The Manufacturing Automation Podcast

Gimbel Automation and Develop LLC
  • 5.0 (10)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Weekly

Michael and Matt talk about company philosophies and operating systems, industrial marketing for automation B2B companies, how they structure their lives/work-life-balance, and much more.

  1. 6d ago

    Andrew Starts Monday, Claude Is Everyone's Therapist & the HubSpot Debate Rages On

    Matt opens week two post-Automate with nine sales calls booked and ten more already on next week's calendar — but for the first time, he didn't send most of the emails to get them there. The shift is working. Michael is in a parallel version of the same problem: more high-quality enterprise leads than he can get proposals out to, a marketing engine that's gone quiet while sales volume is high, and a growing sense that something structural needs to change before the pipeline dips in three months. The sales and marketing section turns into one of the most substantive exchanges the show has had — a 30-plus minute conversation about funnels, deal velocity, when to chase versus let die on the vine, the real cost of HubSpot versus Klaviyo at different deal sizes, and whether building a Klaviyo MCP server for ten hours is the right move when a four-hour drip campaign would've done the job. Andrew, the marketing hire Matt has been building toward all year, officially starts Monday. Michael's version of that hire is still undecided — but by the end of the conversation, he's closer to admitting he needs one than he was at the start. Engineering covers a CoolantClear production breakthrough Michael can't talk about on air, a full TumbleBlast redesign with clean file structure and proper part numbers for the first time, an Access Air redesign expanding compatibility to the full Haas fifth-axis line, and a factory acceptance test at a supplier site that caught a laundry list of non-SOW deviations before anything shipped. The episode closes with a long and genuinely funny conversation about Claude Skills — Matt's hidden gem unlock that took half a Monday and ROI'd by Friday — and a frank exchange about Fable, Manus, data security, and what it means when your entire team starts using Claude as their best friend and therapist. Reasoning Not a duplicate or too similar to prior titles. Recent episodes covered the Automate debrief, the AI compute cost debate, nine people and one inbox, and Spindle Storm's redo. This episode's defining threads are Andrew finally starting, the most in-depth HubSpot vs. Klaviyo debate the show has had, and the Claude Skills conversation — none of which have anchored a prior title. "Andrew Starts Monday" closes a storyline that's been building across multiple episodes and gives return listeners a satisfying payoff. Why this title fits MAP 87. "Andrew Starts Monday" is the most concrete milestone of the episode and a genuine moment listeners have been waiting for. "Claude Is Everyone's Therapist" is pulled almost verbatim from Matt's own line — one of the most memorable and quotable moments of the episode, and the kind of hook that travels outside the core audience. "The HubSpot Debate Rages On" captures the longest and most substantive exchange of the episode, a genuine back-and-forth where both hosts hold their positions and neither fully convinces the other. Why the description is structured this way. Opens with the parallel post-Automate energy from both hosts, dives into the sales and marketing conversation which earns the most description space because it dominates the episode, covers engineering milestones including the FAT story which is both concrete and funny, and closes on the Claude Skills and AI tools conversation — which is the most shareable and broadly relatable thread for listeners outside the core manufacturing audience.

  2. Jul 8

    Nine People, One Inbox, and the AI Compute Cost Nobody's Talking About

    Michael opens on a milestone he didn't expect to feel so strange: he's up to nine people, four of them in the last month, and for the first time his job is almost entirely infrastructure and people management. The individual contributor work is almost gone — except sales calls, which he's starting to find numbingly repetitive and knows need to be handed off. Matt's feeling the same fatigue on the other end of a late, no-show customer who turned a routine call into one of his worst sales performances in a year. Both are building toward something that doesn't require them in every seat — and starting to feel the gap between where they are and where that actually is. On the marketing and sales side, Michael is deep in email marketing infrastructure — building a Klaviyo MCP server so Claude can write and push campaigns without him touching the interface — and is watching Meta ad fatigue eat into ROAS in real time while he's too buried in production to film new creative. Matt's EA Trish is now handling invoicing so well that month-end close happened the day after month end for the first time in Develop history, and he's down to under two hours a week in accounting. Matt also debuts AirDAM — an AI-powered digital asset management vault his team built so agencies and contractors always pull the right approved content, not the same four photos. Engineering covers CoolantClear supply chain hitting a wall so hard that Michael is spinning up in-house production capacity on the idle spindles, a new Spindle Storm first article in production with triple the airflow, and a greenfield facility buildout proposal moving fast at Develop with multiple robots and parts showing up daily for Projects 2902 and 2903. The episode closes with a conversation both hosts keep circling back to: what happens when AI compute stops being subsidized by venture money — and whether the entire infrastructure Michael is building quietly becomes three people's salaries overnight.

