S7E27 Daniel Kurnianto | The Engineering Journey Behind the World's First Electronic Coffee Tamper

Daniel Kurnianto has built his career at the intersection of mechatronics, lab automation, product management, and hands-on mechanical design. With more than 19 years at Formulatrix, he has led and contributed to the development of high-precision life science instruments, including crystallography and liquid-handling platforms used in research and pharmaceutical environments. His experience spans full product lifecycle work: concept development, detailed engineering, injection-molded consumables, motion control, fluidics, manufacturing, assembly, field support, and global customer deployment.  

At Formulatrix, Daniel’s work has included products like the NT8 Drop Setter and the F.A.S.T. Liquid Handling Platform, where he has combined deep technical fluency with product and team leadership. His background includes micro-scale injection molding, positive displacement liquid handling, fluidic manifolds, precision mechanisms, embedded systems, and DFMEA/GD&T-driven design reviews. That combination gives him a rare perspective: he is not only thinking about whether a design works in CAD, but whether it can be manufactured, assembled, maintained, supported, demonstrated, and improved over time. 

Outside of Formulatrix, Daniel is the inventor and founder of BOSeTAMPER, a handheld automatic electronic espresso tamper designed and engineered in Boston. The product is described as compact, battery powered, portable, and designed to deliver consistent, repeatable tamping pressure without requiring baristas or home users to apply that force manually. BOSeTAMPER won a Red Dot Product Design Award in 2024, and the public BOSeTAMPER site now highlights the availability of the new 3rd Generation 58mm PRO model with wireless charging and a travel case.  

For this episode, Daniel will take us inside the engineering journey behind the new 3rd Generation BOSeTAMPER. Rather than just talking about the finished product, the conversation will explore what changed from earlier versions, why some designs that look impressive on paper may not be the right designs for production, and how Daniel thinks about simplifying a product so it becomes faster, cheaper, and easier to machine, assemble, ship, and support. 

Daniel also brings a provocative engineering point of view from his work in high-end lab automation: in some systems, he cares more about precision than accuracy. That idea opens the door to a deeper discussion about real-world instrumentation, repeatability, customer expectations, cost, manufacturing reality, and how experienced engineers decide what matters most when a product has to survive outside the lab, outside the CAD screen, and in the hands of real users. 

LINKS: 

Daniel Kurnianto LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielkurnianto/ 

BOSeTAMPER website: https://bosetamper.com/ 

Aaron Moncur, host

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Transcript

Daniel Kurnianto: 0:00

Whose ground fluffy need to be compressed to create the unique of the espresso process, and then you time those, and me, I'm using Boss Item, but I can show you, and you can see it, I

Aaron Moncur: 0:33

Hello, and welcome to the Being an Engineer podcast. Today we have a repeat guest, Daniel Kurianto, who is the inventor and founder of Bossy Tamper, the world's first handheld automatic electronic espresso tamper and a Red Dot Product Design Award winner. In this episode, he's going to share his journey behind the new third generation Bossy Tamper, including the design challenges, manufacturing lessons, and DFMA decisions that helped turn a clever idea into a polished product. So, Daniel, welcome back. First of all, thank you for being with us again. And maybe you can tell us a little bit about what - what is Bossy Tamper? Because I didn't, I didn't give any background away. People are probably listening, be like, 'Bossy temper, what the heck is that? I don't even know what, what's in store for me at this episode. So, if you could give us a quick primer about what, what is Bossy Temper? What does it do?

Daniel Kurnianto: 1:34

Yeah, so thank you for having me, Aaron. So, this is going to be great. So, Bossy Temper is basically a espresso temper handheld, but electronics, so this is truly like the world first a small size handheld espresso temper, so when you make espresso coffee, you need to temp the ground coffee on the porta filter, and then I'm making the electronic to get the consistency and the handheld as the small size, and you can carry it around instead of having the large electronic temper that has been in the market, so I'm in the between between the electronic pick and the small manual

Aaron Moncur: 2:30

one. Okay, this is going to be a fun episode, because I am actually not a coffee drinker, and I know very little about the art intricacies associated with coffee, so I'm excited to learn something new. Let's start with what probably 99% of the listeners already know, but I don't, and maybe there's some others out there that don't know what it is. Tamping, what does it even mean to tamp coffee grounds?

