Meet Jifei Ou

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jifei Ou. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jifei, thank you so much for joining us. You are such a positive person and it’s something we really admire and so we wanted to start by asking you where you think your optimism comes from?

I think my optimism comes from making things. There’s something deeply hopeful and energizing about creating something new, through hands, mind, and/or machine. It’s how I process the world, and how I keep moving forward when things get uncertain.

I grew up in southwest China and came to the U.S. to study at the MIT Media Lab. There, I found myself surrounded by people who weren’t just talking about the future, they were building it. That shaped how I see possibility: not as something handed to you, but as something you push into existence.

And we’re living in such an extraordinary time. Across medicine, space travel, manufacturing—you name it—there’s a wave of technologies designed to expand human potential. It’s hard not to feel optimistic when you realize how many people are out there trying to make the world more exciting and more beautiful. As a founder, I see it as both a privilege and a responsibility to be part of that.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I’m the founder and CEO of OPT Industries, where we’re building a new kind of manufacturing company, one that’s born out of material science, powered by software, and scaled through automation. Our core technology is a high-precision additive manufacturing platform that allows us to produce complex products and materials at industrial scale.

What’s exciting to me is not just the tech, it’s how it redefine what’s possible. We’re creating products that legacy manufacturing simply can’t make. Right now, we’re applying this to consumer products like false eyelashes and beauty applicators. In fact, we recently launched the world’s first U.S.-manufactured false lash product at scale, and the momentum has been incredible.

Lashes are one of the many exciting products we offer. Our platform has applications in medical devices, industrial components, and beyond. At its core, OPT is removing design limitations through advanced manufacturing. By reconnecting design and production, we are not only enabling designers, engineers, and innovators to make forms and functions that were previously unimaginable across industries, we also have the opportunity to fix long-standing challenges in the supply chain created by legacy manufacturing technologies.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

I’d say three qualities have made the biggest difference in my journey: curiosity, humility, and courage.

Curiosity keeps you moving. It’s what helps you ask questions, better questions, see patterns others miss, and explore new ideas that seems dumb to others. In my case, it’s what pulled me from academic research into manufacturing entrepreneurship.

Humility is what allows you to learn. Startups are humbling. You’re always working with incomplete information, and you’re wrong more often than you’re right. Being open to feedback, from your team, customer, and laws of physics (lol), that’s what keeps you growing.

And courage matters. It’s what allows you to dream big first, and helps you persist when things get hard. You need a vision that feels a little unreasonable, because that’s what makes the whole journey worth it.

For anyone early in their journey: stay curious, surround yourself with people who challenge you, and believe in something bold.

And start building.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?

It’s not a single book, but a catalog of books that’s had the most impact on me: the Whole Earth Catalog.

The catalog came from a time of radical possibility. It wasn’t just a publication, it was a worldview. A mashup of tools, books, and philosophies, all curated for people who wanted to build something with their hands and tools. It taught me that making things is a way of thinking, and that spirit of interdisciplinary curiosity has shaped how I think about our work at OPT.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://optindustries.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/optindustries

Image Credits

OPT Industries