PAMETNA HRVATSKA Ante Medić

Guest Ante MedićHosted by Boris ŽivkovićMay 3, 2026

Ante Medić

About this episode

What you'll hear in this conversation

Building a hardware company means confronting an inherent challenge: most projects will fail. Ante Medić, executive director of Pulsar Laboratories, an electronics and hardware development firm, doesn't shy away from this reality. He estimates that only about ten percent of hardware projects ever make it to successful production, a stark contrast to the often-romanticized world of innovation. Yet, Medić and his team persist, navigating the complexities of developing everything from smart wallets for clients to industrial sensors that automate tasks for major retailers. His perspective offers a rare look into the gritty mechanics of bringing physical products to life. It’s a world where the hardest part isn't always the technical execution, but bridging the communication gap between a client's vague idea and a concrete specification, or knowing when to stop adding features to your own product. Medić's experience, spanning both custom client work and proprietary product development, reveals the specific demands on those who choose to build in a space where high upfront investment meets high rates of failure. This conversation will prompt you to rethink what 'success' means in hardware development, and how to find stability in a business built on high-stakes, high-risk projects.

Insights from the conversation

What to take from this episode

Medić estimates that less than ten percent of hardware projects ever go into production or achieve commercial success. The insight isn't that hardware is risky, but that a viable hardware business requires accepting and planning around a high failure rate as a fundamental operating condition.

For his own products, Medić highlights the 'feature creep' problem — the tendency to add unnecessary capabilities, which he calls a 'death spiral'. The point: the true discipline in product development lies in knowing when to stop iterating and ship, rather than continuously adding more.

When working with clients, Medić finds the biggest challenge is bridging the gap between what a client wants and their ability to articulate it, especially without technical vocabulary. Your expertise isn't just in building, but in acting as a translator, turning abstract desires into concrete, feasible specifications.

Pulsar Laboratories designed the electronics that allowed many vending machines to comply with new fiscalization requirements. Regulatory changes, often seen as a burden, can unexpectedly open up significant, large-scale opportunities for hardware companies that can solve new compliance needs.

While Pulsar develops custom solutions for clients, Medić is actively trying to shift the company toward developing more of its own products, describing this as a 'more stable' path. Client work offers variety, but long-term stability in hardware often comes from owning your intellectual property and product roadmap.

Their retro synthesizers largely sell abroad, in places like Canada and the US, because the local market for such niche products is too small. For specialized hardware, domestic demand might not be enough; a global customer base is often essential for commercial viability.

Pulsar's work for Konzum involves automating temperature sensing in their refrigerators, replacing manual logging. The most valuable applications of hardware aren't always in flashy consumer gadgets, but in automating mundane, repetitive tasks within established industries.

Asked if hardware developers must be 'a bit crazy, brave, and persistent,' Medić responds, 'Absolutely.' The high upfront investment, long development cycles, and inherent risk in hardware demand a specific psychological profile, beyond mere technical skill, to see projects through.

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