Daniel Kurnianto: 2:56

Yeah, so basically when you go to coffee, for example, like they are a couple of machine or steps, right. Basically, you have the pin, and then the pin goes to a grinder, so they ground the pin, and again goes to the porta filter, and then those ground fluffy need to be compressed to create the unique of the espresso process, and then you time those, and me, I'm using post item, but I can show you, and you can see it, so you see it, it's moving down, right?

Aaron Moncur: 3:38

Yeah, so, so

Daniel Kurnianto: 3:39

imagine that, that there are fluffy ground there and then the plate is basically moving down to compress into a dense puck coffee and then put those on the machine and then the hot water high price rice flew through those pack the park and then they extract the coffee, they call it espresso.

Aaron Moncur: 4:08

So, for those of you who are listening to the audio only version, first off, I invite you to go to YouTube and watch the video version, but if you're only listening to audio, I'll try to narrate some of what Daniel is showing on video, so he just showed the bossy tamper, and there is an electronic, let's call it a plunger, that is actuated and moves axially down to push against the fluffy coffee grounds that are inside of the the filter that ultimately goes into the espresso espresso machine, and so the difference between espresso and coffee, Daniel, you're saying is that the coffee, a typical cup of coffee, you don't necessarily compress those coffee grinds,

Daniel Kurnianto: 4:54

yeah,

Aaron Moncur: 4:54

but with espresso you do, and why, like, how does that change the flavor? Profile, why is that important?

Daniel Kurnianto: 5:03

Yeah, so both the way you make coffee better, whether you are espresso or trips, they always run a hot water, right? Those hot water basically dissolve and carry some, you know, coffee compounds, you know, like all the things, and why you taste the coffee drink, but on the espresso, since the espresso machine actually apply a very high pressure, you know, like I think it's about like nine per, so it's it's really high, like 110 psi, maybe. So that is basically create the process that, as if, like, you are, you know, like a plunger, kind of right, semi-solid, you know. And then those Ostro Extract, not just the dissolvable through the drip coffee, typical trip coffee, but also some like oil and any other kind of compound that make the espresso taste different, and apparently that is pleasant, and you know, been hundreds of years, people really enjoy espresso, so if

Aaron Moncur: 6:26

you don't have an electronic tamper,

Daniel Kurnianto: 6:30

yeah,

Aaron Moncur: 6:31

what is the process for doing this manually,

Daniel Kurnianto: 6:33

right? So there's a manual espresso tempers, it's basically like almost typical metals with a flat kind of like, you know, surface, and then literally like a cylinder that you basically just push it down. The thing is, manual tamping require some, you know, action of your wrist, right?

Aaron Moncur: 6:59

Right,

Daniel Kurnianto: 7:00

that is not as precise as the electronic tempers, and like, push

Aaron Moncur: 7:07

too hard or not push hard enough. Yeah, then that changes the flavor profile. That lack of news, yep. Okay, yeah. So,

Daniel Kurnianto: 7:16

literally, that is the story why I actually invent post e-temper. I went to a coffee shop that I used to go until one day they taste completely different, and then I asked around, and then turned out at that time it was a new training trainee Paris stock, and learn again and again until like I find, like, wow, okay, so that is because of his stamping process is completely different than the other barista, I guess, and

Aaron Moncur: 7:48

fascinating,

Daniel Kurnianto: 7:49

it's, it's, it's so espresso, it's kind of like I call it more like engineering process, you know, you need to control the position, right, all of those things, yeah, yeah, so it's

Aaron Moncur: 8:03

this might be a good quick segue for those who have not heard your first episode. If you could give us just a quick background about you and your experience in history. Daniel is not just some guy off the street who was like,'Oh, I should make an electronic tamper. He actually has a deep engineering background, so maybe you can speak just briefly to that.

Daniel Kurnianto: 8:22

Yeah, so I am currently a product manager in, in the company called Formulatrix. It's a biotech instruments and software for lab auto missions, so our customer is like, you know, like pharmaceutical and, and all the educational academic in pharmacy, so we make robotic precise control liquid handling and storage, you know, for micro plates that the scientists used to do some research for drug discovery, for cell production, you know, like a cell stem cells, meaning like they need to create enough number of tests on the same cell, so they need to crude the cell first, right, so then because they can't, they cannot keep taking sample from patients, so they need to copy those PCR. In the past, you know, during the COVID, we sell one or two type of automation that people use to do the PCR testing for coffee, so and then yeah, so I'm a product designer as well, so I involve a lot on designing the instruments, talk a lot with the customer, like what they need, have a strong background on manufacturing as well, from machining and. Until injection molding, I'm currently working on a very specific kind of like secretive injection molding that nobody, again, nobody think about it, I guess, because I never heard, never see it, never read it, and this excites the company owner, basically, because that might change, maybe next time, Aaron. When, when, when we get the IP secure, I can tell the story, so it's not maybe next time.