  3. Jul 1

    Automate Debrief, the Secret Hire Revealed & Spindle Storm Gets a Redo

    Matt comes back from Automate brain dead but buzzing — the LED wall was a hit, the custom trade show software finally worked instead of fighting them, and podcast listeners stopped him in the hallway of the Airbnb. Michael returns from Maui with four new hires in the last month and a company that's somehow handling its busiest month ever with fewer things breaking than usual. Both are starting to feel something unfamiliar: the systems are actually working. On the sales and marketing side, Matt officially announces the hire he teased last episode — Andrew, the account manager from his agency who was leaving, is coming on full-time July 13th to run top and middle of funnel. It's the commercial hire Matt has been circling for over a year. Michael, meanwhile, is watching ad creative fatigue eat into Meta ROAS in real time — campaigns that should be returning 4–10x are returning 2x — and knows exactly why: he hasn't filmed new content in weeks because sales volume has him buried. Both hosts go long on the middle of funnel problem — over a hundred stalled deals at Develop, a growing backlog at Gimbel — and what it actually takes to build reporting and follow-up systems that don't require the founder. Engineering covers Spindle Storm getting a full product redo — triple the airflow, investment cast instead of billet, with free replacements going to every existing customer — and a client 1701 case study video dropping soon that Matt clearly can't stop smiling about. The episode closes with Gim Command's vendor portal vision, Develop's push toward NIST and ITAR compliance, SolidWorks PDM that Michael knows he needs and keeps not doing, and Matt's ten-year anniversary with Amanda.

  4. Jun 17

    Sine Waves, Secret Hires & CoolantClear 3 Already in the Works

    Both hosts open on the same diagnosis: the sine wave problem. Michael keeps bouncing between B2B proposal mode and Shopify e-commerce focus, and whichever one he's in, the other declines. Matt's seeing the same pattern smooth out slightly as style guides and brand kits he built over three months start coming back to him from the team — nearly finished, almost no edits needed. When the tools work, the founder stops being the bottleneck. Both are trying to get there faster. On the sales and marketing side, Matt teases a major hire he can't fully announce yet — a dedicated marketing and sales role that's been in the works quietly and is close to being inked. It's the move he's been circling for over a year, and it changes the commercial structure of Develop significantly. Michael, meanwhile, moves email marketing entirely from HubSpot to Klaviyo to break the contact list ceiling, debates whether to build email flows there or inside Gim Command before September, and gets talked off a bad IMTS booth partnership by Matt in real time. The two also go long on what Gimbel Automation actually is — CNC accessories ecosystem or something else — in one of the most strategic conversations the podcast has had. Engineering covers CoolantClear 3 already in prototype — with a production prototype that solves every install issue from versions one and two — and a machine at a customer site approaching one million units processed in four months. Matt pulls data on what 98.5% versus 99.4% reliability actually does to customer perception, and both hosts dig into why customers obsess over cycle time while ignoring in-process probing that prevents crashes. The episode closes with Develop building toward running without Matt by end of 2027, Michael flying to Maui for a corporate retreat, and a frank admission that the number to sell either company would have to be so absurd it's basically not worth thinking about.

  5. Jun 10

    Agency Out, In-House In: Burnout, Configurator Emails & the B2B SaaS Collapse Debate

    Matt opens with a gut punch: his agency account manager — the person carrying the entire team for two years — is leaving, and the contract runs through November. He's weighing a settlement negotiation, bringing marketing in-house, or both, and Michael doesn't hesitate with his position: for niche B2B manufacturing, agencies that can't tell a vise from a clamp aren't worth the training cost. It's the second person that day to tell Matt the same thing, and he's starting to listen. Michael is running on fumes. The proposal generation tool is done — three to four hours down to ten minutes — and Gim Command is humming, but CoolantClear demand has completely outrun supply, and the mental load of managing a product growing that fast while hiring two assembly techs, finishing the configurator rollout, and trying not to burn out is taking a visible toll. The configurator suite is now complete across TumbleBlast, CoolantClear, and grippers — all with email capture built in and targeted drip campaigns being built behind each one. Engineering covers Develop's largest group orientation in company history — electrical and mechanical engineers starting the same week — and an onboarding process that was compressed from three weeks to three days. Matt and Michael go long on vibe coding vs. real technical debt, whether B2B SaaS is actually going to collapse or just slow down, and how manufacturing is one of the last industries where Claude still surprises people on the shop floor. The episode closes with the best accounting meeting Matt has ever had in company history, Michael already prototyping CoolantClear 3 for fun, and both hosts landing on the same honest admission: entrepreneurs love the first 90% of every project and can't stand the last ten.

