Beltdraulic Power: Hiten Sonpal’s Trillion-Dollar Bet on Heavy Machinery

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[SPEAKER_01]: Technology, robotics, all in this podcast today, I have a very special guest today that I'm honored he took time out of his busy schedule to see you at Rise Robotics in Massachusetts, hitting saltful.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you very much, folks.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Rochette, for having me on your podcast.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's an absolute honor and pleasure, and I could not even imagine based upon the technologies that you've had a chance to have under your belt, that you would take time out of your schedule.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You have a large robotics and electronic background.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I would love for you to be able to explain for the purpose of this show and what rise robotics and your current role does.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I'm the CEO of Rise Robotics.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I was brought on board by the founding team.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Most of whom went to MIT to help commercialize their technology.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Before I joined, the company had been predominantly running on government contracts.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And that can take us so far.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But then the board and the founders wanted to start seeing this technology commercialize

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[SPEAKER_01]: Our core technology is something we call belt drawlex.

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[SPEAKER_00]: What we've done is we've taken the oil out of hydraulic systems and we replaced them with belts and pull-ins.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of like human muscles.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So think about how we move our muscles.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Even when we're pushing, we're pulling.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And because the internal motion is a pulling motion, it's very fast, it's very efficient, and it's very durable.

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[SPEAKER_00]: muscles last a very long time we acquire very little food to do the work that we're able to do if I were to take those muscles out and replace them with a bladder so that I have to if I wanted to move or open my elbow I'd have to put blood into my bicep and if I wanted to close my elbow I had to put blood into my tricep imagine how slow it would be imagine how inefficient it would be

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[SPEAKER_00]: You can imagine how quickly would fail because of all the pressure being put on all the walls.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what I call exist, right?

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[SPEAKER_00]: You're trying to make things move by pushing liquid.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And eventually, you're going to have leaks.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's always going to be inefficient.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's always going to be slow.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So by mimicking human muscles, this team from MIT came up with this new technology that allows some of his heavy machines to now faster, be more efficient, to last longer.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You know what's crazy about when I was starting to research this technology, you know, it was, I always find it great when there are solutions in current processes that are taking place right now because the industry norm was just to use that particular set of technology get the innovative team and then they brought you a board saw something that was flawed and tied that entire process.

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[SPEAKER_01]: There's breakdown times.

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[SPEAKER_01]: There's oil leakage.

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[SPEAKER_01]: There's spills.

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[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of downtime that can take place.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I saw the video, for instance, when they showed the drivers that were using it for the docked site system.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, the lift gate.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And it was wonderful to watch that.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And they said, hey, man, this is moving faster for me.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, that's that's correct.

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[SPEAKER_00]: When we talk to our customers about the value we bring to them, we talk about speed and productivity, because the more you can get done with the same number of people,

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[SPEAKER_00]: the better off of businesses, right?

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[SPEAKER_00]: We're talking them about efficiency, not necessarily from a climate perspective, though although that gets a lot of the employees you're excited that we're doing, you know, we're a clean tech company, we're making the climate and the earth the better place.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But to our customers, we talk about efficiency from an operating expense perspective, which is you have to spend less on fuel.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And then we talk about leaks as a...

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[SPEAKER_00]: down time issue, right?

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[SPEAKER_00]: So when you have hydraulic failure, you have to clean up it costs you money and takes time to get equipment back in operation again.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So those are all the things that we are able to successfully avoid with this technology.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You know what else was was amazing was that so at the beginning of the company stages it's working on, you know, government contracts.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm not revealing anything, you know, proprietary.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But that obviously can be a time-consuming process in limiting scope.

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[SPEAKER_01]: When you come on board with your commercial background that you have, what

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[SPEAKER_01]: What was that like when you saw other avenues in the reception of some industries that are very entrenched with their current systems in place?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so, I mean, large companies are generally operationally very efficient, right?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Because that's how they get to scale.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And so they generally don't want to make changes to something that's running well, right?

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's only unless they have a pain point that they're willing to change.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And so when I joined Rise, one of the things I saw is that we were talking to a lot of larger players and the process of closing sales or the process of getting a deal that took very long.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And so what I did was I pivoted to industries where there are problems where the system is only 24-7, whether utilization is high.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So every incremental improvement we provide to them is multiplied and.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I also changed the size of companies we're looking at because every startup should really be looking at mid market companies.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The big companies have money, big customers have money, but they both slowly.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The startups can run out of money while your big customer is trying to decide.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And then you've got small customers who are willing to move very quickly, but they typically don't have money.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So you want to find those mid market customers that are willing to pay for your service, that have a pain point, and I specifically chose industries like manufacturing and industrial sector.

