicine, but I knew for sure that I didn't want to be a doctor. So for me, I was actually really excited to find the medical device industry because I still wanted to help people, but without being bedside next to the patient, I could still bring kind of that, the the engineering aspect, and still be a part of the whole healthcare system, which just I've loved since the Day. I found the industry
Aaron Moncur:fantastic. So your, your full time effort right now is chamfer, but before that, you, you had a career in engineering. I mean, doing engineering work, can you maybe just walk us through a couple of highlights, where places you worked, and maybe if there was a project in particular that was exciting or interesting that you can talk about,
Katie Karmelek:absolutely, yeah, I was fortunate to find medical device industry in at I went to Northeastern and so my first Co Op, just finding my first job, essentially, I found the medical device industry. So I worked on a lot of really cool projects. I worked at a company called NMT medical, which had a heart implant. So I was exposed to catheter delivery systems and minimally invasive, you know, heart surgery. That way. Just my very first Co Op. I worked at Boston Scientific I have a patent with them on a biliary stent. And then from there, I worked on the services side of the business. I loved just being able to work in a variety of different projects with different companies, mostly minimally invasive surgical devices, a lot of catheters. And one in particular is actually actively in clinical trials right now. And it's a really cool new way to treat hydrocephalus, which is a swelling in your brain, right? And so it can be a really horrible disease, and the current course of treatment is brain surgery, literally opening up your brain and putting a tube from your brain all the way down to your abdomen, like the most invasive. And a lot of people who get this have to have repeat surgeries. We met a woman who had, I think, over 14 repeat surgeries for this, and it's actually a minimally invasive femoral access device. That can go all the way up and deliver a little implant this big to treat hydrocephalus. It's you guys should check them out. They're called Sarah Vasque, and I had a blast, very complex product, but a lot of fun. And they're doing great things. So
Aaron Moncur:incredible. Wow, how fulfilling it must be to have been a part of that and see how it impacts people's lives.
Unknown:You know what? I'm such a small part of it, and that's the best part, too. I've been exposed to so many great people. It takes a ton of manpower, women power, all the power to bring those products to market, and having access to the parts that you need, to the testing that you need, right, and really building out that whole comprehensive strategy to get that product to market takes a lot, and I just feel fortunate to have been a very small part of that one in particular, and several others,
Aaron Moncur:all right, so that's a perfect segue into chamfer, having access to the components you need to develop a product. Tell us a little bit about chamfr. What is chamfer? How did it get started, and what was the problem that chamfr is solving?
Katie Karmelek:Yeah, so chamfr is an online marketplace. We are connecting buyers and suppliers at their point of need, and that is through access to in stock. Components. Is one piece of it. We also facilitate connections at the custom component level, right getting connected with the right supplier that you need to source that specialized component that might not be in stock or readily available. And then beyond that, you know, it's not just about components. When you're developing a medical device, you need a lot of different services and capabilities. So we're really, truly are the One Stop Shop experience that can help you get connected to the right person to bring that product to market faster. We initially started with the foundation of the marketplace, right that in stock components, because, number one, I was an R and D engineer. I say was because I don't really practice Bill free choices to market. I guess I still am an R and D engineer, but I was trying to prototype and not finding the parts that I needed. I'd have to go to multiple websites. Nothing fit thoughtfully together, and it was a lot of time spent. And so, you know, my vision for bringing chamfr to light, which I had a co I have a co founder that had a different vision, and it's really interesting how we came together. But I was like, I don't I don't want to waste all this time. I just want to be able to place one shopping experience. I want to be able to get what I need. And I want them to be from medical grade suppliers, not kind of what I would say, quote, dirty tubing from maybe a more industrial supplier. I want to know that I'm going to be working with the people that can help me long term. I also don't want to wait weeks. I don't want to have to write a PO and go through all of that process. I want to be able to get parts in my hands quickly, because that's the name of the game, right? It takes a lot of time to figure out and iterate and play in order to get the product to the right design that you need. And then Julie, who you mentioned earlier, so we actually had the same concept for the business around the same time, and she had a completely different perspective on it. It was she understood the prototyping angle, but she was coming from the sales side saying, I need to access these engineers at their point of need. I need to be able to get spec in early. I need to be able then I want them to know about me and my you know. And so for her, it was the sales teams need this as well. And so we kind of came together and said, yeah, they are both of our problems are solved with the same solution. You know, we need to do this. So that was sort of the background around chamfr. A lot of people ask us why the name chamfr. So it is because we are giving engineers an edge to innovate faster, right with the access of components, as well as the access to this supply base that we've built, we have over we have hundreds of suppliers, over 100 suppliers, and then it's like almost 12,000 in stock components that we have on our site today. So we've grown tremendously. And I think we've really just scratched the surface of the not just the number of products, but the technologies and the suppliers that we can bring to this marketplace.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah, I feel like I see chamfer just all over the place. Now you guys really have just blown up. Congratulations on the success of the company to date, and I'm sure it's only going to get bigger and better from here. How did you and Julie meet initially?
