Robohub.org
 

Robert Morris on “What does it take to get from imagination to market?”


by
12 March 2014



share this:

This is a really important question, and one that our community should focus on more. That said, the answer is not truly profound or particularly obscure. It takes three things: doing something people really want, doing something profitable, and a lot of hard work.

The robotics industry is much better at making things that are abstractly awesome rather than making things that people want, and the most important tool for overcoming this problem is hypothesis testing. We need to have hypotheses about what our customers value. Then we need to test these hypotheses by trying to deliver that value.

Invariably, we find that some of our hypotheses about what our clients want are wrong because human behavior is much, much harder to engineer than robotic behavior. My own start-up, TerrAvion, initially thought that our data collection system (robot) would be used to feed analytic algorithms. But it took farmers to show us that they could use the imagery to manage their operations, creating far more value than we ever dreamed possible with the analytic approach.

The second thing is that, to take something into the market sustainably, it must be profitable on a risk-adjusted basis. Sitting here just outside Silicon Valley – an admittedly privileged position – it seems that ideas that can show they stand a reasonable chance of making a lot of money are capable of getting the funding, people, and support they need. (If you don’t find this true where you are, you should move here!) This is regardless of the underlying technology, or even if the business doesn’t have an underlying technology. To lend support, most people need some reasonable expectation that their support (whether in money, time, or expertise) will get repaid. If your idea isn’t profitable, it won’t be around long enough to repay that support.

Finally, it takes a crushing amount of work. I don’t know what to say about this. There are methods, tricks, short-cuts, and best practices, which is fine, but even if you do everything well it is a lot of work. Taking any novel idea into reality requires that you pour out all your time and attention to get a million things done. There are many ways motivate this, but the work still needs doing. It certainly helps if you can at least remove money as a negative motivation, because we all have to eat.

Above all, we are trying to do something that is of tremendous value. If what we are doing is indeed of tremendous value, our customers are happy to pay a price that allows us to make money. And making money allows us to capture the attention of good people; good people allow us to make things that people really value; and so the cycle repeats … but it always starts with doing something of great value to others. So when we let our imaginations run wild, we should always try and think about what would be of value to others.

Read more answers →



tags: ,


Robert Morris is founder and CEO of the aerial imaging start-up TerrAvion. He is also the author of the blog robocosmist.com
Robert Morris is founder and CEO of the aerial imaging start-up TerrAvion. He is also the author of the blog robocosmist.com





Related posts :



Robot Talk Episode 126 – Why are we building humanoid robots?

  20 Jun 2025
In this special live recording at Imperial College London, Claire chatted to Ben Russell, Maryam Banitalebi Dehkordi, and Petar Kormushev about humanoid robotics.

Gearing up for RoboCupJunior: Interview with Ana Patrícia Magalhães

and   18 Jun 2025
We hear from the organiser of RoboCupJunior 2025 and find out how the preparations are going for the event.

Robot Talk Episode 125 – Chatting with robots, with Gabriel Skantze

  13 Jun 2025
In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Gabriel Skantze from KTH Royal Institute of Technology about having natural face-to-face conversations with robots.

Preparing for kick-off at RoboCup2025: an interview with General Chair Marco Simões

and   12 Jun 2025
We caught up with Marco to find out what exciting events are in store at this year's RoboCup.

Interview with Amar Halilovic: Explainable AI for robotics

  10 Jun 2025
Find out about Amar's research investigating the generation of explanations for robot actions.

Robot Talk Episode 124 – Robots in the performing arts, with Amy LaViers

  06 Jun 2025
In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Amy LaViers from the Robotics, Automation, and Dance Lab about the creative relationship between humans and machines.

Robot Talk Episode 123 – Standardising robot programming, with Nick Thompson

  30 May 2025
In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Nick Thompson from BOW about software that makes robots easier to program.

Congratulations to the #AAMAS2025 best paper, best demo, and distinguished dissertation award winners

  29 May 2025
Find out who won the awards presented at the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems last week.



 

Robohub is supported by:




Would you like to learn how to tell impactful stories about your robot or AI system?


scicomm
training the next generation of science communicators in robotics & AI


©2025.05 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence


 












©2025.05 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence