WHY DESIGN?

What if the biggest gap in the clean energy transition isn't technology or politics, but simply who the products were designed for?
In this episode of Why Design, Rob Hallifax shares the belief that sits at the heart of his work: that half the country has been left behind by clean energy, and that the right physical product can change that. Rob is co-founder of Windfall Energy, a company building a compact home battery specifically for renters and flat-dwellers, the people for whom solar panels, heat pumps and big home batteries have never been a realistic option.
Rather than building another clean tech product for homeowners with garages and south-facing roofs, Rob and his co-founder designed something different: a 2.5 kWh battery that orders online, arrives by courier, and automatically charges on cheap overnight electricity to power your home during expensive peak hours. That decision, to start with who was excluded rather than who already had options, led to Bethnal Green Ventures backing the company, conversations with major UK energy providers, and a pre-order campaign launching in early 2025.
This conversation isn't about home energy storage.
It's about who clean technology is designed for, and who it quietly ignores.
This conversation isn't about Kickstarter tactics.
It's about what a decade of crowdfunding campaigns teaches you about making products people actually want.
Join the Why Design community -> teamkodu.com/whydesign

6c. What You'll Learn
Why roughly half of UK homes are structurally excluded from every clean energy product on the market, and what it takes to build for that gap.
How the economics of battery cells and electricity pricing have only recently made a product like Windfall viable, and why timing matters as much as the idea itself.
Why Rob treats the industrial design of a home battery as a commercial priority, not an afterthought, and how that shapes every decision from designer brief to product form.
Why Windfall leads on saving money rather than saving the planet, and what it means that cheap and green electricity are effectively the same thing on the UK grid.
How a B2B2C strategy through energy companies solves distribution, tariff integration and end-user complexity in one move.
What a decade of Kickstarter campaigns actually teaches you about validating physical products, building audiences before launch, and knowing when to walk away from something that is not working.

Memorable Quotes
"We thought, what can we make for the people who've been left behind? Effectively half the country."

"The making of the thing is kind of the easy bit. The hard bit is always finding customers, making a product that people actually want."

"If you're not embarrassed by your first product launch, you've waited too long."

"In terms of marketing stuff, we lead on saving money and the green thing is more than just a happy bonus. They are definitely tightly integrated."

"You need to know when something's not going to work and be prepared to kill it. That can be hard, especially when it's your own."
Resources and Links
🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube & Amazon -> whydesign.club
👥 Join the Why Design community -> teamkodu.com/whydesign
📸 Follow @whydesignxkodu on Instagram
🎥 Watch full episodes -> YouTube.com/@whydesignpod
🔗 Follow Chris Whyte -> linkedin.com/in/mrchriswhyte
🔗 Explore Windfall Energy -> windfallenergy.com
🔗 Connect with Rob Hallifax -> robhallifax.com , LinkedIn
About the Episode
Why Design is powered by Kodu, a specialist recruitment partner for the hardware and physical product development industry.
Through honest conversations with designers, engineers, and creative leaders, we explore not just what they build but why they build it; the beliefs, decisions and responsibility behind meaningful work.
About Kodu
Why Design is produced by Kodu, a recruitment partner for ambitious hardware brands, design consultancies and product-led start-ups.
We help founders and leadership teams hire exceptional talent across industrial design, mechanical engineering and product leadership, bringing structure and clarity to one of the hardest parts of scaling.
🔗 Learn more -> teamkodu.com

