For 5 years, a solo founder developed a category-creating hardware product in stealth — then launched a $399 ultrasonic knife at CES 2026 with just $2 million in pre-seed funding.

Scott Heimendinger is the founder and CEO of Seattle Ultrasonics, maker of the C-200 — the world's first ultrasonic chef's knife. Before this, he raised $823,000 on Kickstarter in 2013 (the #1 food & beverage campaign at the time) with Sansaire, served as Director of Applied Research at Modernist Cuisine, and was CMO/Chief Innovation Officer at Anova. The C-200 vibrates 30,000+ times per second using piezoelectric crystals, requiring 50% less cutting effort than traditional knives.

In this episode, Scott breaks down what it takes to build hardware without headcount — the solo-founder discipline, the perfectionist's dilemma, and why five years of R&D  ...