SEO Success for Manufacturers: Electronic Interconnect Teams Up with IMEC and B2Btail

Damon Pistulka 00:01
Never been live. Alright, everyone, it is Friday, and you know what time that is. That means it means it is time for stop being the best kept secret. I am one of the CO hosts, Damon Pistulka that pretty gentleman right over there is Curt Anderson. He’s the other co host. We’re going to be talking today about SEO Success for M. We’ve talked about how electric Electronic Interconnect teams up with IMEC and B2B,tail, Curt, I can’t even talk. I’m so excited. Take it away. My friend Damon, thanks

Curt Anderson 00:38
Happy Friday to this is an honor. What a privilege to take over. Have this conversation here with our dear friend Pratish Patel from Electronic Interconnect, right in Chicago. Pratish, happy Friday. How are you

Pratish Patel 00:50
happy Friday? Man, you know, good to see you guys. Okay,

Curt Anderson 00:54
great. So yeah, we’re you’ve never, this is your first right? This your maiden voyage on being on the live stream. Is that correct? Absolutely.

Pratish Patel 01:01
Live Stream is the first time I’ve been done and I’ve done recording many times, and I do, like I said, we do a lot of presentations and a lot of in class type of it, but nothing like this podcast is something new for me. My daughter keeps telling me, keep going. And you know what? She’s going to be excited. Oh, hey, Dad finally got onto it. You know,

Curt Anderson 01:24
we we strung our armed Damon, we got him on the show. So this is, what an honor, what a privilege, what a dear friend that you’ve become. Pratish, we’re going to dive in. And so we’ve got tons to cover here, but before we go there, I’ve got a question for you. We’re going to kick things off with a little question. Now, if you don’t mind, this might be a little curve ball. I intentionally left it off the list. Are you ready? Are you sitting down? Here we go. Pratish, when you were a little guy growing up, when you were a little guy growing up, who was your hero? Who did you look up to? Who did you admire? Who just showered you with unconditional love, who was your hero when you’re a little guy growing up,

Pratish Patel 02:05
of course, number one always starts with my dad. Nice, okay? My My dad has always been inspiring me. Always been with me. So it’s really mom. And then comes mom, in my case, but Dad, because dad was home, was supportive. So that’s number one, okay? And then my mom’s brother, uncle, okay? He really took care of me when I was at the age of 10 to 12, type of it, and brought me to us and and explored me. You know, I went to went to school there with him. And you know, he supported me. He was very inspiring to me. He made my life change in second one that’s in a childhood, okay, you’re talking about childhood, and as we grew up, you know, our mentors, supporters, inspires, people, they come in our life, and every one of them now and then, we always have it. You know what? Who’s the latest one right here on the screen. Curt, that’s you. I told you last yesterday, right?

Curt Anderson 03:10
Well, hey, you know what? It’s mutual, dude. It is absolutely mutual. And so we’re going to and I’ll tell you so Damon, this is what I like to say with me, with myself, and Pratish, he is one. He’s a wise man. I tell you, this guy is the the one liners, the stories, logic, just absolutely brilliant. He’s the wise man. Guess what? I’m the wise guy. So I’m the wise guy. He’s the wise man. You know, that’s how it goes. Hey, Dan, we got a couple comments here. Yeah, we

Damon Pistulka 03:37
do. We got Diane buyer stopping by to say Happy Friday. Thanks, Diane, we got rich and Walker International and are limited. Fantastic opportunity. Thanks for dropping the comments today. If you’re listening, make sure to drop those comments. We will respond, answer questions and have some fun. Yeah, any

Curt Anderson 03:57
questions you have for Patricia. So Pratish, alright? Great love hearing your hero. Heroes growing up, and I know you, my friend, are a hero to many. So let’s go here. What brought I want to get into, like, early stages of your career, you know, heavy duty. You’re a circuit board manufacturer. Talk about a little bit like, what led your path into manufacturing?

Pratish Patel 04:20
Interesting. So, you know, I always loved physics. Like I said yesterday, there are two kind of and one is called math, and one is a physics. There’s two buckets only in the life. So I, as we spoke, spoke about in the past, I say physics was my passion. I had done my undergrad into that and then finally, when I got into the Master’s, I mean seeking for a job in earlier days, one of my advisor that point told me, Hey, physicist, bartender makes more money than physicists. Okay, so it has more fun, right? That was a great motivation. Okay, so I said, so. Another option. He says, You are almost there. Physics never gonna go away in your life. So what you do, take a couple semesters of this mechanical engineering that’s your passion. Just go for it and and that at least will get you food in the door. And so guess what? That exactly what I did. I did mechanical engineering out of Cal Poly. Okay, so this fall, and it’s a hands on school, so we definitely, I need a grade out of there and then work for only one company called Borg Warner. Okay, started in this intern. In those days they call and I had an intern at the Temecula. And from there, they had a division out of in San Jose. So after graduation, more out there. But again, it says, shop, it’s mechanical, right? And then this opportunity came with my brother in law and says, Hey, I got a sharp business up in Chicago. It’s a circuit board. And I said, Hmm, let me look at it. I’m an entrepreneur, right? Physics doesn’t go it doesn’t matter what you do, whether you do machine shop you do, doesn’t matter. It’s all same thing. Hey, they had a high precision, late machines. We got a drill machine. Pretty much same. I said, I love to be in a part of operation, not in administration, not in sales and marketing. That’s not cup of my tea. I see I’m this guy, that’s what I’m gonna do. So interesting story. So I ran that almost for six years. I had no idea what circuit board is, okay when I joined 96 nothing. But when you know the physics, when you have ability, you know concept we call on, you can do anything in my theories, here’s what it is. Four years bachelor degree, five years master’s degree applies in your life too. Okay, so any professional you say, what are you doing? Curt, you’ve been doing it. You know, after five years, you get your doctorate degree. Yeah,