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[SPEAKER_00]: where they were running the systems 24-7.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Gotcha.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I thought was also a great use of your guys' technology.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It was the 24-hour visibility of your team that has of the usage and the potential maintenance needed of these lift gates in real time.

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[SPEAKER_01]: When you guys showed the video of, this is we have an opportunity to actually look at each machine operating.

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[SPEAKER_01]: That's something that's very innovative as opposed to a driver kind of being out on their own, so to speak, having a lift gate failure with an hydraulic system current.

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[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And that's part of the next generation when people talk about industry 4.0.

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[SPEAKER_00]: They talk about getting data from the machines and making that visible to someone that's managing the fleet.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So you can have a macro perspective on the systems and you can figure out, hey, this one particular route I'm constantly having failures was going on or this particular set of machines always fails at on the bucket of excavators because our operators clearly are trained.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And so,

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[SPEAKER_00]: Just getting all of that data allows these large companies to improve their operations.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So data is definitely the next big thing.

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[SPEAKER_00]: People talk about data from a software perspective and having data warehouses and mining the data for information.

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[SPEAKER_01]: That's showing up in heavy machinery as well.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's amazing and sometimes people don't really think about the machine that's actually operating as opposed to a software that gives you a prompt to step up when in reality you have a very large qualified member team members and that's a great self point to a customer that you're not on your own just because you purchase our technology because it is new and it's something that their team has to get used to and have that support system available is tantamount towards closing the next available customer

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[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And so just tying into that, right?

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[SPEAKER_00]: You have a new customer deal coming in.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's sometimes you might not have the people trained up.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So you have a process of hiring people and then training them and being able to respond to this new customer deal.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Whereas if you have machines that are intelligent, right?

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[SPEAKER_00]: You can have folks that aren't necessarily trained in all aspects of data collection or maintenance where the machine can tell you, proactively here, it's time for me to be maintained.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You need to serve me.

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[SPEAKER_00]: or here's all the data we found and here's some anomalies that you need to look at, whereas previously you might have to train the operator to get that kind of experience.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Now, do you, and this is where I'm going to, I'm where I'm curious more about your technology, does it get retrofitted onto their current fleet or do they have to buy a new separate fleet altogether?

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[SPEAKER_00]: That's a great question.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So it depends on the machine that we're going into.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So for our oil and gas customers, for example, the

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[SPEAKER_00]: We're working on these these natural gas pumps and making them more reliable than the hydraulic ones.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And what we found there is the cylinders completely exposed.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So it doesn't really matter to our customer how big our cylinder is or how tall it is.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The retro fit is very, very easy.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We think about something like construction equipment.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The cylinders are exposed on three sides primarily for maintenance, which means that our cylinders with just slightly bigger will require

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[SPEAKER_00]: different mounting points.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So you may have to re-welled the tabs on the machines to get the cylinders installed.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But it's a minor modification to the system.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And then we might have systems like our liftgate where the cylinders buried and there are actually three walls surrounding the cylinder.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So we've had to make some modifications, the full liftgate design.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But the final hydraulic free liftgate that we built is retrofitable at the system level.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It on trucks that are using standard liftgate.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's amazing.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Do you find yourself when you're trying to actually integrate a new customer?

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[SPEAKER_01]: What's the onboarding process that's actually taking place in looking at in that in that current size and scope?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so we spend a fair amount of time while if I are customers.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We don't want customers that are too large.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We don't want customers that are too small.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We don't want customers that are too far away that we can't support.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Based on Boston, we can cover

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[SPEAKER_00]: pretty much all of the United States, most of Europe, we are necessarily taking customers in South America or Asia because of the, you know, so after that qualification process, we typically work with the customer to make sure that they have a specific pain point that's bothering them, but they need to fix them now.

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[SPEAKER_00]: They're willing to move down.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And then our process of discovery usually is trying to figure out, okay, what is your pain point?

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[SPEAKER_00]: How do we get you a sample

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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's funny you mentioned about samples.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So how does that work for those customers that don't just come right into some of your Massachusetts, how does the demo, the prototype, do you deploy a team to them when they ask for a demo?

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[SPEAKER_01]: Without given too much away, it's kind of a broad scope of how they actually would utilize that.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm happy to share this, because we want potential customers that are listening to your podcast to understand how we work.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so we usually sell them a sample cylinder and the controls module.

