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COREDUMP #014: Why Your IoT Project Still Hasn’t Taken Off — And How to Fix It
Chapters
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| Introduction to IoT Challenges
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| Afzal’s Journey in IoT & Early Expectations
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| The 500K SIM Card Mirage
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| Why IoT Projects Stall: Internal Resistance & Misaligned Incentives
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| Rethinking the “IoT” Label: Lessons from Pebble
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| When Good Tech Still Fails: The Organizational Blindspot
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| Field Reality Check: Why Real-World Feedback is Critical
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| Who Owns It? Accountability After Launch
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| Designing for Fault Tolerance in Connected Devices
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| Fragmentation in IoT: Meeting Diverse Customer Needs
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| Niche Focus as a Winning Strategy
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| What IoT Can Learn from AI’s Go-to-Market Playbook
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| Drivers for Success i the IoT Space
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| The Future of IoT: Regulation, Trust & E-Waste
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| Final Reflections on Long-Term Ownership & Customer Impact
Listen to the Podcast
About the webinar
In this Coredump Session, the team takes a hard look at why some IoT projects stall before they ever hit scale. From organizational missteps to product-market fit challenges, they explore the hidden forces that derail even technically sound products. You’ll hear candid insights on why being “connected” isn’t enough—and what it really takes to succeed in IoT today.
Key Takeaways:
- The biggest blockers for IoT teams aren’t always technical—they’re organizational, strategic, and systemic.
- Shipping a connected device doesn’t guarantee product-market fit, especially if it’s missing the right workflows or visibility.
- Engineers often build what’s technically possible instead of what’s valuable for the business.
- Collecting data from devices is table stakes—but what matters is how you use that data to drive action.
- Many teams lack a clear owner for post-deployment success, leading to blind spots in field performance.
- “Observability” should go beyond crash logs and include signals that help prioritize engineering work.
- Product-market fit isn’t static—it has to be reevaluated and maintained across the device lifecycle.
- Tools that automate crash deduplication, root cause analysis, and regression detection are game-changers for scaling support without burning out your team.
Speakers
Founder & Best-Selling Author
Afzal Mangal
Afzal Mangal is a storyteller, entrepreneur, and builder of tech brands with a deep focus on IoT. After leading a corporate startup within a major telecom operator, he helped thousands of developers and businesses get started with low-power IoT solutions. Afzal is known for making complex technology accessible, combining sharp critique with real-world experience. His writing is driven by a single goal: to challenge the hype and spark practical change in how we adopt technology. You can learn more at https://afzalmangal.com.
Co-Founder & Head of Field Engineering, Memfault
Tyler Hoffman
With nearly a decade of embedded engineering experience, Tyler Hoffman is Co-Founder and Head of Field Engineering at Memfault. Prior to co-founding Memfault, Tyler led the Firmware Developer Productivity team at Fitbit and was an Embedded Software Engineer at Pebble Tech, where he helped them ship and maintain millions of wearable devices running RTOS-level firmware. You can find some of the articles Tyler has written at: https://interrupt.memfault.com/blog/authors/tyler/.
Co-Founder & CTO, Memfault
Chris Coleman
Chris Coleman is the CTO and Co-Founder of Memfault. Prior to founding Memfault, Chris was an embedded software engineer at Pebble and Fitbit where he led efforts across the firmware stack and developed a reputation for tracking down and fixing challenging firmware bugs. That, coupled with his passion for using tooling to efficiently deliver high-quality hardware products, drove him to start Memfault.