Here is my naïve journey into the world of starting a small robotics company. Halfway through my superb… undergraduate education, I made a couple of observations, which lead to this project.
- the dots are valuable but how they connect… Invaluable.
- the dots can be casually taught, the connections can not
Without going into a wondering discussion on dots and connections, I decided to start a company to understand the way all the pieces (dots) of a company fit together (connections). The time and funding for this endeavor was made by not attending / paying for a semester of college.
During this time I developed a robot kit, which was manufactured out of house and eventually sold through an online interface. Although I sold a couple of robots, the company was a financial failure and was left with supply chain issues, market misalignment and technical challenges to name a few. The real gain however was in human capital and a new lens to see the world through. How do you value the understanding of product development, marketing and manufacturing? The sum of these factors made the experience well worth the investment of time and money in exchange for both dots and connections.
RyBOTS from ryan wistort on Vimeo.
- the dots are valuable but how they connect… Invaluable.
- the dots can be casually taught, the connections can not
Without going into a wondering discussion on dots and connections, I decided to start a company to understand the way all the pieces (dots) of a company fit together (connections). The time and funding for this endeavor was made by not attending / paying for a semester of college.
During this time I developed a robot kit, which was manufactured out of house and eventually sold through an online interface. Although I sold a couple of robots, the company was a financial failure and was left with supply chain issues, market misalignment and technical challenges to name a few. The real gain however was in human capital and a new lens to see the world through. How do you value the understanding of product development, marketing and manufacturing? The sum of these factors made the experience well worth the investment of time and money in exchange for both dots and connections.
RyBOTS from ryan wistort on Vimeo.