Mar 6, 2017 · 24m · top-founders
EP 590 :Particle.io Raises $14M, Passes $5M In Revenue, Helping Usher in IoT Connecting Keurigs to Internet with CEO Zach Supalla
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In Episode 590 of The Top, host Nathan Latka interviews Particle CEO Zach Supalla to discuss how the company raised $14 million, generated over $4 million in revenue, and scaled from a crowdfunded prototyping module into a full-stack IoT platform powering connected enterprise devices.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Nathan holds 36.9% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Nathan as informed peer 1.9 Guest teaching 3.1 Guest disagreement 0.8 Nathan pushing back 1.4
speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 15:06 Zach corrects Nathan's 10x growth assumption
Zach directly interrupts Nathan's projection to correct the math, clarifying that doubling revenue is 2x rather than 10x scaling.
Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 18:39 Nathan presses on Chinese manufacturing vulnerabilitiesNathan directly challenges Zach on whether their supply chain personnel in China could compromise the platform's security.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 7:34 Zach details the mechanics of the Mirai botnetZach explains how unpatched default credentials on webcams enabled widespread DNS disruption when Nathan expresses unfamiliarity with the incident.
Nathan holds their own ▶ 13:55 Nathan reels off Spark Core technical specificationsNathan demonstrates command of the hardware by detailing the Spark Core's ARM Cortex architecture, REST API, and Wi-Fi stack.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Nathan as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Nathan pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weekly Giveaway Announcement and Listener Engagement | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Segment consists mostly of the introductory monologue and listener giveaway, followed by Nathan asking Zach about his shift from sales to technical hardware. | |
| Particle's IoT Platform Overview and Keurig Case Study | 3 | 4 | 1 | 3 | Nathan directs Zach to anchor his product explanation around Keurig and presses for unit price breakdowns and hardware revenue percentages. | |
| Addressing IoT Security and the Mirai Botnet Threat | 2 | 7 | 1 | 1 | Zach educates Nathan on IoT infrastructure vulnerabilities, specifically detailing the mechanics and global impact of the Mirai botnet attack after Nathan admits unfamiliarity. | |
| Origins of Particle, Deaf Father Inspiration, and First Pivot | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Zach shares the founding story inspired by his deaf father and their subsequent pivot when their first Kickstarter product missed its target. | |
| Kickstarter Strategy, Product-Market Fit, and Lean Startup Principles | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Nathan inquires whether crowdfunding success is pure luck, prompting Zach to explain lean startup experiments and how high unit pricing killed their initial product. | |
| Revenue Scaling from Prototyping Kits to Enterprise Fleet Management | 4 | 5 | 2 | 4 | Nathan misunderstands 100 percent year-over-year growth as tenfold growth, leading to a quick math correction before digging into how dev kits expanded into enterprise contracts. | |
| Global Team Distribution, Financial Goals, and Supply Chain Partnerships | 2 | 4 | 2 | 4 | Nathan asks a pointed question regarding security risks and intellectual property concerns with Chinese manufacturing, which Zach reframes around boots-on-the-ground relationship building. | |
| Sponsor Spotlight: FreshBooks Financial and Receipt Tracking | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Features a standard sponsor segment followed by the rapid-fire Famous Five question sequence. | |
| Interview Summary and Core Business Takeaways | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Monologue summary by Nathan wrapping up key financial figures and directing listeners to partner promotions. |
Statements from this episode (12)
Particle provides full-stack IoT hardware, connectivity, and cloud infrastructure
“What that means is we give them a cloud platform. Those devices can connect to, we give them the physical hardware that'll actually go into the device. So like a wifi module or a cellular modem. We get, if it's cellular, we give them SIM cards and data plans, …”
Particle raised approximately $10M in late 2016
“We raised about ten million dollars late last year.”
Particle's revenue is currently driven by upfront hardware sales
“These days, most of our money comes from selling hardware because of where we are and sort of how long we've been around. Most companies start by buying a bunch of hardware upfront and then the recurring stuff kicks in later. So right now, most of our revenue …”
Particle customers will deploy millions of connected devices in 2018
“And we have customers who will be deploying millions in 2018.”
The Mirai botnet took down Liberia's entire internet infrastructure
“The Mirai botnet also took down the entire internet of Liberia, which was less widely broadcast in the US, but that's a huge deal.”
Insecure IoT devices will persist as cybersecurity threats for decades
“These devices that are already out there that are insecure, they're not going anywhere. You know, people aren't necessarily unplugging these things. And so there's going to be, there's going to continue to be security concerns. I mean, for, it could be decades…”
Particle's first Kickstarter failed after raising $125K on a $250K goal
“We had a 250,000 dollar goal. We raised 125,000, but Kickstarter is all or nothing. So that means we raised zero and that product never came to be.”
Particle's second Kickstarter raised nearly $600K on a $10K goal
“And that launched in May 2013 with a 10,000 dollar goal on Kickstarter, and we raised almost 600,000 dollars.”
Crowdfunding campaigns should be treated as product-market fit experiments
“I look at a Kickstarter campaign or really any crowdfunding campaign as an experiment.”
Particle spent $35K in total to launch its first two Kickstarters
“I think we probably spent like 15 grand to get from idea to launch Kickstarter campaign, and then we probably spent another 20 grand to get from there to the second Kickstarter campaign.”
Particle doubled revenue annually, from $500K in 2013 to $4M in 2016
“Sorry, rewind, it's like half a million, 1,000,002 1,000,004 million is like.”
Particle models its developer community strategy on Twilio
“Jeff Lawson, the CEO of Twilio is the one I respect quite a bit. A lot of our business, we're sort of following his path and the things that he figured out about how to build a developer community and build a business off of. So I have a ton of respect for him…”