The Manufacturing Automation Podcast

Matt and Michael open with a rare moment of alignment — both independently arrived at the same conclusion this week: they're doing too much. Matt trimmed his sales pipeline from 95 deals down to 33, cutting loose months-old leads that were draining energy without moving forward. Michael is rethinking his entire business model, pushing toward a larger share of semi-turnkey and product revenue and away from the complex integrations that eat margin and goodwill. Both are learning, in their own ways, that saying no is a growth strategy.On the marketing side, Michael hits a milestone — Shopify becomes the majority of revenue for the first time, driven by a Google Ads campaign running at 60x ROAS and a newly launched Auto Vice LT going immediately to backorder. Matt finalizes plans for the VFS spinoff page, approves new homepage and service page updates, and reflects on a six-year, 32-page sales playbook that finally gets a Claude-assisted rewrite.Engineering-wise, Matt's team goes all-in on Project 29 — a complex multi-robot build targeting delivery in under six months — while managing 91% utilization and onboarding a wave of new engineers. Michael launches the Auto Vice LT, rolls out Spindle Storm, and digs into ECO fatigue, sharing how removing his personal cell from his email signature has already changed how difficult customers escalate.The episode closes with a candid exchange on 500% revenue growth without doubling headcount, the real cost of training new engineers (60% output in year one), AI-assisted marketing agency oversight, and why customers who want to buy too fast are actually a red flag.

Matt and Michael kick off Q2 planning mode while navigating one of the tightest operational squeezes yet. Matt reflects on running 91% engineering utilization — well above his preferred ceiling — and what that means for team sustainability, onboarding, and hitting deadlines without burning people out. He also shares a quiet but meaningful decision: hiring a cleaning crew that returned a 25% time gain for engineers, and donating Develop's SMT pick-and-place line to a local trade school.Michael, powering through being sick, goes deep on a fully custom AI-connected ERP he's built from scratch without writing a line of code. Tied into HubSpot, Shopify, LinkedIn, YouTube, QuickBooks, and Gmail, it's already automating email drafts, flagging follow-up gaps, cross-posting social content, and even modifying Shopify product pages on voice command. He also runs a hard margin audit that reveals both the IntraLoad and semi-turnkey lines are underperforming — and shares how he's repositioning pricing to target 60% gross margins. CoolantClear officially launches as a full product, with zero beta complaints.The episode closes with a candid debate about whether SaaS is dying for small business, OKR structure and performance-based comp, meeting culture creep, and a team event brainstorm that ends somewhere between skydiving and workers' comp risk management.

Matt and Michael dive into a question many automation companies eventually face: are you building a product business or a service business—and what happens if you try to do both? Michael reflects from a corporate retreat on the tension between scaling product-driven revenue and supporting the service-heavy work that often surrounds automation deployments.Meanwhile, Matt shares what growth pressure looks like on the integrator side. With a single customer consuming a large portion of Develop’s engineering capacity, the team is racing to hire new engineers, restructure financial forecasting, and build the systems needed to support multiple large automation builds without sacrificing delivery quality.They also discuss pricing strategy for automation products, how operator skill level affects real-world reliability, the risks of customer concentration, and why founders often become the bottleneck again during rapid growth phases. Along the way, the conversation touches on marketing slowdowns, hiring challenges in engineering roles, ERP experimentation with AI, and the constant balancing act between execution today and building the systems needed for tomorrow.

Matt and Michael compare notes on what happens when growth forces you back into the weeds—and AI becomes the ultimate force multiplier. Matt shares how being the sales bottleneck again has sharpened his approach to qualifying projects, turning down work that isn’t the right fit, and focusing engineering energy where it matters most.Meanwhile, Michael dives deep into rebuilding the company’s internal stack—experimenting with a custom AI-built ERP to replace Notion, integrating Kanban data, QuickBooks dashboards, GitHub version control, and even exploring CRM replacement. From converting complex CNC macros across control types to automating proposal formatting with a brand kit, he’s seeing 20-hour tasks collapse into one-hour workflows.The episode covers selective selling in a busy market, machine shop demand signals, hiring remote engineering talent vs. in-person culture, and how rapid AI capability is reshaping what “engineering skill” actually means. It closes with honest reflections on overwork, vacation guilt, and the tension between building the business—and building the life around it.

Matt and Michael reflect on the operational realities that surface once automation is deployed in the field—especially when crashes happen and customer expectations collide with the limits of a small team. Michael shares lessons from repairing a damaged IntraLoad system in Chicago, and how these moments are forcing him to rethink service models, contract structure, and which customers—and products—are best suited for scalable growth.They also discuss the strategic shift toward semi-turnkey gripper integrations, which offer faster deployment, lower service burden, and a cleaner path to scale compared to fully integrated pallet loading systems. Meanwhile, Matt reflects on insights from a FANUC integrator conference, including the generational turnover happening across automation companies and the opportunity it creates for younger, more agile firms.The episode closes with candid conversations about leadership, including the difficult decision to let go of a senior engineer and the surprising productivity gains that followed. Both hosts emphasize the importance of culture alignment over raw talent, and how tightening hiring criteria, reinforcing core values, and investing in team cohesion are becoming essential to building resilient, scalable automation companies.

