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What we've been up to - Q2 2025

It’s a noisy world out there and cutting through all that noise can seem like a Herculean task, particularly for hardware teams trying to scale. Conventional wisdom was that the fastest way to build an audience, get to market, and beyond was to invest in ads on Meta and Google, but with more and more brands vying for consumers’ attention, ad spend can instead feel like the fastest way to light your marketing budget on fire. Today, breaking through is all about how much attention you can capture, not with flashy ads and PPC performance, but with stellar content and a unique perspective. A little humor doesn’t hurt either.

For this installment of our quarterly newsletter, we look at hardware that successfully cuts through the digital noise. From poop analyzers to donut holders, these are products that leverage humor and personality over ad dollars to grow and go viral.

CLIENT FEATURE

Throne

Your bathroom break just became a wellness breakthrough. Austin-based startup Throne is changing the way we understand health by turning your everyday routine into clear, actionable health insights. Throne’s mission is to improve health — and one day save lives — by tracking your hydration, digestion, and digestive patterns with their wireless, hands-free device that clips to your toilet.

Their privacy-minded, downward-facing camera device uses AI trained by physicians to analyze your waste so that you can begin to spot key connections that drive your gut health, such as diet and other triggers like acute stress or travel. With clinical rigor and a dash of bathroom humor, Throne is making it easier (and way less awkward) to listen to your gut, literally.

In terms of getting noticed in a 24/7 newscycle full of nonstop content, Throne cut through the noise and got mainstream media attention by tackling a taboo topic — poop — with smart tech, clean design, and a surprisingly approachable message. By turning the toilet into a tool for real-time health insights, they tapped into both curiosity and genuine need, striking a balance between novelty and utility. Their headline-ready storytelling helped land them coverage from tech and consumer media outlets including Men’s Health, Gizmodo, New York Post, and TechCrunch, who couldn’t resist a startup reinventing the most universal daily ritual.

Throne is led by a team of innovators with deep expertise in engineering, product design, and data science. Co-founders Scott Hickle, Tim Blumberg, and John Capodilupo (previously co-founder and CTO of WHOOP) aren’t afraid to partner with the right people to ensure they produce their very best. Back in 2024, informal co-founder Nate Padgett was introduced to Scott Hickle through a mutual friend, and since then, Throne has tapped into the informal network for product development support in the areas of electrical, firmware, and mechanical engineering.

After an initial engagement to help revise their beta devices — and a successful fundraising campaign — Throne returned to informal this year for support with their first mass-manufactured product. informal’s engineering experts collaborated with the talented designers at Whipsaw to turn their industrial design model into a mass manufacturable product, factoring in design for manufacturing (DFM) and assembly constraints, waterproofing and dirty environment challenges, and circuit board placements and component layouts. informal co-founder and DFM expert Sam Holland worked with Throne’s contract manufacturing partner to navigate the tradeoffs between design and manufacturability, and to oversee the ramp-up to production. Consumers can pre-order the device from their website, which will begin shipping in January 2026.

Pre-Order Throne One

MEMBER FEATURE

Sam Holland

When he’s not running informal, improving its internal tools, or working with clients, how does informal co-founder and product design engineer Sam Holland fill his days? We sat down to ask him just that. With over a decade of experience in mechanical engineering — and just as much time freelancing — Sam is known for jumping into messy hardware problems, translating complex ideas into human speak, and helping teams make better stuff, faster.

Sam has collaborated on everything from wearable tech to toilet-mounted health sensors, and he’s not afraid to get weird. Case in point: His Donut Hole-der side project, Dear Dunkin, was born out of play and a genuine love of donut holes — and the way it’s resonated with folks and garnered interest is inspiring. In this Q&A, Sam talks about what makes great product design, why he loves working with freelancers, and how Vermont sunsets and toddler time help unleash his creativity.