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SparkFun is an online retail store that sells the bits and pieces to make your electronics projects possible. Whether it’s a robot that can cook your breakfast or a GPS cat tracking device, our products and resources are designed to make the world of electronics more accessible to the average person. In addition to products, SparkFun also offers classes and a number of online tutorials designed to help educate individuals in the wonderful world of embedded electronics.

What do we sell? Our products range from things like resistors and LEDs to humidity sensors and LCD screens. Our goal is to make finding the parts and information you need easier and affordable so you can create awesome projects.

And who are our customers? We sell to crafters and designers, artists and DJs, elementary teachers and college professors, and yes, electrical engineers. We have seen 5-year olds solder our kits and octogenarians attend our events. We believe anyone and everyone can play with cool electronic gadgets! So go on and let your geek shine - around here, we encourage it.

We like to think that we exist in the same group as our customers - curious students, engineers, prototypers, and hobbyists who love to create. We are snowboarders and rock-climbers, painters and musicians, engineers and writers - but we all have one thing in common...we love electronics! We want to use electronics to make art projects, gadgets, and robots. We live, eat, and breathe this stuff! The SparkFun crew works in various departments such as engineering, marketing, production, shipping, and keg replenishment, all united in one common goal - Sharing Ingenuity.

To find out some specifics about the SparkFun employees, find an incomplete list of current employees here.

You can also find us on Facebook, Flickr, or Twitter.

The culture is a very large part of what makes SparkFun better than a stick in the eye. The following are some rules that should guide the types of people we hire and help guide the decisions we make.

1. Transparent / allowed to fail : Let's be open and honest with ourselves and others. If we screw up, admit it openly, fix it, and move on. Let's protect open communication between everyone.
2. Least conventional as possible : We realize that business convention has its place. Let's separate business necessity (like paying taxes) from business tradition (like slacks) as much as possible.
3. Risk Neutral : We will consider, question and not be daunted by the rules around us. Be safe, but be unruly whenever possible.
4. Scrappy : We want to be known for something greater than our office furniture. Let’s create our own way of doing things. Do we really need more stuff? If we really need it, let’s get it, but let’s try to get it second hand. If something needs fixing, ask for help and roll up your sleeves.
5. Appreciation of individuality : This is not the place for close-minded individuals. If you work hard next to me, I'll respect your fascination with kitchen utensils.
6. Trust on an individual level : Show up, get the work done, and respect the toes and tattoos of others. We trust you to think through the decisions about your dog, your work schedule, and your dress. We trust you to be honest with your neighbor if they affect your work environment.
7. Ideas are created equal : Doesn't matter who had them. Anyone can do something cool and get recognized for it.
8. Opinionated : If we ever lose the ability to express our individual opinions, we are truly lost. Be cool and think through a problem. Everyone has an equal right to voice their opinion and listen to other opinions.

Notes from culture meeting #2. Dogs, skateboards, loud music, chaos - all in a day's work.

At SparkFun, we our proud of our geeky culture – whether it is Moustache Day or an autonomous vehicle race – and we like to share it.

Tours

If you ever find yourself in Boulder and want a tour - we love visitors! SparkFun tours run every Friday at 3 PM, and please call ahead so we know you're coming! If you can’t make it all the way to Colorado, check out some of this behind-the-scenes action featuring virtual office tours, various videos, and backstage views of the photoshoots for our print advertisements.

Photoshoots:

Jen Lewin, creator of "The Pool"

Dwight Eppinger, Creator of Copper Mountain's Electronic Signs

Steven Kennedy, SparkFun enthusiast and high school teacher

Jamie Robertson, creator of the MP3 Trigger

Landon Cox, creator of an electronics-based speed climbing timer

Vanessa and Dzl, Vegas Shoot

Michael Cooper, BASE Jumper Extraordinaire

Kristin and Che-Wei, creators of Momo

Pete Lewis, creator of the Rock Box

Leah Buechley, creator of the LilyPad

Videos:

SparkFun hosts various events throughout the year. These events include classes in topics ranging from SMD soldering to hardware hacking. SparkFun also participates annually in Maker Faire, hosts an Autonomous Vehicle contest, and is always looking for new events to get involved with our community.

