Speaker 0 00:00:08 And have you just continued testing and testing and testing and really scaling,
Speaker 1 00:00:25 Hello everyone. I'd like to welcome you to the robot industry podcast. This is the podcast dedicated to advanced manufacturing capital equipment and the robotics and automation industry. My name is Jim Beretta, and I am your host for today.
Speaker 0 00:00:39 This podcast, I'm very excited to have curl boss on the podcast, advanced manufacturing and software technology companies to drive disruption and adoption. He advises both large publicly traded companies and early stage startups across multiple verticals to understand and address market technology and product trends. Carl is also a platform fellow supporting the advanced manufacturing and production platform at the world economic forum as the past CEO of soft robotics, inc. Curl partnered with dr. George Whitesides of Harvard university in 2013 to explore commercial applications for the groundbreaking soft robotics work in partnership with DARPA robotics, inc, to develop and commercialize this research in late 2013 prior to joining soft robotics, a variety of senior positions and global technology companies, such as 3m and Smith and nephew from the Virginia military Institute and an MBA from the London business school. He began his career as a Naval flight officer in the United States Navy. So welcome to the podcast, Carl, again, thank you for joining our podcast today. I have some questions for you. My first question is you were very successful in bringing on investors early on in your project. We were successful because we found a real pain point. We were able to get early stage brand name customers who said, look, we've been working for decades. And this technology we believe is the answer for those people who are listening today. And that might
Speaker 2 00:03:00 Be unfamiliar with the business of soft robotics. Can you give us a bit of background?
Speaker 0 00:03:05 Absolutely. So soft robotics. Um, we took a technology out of the Harvard labs that was really building robotics systems out of polymers, rubber, so elastomers. And what we found is that when you build robots out of these soft materials and we were actually weighting them with, uh, with fluids air in hydraulics, cause you could pick up any object without having to know all the information, the size, the shape, the weight, the center of gravity. And that's kind of been the problem with robotics is I needed to know the exact dimension size, shape, and weight of everything I interacted with. And when you're talking about food, when you're talking about hundreds of different bottles of shampoo, that's been the barrier. And so we really said with this technology, we're going to let robots go into these, what we call low and unstructured environments of food, consumer goods, and warehousing and logistics.
Speaker 2 00:03:57 And so what were some of the early obstacles that you had launching a new product in the automation industry?
Speaker 0 00:04:03 I, I, I think there was a, there was a couple, um, and they're, they're significant. And so I think I appreciate you asking one is skepticism. Um, you know, I had senior executives at very large companies say I've been burned by this grasping thing too many times. Um, and so there was a believability, right? Just take, can this weird technology really solve this problem that the robotics industry has been trying to solve for so long for decades. And so there were skepticism. The second problem which may have been greater is the thesis itself, robotics wasn't. We want to make grasping better in the established markets of automotive than electronics. We want to take robots into completely new markets and opening a new market is, is very difficult cope because you don't have the robotic knowledge. You don't have the history. And so you're, you're creating a new market, you're taking a new technology to market and you're educating that market on why they should start adopting robotics automation.
Speaker 2 00:05:06 So you kind of have to sell them twice, right? And that education curve is huge.
Speaker 0 00:05:11 It was huge. And, and really the skepticism was, was a challenge. But then we would run the, we would just say, what's your product, what's your problem? And we will do, we'll do this proof of concept for you and you can see it and then we'll, we'll move forward. And why that's interesting is one of our early customers, they had spent two and a half years trying to solve a packaging problem to the point where the integrators stopped bidding on it. So we were lucky enough to find these end users who had been putting projects out to bid for years. And the integrators were no bidding because they couldn't do it. And we, we, we did the proof of concept with that. End-user they took a video of it. They wrote the specs, the robot, the soft robotic system, the seeds. And then they put that into the bid and then the integrators like, Oh, suffer bucks to solve this. I can go get this business now. And those early adopters of visionary integrators out there that worked with us, we then have the use cases to say, okay, you know, this orange company is doing it. And then that quickly solves the skepticism and drives the adoption.
Speaker 2 00:06:15 Excellent. So what are they interesting things about soft is that you pivoted and you brought out a lot of new products and very innovative products such as the super pick. Was this planned or was this just,
Speaker 0 00:06:27 Um, it was, it's kind of the startup path, right? Um, it's it's you, you, you go where your customers take you with the super big product, which really brought in machine vision and AI software on top of the Palmer based actuators was something that the customers were asking for. And we were working with customers who were working in these unstructured environments and a lot of the machine vision in a lot of the past planning that had existed at all been done for the structured environments. Um, and in this example, the machine vision and the path pointing for reports picking was really focused on a limited set of parts that you could teach and train. And our customers are like, well, we need a system that can handle all these items and soft robotics can pick them up. And we worked with a lot of the machine vision companies.
Speaker 0 00:07:17 We've worked with a lot of the robotics companies and in the end, the paradigm was so dramatic with soft robotics of just pick it up, right. I don't need to do all this complicated work is we just decided to build it ourselves is to build that stack ourselves. And so what we would always tell customers is you can take, you can buy software by skipper. You can put it on an off the shelf, there's a system, but it's not going to be optimized. And you can take the super big vision software and try and run it with a different gripping technology. And it's not going to be optimized because it's really this, this holistic stack of technologies that were built to leverage off of one another.
Speaker 2 00:07:55 What are some of the, and now you've got, you've had this great experience. What are some of the barriers to adoption for customers and getting past those pilots?
Speaker 0 00:08:06 I mean, this is, this is such an important question and I've been lucky enough to, uh, spent the last couple of years researching this globally because there's some companies that do it very well. And there's some companies that don't, and at a high level, you have to think about this as you're acquiring a capability in your organization. And you and I have been at the trade shows where someone comes in the booth and they say, my boss told me to come to this trade show and worried about robots. And it's like, okay, so what problem are you trying to solve? And if they say, well, we're just trying to get smarter on robotics then. Okay. That's great. There's great. Educational conferences create educational content from the RIA and Adrian and a lot of companies, but the companies that are successful come in and they say, I am running a nutrition bar line.
Speaker 0 00:08:57 And we're fully automated to the point where the bars come out of the oven. And we have to do the primary packaging of getting the bars onto the floor wrapper as an example. Okay. So this is someone who they know their problem, they've defined their problem. They know the business aspect and they're out to acquire that capability. And I think that is so important on both sides of the table is if you're an early stage company or you're bringing a new technology in, you need to have that conversation to know that the person you're talking to has defined that problem. And when they see a solution they're going to move forward at the same time, big companies. And there's some of the largest companies in the world that are struggling with adoption gym is they need to say let's build the actual use case and define the problem we're solving, and then go acquire the capabilities. And I think too many times the large companies, they don't do that upfront. And so they end up with a lab full of the latest and coolest gear, and they're doing a lot of cool stuff, but they haven't really defined that problem they're trying to solve and then bring the capabilities in to solve that specific problem.
Speaker 2 00:10:01 These companies can spend millions of dollars, right? Like over even a short year or two.
Speaker 0 00:10:06 Absolutely. And I think that's where the pilot purgatory really becomes a problem for everyone is for orange company to spend a hundred thousand dollars on a pilot, that's common, right? For a startup to get a hundred thousand dollars on a pilot. That's great. But the problem is they should be saying, here's, you know, here's our problem. Let's pilot technologies to solve that problem. And once the solution is there, that proof of concept is done. Now we're going to deploy across the enterprise. And I think that disconnect is, is one where it's these big companies just say, it's pretty shocking how much money they spend on pilots. And when you talk to these CEOs and they, they weren't about power purgatory. And he started asking questions in their organization. They're usually shocked toward one, how much they're spending on these, these, these kind of never ending pilots, but at the same time, how many of these are happening in their organization. And, um, I think that that's really, really important.
Speaker 2 00:11:04 So your advice probably a lot of companies would be like scaled down all of these pilots, like do a really good job on West pilots. Don't have 50 pilots going on, have 10, but have 10. Really good.
Speaker 0 00:11:15 Absolutely. Um, there's a great line that, that I heard, uh, in January in a discussion where a CEO said, you know, I've been here in this pilot purgatory thing. And I said, I don't have that problem. Um, and he said, I think the actual quote was, I weren't, I've got more pilots in my company than Lufthansa. Um, and, and I think what's important. There is exactly, we said, it's a senior executive buy-in, this is part of their, their plan is we're going to solve this problem this year. We're going to look at pilots that solved that problem. And then we're going to go and that's exactly it is. Don't just test technology that comes out, start with that business problem. And then how are you going to go do the pilots to solve that business problem?
