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You can't build a business if you need 10-15 half baked assumptions/bets all to be true for it to succeed. Robotics startups need to internalize an attitude tha

You can't build a business if you need 10-15 half baked assumptions/bets all to be true for it to succeed. Robotics startups need to internalize an attitude that consumer robotics will never be a thing. Of course they will, but the comparative ease of targeting industrial applications makes consumer robotics such a challenging path forward for a startup to take.

PhasmaFelis 7y ago
I'm uncertain how much these things count as "robotics." From what I can tell, Jibo is only a robot in the same sense a Transformer toy is; conceptually it's just an Alexa with a couple of swivel joints. Mekamon looked like it had some impressively agile movements, so there was actual robotics there, but I don't think it did anything with them that you couldn't have done with an R/C truck or tank.
- HALtheWise 7y ago
  Notably, Jibo started before the Amazon Echo was announced, and their core bet that home voice assistants would be popular actually ended up being true. Unfortunately for them, they took so long to get to market and arrived at such a high price point that they still lost.
taneq 7y ago
Also if your toy robot costs $300, your market isn't kids, it's geek parents who are well off enough to buy a toy robot. At which point you're better off charging Aibo prices because your sales volumes are going to be tiny. Anki recently learned the same lesson. People might pay $300 for a game console but they won't pay it for a single game. Even if your toy robot has half a dozen modes, it still only plays one game: 'toy robot'.
fpvracing 7y ago
People are buying consumer robots. We just call them drones.
- rubidium 7y ago
  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-30/drone-bubble-bursts-wiping-out-startups-and-hammering-vc-firms https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-30/drone-bub...
  - fpvracing 7y ago
    Yes, I've seen that article and I'm familiar with this industry. Are you suggesting that people aren't buying drones? They are. They're just buying them (mostly) from one company, DJI, that in 2017, had revenue of over 2.8 billion dollars. To suggest that consumer robotics is not a thing because DJI has dominated the market is akin to suggesting that operating systems weren't a thing in the 90s.
- nosianu 7y ago
  I would think that vacuum cleaners are the prime example for household robots at this time? As an IT guy who nevertheless has zero desire to buy anything "geeky" for myself, still prefers analog dials and controls, still doesn't own a smartphone, those also are the only ones I could find a use for in my own home (but at this time I still vacuum manually). People with a lawn might be interested in robot lawn mowers, I don't know if they work as well as the vacuum robots (I imagine there might be a power issue) but if they do that too sounds like a good use. Same for swimming pool cleaners. What I would really pay a lot for: Small hunter-killer robots to hunt insects in my home! A bunch of small robots equipped with night-vision and some tiny weapon(s), mechanical and/or laser, crawling around catching bugs. Sure, spiders do that too - but I really, really don't want to live with (actual) spiders. It's psychological. A few well-armed mechanical spiders for bug hunting would be nice. I had bed bugs once, if I had had small insect hunter-killer robots well-equipped with sensors to see them crawl to me at night it would have been a godsend. Anyone producing something like that that actually works, you'll make billions! And it really doesn't have to be all that intelligent: Think about it, mosquitoes, bed bugs, they really don't have much of a brain, and how well they work. It should be doable to build robots that can compete with that low level of intelligence.
  - 7y ago

PhasmaFelis 7y ago

I'm uncertain how much these things count as "robotics." From what I can tell, Jibo is only a robot in the same sense a Transformer toy is; conceptually it's just an Alexa with a couple of swivel joints. Mekamon looked like it had some impressively agile movements, so there was actual robotics there, but I don't think it did anything with them that you couldn't have done with an R/C truck or tank.

HALtheWise 7y ago
Notably, Jibo started before the Amazon Echo was announced, and their core bet that home voice assistants would be popular actually ended up being true. Unfortunately for them, they took so long to get to market and arrived at such a high price point that they still lost.

taneq 7y ago

Also if your toy robot costs $300, your market isn't kids, it's geek parents who are well off enough to buy a toy robot. At which point you're better off charging Aibo prices because your sales volumes are going to be tiny. Anki recently learned the same lesson. People might pay $300 for a game console but they won't pay it for a single game. Even if your toy robot has half a dozen modes, it still only plays one game: 'toy robot'.

fpvracing 7y ago

People are buying consumer robots. We just call them drones.

rubidium 7y ago
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-30/drone-bubble-bursts-wiping-out-startups-and-hammering-vc-firms https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-30/drone-bub...
- fpvracing 7y ago
  Yes, I've seen that article and I'm familiar with this industry. Are you suggesting that people aren't buying drones? They are. They're just buying them (mostly) from one company, DJI, that in 2017, had revenue of over 2.8 billion dollars. To suggest that consumer robotics is not a thing because DJI has dominated the market is akin to suggesting that operating systems weren't a thing in the 90s.
nosianu 7y ago
I would think that vacuum cleaners are the prime example for household robots at this time? As an IT guy who nevertheless has zero desire to buy anything "geeky" for myself, still prefers analog dials and controls, still doesn't own a smartphone, those also are the only ones I could find a use for in my own home (but at this time I still vacuum manually). People with a lawn might be interested in robot lawn mowers, I don't know if they work as well as the vacuum robots (I imagine there might be a power issue) but if they do that too sounds like a good use. Same for swimming pool cleaners. What I would really pay a lot for: Small hunter-killer robots to hunt insects in my home! A bunch of small robots equipped with night-vision and some tiny weapon(s), mechanical and/or laser, crawling around catching bugs. Sure, spiders do that too - but I really, really don't want to live with (actual) spiders. It's psychological. A few well-armed mechanical spiders for bug hunting would be nice. I had bed bugs once, if I had had small insect hunter-killer robots well-equipped with sensors to see them crawl to me at night it would have been a godsend. Anyone producing something like that that actually works, you'll make billions! And it really doesn't have to be all that intelligent: Think about it, mosquitoes, bed bugs, they really don't have much of a brain, and how well they work. It should be doable to build robots that can compete with that low level of intelligence.
- 7y ago