Meet The Inventors: Greg Lynn of Piaggio Fast Forward, On How To Go From Idea To Store Shelf

One of the first things we did when we started the company was enlist friends from our professional network who had experience we lacked and who could be honest and direct with criticism. The product and strategy of the company was at a place where it could go one of two ways and being able to convene a group of advisors who were willing to be direct and honest with feedback was invaluable. Much better than a consultant or focus group, a robust professional network of friends you respect and trust is a great benefit when inventing a new product.

As a part of our series called “Meet The Inventors”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Greg Lynn, Co-Founder, Chief Creative Officer and CEO of Piaggio Fast Forward.

Greg Lynn is a designer, innovator, advisor and entrepreneur who has been at the forefront of architecture and design culture for more than 30 years. He is the co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Boston-based technology company Piaggio Fast Forward which is a subsidiary of the Milan-based Piaggio Group, known throughout the world for iconic vehicles like the Vespa. With a mission to build technology products that move the way people move, Greg invented the gita® robot, a first-of-its-kind, sensor-enabled following robot with the ability to carry up to 45 pounds of cargo. Recently, gita was recognized with a Red Dot Best of the Best Award in the “Innovative Products” category and with an honorable mention distinction in Fast Company’s Innovation by Design Awards for 2020 in the Mobility category.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I grew up in Northern Ohio on one of the Great Lakes at a time when the world was changing which allowed me to have one foot in two different eras. One, where I could ride my bicycle through a suburban neighborhood to the farm where my father grew up. I attribute my entrepreneurial spirit and drive from the time that I spent on the farm. This was the place where I grew produce that I sold on the side of the road, took care of our goats, horses and chickens, all less than a mile from hundreds of developer homes on cul-de-sacs. I grew up in a house with an appreciation for technology with a TRS-80 desktop microcomputer, a Commodore 64 personal computer, an Apple II +, a VCR, Sony walkman, and home video games. With an affinity for problem solving, our garage was full of go-karts, motorcycles, bicycles, and cars that I used to feed my curiosity as I would enjoy the art of taking them apart and putting them back together. Looking back, agriculture, automobiles, portable entertainment and personal computing were all part of how I desire to see and experience the world, in technicolor and beyond the screen of a hand-held device.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. What was the catalyst that inspired you to invent your product? Can you share the story of your “ah ha” moment with us?

Piaggio Fast Forward began with a mission and not a product, to invent a new mobility ecosystem that extended the legacy of Vespa scooters into the micromobility revolution emerging in the United States. As we started to see a rise in driverless vehicles, ride hailing and scooter sharing platforms, we wanted to push the envelope a bit to introduce a new concept that leverages human mobility with high technology, and to use robots to promote everyone’s favorite mode of transportation, walking outdoors. Our “ah ha” moment came from decisions of what we would not do: we would not design a driverless scooter and we would not design an autonomous delivery robot. Understanding the attributes that we didn’t want in our design, allowed us the freedom to create a product that aligned perfectly with our objective: human autonomy with the help of robots.

There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. How did you overcome this challenge?

At PFF, we always start with smart people observing before we ever start inventing. By looking and listening to what people value about where they live, we built a business to unlock the value of their neighborhoods. Our first idea was driven by the market insight that 80% of Americans consider walking outdoors as a better mode of travel than driving a car, being driven in a car, riding a bus, taking a train, or riding a bike. The enemies of walking for your local errands could be 32 beverages, a large bag of dog food, a couple of gallons of milk, two full grocery bags, or a pile of school books and lunch. We designed our first robot to match human walking speed, maneuverability, and travel distance. We also imbued it with pedestrian etiquette and an understanding of how people walk on crowded sidewalks.

Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?

Market research is crucial to understanding how your product falls within the current marketplace and how to differentiate to be successful. At PFF, we are inventing a new product category (the following sidewalk robot) for a new market ecology (robot-enabled pedestrian neighborhoods). Everything we are doing is so unprecedented that our last concern is of being unoriginal. However, we do our due diligence while aggressively protecting our IP so we have access to markets in order to realize our vision of a pedestrian mobility ecology for the digital era.

Did you have a role model or a person who inspired you to persevere despite the hardships involved in taking the risk of selling a new product?

Absolutely, I am inspired by Corradino D’Ascanio, the inventor and designer of the Vespa, and more generally, by the Piaggio Group, our parent company. They have very much been our inspiration as well as our conscience. If what we are doing at PFF isn’t improving quality of life, bringing pride and status to its owner, or promoting social exchange and human interaction, then we are made aware of it immediately. We are very much inspired by the legacy of Vespa scooters and the other brands of the Piaggio Group. There is a history of inventing new categories, like the Vespa, and all of the lifestyle associations that go with it. The difficulty in designing, manufacturing and marketing this type of lifestyle product that involves invention of new technologies is more difficult than working for industry but we have the support and belief of the Piaggio Group backing us.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

The first time we met with our Investors and Advisory Board, we presented our best idea that a self-driving scooter would disrupt the pizza delivery business. Michele and Roberto Colaninno turned to us and said something to the effect of “that is your vision of a better future where people have a rich socially-connected high-quality lifestyle through a new intelligent form of mobility?” From that moment on, it was clear that our mandate was to focus on what we call “Autonomy for Humans” rather than replacing human activity.

