Albert Gajšak

Co-founder & CEO, CircuitMess · Zagreb, Croatia

I make electronics kits that you build with your own hands — solder the board, close the case, then write the code that runs on it. Since 2017 more than 300,000 of them have shipped to builders around the world.

Say hello See what I build
Albert Gajšak holding up a MAKERphone with both hands, smiling, under the CircuitMess logo on the office wall.
At the CircuitMess office
300,000+ devices shipped worldwide Co-founded CircuitMess at 18 $1.6M+ raised on Kickstarter Deloitte Technology Fast 50 CE · 2021 & 2022 TEDx Zagreb speaker Officially licensed NASA & Warner Bros. kits Maker of Merit · Maker Faire Rome Toy Fair New York award winner

01 About

A kid from Karlovac who never stopped taking things apart.

I grew up in Karlovac, Croatia. My father is a mechanical engineer and he kept pushing me to build things and take them apart, so the first thing I ever made was a small car with an electromotor and a switch, out of Meccano blocks. School bored me. Most days I went straight from it to the free workshops at the Zajednica tehničke kulture in town, where the tools and the materials cost nothing and there were other kids building things too.

By the time I was at Gimnazija Karlovac I was building rescue robots with my friend Filip Jakšić under the name CRObotix — him on software, me on hardware. We spent our weekends at RoboCupJunior competitions and in 2016 took bronze in the Rescue Line Secondary category at the Austrian Open in Innsbruck. What I really wanted to make, though, was a games console you had to build yourself. I designed one around an 8-bit microcontroller, called it MAKERbuino, and took the prototype to Maker Faire Rome as Croatia's representative, where it won a Maker of Merit ribbon. The Kickstarter that followed raised $100,745 from 1,574 backers.

CircuitMess was registered in April 2017. I was 18 and still finishing secondary school, working out of my own kitchen after class — a guerilla startup, more or less — with Tomislav Car coming in as investor and co-founder. I never enrolled at university; I couldn't see doing two big things well at once. Nine years on we are a team of around thirty in Zagreb, designing our own boards, writing our own firmware and manufacturing our own hardware. We have made officially licensed kits with Warner Bros. and NASA, and a buildable Rimac Nevera with Rimac Automobili. The part I liked at fourteen hasn't changed: getting a real, working device into someone's hands and letting them work out why it works.

With CircuitMess, I am trying to make STEM education radically different.
Trending Topics, 2021
A hand pressing the green button on a plywood test-and-flash jig, while a colleague opposite hand-assembles Nibble consoles.
The Nibble test-and-flash jig, hand-built out of plywood.
Albert Gajšak holding up two assembled CircuitMess kits, one in each hand.
Two finished kits — a handheld console and a DJ mixer.
Albert Gajšak in a lab coat on the production floor, holding a printout of a circuit board layout.
On the line with a board layout, mid-production.

02 The company

Electronics you build yourself, then program.

CircuitMess designs and manufactures build-it-yourself STEM kits — game consoles, smartwatches, robot cars, synthesisers, encrypted radios. Nothing arrives finished. You assemble the device, and then you code it. One product line is for kids from age 7, the other for teens and adults.

Albert Gajšak in the CircuitMess workshop, standing between a pick-and-place machine and a laser cutter, with the CircuitMess logo on the wall.
The Zagreb workshop. Laser cutter behind.
300,000+Devices shipped worldwide
~30People on the team
2017Founded in Croatia
4.3★Trustpilot, 1,036 reviews
A CircuitMess employee holding out a freshly populated panel of circuit boards, with the pick-and-place machine behind them.
A populated panel of boards, straight off the pick-and-place.
Two colleagues laughing as they fit together a clear acrylic rover frame, a Mars rover poster on the wall behind.
Two of the team fitting an acrylic rover frame together.

More at circuitmess.com — and the firmware for most of these devices is on GitHub.

03 The kits

Things we made.

Every one of these ships as parts and a manual. Ages and build times are what we print on the box.

