Ep. 57: Mike Ting - Building a World-Class Physical Product
I am a big fan of Cala Systems. They've set a completely new standard for the heat pump water heater and water heaters in general. What was initially an afterthought from large manufacturers - essentially a marketing ploy that really didn't make much of a difference to overall water heater performance - Cala is a step-change in its $14 billion annually non-discretionary market. When you need a water heater, you need it regardless of what's going on in the economy.
We talked to Co-founder and CEO Michael Rigney in Episode 24. It's great - check it out - but we wanted to do a TMF first and have a product lead on. Mike Ting is the Co-founder and CTO of Cala and has overseen the creation of a world-class product, up to and including setting up an entire factory twice. He's a super guy, and this is an insight-laden masterclass in building and scaling a product. Please enjoy my product-first conversation with Mike Ting.
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Full show notes and links to mentioned content below.
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Mike Ting is the Co-founder and CTO of Cala, where he builds intelligent heat pump water heaters that act as grid-interactive thermal batteries. Before Cala, Mike spent ten years developing consumer hardware at Bose and SharkNinja. He worked in the headphone group at Bose and led product teams at SharkNinja, shipping high-volume electronics globally. Today he scales hardware from proof-of-concept to mass production at Cala’s Wilmington, MA factory. Mike earned a mechanical engineering degree from McGill University and is a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen.
00:00 - Introduction
02:01 - What Actually Makes a Good Product
07:10 - Building the World's First Intelligent Water Heater
16:24 - Scaling From Prototype to Manufacturing
26:30 - Blending Hardware, Software, and Customer Experience
33:59 - Why Installers Are the Real Customer
39:27 - The Future of Smart Water Heating
45:05 - Startup Lessons on Building Products That Last
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