Katie Karmelek:Yeah, so, actually, so Julie was running sales and marketing at a company called vention medical. I had been part of vention, but as by acquisition of a small design company that I called TDC medical, that was actually one of my most favorite jobs ever. I'm actually still very close friends with the engineers that I worked with there. We just had a blast bringing products to market and testing and designing. But so, you know, by acquisition, TDC became what was known as venture medical, and Julie was brought on on the executive team. So one day, she's passing me in the hallway and she's like, Wait, you're an engineer. Come here. She asked me to explain to her the difference of a multi lumen versus a coaxial design of a catheter. So I just drew a couple of circles, and I'm like, this is how this I do it. And she goes, You need to be in marketing. And I was like, No, I don't. Can I go back to my job now, because I have a lot of work to do, and it probably took another year, she ultimately convinced me to come over to marketing, and we ended up having a blast. As you may know, vention medical had an online store, and at the time we were acquiring new component technologies, and I was ultimately responsible, under Julie to bring those products, not only to the online store but to the sales teams, and educate them on how they can what new markets we were uncovering how those component components could be leveraged. And the sales teams loved it. They were like, Bring me more of these leads. You're making my job so much easier. And we just saw exponential sales across all those component technologies. So we ended up having a blast doing all of that. Now, vention was acquired and is now Nordson medical, and so at that time, I think it had been over, over 10 years that I had been at TDC and then vention, and I was like, I think it's time to, you know, see something else. And then I was right around the time where Julie and I had sort of concepted the idea for a chamfer, and we couldn't get it out of our heads. We both went, we're toying with other jobs and what we do. And we really just were like, if we're gonna the timing probably isn't right, because we both have young kids, and we were really overwhelmed by that. But we said, You know what, there's never going to be a right time. We gotta, we gotta try. So
Aaron Moncur:that's terrific. Talk a little bit about the the need for in stock components. I mean, I don't know that everyone fully realizes or appreciates the challenges that an engineer might go through to get something for a prototype quickly. Wasn't that the case prior to chamfer that you could just go out and, like, buy three balloons off the shelf.
Unknown:If you wanted three balloons, you'd probably be spending 15, $20,000 you'd get a minimum of some number of balloons, but you'd have to pay for the tooling of the balloon, pay for the extrusion run and wait for the extrusion to be run to then sent there to then blow mold in that tooling that you just paid for. And you never like that, you'd have to be so confident in your design, because you're spending not only that money, but time is money too. So you're talking six, eight weeks at minimum, if not longer. So No, we've, we've been very fortunate that the partners that we've built it, as we grew chamfer, saw the value and invested in these products on the shelf, right? These are not, this did not happen overnight. I mean, I can tell you, poba medical started with us having no balloons on the shelf. Maybe they started with, you know, 20 to 50 to start, and now they have over 200 balloons in stock today, if not even more. I mean, they've just exploded. So the they have a ton of products, and that's, that's an investment, and then in their side, right in the tooling and everything. But they saw the value, and it really helps expedite, because that balloon, you might think you need a spherical but you're not exactly sure what diameter, or you don't know what durometer urethane you might want to have that out of right? So now you can just grab a couple a bag of a few balloons for a couple $100 test them out, and then the next day, you could be finalizing your design.
