By Kate MacArevey-Colello

When I first met Tom Lugo and Josh Smith a few years ago, we were at a networking mixer. Josh introduced himself first: “I build products. Well, Tom and I build products. We both have day jobs, but we build cool stuff on the side. You know, for fun, hopefully for profit?” Then he used a word I had not yet heard in the context of product development at that point: “We’re kind of… disruptors.”

Tom, Josh, and I ran in the same circles for a while. We were all in the fully-employed MBA program at Cal State San Marcos along with Kyle Kimmel. Whenever Tom or Josh spoke, I found myself taking note: this is what a disruptor looks like. I couldn’t shake the feeling that these were my kind of people… tech-savvy, business-minded designers interested in combining their strengths in unique ways.

Flash forward to mid-2020. Immersed in business school, I found myself applying the lessons learned toward this idea I had, the idea that I could potentially make a career pivot to education and find a way to simultaneously support product development as an entrepreneur myself. I was beginning to realize that my technical background and business acumen put me in a unique position to help companies get over the frustrations that come along with early product and business development. I set up a call with Tom to get his thoughts.

That conversation began what ultimately turned into my initial involvement with the development of the RealTime Scale, and I could not be prouder to be a part of this product development team. Tom, Josh, and the rest of this team are exactly the kind of colleagues you want – innovative, creative, and funny, with a high bar for the cool factor.

From the portal interface, to the companion app, to the physical scale itself, everything about this product is cool. We have a deep bench on this team, and it shows. With experience in visual arts, programming, product R&D, and user experience design, we get excited by cool design that just works. In fact, we insist that our products must fit these requirements: innovative, simple… and cool!

That’s why I was so excited to read this early review from beta tester Robby Johnson, Associate Scientist at NeuroPore Therapies: “[The SST RealTime Scale is] cool, user-friendly, and beneficial for streamlining lab responsibilities.”

Robby is one of our first beta testers, so he definitely got a peek behind the product development curtain. It was great to get his honest thoughts about the system. Robby continued, “I think that labs that share reagents could really benefit from this product.” “SST will begin to find its place in multiple laboratories and possibly spill over into other industries.” So cool to hear such a great review from such a cool guy. Robby, we look forward to continuing to work with you!

To get a first-hand look at how cool (and disruptive) this product is, reach out to us today to become a beta tester like Robby. We will set you up with our portal and a device, so you too can start streamlining your lab inventory process with the help of Scaled Solutions Technologies RealTime Scale.