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[SPEAKER_00]: That's what my customization will do that.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, custom, select the cylinder, the attachment points.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, what we don't customize is, you know, if they want a larger diameter or something like that that's very invasive, but we'll make simple changes and we'll give our customers a sample to evaluate so they can get confidence.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So for example, with their own in gas customer, they want to make sure that the reliability there.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So they'll be evaluating the speed because they needed to deliver certain amount of performance.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And they want to make sure that it's reliable.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So they'll test it over three months.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to give them something that may not be exactly as large as they want.

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[SPEAKER_00]: exactly the force that they want, but we'll make sure that we check all the other boxes.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We'll work with them to develop the specific thing that's large for their needs.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We have another customer that's looking at putting these into construction machines.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And so there, the construction machines will have different cylinders or different sizes.

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[SPEAKER_00]: They have a task plan where they know how they want to evaluate, they want to see the speed, the force, and they want to see the stroke length of the particular.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So we'll give them a unit that has the speed, the force length, the stroke length, and the forces.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And then after that, we'll circle back and say, okay, what are the sizes you want this to get?

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[SPEAKER_00]: We'll build those for you.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, and so I have a voice curious, what's been the pushback from the entroge players that insist that their technology like has it been some pushback from traditional hydraulic systems and have you been the disruptor that sometimes we hear about in businesses where they're like how do they protect their business model and what's been the pushback or the reception in the industry so it should be going into.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we used to work with the animation, larger companies, but we also used to work with customers that had a hydraulic business.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And what we found out is that those customers have antibodies on the inside.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So even a partnership is difficult because the executive team made a side.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, we want to partner with the rise, but inside the organization, there are people who are spent their careers and hydraulics being successful.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And then, of course, they're just upheld battles.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So we started to pivot away and work with companies that are all trying to do what we're trying to do, so that there's a partnership.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Our second customer is in the hydrologx replacement business, they build actuators that are very similar to ours and so we partnered with them.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We have actuators that all have longer stroke length, that all have higher forces, that all have higher speed than what they make, so it's very complementary.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's working really well.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And they have a base on customers.

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[SPEAKER_00]: that are asking them for more capability than they can provide.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So that's how we've done that.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We've basically kind of worked our way around those folks that don't believe and gone straight to the folks that have a pain point.

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[SPEAKER_00]: One of the other things we've found out is that folks that are used to working with hydraulic systems have over decades accepted the tradeoffs because they don't know any better.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Right, but anyone that's trying to build a new machine, the first time they tried to build a hydraulic system they're like, whoa, I don't want to deal with this oil.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to deal with this leaks.

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[SPEAKER_00]: What's happening now?

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[SPEAKER_00]: The whole first, you know, how can we get the system operational.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So anyone that's working on a new machine often finds out that hydraulics is not what they want and they look for something else.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And we're getting a lot of calls from companies.

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[SPEAKER_00]: that are going to have this new machine that's doing this new thing and I've had it with the hydraulic system and I don't want to learn about it and can you just give me something.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We have a company that is in our sales pipeline.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We haven't closed the deal with them yet, but they worked on a product that requires them to send their installation team remotely.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And when they send their installation to your model, it takes them a full day to set up the hydraulic system.

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[SPEAKER_00]: No, they have to balance multiple cylinders and make sure that they're all working synchronously.

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[SPEAKER_00]: These cylinders are large, they have to get silver with hydraulic oil.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The holes is, I mean, they have to be connected and they all have to be hidden and so on.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And when they heard about our system, they're like, wait, can you do coordinator control?

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[SPEAKER_00]: I said it's available out of the box.

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[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to put in two, four, 10 cylinders that all operate at the same level, we can do that.

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[SPEAKER_00]: No problem, because it's all survived by wire.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So they're like, oh, well, and then they said, you know, how, you know, how do we hook up the system?

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[SPEAKER_00]: And it's very simple.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's all one wire that provides controls to the cylinder.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You provide another wire that provides power to the cylinder.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And you're done.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And they're like, oh my goodness, you're going to cut a day off our installation time.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And we're going, and it takes them typically three days to install their product.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So they're going to be able to increase their revenue 33%.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's a mechanism with existing team, because they can't hire more people.

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[SPEAKER_00]: They're hiring experienced installers for them has been very, very challenging.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So I find that even existing machines where

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[SPEAKER_00]: set up requires a lot of labor, folks are like, hey, you know, if it's done remotely, they're like, hey, we want to get rid of high dollars.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if it's being done in a factory where they've been doing it for 10 years, they've absorbed all of the pain, they figured out how to deal with all the issues.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But new machines, remote sites, you know, there's our niche markets that we can get into.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We've also found there are other places that absolutely don't want high quality products.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, one of them fails, your catch is gone.

