The point isn’ t that the team lacked capability. It’ s that keeping production in-house wasn’ t where its ten-person team’ s expertise, or its commercial risk tolerance, should have been concentrated. As the CEO, Pascal Walter, put it once they’ d brought in outside manufacturing expertise:“ One of the most important things we learned is figuring out what you do yourself and what you let others do.”
This pattern isn’ t unique to batteries or injection moulding. It shows up wherever a founding team’ s technical talent lies in the product itself rather than in the processes that bring it to market, from medical devices and robotics to industrial machinery and automation equipment. The specifics change, but the underlying miscalculation is the same: mistaking familiarity with a process for competence in it, and only discovering the gap once capital, time or a regulatory deadline is already on the line.
The real cost of getting the decision wrong
Committing to a mould, in particular, is a serious capital commitment. Tooling costs are high upfront even when the eventual per-part cost is low, and that investment is very hard to unwind once it’ s made. As Walter described it:“ We simply need a reliable partner where we know, okay, by that date we’ ll have the parts.”
That’ s as much a commercial statement as a manufacturing one. In this context, reliability isn’ t a quality metric on a supplier scorecard; it’ s a direct input to cash flow, customer commitments, and reputational risk. A manufacturing partner that can run simulation and design-for-manufacture analysis before a mould is ever cut, offers a defined path from
first sample through to full production, and carries recognised quality certification reduces commercial risk as much as technical risk.
A decision worth making deliberately
None of this means outsourcing is automatically the right answer, or that every business should hand over production wholesale. It means the build-versusoutsource decision deserves the same rigour as any other capital allocation choice a management team makes. Where is genuine competitive advantage created in-house? Where is a business simply absorbing risk it doesn’ t need to carry?
For smaller, engineering-led manufacturers in particular, this question is becoming more urgent, not less. Product cycles are shortening, regulatory bars are rising, and the cost of a missed delivery date is more visible to customers than ever. Knowing where to draw the line between in-house and outsourced production, and choosing a partner capable of handling the rest reliably, is increasingly a competitive differentiator in its own right.
There’ s a practical test that cuts through the abstraction: if a single failed batch, a missed mould iteration, or a delayed prototype would jeopardise a launch date or a regulatory deadline, that’ s a strong signal the work sits outside the business’ s core competency and belongs with a partner built for it. Capability isn’ t the differentiator here. Self-awareness is, and it’ s in far shorter supply.
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