START: Sam Mathew, CTO & Co-Founder, twentyfour26: "On Demand CNC Prototyping"

Wait two weeks to find out a part doesn’t work.

Then wait two more weeks to try again.

Sam Mathew knows what that does to a builder.

He started in hardware. During COVID, he switched to software because he couldn’t get parts. Slow iteration wasn’t just costing him time. It was discouraging him from building hardware.

Now he’s back, making parts for other builders.

twentyfour26 manufactures metal parts in San Francisco for robotics and consumer hardware startups.

But it didn’t start as a machine shop.

Sam and his co-founder, Hemant Mahendru, were building software for manufacturers. Selling it was hard.

So on the first day of Founders Inc., they changed the business: instead of selling software to manufacturers, they became one and started taking orders themselves.

Their approach is deliberately focused.

Rather than trying to manufacture everything, they standardize the machine, materials, tools and workholding around a narrower set of parts. Their software handles quoting and programming, and they run production themselves.

Upload a STEP file. The software checks whether the design fits their setup, flags anything that needs changing, and turns accepted designs into a quote and machining plan.