In 2026, Jaycon Systems marks 15 years in business. The company has changed considerably during that time, moving from designing and selling open source electronics to providing engineering, prototyping, and manufacturing services. Along the way it has also run into most of the problems common to a growing engineering and manufacturing organization.
This is a look back at how Jaycon developed over those 15 years, and the lessons that shaped the company. The photographs are from our own archive.
Fifteen years at a glance. What happened, and what each step led to:
| Year | What happened | Where it led |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | Jaycon starts at co-founder Jay Chandiramani’s house, designing and selling open source hardware | Electronics, website, store software, assembly, packing and shipping all done in house |
| 2013 | Someone walks in off the street and asks the team to design parts for him | The first engineering work done for an outside company |
| 2015 | A customer asks whether Jaycon can provide injection molding | Molding becomes a customer service instead of an internal tool |
| 2017 to 2018 | Existing customer work turns into larger and more technically demanding projects | Engineering, prototyping and manufacturing get treated as one process |
| 2020 | Ventilator component work with Ford and GE Healthcare | Rapid engineering applied while supply chains were under pressure |
| 2023 | The landlord sells the buildings and the company has about 60 days to move | A new facility configured around engineering and production workflow |
| 2025 | ISO 9001:2015 certification and a first appearance on the Inc. 5000 | Formal quality systems, and outside confirmation of the growth |
| 2026 | 15 years, and a platform built on the quoting and manufacturing processes developed since 2011 | Customers upload CAD and Gerber files and quote, order and track from one place |
Starting at Home
Jaycon Systems began in 2011 at the home of co-founder Jiten “Jay” Chandiramani. The original business designed and fabricated open source hardware that could be bought through Jaycon’s own e-commerce website.
In the beginning, nearly everything was done internally. That included designing the electronics, building the website, writing the software behind the online store, assembling circuit boards, packaging products, and shipping orders.
One of the company’s early lessons came from something that had little to do with electronics: building an e-commerce shopping cart from scratch in PHP. Tasks that looked straightforward became considerably more complicated once they had to work reliably for real customers.
Manufacturing had its own learning curve. Early circuit boards were assembled by hand at the kitchen table. Solder paste was applied through a stencil, components were placed by hand, and the assembled PCB went into a frying pan on the stove.
The board was watched until the solder paste reached its melting point. The pan was then taken off the heat and the board left to cool. Leave it on too long and the PCB discolored. The board might still work correctly, but it was no longer something you could sell to a customer.
It was a primitive process, and it taught the things that still matter at volume:
- Process control. The variable that ruined boards was time on the heat, not skill.
- Repeatability. A method that works once is not a method.
- Quality. A functional part that looks wrong is still scrap.
- Process limits. Knowing where a process stops being appropriate is part of knowing the process.
Moving Into the First Office
Eventually the company moved out of Jay’s house and into its first commercial location in Melbourne, Florida.
One feature followed the company from the house to the new office: a bright lime green wall. Jay had liked the color enough to use it at home, and the front room of the new office was painted to match.
That room served several purposes, including working as an early video studio. At the time Jaycon was producing educational YouTube content explaining electronics, design, fabrication, and how people could build projects with open source hardware.
The team also began expanding. The first employee helped package and ship online orders. More people were brought in to photograph products, write descriptions, and eventually help with circuit board assembly.
A Knock on the Door Changed the Business
The first office happened to sit next to the local Melbourne makerspace. In 2013 someone walked into Jaycon’s office and asked whether the team could design some parts for him.
That request introduced a different business model. Until then, Jaycon had mostly designed products for itself. The company began to see that the same engineering and manufacturing knowledge could be used to develop products for other companies and entrepreneurs.
The transition was neither immediate nor easy. During the first several years expenses were often close to revenue, and there were stretches when continuing the business was genuinely uncertain. The online catalog kept growing while the company gradually took on more engineering and manufacturing work.