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[SPEAKER_00]: 300,000 to a million dollars just turned into trash, right?

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[SPEAKER_00]: And so those are pain points.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yats where folks don't want hydraulic oil when they go to a beautiful island and they want to go diving into corals, right?

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[SPEAKER_00]: You don't want a vehicle hydraulic oil that they have to jump through.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So there are several markets where people are like, hey, I just want to get rid of this.

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[SPEAKER_00]: can you deliver something more?

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[SPEAKER_00]: So we found that just targeting the right customers has made the whole sales process a lot.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And see, sometimes when you're only thinking of a certain industry, you don't realize how applicable it is across multiple different industries for people who have different pain points.

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[SPEAKER_01]: The need is the same, but the industry can be very different, right?

14:54.273 --> 14:58.957
[SPEAKER_01]: So you know, if you're trying to do deliveries, you have downtime, if you're trying to have your leisure time, you don't want

14:59.417 --> 15:01.938
[SPEAKER_01]: dirt and oil, ruining a good evening or a good weekend.

15:02.038 --> 15:10.239
[SPEAKER_01]: And those are the type that's why they brought you on to expand what that actual system can because hydraulic systems and polis have been around for centuries, right?

15:10.259 --> 15:10.499
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

15:11.099 --> 15:11.519
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

15:12.360 --> 15:12.560
[SPEAKER_00]: What?

15:12.880 --> 15:13.380
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it is.

15:13.700 --> 15:18.861
[SPEAKER_00]: At your point, to your point, like, you know, when I first joined the company, we were very focused on construction.

15:19.121 --> 15:21.481
[SPEAKER_00]: And there are good reasons to focus on construction.

15:21.541 --> 15:24.642
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a big market, but the construction industry is also

15:29.723 --> 15:34.028
[SPEAKER_00]: So to convince them, we can get success elsewhere and then look at the construction market.

15:34.088 --> 15:42.157
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, in construction, there are big-boy toys, right, so the engineering team here, and myself, would love to have dump trucks and excavators that are literally right.

15:42.517 --> 15:48.904
[SPEAKER_00]: It would be a lot of fun, but what we found out is that there are these other customers and other markets that it's easier to penetrate.

15:49.404 --> 15:51.867
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm all about speed, because I'm, you know.

15:52.047 --> 15:52.767
[SPEAKER_01]: getting up there in age.

15:53.108 --> 16:04.013
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that, well, in all of that though, but you have to understand that what may be great companies that have enough CEOs that I've talked to, you can think ahead but still act very, very diligently with the markets that you're trying to deal with.

16:04.033 --> 16:17.939
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I imagine getting those type of pieces of equipment to give people a change of minds is going to take some time between contract and trench players, manufacturers, vendors, warranty systems that are all tied to those large companies that have those systems in place.

16:18.219 --> 16:19.320
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's not just a flick of a

16:19.580 --> 16:23.023
[SPEAKER_01]: you know to snap your fingers at all so that everybody's going to integrate and take that.

16:23.303 --> 16:27.447
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a lot of centuries that you'd have to penetrate heavy-duty instruction quick.

16:27.487 --> 16:28.728
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right, absolutely.

16:29.008 --> 16:33.532
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and everything that we're doing for these other sectors where customers have these pain points.

16:33.552 --> 16:37.156
[SPEAKER_00]: So they want to move and they want to partner with us very quickly and earnestly and eagerly.

16:37.996 --> 16:42.240
[SPEAKER_00]: All of those relationships are going to turn into proof points for whatever we want to do next time.

16:42.440 --> 16:45.323
[SPEAKER_00]: Our North Star of course is to tackle every hydraulic market.

16:45.523 --> 16:48.504
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, in kept a construction, but stepping stones, right?

16:48.524 --> 16:55.588
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't have to go to Mars, go to lower orbit, go to the moon, work our way up, and finally get to Mars, right?

16:56.548 --> 17:07.153
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you talked to earlier just briefly, you said about not going to certain markets based on, you know, market conditions, are there certain regulations or hurdles that you have to overcome based upon where you're going?

17:07.173 --> 17:10.395
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe not so much in the US, because that system may be pretty,

17:11.475 --> 17:22.040
[SPEAKER_01]: from my understanding, not too bad across state to state, but as you start going to international markets, coatings, regulations, language training, et cetera, what's that process like when you start going outside in North America?

17:22.080 --> 17:24.821
[SPEAKER_01]: That's good, because the question you're asking is the question about scale.