What does it take to redesign a surgical instrument that nobody has touched in sixty years?
In this episode of Why Design?, Liz McGloughlin shares the belief that sits at the heart of her work: that hardware problems worth solving are the ones nobody has bothered to solve yet, and that the best place to find them is not a trend report but an operating room.
Rather than following a conventional route into medical devices through engineering alone, Liz brought a clinical lens to a design problem, co-founding Tympany Medical after watching surgeons work around tools that were slowing them down, damaging their bodies, and limiting what they could see.
That decision led to a startup building the first variable-angle, single-use rigid endoscope platform, backed by clinicians at some of the most respected hospitals in the world.
This conversation is not about disruption for its own sake.
It is about the discipline of needs-led innovation: what it means to validate a problem before you fall in love with a solution.
It is about building hardware in a jurisdiction that gives you support but not quite enough, and staying in the game anyway.
It is about what kind of person survives the founding years of a medical device company with two small children at home and no desire to work weekends.
Listen in on this exclusive episode.
Join the Why Design? community - teamkodu.com/whydesign
What You'll Learn
🔬 Why needs-led innovation, not trend spotting, produces the problems worth solving in MedTech.
🛠 How the MVP model must be reframed in a regulated industry, and what the real test cycle looks like.
💡 Why customer conversations in 2023 narrowed Tympany's engineering roadmap and made the product more attainable.
⚖️ What it actually costs to be a hardware founder with young children, and why delegation is a pay equity issue.
🏥 How to build clinical credibility from Galway with surgeons at Mayo Clinic, UPenn, and Johns Hopkins.
🤝 What Liz looks for in early hires, and why character and cultural instinct matter more than CV at the founding stage.

Memorable Quotes
"I fundamentally believe that if we stop developing hardware, we're ghosts."
"Instinct is a combination of knowledge and a community around you. I don't think it happens in isolation."
"The first people in the door are make or break."
"Keep talking to your customers. We were sending prototypes to clinicians, and we still couldn't nail whether we were getting it right. You have to keep going back."
"I sat in the front room of a house with no furniture, on the phone to Rory, and I thought: hold on, this could go anywhere."

Resources and Links
🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube and Amazon - whydesign.club
👥 Join the Why Design? community - teamkodu.com/whydesign
📸 Follow @whydesignxkodu on Instagram
🎥 Watch full episodes - https://www.youtube.com/@whydesignpod
🔗 Follow Chris Whyte - linkedin.com/in/mrchriswhyte
🔗 Explore Tympany Medical - tympanymedical.com
🔗 Connect with Liz McGloughlin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-mcgloughlin/

About the Episode
Why Design? is powered by Kodu, a specialist recruitment partner for the hardware and physical product development industry.
Through honest conversations with designers, engineers and creative leaders, we explore not just what they build but why they build it; the beliefs, decisions and responsibility behind meaningful work.

About Kodu
Why Design? is produced by Kodu, a recruitment partner for ambitious hardware brands, design consultancies and product-led start-ups.
We help founders and leadership teams hire exceptional talent across industrial design, mechanical engineering and product leadership bringing structure and clarity to one of the hardest parts of scaling.
🔗 Learn more - teamkodu.com

What does it take to walk into a deep tech startup as the only industrial designer... Earn the trust of thirty engineers, and...
Build a design identity so thoroughly baked into the product that no one can ever cost-optimise it out?
In this episode of Why Design, Dan Salisbury shares the belief that sits at the heart of his work: that design isn't a layer you apply at the end, it's the structure you build from the inside, or it's nothing at all.
Rather than staying in consultancy, Dan chose to go in-house at Automata with no design team, no established language, and no precedent for what industrial design should mean in a lab automation company.
That decision led to three years of proof.
This conversation isn't about having the right portfolio.
It's about having the conviction to demonstrate value when no one has thought to ask for it.
It's about the specific decisions, a shade of pink, a custom extrusion, a studio photography budget, that turn a product into a statement.
This time we go beyond the fancy gadgets
Join the Why Design community → teamkodu.com/whydesign
What You'll Learn
Why industrial design in deep tech isn't about aesthetics, it's about trust, proof, and permanence
How Dan survived almost failing probation by doubling down on his actual strengths instead of copying others
What presenting to Dieter Rams at 25 taught him about confidence, preparation, and the value of being in the room
Why form following function is a design philosophy and a strategy for making your work impossible to remove
How to build a design language when your manufacturing constraints are brutal and your volumes are low
What a properly considered product launch looks like, and why most B2B companies never bother to try