Click on these links for more information on past or future events:

SparkFun Class Listings

Antimov Competition 2010

Maker Faire World New York 2010

Mini-Maker Faire Aspen 2010

Maker Faire San Mateo 2010

Autonomous Vehicle Competition 2010

Maker Faire San Mateo - 2009

Autonomous Vehicle Competition 2009

Maker Faire Austin - 2008

Check back here for updates on upcoming events!

Graphics: If you want to use our graphics for your personal, non-commercial use, feel free! Make your own stickers, use one as your desktop background - pretty much anything goes! If you would like to use the SparkFun logo in any kind of commercial venture, you must first enter into a written “commercial use licensing agreement” with SparkFun. To initiate that process, contact us at marketing@sparkfun.com.

If you have a cool photo or graphic you want to share, feel free to email it to us at the above address or add it to the SparkFun Flickr account!

Photos: Please feel free to use our product photos in your project documentation or reports. If you would like to use a photo for a commercial venture, please contact us first at marketing@sparkfun.com

Available Graphics:

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SparkFun Company Profile:

Founded: 2003

CEO: Nathan Seidle

Location: 6175 Longbow Dr., Boulder, CO 80301

Employees: 130+

A Brief History: Nathan Seidle is the CEO of SparkFun Inc. in Boulder, Colorado, a company he founded in 2003 as an undergraduate student in electrical engineering. His vision for SparkFun was a website that showed multiple views of each product, linked to the datasheet, and contained tutorials on everything they sell. The company, which has grown to over 130 employees in the past 9 years and is one of the leaders in Open Source Hardware. In addition to the parts company, Nathan also invented a system for printing small runs of circuits boards efficiently with BatchPCB, a sister company within SparkFun. At heart, Nathan is an electrical engineer and continues to build, hack, and design many of the companies' products. He was the first distributor of the Arduino and the manufacturer of the LilyPad. He has helped numerous businesses such as Cubelets, littleBits, Botanicalls, Orbotix, and RockOn Audio create their first hardware product. He has helped many artists such as Jen Lewin, Onyx Ashanti and Illutron Art Studio bring their visions to life.

Nathan's Port-o-rotary phone, a cellular and portable 1950's rotary phone has been reviewed in the New York Times, Wired Magazine, multiple international art magazines, and featured in two motion pictures. He has been invited to speak at Stanford, MIT, Google, West Point, the Open Hardware Summit, and O'Reilly's Foo Camp. He has been interviewed by countless business magazines and journals on his success of bootstrapping and running business without an MBA, including Fortune Small Business, The Economist, 37 Signals, and IEEE Spectrum. Nathan gives a lecture at Colorado University once a year to all incoming electrical engineering students on entrepreneurship and innovation.

With over 450 original products, SparkFun is the largest manufacturer of Open Source Hardware in the world. Every SparkFun design is dreamed up, manufactured, tested, and packaged at our 50,000 square foot facility right here in lovely Boulder, CO. We believe strongly in participating and promoting the OSHW movement.

Press Releases

March 30, 2009 - Geek Out On Tax Day

July 10, 2009 - They Love Us! They Really Love Us!

November 25, 2009 - Imagine a World Where Your Geek Can Shine Freely

January 19, 2010 - SparkFun Gives Away Free Goods, Geeks Everywhere Rejoice

April 16, 2010 - Start Your Engines

April 22, 2010 - They Came, They Saw, They Conquered

May 28, 2010 - SparkFun Completes the Four-Peat

May 28, 2010 - Makers of All Kinds Converge for Weekend of Mayhem

August 30, 2010 - A Match Made In Heaven

For all media inquiries, please contact marketing@sparkfun.com.