Aaron Moncur:Amazing. So much time is saved, by the way, poba medical founder Dan Kasprzyk, I think, was the third guest on the being an engineer podcast five years ago, such
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Aaron Moncur:All right. Well, back to champ for what were some of the challenges? Challenges that your team faced early on, and how did you overcome them? Yeah, I don't
Katie Karmelek:think we realized how complex a marketplace is when we decided to start this whole thing. Really, I think if we could go back and tell ourselves, then how hard it was going to be, I don't know if we would have taken the same path. But, you know, I think in that we are the kind of people that are just when you set your mind to something, we're going to figure it out, no matter how hard it is, and we'll die trying, but we will figure it out. And so in the early days, when we had concepted this and we were thinking about it, we also, you know, decided, okay, let's talk to some suppliers, let's validate this, that that we have that before we invest in a tool that they may or may not use. Let's get some of that feedback. And I, I'll never forget one of our first meetings with one of the first suppliers that joined chamfer. We sat down, we told them, and they're like, Okay, we're in. And they started to write a check to us. And we're like, you know that we haven't even built the marketplace yet, right? Like we're just, we're just trying to figure out if we're going to do this. And they're like, if anybody can do it, it's you guys. So I'm investing in that, and it's proven true. They weren't wrong. Some of our our earliest adopters are some of our best suppliers, who have been with us from the very beginning.
Aaron Moncur:Amazing, amazing. I'm sure this happens all the time, but I'm curious if you have any specific stories you can share where a team's development really was accelerated, you know, pretty dramatically by access to these in stock components at chamfer.
Unknown:Yeah, I actually just heard a story recently. You know, for us, when we set we sell these parts online. It's all very it's all digitized, right? So we're not physically talking to people, so we don't always get all of the stories, but we love them. So or whoever's listening, if you have a great story how you've used chamfer, please let us know, because we'd love to hear them. But I was fortunate enough to be having a conversation recently, and I this, it was a physician entrepreneur developing a product, and they went from concept to first in human in six months. And they said it was all because of chamfer
Aaron Moncur:that's incredible. It's incredible years, usually, yeah, so that
Unknown:we're talking like five, six, I mean, well, maybe three, five years depending on the complexity of the product. You know, the 510, K aspect, your regulatory path and what you need to do at the amount of testing that's required. Of course, many devices that are highly complex do take a lot longer. But this, in this one example, I was floored, because I've never, you know, typically it takes five months just to kind of get that first prototype, often right, let alone being that far through the development process. And that was all attributed to the fast access of components, having them readily available. And, you know, working with a partner that could really just innovate that quickly with them.
Aaron Moncur:That's amazing. Wow. I love efficiency and seeing solutions in the market that actually make a real difference. And so hearing something like that, I mean, who knows how long it would have taken this company, otherwise, years, probably, and probably hundreds of 1000s of dollars, if not more, saved. Absolutely. That's a big impact.
Unknown:Yeah, absolutely, yeah. We love to hear those stories. It just also really validates why we did this, right? I mean, our ultimate goal is helping products get to market faster, because that's helping somebody. And it doesn't have to always be a life saving device. It can be just making someone's life even incrementally better, is really why we do this. And so, I mean, the fact that it was that much faster was just mind blowing for us.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah, yeah. How does it feel to know that you're having an impact on patients lives out there and in a way that you know they may not have been able to experience without chamfer yeah,
Unknown:sometimes we have to pinch ourselves for like, Is this really happening? Did we do this? Is this really ours?
Aaron Moncur:Well, amazing. All right. Well, short break here, the being an engineer podcast is brought to you by pipeline design and engineering, where we don't design pipelines, but we do help companies develop advanced manufacturing processes, automated machines and custom fixtures, complemented with product design and R and D services, and we're having an exciting event this October called PDX. It's October 21 and 22nd out here in Phoenix, where we'll have dozens of subject matter experts doing training on different topics relevant to engineers who develop physical products, for example, how to program a robot or glue dispensing or vision inspection, or advanced surface modeling for CAD practical project management, 3d scanning and reverse engineering, metrology, Gd and T the list. Goes on and on and on. It's going to be a fun, fun time and wonderful educational experience. So we hope you can join us this Phoenix October, this October 21 and 22nd just outside of Phoenix. All right, getting back to Katie. So, Katie, you had mentioned that your grandfather was an engineer, and he influenced you, thinking back on that, what are some of the other ways that he influenced you to decide to become an engineer and pursue that career path?
