Mitul Patel - Founder of MP Consulting

Building a business is rarely a straight line—especially when the work involves hardware, manufacturing, and the realities of bringing physical products to market.

In this episode of Ted Listens, Ted Novak talks with Mitul Patel, founder of MP Consulting, about the path from an early post-Motorola startup collapse to building a 130-person engineering company. What began with a few former teammates trying to create a paycheck became a business spanning hardware consulting, product development, manufacturing support, wire harnessing, audits, and venture support.

Mitul explains why hardware is not simply difficult—it is a different process. From RF testing and screen rooms to acoustics, product-launch planning, and manufacturing realities, the conversation offers a practical view of what it takes to help companies build and launch physical products successfully.

They also dig into the leadership shift from being a doer to building a company that can adapt under pressure. Mitul shares how MP Consulting navigated change, including COVID-era pivots, while holding onto a simple operating principle: stabilize the business first, then create room for growth.

Topics include:

• Turning an early failure into a foundation for entrepreneurship
• What companies misunderstand about hardware product development
• How engineers approach process, risk, and stability
• Scaling from hands-on work to a larger organization
• Why asking people what they want to do can be more powerful than asking what they want to be

For founders, operators, and anyone building through uncertainty, Mitul’s story is a useful reminder that resilience is less about avoiding chaos and more about learning how to build through it.