Speaker 2 00:12:00 And I think building in responsibility and accountability is probably really critical to the project
Speaker 0 00:12:07 It is. And that's what we have seen is, um, he kind of on both sides of the table, both being in a start up and working with the large companies, advising them is the companies that are successful. This is something that is it's on someone's goals and objectives. It's a head of operations. It's a senior vice president who has solved your wandering detergent packaging problem. And so they're accountable for it. They're being compensated for it. And they're going to drive through their organization, the focus that it brings. And quite often, the other thing that I think is really important as we, you know, we, we always want to talk about technology. We always want talking about robots is the, it's a cross-functional effort when it's successful is the, it lead knows about it because they're probably gonna have to open the firewall. Right. Um, and they're ready for it. And they understand that they've done the work, the head of people or your human resources, um, senior executives, they know about it. So they've got the person in training, right. And they're building that, that human capital to support the new technology adoption. And then there's someone who is accountable to the chief executive for getting it done. And when you see those things, that's what you see in a Stanley black and Decker, a Schneider electric, a Unilever, some of these companies that are really out there best in class bringing new technologies into manufacturing.
Speaker 2 00:13:25 So how important is the innovation factor and selling to engineers? I was, I was kind of think it's a, it's a challenge because they're, what, what are the engineers kind of cautious about?
Speaker 0 00:13:37 Yeah. I mean, it's the, um, you know, what's that old quote, you know, arguing with an engineers is like wrestling with, uh, with a pig, right? It's exhausting. Everybody kind of has fun and everybody gets covered in mud, but you know, in the end you you've done it. So one of the things I think is important and I am an engineer and I love technology, as you know, is I always tell people when you start having a discussion about algorithms, you're probably in pilot purgatory because in the end, it's, you know, they, the companies that are doing this well, aren't trying to buy the coolest technology they're trying to solve a business problem. And I think that is one of the things that, you know, engineers and directors, innovation, they really love talking about machine, vision and algorithms and all the tech stuff. But in the end, if it's, if it's a real business problem, there's going to be someone who wants to talk about ROI and time to deployment.
Speaker 2 00:14:33 Yes. And that's, I think that's the key, the key to a lot of the conversations that we have here on the podcast. So one of the really interesting opportunities that you've had with soft was, uh, was team building within the organization. And how important is that?
Speaker 0 00:14:48 I mean, it's, I can not that enough. Um, and I think this is important because I mean, it's going to sound silly, Jim, but is you have to think about the different strengths that everyone brings to the table. And you have to appreciate that a great business development person may not understand the algorithms, their jobs, not to understand the algorithms, right. Their job is to really work with customers, to uncover these business needs, understand the return on investment and designed that solution and be that, that commercial base, that realization at the same time, engineers are, are critically important to developing this. And so I, I think what is important and it is something that early stage companies struggle with and they kind of need to have this moment, um, is too many times, um, or we can say startups are led with technology first. And I think that is, is, is something that is, is, it's not good.
Speaker 0 00:15:48 It's not bad, but it's back to the understanding. And, and I'll share a story with you that, you know, I won't share the company, but there was a company unbelievable technologists, and they had a quality problem. And, um, every, every time the salespeople would come back and say, we've got to fix quality, we've got to fix quality. Um, the discussion was, well, did you tell him how amazing the technology is? And my feedback was, you know, you, you cross this barrier where the person running the manufacturing floor, they are the least interest in cool technology because they have uptime and cost metrics they have to deliver. And so if the quality is bad and the product is, is, is taking the line down, you're never going to get there. And so understanding how to build that team and that you need, you need a diverse team. You need people with different perspectives that people that hold the technology as, as a forefront, people that hold the customer experience as a forefront, people that hold the overall product experience as a forefront, and everybody needs to understand that they may not always agree, but it is, uh, that, um, that diversity of opinion and experience that's gonna make you successful.
Speaker 2 00:16:57 I had the opportunity to work a lot in innovation and work with a lot of innovative customers. Can you maybe give us some of your thoughts about that?
