A desk, a musical instrument in the shape of a dinosaur, and a lamp.
Max Liechty, a BYU mechanical engineering alum, started creating toys for his son, Milo, during his masters at the University of Pennsylvania. At the end of January 2026, as co-founder and CTO of Chompshop, he and his team produced their 100,000th ChompSaw, a powertool for creation made safe for kids.
Max and his wife, Shannon, had eliminated entrepreneurship as an option for their future. Max planned to use his love for math, physics, and hands-on design in a stable, long term position for an airplane, car, or robotics company. Bonus points if he got to travel like he’d seen his dad, a design engineer, do growing up.
Instead, he and his co-founder, Kausi Raman, help kids innovate safely by using a cardboard-cutting saw to create their own inventions.
“Now, it's come full circle,” Max said. “I travel a lot now as a business owner, and that's for a very different reason.”
The idea was born while Max worked at the University of Pennsylvania Makerspace and pursued his masters of Mechanical Engineering and Integrated Product design. In between helping students complete projects, he made things for his 2-year-old son.
Myles Christensen, BYU mechanical engineering professor, says that kind of spontaneous creativity is evermore accessible with modern technology.
“There are more tools today to try out ideas than there ever have been, between 3D printing and CAD software availability. If you have an idea, try it,” Christensen said.
While Max’s interest in designing toys grew, he met a toy inventor and discovered that it wasn’t the most lucrative field.
“That was my impression of the toy industry,” Max said. “So, I didn't have a goal to go into it as much as I just liked it as a side hobby and making these one-off—some might say bespoke—toys for my kid.”
Raman, one of his fellow classmates, noticed his hobby while she worked on a project about prototyping with cardboard, an abundant and recyclable resource in homes because of online shopping and delivery orders.
Together, they decided to turn it into something real: a business that would raise $1.1 million on Kickstarter, allowing Max and Raman to travel to China and see factory manufacturing themselves and then seal a deal on Shark Tank in 2024, only two years after their partnership began. Their company has received countless recognitions, most recently winning Creative Toy of the Year at The Toy Foundation TOTY Awards.
Christensen connects their design and drive to create with positive impact.
“They're making a product that helps them design products, which I think is really cool,” Christensen said. “If they're interested in design, that's the opportunity the students have: to influence the world around them.”
Milo, Max’s now four-year-old son, says that seeing his dad on Shark Tank was “funny.”
Their deal with sharks Mark and Lori—$250,000 for a 15% stake in their company—created the “perfect storm,” Max said. After their Shark Tank episode aired, Chompshop inventory hit warehouses, and Black Friday and holiday shopping ensued, leading to an explosion of sales.
“It was a huge boost,” Max said. “It got us onto this trajectory where we have just been growing from.”
Through all of this, Shannon says that Max is a really great dad, and his business opens up a lot of flexibility for their family.
“It doesn't ever feel like our family is taking a back burner with this kind of huge undertaking of starting a business, but it feels like we've been able to be a part of that journey,” Shannon said.
Milo’s favorite thing to do with his dad is play with him. Milo proudly shares his drawings, similar to the ones he does with his dad. Milo, Shannon, and even two-year-old Robin, use the ChompSaw to create together, cutting out Christmas star decorations and following the inventors workbook, making their daydreams and ideas become reality.
The ChompSaw opens opportunities for young engineers like Milo to apply their ideas to hands-on learning, meeting the needs of those imaginative kids and their STEM teachers that encourage them. That’s what innovation is about to Max and Kausi.
“We're giving kids a foundation to build off of, grow, and become the next generation of engineers, problem solvers, and great thinkers in a way that just was such a hidden issue. There's no problem too small,” Max said. “And hopefully we're making good impacts here.”
Their desire to provide real solutions to real needs is clear to Shannon as she watches Max and Raman work.
"They wanted to solve that kind of missing link between kids, like coming up with an idea, and then actually being able to create and make something,” Shannon said. “It's just been really cool to see how much they've really worked with kids throughout the process to figure out what works and what's successful.”
Max and Shannon also both work as teachers, teaching a class at the University of Pennsylvania and St. Joseph’s University respectively. Both teaching and starting a business were right place, right time opportunities for them.
“I don't know what prompted me to do that, to go completely 180 on everything that I previously believed about my career future,” Max said. “If you find this thing that gives you meaning, even if it is taking your life in a totally different direction, I would just say don't hesitate to try it or do it.”
