The Principle of Forward

There’s a kind of quiet most people don’t talk about—the one that shows up right before you make a leap. That’s where CriusCo was born.

This company wasn’t an idea on a whiteboard. It was a feeling in my chest I couldn’t ignore. The need to build differently. To do things not just faster, but better. To ask harder questions. To stop waiting for permission.

I’ve never liked to keep dreaming, I needed more.

I. Why We Chose to Build Everything Ourselves

People ask me why we do everything in-house—from pick-and-place machines to reflow ovens to server architectures no one else would attempt.

The honest answer?

Because it hurt watching brilliant people wait on the world to catch up to their vision. Because I’ve been the one staring at tools that weren’t built for what I needed them to do. Because I believe there’s power in owning the full stack—not just of your hardware, but of your ambition.

We didn’t just want to ship products. We wanted to build the system that builds them.

Every wire. Every interface. Every ridiculous idea someone said was too “out there.”

II. The Culture We’re Trying to Protect

CriusCo isn’t a tech company. It’s a promise.

A promise that if you show up with something worth fighting for, you won’t be told to stay in your lane. A promise that speed and quality are not opposites—they’re siblings raised under the same roof.

We built our culture like we build our boards: layer by layer, soldered with intention, checked under heat.

This is a place for people who’d rather stay late to fix a silent bug than ship something average on time. People who want to know why every resistor is where it is. People who get chills when an idea finally boots.

If that’s you—you already belong here.

III. What Leadership Really Feels Like

Leading CriusCo doesn’t feel like control. It feels like carrying something sacred.

I feel the weight of every decision in my gut. I lose sleep wondering if I pushed too hard—or not hard enough. I write down names. I replay conversations. I wonder if I gave someone enough space to be great.

And then I show up the next day and try again—because this company means something. Not just to me, but to every person who’s chosen to trust it with their time, their talent, their belief.

I don’t take that lightly.

IV. What We're Building Next

We’re building wearables that understand you better than you do. Optical arrays that see without a sound. Servers that make a data center look like a warm-up lap.

We’re building tools for artists, for scientists, for defense, for care.

But more than that—we’re building a standard. One that says the bar doesn’t move down just because the deadline moves up. One that says doing it right still matters.

And we’ll keep going until our work speaks for itself—even in silence.

V. To the People Who Make CriusCo What It Is

To the interns whose first prototype changed the roadmap: you matter.

To the machinists who make adjustments no algorithm could predict: you’re artists.

To the engineers whose pull requests are love letters in logic: I see you.

To our partners, suppliers, and the people behind the curtain—thank you for believing when it wasn’t obvious.

And to the skeptics: I don’t resent you. You sharpen us. You remind us to keep showing—not telling.

VI. This Is What Forward Means

To me, “forward” is not about scale. It’s about soul. It’s about choosing momentum when you could choose comfort. Belief when you could choose doubt. It’s about not being done. If you’ve made it this far, maybe you’re feeling it too. That ache to build. That itch to do something unreasonable. That gut pull toward the edge of what’s next.

Don’t ignore it. Forward is waiting.

Collin Baldrica
Founder & CEO, CriusCo