Unknown:I think so. He always had a way of making things with such precision. He because, I mean, he was just, he's very polish, very like, just, he does everything, even his signature was always exactly the same, right, everything, and so, you know, watching him just be so organized and diligent and everything that was one piece that, you know, you kind of just sort of take for granted. You think engineering, you're just tinkering and making a mess or whatnot. But his workshop, mean, he had this shed with, I mean, hundreds of 1000s of various parts dating back to, who knows how long, all different nuts and bolts and screws and everything was labeled. He had his little like embossed label maker. And so I have to give him a lot of credit in that way, because he taught me to value craft, craftsmanship, I'll say, and also have some curiosity, because I was, like, always amazed that he knew everything, and I didn't know how he knew everything, and so I always wanted to know more. So that's I'd say, where I know how I got that from him, and then, yeah, I just he was a very independent person, and I think I don't know if I got that from him or not, but that is that's one similarity between the two of us that will always share
Aaron Moncur:curiosity, I think is a very important word for engineers. What What other advice or attributes to develop would you suggest for young engineers who want to get into the medical device field, or even those particularly interested in eventually exploring entrepreneurship,
Unknown:the first thing I'd say is just say yes to opportunities as they arise, because, like, for instance, the example of Julie pulling me into marketing or whatnot, and I was fortunate enough to have somebody that was doing the pulling in that example right, and really saw the, you know, the value in me to be in that role. You don't always get that every day. Say say yes, be curious, but say yes, because those opportunities are examples of how you can get experience that you know you might not realize how valuable that can be. And sometimes you can say yes, and it's not a great fit. And then you know that you don't want to do that. So I would say, always be open to new opportunities and experiences as they come. And then the other thing I would say is, is don't wait to be ready. I think you know for us with chamfr. If we had waited to be ready, we never would have built this. We had to start small. We've been we are, actually, are still very scrappy, even though we, you know, we're eight years in, we still do a lot of things ourselves. We're very hands on. We're very into like we're going to figure this out and truly understand it and then automate and I feel like that allows us to really have control over how we've built our business, the ins and outs of it, so and surround yourself with people that have that same mindset, be go for it. Start scrappy, figure stuff out and just, you know, keep at it. There's always a solution, even when it feels like there isn't.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah, I love the attitude of scrappy when when I started pipeline, it was just me and I worked out of a spare bedroom in my house. And it was that way. Even as we started hiring people and growing a little bit for the first almost 10 years, it was, it was that format. Everyone worked from home. We didn't have a formal office. Overhead was really low. We were definitely scrappy, and I think that's what enabled us to grow enough to the point where, like, Okay, now we can afford an office, right? We were able to survive for long enough to get to that, that tipping point, because we were so scrappy. So I I love that attitude personally. Let's, I'd love to talk a little bit more about your transition into marketing, because as far as I know, that was not something that you had done before, right? This is brand new for you. Yeah. Okay. So Julie says, Hey, Katie, you should, you should be a marketer. And you're like, that's crazy. And eventually, a year later, you actually you do it. So what was that transition like? And what was it like becoming a marketer, coming from engineering, what does a marketer even do?
