Field Ops is Criminally Underrated | Matthew Lee, Field Engineering @ Scythe Robotics + Aurora

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In Episode 10, we speak with Matthew Lee, who has spent the last decade running field operations and sustainment at three autonomy companies: Aurora (on-road autonomous trucks), Phantom Auto (teleoperated forklifts), and most recently Scythe Robotics (autonomous commercial lawnmowers, deployed across 20+ states). Before robotics, he spent two decades in automotive repair, working his way up from technician to service manager. I believe that field engineering is the most criminally underrated function in running and scaling a fleet of robots. Matthew has spent his whole career on that side of the problem, and has watched companies live or die (like Phantom Auto) based on how seriously they took it. We get into why sustainment is the function most robotics startups underinvest in, and how Phantom Auto's failure to iterate on hardware in the field helped sink the company. Why field ops works on a totally different timescale than engineering. And how to build a real support stack from tier one all the way up to your developers, including who you should hire for each tier and what data you need to surface when a customer calls in. There are also a few tidbits on how to run your software deployments and canary releases. Enjoy this one, it's a top to bottom analysis of how to run field ops from someone who's experienced the struggle first hand. 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒 - Miru Blog (including episode transcripts): https://www.mirurobotics.com/blog - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1xr38bFEhk7MSf8UvmPUBo?si=761aeb03b4464fd1&nd=1&dlsi=fa48d636a0f74df6 - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scaling-robotics/id1857724488 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 (00:00:04) – Introduction (00:01:09) – Overview of Autonomy Use Cases (00:03:50) – What Is Field Ops in a Robotics Company (00:05:52) – Why Sustainment Is Critical (00:07:59) – Building a Support System from First Call to Resolution (00:14:05) – Tier Two Support and Escalation (00:20:11) – The Tier Two Agent Profile (00:24:52) – Feeding Field Data Back to Product and Engineering (00:30:49) – Canary Releases and Software Rollouts (00:34:22) – Networking Challenges in Field Deployments (00:38:41) – The John Henry Problem: Operator Adoption (00:42:49) – Advice for Scaling Your First Fleet (00:45:23) – Closing and Where to Find Matthew

Unpacking Finance for Robotics Startups| Daniel Kirstein: Robotics CFO, Founder @ Holdfast Partners, Formerly @ Farmwise, Voyage | Scaling Robotics Episode 11

In Episode 11, we speak with Daniel Kirstein, co-founder of Holdfast Partners, a consultancy that helps robotics and hard tech companies build their financial and commercial infrastructure. Before Holdfast, Daniel was Head of Finance at Voyage (the autonomous vehicle company acquired by Cruise) and CFO at FarmWise, an agtech company building autonomous weeding machines, where he also ran sales, procurement, and HR. He spent time at Google and TikTok before leaving last year to work full-time with robotics founders. He writes the Robotics CFO newsletter on Substack. Most robotics founders are technologists and don't have an intimate understanding of the financial considerations that affect their business. Software is more forgiving with these gaps, but hardware is ruthless. When CapEx and operational costs are high, it is crucial to understand every single financial lever that affects your business. Daniel has built the capital stack, pricing model, and working capital discipline at multiple robotics companies and now consults founders on doing the same. Daniel starts with the choice every robotics company faces: RaaS, hardware sales, or hardware-as-a-service. He has a clear framework for choosing a business model and understanding how that decision affects how you operate the company. At FarmWise, they chose RaaS, and running it well pushed FarmWise's field operations to a third (!!) of headcount. That same model opens a working capital gap, the cruelest way to fail, where success itself sinks you because orders grow faster than the cash to fill them. All of this feeds into the raise, and we end on what fundraising really takes for a hardware business. Enjoy this walkthrough of the financial machinery behind scaling a robotics fleet! L𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒 - Miru Blog (including episode transcripts): https://www.mirurobotics.com/blog - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1xr38bFEhk7MSf8UvmPUBo?si=761aeb03b4464fd1&nd=1&dlsi=fa48d636a0f74df6 - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scaling-robotics/id1857724488 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 (00:00:04) – Introduction (00:03:32) – Joining Robotics as a Finance Leader (00:05:26) – Business Models in Robotics (00:07:40) – Choosing the Right Business Model (00:11:59) – Will RaaS Stick Around as Technology Matures? (00:16:21) – The Operational Realities of Running RaaS (00:18:37) – Working Capital and Cash Management (00:22:21) – Forecasting and Cash Planning for Early Stage Founders (00:25:18) – Why Debt Matters for Robotics Companies (00:29:55) – Common Pitfalls with Debt (00:31:56) – What Equipment Financiers Look For (00:33:54) – Raising Equity for Robotics Companies (00:37:09) – Show, Don't Just Tell (00:37:48) – What Investors Push Back on Most (00:40:46) – Advice for Founders Scaling Their First Fleet (00:42:02) – Why Robotics Is Worth It (00:43:25) – Closing and How to Connect

1 de jun de 202644 min

Field Ops is Criminally Underrated | Matthew Lee, Field Engineering @ Scythe Robotics + Aurora | Scaling Robotics Episode 10

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