Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/952929
28 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I MARCH 2018 by Andy Shaughnessy I-CONNECT007 Like many young entrepreneurs, Natasha Baker knew she wanted to run her own com- pany years before she finally pulled the trigger. But she waited until the time was right, devel- oped a business plan, and stuck to it. Now, five years after SnapEDA was launched, the company continues to expand its library parts and symbol creation services, with the help of some of today's most cutting-edge technology. I caught up with Natasha, and we discussed how her team utilizes technology that has helped SnapEDA to become a major player in this space. Andy Shaughnessy: Tell us a little about your company. Natasha Baker: Sure. SnapEDA is a website used by half a million hardware designers globally to build their circuit boards faster. We provide the building blocks needed to bring designs to life, such as the symbols, footprints, and 3D models. When we launched in 2013, the problem we set out to solve was, "How can we remove barriers in the design flow so that designers can innovate faster?" We saw that content was a huge opportunity for this, since designers spend days making models for each compo- nent on their circuit board from scratch, or were skipping potentially beneficial aspects of design, such as simulation, due to an inability to find simulation models. The problem came to a head when I was making a circuit board for a trade show that ended up taking triple the amount of time it should have due to a lack of content in my design tool. I thought, "What if we could create Google for circuit board design? It would be a place that pro- vides designers with ready-to-use content, and tr ansparency into the quality of that content." And that's how the idea for SnapEDA was born. Since we first raised funding for the company two-and-a-half years ago, our community of electronics designers has grown over 4,000%, and our monthly growth continues to acceler- ate. Our users love it because it's high quality, fast, and easy-to-use.