Expanding Into Injection Molding and Manufacturing
Around 2015, a customer asked whether Jaycon could provide injection molding. The team had used molding for its own products but had never offered it as a customer service. That request became another step in the company’s evolution.
As the operation grew, Jaycon moved into a second location and eventually expanded into neighboring flex warehouse spaces. Capabilities widened past electronics into mechanical engineering, product development, rapid prototyping, injection molding, circuit board assembly, and manufacturing.
Growth also created a need for more formal processes. The company started building internal quoting systems to cut the time needed to quote injection molding and PCB assembly work, and began putting more structured quality and operational processes in place.
Learning From Opportunities That Didn’t Work Out
Not every milestone was a success. During this period Jaycon applied to Y Combinator and got through multiple stages of the process, including the in-person interview round. The company was not selected.
Around 2017 and 2018, though, work from existing customers started developing into larger and more technically demanding projects. Jaycon increasingly worked with established engineering organizations that needed rapid prototypes, design iterations, manufacturing support, and quick communication between engineering and production.
That experience is where the focus on connecting engineering, prototyping, and manufacturing came from, rather than treating them as three separate activities handed off to each other.
Building an International Team
As the company grew, operations expanded internationally, including establishing operations in China and working with manufacturing partners overseas.
The team itself became increasingly international. Over the years, Jaycon employees have spoken English, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, Serbian, and French.
Working across countries brought its own set of problems: communication, documentation, manufacturing standards, supply chains, logistics, and coordination between engineering teams and factories. Those experiences shaped how the company’s internal systems and processes were built.
Milestones Along the Way
Along the way Jaycon reached several external milestones: ISO 9001:2015 certification, recognition through GrowFL, a place on the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing private companies in the United States, Congressional recognition, and coverage by Florida Today.
One unusual project came during the COVID-19 pandemic. Jaycon volunteered engineering resources to help reverse engineer components for ventilator production efforts involving GE Healthcare and Ford. It was a chance to apply rapid engineering and manufacturing methods at a point when supply chains and production capacity were under serious pressure.
Being Forced to Move
Another major transition arrived without warning when the owner of Jaycon’s buildings sold the property. The company had roughly 60 days to relocate an operation that had taken years to build. Employees worked temporarily from home and from other available locations while the search for a new facility went on.
Jaycon eventually moved into a location that could be configured specifically around its engineering and manufacturing requirements. Disruptive as it was, the move forced a rethink of how equipment, workflows, engineering, and production should be organized.
Turning 14 Years of Experience Into Software
By the company’s 14th year another transition was underway. Jaycon began building a software platform meant to absorb many of the processes developed over years of quoting, designing, prototyping, and manufacturing products.
The idea is that customers upload manufacturing files, including 3D CAD models and PCB Gerber files, and software handles quoting, ordering, project tracking, and the path into manufacturing. Behind it sit the less visible systems built up over the years: ERP, PLM, automation, workflows, documentation, and internal business processes. Artificial intelligence is becoming another component of that work, particularly where large amounts of manufacturing and engineering information have to be organized or processed.
What 15 Years of Manufacturing Teaches You
Jaycon Systems today bears relatively little resemblance to the operation that started at a kitchen table in 2011. The equipment has changed. The facilities have changed. The team has changed. The type and complexity of the projects have changed.
Many of the underlying lessons have stayed surprisingly constant:
- Manufacturing requires repeatable processes.
- Engineering requires iteration.
- Growth creates operational problems that eventually require systems.
- International manufacturing requires clear communication and documentation.
- An unexpected customer request can change the direction of an entire company.
Perhaps the best example is still those first circuit boards heating in a frying pan. The process was primitive by any standard, but the objective was the same one we work to now: understand the design, understand the process, build something that works, find out what went wrong, and improve the next iteration.
Fifteen years later, that cycle continues.
Bring us the next one. Upload a STEP file or a Gerber package and get tooling and piece pricing back, along with the design changes that lower defect risk before any steel gets cut. Start a quote.