Building a Next Gen Industrial Automation Marketplace with Roman Piszcz, Founder of Quotebeam

Roman Piszcz is the Founder and CEO of Quotebeam, a new company that's reducing friction in the purchasing process and building a marketplace for automation parts, quotes, and collaboration. But before Roman became an entrepreneur, he was leading a team at Apple, and that’s where this week’s story begins…

Roman joined Apple back in 2016 and worked there for nearly five years as part of the iPhone product operations team. As it is with most entrepreneurs, his company was borne out of a particular pain point he noticed in the industry — the disjointed nature of the machine part procurement process.

These days, you’ll find him tackling a whole new set of challenges that he delves into in this episode. Roman also shares a few leadership tips he picked up from his time at Apple and as the CEO of Quotebeam. He gives us some insights into the manufacturing support network he’s building and shares what he sees on its horizon. 

In this episode, find out:

• Roman talks about his work with Apple
• The importance of raising team members to be leaders
• Advice for people managers moving to a new role
• What inspired Roman to create Quotebeam
• The communication problem Quotebeam is looking to solve
• How Quotebeam’s transactional and conversational aspects are part of its solution
• Unexpected challenges Roman faced as a startup owner
• How Roman’s experience at Apple feeds into his work at Quotebeam
• Why data is a huge part of decision-making in business
• Roman shares insights into Quotebeam’s core vision
• How Roman’s manufacturing support network ecosystem is evolving

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Tweetable Quotes:

• “Running a start-up is an interesting journey. You get to break things, and no one yells at you.”
• “You don’t make decisions based on opinions, you make them based on data.”
• “Engineers don’t need to know everything. They just need to know where to find the right information.” 

Links & mentions:

• Quotebeam, the marketplace for automation parts, quotes, and collaboration
• Shadow Puppet Brewing Company, a production craft brewery with an open tasting room, located in Livermore, CA

Make sure to visit http://manufacturinghappyhour.com for detailed show notes and a full list of resources mentioned in this episode. Stay Innovative, Stay Thirsty.