Unknown:Yeah, yeah. It's a great question. I had no idea at the time. I was like, engineers don't belong in marketing. That doesn't make sense. And she's like, No, you don't. Understand they're the best fit. So it's actually a role which was new to me at the time. I had never heard of it, and they're there. You're called product managers. So essentially, you truly understand the ins and outs of the product in which you're marketing and be able to speak to the technical aspect. You do need to have good communication skills so that you can translate the technical aspect of whatever product you're talking about to sales, to marketing, making sure that you can dumb down if that's not a great way, that's those are, that's not a good choice words, but you know what I mean? You can simplify the tech, the highly technical piece of it, and make it digestible for whether that's going to be some kind of content, whether that's for sales, trainings and purposes, and it really just makes everybody on the same page. And that takes a certain kind of person, which I ended up loving. I never thought I would say that. Honestly, when she, when she came to me and this was all happening, I'm like, I see myself in R D. I'm gonna, I'm gonna run, you know, I'm gonna run an art I'm gonna be an R and D manager of some company. That was the role in my mind eventually, and that was where I was going to head to. But it's been it was so much fun, and it really helps me develop a lot of other skills, so not just communication skills, but business strategy skills, bringing me to the table with the executive team so that we could connect these dots and report out on on the success of the online store and other things. So it really brought to light a lot of other opportunities that I never would have experienced if I kind of just pigeonholed myself and said, No, I'm an R D engineer. This is what I do. It opened up. And once, once you have those skills, you don't, you can be an engineer anywhere. You see a lot of engineer CEOs. You see them in all different roles. And so I think it can really help, because it just is that it's a mindset more than a skill set at a certain point. And I think that's really what matters. So getting all of the various experiences of people's different mindsets and what that means to a business and organization or even in academia, wherever you are, it all translates, and it's important to have experience with it.
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Unknown:Absolutely, yeah. I mean, well, I it was also, it's so Julia and I are the way that we work together. And we had a third, a third, co founder, Catherine, and all of us are working on this, this marketing team together. It was the way that we worked together. Was just absolutely incredible. I mean, we didn't live near each other. We were working mostly from home. I was working out of one of the venture medical offices, but most of us were completely remote. And so we we not only worked in complete silos, if you would, geography wise, but we are so synergized as a team. And that's how you know that you know, once you find good people. You know this, you kind of tend to stay together. And that was instrumental in starting chamfer because when you start a business with somebody, you are essentially getting married to them. And it's can be really hard sometimes, but being able to overcome those challenges face them together, and you do want somebody with a different mind. You don't you want, you don't you want, you don't want to have two of the same perspectives in a business, because you really need to challenge each other and be able to have different roles, since you won't have a lot of people. And that's really proven to be, you know, probably one of the best decisions I ever made in my life was to to take Julie up on that opportunity, because I don't think we'd be here today if I hadn't,
Aaron Moncur:it's so funny to think about how maybe not little, but key decisions along the timeline of life can make such a drastic difference in the eventual trajectory of our lives. Right?
Unknown:Absolutely. Yeah, I tell this story so I go to Northeastern and I'll talk to the students. They always asked me about my career path and the choices that I made. And when I was in college, my last Co Op, that I had three co ops at Northeastern, and my last one, I was going to just ditch engineering all together and go travel. I was going to go to Hawaii and study whales for a little bit and pretend I'm a marine biologist. And that I was going to go to New Zealand and like work. A farm and just enjoy life. And I was able to do this and still meet the curriculum requirements. I would just have to write a paper about my experiences, but my co op advisor said, Just go on a few interviews. And you know, that's it. Just keep up your your skill sets, update your resume. So I went on an interview at Boston Scientific, and I got offered this amazing opportunity to work in their endoscopy team that I just I couldn't refuse. So I ended up not going at all on my whole expedition and travel. And I went to Boston Scientific, and I do, as I said, Before, I have a patent with them on the biliary stent that I worked on. And I met a lot of great people and had a wonderful experience. And then the student, whenever I tell this story, they always are like, so have you gone to New Zealand or Hawaii? And I was like, I still haven't. Actually,
Aaron Moncur:I still never been to either place. Oh yeah, that's it. I grew up in Hawaii. I don't know if you knew born and raised in Hawaii, that's right on Oahu, a town on the east side of the island called Kaneohe. So it's, it's, it was amazing, right? I loved, loved growing up there. That's still home. I hope to eventually end up there someday. And another place that I've always wanted to visit was New Zealand, because it also just looks gorgeous, and we're actually planning a trip to New Zealand next year. So it's, it's funny to hear you see those two places.