Speaker 0 00:17:07 Absolutely. Jim, I think this is probably one of the more important questions. And once again, I think we can sit on both sides of the table, both from the early stage startup to the org companies. One of the best pieces of advice that I received while building soft robotics was from a business school professor. And we were, you know, back to the earlier discussion about breaking into that market break. You know, the skepticism, the creating a new market is we were having a lot of meetings with big companies, but we weren't getting the orders. And I was struggling with it. And professor Whiteside said, look, I've got a friend that specializes in innovation. I'm at Harvard business school. He don't have to sit down with you. And I sat down, I talked to her problem and he, Carl you're talking to the wrong customers. And he said, the, I think the exact quote was the big companies are pragmatic, right?
Speaker 0 00:18:01 They're established, they're pragmatic. They buy with eyes wide open. He said, innovators. And those innovative customers buy with their eyes, closed the visionaries by with their eyes closed. And he said, you know, this was a piece of advice he gave me and I shared it with so many people and everybody goes, Oh my God, Carl, that's brilliant. It's not, Carl's quote is don't chase the number one and two players in the market find the scrappy number three and fours, right? Because they're doing everything they can to disrupt number one and two. And that was something really interesting with us is our first customer, the big, the big integrators had walked away from that business. And we got approached by the strappy small integrator that said, look, my competitors have walked away from this business because they're, they're pragmatic. I don't know how crazy this soft robotics thing is, but if it works, it's going to change both of our companies.
Speaker 0 00:19:04 And he was exactly right. And so that we changed our paradigm. There is, you know, I think a lot of startups, a lot of innovative technology spent a lot of time knocking on big doors and having a lot of meetings. You're, that's the business development version of pilot purgatory, right? You're just in meetings, perpetual meetings. Whereas what we saw those early adopters and the folks who had to move quickly, they were the scrappy, you know, large company, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue, but they were like, look, I need to disrupt number one and two. And, um, I'm going to move fast and I'm going to, I'm going to do real, you know, they, they, weren't just buying technology for technology's sake, but they, they had that business problem. They said, I need automation. Here's my problem. And if it works, I'm going to buy it and roll it out because this is my chance to disrupt. And so I go back to that line of the pragmatic buyer is going to buy eyes wide, open the vision here. Buyer's going to buy with their eyes closed. And really, I would say you, you can, you can chase the big companies, but they're going to burn you out in time, um, time and money. Um, but finding those, those scrappy competitive number three and fours, those are the ones that are going to be aggressive and are going to be the early adopters.
Speaker 3 00:20:22 And that's a really good point there Kroll. I appreciate you, uh, uh, lending that to the audience. Um, so how do people get in touch with you?
Speaker 0 00:20:31 So the best way to get in touch with me is, um, LinkedIn. Um, I, uh, I I'm on LinkedIn, I would say consistently. Um, you can message me on LinkedIn. You can send me a LinkedIn email, feel free to ping me. We'd love to have the conversation. I'd love to continue. The, and you're Carl
Speaker 4 00:20:48 With a C, C a R L. And your last name is spelled V a U S E.
Speaker 0 00:20:53 Yes. Carl Voss. Um, just, you know, throw that into LinkedIn and go. I think my, my LinkedIn address might actually be linkedin.com/carl boss. All one word.
Speaker 4 00:21:07 Thank you very much for joining us today. And I'd like to like to thank and acknowledge our partner, a 3d association for advancing automation. Eight three is the umbrella association for the RIA, the AIA MCMA and eighty-three Mexico. These four associations combined represent almost 1300 automation manufacturers, component suppliers, systems integrators, and users, research groups, and consulting firms throughout the world that are driving automation forward. I'd also like to recognize our partner painted robot painted robot builds and integrates digital solutions. They are a web development firm that offers SEO and digital social marketing, and can set up and connect CRM and other ERP tools to unify marketing sales and operations. You can find
[email protected]. Today's sponsor is arc X. Their solution allows manufacturers to create an custom error proofing system with a minimum of components and integration effort, X manufacturers, interface devices that connect to factory assets, uh, to the enterprise using standard protocols.
Speaker 4 00:22:12 And the result is optimization of human capital arc X systems are used in high mix manufacturing environments, enabling yolk integration for error-free final assembly and test. And you can find
[email protected]. And if you'd like to get in touch with us at the robot industry podcast, our email address is the robot industry
[email protected]. Or you can find me Jim Beretta on LinkedIn. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening. Be safe out there. Today's podcast was produced by customer traction, industrial marketing, and I'd like to thank my nephew, Chris gray for the music, Chris Colvin for audio production, my partner, Janet, and our sponsors three painted robot and architects.
Speaker 5 00:22:59 <inaudible>.