Curt Anderson 06:56
that’s right, yeah, yeah. PhD in something I’m not sure what. Yeah, same

Pratish Patel 07:01
thing in a scenario I ended up because my attitude is, keep learning, keep moving, keep be a mentor, keep doing this, and I keep doing it. And then in 2004 my other partner, who was doing the sales, he decided to separate out. He went on. And then my brother in law said, what are you gonna do? I said, Hey, I run the back and show anyway, just we need a front end, right? He said, Yeah. But he says, You don’t have MBA shit, yeah. So guess what? I went to Purdue. You know, again, I’m a Yeah, engineer guy. I like to be with the MBA, with the not with the Kero finance guy. I want to do somebody with the engineering back school, right? So I did MBA. And then I say, remember first thing is that I did my MBA with the Purdue, by the way, graduated from there masters in MBA. And remember my interview with Purdue, and that there was a final call, and I still remember the director of the admin program manager came in and says, Why do you want to join MBA? I say, You know what? I just wonder my state shipment. I told you Curt, right in the past. I just want to know what the heck MBA people think when they join the board shop or job shop, manufacturing, right? They control my manufacturing. What they want to control the physics with their MBA degree? Let me tell you I want to find out what they teach you in MBA that you want to focus on physics, right, right. So guess what happened? So on a very first day in the class, she comes up and said, Hey, by the way, just won’t let you know that we got a trouble making this class. And he says, what is it? He says, Hey, he’s a from masters in mechanical he’s a pure physics guy. And he wants to know what the heck NBA people thinks about physics.

09:00
Oh, that’s awesome.

Pratish Patel 09:02
So that’s how the whole thing happened. We did a wonderful, wonderful class group. We had cross run. I learned a lot, by the way, okay? I learned a lot. I learned how to talk with accountant, marketing, all those people. That’s what you learn, okay, out of case studies and and finally, I learned that you cannot have Walmart and Macy’s under one roof. And second part, I learned how to read Wall Street Journal. So if you tell me, what did I learn out of my MBA, this is two things I learned,

Damon Pistulka 09:34
right? That’s great.

Pratish Patel 09:35
Wall Street Journal. What was the first one? First, you cannot have Walmart and Macy’s under one roof. Yes, right, yes,

Curt Anderson 09:45
two different thing, right? Yeah, it was worth every penny for your MBA, right? Yep, right, absolutely. Okay, so now you’re equipped with your MBA. Let’s next step. What follows your MBA?

Pratish Patel 09:58
I’m sorry, what is that? So,

Curt Anderson 09:59
what? The next step. What followed? After your MBA, after

Pratish Patel 10:02
the follow. I took over the not took over. I mean, I continue journey with electronic interconnect because I’m a partner over here. And I said, Okay, I can. And I had a lot of passion right in this industry. And I know this process. I know everything. And not only that, you develop a lot of relationship with your people. So during that time, I had almost 8095, people working with my shop, three shops, yeah, and then, and of course, 2000 was a time when we had a lot of called trade free stuff came in. You know, a lot of people started to move out of the US in manufacturing. So that was a time, the toughest time, I was managing the shop. Why? Because I had a unique strength physics number one. Number two, dealing with the people, motivate the people, mentor, coach, okay, and sustaining the we shrink down, become more efficient, more productive, and we started to become more unique and niche into this one. And that’s what we want to be. Yeah, we kind of nailed down into the very narrow path, very specialized type of it, and work with the developer engineers, kind of those people. We never ran after what’s the sales? No, we don’t go after the sales amount. We go after the okay, what can I do for you? If you’re an engineer, somebody comes up simple, what can I do for you? And we are here to solve your problem. Let me make your product. I’ll look it up your I’ll give you free guidance, free consulting is going to work or not, and you take upon it. You make your decision, we’ll take it from there. So the we have the highest retention in my shop, I’m not in spotlight. People don’t know me, but people who knows me, they will not leave me. Okay, that’s how it goes. And no matter what you do, can shake the tree out to them. We can offer them free, but they will not go. They’ll ask me first thing, prateesh, what do you think? Should I? I said, it’s your choice. That’s how it goes. But relationship, trust, okay? And your knowledge goes with that one. So that’s this one. Yeah,

Damon Pistulka 12:18
right. I love that part about, you know, going back and getting your MBA, and then coming back to the situation where, you know, it’s a tough time in the industry and your business, and then really getting, getting streamlined and focusing down to see the value in the industry. Because that’s, that’s where a lot of businesses stop, right? They come in, the industry changes, and they go, Oh, well, we’re, we’re just not going to make it. I guess. You know, you never get your ship, yeah, you never get your ship right into the rocks, right? And they, they don’t, they don’t change the ship. They don’t change the direction. And really get, get streamlined, because they’re, it’s like, I talk with people endlessly about this, there’s always opportunities and difficulty if you just keep looking and find them. And it might not be, you’re not going to like you said. You’re not going to be the same ship, you’re not going the same direction. But when you find that new ship, new direction, like you have, it is a great and and interesting thing, because you are probably working in an area where other people weren’t all crowded in and trying to take over Absolutely.

Pratish Patel 13:21
And we always say we are all unique. I always tell Curt, we are now in competition. I don’t have competitors. Yes, don’t have competitors. Yes, I compliment with everybody. Yep,

Curt Anderson 13:37
absolutely. So I love So Pratish let’s go here. So we’re talking about electronic interconnect. I’m going to pull up the website in a minute here. Please share folks who is your company. How do you guys make the world a better place? What’s going on here?

