Babba - Heating and Cooling Baby Bottles at Scale

Some founders chase a new idea every few years. Dan Evans did the opposite: he got world-class at one genuinely hard technology and rode it across an entire career. In this episode, Dan, the CEO and founder of Babba, joins DeAndre Harakas and Grant Chapman for a conversation that is equal parts engineering deep dive and founder's playbook.

Babba makes a portable baby bottle cooler and warmer built on thermoelectric (Peltier) cooling, the same notoriously nonlinear, power-hungry technology Dan first mastered at his previous startup, RecoverX, in the sports and wellness recovery space. RecoverX was acquired by Hyperice just months after launch, and Dan turned that hard-won expertise toward a new problem: warming and cooling breast milk safely, quickly, and on the go.

The engineering half of the conversation is a genuine masterclass. Dan and the Glassboard team get into why thermoelectric cooling is so hard to control that being off by an inch means being off by a mile, how he whiteboarded the physics during the pandemic and proved the doubters wrong, and why balancing mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, fluid dynamics, and food science (you cannot cook or denature the milk) made this one of the hardest products any of them has worked on.

The other half is about everything that happens after the engineering works. Dan talks through hearing past the noise of a rough prototype to what customers actually care about, why hardware's go-to-market is as brutal as the build, and why the capital moat around hardware survives even as AI speeds up design. Then he gets refreshingly honest about fundraising: 700 personalized investor outreaches, the second and third-order networks that actually lead to a check, building to be acquired, and the strange transition from venture-startup craziness to running a healthy small business.

What we get into:

• Getting great at a "party trick" almost nobody can do, then finding every nail that needs the hammer
• The RecoverX story: four years of R&D, a launch, and an acquisition by Hyperice just months later
• Why thermoelectric cooling is so nonlinear that you have to nail the math and the engineering together
• The ugly alpha prototype vs the pretty 3D print, and why bridging the two is the hard part
• Not cooking the milk: balancing mechanical, electrical, and fluid engineering with food science
• The six-month roadblock, and selling into high-consideration baby purchases vs the athletic market
• Hearing through the noise of a prototype to what customers truly care about, and asking for the brutal feedback
• Why hardware's go-to-market is as hard as the build, and why the capital moat stays even as AI accelerates design
• The three pillars of fundraising and sales, 700 personalized outreaches, and second and third-order networks
• Building to be acquired, and the leadership shift from startup to small business

A few lines that stuck with us:

"Get really good at a party trick that almost nobody else knows, then find all the nails that need the hammer."

"With thermoelectric cooling, when you're off by an inch, you're off by a mile."

"The people you message might not be the people who invest in you. They might be the bridge to the person who does."

"If you can find joy in the journey and not just the destination, you'll make a really good entrepreneur."

About the guest: Dan Evans is the CEO and founder of Babba, which makes a portable baby bottle cooler and warmer built on thermoelectric cooling. He previously founded RecoverX, a thermal-control company in the sports and wellness recovery space that was acquired by Hyperice, and he has built his career around mastering one hard technology and applying it across multiple products.

The Hardtech Podcast is hosted by DeAndre Harakas and Grant Chapman of Glassboard.