Memorable Quotes
"Any advice I'd give to anyone is just: stick to your strengths. Don't try and be like other designers because everyone's different in how they approach problems."
"The felt, tip fairy thing, I've heard it more times than I can count. And the answer is always the same: show them. Don't explain. Show them."
"I built the design identity into the extrusion itself. The horizontal lines, the light gap, they're functional. You can't remove them without removing the product."
"The job advert said 'industrial design' in the title. It talked about the impact. I applied within about five minutes of reading it."
"The V2 launch was the proudest moment of my career. I sat there surrounded by studio shots and render posters and I thought, yeah. That's it. That's what this was for."
Resources & Links
🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube & Amazon → whydesign.club
👥 Join the Why Design community → teamkodu.com/whydesign
📸 Follow @whydesignxkodu on Instagram
🎥 Watch full episodes → www.youtube.com/@whydesignpod
🔗 Follow Chris Whyte → linkedin.com/in/mrchriswhyte
🔗 Explore Automata → automata.tech
🔗 Connect with Dan on LinkedIn → Dan Salisbury
About the Episode
Why Design is powered by Kodu, a specialist recruitment partner for the hardware and physical product development industry.
Through honest conversations with designers, engineers, and creative leaders, we explore not just what they build, but why they build it; the beliefs, decisions and responsibility behind meaningful work.
About Kodu
Kodu is a specialist recruitment partner dedicated to physical product development. We connect hardware brands and design consultancies with the very best design and engineering talent, from Industrial Designers and Mechanical Engineers to senior leaders across Product, Technology, and Design.
Our clients range from well-funded start-ups and scale-ups under investor pressure to deliver, through to mature enterprises building new innovation teams. They often face the same challenges: scaling beyond generalists, attracting talent without a recognised employer brand, or struggling with slow, inconsistent hiring processes.
We solve these hiring problems with a proven 7-stage recruitment framework, a proprietary hardware network, and storytelling that builds trust with candidates. This results in a faster, smoother, and more engaging hiring experience.
Kodu consistently delivers results that exceed expectations, with an average time-to-offer of 6 weeks, 97% retention after 12 months, and an all-time NPS of +91 (versus the recruitment industry average of +30).
We act as trusted partners, helping hardware innovators hire better, scale faster, and bring groundbreaking products to market.
🔗 Learn more - teamkodu.com

What if the most important fertility treatment of the last decade wasn’t invented in a clinic, but built from scratch, during a lockdown, by someone who had never worked in medicine?
In this episode of Why Design, Tess Cosad shares the belief that sits at the heart of Béa Fertility: that compassionate, clinical-grade care should be available to everyone, not just those who can afford a private clinic, survive a two-year waiting list, or live near the right postcode.
Rather than accepting the gap between DIY conception and IVF, Tess chose to fill it.
That decision led her through 283 investor pitches, a chronic health condition brought on by founder stress, and a phone call from a user in her hospital bed, the day after emergency surgery, who said she wanted to try again.
This conversation isn’t about fertility as a product category.
It’s about design as access.
Design as dignity.
Design as a force that changes what’s possible for real people, in real pain, right now.
Don’t just listen. Go beyond the podcast.
In this episode we’ll learn
Why intracervical insemination existed before IVF, and why it took a lockdown founder to bring it home
How lived experience, not research studies, solved the product’s biggest usability problem in a single session
Why compassion and levity aren’t soft brand choices, they’re clinical design decisions
What 283 investor rejections reveal about structural bias in venture capital, and how to keep going anyway
How Béa is building for the US market, and why it’s already outperforming revenue forecasts by nearly 100%
Why the hardest part of scaling isn’t the product, it’s the loneliness, the letting go, and the coping mechanisms that actually work

Memorable Quotes
“I want to try again.”
“You can’t do your entire career on level 10 difficulty and not come out of it better at your job.”
“283 pitches to close 15. That’s the fundraising reality of femtech.”
“She flipped the diagram. And that was it. One session.”
“Make decisions fast”, the advice I ignored too long.”