Pratish Patel 13:53
Okay. Curt, like I said, Thanks for the putting the website back where we wanted to be okay, and it’s simply informative, just in general, it’s not much information out there, and it just gives you some guidance about the website. You know who we are, because you need that tool. People ask us, Hey, let us check your site who we are. So the set the website is mainly for who we are, typical and certifications. That’s the key you need, that certifications, you know, shown on your website and said, Hey, look, I’m certified. Yes, 9100 I’m ITAR, I’m ISO, I’m Yeah, I also help in a environmental side of it, right? We were the first circuit board shop to get the pollution prevention award from a state of Illinois. No board shop ever got that. So we keep working on, not only on nature side of it, environmental side of it, but also keep keeping the quality, keeping the customer happy, saying, Oh, if I come there, they got certification. That means they have processes. A place, that’s all it is okay. They have culture in a place. They have system in a place. So if somebody wants to take a shortcut and somebody say, oh, wing it ain’t gonna happen, the guy’s gonna next guy is gonna ask you, within the same floor, why did you not sign? Why did you do didn’t do this? Is, can we get explanation? And you know what? Sometimes, some people feel it’s a bureaucrat. And I said, No, it’s a culture, culture you develop that is has to be zero or one, either works or doesn’t work, zero or one, simple like that. There’s nothing in between. Either works or doesn’t work. It’s it.

Curt Anderson 15:43
So let’s go here, and I don’t Damon, we have, do we have a question here that we do we want to hit that question? Yeah,

Damon Pistulka 15:50
okay, here we go. Richard Walker international asked, What trends do you see shaping the future of electronic interconnect technology, and what are the biggest challenges you face in innovating electronic internet connect solutions?

Pratish Patel 16:07
Electronic Interconnect means we call in other way to put it is up here. It’s called circuit board. Bear circuit boards. Okay, so bear circuit boards. Let me see if I can grab couple.

16:19
Nice, yeah, nice,

Pratish Patel 16:22
yeah, yeah, yeah, so complex, okay, and this can get to the nice one out there, or very interesting boards are out there. Yeah, we can, and we can do something like this, also something nice, big lugs. So circuit board is everywhere. Is one of the foundation of the electronics I call and I call circuit body is a part of the civilization. Now, yes, if you don’t have circuit boards, people say you don’t have you’re not in technology. That’s how you perceive that, right? It has to have electronic has to little light, has to do something. Then you call technology, even though it’s a stupid remote control, yeah, even though, excuse me, even is remote control. People wants fancy remote control. Okay, people, so I think what it is is that circuit board is our bread and butter. Foundation of our civilization. Where we going to be heading next is more and more complex, miniature and more functions you want to get it done, yeah, from one small thing. So that’s where everybody talks about. It’s called AI buzz. So let me get to that part. Ai, okay, artificial intelligence, all it is nothing but the same old shape again, except bigger does more more diodes, more capacitors. That’s all is compacted into one. That’s all it is. And so what does it need? All these years we had a lot of data, so let’s put electronics and data together, and let’s start talk. So AI is the next Rev. What does it need? It needs a high precision materials, precision, machines, precision, precision, precision. Bottom line is that just to keep in very lame and calm over here, okay, and it’s not going to be that simple. Is someone was the biggest challenge we have right now. We do go out. I do advocate, like Curt, I tell multiple times we I go out and work with the IPC, you know, lobbying at the capital, and we want to call out a cheap Act, or circuit board acts are out there, incentives, whatever you want to call that, we go out and lobby those trying to bring that circuit board back to the USA. That’s what we’re trying to do right now. So the answer is, question is that technology is going to get complex and complex and every everything is going to lead to the miniature. And we need to be prepared for that. We have only five years. Okay, yes, five years, if we don’t shape up in manufacturing all this AI products gonna start going, gonna go faster out of us before you blink of your arms.

Curt Anderson 19:19
Yeah. Do you want to expand on that one? Patricia? Yeah,

Pratish Patel 19:23
yeah. Oh my god, I all I can say at this point, when you go all over the world, when you go to China, Asia or Europe, part of the Europe, they are far ahead of us right now. Okay, I have the friends and family, they constantly upgrading me. How they this Asian, other market, other areas, how far they are in the technology, how far they are in AI. AI is nothing, but it’s just like when I go back and Curt, remember when the original IBM typewriter came in? Or first. Software came in, yeah, word processor came in, and then you keep going up and up and up. AI is going to help us a lot. Help us a tremendous to go to the next level, right? Yeah, there is no doubt about it. Do we want to join AI answer is absolutely right. You want to catch that trade, right? If you don’t catch now, you’re going to be left behind, and I don’t know it’s not going to be good. No, not going to be good. So what’s going to happen? You’re going to have the people, two kind of people in the in the US, either they accept the technology and work with that, or people kind of stay in the farms. Right? Got, right.

Curt Anderson 20:43
Got the the laggards, the the Luddites. Remember that term, you you get, like, the digital Luddites, or, you know, and we just, we did a webinar yesterday, Pratish on AI, we had some wonderful experts sharing what they’re doing, and they’re, you know, they’re saying, like, you can’t be an ostrich and hide your head in the sand. We can’t pretend, no, like this isn’t happening, right? So it’s absolutely what you’re saying. Damon, we got a couple more comments here. Yeah, we do.

Damon Pistulka 21:08
We gotta go. Diane buyer dropped a comment said, here’s to the dads who inspire their children. I think she’s referring to a pratish when you’re talking about your father. And we got zargos con says informative. And then we got Jennifer EB that says hi pratish. Yeah, she’s

Pratish Patel 21:25
great. Yeah. Thank you

Curt Anderson 21:30
for dropping the comments here. So let’s do this. I’m going to, let’s jump over to your website real quick. Well, I want to dive into So for folks that aren’t familiar, this is, this is not a good way. The other night, I had my one of my earbuds fell out Damon, and it got broke, and when it broke, had like, this tiny, tiny, tiny, little circuit board right inside your your earbud, yeah, I mean, like, like, Pratish, like you’re saying, like, I mean, they are getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And ironically, I worked with a client years ago. I used to actually manufacture a circuit board. So when Pratish and I met man, it was like, Pratish that first night that you and I were introduced. It was like this member of genie from IMEC. She was like, Man, this is like a big bromance going on right here. So alright, we’re going to jump into the website here. So let’s take a peek. And so Pratish, you know, so for folks that are new to you, new to electronics, interconnect and new to circuit boards. Let’s just talk a little bit about what does what’s going on here on the website.

