I only have experience working in the robotics field as it exists today, so you're right that I am probably unaware of how things are done in the software world. (I mean I read HN so I'm at least somewhat aware, but I don't have first hand experience of it in my work, so maybe I just don't know what I'm missing). So in that sense, I'm rooting for your success in launching this company -- it would help accelerate and expand the robotics field!
I think the way you're bounding your addressable problem space -- industrial vehicles operating in a closed environment -- makes a lot of sense. I also agree that certain classes of problems (like wheel slippage) would be better solved "once" by an expert team rather than repeatedly by people who are actually trying to solve a different problem of higher level autonomy as you put it.
Some random other thoughts:
- your business model and offering sound kinda similar to [Tangram Vision](https://www.tangramvision.com/about-tangram-vision), though not close enough to where you would be competitors. I'm not affiliated with Tangram at all, I've never even interacted with them, just sharing what I've come across in my research.
- How do you think about how your customers join and potentially leave your platform? In your reply you mention a certain scale and amount of success where companies may decide to start doing this themselves, or even going to other companies that specialize more than you do (e.g. Applied Intuition for sensor simulation). It might feel a bit early to think about on launch day, I'm just curious about how you think about your company's value prop for customers at different stages of growth. Are you potentially limiting your market to only niche segments and smaller players? Who is your key customer you're targetting?
I appreciate your response and candor, I'm very interested in seeing your company take off!
Thanks - appreciate that. And thanks for reading my response in the right tone (I was nervous no inflection might do me a disservice).
I’m not familiar with Tangram, but thanks for sharing. I’ll take a look!
There is definitely a world where customers “graduate out” of using Polymath, people do the same with Stripe (I know Uber has been at that decision point in the past). There’s probably a reasonable cap on how much we can charge a customer as a result (more likely pegged to the cost of 10-100 FT roboticists) and in time we’ll have to offer enterprise level SLAs.
So far we’ve seen traction with startups, tech consultants who are servicing big industrial co.s, OEMs, and the large industrial co.s themselves.
My hunch is that as we stop “doing things that don’t scale,” we’ll stop serving the big industrial companies themselves (and leave them to our other customer groups).
I think the way you're bounding your addressable problem space -- industrial vehicles operating in a closed environment -- makes a lot of sense. I also agree that certain classes of problems (like wheel slippage) would be better solved "once" by an expert team rather than repeatedly by people who are actually trying to solve a different problem of higher level autonomy as you put it.
Some random other thoughts:
- your business model and offering sound kinda similar to [Tangram Vision](https://www.tangramvision.com/about-tangram-vision), though not close enough to where you would be competitors. I'm not affiliated with Tangram at all, I've never even interacted with them, just sharing what I've come across in my research.
- How do you think about how your customers join and potentially leave your platform? In your reply you mention a certain scale and amount of success where companies may decide to start doing this themselves, or even going to other companies that specialize more than you do (e.g. Applied Intuition for sensor simulation). It might feel a bit early to think about on launch day, I'm just curious about how you think about your company's value prop for customers at different stages of growth. Are you potentially limiting your market to only niche segments and smaller players? Who is your key customer you're targetting?
I appreciate your response and candor, I'm very interested in seeing your company take off!