Dave Henderson, FLIT/Bamboo Bridge Co-founder

“Taking our e-bike into production was a bumpy ride. In 2016, I embarked on an adventure, leaving China to lead development at FLIT— a startup in Cambridge developing innovative folding, lightweight e-bikes.

Those early years were a rollercoaster. Incubators, accelerators, and investor networks gave us a boost, but manufacturing—oh boy—was the beast that kept us up at night.

The initial stages of our startup were plagued by challenges such as choosing the wrong factory, slow prototyping, and quality issues. A ballooning bill of materials and production delays nearly brought us to our knees.

Scaling production involves a labyrinth of decisions. Which processes should we use? How do we safeguard our IP? Finding reliable factories and dodging supply chain risks and price hikes—where do we even begin?

A few enlightening years later, I am leveraging my experience and knowledge to guide other designers and startups to navigate their paths more efficiently, aiming to save them from repeating our initial missteps.”