Unknown:Funny, yeah, one day we'll get there. We had, you know, we have three kids now, so it's, life is a little different. But we'll, we'll, we'll be getting them all there sometime. I think, yeah, yeah.
Aaron Moncur:Well, speaking of three kids, you had a personal experience just very recently, and it underscored the importance of, kind of viscerally, underscored the importance of getting components into engineers hands quickly so that they can develop these life saving, life sustaining medical devices. Can you share a little bit about that experience?
Unknown:Absolutely. You know, this one does hit pretty close to home. So just recently, my nine year old son was hospitalized. He ended up having a badly perforated appendix, and we ended up being admitted to the hospital for 18 days together. We got home just the other day, just a few days ago, and yet, he has a PICC line for at home IV antibiotics, which I'm administering to him three times a day. I'm a, I'm a home nurse, and as well, now I'm going to add that one to my resume. But, but, you know, it was, it's been, it was, it was quite a wild ride. He was very, very sick. And it's very, it's your it's hard when your kid is sick no matter what. And this was, was very intense, you know, and I'm sitting in the hospital thinking about all of the times I spent building catheters and developing products that were similar to everything I'm seeing around me, and it was like, you know, I couldn't in the in the moment, and when, when you're developing those products, you realize that they're helping people, and you do, and you know that, and that's so fulfilling, and we've already talked about that. But when it's somebody that you love so dearly, it is a whole different ball game. I was sitting in the in the one of the rooms when my son ended up having the PICC line placed. And he was brave enough. They gave him the option. It was brave enough to do it under local anesthesia. So he was awake and we were talking, and it was very scary for him. He had a moment where the catheter was kind of not having a life of its own and not going the right way. And he felt like he couldn't breathe for a minute. And we, we both sat there and worked through it together. He was so brave. And I'm like seeing this Catherine that I saw 1000s of times, right on all different French sizes and all the lure fittings and everything. And then you watch it and realize that, you know, it's, it's incredible what everybody does in our industry, and it it just, you know, you really have this moment where you're like, Okay, I am even more now so connected to this, in this industry, to what we do and to our mission to help people. You know, we're not just enabling innovation. We're really making people's lives better and or potentially saving their lives. And my son is now one of the people who needed that. He's still, he's still at home right now with his pick line and his arm. It's a cool purple PICC line, so it's awesome. And I got him some arm sleeves so that he looks really cool when he's outside and keeping it protected. But yeah, it is, it is one it's been, it's been quite an experience that you know, I'll never forget, and hopefully he won't remember all of the details in as much you know as clear but, but no, it's been. It's been one of those times where I'm very grateful for everybody involved in the healthcare system, from everyone in medtech to all of the nurses and doctors and and. Everybody involved. So it's been, yep, a lot of gratitude right now for for everything that's
Aaron Moncur:done. Yeah, amazing. Wow. Well, I'm so happy to hear that he's doing well now. And what, what an incredible story. Thank you for for sharing such a personal experience. It makes me remember when our second child was born, and we were in the hospital and a nurse came in with it's called a Vocera badge. It's basically a medical walkie talkie that nurses and physicians wear at hospitals, and they could push a button and easily call someone or communicate with someone. Anyway, this nurse walked in wearing this bucera badge, and I said to myself, I can't believe it. I I worked on this like I it was a small part, I think I did. DFM on part of the housing for this plastic injection molded bad, but I saw it in real life, and someone's actually using this. And it was such a neat feeling. So the you know, your experience was, was, I think, so much more powerful. But it's so fulfilling seeing something that you had a hand in, or, you know, even the industry in which you're a part, seeing that in real life.