Pratish Patel 22:25
I think website is pretty basic. We just kind of sharing that, hey, potential for the PCB fabrications is up here. And like I said, it’s very simple site. It just gets, let’s say, basic information about the circuit board, some knowledge behind it, and some terminologies. Let’s say engineers and other can use it. Hey, should I go to the shop? What they can do? What they cannot do? Okay? So what it does is gives them a general guideline, okay, if they’re expecting, for example, like, say, okay, making very miniature part of it, or part of a huge AI project, something they might say, You know what, they’re not there, ready yet. Maybe I can have a multiple R and D project with them. Let me work with them, because they can help me out to build the product out there. Okay, so it depends upon where they want to look into it, but it gives a simply guideline and navigate them that I don’t do everything on the roof of the circuit board. No, I do very specialized thing, but I’ll help you, take you there, wherever you want to go. That’s where you start from me. So as my simple thing is, engage me with your project, and I will take you wherever you want to go. I have all the resources. If I don’t have it here in in my garage, in my shop, I will get it done for you. If it’s done, I’ll help you to get it done. But the physics doesn’t go away. I keep turning in this word physics all the time, and and demon and Curt. You know that there are only two parts. One is called math, which is called statistical side of it, finance side of it, it’s nothing but a math, right? Another thing, rest of the life is your physics. Anything you do in your life is physics. Okay? So being an engineer, I keep focusing on engineering side and and I see motivate the designers, motivate the lot of people are out there and they say, how do we make this project success in a timely fashion with the low, you know, economical. I don’t want to call low cost economical. And I would say, Okay, let’s chat. Get me engaged. I’ll help you. That’s what I do. And that’s what the simple, the side simply just talks about that. Okay?

Curt Anderson 24:41
And I love all these testimonials. And then let’s dive into, let’s talk about, like, again, like, if you’re not familiar with circuit boards, it is absolutely fascinating. Like, when I was introduced, it’s, it’s great. So let’s just talk about some of the different processes that you do. Yes,

Pratish Patel 24:56
so first thing, we can start with, some of the things we’re looking at, the material. Okay, there are few highlights. Are over here. It’s called materials. Are over here. That’s the most important thing where we can help you in a cost wise, performance wise, reliability point of it, what shall we use? What we cannot use in what level it should be used? So those are the few things I can help in the very beginning of the project. Second one, I can help in a more of the reliability of the project. How do you make the most reliable product? For example, if your part is going into a, let’s say, aircraft, or, you know, life, you know, in a healthcare like a machines and those things or life saving devices, there is no the failure is not accepted. You can’t have failure period. You can’t say, oh, by the way, my circuit board fails. So it happened that’s not you can’t have that. So to to get to the 100% reliable, highest reliable product, you could go through the series of the test and mechanical and everything before it passes to make sure the when that board, that part is landed into the Boeing or in a 257 passenger aircraft, make sure it performs. That’s it. Bottom line. Okay? And that’s where we come in. We come in for that part of it to make sure that my product will not fail out there. Simply

Curt Anderson 26:23
start. Yeah, right. No margin of

Damon Pistulka 26:26
error. No margin of error. Some of the things, it’s like that, and it’s low volume, too. On some of those, you know, only thing

Pratish Patel 26:31
we were that’s, that’s the next step. So we help you. Start again. I always say that we are the chef. We are not the cook. There you go. That’s another tagline. So what we do is, when we get engaged with the projects, we review everything. We help the designers. We get them going. We develop the recipe for him. We said, Okay, we did 510, 2050, what are the pieces you want? We got it done. Okay, fine. He says, I want 50,000 100,000 pieces. I say, whoever it is, take this project. It’s all told nicely. Go to the production wherever you want, or I can help you to get you there. That’s it. But it will not be done in Chicago, under my roof. That’s why I say misses in Walmart. Yeah. Okay, study from thing. And I say, okay, I can help it you. I’ll help you, and I’ll be the liaison to catch you in the production where you want to go. And guess what? I’ll give you a very good example of this. What happened in football, our Super Bowl stadium, football stadiums, lights. If you remember about 15 years, 20 years back, one time a Super Bowl time the light fell, everybody knows right. Guess what? After that, after that, every Super Bowl football stadium, they had only LED lights. Yeah, yeah. The first pioneer was Ephesus people, we developed the lights over here at Ei, Oh, you did, yes,

Damon Pistulka 28:10
that’s super cool. Yeah,

Pratish Patel 28:12
yeah, we went on from there. And then I think Eton bought them out and they went on after there. But again, the point is that we have done a lot of projects for lot of customers are out there, pioneering it out there, and they submit a successful out there. Okay, so this is one of the one we have few of the customers. Lot of them are out there. I’ve signed a lot of NDAs are up there, so I have to be careful about it. Yeah, I mean, in general, I can say that. Yeah, nice,

Curt Anderson 28:38
awesome. Well, that’s fantastic. So alright, let’s dive into resources. What’s let’s take a look at, like, material specification. What else? What are some other things that folks should be familiar with here?