Aaron Moncur: 10:36

Number three, yeah, your third guest appearance on the podcast, that would be awesome. A new plastic injection molding process, that would be fascinating to hear about. Yeah, would love that. Okay, great. So, you have really an ideal background to develop a product like Bossy Tamper. I mean, that's kind of what you've done, different industry, but you know, more or less the same skill set. Let's, let's talk briefly about Bossy Tamper, because it's, it's kind of an acronym, right? What does that stand for?

Daniel Kurnianto: 11:05

Yeah, so it is a Boston Electronic Temper, and then I contact shortening it to make it more easier to call, you know, post temper, so that's that's,

Aaron Moncur: 11:21

and I love your story behind this. Right, you went to a cafe somewhere, and the espresso that you drank tasted different than normal. Yeah, you asked why. You, you learned about the tamping process, a new barista, super interesting. And so that sparked the idea of, well, I could, I could make this repeatable. You're an engineer, right? The engineer brain kicks in, and this is just a process challenge that I know how to solve. So, walk us through, like, the process of developing it. Where did you start, and what were some of the big milestones along the way of the challenges? I love to share

Daniel Kurnianto: 12:00

this, so, so this silver model is actually the third generations. I can show you this is the second generations, and this one is the first generation, which is prints, you know, like I make a nice looking our American flag. Yeah, so, yeah, so I always use this as a framework when you are trying to solve a problem, you want to know the problem first, right? And what I did, I actually buy an espresso machine, a simpler one, you know, because, like, at that time, you know, like, I'm not sure, but yes, let's do it, you know, kind of thing, and then just to enjoy an espresso at home, because at that time the coffee hits, right, and then we cannot go out as easy as we used to, so that's kind of like a interesting timing, so finally we have espresso machine at home, and then now start learning about the grinding, the temping, the water, you know, all of those things, you know, like I'm about like you, I'm never making espresso machines since then, right, since I bought those first espresso, must say, so yeah, and then talk with people. I go to a one of the biggest espresso group in Facebook, learn from them, you know, what is beans, what is grinder, why you need to change the grinder setting, you know, learn as many as possible, do a lot of mistake there, do some espresso latte for fun, you know, espresso art, right, the making those hearts and stuff on the cup, so yeah, from there until I realized that damping is the last manual unrepeatable process, and again from an engineer, like, wow, so this is really engineering, actually, because, like, again, the bin is the same, the grinder is the same, the espresso machine is the same, the water is the same, but then the tamping is the last manual, not so repeatable process, and then learn again from there. Learn what is damping, why damping is important. It has to be level, he has to be the same compressions, so from there, like again, like you, not there is a electronic tamper, but desktop in the market already, it cost a lot, I want to buy it, but yeah, maybe not, you know, because it's like. Yeah, about$2,000 you know, just for the temper, so just

Aaron Moncur: 15:04

for the tamper.

Daniel Kurnianto: 15:05

Yep, but this is for coffee. Yep, it is espresso, can be very hoppy, you know, hoppy price, yeah, like

Aaron Moncur: 15:14

wow. So just the tamper, that the industrial or commercial one,

Daniel Kurnianto: 15:19

yeah,

Aaron Moncur: 15:19

$2,000 roughly. Okay. And then, how much is the bossy temper?

Daniel Kurnianto: 15:24

So, boss e temper right now, retail 325

Aaron Moncur: 15:28

Okay. And, and how long ago did you begin engineering this product? So, could be four years ago. Okay.

Daniel Kurnianto: 15:39

Yeah. So, it's been a while. So, literally about a year after the coffee, that's where I'm start, really, you know, putting enough time to finally get this go to the expo, which again time was is very interesting, because the best world level coffee expo was in Boston. They move around, but then by the time I have a prototype and ready to sell those Boston coffee expo happened in Boston. So it's very convenient for me. So I'm just like, go there, open the small boots, you know, like, and then again talk to people again, and guess what, like every time people see it, like they always either swear, like you know, it's literally, it's so much fun, it's seeing their face, and you know, like,

Aaron Moncur: 16:36

oh, how blows their mind,

Daniel Kurnianto: 16:39

yep, and then like, like, no, nobody has a small electronic temper, like a handheld electronic temper, like Naga, like no one, no, nowhere. Yeah, amazing. So that's okay. So,

Aaron Moncur: 16:55

has this been kind of a nights and weekends project, working full time, right?

