MICROFACTORY · GEORGETOWN, TEXASI spent eight years in China, including five in Shenzhen, developing an audio product. While I was there, I successfully built and sold a product. I worked with factories, learned how they operated and saw how an idea could become something you could hold in your hand.
Then I returned to the United States to build here.
It felt like hitting a brick wall in slow motion.
The supplier network I had learned to navigate in China wasn’t available to me here. Finding companies willing to work on a small product became an education of its own. Work I believed I could have completed in a few months in China stretched into years as I tried to find a practical path through the U.S. manufacturing system.
One experience involved silicone ear tips for my earphones.
I sketched the idea on a paper napkin. A mechanical engineer turned it into CAD drawings. Then I started looking for someone to manufacture them.
One supplier repeatedly promised a quote. I kept following up. Eventually, the quote arrived at a price I considered outrageous—but I accepted it because I needed to move forward.
After I accepted, they canceled the order.
Another company asked how many ear tips I needed. I said a couple of thousand. Their answer was to call back when I needed 500,000 a year.
How was I supposed to get from a couple of thousand to half a million?
Their advice: go to China.
I had just come from China. I was trying to build in America.
So I learned to make them myself.
I studied silicone, the processing methods and the equipment. I built my own equipment, developed a small-batch process and successfully made my own ear tips.
That experience changed how I looked at manufacturing. A supplier’s minimum order reflected the way its business was organized. I needed a different way to organize mine.
Audio cables presented a similar problem.
The manufacturers I contacted were oriented toward larger programs, including automotive and aerospace work. My quantities didn’t fit.
Having been trained to solder to NASA specifications, I decided to take on the work. We designed our circuit board, sourced cable from a U.S. supplier, obtained connectors and set up a production line. We also worked through the limitations of equipment that wasn’t designed specifically for our application.
One local company quoted $40 per cable for labor alone. From my experience in China, I believed I could have sourced the complete cable there for about $8.
Those were different production arrangements, but the gap made me ask a serious question: what would we have to do differently to make small-batch production practical here?
That question became Momentum Manufacturing.
I’ve visited Chinese factories where modest-looking facilities produce beautifully finished products. I’ve seen resourcefulness, specialized suppliers and equipment organized around getting the work done.
Those experiences influence what we’re building in Texas: a microfactory using equipment suited to small batches, including custom-designed equipment where necessary. We’re working toward greater vertical integration while drawing on specialist engineering and manufacturing partners.
Small batches still carry higher per-unit costs. Engineering, setup, testing and development have to be paid for. The first objective is to get a product built, learn from it and test customer demand. Scaling and cost reduction follow when the product justifies that investment.
I founded Momentum because I know what it feels like to have a workable idea and struggle to find anyone willing to help you build it.
You may have a napkin sketch. You may have a prototype. You may just need someone to solder a small batch of assemblies.
Tell us where you are. We’ll give you a straight answer about whether we can help—and what a practical next step could look like.
Let’s get it out of your head and onto the workbench.
Rocky Hardie
Founder, Momentum Manufacturing, Inc.