Resources & Links
🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube & Amazon - whydesign.club
👥 Join the Why Design community - teamkodu.com/whydesign
📸 Follow @whydesignxkodu on Instagram & TikTok
📸 Follow @kodurecruitment on Instagram
🎥 Watch full episodes - YouTube
🔗 Follow Chris Whyte on LinkedIn - Mr Chris Whyte
🔗 Explore Béa Fertility - beafertility.com
🔗 Connect with Tess Cosad - [email protected] / LinkedIn

About the Why Design
Why Design is powered by Kodu, a specialist recruitment partner for the hardware and physical product development industry.
Through honest conversations with designers, engineers and creative leaders, we explore not just what they build, but why they build it, the beliefs, decisions and responsibility behind meaningful work.
About Kodu
Kodu is a specialist recruitment partner dedicated to physical product development.
We connect hardware brands and design consultancies with the very best design and engineering talent, from Industrial Designers and Mechanical Engineers to senior leaders across Product, Technology, and Design.
Our clients range from well-funded start-ups and scale-ups under investor pressure to deliver, through to mature enterprises building new innovation teams. They often face the same challenges: scaling beyond generalists, attracting talent without a recognized employer brand, or struggling with slow, inconsistent hiring processes.
We solve these hiring problems with a proven 7-stage recruitment framework, a proprietary hardware network, and storytelling that builds trust with candidates. This results in a faster, smoother, and more engaging hiring experience.
Kodu consistently delivers results that exceed expectations, with an average time-to-offer of 6 weeks, 97% retention after 12 months, and an all-time NPS of +91 (versus the recruitment industry average of +30).
We act as trusted partners, helping hardware innovators hire better, scale faster, and bring groundbreaking products to market.
🔗 Learn more - teamkodu.com

What connects a folding bicycle, a kitchen tool, and an electric ultralight aircraft?
For Mark Sanders, the answer isn’t the category, it’s the thinking.
In this episode of Why Design, Mark joins host Chris Whyte to reflect on a career that spans more than four decades of designing, engineering, and inventing across radically different industries. From his early work as a mechanical engineer at Rolls-Royce, to retraining at the Royal College of Art, to licensing over 100 commercialised products, Mark’s work is united by a clear philosophy: elegance through simplicity.
This is a conversation about reducing part count, designing for manufacture, and understanding why the earliest design decisions matter more than almost anything that follows. Mark shares lessons from licensing the Strida folding bike, working with manufacturers, and inventing products where cost, reliability, and accessibility truly matter.
It’s not a conversation about trends or scale.
It’s about invention as a craft, and design as responsibility.
Don’t just listen. Go beyond the podcast.
Join the Why Design community → teamkodu.com/events

💡 What You’ll Learn
⚙️ Why radically different products often share the same design principles
🧠 How simplicity creates elegance across engineering and design
🔩 Why reducing part count improves reliability, cost, and longevity
🚲 Lessons from designing and licensing the Strida folding bike
✈️ What designing electric ultralight aircraft teaches about safety and systems thinking
🧪 Why concept design decisions shape everything downstream

💬 Memorable Quotes
“Concept design is everything. If you get that wrong, you’re fixing it forever downstream.”
“Good design isn’t about adding features. It’s about fewer parts doing more work.”
“Elegance means something to engineers and designers, and that’s why it matters.”
“If you only design for the elite, you’re not designing for people.”
“Invention isn’t a career for security. It’s a career for curiosity.”

🔗 Resources & Links
🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube & Amazon → whydesign.club
👥 Join the Why Design community → teamkodu.com/events
🌐 Explore Mark Sanders’ work → https://www.mas-design.com
🔗 Follow Mark Sanders on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark77a/
📸 Follow @whydesignxkodu on Instagram
🎥 Watch full episodes → YouTube.com/@whydesignpod
🔗 Follow Chris Whyte → LinkedIn.com/in/mrchriswhyte

About the Episode
Why Design is powered by Kodu, a specialist recruitment partner for the hardware and physical product development industry.
Through honest conversations with designers, engineers, and creative leaders, we explore not just what they build but why they build it, and how their thinking holds up across industries and time.

About Kodu
Kodu is a recruitment partner for ambitious hardware brands, design consultancies, and product-led businesses.
We help teams hire exceptional talent across industrial design, mechanical engineering, and product leadership, bringing structure, clarity, and long-term thinking to one of the hardest parts of scaling.
🔗 Learn more → teamkodu.com