Octopart helps nearly a half a million people find the part they need every month

Pt 10847

Octopart helps nearly a half a million people find the part they need every month. Sean writes…

I originally made a note to blog about Octopart in October of 2007 and again in April of 2008 as I used them to research part information for various client projects. The interface has evolved over the years but the site offers a very clean and information rich way to search for parts and part information, aggregating content from a number of sites into a single coherent view. The company was founded by Sam Wurzel, Andres Morey, and Harish Agarwal in 2006. All three had a common background in physics and they have brought a level of rigor along with a hacker perspective to part selection that has created a useful and innovative part selection site.

When they announced in January that DigiKey was allowing them to include their catalog in the Octopart parametric search results I realized I needed to do an interview with them. I was able to talk to Sam Wurzel, what follows is an edited transcript of our conversation with hyperlinks added for context. I have included more on the founders’ backgrounds after the main interview to give readers who are interested a window into their diverse backgrounds and low key humor.

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4 Comments

  1. george graves

    Someone (I think dave@eevblog?) said that they were recently bought up by one of the chip makers.

  2. Was that octopart or findchips.com, George? I know it’s one of the two, I just don’t remember which.

  3. Edit: It was findchips, not octopart. Findchips.com got bought out by SupplyFrame Media. Octopart, it seems, is still independent. Woohoo!

    Source:
    http://www.theamphour.com/2010/09/13/the-amp-hour-8-layouts-and-design-outs/

  4. I wish Octopart provided links to SPICE models too. How does Octopart make money anyway?

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