17:25.061 --> 17:26.442
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we scale this business, right?

17:26.602 --> 17:30.524
[SPEAKER_00]: And what we've decided to do is that we don't need to build everything ourselves.

17:30.924 --> 17:35.486
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, FCN Robotics Company is trying to build a manufacturing facility and go out of business, right?

17:35.506 --> 17:40.008
[SPEAKER_00]: They should have been focusing on sales and the tech, because there are plenty of companies that can do manufacturing.

17:40.148 --> 17:44.130
[SPEAKER_00]: I've seen companies that try to build a sales team and it takes them a long time to grow the business.

17:44.290 --> 17:51.413
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what we're doing on both of those funds for manufacturing, for example, we intend to work with contract manufacturers and not do much back to ourselves.

17:51.833 --> 18:00.317
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe the first few minutes for the engineers to figure out what the paint points are but then transition out to folks who don't do it day in and day out, never team, it deal with peaks and valleys, right?

18:00.337 --> 18:02.338
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have to worry about hiring people and so on and so on.

18:03.059 --> 18:23.297
[SPEAKER_00]: on the flip side, on the other side rather, on sales too, for other markets like Europe, we're looking to partner with distributors, that know the local market, then can do the transactions for us, then can prepare the manuals, that understand the customer base, and understand those local paint points, understand the regulations that we have to pass, and so we're going to have to do the work, but they'll guide us through the process.

18:23.517 --> 18:23.677
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

18:23.757 --> 18:24.017
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

18:24.077 --> 18:26.379
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we want as opposed to, hey, we're going to figure this out, though.

18:26.559 --> 18:32.303
[SPEAKER_00]: We want to work with folks that will bring us a customer and then say to cells of this customer, here are the three boxes you need to check.

18:32.403 --> 18:32.723
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

18:32.823 --> 18:34.504
[SPEAKER_00]: We're only going to check those three boxes.

18:34.524 --> 18:35.945
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not going to check any more than that.

18:36.305 --> 18:36.585
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

18:36.726 --> 18:38.126
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we need to do to get that stuff.

18:38.227 --> 18:38.427
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

18:38.527 --> 18:39.447
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's very important.

18:39.467 --> 18:43.470
[SPEAKER_01]: I think too from, you know, from a cost of regulation standpoint to deal with people who are local.

18:43.850 --> 18:58.034
[SPEAKER_01]: it is particularly outside of North America that can guide you through those points because the technology is needed and wanted across a variety of industries, but it's going to be beneficial for you, your team and your projection of your company to take that into a very diligent process as well too.

18:58.154 --> 18:58.514
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.

18:58.534 --> 19:05.996
[SPEAKER_00]: And the thing with getting partners is that's how you take a business that's in hardware and get to a business that feels like a recurrent of a business, right?

19:06.036 --> 19:06.096
[SPEAKER_00]: So

19:10.497 --> 19:20.770
[SPEAKER_00]: there they go get 10 customers right so now I'm getting recurring because I planed only one customer when I don't have to land every subsequent customer because my partner is doing it for me and we're the most winning of this thing

19:21.405 --> 19:21.985
[SPEAKER_01]: with that question.

19:22.005 --> 19:31.272
[SPEAKER_01]: I think, you know, it's funny because at it's at it's core that's a very easy thing, but you know, implementation and tempting your own worst ambition because you work the various robotics companies.

19:31.553 --> 19:40.840
[SPEAKER_01]: You're seeing people who overexpanted, who overeach too quick, or got in the sectors of business that weren't, you know, beneficial to the company and taking that slow, diligent process is obviously for the better.

19:40.860 --> 19:41.260
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.

19:41.580 --> 19:43.641
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, getting it right, nailing it and then scale.

19:43.821 --> 19:45.102
[SPEAKER_01]: I do have to ask a question.

19:45.162 --> 19:45.942
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the difference?

19:46.002 --> 19:51.865
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, government moves at one different speed versus large corporations versus mid-sized customers that you guys have been working on.

19:52.045 --> 20:03.330
[SPEAKER_01]: When you started actually realizing that the speed of mid-sized customers that wanted to head to the funds to do so, what was the difference in moving through government regulations versus the mid-sized company that has at 100, 250 employees?

20:03.450 --> 20:05.731
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we'd like working with the government.

20:11.233 --> 20:12.635
[SPEAKER_00]: to build products.

20:13.015 --> 20:17.099
[SPEAKER_00]: The government also asked us to build things that are very interesting and help us attract talent.