Pratish Patel 28:49
Yeah, so materials is up there, as you can see, that I think that’s the main part of the deal with the circuit boards. Okay? Rest is a processing part, okay, where we come in, and that’s where we come in. We say, what kind of reliability Do you really need? So we can add those additional process or give you the more, more than they they’re expecting, or I can give it to that. So rest becomes a process. Point of it, materials is a key to start with. So in the general what we’re talking about here, in this side of it, I don’t emphasize too much of our about our processes. The reason is that it takes a lot more time, and it’s more complex, and I think it’s out of the scope. But in this type time, right now, we can have another session for it, when we have all the designers are out there, then we can talk more about that, like thermal management. We can do a lot of thermal managements out there. We can develop all your control, impedance control, all those things we can do that, you know,

Damon Pistulka 29:50
very cool, very cool. Alright,

Curt Anderson 29:53
how about you mentioned like ITAR and something like your certification, sustainability. How about some of these things here? I.

Pratish Patel 29:59
Yeah, sustainability, like I mentioned to you earlier, about how we manage our environmental compliances, with the UL or with the EPA and all those guys, we use almost six to 80 gallons per minute water at this moment, and the water we get in and water out, okay, Back to the Sewer is cleaner than what I get. Yeah,

Damon Pistulka 30:22
yeah. That’s awesome. It’s awesome. I mean, a lot of places now that’s it’s really your best, your best way to stay out of trouble with the the water people is just make sure it’s cleaner going back in than you’re getting.

Pratish Patel 30:35
There are no no lead in my house. We don’t do anything with the lead. No cyanide. If you, if you’re doing the boards, like we had a whole nice this gold board over here, there is no cyanide in the process. So with my workers, my people at the plant or out there, we don’t need to worry about the cyanide, any trace of the cyanide in our in our chemistry, or in the process at all. So this lot of you know, environmental safety, OSHA, all that stuff comes into play. And we said, Okay, how do we make better for our employees? How do we make better for the users? You know, they have confidence. Hey, hey, can he say, if the kid goes down and lick these boards up, don’t worry, it’s safe.

Curt Anderson 31:21
There you go.

Damon Pistulka 31:26
That reminds me, isn’t there like a commercial of somebody, they have their their soap, they’re using their house, and they dump it in their mouth like that is like, oh, go. Like they can’t taste good no matter what.

Pratish Patel 31:35
And it’s true. When you look at this money, you got a goal creating over here. You got all kind of processes, all kind of epoxy, you name the chemical in the world is in here, but it’s safe. Yeah, right, it’s safe. I can wipe it. I can do what I want. I can lick it. And guess what?

31:56
There you go. You lick

Curt Anderson 31:57
it, and hopefully you don’t. Yeah, all right, so Pratish, let’s go here. So you have, I’ve been on site. I had a wonderful tour. You guys have state of the art equipment. You have an incredible team. Let’s, I want to talk about a couple things here. How do you stay one of the questions was, you know, like, how do you stay ahead of technology, technological advancements? How do you, you know, for a small family business, how do you guys stay ahead? Like, you know, it’s in your field, it is expensive to stay ahead of the curve. How do you guys judge that? Like, how do you judge your investments into machinery, equipment, people, training? Like, how do you judge that? So

Pratish Patel 32:30
Curt, it’s very important. Number one, we are not greedy. Okay, so let’s say somebody says I need to a certain percentage of return. I got to have my certain lifestyle? No, hey, first thing I think about it, take care of my 5060, people. How am I going to pay the picture? I don’t fall in the payroll behind, you know, make sure they are happy. Yeah, I make less. Hey, what do I need? I need a bed, one room, one. Okay, let me tell you, my needs are minimal. I drive simple Honda, CRV, right, okay, not a luxury, not anything up there. Everything is simple. My office is simple. Everything simplify. My life first starts from me, right, okay, and then you tackle down all the way in the plant. Everybody, keep it simple. Simple, okay, bare minimum. If you need it, yes, we’ll get it. No doubt about it, safety is number one priority. We will not go out and keep spending money unnecessary just to get a buzzword out there. No, we don’t want to miss spotlight. No, we are okay. What we do? Let’s spend time more on a mentoring, teaching, spend time in training. Let’s do that. Let’s help sometimes employees out there, let’s let’s do small lunches. Let’s do group teamwork. Okay, make them feel here’s my tag that every time I go to production meeting, I tell them, do you have to come to the EI, or you want to come to the EI? Want and how to.

Damon Pistulka 34:03
There you go.

Pratish Patel 34:05
Do you want to, or do you have to? Yeah, you say I have to, please don’t come to the EI. Just give me notice. That’s

Damon Pistulka 34:13
awesome. That just laid it out there. Isn’t it simple? Right? Yeah, it is simple.

Pratish Patel 34:19
So I have lot of lot of operators. Employees are, you know, 2030, years when they come because they want to come, yeah, yeah, okay, they have to come, yeah. So coming back,

Damon Pistulka 34:33
go ahead. Curt, please. Well, it comes back to you intentionally creating the workplace that you feel is a great place to work, and they feel is a great place to work, yeah, and treating everyone you know fairly, and just making sure that they know we’re going to win and lose together and

Pratish Patel 34:52
become a solution provider. Yeah, don’t just go out and say, hey, I want you to do this. Fine. Do you. Know how to do it. Do you know what it takes to do it? Right? Have that concept behind it, what person is going to go through it when he does the job, right? So at least you have the concept behind it, what it takes to do this job, then you can delegate properly. And people will work behind you. They’ll stay behind you. I’ll tell you right now. We just had a very recent ransomware at our place. Okay, everybody who has spent six figures to solve that problem, let me tell you that my team today, IT team. They work endless hours fixed everything got in up and running within one week today, I’m 99% up, except few things here and there. But it’s not hurting productivity, but it’s helping us to get to the next level. It happens everybody. You know what I show this time, my team prodded who is with me? Whole team, whole company, was with me and came up. He said, practice, sir, don’t worry about it. We’ll work around. People. Stay extra hours, extra time. They work around they work with each other. They even, they didn’t even took a lunch break or regular breaks between that if the system is up in doing something, they’ll get it done, and they’ll figure out something else. I just have to salute my team so much. What they have done in last four weeks, just a recent case, what’s a litmus test? What’s a litmus test? Wow, that’s amazing. Yeah, not a single person came up. They occurred. Not a single person ever came up to me and say, Can you fix my PC fast? Otherwise, I’m leaving you know, that was a height of that, yeah, salute them.