Unknown:Yeah, every day I'm giving him the antibiotics, I'm connecting the syringe, the, you know, all the lure fittings together, and I'm like, Oh, we have these syringes, these same BD syringes and my on chamfer, we have the same tubing. We sell all of this. And it's, yeah, it's, it's been, it's been very eye opening. I'll say I have a much while I understood it. It didn't, it didn't resonate the exact same way that it does today. So I'm feeling even more empowered by what we do and how we'll continue to help drive all of these amazing innovations to market to help those people that really need them.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah, well, I'm sure if Julie were here right now, she she'd say to you, Katie, that's the story that we need to start telling over and over and over. That's this is the bringing out the marketing marketer in you here. So you mentioned the BD syringe and chamfer has so many different components on its marketplace right now. How do you determine which components are most needed? What's the process internally within chamfer to decide that? Yeah,
Unknown:so in the beginning, we went off of what we knew that the industry needed, and we really focused a lot of interventional because that's where we had come from. That was like our background and what like in the part of the industry that we really needed, and we knew that industry needed us, right? It was very clear, tubing, balloons, heat shrink, all of that was its and, you know, even today, I think we can still service in the interventional market better, but we have a lot to offer, and we love that we've got a very solid foundation. And then what we've been doing in parallel is educating ourselves on what other med tech industries need, right looking at, how can we support bioelectronics? How can we support wearables, diagnostics? How can we make sure that the way engineers innovate, they can get what they need on chamfr, and it comes with, you know, not just educating ourselves, but also asking our our audience, our buyers. So when you come to chamfer, there's actually a little survey on the product table page, like, did you find what you're looking for? We, we get a lot of input through that. People are constantly telling us, because, you know, by them telling us, we help make their lives easier, we help make their jobs easier. So they fill that out, and we'll use all of that data to inform, you know, maybe going after a new supplier, maybe going, you know, wherever we need to go to try to connect those dots, we will. And then also search data. So we have an AI enabled search interface, and we collect that data regularly, and we're looking, what are people searching for and not finding that's where we need to focus, right? There's a real need. And so we kind of take of, you know, a multi pronged approach, but that's really how we're looking to expand. So anybody, if you have feedback, you don't have to fill out that survey. You can contact us anytime, but that's, that's a lot of how we are currently expanding. Well,
Aaron Moncur:we'll list Katie's home address in the show notes.
Katie Karmelek:I can show you how to how to dose of antibiotics,
Aaron Moncur:right? Well, looking forward to the the future of chamfer. What? What do you hope is true about chamfer? I don't know, three, five years from now. So
Katie Karmelek:we are investing in really digitizing the whole product, that whole product development life cycle, especially sort of that phase one through three, if you will, the early stage development, being able to make everything that happens in that part of the process easier, faster and. We do that with the in stock components, with access to the supply base, but then also with additional innovative tools. So there's a there's a lot more coming from chamfr That's really exciting. I can't tell everybody exactly what it is quite yet, but we are, we are really at a pivotal moment in our organization where we're fortunate enough to be making some exciting changes and features and functionalities. So you'll see more from us, especially in the next six months to a year, that really to just be that, that hub, that central hub, where engineers and supply chain folks can come to and trust that they're going to get what they need to help make their jobs easier.
Aaron Moncur:Going back to the beginning of chamfer I know you had a few customers early on that really believed in you and invested in you, but you've grown far beyond that. How did you get your first I don't know, several dozen customers. What did that look like from a sales standpoint?
Katie Karmelek:Yeah, so we be at being in an r, d engineer. I first just went to all my buddies, and I was like, Guys, what we had told them we were developing chamfer. They were our beta testers, right? We had a whole slew of beta testing people, and it was a lot of, hey, come check this out. What do you think? What should we do different? What parts do we need? So we had, we had an audience early on that were early adopter buyers. So we talked about the early adopter suppliers as well, but we had them on the buy, on the buy side as well. And so they were, you know, and still are some of our best customers. They've been with us from the very beginning, and they continue to come back and use chamfer, even though they know all of our suppliers, and they have those relationships. They're still using chamfer for its ease of use, and it really simplifies their development process, so they'll still buy here, even if they could potentially go go direct. So that was one way. And then Julie and I, in the very beginning, were boots on the ground. We went into Boston Scientific we went into Abbott, went to many of the large OEMs, and we just went and did lunch and learns. We'd be like, Hey, you guys want some free food? Who what? Engineer says no to free food. And so we would just bring in lunch and we tell them what we were doing. We'd bring some parts, we'd get their feedback. And that was very, very effective. As we've grown. We are, you know, not necessarily doing those same tactics, right? So we're leveraging other digital tools. But we are also still picking up the phone and talking to our buyers. We're asking them, What can we do different? How can we help you? What do you need? So we're, while we are still very intimate with our buyers, we're also working a bit smarter, using some other, more you know, more digital tools to really kind of continue to spread the word about chamfr and who we are terrific.