Overhead view of two hands screwing the back plate onto a red Bit 2.0 console on a blue cutting mat, with the battery and rear board visible.
Two hands screwing the back plate onto a Bit 2.0.
Two hands fitting a clear acrylic top plate onto a part-built Jay-D DJ mixer, its circuit board and pads exposed.
Fitting the acrylic top to a part-built Jay-D mixer.

Swipe sideways for the rest

MAKERphone 2.0, a buildable mobile phone with a transparent case, keypad and colour screen.

MAKERphone 2.0

A mobile phone you build and program yourself. The newest one — live on Kickstarter, funded in 49 minutes.

Latest · Buildable phone

NASA Artemis Watch 2.0, a clear-cased programmable smartwatch on a black NASA-branded strap.

NASA Artemis Watch 2.0

A programmable NASA-themed smartwatch with activity tracking, compass and Bluetooth.

Ages 9+ · NASA licensed

A detailed buildable model of NASA's Perseverance Mars rover, with six wheels, robotic arm and camera mast.

NASA Perseverance Rover

An officially licensed, drivable Mars rover with a robotic arm. Roughly twenty hours of building.

Ages 11+ · NASA licensed

A buildable scale model of the Rimac Nevera electric hypercar in black and green, next to its circuit board.

Rimac Nevera

A working scale replica of the Nevera, made with Rimac Automobili. Assemble the chassis, motors and steering, then code it.

With Rimac Automobili

A pair of Chatter 2.0 encrypted communicators with keypads and small screens.

Chatter 2.0

Two encrypted LoRa communicators with about 2 km of range. No Wi-Fi, no SIM, no network.

Ages 9+ · Ships as a pair

Wheelson 2.0, a buildable self-driving robot car with a translucent blue body.

Wheelson 2.0

A self-driving, AI-powered robot car with computer vision. Drives itself once you teach it how.

Ages 9+ · Self-driving

ByteBoi 2.0, a buildable handheld retro games console with a red board and clear case.

ByteBoi 2.0

A retro handheld console. Play what comes loaded, then write your own games — and use it to drive Wheelson.

Ages 9+ · ~90 min build

Jay-D 2.0, a buildable DJ mixer with jog wheels, knobs and a crossfader.

Jay-D 2.0

A DJ mixer with two playback slots, jog wheels and a crossfader, for learning digital sound.

Ages 9+ · Digital sound

Synthia 2.0, a buildable synthesiser and drum machine with a purple circuit board and knobs.

Synthia 2.0

A sampler, drum machine, sequencer and synth in one. Sample with the onboard mic, then filter it.

Ages 11+ · Sampler & synth

Clockstar 2.0, a buildable smartwatch with a clear case showing the circuit board inside.

Clockstar 2.0

Build a smartwatch, pair it with your phone, then program the watch faces and step tracking.

Ages 9+ · Bluetooth

Bit 2.0, a red buildable 8-bit retro game console with white buttons and a small colour screen.

Bit 2.0

The gateway kit — an 8-bit retro console you can build in about an hour and code in Python.

Ages 7+ · ~1 hour build

Codee 2.0, a buildable virtual pet device with an orange frame and a screen showing a cartoon character.

Codee 2.0

Build, code and look after a virtual pet. Thirty minutes to assemble, then six games on board.

Ages 7+ · ~30 min build

Beep Boop Mochi, a small pink doughnut-shaped robot toy with a smiling digital face.

Beep Boop

Pocket robot companions — Mochi, Kirin, Miao Miao and Tochi. The smallest, cutest thing we make.

Collectible robots

A fanned-out set of Wacky Robots trading card packs in colourful foil packaging.

Wacky Robots

A trading card game — 14 cards a pack, each with a video-game token that unlocks something new on Bit.

Trading cards · Ages 7+

Ages and build times are what we print on the box. For current pricing and the full catalogue, circuitmess.com is the source of truth.

04 Journey

From a school robotics team to a factory floor.

2013 — 2016

CRObotix

Rescue robots built with Filip Jakšić at Gimnazija Karlovac, and years of RoboCupJunior competitions. Bronze in Rescue Line Secondary at the 2016 Austrian Open in Innsbruck. In between: game consoles, a smartwatch, a lot of AVR microcontrollers, C++ and 3D-printed parts.