Curt Anderson 36:45
All right, let’s, let’s unpack a couple things, right there. So, all right, so, you know, company, every in every, every entrepreneur who was it, was it Phil Knight says, like every day in entrepreneurship is a crisis, right? Entrepreneurship is, I think that was Phil Knight. And so I when you get ransomware, we just, I told you, Patrice, like, we just had a couple of cyber Hey, there’s a thumbs up. We just had a couple cyber security experts on the live show less a week ago Monday, and they were talking about, I mean, it’s catastrophic, yeah, with that. So you come in, you get hit with a crisis in your team. It’s all hands on deck. Everybody’s, like, locked in arms. How like, for entrepreneurs out there, just, let’s dive into culture. Like, how do you create that type of environment? And I’ve seen it firsthand. I was at your facility. People are Damon, I’m telling like, people are buzzing around. They’re high fiving. There’s a ton of camaraderie. It’s a lot of symmetry. People are moving Patrice. Give some insight for maybe, like your younger self, or maybe like other entrepreneurs, other manufacturers out there. How have you done such a great job? And I know you’re very selfless, very humble. You’re not going to this uncomfortable question for you, but what some of the, what are some of the factors of creating that type of culture at your place?

Pratish Patel 37:56
First of all, you start with the Keep yourself low profile, okay, or with the bottom, become a humble that’s number one. Listen to everybody. They have a reason to something to say. Let them express. Let them finish off everything. So you have to be a good listener. Number one, passion. You gotta have a passion. What? What are we doing up there? Okay, if it’s your baby, you have to have passion behind his master keyboard. I know what I’m gonna doing it. And then most important thing, become a mentor and coach. From the day one, even my new employee comes in, I said, I know this is a training phase you have, but at least become a mentor and coach. Okay? Mentor somebody. If you find somebody, you can help. Help them out. Okay? Guide them. And coach is nothing but inspirations. You see out there, right? Somebody comes up and you see something out there and said, Okay, what is a quote? I mean, I take a good example of the basketball team, football team, sports, okay, their call is a coach. Why players knows how to play, they know how to throw they know everything. What is a coach does, inspires them, puts energy into them and said, Okay, what you know, what I’m going to do better than today, again, comes to the point how to or want to coach is said, put every employee to come out there and say, I want to go tomorrow, because I’m going to learn something tomorrow, and I’m going to be inspired by that. And I keep coming back, even with the Curt. You know what you see, nothing has been drafted, crafted. It’s all natural. Comes out from me. You know why the Curt is sitting in front of me? He’s indirectly inspiring me that way. He says that, how he says that, his chemistry, my chemistry, something is happening. So does that answer the question? Kind of,

Curt Anderson 39:50
yeah, excellent. So you know, being humble, listening, having a passion, being a mentor in a coach. Let’s go there for a second. How do you when. What did you like? Transition from like, when we become the mentee to the mentor, like, you know, again, as an entrepreneur, like, any tips there for folks.

Pratish Patel 40:09
It’s hard one, okay, I think you have to look at every single day, every moment, and see who you’re surrounded by. Number one, first of all, you must be surrounded by the positive people, the negative people. You can look it up. Are they devils advocate? They still have positive spin on for you. Are they devils advocacy? Who want? That was advocacy in your team. Okay? You do want them, and you acknowledge them, and you tell them, I want you to play devil’s advocacy. Let them play, right? Okay? But the goal is to that is a common principle. One goal we have. We’re doing for the company, doing for to solve this problem, whatever it is that this, not any other personal agenda, should be out there. It’s just that was advocacy. That’s it. Which you may not have thought about this thing. Have you thought about this? Okay, oh, yeah. Oh, let me see. Oh, you don’t count that person as he’s arguing with he’s against you. No, he’s doing that. There was advocacy, and you want that in your in your part of your team, yes, right? And when people don’t do that when, when we are in the meeting, doing, let’s say, solving the problem, discussing, and people are quiet. I tell them, can you two guys become Devil’s advocacy right now? Can you figure out a way to how it’s going to fail? Right? Right? You

Curt Anderson 41:35
know, yeah, you’re making a phenomenal point, Pratish because there’s a big difference between, like, somebody can be positive, yeah, versus crossing line of complaining, but playing, you know, you can be positive and play that devil’s advocate. Yes. Like, let’s challenge each other. Let’s chant. You know, are we being our best selves? Are we sharpening our pencil? For those of us still using pencils, right? You know, how are we look? How do we stand against? I know you mentioned, like, Hey, I have no competitors. But how do we look in the market? And how do we look? Do we look compared to others? And just like really looking in the, you know, our dear friend Diane always says, like looking in the mirror and just kind of seeing like, you know, hey, what’s in your teeth, right? So I love that you’re what you’re saying about being playing devil’s advocate, but however, surrounding people that are fighting for the cause and that are supportive and positive and around you. Uh, Damon, do we have another question? Is this one? Yes,

Pratish Patel 42:24
investment funding, yeah,

Damon Pistulka 42:26
yeah, yeah. It’s a challenge. You know, it’s challenging if you got a technology and you’re trying to develop, you know what? You know what? What are some of the ways you’re looking at because it is a it is a challenge.

