Lean Robot Startup Workshop
by Andra
… with Patrick Vlaskovits and Brant Cooper, authors of “The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development”, forthcoming “The Lean Entrepreneur” and Lean Startup Machine advisors.
Category: Entrepreneurs
Robot Launchpad Grand Challenge 2012
by andra
It’s our turn for a Grand Challenge! The prize will be a successful million dollar business. The catch is you build it yourself. The rules? Well, you don’t need to be a robot scientist to do it. You just need to build a robot business! Take an existing robot platform – EITHER an autonomous mobile …
Why Robot Startups Now? part 2
by Andra
2. Broader Financial Climate A positive indicator for robotics startups is the improving financial climate. There are signs that the US housing market is stabilizing. Fannie Mae, the government backed mortgage company, has posted a profit for the first time since 2007 without needing a government bailout. The decline in home prices is slowing, …
Why Robot Startups Now?
by Andra
Now is the right time for robot startups. Why? The reasons range from changes within robotics to changes in the broader financial and technological environment. There is a critical mass which we believe has been reached. This list attempts to capture the zeitgeist and define all the reasons why we’ve hit the tipping point. I …
Robots are good but roboticists are better!
by Andra
MEGA Startup Weekend proved that you can mix startups and robots together and build new robot businesses. Now we need to work out how to repeat the success. It’s clear now that having real robot platforms is very inspiring. So is providing soldering irons, arduinos, and other materials like moldable plastics. But most of the …
Continue reading “Robots are good but roboticists are better!”
MEGA Startup Weekend – pix & stories
by Andra
I’m collecting links to videos, pix, stories from MEGA Startup Weekend – with Robots. The MEGA site has some great postscripts by Claire Lee of the Microsoft BizSpark team and Kelly Byrd, the talkTECH PR & Social Media Director. All the pitches and Q&As are on the Robot Launch Pad youtube channel, thanks to Michael Harries. …
Global Cloud Robotics Hackathon Info
by Andra
Dear Robotic Hacker, We thank you for registering for the first Cloud Robotics Hackathon, being held on March 2nd to March 4th 2012 at multiple locations worldwide. Please read the following e-mail carefully. Participants You must bring: Laptop (or desktop if you want to kick it old school) with WiFi access and (ideally) Bluetooth. Don’t forget your charger! Smartphone (if you …
Turning Robots into Products
by Andra
For up to date information about the business of robotics you can’t go past the Robots Podcast from EPFL Switzerland. Every 2 weeks, Robots will take you for a ride through the world’s research labs, robotics companies and their latest innovations. In Robots Podcast episode #93, Sabine interviews Erin Rapacki, who previously worked at DEKA, iRobot, and Anybots, and …
Lean Startup Methodology For Robotics
by Andra
The NY Times recently connected lean startup methodology with robotics in a great article by Steve Lohr, Dec 5 2011. One example was Stanford engineering graduate Lee Redden’s Blue River Technology, a Sunnyvale robotics company developing a robotic weed killer for organic farms. While Redden’s startup might develop new hardware, these days a lot of the hardware …