A younger Albert Gajšak leaning over a workbench covered in red circuit boards and prototypes. Teenage Albert Gajšak at a cluttered workshop desk with a row of five finished handheld consoles in different colours.

2016

MAKERbuino goes to Rome

I took the MAKERbuino prototype to Maker Faire Rome as Croatia's representative. It came back with a Maker of Merit ribbon and enough attention to justify a Kickstarter.

Albert Gajšak in a MAKERbuino T-shirt standing in his bedroom workshop, lit by LED strips.

2017

CircuitMess is founded

The MAKERbuino Kickstarter raised $100,745 from 1,574 backers. CircuitMess was registered that April — I was 18 and still a secondary-school pupil, and Tomislav Car joined as investor and co-founder. Later that year MAKERbuino won Idea Knockout, run by Bug magazine with Hrvatski Telekom — the prize was a stand at CES 2018 in Las Vegas.

Albert Gajšak at a MAKERbuino trade show booth with three visitors, all holding up consoles. Albert Gajšak in a Vienna Maker Faire T-shirt and goggles, showing a MAKERbuino to a visitor in a suit.

2018

MAKERphone, and a TEDx stage

MAKERphone — a mobile phone you assemble yourself — raised $324,453 from 2,154 backers. That September I gave a TEDxZagreb talk, “Mangup iz garaže koji je osvojio svijet retro DIY igračkom.”

Albert Gajšak speaking on the TEDxZagreb stage in front of a large illuminated TEDxZagreb sign.

2019 — 2020

Subscription boxes

A Pokreni nešto svoje grant backed the MAKERphone SNAP project in 2019. Then came the CircuitMess STEM Box — a new buildable device every three months — which raised over $400,000 on Kickstarter and produced Spencer, Jay-D, Wheelson, ByteBoi, Chatter and Clockstar.

Wide interior of the CircuitMess office: workbenches, shelved parts, a 3D printer and the CircuitMess wordmark on the far wall. A CircuitMess employee in a blue beanie laughing over a tray of components, a whiteboard of Croatian production notes behind her.

2021

Warner Bros. and the Batmobile

We licensed the Batmobile from Warner Bros. Consumer Products and turned it into a buildable, drivable kit: $388,783 from 2,427 backers, about 2,600% of the goal. CircuitMess placed 24th in Deloitte's Technology Fast 50 Central Europe, and I spent a Sunday on HRT's Nedjeljom u 2.

Albert Gajšak working at a laptop in front of a large CircuitMess Batmobile banner, with the model car on the desk. Albert Gajšak holding a Deloitte award certificate at an evening ceremony with two other people.

2022

Wacky Robots, and 790% growth

We launched the Wacky Robots line and finished 40th in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Central Europe with 790% growth. Talks that year: Infobip Shift in Zadar, LEAP Summit Zagreb, and CARNET's CUC conference.

Two CircuitMess staff in the stockroom lifting flat-packed Bit cartons out of a tub, shelves of boxed product behind them. Albert Gajšak holding a glass Deloitte trophy in one hand and a glowing green CircuitMess kit in the other.

2023

New York, and Mars

At Toy Fair New York our stand won the Powerfully Playful Award in the Toy Association's first Reimagination Awards — “extremely proud to have received an award at such a renowned event, at which big brands from the toy world like LEGO and Pokemon participate.” With Geek Club we shipped an officially licensed NASA Perseverance rover kit, whose campaign raised $580,710 from 2,871 backers. The European Commission profiled me in its Decade of Great Stories series for Croatia's tenth year in the EU.

A wrist wearing the NASA Artemis Watch reaches in to adjust the assembled Perseverance rover kit, a model of the Ingenuity helicopter in the foreground. Artemis I lifting off at night against a black sky, the rocket plume lighting the launch tower.

Artemis I launch photograph: NASA/Joel Kowsky — public domain.

2024 — 2026

Second generation, and a new phone

We rebuilt the whole catalogue as 2.0 — better boards, better firmware — added the NASA Artemis Watch and the Beep Boop robots, and made a buildable Rimac Nevera with Rimac Automobili. Most of the toys are now manufactured in China while DIY kit production stays in Croatia. And the thing I keep coming back to: MAKERphone 2.0, which opened on Kickstarter on 10 September 2026 and was fully funded 49 minutes later.