Michael and Matt unpack what it really feels like to operate in the most difficult stage of company growth—the stretch where you’re too big to wing it and too small to specialize. They talk candidly about culture drift, missed deadlines, and the hidden cost of onboarding, especially when half the team is new and tribal knowledge disappears faster than expected.The conversation dives deep into execution vs. effort, why batching creates downstream quality failures, and how Gantt charts, daily huddles, and clearer deadlines are helping realign work with outcomes. Michael shares hard-earned lessons from QC issues and a necessary termination, while Matt explains why “depth of bench” matters more than headcount—and how utilization, onboarding curves, and capacity planning shape smarter hiring decisions.They also debate CRM discipline vs. custom tools, the real ROI of enterprise software, and when founders should stop building systems themselves and start enforcing the ones they already pay for. The episode closes with honest reflections on leadership, culture-building habits, and how to keep teams motivated when growth is messy, exhausting, and unavoidable.

Matt and Michael compare notes on what happens when your bottleneck stops being production and starts being sales consistency and founder bandwidth. Michael shares how Gimbel Automation’s Shopify revenue is up ~4x in a few months, driven by a major page overhaul and a conversion rate that’s increased ~10x—shifting his attention toward scalable “widget” sales instead of field-heavy turnkey installs.Matt breaks down the other side of the same problem: Develop’s delivery engine is scaling, but the limiting factor is now top-of-funnel response time, lead follow-up cadence, and project accounting, pushing him toward hiring an executive assistant and standardizing customer reporting. Together they talk SEO reality (KD-zero industrial keywords), how agencies stall when founders stop reviewing deliverables, and why the next growth step is often delegation plus tighter systems, not more leads.On the ops side, they cover floor-space constraints, CapEx tradeoffs, and practical improvements like Kanban discipline, objective-driven OKRs, and aligning incentives to measurable execution. The episode closes with real-world engineering updates—including shipping a major build in brutal weather, refining CoolantClear beta production, and catching a critical torque-spec oversight before a prototype hits the field.

Matt and Michael recap a packed week of operations pressure, follow-on project momentum, and the unglamorous reality of scaling: quality errors, retraining, and tightening SOPs without bloating the system. Matt shares what he’s learning from a new owner-operator roundtable, plus how follow-on work is stacking up across multiple active builds.On the marketing side, they go deep on SEO strategy that actually works in industrial B2B—long-tail keyword mapping, training an agency to understand the market, and what a realistic monthly SEO spend looks like when the founder is still the bottleneck.They close with two practical scale moves: (1) a shop-floor re-layout to unlock space for larger machine builds, and (2) a cultural experiment Matt calls the “forgiveness log”—a structured way to push decision-making down to the team, speed up execution, and track ROI on micro-improvements in real dollars and hours.

In Episode 64 of the Manufacturing Automation Podcast, Michael Gimbel and Matt Moseman dig into what it actually looks like to run and scale an automation business when the hype wears off.This episode covers:Hiring realities and why “working interviews” reveal more than resumesFounder stress, perspective traps, and learning to measure the right metricsProfit-first thinking vs. raw growth in capital-intensive businessesWebsite conversion strategy, SEO obsession, and messaging clarityProduct demand signals, beta launches, and pricing confidenceAutomation product mix decisions and long-term market education challengesTime tracking, utilization, and building real COGS visibilityLeadership, culture shifts, and reducing founder dependencyThis is a candid, operator-level conversation about decision-making, discipline, and building sustainable automation companies — not just impressive ones.If you’re a manufacturer, integrator, or founder navigating growth, hiring, and product strategy, this episode is for you.👉 Listen to the Manufacturing Automation Podcast on Spotify and follow the show for weekly conversations on building automation businesses the right way.No theory. No fluff. Just two founders documenting the journey. New episodes drop weekly. Subscribe and join the conversation.

In Episode 63 of the Manufacturing Automation Podcast, Michael Gimbel and Matt Moseman kick off the new year by reflecting on 2025 and setting a more disciplined, profit-driven direction for 2026.They dig into the shift from cash to accrual accounting, applying Profit First principles, and why growth without margin creates unnecessary stress. The conversation also covers product strategy decisions, simplifying automation offerings, market education challenges, and designing products that scale — not just technically, but operationally.This episode covers:Accrual vs cash accounting in automation businessesProfit First mindset and financial disciplineProduct mix decisions and scaling realitiesMarket education vs product eleganceEngineering capacity, CI priorities, and team accountabilityBuilding companies from a position of strengthNo theory. No fluff. Just two founders documenting the journey.New episodes drop weekly. Subscribe and join the conversation.