20:17.119 --> 20:20.943
[SPEAKER_00]: So for example, for the Air Force, we're building a munitions loader.

20:21.284 --> 20:23.806
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a massive, absolutely massive.

20:23.826 --> 20:25.428
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're responsible for the full system.

20:25.648 --> 20:28.671
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's not just that we have to give them an actuator or a certain piece.

20:29.072 --> 20:33.637
[SPEAKER_00]: The first thing we built for them was the R. And this was a 60 degree freedom robotic arm that could lift

20:34.557 --> 20:48.769
[SPEAKER_00]: 7,000 pounds at a 7-foot extension right and when we were done the team stepped back and said we built the world's strongest robotic arm and they told me this when I joined the company and I said I don't believe it and they said no no look this is the arm that fanics built it can look 25,000 pounds

20:50.110 --> 20:57.133
[SPEAKER_00]: We can live 7,000 pounds, we meet the criteria, and I said, okay, let's go, let's talk to the Guinness World Record statement.

20:57.153 --> 21:00.974
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's see if they'll agree that we built the world's strongest robotic arm.

21:00.994 --> 21:01.494
[SPEAKER_00]: And they did.

21:02.135 --> 21:12.258
[SPEAKER_00]: We got a, we said a Guinness World Record that I have a plaque, you know, in our investors, our crowdfunding investors, they all got a plaque saying, hey, you helped build the world's strongest robotic arm.

21:12.278 --> 21:14.499
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's things like that that helped us attract him.

21:14.519 --> 21:16.500
[SPEAKER_00]: So we do like working for, for government.

21:16.640 --> 21:26.167
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, I like the fact that there are people who operate heavy machinery in the Air Force, in the Army, in the Navy, these folks have signed up to defend us with their lives.

21:26.367 --> 21:30.730
[SPEAKER_00]: They deserve quality equipment and we're in the quality equipment business.

21:30.910 --> 21:41.897
[SPEAKER_00]: We build things that are quieter, who hit our smoother, that don't emit diesel smoke that they have to inhale, that don't cause hydraulic oils that people slip on and avoid injuries.

21:41.937 --> 21:43.999
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to excited about that mission.

21:45.079 --> 21:54.544
[SPEAKER_00]: But from an investor perspective, right, that business is hard to scale, although there's a lot more investment interest now because the government is changing how they do procurement.

21:54.564 --> 21:57.265
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's starting to look more and more like commercial procurement.

21:57.566 --> 21:58.686
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll take some time to get there.

21:58.926 --> 22:00.087
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like we're positioned well.

22:00.883 --> 22:09.270
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the difference is that the working with mid-market businesses is that the number stakeholders that make a decision is a very small set.

22:09.350 --> 22:19.739
[SPEAKER_00]: So for the government, you've got to get the end user, you've got to get the contracting office and you've got to get the people with budgetary authority all aligned to make a decision.

22:19.799 --> 22:21.341
[SPEAKER_00]: And that process can take some time.

22:22.561 --> 22:26.123
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a good reason for that process, right, because you'll end up supporting this thing for 10 years.

22:26.143 --> 22:30.125
[SPEAKER_00]: So you want to make sure that you don't build something that is deployed today and absolutely tomorrow.

22:30.145 --> 22:31.005
[SPEAKER_00]: They want a question.

22:31.125 --> 22:31.305
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

22:31.905 --> 22:36.147
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and all of these regulations are in place to deliver a good value to the tax owner.

22:36.547 --> 22:37.648
[SPEAKER_00]: Then to the tax payer.

22:38.668 --> 22:41.289
[SPEAKER_00]: on the commercial site, it's like, hey, can you give me an ROI?

22:41.469 --> 22:43.570
[SPEAKER_00]: If you can give me an ROI at the decisions, right?

22:43.630 --> 22:45.590
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's the decision.

22:45.791 --> 22:48.171
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a difference that we've seen in decision-making process.

22:48.251 --> 22:48.391
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

22:48.511 --> 22:52.473
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I want to pivot just slightly and thank you for that explanation of which are employees.

22:52.513 --> 23:01.476
[SPEAKER_01]: They've seen very enthusiastic in the videos and I saw that you guys actually have for Fridays, you have a 12 week passion project, Friday, to think and actually give them set that they can pursue themselves.

23:01.516 --> 23:05.157
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you get into that a little bit because I think that's a wonderful opportunity for your current

23:05.697 --> 23:05.917
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

23:06.157 --> 23:08.898
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I started the business, we didn't have any commercial customers.