Albert Gajšak holding up two MAKERphone units, one in a black case and one in a clear case. Albert Gajšak holding up a buildable smartwatch by its strap, CircuitMess logo behind him. The CircuitMess Rimac Nevera kit: a black and green scale model of the car with one headlight lit, beside its exposed-board Time Attack controller. MAKERphone 2.0 key art: the phone upright with six labelled expansion modules floating around it over a neon grid horizon. Albert Gajšak seated at a desk with tools and parts, holding two MAKERphone units.

05 Recognition

Awards and listings.

2016

Maker of Merit

Maker Faire Rome — as Croatia's representative, for MAKERbuino

2016

Bronze, Rescue Line Secondary

RoboCupJunior Austrian Open, Innsbruck — team CRObotix

2016

Oskar znanja & Harvard Prize Book

Awarded while at Gimnazija Karlovac

2017

Idea Knockout winner

Bug magazine with Hrvatski Telekom — prize: a stand at CES 2018

2019

Pokreni nešto svoje

Grant and business support for the MAKERphone SNAP project

2021

Technology Fast 50 Central Europe — 24th

Deloitte — 203% growth

2021

European Young Innovators finalist

World Summit Awards

2022

Technology Fast 50 Central Europe — 40th

Deloitte — 790% growth

2023

Powerfully Playful Award

Toy Fair New York, The Toy Association Reimagination Awards

2023

Recognised at the Warner Bros. consumer products summit

For the CircuitMess Batmobile

2023

Decade of Great Stories

European Commission Representation in Croatia

Ongoing

In Croatian school textbooks

Featured as an innovator role model for students

06 Speaking & press

I talk about hardware, manufacturing from a small country, and why STEM education keeps missing the point.

  • 2018 TEDxZagreb “Mangup iz garaže koji je osvojio svijet retro DIY igračkom”
  • 2022 CUC — CARNET Users Conference Invited speaker
  • 2022 LEAP Summit, Zagreb Speaker
  • 2022 · 2023 Infobip Shift, Zadar Speaker, both editions
  • 2023 Zagreb Connect Panel — “Kako postati globalni igrač”
  • 2021 Nedjeljom u 2, HRT Guest of Aleksandar Stanković
  • Also Blend Zagreb, WOLF Conference Speaker

Written up in Forbes, Forbes Hrvatska, Netokracija, Lider, tportal, Index and Red Bull Croatia. For interviews or a talk, email me.

Albert Gajšak on stage with a microphone in a MAKERphone T-shirt, in front of a slide reading “we teach children about … broken!”
On stage, mid-talk.
Close portrait of Albert Gajšak in glasses, filmed in the CircuitMess office for a European Commission feature.
Filmed for the European Commission's Decade of Great Stories, 2023. © European Union, 2023 — European Commission Representation in Croatia. Source. Licensed CC BY 4.0; cropped.

07 Writing

Notes from the bench.

Campaign post-mortems, manufacturing lessons and the occasional correction — written here first, in full, with the numbers attached.

  1. · 3 min read · MAKERphone 2.0

    Why it arrives as parts

    The hour where the board is soldered and nothing works yet is the entire product. Taking it out would make the phone easier to sell — and worth considerably less.

    Read

  2. · 2 min read · Kickstarter

    Funded in 49 minutes

    MAKERphone 2.0 opened on Kickstarter on a Thursday afternoon and was fully funded 49 minutes later. A thank you to everybody who made that happen — and to the people who have been here since 2017.

    Read
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08 Press kit

Photographs, ready to publish.

26 photographs of me at press resolution, longest edge 2600 px. Take a set as a zip or pull single frames — the caption and, where one is owed, the photographer's credit are written into each file's own metadata, so they survive the trip through your CMS. Checked figures, paste-ready biographies and the company boilerplate are on the full press kit page.

Free set 18 photos · 7.2 MB Credited set 8 photos · 5.3 MB

Free for editorial use

Shot in-house or for CircuitMess, including the current MAKERphone 2.0 set. Publish them without asking. A CircuitMess credit is welcome, not required.