  6. Jun 4

    Configurators That Close, Automate Crunch & the Bet on Dropping HubSpot

    Matt opens the week buried in content review — 18 pages for Vac-Fixture, eight for Develop, two press releases, and a 12-email drip campaign audit, all pushed through in one week to hit the Automate deadline. It's good work, but he's sick of reading about his own company. Michael is dealing with a softer May on e-commerce after a record April and trying to figure out whether it's a content problem, a sales cadence problem, or just a lumpy business reality — then a second CoolantClear reel hits 1.1 million views and 30K in sales in 14 hours, which doesn't fully answer the question but does clarify the recipe. On the marketing and sales side, the TumbleBlast 3D configurator is live and already eliminating four calls a day about cabinet compatibility. A CoolantClear compatibility checker and a full G-code kinematic simulator for 500 CNC machine models are both in progress — though Matt pushes back on priority order, and Michael concedes mid-conversation that he's doing the exciting thing again instead of the highest-leverage one. The HubSpot vs. Gim Command debate resurfaces with an actual bet: Michael thinks Matt drops HubSpot within 18 months, Matt takes the other side, and they both agree to let the business decide. Engineering covers Develop's new CNC machinist starting his first real parts on day four — promising but emotions deliberately regulated — and a new peer review process being tested where junior engineers review senior work first for exposure before a senior signs off. Michael is getting pulled back into CoolantClear 2 electrical details he shouldn't be touching, and names the real bottleneck: his lead engineer is remote, and he needs a local one whether he wants to spend the money or not. The episode closes with a packaging foam machine that ROIs in a month, Matt's 90-day review process being handed to team leads for the first time, and a shared reflection on what it feels like when the business finally starts running without you in every seat.

  7. May 27

    Configurators That Close, Automate Crunch & the Bet on Dropping HubSpot

    Matt opens the week buried in content review — 18 pages for Vac-Fixture, eight for Develop, two press releases, and a 12-email drip campaign audit, all pushed through in one week to hit the Automate deadline. It's good work, but he's sick of reading about his own company. Michael is dealing with a softer May on e-commerce after a record April and trying to figure out whether it's a content problem, a sales cadence problem, or just a lumpy business reality — then a second CoolantClear reel hits 1.1 million views and 30K in sales in 14 hours, which doesn't fully answer the question but does clarify the recipe. On the marketing and sales side, the TumbleBlast 3D configurator is live and already eliminating four calls a day about cabinet compatibility. A CoolantClear compatibility checker and a full G-code kinematic simulator for 500 CNC machine models are both in progress — though Matt pushes back on priority order, and Michael concedes mid-conversation that he's doing the exciting thing again instead of the highest-leverage one. The HubSpot vs. Gim Command debate resurfaces with an actual bet: Michael thinks Matt drops HubSpot within 18 months, Matt takes the other side, and they both agree to let the business decide. Engineering covers Develop's new CNC machinist starting his first real parts on day four — promising but emotions deliberately regulated — and a new peer review process being tested where junior engineers review senior work first for exposure before a senior signs off. Michael is getting pulled back into CoolantClear 2 electrical details he shouldn't be touching, and names the real bottleneck: his lead engineer is remote, and he needs a local one whether he wants to spend the money or not. The episode closes with a packaging foam machine that ROIs in a month, Matt's 90-day review process being handed to team leads for the first time, and a shared reflection on what it feels like when the business finally starts running without you in every seat.

  8. May 20

    Death by SKU, Project 29's Biggest Spend & When You Stop Being Good at "the Work"

    Both hosts open the week running on fumes but with cautious optimism — Matt's new EA is three weeks in and already taking real weight off his calendar, while Michael is back from his last planned in-person install and feeling the full weight of how much travel has been quietly killing his momentum and marketing output. The shift to Turnkey Direct is officially underway, IntraLoad is fully wound down, and Michael is now focused on building an ecosystem play where every product on the floor feeds recurring hardware orders for years. On the sales and marketing side, Matt heads out on a full-day site visit to a large packaging company with half a dozen automation projects worth one to several million dollars each — and comes back focused on how Develop can become their fractional automation department rather than a one-time vendor. Michael confronts a stretch where deals just weren't closing, then three Turnkey Direct orders land within two days of each other, and he lands on the same diagnosis every time: his follow-up cadence and marketing output both fall apart when he's on the road. The HubSpot vs. Gim Command debate resurfaces — Matt's all in at $9,600 a year, Michael is counting down to cancellation. Engineering covers Develop's largest single component spend in company history clearing in one month for its confidential flagship project, two more engineers starting June 1st to give the team some buffer back, and a candid admission that the customer's product is still slightly evolving mid-design. Michael's CoolantClear 2 saga continues — a motor change cascaded into a driver change cascaded into a new electrical enclosure — while demand on CoolantClear 1 keeps outrunning supply. The episode closes with a long, honest conversation about CI prioritization, P&L forecasting discipline, and the strange disorientation of becoming a manager who's now worse at the individual work that built the company in the first place.

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5
out of 5
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About

Michael and Matt talk about company philosophies and operating systems, industrial marketing for automation B2B companies, how they structure their lives/work-life-balance, and much more.

Information

  • Creator
    Gimbel Automation and Develop LLC
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    86
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Gimbel Automation and Develop LLC
  • Show Website
    The Manufacturing Automation Podcast

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