Pratish Patel 42:37
So what we do is that, of course, you gotta work with the finance is a key factor in this industry, and either you constantly stay in touch with state, local government and see, are there any programs can help you out? Okay, most of them out there lenders, they need some collateral, this and that so again, is you got to maneuver this ship. Okay, investment. Point of it, if you keep your low expectations for you, I think there’s enough money can make it just to plow back into it, yeah, keep doing that. So you don’t want to get depend on somebody and third party will come in and say, Hey, we can lend you this money. But I say, Okay, I got to pay back. Keep it simple, right? They say, Yeah, okay, there you go. How long gonna take me to pay back? If I see an opportunity going to take me the next level right away, I will borrow the money. But at this point, the process is always so slow in this industry that you want to do that, but you want to do very cautiously. Yeah, right thing, and move on. So we have done it. We have done very successfully last 20 years, and we continue to keep it that way till I see a point where, hey, I’m out of it. But so far, knock on will be doing great. Yes, excellent, awesome. Well, great

Curt Anderson 44:00
answer. Patrice, now I know. Alright, we’ll start winding down, because I know. Like, yeah, demon,

Damon Pistulka 44:05
it’s like, the fastest. Yes, it is. It’s

Curt Anderson 44:07
already like, okay, so Pratish, let’s go here. If you could, you know, you mentioned 1996 we’re flirting with 30 years that you’ve been involved with the eye. Is that correct? So what? What would you attribute is one of your you’ve laid out, you know how you’ve built the culture, your people. You know the passion everything. What would you attribute has been your longevity and your wonderful success at Electronic Interconnect? What would

Pratish Patel 44:32
you go? What would you say there? Man, that’s a long question,

Curt Anderson 44:41
and I’ll take a long answer. So like, inquiring minds want to know how, like, success breeds success, what’s been, you know, innate. And here’s one for you, Patricia, I don’t know if you’ve, if you’ve heard this one, you know, was it four out of four out of five businesses fail every five years. Okay, we’re. Out of five businesses fail in their first five years, and then it just perpetuates from there. So, like, you, you know, if we’re talking 30 years like, you’ve survived, you know, six, five year cycles, you’re an anomaly. I think it’s I, if I’m not mistaken, Damon, I think it’s like,

Damon Pistulka 45:14
what, 3% Yeah, 3% as you get into that was time, yeah, like, 323, 4%

Curt Anderson 45:19
of businesses survive that that long. What’s anything that you would attribute to that’s been that contributes to your long term success? Sure, a couple

Pratish Patel 45:28
of basic principles in the life. So let’s go very quickly on it. There are 3000 boat shops in 1919, in the time of it before 2000 Okay, yeah, almost 25 or 3000 shops in the US today, we are less than about 100. I’m gonna call about 110 at the most. Is that right? 110 Wow, yeah. So took a nose live, and now IPC is trying to help that. Can we bring this? Some manufacturing back in some can run now there are two major stagnant like TTM, some couple of two public company like Calumet and big guys, and then you gotta suddenly nothing in the middle of boom, low, small people like us. Okay, now, how they gonna sustain and survive? Very simple, like I said earlier, keep focus on it. Keep have a passion into what you do. Don’t extend your land too far into the field. Cannot and and stay focused. Number one, that’s most important part of this thing. There are five basic principles in this life. One, become a leader. Keep innovating. Keep looking at it out there. What you do? Okay? Then be a knowledgeable whatever you do. Stay focused like a laser. Okay? You’re gonna do only one thing to stay on that path. Do not change, okay. Third, take care of your health. Okay. Health is very important. If you don’t take care of your health, nothing gonna work. So people need you, so make sure you spend enough time for yourself off of in either meditation exercise, make sure I do that. Okay. Fourth point, you know, start looking at it. We call people, tells you forecasting. Little bit of that. Take the data. Start forecasting. Look at the trend, look at the review the data. See what is happening out there. Don’t see out loud. Just review the data so you have everything in front of you, okay? And last one, okay, become like a kid. If somebody tells you something, ignore it. Stay focused. Be a kid. Be a kid. Be a kid. Be

Curt Anderson 47:31
a kid. I love that. Stay curious. Be just be alright. Drop the mic so we’ve got Yes. Okay, this phenomenal. This absolutely fantastic. Damon, what’s your takeaway on these?

Damon Pistulka 47:43
No, it’s great for teachers. It’s just like a simple and that is how that focus the simplicity is how you stay an innovative leader and a leader in an industry is because you’re, as you said, not worrying about the competition. I’m worrying about how we’re getting better. And we’re getting better by working together with the leadership, with the focus and and really understanding where we’re going and bringing, as Curt said just now, and you said, being a kid with curiosity and and really being open to where we have to go to get there, right? Yeah,

Pratish Patel 48:19
somebody wrote a three page of my profile. I never talk about that. That’s how low profile I keep it. Wrote down all kind of things. You did this, you did that. I said, Okay, that’s fine. That’s part of the job. Three page,

Curt Anderson 48:35
and you’ve done you’ve also done a phenomenal job, like you mentioned. So for folks that aren’t familiar with IPC, that’s your industry. That’s kind of the standard they create, the standards for electronics and industry for folks. You say you educated yourself. You’re fiercely educating others. You’re educating folks in your industry. Working with IPC, you travel, you go to conferences, so you’re standing abreast of, like, everything that’s going on. And again, I really admire how you’re staying on top of things with AI. That’s, yeah, you know, right? I mean, there’s a lot of moving parts. There

Pratish Patel 49:07
parts, Okay, stay alert, stay focused, and that’s all you gotta do. You know, those five basic principles, that’s why you have only five fingers. That’s,

Curt Anderson 49:16
that’s right, right? Straight, yeah.