23:08.938 --> 23:15.020
[SPEAKER_00]: And we have a lot of, we had a lot of ideas for innovations that we could create that customers would value.

23:15.240 --> 23:22.223
[SPEAKER_00]: And so because the team had ideas and we wanted to encourage those ideas because we didn't know what would stick necessarily without commercial customers.

23:22.643 --> 23:24.203
[SPEAKER_00]: We started that process.

23:25.064 --> 23:27.585
[SPEAKER_00]: And we ran that for roughly a year.

23:27.765 --> 23:31.506
[SPEAKER_00]: And at the end of a year, we got to the point where we started to get customer

23:34.407 --> 23:47.478
[SPEAKER_00]: And once we start to get customer interest, we wound down that program because rather than being employee driven to try and find markets, we inflict the business now to customer pull drive the innovation.

23:47.738 --> 23:52.802
[SPEAKER_00]: So innovation is, when you think about innovation, you think about something new that someone's going to pay for.

23:53.043 --> 23:56.806
[SPEAKER_00]: So initially, the process was, hey, we've got all these things that we could do that are new.

23:56.866 --> 23:58.147
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe the customer will pay for them.

23:58.427 --> 24:00.748
[SPEAKER_00]: and so we ran those projects very helpful.

24:00.948 --> 24:04.329
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we got to the second part where the customer like, I want to pay for these things.

24:04.769 --> 24:06.449
[SPEAKER_00]: So now that's driving our priority.

24:06.749 --> 24:07.149
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.

24:07.169 --> 24:11.971
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're beyond the point where innovation projects make sense for the business.

24:12.131 --> 24:14.371
[SPEAKER_00]: Certainly we'll entertain any idea by any employee.

24:14.732 --> 24:16.192
[SPEAKER_00]: But now customers are sending a problem.

24:16.785 --> 24:18.106
[SPEAKER_01]: That's awesome, and it's awesome.

24:18.146 --> 24:22.408
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, what are we never really talked briefly just about what your background in robotics was?

24:22.428 --> 24:25.249
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I've seen you've been a CEO of other different companies as well, too.

24:25.689 --> 24:31.972
[SPEAKER_01]: Just for, you know, just briefly, can you discuss your experience in I-Robot, a Lester Sheep Robotics, and Mobilebot?

24:32.092 --> 24:42.837
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I had a wide variety of product development roles and teams that I led ship nine million units across 20 products and generated over two billion revenues.

24:44.038 --> 24:56.849
[SPEAKER_00]: And electric chief, I was a president in charge of R&D manufacturing and product and before that at MoBot, I was the Chief Strategy Officer and then the CEO.

24:56.909 --> 24:58.210
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a fantastic news.

24:58.230 --> 25:01.033
[SPEAKER_01]: So you know, you graduated from the University of Evansville as well, too.

25:01.313 --> 25:06.578
[SPEAKER_01]: Was there anything like as a young individual, young kid that really sparked your interest in robotics at an early age?

25:06.698 --> 25:06.998
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

25:07.218 --> 25:09.480
[SPEAKER_00]: So I grew up in India and

25:11.715 --> 25:17.859
[SPEAKER_00]: I was fortunate to have family in the United States, and occasionally when they'd visit, they'd bring me like a sense.

25:18.319 --> 25:22.962
[SPEAKER_00]: And that really started this intuitive understanding of how things come together.

25:23.222 --> 25:23.802
[SPEAKER_00]: Wonderful.

25:23.882 --> 25:31.207
[SPEAKER_00]: And over time, I started to develop this strong mechanical intuition and then I started to find kids that are electronics in them and that opened a whole new avenue.

25:31.987 --> 25:35.769
[SPEAKER_00]: and computer science was just being introduced to schools at the time.

25:35.809 --> 25:40.732
[SPEAKER_00]: So it all started to come together and there wasn't a formal robotics program at the time.

25:41.772 --> 25:46.214
[SPEAKER_00]: So I wanted to pick a major that would give me broad exposure and end up picking computer engineering.

25:46.234 --> 25:53.298
[SPEAKER_00]: So I got the software and the electrical piece of it and over time, you know, I was able to pick up the things on the mechanical side that I didn't understand.

25:53.438 --> 26:01.521
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's always funny when, you know, I think Lego, if I'm not mistaken, is a Dutch company, I think it says, let's go, is that this is correct terminology for it, if I'm not mistaken.

26:01.721 --> 26:07.183
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember looking that up once, because I was like, what is the origination of putting things together of that particular company?

26:07.203 --> 26:10.244
[SPEAKER_01]: I apologize for anybody history major, so you know that off the top of their head.

