Adam Elghor | Build the Product

01 / Self Taught

EE degree from Georgia Tech. Everything else, I taught myself.

What I Do

Three skills I bring to the team.

I Build Products

From first prototype to enterprise scale. I've taken a product from concept through four generations, iterating on every failure until it worked at scale.

I Stay Close to the Customer

I don't design from a desk. I install, troubleshoot, and watch people use the product firsthand, then rebuild what doesn't work.

I Build the Business Case

I make product decisions with the P&L in mind. What it costs to build, ship, and support matters as much as what it does. I've managed that tradeoff across four product generations.

By the Numbers

The metrics that matter most.

Live Feed

> Products have served 1M+ customers

> 134 units deployed across US venues

> $15M raised at $40M valuation

> Cut BOM 46% and assembly cost 89%

> Took Sidework through NSF certification

> 2 patents filed

I Design the System

Release cycles, review gates, testing protocols. If it didn't exist, I built it.

Week 1

1Plan

2Scope

3Dev

4Dev

5Dev

Week 2

6Dev

7Dev

8Alpha

9Beta

10Deploy

Plan

Scope

Dev

Alpha

Beta/Deploy

▶ Ship Release

That's the overview. Here's the full story

02 / Product Evolution

Each product I touched is evidence of how I grew

Four hardware generations at Sidework. Each one represents a different chapter of my development, from sole designer, to team lead, to head of product.

Backbar Deluxe · 2019 · Founding Engineer

I taught myself to be a mechanical engineer

With zero ME experience, I designed the entire mechanical system: every fluidics path, every mechanism, every assembly. 9 months at HAX in Shenzhen learning CAD, working with factories, and prototyping until it worked. It had reliability issues, but it proved the market was real and secured our initial funding.

Backbar Premium · 2020 · ME Team Lead

I learned to lead through other people

Now managing 3 engineers, I leveraged the team to simplify the Deluxe architecture by removing the ice dispenser and making dozens of reliability upgrades. I established engineering review gates and DFM processes. More importantly, I learned that the best products don't try to do everything. They do fewer things and do them well.

Sidework Gen 2 · 2023 · Chief of Product

I built the frameworks to execute at scale

When coffee shops came calling, I led a ground-up redesign: 9 direct reports across mechanical, software, and electrical, $1.5M budget, and a far more sophisticated product. I built the process from scratch, pushed the dispenser through NSF certification, and presented company-wide monthly on how we tracked against KPIs. 134 units deployed. 1M+ drinks dispensed. 99.9% uptime.

Sidework Gen 3 · 2025 · In Development

I distilled everything I learned into one design

Everything I learned across four generations lives in Gen 3, designed from the ground up for mass-market adoption. The failures taught me what to simplify, the field taught me what matters, and the result is the most focused product I've ever designed.

03 / What I Bring

What I bring and how it translates

The building blocks I'd bring, and how they map to what product organizations actually need.

What I've Done

Led a 9-person cross-functional team spanning mechanical, software, and electrical engineering. I built the product development process that aligned engineering, accelerated releases, and dramatically reduced release-related bugs.

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What This Means For You

I can run the whole team. I've aligned engineers across disciplines, created processes that keep things moving without falling apart, and shipped coordinated releases where everything works together on day one.

What I've Done

Drove BOM cost from $12K to $6.5K (46%) and assembly cost from $5K to $550 (89%) across 3,000+ parts from ~60 vendors in US, China, and Mexico.

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What This Means For You

Unit economics discipline. I think in terms of what it costs to build, ship, and support, not just what to build. Product decisions that ignore economics don't survive contact with reality.

What I've Done

Built the product behind a $15M raise at a $40M valuation. Translated technical progress into investor narratives, ran product demos for enterprise buyers, and shaped the roadmap that led to pilots with Coke, Pepsi, Swig, AMC, Inspire Brands, and Dutch Bros.

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What This Means For You

Stakeholder communication. I know how to translate technical complexity into language that resonates, whether the audience is a customer, manager, or investor.

What I've Done

Pushed the Gen 2 dispenser through NSF certification, navigating testing requirements, design constraints, and compliance documentation to get a commercial beverage system approved for nationwide deployment.

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What This Means For You

I know how to work within regulatory constraints. I've been through the process and can keep compliance moving without letting it stall the roadmap.

What I've Done

Co-founded Pumpt while running Sidework. Concept to manufacturing in under 12 months. Designed the product, built the supply chain, landed Burger King Canada. Patent pending.

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What This Means For You

0-to-1 velocity. When there's a new opportunity, I have a bias for action. I scope it, build it, and ship it. Fast enough that the market validates before the budget runs out.

04 / Operating Principles

How I'd operate as your next product hire

These aren't aspirational principles. They're how I've actually worked for 7 years.

01 Understand the problem deeply before solving it. Not just user interviews and data. I mean physically being there, seeing the failure, understanding the constraint. Decisions made from a distance are guesses.
02 Ship fast, learn faster. Perfection is the enemy. Get it in front of real users, watch what breaks, fix it, repeat. The 10-day release cycle wasn't about speed for speed's sake. It was about compressing the feedback loop.
03 Build the process, not just the product. A great product without a repeatable process is a one-time accident. I design the systems (release cycles, review gates, testing protocols) that let teams ship consistently, not just once.

05 / Honest Gaps

What I'd need to learn, and how I'd get there

No one has the full picture on day one. These are the gaps I'd close first.

Formal PM Frameworks

I built my processes from scratch, not from textbooks. I'd want to learn established frameworks like RICE, opportunity scoring, and formal discovery methods. My plan: Study the frameworks, then stress-test them against my real-world experience.

Larger Org Dynamics

I've operated in a 27-person startup where I could walk to anyone's desk. Navigating a larger organization with more stakeholders and longer decision chains is newer territory. My plan: Listen first. Map the stakeholder landscape.

Designing for Mass-Market Scale

My products have been built for specific commercial environments like bars, restaurants, and theaters. Designing for a broader consumer audience with diverse use cases and expectations is a different challenge. My plan: Study how the best consumer products scale simplicity across millions of users.

Data-Driven Analytics

At Sidework I used Metabase and field observations. I haven't worked with enterprise-scale product analytics or run formal A/B tests at volume. My plan: Same approach as everything else: total immersion, fast practice.