Free courses, taught in public

Operator’s Guides

Complete courses on the standards and systems hard-tech products live or die by. I teach them the way you use them on a real device, not the way they read in the binder. Free, no login, no gate.

Papercraft workbench with paper calipers, a rolled blueprint, screws, and a gear

Thirty years of getting hard technology out of the lab leaves you fluent in a stack of standards most people only ever skim. These guides teach that stack in full: real course depth, one worked device example per series, a written article beside every video. The first series covers ISO 14971 risk management. Quality systems, electrical safety, and carbon accounting are next in the queue.

The Operator's Guide to ISO 14971 Twelve modules. One worked device. A complete ISO 14971:2019 risk management file, built from scratch in front of you. 12 modules · 6.5 hours · free

In the queue

ISO 13485 quality management systems. IEC 60601 electrical safety for medical devices. The GHG Protocol and what Scope 1, 2, and 3 actually ask of a hardware company. Each one gets the same treatment: a full course, taught free.

Get the next guide

ISO 14971 is the first Operator’s Guide. ISO 13485, IEC 60601, and the GHG Protocol are in the queue. Leave your email and each new guide lands in your inbox the day it ships. Nothing else, no drip sequence.

Done. You’ll get the next guide when it ships.

The standard is free. So is this course. Building the product is the work.

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Dave Saunders

Dave Saunders is the founder of Base Reality Group and a Fractional CPO for hard-tech founders. He was a founder and operator at Galen Robotics, where the surgical-robotics platform earned FDA De Novo authorization in 2023, and he managed a 35-patent portfolio licensed from Johns Hopkins. He wrote Founders Who Finish and publishes The Build. More about Dave →