The early stages must have been challenging. Are you able to identify a “tipping point” after making your invention, when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Are there takeaways or lessons that others can learn from that?

When we brought the first prototypes out into the world it was amazing to see the immediate feedback that we would get from strangers around us. I remember conducting a demo event at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles on a large roof terrace. In front of a crowd of about a hundred people, I started giving individual previews to guests. They would walk off to try the product, another person would come up to me and I would provide another tutorial. After a while, I would see the gitas with new people and watching the former users start to explain how to operate the robot. When I would try to step in to provide instruction, I was met with pushback and observed in awe how quickly users were able to figure out how to operate the robot and teach others about the clear and simplistic functionality. This experience highlighted the ease and intuitive nature of the product and validated the proof of concept and signaled to us that it was ready for consumption by the masses and that someone doesn’t have to be a RC model or a computer scientist to figure out how to operate our product..

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

Building your team and the culture of the company that will develop a product is the most important thing to do early. As a design-led and design-driven company, we always put people at the center and think about their experience and how to design the most intuitive, clear, and essential product that we can. It is easy to make things complicated and add features and functions that are not essential but also get in the way of use. As our team has grown gradually, the culture of the company has always been paramount to our operating strategy. We prioritize a diversity of backgrounds, perspectives, values, experiences, and skills to help us grow and cultivate real innovation. Across this diversity, putting good design first is our North Star. How the gita robot moves, its slippery form factor, its signature sounds designed by the Berkelee College of Music, its lighting is all thoughtfully considered and designed to be essential and refined both for owners as well as for bystanders. Use is as simple as the touch of a button and technology doesn’t get in the way, but rather out of the way when it comes to user experience.

After designing the team, the second thing is ruthlessly editing away everything you can to focus on the essentials. With over 60 people contributing to our first product, the biggest challenge was sifting through the many ideas of the team and elevating the most innovative to the top. Editing, reducing and refining is essential and difficult. After this in-depth refinement, the gita robot was developed. Like many products today, the gita robot operates at the intersection of the physical and the digital worlds. Our single most important task was to make sure there was consistency and coherence across web, app, robotics, customer care and every other touch point of the operation to provide users with a seamless and carefree experience.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

Industrializing is very difficult if you want to grow to scale quickly. There are many companies that will assist with supply chain, assembly, and logistics for early stage companies. Getting to market and validating an idea needs to happen quickly but without mistakes and these resources are interesting. For PFF, because our sole investor is a global two, three and four wheeled vehicle company with factories in Italy, India, Vietnam and China, we could lean on their knowledge and experience. We also recruited team members with depth and experience so we could do this ourselves.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

There are pros and cons to bootstrapping and pursuing venture capital. For any company making this decision, the best way to determine which option is best comes down to a company’s core goals and which option will allow them to maintain these ideals.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

Architecture attracts and trains people to think that their day-to-day occupation is to improve the built environment, make civic places that improve public life, and assist in the betterment of people’s lives who visit, work, and live in your creations. This is extremely romantic, naive, and idealistic but it is why almost everyone enters the field. I am not that successful a person in my own estimation as every new product and project is the one that I hope will have the biggest impact. I always measure my success on the degree to which I can contribute to making the world a better place. That happens not through philanthropy or giving back but through good design that puts people’s day-to-day experience first. It isn’t the easiest way to be successful but it is extremely challenging, fun, and satisfying. So I am not one to succeed in order to do good, like anyone trained in architecture, I do good in order to succeed. This is why in so many countries all industrial, transportation, fashion and urban designers are trained for the first few years in architecture so they can focus on and value the public realm as the first principle for good design.

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

When we started building physical working prototypes, we would get the robot balancing and pair it to a person and test how well it followed. Even for those in the company that knew what to expect, would break into a huge smile the minute they started to walk around being followed by a robot. As we went to conventions and events I would see the same thing. Sceptics, enthusiasts, roboticists, and passersby would pair with gita and the minute they move and gita follows them they break into a smile. In tens of thousands of experiences I have only once seen a person not break into a smile when they were followed. That one time was when a very young child in Japan was walking along and pressed the lighted button on gita and it started following him and wouldn’t stop. All the smiles at the magic of a machine that understands how you move and follows intelligently is not an accident. Since the day we decided not to build autonomous pizza delivery robots, we have been on a path to create an intuitive useful robot that is the first intelligent machine on the sidewalks, parks and plazas that moves with, not against, people. Our machines don’t see people as obstacles. They literally see them as leaders. Creating high technology products that treat people as essential and raise their awareness and expectation for a micro mobile lifestyle is the future of our cities. Doing jobs that people don’t want to do is one way to think about a robot. What moves me are robots that help us do the things we like to do more and better. I find myself walking for two or three miles around my neighborhood when I would have been driving my car, motorcycle or scooter. With a following robot carrying the 30 pound bag of my dog’s food, he and I can go for a great walk to his favorite place. Because we have taken this attitude towards technology, we get smiles when people interact with our products for the first time. It is not an accident, it is by design.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