26:10.284 --> 26:12.284
[SPEAKER_01]: No file, no file, no file, no file on my head.

26:12.464 --> 26:19.087
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you anticipate is the future of riser robotics, and where can people find you all for the purpose of this show, certainly not through me?

26:19.147 --> 26:20.367
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you do that question in one more time?

26:20.627 --> 26:25.848
[SPEAKER_01]: I apologize, I said, what's the future of Ryze Robotics and where can people find you all just for the purpose of this show?

26:25.968 --> 26:28.849
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously not through me that you need it, but just for the audience to listen.

26:28.889 --> 26:31.269
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, you can find us on Ryze Robotics.com.

26:31.409 --> 26:35.410
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're interested in actually owning a piece of the company, does it invest button?

26:35.470 --> 26:41.672
[SPEAKER_00]: And you can read more about our campaign and how we're making the company available for investment to retail investors.

26:42.092 --> 26:42.432
[SPEAKER_00]: Also,

26:43.545 --> 26:48.030
[SPEAKER_00]: So, over the coming year, we are basically looking to commercialize and all three years of our business.

26:48.130 --> 26:53.575
[SPEAKER_00]: We recently on the defense side, one, a $3 million contract extension with the Air Force.

26:53.835 --> 26:58.980
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're taking the ministers' loading arm that we talked about the world's strongest robotic arm.

26:59.000 --> 27:02.663
[SPEAKER_00]: And now we're building the next iteration of that and integrating it into full vehicle.

27:03.043 --> 27:06.326
[SPEAKER_00]: So we can start doing missions on Air Force basis for evaluation.

27:06.506 --> 27:07.808
[SPEAKER_00]: So we'll get that out of the pilots.

27:08.508 --> 27:14.830
[SPEAKER_00]: In our lift gate business, we recently completed a 60 day pilot with a distributor of a major beverage brand.

27:15.610 --> 27:16.951
[SPEAKER_00]: We had 98% uptime.

27:17.171 --> 27:19.492
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a lot of issues we need to go work.

27:19.572 --> 27:23.913
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we expect to start another pilot with a major company and then soon start taking deals.

27:25.242 --> 27:31.386
[SPEAKER_00]: And on our cylinder business, we've landed our first week commercial customers and we are betting the next five in our pipeline.

27:31.606 --> 27:34.608
[SPEAKER_00]: So very excited about every aspect of our business.

27:34.808 --> 27:36.649
[SPEAKER_00]: Continuing to sort of grow and expand.

27:36.989 --> 27:44.713
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's great because you're creating efficiencies for the taxpayer, revolutionizing consumer goods and making people's leisure time that much more enjoyable.

27:45.034 --> 27:50.717
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is an incredible trifecta of what your company is doing and we'll do with a future while expanding into new markets as well.

27:51.217 --> 28:03.661
[SPEAKER_01]: I do want to take time to also say that I'd love to introduce you to Goldstar AI, my partners on this podcast as well too, one of the members actually based on Massachusetts and they may be a good contact to get in touch with you for any of the right different things that they do.

28:03.761 --> 28:04.641
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd like that very much.

28:04.741 --> 28:06.702
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd very much look forward to establishing that contact.

28:06.922 --> 28:14.426
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would like to thank you personally because I don't think that a half an hour encompasses all of your background as well as the wonderful things that rise robotics is doing.

28:14.826 --> 28:19.689
[SPEAKER_01]: The fact that I got this email and somebody on your team was willing to see my show was worthy of that time.

28:19.969 --> 28:21.630
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm very appreciative Mr. Hitso.

28:21.730 --> 28:22.610
[SPEAKER_01]: I shot it was a pleasure.

28:22.650 --> 28:24.071
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for having me on your show.

28:24.111 --> 28:26.172
[SPEAKER_01]: And now I can breathe again because I was very nervous for this one.

28:26.192 --> 28:26.652
[SPEAKER_01]: So thank you.

28:30.631 --> 28:32.737
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, no need to be nervous.

28:32.757 --> 28:34.563
[SPEAKER_00]: You're, you're, you're a natural.

28:34.583 --> 28:35.245
[SPEAKER_00]: You're smooth.

28:35.506 --> 28:40.280
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, what I really like is, um, I've been on podcast where, um, are we done?

28:40.401 --> 28:41.083
[SPEAKER_00]: We stopped recording.

28:41.103 --> 28:41.283
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.

28:41.303 --> 28:41.444
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

28:41.464 --> 28:42.788
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll stop the recording.