Northside Innovation: Speaking with Dylan Reid of Matter
Each month Northside Innovation, the tech and innovation conference that occurs during the annual Northside Festival in June, gathers top founders and thought leaders, who–over BBQ and beer from Brooklyn Brewery–speak on topics relevant to the community.
March’s meetup theme is From the Bedroom to the Boardroom: Smart Design for Life. We’ll be hearing from product design company founders and Dwell magazine’s Will Lamb will lead a discussion with top product designers. In anticipation for tonight’s event, we chatted with Reid about his company and his favorite Dumbo haunts.
What is Matter?
Matter’s a new kind of factory, born online and built for independent designers and creative businesses. We’re taking the anxiety out of manufacturing so you can focus on what really matters to your business.
What was the amount of time between when you thought of your company’s idea and the time you started working full time on it?
Almost immediately. It started with a conversation at lunch and that night my co-founder and I stayed up late and built a prototype.
You are a very young company – what is the hardest part about growing so quickly?
Any problem is solvable if you’ve got smart people. What’s tough is knowing what to focus on.
What is your company’s end goal?
To bring manufacturing to the five million independent designers and small businesses in the US.
What is the best designed thing you own?
My bicycle, which is made from a continuous sheet of carbon fiber.
Name an app you love and that not many people know about.
CaffieneZone. It model the pharmakenetics of the Caffiene you consume and tells you when and how much coffee to drink without interfering with sleep or exceeding your productive threshold. It was developed by a professor at PennState and its fantastic!
Do you have your eye on a local designer you think has a very bright future?
A few hundred of them actually! We’re incredibly lucky to be working with a community of amazing designers. At this moment, I’m ogling a piece we made for Androgyny Design that is absolutely amazing.
What Brooklyn neighborhood do you live in?
I live in the East Village part of Brooklyn 😛 But our team lives all over Brooklyn – Bed-Stuy, Bushwick, Carol Gardens, Sheepshead Bay and Prospect Park.
Our office is in Dumbo, right by the Water front.
Any favorite bar / restaurant in Brooklyn?