Daniel Kurnianto: 17:02

Make this manual. I'm using ESP, you know, by buy all this spare part is from Amazon, like literally.

Aaron Moncur: 17:13

Well, prototype,

Daniel Kurnianto: 17:14

except the MTS part, right? The machining part. So I ordered from from machine shop, but electronic portraits switch, you know, screen, you know, everything, cables, everything, even like this veneer is coming from Amazon. And then, yeah, so,

Aaron Moncur: 17:35

well, there's a great pro tip: don't overlook Amazon for prototyping. Oh, yes,

Daniel Kurnianto: 17:40

yeah, it was awesome.

Aaron Moncur: 17:42

Wow. Okay. Great. You have this phrase, the art of making it irrelevant. What, what does that mean? And how did you apply that to the development of bossy tamper?

Daniel Kurnianto: 17:53

Yeah, so maybe I can tell more in my full-time job for those mindsets. How about this? Maybe in terms of injection molding, right? So we are, we run the injection molding in Indonesia. So I'm originally from Indonesia. So, hello everyone, young Indonesia, so, so, yeah, so we run injection molding in Indonesia, making consumable 24 by seven, and in Indonesia, while it's tropical morning, noon, and nights, it's ferries, you know, like the temperatures, like up and down, sometimes they are very wet, sometimes they are very hot and dry, you know. So to make the story simple, like we need to find all the injection parameter that have ignored all of those variants, so I hope that explanation could show the reasoning behind of the make anything else is ignorable, you know.

Aaron Moncur: 19:14

Yeah, understand what you're saying. So, like, for the injection molding, and you're talking about the environment in Indonesia, could be hot and humid one day, could be very dry the other day, and those could affect those exactly parameters that affect the injection molding, and the art of making it irrelevant is figuring out a process or an environment that, that yeah, makes those parameters irrelevant, so the process runs the same time you get exactly every time, yep, yeah, okay. Okay, so

Daniel Kurnianto: 19:43

if you expand those, there are a lot of things that you can apply in the end of the day, like basically how you get a system run without worrying, you know, some variance in the real life, right? So you know, when we are delivering system, we are not just doing everything in solid work or on ship, that everything is precise and accurate and all this perfect world, but in real life, you know, there's users, there's materials, there's environments, you know, you name it, you know, and then if you can design something, either a product, either a process, either tolerances, you know, anything again software, even right, that could ignore all of those risks, right?

Aaron Moncur: 20:39

Yeah,

Daniel Kurnianto: 20:39

you will be like very happy with your system, with your, with your designs. Basically, if

Aaron Moncur: 21:32

your company helps engineers design, build, or manufacture better products, we should talk at PDX, the product development expo. Companies don't just exhibit, they teach practical training right at their booth. Engineers walk away with new skills, and companies build real relationships with the people who use their tools and services. The result is high quality connections built through real technical value. PDX 2026 is October 20 and 20-first in Phoenix, and booth selection is first come, first served. Many are already reserved. To learn more about exhibiting, email us at pdx@teampipeline.us And how did that apply to Bossy Tamper? What were some of the parameters or the constraints that you had to think about and make sure that they were irrelevant? Yeah, as far as your, you know, your output, your final product.

Daniel Kurnianto: 22:33

Yeah, so there is some mechanism inside this, right? Basically, an actuators, I, I file pattern on those, so I can tell the story about this. So, these are telescopic mechanisms that basically extend the plates, right, move in and out

Aaron Moncur: 22:55

to do the tamping,

Daniel Kurnianto: 22:56

right, to do the tamping. So, imagine as a telescope, then I have everything to be collimated, the rod the bore has to be cylindricals and imagine as a injection molting you need some draft angle right basically

Aaron Moncur: 23:16

right yes

Daniel Kurnianto: 23:18

so yeah so in the end of the day as much as I tell the mold makers to, hey, I know injection molding, but you know for this application no draft angles, so how you solve that right? Basically, so

Aaron Moncur: 23:33

yeah,

Daniel Kurnianto: 23:34

so that's that's kind of like one of the things, so the way I apply those, how to make those irrelevant, so basically I make those up or as close as tight as possible, so and then then with injection molding, because they are fairies, they they have some tolerances, so sometimes they actually tighter than the other batch, you know, some batch slightly looser, so that means those spore that capture the rod, they have play,

Aaron Moncur: 24:11

right, right, yeah.

