A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders

He built a farming robot that shoots weeds with lasers— then closed $10M in pre-sales before shipping a single one. | Paul Mikesell, Founder of Carbon Robotics.

Jul 15, 2024

Serial entrepreneur Paul Mikesell founded Carbon Robotics and created a farming robot using lasers to kill weeds, selling each for $1.5M. He shares insights on customer discovery, raising pre-product, and generating $150M in revenue. Learn about the challenges in hardware startups, storytelling for fundraising, and achieving product-market fit through pre-sales.

58:20

Episode guests

Paul Mikesell

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Episode notes

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Revolutionizing farming with AI-driven laser weeding technology for sustainable agriculture.

Utilizing deep tech expertise from previous ventures to innovate in hardware and software integration.

Achieving product-market fit through strategic pre-orders and team collaboration for scalable growth.

Deep dives

Robotics Startup Innovation with Laser Weeding

A robotics startup, Carbon Robotics, revolutionizes farming with a robot that uses AI and lasers to target and eliminate weeds without herbicides. The founder, Paul, secured 10 million dollars in pre-orders and sold nearly 100 machines at 1.5 million dollars each, showcasing impactful innovation in the agriculture industry.

Intro

2min

Innovating with Robots and AI in Tech Companies

8min

Transition from Tech to Agriculture

7min

Navigating the Seed Stage Investment Landscape and the Power of Storytelling in Fundraising

4min

Challenges in Weed Control and Developing Farming Robots with Lasers

15min

Developing a Laser-Weeding Farming Robot

18min

Reflections on Bluetooth technology evolution and achieving product market fit through pre-sales

2min

Importance of Treating Employees Well and Scalable Decision Making in a Company

3min

Paul built a startup that was acquired for $2.2B. He worked on AI at Uber and Oculus. But when a farmer told him about some of the problems he was facing, he quit and went all-in on farming.

He built a robot that attaches to the back of tractors, uses computer vision to identify weeds and lasers to shoot and kill them. He sells each robot for $1.5M. He's sold nearly 100 so far— & generated nearly $150M in revenue.

Whether you're working on a hardware startup or not, you'll want to listen to this episode to see how to do proper customer discovery, how to raise pre-product, and how to get millions of dollars in pre-sales without having to ship.

Why you should listen

Why hardware is hard-- but easier than it's ever been.
How to tell a story to raise $10M pre-revenue
How to set up milestones for fundraising
How to generate $10M in pre-orders before shipping product
How to get a sense of product market fit even before the product is fully developed

Keywords

Carbon Robotics, deep tech, AI neural nets, deep learning, weed control, farming, manual labor, lasers, research and development, funding, seed round, prototype, Series A, pre-orders, manufacturing challenges, revenue

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:02:09) A Background in Deep Tech
(00:05:50) Problem and Solution Interest
(00:07:35) Find the Passion
(00:07:37) Get Behind the Mission
(00:09:39) Back to Seattle
(00:11:40) The Epiphany
(00:16:50) A Human Affair
(00:18:00) The Money Flows to the Best Storyteller
(00:21:45) A Farmer's Weed Control Dilemma
(00:25:56) Weed-Shooting Lasers
(00:28:11) Funding the Prototype
(00:30:13) Hardware is Hard But Rewarding
(00:36:46) Why Laser Weeding Works
(00:41:19) Series A
(00:42:51) Robot Autonomy
(00:45:42) Pricing
(00:48:12) Telling the Story After It Happened
(00:51:44) Fighting Through Disaster
(00:54:50) Finding True PMF
(00:55:41) One Piece of Advice