Pratish Patel 49:22
Take this five leadership. Okay, that’s how we start. This tells your health, sharpness, focus number three, hey, by the way, people talk about middle finger, sorry to say that, but it’s pertaining to your health. Yep.

Curt Anderson 49:41
So alright, and then number, number four, I’ve got forecasting that’s staying, like, stay like, pursue the opportunities, don’t and I’ll tell you, for being in an industry that went from 3000 manufacturers down to, you know, 100 Yes, that is, I mean, that’s the. An a greater testament to your success,

Damon Pistulka 50:02
that is an accomplishment in and of itself. Yes.

50:05
I

Curt Anderson 50:06
mean, that is wild and I and all that business went overseas, is that right? Because it’s, it’s not like you’re making horseshoes and like everybody, like, Hey, we’re not making horseshoes anymore. Like you’re making like every like you said, everything, look around you, everything has a circuit board. The industry didn’t go down it, just it went other places. And so that’s another testament to you and your family. And again, I’ve been on site, saw the operation right here in the US, right in Chicago, and 5060, employees strong. And you guys are just rocking it. It is just so impressive. And I tell you, they’re just so proud, like Damon, like, they’re, you know, it was like, like, being in a bakery, right? Yeah, like, yours. My thumbs up again. You know, it’s just taking circuit boards right out of the oven. You know, I was just absolutely right. That’s your camera. It’s like a bakery that you run

Pratish Patel 50:50
there, right, right? Like I said, we are chef. We are not cook. You’re a chef, not

Curt Anderson 50:55
a cook. So, yeah, we’ll set we’re coming in the bottom of the hour. We will wind down. Patrice, yeah, any best way for folks to find you? We have the website. We’ve got that in the show notes. We’ve got your LinkedIn profile. Where else can people find you?

Pratish Patel 51:08
Those are the best I’ve got a lot of fresh shows I attend. So you’ll see my tables like PCB Coronavirus, pcbe, PCB West, we go. A lot of SMTA shows. I do. You can always find me in those areas.

Damon Pistulka 51:20
Awesome, awesome, excellent. Alright,

Curt Anderson 51:22
Pratish. As we close out, how about words of wisdom, I tell you, one of the this, I like, you know what? You know what? We’re going to write a book, dude, it’s going to be like, you know, yeah, like, like, wisdom bombs from Pratish. Because I tell you, when I talk of Pratish, I’m just like, man, it’s just mind blowing. How about leave us with, like, one of your wisdom bombs, if you would please, like, with the words, words of wisdom to leave everybody with today. Okay,

Pratish Patel 51:47
I think I can leave based upon the conversation we had today and the other folks have joined with us. I want to thank everybody who’s joining with us and and basically I’m saying is that just, just have a passion. Okay, be it just a role model, make an impact on somebody’s life, whether you are at work or at your community or at your family, this is extension of the family. If you are four people up there in your family, husband, wife, two kids, whatever, small family is nothing, with 50 people at nothing but extended, it’s just a big family. Same principle applies there. What you apply at your home, no matter difference. So what you do at home, what you want to wish your culture, same thing applies in the work. It’s it’s the same family, that’s all I can say. So take away from that. Don’t differentiate two things. If the work is separate than home, don’t do that. It’s the same thing. Principle applies exactly same, both place. There we go.

Curt Anderson 52:50
Drop the mic right there. Dan,

Pratish Patel 52:52
yeah, people wants to separate work and home and stuff like that, so don’t do that. No,

Curt Anderson 53:00
yeah, no, just, just, just brilliant, I’ll tell you. So crit, let’s go here. Thank I know we’re pushing our so first off, I want to give a huge shout out. Huge thank you to you in for everybody that’s been hanging out with us. How about a big round of applause for Pratish for just absolutely smashing it out of the park today. And Pratish, I want to thank you. We salute you, we applaud you. And hey, one last question, who’s he’s a big sports fan demon. Who? Who’s who? How’s your baseball team going to do this year? Who’s mine? Yeah, how’s your baseball team going to

Pratish Patel 53:33
do this? My, my baseball team. You know, I’ve been the cops for years, and

Curt Anderson 53:42
baby, we’re making a playoff game, and you heard it here from Pratish. Cubs are going to the playoffs for time. Big round of applause. Thank you. So hey, hang out with us for one second. But I tell you, brilliant session here. This was a master class, not just it’s really, when you talk to Pratish, like business, like the NBA thing, business is like secondary. It’s like, this is how you run life. And so Pratish, just, you’re just such a blessing. You’re just such a breath of fresh air. And I’ll tell you, for everybody out there, go out and just be someone’s inspiration, just like Pratish saying, and you too will make the world a better place. Damon, why don’t you close it out for us?

Damon Pistulka 54:23
All right, thanks. Thanks so much for Teach, for being here today. It’s just awesome getting to talk to you, learn more about electronic interconnect in the company, and how you’re helping make the US manufacturing scene better. And I just can’t believe it went from 3000 to 100 and some companies, and you’re one of them. That’s an awesome accomplishment, and what you’re doing to lead the industry is incredible. I want to thank Excuse me. Everyone for showing up. Diane for dropping the comments, rich and Walker, international, limited, marine, MD, Jennifer zagrel, everyone else that was dropping comments? Thanks. So much today for doing that. We appreciate it. We will get your questions answers if you do that, if you came in late, go back to the beginning. Patis shared so much interesting information in here. Oh, we got Spencer Morona stopping in. Very interesting. Thank you. Curt and Patrice Spencer, haven’t seen you for a long time we need to get together, my friend and we will be back again next week. As Curt always likes to say, just go out and make the world a special place. Let’s do it. We’re going to end up Patrice, we’ll we’ll finish up offline. Everybody else, have a great rest of your day.

Pratish Patel 55:37
Thank you so much. You.