Daniel Kurnianto: 24:14

So, so, and then on top of those spore, on top of those rods, basically I have a gear, like a spool gear to have the motor, so I have two sport case, basically.

Unknown: 24:25

Okay,

Daniel Kurnianto: 24:25

and imagine now the motor features with screws, so it's, it's stay on the housing, so one gear is good, you know, they are rotate on one concentric, but the rod is not, they are like, you know, they have play right again. So, then, because of the

Aaron Moncur: 24:50

just standard manufacturing variation, right? Okay,

Daniel Kurnianto: 24:53

so when those gears is no longer always perfect, while when we are tamping.. oh, by the way, the tamping is pretty high, it's like 20 to 30 pounds.

Aaron Moncur: 25:04

Oh, wow. So that's 24

Daniel Kurnianto: 25:06

It's big. Yeah, so imagine. So now imagine like those gear, but I mean they are a lot of torque, you know, applied in on those on those gear with those play. Now that's bad,

Aaron Moncur: 25:21

right? Yeah,

Daniel Kurnianto: 25:22

so because, like, if they are too far, they might jump when they are too close, they lock, you know, kind of like jam. So the way I kind of like make those housing irrelevant, I mean housing tolerance is irrelevant, and I design another part. Parts that actually keep the rods and the motor basically constrain those within a good concentric because with that parts those additional parts I can just inject those very cheap very easy you know to solve so then basically imagine that now I do not need to make a perfect expensive mold that able to keep the tolerances as tight as possible. So now I can just

Aaron Moncur: 26:16

kind of like a bushing of sorts that you have in there, and now you don't need to rely on the injection molding variation and tolerances, because you have this bushing that's guiding that axial motion. Yeah,

Daniel Kurnianto: 26:27

so

Aaron Moncur: 26:27

got it. That's like the

Daniel Kurnianto: 26:29

way I apply those mindsets, basically.

Aaron Moncur: 26:32

That's a, that's a great example. Love it. Okay. Thank you for sharing that. What, what were some of the other challenges that you encountered as you were going through different development iterations and prototypes, and how did you overcome them?

Daniel Kurnianto: 26:47

Yeah, so maybe I can tell the story about this. Start with this, because, like, again, as an engineer, we should think about making mistakes fast, learn from it fast, and through to the next one, fast, right? So I see mistake is not a negative thing, but you learn and you fall forward, right? So, or in a stare, then you step higher, you know? Right. So that's, that's, that's my philosophy of thinking about what, so in the engineering of this first generations, because this is manual, this is print, take so long, you know, while I can take the benefit of, I can refine the features, you know, the shape, all of those things, and then to the point until like you know I cannot take this any longer, so no, every Saturday and Sunday I'm my time is gone because I cannot, you know, go with my wife and my kids, you know, because I have to salt it one by one, you have to clean up the soup form, you know, you know the story, right, and then and then while the business is keep coming, you know, like people ordering until, like, you know, I cannot do this anymore, you know. And then I start thinking about, let's make the injection molding, you know. So then I go to the injection molding. On the injection molding, I design the housing, how to get the design that multiple, you know, without break your bank, you know, because, like, you can, you can inject everything, right? But now, when you are need to think about how to, you, how your design can be inject and cost effective, that's a different discussion.

Aaron Moncur: 28:42

So, yeah,

Daniel Kurnianto: 28:42

and then on top of that I also start to get the custom electronics as well, because again, like this one is, it's not efficient enough, cost more, you know, all of those things. So, talk finding a electronic team, it's another challenge, you know, finding that understand about, like, the constraint, you know, this is battery power, so it has to be long enough to keep the juice, basically. Yeah, and so that's one, and then until, like, I found that this is also become, you know, this is not scaling, scalables, you know, cost, most likely, most, most, most of the story. And then now come to this, the third generations, some actually like metals, like a CNC part, the housing still injection molding, and then the some of the telescopic also metals and machining parts, so all of those is basically like creature, like learning about what I can improve better, and to the point until like I can scale to the points of whatever the customer wants to buy, I can just produce that in the cost, so that's become the key, you know, cool, right?

Aaron Moncur: 30:21

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Daniel Kurnianto: 31:17

yeah, it's more - I call it more business proof of concept,

Aaron Moncur: 31:22

business proof of concept. Yes, so it's still

Daniel Kurnianto: 31:25

really something that people want, need, you know, find it, and you were

Aaron Moncur: 31:30

selling them, even at generation one, right? That's what you're saying, you were like manually building these at home, and a tip, you know, time away from your wife and your kids, your family.