  • Seated at a table with MAKERphone 2.0 in each hand and parts laid out in front of him
    Seated at a table with MAKERphone 2.0 in each hand and parts laid out in front of him. 1920×1280 JPEG · 419 KB Download
  • Holding up two MAKERphone 2.0 units, one in each hand, screens to camera
    Holding up two MAKERphone 2.0 units, one in each hand, screens to camera. 1920×1280 JPEG · 295 KB Download
  • Holding a MAKERphone 2.0 out to camera with the screen lit, warm lamp behind
    Holding a MAKERphone 2.0 out to camera with the screen lit, warm lamp behind. 1920×1280 JPEG · 249 KB Download
  • MAKERphone 2.0 held out at arm's length, screen towards the lens
    MAKERphone 2.0 held out at arm's length, screen towards the lens. 1920×1280 JPEG · 249 KB Download
  • Both MAKERphone 2.0 variants held up side by side
    Both MAKERphone 2.0 variants held up side by side. 1920×1280 JPEG · 495 KB Download
  • Framing the MAKERphone 2.0 beside his face with an open hand
    Framing the MAKERphone 2.0 beside his face with an open hand. 1920×1280 JPEG · 393 KB Download
  • Presenting MAKERphone 2.0 beneath the CircuitMess logo in the Zagreb office
    Presenting MAKERphone 2.0 beneath the CircuitMess logo in the Zagreb office. 1920×1280 JPEG · 440 KB Download
  • Full-length, standing with MAKERphone 2.0 under the CircuitMess logo
    Full-length, standing with MAKERphone 2.0 under the CircuitMess logo. 853×1280 JPEG · 207 KB Download
  • MAKERphone 2.0 balanced on an open palm
    MAKERphone 2.0 balanced on an open palm. 1920×1280 JPEG · 404 KB Download
  • Half-length with MAKERphone 2.0 raised, screen showing the dialler
    Half-length with MAKERphone 2.0 raised, screen showing the dialler. 1920×1280 JPEG · 252 KB Download
  • Standing in the CircuitMess workshop in a checked shirt, the laser cutter behind him and the company logo on the wall
    Standing in the CircuitMess workshop in a checked shirt, the laser cutter behind him and the company logo on the wall. 2600×1734 JPEG · 526 KB Download
  • At the bench in a checked shirt under a desk lamp, hands on a part, workshop clutter and pinned notes filling the background
    At the bench in a checked shirt under a desk lamp, hands on a part, workshop clutter and pinned notes filling the background. 1619×1080 JPEG · 284 KB Download
  • Holding a handheld console up beside the CES lettering on a Las Vegas convention wall
    Holding a handheld console up beside the CES lettering on a Las Vegas convention wall. 2600×1733 JPEG · 563 KB Download
  • Head-and-shoulders in a red tee, turned to camera in the old workshop with shelving and boards out of focus behind
    Head-and-shoulders in a red tee, turned to camera in the old workshop with shelving and boards out of focus behind. 2600×1733 JPEG · 521 KB Download
  • Candid at a desk, sticker-covered laptop open, lifting a bare board towards the light
    Candid at a desk, sticker-covered laptop open, lifting a bare board towards the light. 2600×1733 JPEG · 566 KB Download
  • Behind the stand at CES, demonstrating a console to visitors across a table of kits
    Behind the stand at CES, demonstrating a console to visitors across a table of kits. 2600×1733 JPEG · 780 KB Download
  • Plain seated portrait in a red tee against an office wall — flat light, no props
    Plain seated portrait in a red tee against an office wall — flat light, no props. 870×655 JPEG · 45 KB Download
  • On stage with a hand mic and a lanyard, a child's face filling the screen behind him
    On stage with a hand mic and a lanyard, a child's face filling the screen behind him. 1440×1440 JPEG · 381 KB Download

Credit the photographer

Commissioned and event photography. Free to publish, but the credit line under each frame is not optional — it is embedded in the file as well.

