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Tuesday Tune: "Süpürgesi Yoncadan" by Altin Gün

> “Hardware is hard because you’re not just building the thing — you’re building people’s confidence that it’s going to work.”

Tomorrow Lab co-founder Ted Ullrich talks about why the gap between prototype and mass production is the hardest part of hardware, the tiered prototyping process the studio uses with clients, and what he’s learned teaching a tangible-design course at SVA. Interview conducted August 13, 2026

Theodore “Ted” Ullrich, Partner, Interaction Design & Electrical Engineering, Tomorrow Lab. tomorrow-lab.com/about

Check out their cool video series “Potentially Genius”

How do you describe what Tomorrow Lab does?

The elevator pitch is that we’re a hardware innovation studio. After that, it really depends on who I’m speaking with — I try to get a sense of their background first. If someone’s already in technology, I’ll say we focus on hardware, physical technology products. If I’m speaking to a designer, I’ll play up the design side more — the holistic innovation approach. My co-founders and everyone we hire have a balance of technical engineering and design sensitivity.

If someone doesn’t come from either background and they’re looking at me like I have two heads, I just say we’re like an architect — except instead of buildings, we’re an architect for product ideas. Everything from bicycles to toothbrushes. By that point, usually someone says, “Well, I have an idea” — and off they go into their whole thing. Or they’re trying to get out of the conversation as quickly as possible. That happens too, but rarely.

Tomorrow Lab’s team — a mix of industrial designers and mechanical, electrical, and firmware engineers. tomorrow-lab.com/about