BYLD Innovations
BYLD Innovations is a student-founded startup focused on building portable hardware solutions for rapid prototyping, including the PortaPrinter, a foldable backpack-sized 3D printer. As Founding Product & Operations Lead, I owned product definition, operations, and go-to-market strategy from 0→1, raised $50K+ in funding, built scalable internal systems, and led customer, market, and competitive research to validate and grow the business.
Project 1: Founding engineer at BYLD Innovations and led product and operations for the PortaPrinter, a foldable 3D printer designed for portable rapid prototyping. I owned early product definition, user validation, and pitch development, translating technical feasibility into a compelling value proposition. This work helped raise $50,000+ in VC and competition funding and validated demand for a truly portable manufacturing solution. Project 2: I built an automated inventory management system to support over 2,000 parts by designing a centralized database and workflow using Google Apps Script and internal tooling. This system streamlined order requests, reduced manual errors, and improved operational efficiency by ~62%. By turning operational pain points into scalable systems, I enabled the team to move faster as the product and organization grew. Project 3: I developed a five year go to market strategy covering audience segmentation, competitor analysis, market entry, and pricing, and identified a total addressable market of $3.2B. I paired this analysis with customer discovery and competitive research, then tested assumptions through demos, pitches, and competitions. This approach helped BYLD Innovations win multiple top placements across major university and industry competitions while sharpening our execution strategy.