I would love to meet John Hanke. I am such a big fan of Pokemon Go and how it raises peoples’ awareness of the physical world through digital technology.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” By Alan Kay

I distrust promises. I have always been suspicious of pointing a company’s, or an individual’s, resources towards a prediction. A close number two quote would be Henry Ford’s, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” Certain innovations can come from focus groups, analysis and prediction. But the likelihood of success is greater if innovation begins with a vision for a better future. Personally, and as a leader, I have always started with a calling. At Piaggio Fast Forward, we are designing and building products for a new micro mobility ecology where people and robots move together further, faster, and more frequently than at any other time in history. We get people outdoors by replacing automobile trips with walking trips. We don’t move distracted passengers while they look at screens, we move citizens with their heads up visually and socially connected to their neighborhoods. These desires for positive lifestyle change shapes every decision in the company. Sure, we analyze trends and emerging opportunities, but what drives us is the invention of a better future.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

The Wind Barrier: The extraordinary epic of l’ Hydroptere, by Alain Thebault

I grew up on the water. As a designer who appreciates high performance, I appreciate sailing because hundreds of small optimizations yield minor increases that are the difference between winning and losing. I’ve raced over a 100 miles to cross the finish line within boat lengths of my competitors. Nothing is more rewarding than winning a race or regatta due to the coordinated tiny adjustments of the crew and the boat. Then I read “The Wind Barrier” and learned about L’Hydroptere and that it was possible to sail over 40 knots using only the power of the wind. This was not about adjustments to existing practices, this was a new paradigm that required an attention to details. Reading that book led to me designing and building a custom foiling trimaran for myself. My previous boat was optimized to a weight of seven tons. The new boat was larger and weighed a little more than two tons. Using technology and design we were able to reduce parts, increase strength and combine beauty with speed. Using only the wind to sail at 25 knots for miles on end was a revelation. My kids drive the boat and instead of picking sailboats to pass they now hunt for powerboats. As a piece of technology and an example of design, it is innovative. As an experience on the ocean it remains primal and connects me with the outdoors. Similarly, in my professional life, I strive to create a culture of teamwork, incremental improvement, technological innovation, and design quality; all in the service of designing products that make us more profoundly human. I recently walked three miles with my dog and a gita robot to the pet store and carried back 30 lbs. of kibble. The same way I am hardwired to love the ocean, we, as human beings, are hardwired to enjoy walking outdoors. With a driverless robot following me and my dog for miles in my neighborhood, carrying what would have been in the trunk of a car, I get futuristic performance combined with my primal need for the outdoors. When I was Chief Design Officer at PFF I had time to sail once-in-awhile. Being CEO has gotten in the way of my sailboat racing, but I have no regrets as I get the thrill of technology and more time in the great outdoors everyday now with our robots.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Invented My Product” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Be ready to rediscover what you thought you already know.

Our number one complaint was that it is difficult to have a robot follow you through a door while you need to hold the door open for the robot. We had to set up a team focused on observing the complex ballet of how people open, hold open and walk through doors together and then design the behavior for our robots that is most easily intuited by owners and bystanders.

2. Be ready to be surprised by new opportunities.

We never imagined having to set up a team to learn about pedestrian etiquette would be one of the most valuable and elements of our business.

3. Professional colleagues you respect are for feedback not financing or contacts.

One of the first things we did when we started the company was enlist friends from our professional network who had experience we lacked and who could be honest and direct with criticism. The product and strategy of the company was at a place where it could go one of two ways and being able to convene a group of advisors who were willing to be direct and honest with feedback was invaluable. Much better than a consultant or focus group, a robust professional network of friends you respect and trust is a great benefit when inventing a new product.

4. See and experience the world with an eye towards global challenges.

When you are doing something new it needs to connect to existing lifestyles. Although people move very similarly in the built environment and much of it is muscle memory more than cultural practice, how they dress is very different. In some places people wear nearly identical clothing, in some places they wear clothing that obscures the ability to perceive gestures, and the colorfulness and dominant colors are also very unique to different countries and cultures. Our robots follow people optically and when many people wear the same clothing it is a different challenge to know who to follow and who not to follow. Knowing this in advance has driven technological decisions that could have been an obstacle to our ability to grow globally. This is also why having a diverse team brings this global awareness to the company day to day.

5. The world can change in your favor faster than you expected.

It can be a problem when you are right but you’re not ready. We didn’t plan on people moving out of cities and remote working from home. We also didn’t plan on a concern for hygiene and using apps to ride in strangers’ cars. Suddenly, more people are living, working, and shopping locally in highly walkable places on the edge of cities or in suburbs. People are social distancing, travelling less, and investing in their local lifestyle. Transportation and mobility is in crisis and micro mobility is more attractive than ever. Our market opportunities have altered and expanded overnight as COVID has accelerated certain aspects of our business and is pulling long term innovation goals from the near future to the immediate present.