Daniel Kurnianto: 31:39

Yep, excellent. Okay,

Aaron Moncur: 31:41

so that seems really smart to me to start building them and selling them even before you're in any true kind of production environment, just like you said, a business proof of concept, right? What did you learn about the business of selling these tampers early on in during Gen One?

Daniel Kurnianto: 32:02

Yeah, so I do not have investor, I do not like buying. When I say buying, meaning like getting loan from paying, you know, like everything is bootstrap, my own saving, you know, and then with having the capability to stretch the dollars in terms of like self funding to me is a challenge that I want to go through, you know,

Aaron Moncur: 32:32

yeah. Okay,

Daniel Kurnianto: 32:34

so doing the getting the sales is actually getting money for my next generation, my next builds, my next research, right? For the yes electronics, that said, that's a big research for me, because I have to pay someone to help me do the design on the electronic, for example, right,

Aaron Moncur: 33:02

so you're using revenue from the business proof of concept to fund the future development iterations,

Daniel Kurnianto: 33:11

exactly.

Aaron Moncur: 33:12

Got it? Yeah, super smart.

Daniel Kurnianto: 33:14

That's what I'm trying to do. So, yeah,

Aaron Moncur: 33:18

okay. What now that you're in production, what, what are some of the key differences in the production version versus like Gen One or Gen Two?

Daniel Kurnianto: 33:34

Yeah, so the big difference between the second generation and the third generation is, I mean, the design looks completely different. I'm super stoked with the third generation, because it's more industrial, more like commercial. It's really polished, you know, really nice looking. If you actually hold it, Aaron, like, you can feel it, like, wow, this is a good one, you know? Like, feel solids, you know, not heavy, too heavy, but also not light at cheap stuff things. It's like the right, you know, the right feeling. It

Aaron Moncur: 34:12

looks like something that I would pick up in maybe Bed Bath and Beyond, you know, like a premium kitchen appliance. Yep, really beautiful looking. How did you do the industrial design? Did you do that yourself, or did you pull someone in to help you with..

Daniel Kurnianto: 34:27

I, I do it myself. And amazing. So, I like.. I like some people call me having some arts, you know. Okay, I think I think I can see.. I can agree that, because I'm very particular, you know, in terms of like industrial design, I'm not saying that I'm designer in terms of like draw products things, but yeah, you can copy from a lot of resources in Google, right, for the textures. Oh, I like that one, you know. And then you try it, and then I like that color, you know, on the other product, you know, on on on the other typical handheld items, you know. And then compute those, and then create your own, you know, approach. Basically,

Aaron Moncur: 35:24

yeah,

Daniel Kurnianto: 35:24

so yeah, so the biggest difference is about UX, actually, like the user experience. I show you about one of Espresso portal filter, but imagine that this is just one of many.

Aaron Moncur: 35:42

Me, okay,

Daniel Kurnianto: 35:44

and they have a different thickness.

Aaron Moncur: 35:47

Oh, so having to accommodate all the different Porta filter, is that what it's called?

Daniel Kurnianto: 35:54

They call it, yeah, okay, Porta filter. So, on the first generation and the second generations, I only support some of it, and that's made me think, like, you know, what, there must be a way to solve that problem, because I want to get the market as wide as possible, right, to get the support, I mean, compatible with so many other portal filters, so yeah, so then the third generations, there is a maybe hard to show you here with the lighting, but there's a undercut features that actually have a features that could let's you know, like, because of the thickness is different between portal filter from another portal filters, so I put some ram, you know, features.

Aaron Moncur: 36:53

Okay, yeah,

Daniel Kurnianto: 36:54

so meaning like I can lock it, and now it's also not, you know, so like more, more secure, more secure, so that's that's the thing, so that's that's one of the biggest features that make people happy, because then now they can use, imagine this like when when people want to buy your product because they really want it, but they can't because their water filter is not, they actually kind of almost angry with you, literally, like

Aaron Moncur: 37:36

you have this amazing solution, but it doesn't work for me. And then I hit you,

Daniel Kurnianto: 37:40

not, not, not that much, you know, they actually frustrated because they want it, you know, so it's that's a great

Aaron Moncur: 37:48

problem to have for you.