Aaron Moncur:All right. Well, one more question here, and then we'll wrap things up. So we've already talked about how giving engineers access, quick access to components early on will accelerate the speed of engineering. What's something else that you've seen, not necessarily at chamfr, it could be at chamfr, but thinking back over your career as an engineering What is something that you have seen done to accelerate the speed of engineering?
Unknown:Yeah, I mean, so one of the critical pieces to this is decision making, right? So whoever comes to chamfer has to make a decision about what they're going to buy, right? So I think having somebody that is that that has that kind of that decisiveness about them, what's nice about chamfr is you can pick a lot of stuff, but that that is one area that I think, you know, really being able to say, Okay, here's the plan, here's the strategy, here's where we're going to tackle whatever this problem is that is one thing that can really expedite, because the more you waffle and waiver them, we're just going to waste time as we go go through that process. But then, you know, in terms of kind of tools and functionality, you know, the one thing that's really exploded from, like my early days in developing medical devices, and not just kind of access of in stock components, but really the additive manufacturing piece, I think, has been a game changer, and really complements chamfer beautifully, because you can get those parts, but you're still going to need some customization. You're going to need something quick, whether that's a custom distal tip or a proximal end, or, you know, even if it's, you know, a fixture to hold it to test it properly, you can do so much with that tech that really then can continue to supplement getting you to market faster while getting exactly what you need to get there.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah. I loved your thought about decision making. I remember when I was I had my first internship back in college, and my boss, I got to be friends with him, and he shared how he was hired at this company. And he said, when he was interviewed by the president of the company, I can't remember the exact question, but the answer he gave was, I know how to make a decision. It might not be the right decision, but I will make a decision. And I remember thinking at the time, that's a terrible answer. It might not be the right decision. Why would you say that? And over the years, realizing, oh, okay, I get it now. It might not be the perfect decision, but making a decision allows you to get into action, to actually do something. And clarity comes from action and actually doing things. And you'll learn quickly if it wasn't the right decision, and then you can course correct and do the other thing
Unknown:exactly. Fail fast, right? It makes it then again, that just helps you move faster. Yeah, for sure, absolutely.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah. Well, Katie, this has been delightful. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. Congratulations again on all the success that chamfer has had and will continue to have. I'm sure. How can people get in touch with you?
Unknown:Sure, so you've LinkedIn is the best way. I mean, first and foremost, you got to follow chamfer, because we are putting out a ton of great content, we're always letting people know when new products come, when we have a new supplier launch. We've done, actually, we had our first webinar recently that was super successful, and we're going to have a couple of more really exciting ones coming soon. So follow us on LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn as well. Send me a message. We'll connect that way. Those are the best ways. But if you, if you do, send an email to you know, just contact us on chamfer. I see all of those. I'll probably respond right to you. So you can find us in a bunch of different ways. But LinkedIn is our, is our most favorite way of interacting with with our friends and colleagues out in the industry.
Aaron Moncur:Fantastic. Katie, thank you so much again. And thank
Unknown:you, Aaron, this has been a pleasure. It's like having a great conversation with a friend that I had never met before, but I feel like we've known each other forever. Now
Aaron Moncur:I feel the same way. Excellent.
Katie Karmelek:Well, thanks again. Really appreciate this.
Aaron Moncur:Thank you, Katie. I'm Aaron Moncur, founder of pipeline design and engineering. If you liked what you heard today, please share the episode to learn how your team can leverage our team's expertise developing advanced manufacturing processes, automated machines and custom fixtures, complemented with product design and R and D services. Visit us at Team pipeline.us. To join a vibrant community of engineers online. Visit the wave. Dot, engineer, thank you for listening. You.