  • Alone on the TEDxZagreb stage, full body and arms mid-gesture, the wordmark lit across the LED wall behind him
    Alone on the TEDxZagreb stage, full body and arms mid-gesture, the wordmark lit across the LED wall behind him. Photo: Ratko Mavar 2600×1733 JPEG · 543 KB Download
  • Soldering in an orange tee, tool in hand, leaning into a board on a green mat
    Soldering in an orange tee, tool in hand, leaning into a board on a green mat. Photo: KAFOTKA / Dinko Neskušil 1733×2600 JPEG · 824 KB Download
  • Wide of the same bench session: laptop, desk lamps and a row of finished consoles laid out in front of him
    Wide of the same bench session: laptop, desk lamps and a row of finished consoles laid out in front of him. Photo: KAFOTKA / Dinko Neskušil 2600×1733 JPEG · 922 KB Download
  • At the workshop desk in an orange tee, laptop open and half a dozen handheld consoles lined up under a lamp
    At the workshop desk in an orange tee, laptop open and half a dozen handheld consoles lined up under a lamp. Photo: KAFOTKA / Dinko Neskušil 2600×1733 JPEG · 819 KB Download
  • Waist-up portrait in a red MAKERbuino tee, the old workshop soft behind him
    Waist-up portrait in a red MAKERbuino tee, the old workshop soft behind him. Photo: Izvan fokusa 2600×1733 JPEG · 469 KB Download
  • In a green tee, fanning out a spread of coloured console faceplates like a hand of cards, components scattered on the desk
    In a green tee, fanning out a spread of coloured console faceplates like a hand of cards, components scattered on the desk. Photo: Izvan fokusa 2600×1733 JPEG · 508 KB Download
  • At an evening awards reception, holding a framed certificate beside two other men
    At an evening awards reception, holding a framed certificate beside two other men. Photo: Petar Krajačić Vilović 2600×1733 JPEG · 628 KB Download
  • At a desk in front of a CIRCUITMESS BATMOBILE banner, laptop open and the model car parked on the desk
    At a desk in front of a CIRCUITMESS BATMOBILE banner, laptop open and the model car parked on the desk. Photo: Tina Kadoić 2600×1733 JPEG · 459 KB Download

09 Questions

The short answers.

Who is Albert Gajšak?

Albert Gajšak is a Croatian inventor and entrepreneur, the co-founder and CEO of CircuitMess. He registered the company in April 2017 at the age of 18, in Zagreb, Croatia. CircuitMess designs and manufactures build-it-yourself STEM electronics kits, and has shipped more than 300,000 devices worldwide since 2017.

What is CircuitMess?

CircuitMess is a Croatian-American company based in the USA and Croatia that designs and manufactures build-it-yourself STEM kits — game consoles, smartwatches, robot cars, synthesisers and encrypted radios. Nothing arrives finished: you assemble the device, then you code it. One product line is for children from age 7, the other for teenagers and adults.

What does CircuitMess make?

CircuitMess kits include the MAKERphone 2.0 buildable mobile phone, the NASA Artemis Watch 2.0, the NASA Perseverance Rover, a buildable Rimac Nevera made with Rimac Automobili, and the Chatter 2.0, Wheelson 2.0, ByteBoi 2.0, Jay-D 2.0, Synthia 2.0, Clockstar 2.0, Bit 2.0 and Codee 2.0 kits.

How many devices has CircuitMess shipped?

More than 300,000 devices have shipped to builders around the world since 2017.

What awards has Albert Gajšak won?

Maker of Merit at Maker Faire Rome (2016), as Croatia's representative for MAKERbuino; Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Central Europe in 2021 (24th, 203% growth) and 2022 (40th, 790% growth); European Young Innovators finalist at the World Summit Awards (2021); and the Powerfully Playful Award at Toy Fair New York (2023).

Where is Albert Gajšak based, and how can he be contacted?

He is based in Zagreb, Croatia. For interviews, speaking invitations or press enquiries he can be reached at albert@albertgajsak.com.

10 Contact

Get in touch.

Partnerships, licensing, press, schools, speaking — or just to tell me what you built. Email is best. Journalists: the press kit has photographs at publication resolution.

albert@albertgajsak.com

Me

CircuitMess