Daniel Kurnianto: 37:49

Yeah, so

Aaron Moncur: 37:51

what, what did you do in terms of sales and marketing, even from the first prototype? How did you get the word out? How did you find, can you remember your first, you know, one or two sales? How did those happen? And then how have you scaled it up to now be selling? I understand that. I hope I can say this. You just got a pretty good production order, right?

Daniel Kurnianto: 38:14

Yeah, so this is like, give you a couple sentences from four years trial, you know, in my full-time job. So, no, I'm helping sales, but I'm not a sales team, right? Not even marketing teams, you know. I'm an engineer, I'm solving problems right now. When I start, need to sell the product, and that's become a problem, and I need to solve that. So I try as many as much, Aaron, like name it, I try everything, basically talk to people, obviously, right? And then have a, you know, thick face, you know, asking for anything, you know,

Aaron Moncur: 39:05

yes,

Daniel Kurnianto: 39:05

asking for help, asking for, can you please teach me, you know, can you please tell me the right network, you know, you can start to tell what is your market, you know, because it's coffee, espresso, coffee, barista, you know, all of those things, and then I start having a.. oh, I open Instagram, right? Obviously, Instagram, yeah, social media, and I think I remember social.. I use Instagram the most, and there is one time I do not remember exactly what, but then suddenly my follower becomes 50,000 like what happened. I guess they see something, they never see it, and then I don't know that happened there, and someone

Aaron Moncur: 39:59

must have shared it somewhere. It went viral, and all of a sudden you have 50,000 so basically jumping

Daniel Kurnianto: 40:06

from from couple 1000, call it right, and then after a year or two, and you'll start to reach, you know, like when I, when I see the profile, like what's happening, you know, and then basically you know, and then from there I start to know some barista, you know, there's a championship, like a world level championship for espresso barista, and some of them conducting me, or I conduct them again, like with, you know, take. Face skin to and then some, some of them actually. Hey, yeah, send it to me. I will, I will evaluate if I'm happy with it. I will use it on my competitions, and indeed I remember one time Canadians been put basically use those on the world level championship, so that's a marketing right kind of right, that's huge.

Aaron Moncur: 41:13

Yeah, so

Daniel Kurnianto: 41:13

that's that's one, and then there are a couple another competitors use the postemba as well, so that's another channel, how to do marketing on sales again? Just give a try, asking your friends, they have friends, asking your family, they have network, and then they always trying to help, you know, until like I found some of distributor here and there, you know, all of those things, it's not, you remember, yeah, but, but, yeah,

Aaron Moncur: 41:45

yeah, lots of work. I know that. I mean, I moved from engineer to sales slash marketing slash business development person myself, and I always tell people that the sales, marketing, business development, it's harder than the engineering. I mean, maybe that's splitting hairs, you could argue, sure, but like in engineering, like usually there is a right answer, or maybe several right answers, but sales and marketing and business development, it's so fluffy, and it just, it's like it's not concrete, you know, it's hard to know if you're on the right track. Anyway, I feel your pain, my friend. Yeah,

Daniel Kurnianto: 42:23

I bet I admire you, Aaron. Like, you know, when you are,

Aaron Moncur: 42:28

thank you,

Daniel Kurnianto: 42:28

yeah, on pipeline, I can understand what you are telling, yeah.

Aaron Moncur: 42:34

Yes, we can commiserate together. Do you remember your very first sale?

Daniel Kurnianto: 42:41

So, yeah, of course, on the puts, you know, because I bring some of it, and then they buy it on sites. That's great. I always bring my wife and my daughter's help, my expo, basically, because I want also to keep them real life, mostly my daughter's right

Aaron Moncur: 43:06

experience,

Daniel Kurnianto: 43:07

experience to talk strangers, try to understand, you know, what is this, and explain to people to the points that this has value. You will, you will take the benefit if you have this, you know, even some of them not speaking English, but Spanish, and then one of my daughters start learning Spanish, so it's like it's basically like it's a really good training crown

Aaron Moncur: 43:36

that's so great for them. What wonderful experience!

Daniel Kurnianto: 43:39

Yeah, we went to every expo every year, and then last time this year's maybe like the fifth one, so we went, we are going to expo every year, basically.

