Startup is always a big chaos

"I met a founder who exited for $2.2B- then built an AI robot for farmers. He was 3 months from bankruptcy- then closed$10M in pre-sales in a month:

Paul was the co-founder of Isilon- it exited for $2.25B post IPO.

He worked on AI at Uber and Oculus.

So when a farmer told him about the problems weeds were causing, Paul went all in.

He quit Oculus- & built an AI robot for farmers that shoots weeds with lasers.

In 2018, Paul + angels invested $900K to build a functioning prototype.

A year later, he raised an $8.9M Series A to go from prototype to commercial product.

Two years later, he closed $10M in pre-sales and raised a$27M Series B to go to market.

Today, he's sold 100 robots at $1.5M each-$150M in total revenue.

His robot's killed 11.5 billion weeds- with no chemicals, no herbicide.

It sounds like a perfect plan, flawlessly executed.

It sounds that way because I'm telling you the story with the backbone of history...but that's not what happened at all.

We were just feeling our way through it.

There were several times at this company where we could have made one decision or another and just… ended up dead.

In hardware startup life, you're always running out of money…you're always like three months from bankruptcy.

The stories that get told in Startupland are up-and-to-the-right.

The stories the founders live are never that way.

Startups never go according to plan- no matter what the news story says.

Startups are absolute chaos.

Every time.

Courtesy of Pablo Srugo"

Author

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