Aaron Moncur: 43:51

Wow,

Daniel Kurnianto: 43:51

and yeah, people start to know, and then wow, so this is much better now. You know, take pictures with them, you know, it's great. Yeah,

Aaron Moncur: 44:02

how fun, how fun. All right. Well, Daniel, I've got just maybe one or two more questions for you, and then we'll wrap it up. First one for our audience members, presumably engineers who are listening to this right now, thinking, I've got an idea that I have been meaning to pursue. I love what Daniel has done. I want to develop my own product. Are there any piece of advice that you can give specifically about stretching your dollars? You mentioned that you self-funded this, which you know any developing any product, even a simple product, is expensive for an individual. Oh, you let alone this, the bossy temper, there it's electromechanical. There it's not a simple product in my opinion. So I'm sure there was, you know, a lot of dollars that were a lot of sacred funds that were spent very carefully. Are there any pieces of advice you could give about how to stretch those dollars?

Daniel Kurnianto: 45:00

Yeah, so

Aaron Moncur: 45:04

Ka time is your money,

Unknown: 45:09

so don't be

Daniel Kurnianto: 45:13

afraid to spend your time to basically kind of like, because again, right, I mean, like you want to hire someone, even part-time consultant, you know that that's a hard money, right? You have to pay,

Aaron Moncur: 45:31

right? But if

Daniel Kurnianto: 45:32

you hire yourself, then you just lost your weekends or your nights' time, you know, all of those things. So first use that. All right, I mean, until when you find that you need to grow, but you can't because your time is running out, then that might be the right time to start thinking about getting a help, you know, from someone, and then

Aaron Moncur: 45:58

that's the smart way to say it, time is your money, right? Basically, do everything you can yourself for as long as you can until your time starts becoming a roadblock, and then start considering, all right, maybe I start paying someone to talent with this or that.

Daniel Kurnianto: 46:16

Yeah, so that's that. And then if you are talking about like technical things again, prints, you know, technique, I guess. There are SolidWorks students, you know, that you do not need to pay a lot. I know it's kind of scary because it's not private, but again, there are a couple of things that you can do on those, what else. Let's see, prototyping is definitely something that you need to do rapidly, because while you do not have a lot of money, meaning that you do not want to waste that money, so in some extent, by the time you start committing to get to molding, and you know you need to invest the mold makers' mold tools at costs upfront, so you better make sure that you are happy enough, college, right? Like, as a, as an engineer, I bet you kind of have a sense that, yeah, this is it, or I don't think so yet, you know. And then call your friends, call your colleague, you know, ask them, you know, what they think, they are very happy to help you for free. So

Aaron Moncur: 47:47

wonderful, Daniel. This has been super fun. Thank you so much for taking us on your journey. And congratulations with the success that you're having with Bossy Tamper. Where can people go to either get in touch with you or to learn more about Bossy Tamper.

Daniel Kurnianto: 48:05

Yeah, so I'm pretty active on Instagram, meaning like I post a lot because that is my marketing channel, and hoping to grow in any direction. So Instagram post eTamper, so I think you can see that you find you find me there, link in Daniel Kwaniando, my full name, post etemperk.com is the online store, in case you really want to buy it, I can give you a discount if you find me through this pipeline, so we can do terrific, some, you know, co-marketing,

Aaron Moncur: 48:48

so if people reach out to you on LinkedIn, maybe, and say, I heard your podcast, yeah, I'd love to buy one, what's the discount code, then you can give them the discount code there, perfect, okay, that's great, and by the way, Daniel is not paying to be on the show. This is not a sponsored podcast episode. I just saw what he was doing on LinkedIn and thought, oh, that's cool. We should, we should have a conversation about this and record it. So that's how this came to be. All right. Well, Daniel, again, super fun. Thank you so much for going through all that with us. Congratulations on everything. Best of luck moving forward. That's bossytempert.com right?

Daniel Kurnianto: 49:24

Yep. Yep,

Aaron Moncur: 49:25

B O S E T A M P E r.com We'll put a show, a link to that in the show notes as well. All right, Daniel, anything else that you'd like to say before we sign off here?

Daniel Kurnianto: 49:36

I guess I like to say this to anyone engineer outside there, you know, don't stop to learn wherever you are now. Always learn, that's all.

Aaron Moncur: 49:53

I love it. I love it. Wise, wise words, Daniel. Thank you so much. Really appreciate you being on the show today.

Daniel Kurnianto: 49:59

Thank you so much, Aaron. Bye, bye.

Aaron Moncur: 50:04

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, being. An engineer has more than 300 episodes, and you don't have to listen to them in order. If you're dealing with a specific challenge right now, there's a good chance we've already interviewed an engineer who's been through it. You can jump around, search by topic, and listen to what's most relevant to you. See you on the next episode.