HausBots Journey So Far…
From concept to award winning. Just a quick update on our whole story, and where our product is at.
Idea
Our Engineering Director, Harry, came up with the initial idea, whilst completely bored, painting his living room at home.
Like any good entrepreneur and inventor, Harry saw this as a time consuming and unpleasant task, which was just begging to be reinvented.
Enter Prototype 1
Off to the shed! Harry gets to work drawing, scheming, dreaming about the possibilities for this new machine.
He had already had an abundance of practice, working on multiple big design projects as a hobby and starting his design career at aged 8, entering a competition to design new national grid pylons!
The first prototype was completely different to what you see today. The first idea was to have a wheeled vehicle, with suction cups around each wheel.
This quickly got critiqued, and design changed to the continuous track you see today.
Competitions
After many hours in the shed, Harry enters his designs to the Young Engineer for Britain award, and Pitch at the Palace.
Reaching the regional finals for the pitch, and becoming the official Young Engineer for Britain, he knew he was on to something.
The Business
At this stage, Harry prepares to begin his degree in Design Engineering at Loughborough University, and so the project slowed down as the personal capital ran dry, and external commitments came up.
I, Jack, who previously ran a clothing business, was a classmate of Harry through secondary school. We had always smashed our heads together for our best ideas, coming up with everything under the sun.
Whilst Harry was at University, I was working a new job in Sales in London, and we got together a few times. After plenty of sandwiches and tea, the vision for HausBots was born.
Our team grew to 3 people, and with Liam Tootill onboard, a start-up veteran, we worked out what purpose HausBots will serve:
Our vision is to automate the construction process, building the homes of the future, to solve the UK’s housing deficit. On the way, we are going to become a robotics community and education powerhouse, helping make robotics education less scary.
British Coatings Federation
This is THE federation for all things painting, decorating, coatings and more. We can’t thank them enough for the support they have given us.
They gave us a spot at the Annual Meeting, to present in front of all their members, and hopefully, we did them proud!
We managed to make some fantastic relationships at that event, from paint manufacturers, to advisors and mentors. We really wouldn’t be where are today without their help.
Founders Forum
We next went on to apply for the F-Factor at the Founders Forum, ran by lastminute.com’s Brent Hoberman.
This is an event which collates the UK’s top young entrepreneurs, invites 6 companies to the Founders Forum event, and holds a pitch at that event.
It was an exhilarating day, meeting the founder of WeTransfer, through to the Founder of HyperLoop TT. Just getting to the day itself was fantastic enough, meeting some potential investors and clients, it accelerated the growth of HausBots beyond belief.
BUT, to come away with the winning prize of £10,000 allowed us to take HausBots to the next level.
The competition, sponsored by TalkTalk, meant we could overcome our biggest hurdle. Capital.
We had stalled development due to needing expensive tooling and equipment, and this was really the single moment which got the ball rolling.
I would like to extend my gratitude again to Brent, Pierre + FF team, along with Sir Charles and Tristia at TalkTalk. We’ll make you proud!
Invest in Equipment
But, that’s enough celebrating, back to the shed.
The first thing we did was invest in that equipment and tooling we so desperately needed.
3D Printers, Arduino boards, raspberry pi’s, a lathe, raw materials.. the list goes on and is still growing!
Previously, we would get parts manufactured in China, meaning it was expensive, and had a long lead time. The part then arrives, we test it, and it’s wrong, so we have to wait even longer to get it fixed.
Being able to set up our own prototyping base has been essential. We’ve even been able to take on agency style work, printing and designing other peoples project to maximise on that investment.
Educational Content
Enter the HausBots community. Led by Liam Tootill, former Managing Director at SBTV, and Co-Founder of Supa Academy, HausBots community is aimed at making robotics less scary.
We want to help people young and old get into robotics, through our online content or events.
We started by pushing out videos on Facebook, which are beginner robotics, electronics, CAD, etc videos.
Our series, called ‘How2Bot’ has reached 50,000+ views from inquisitive people. This just shows the appetite and desire out there to learn bout this marvellous industry.
It’s really not as scary as you think, watch some of our videos, get involved, and who knows, you may even apply for a job at HausBots one day!
Prototype 2
And now we talk about the juicy engineering stuff. So, after all this amazing success and opportunity to build a bigger business, we had to make our 1st prototype better.
So, we did the natural thing, rip everything apart, critique every last centimetre and start again!
We’ve pretty much entirely changed the design of the robot, and are currently putting all the pieces back together, to make a better and more reliable unit.
I’d love to tell you all about it, but unfortunately it’s all hush hush as we are soon going to be filing for a patent on our technology.
Baldwins Accountants
Next, onwards to another competition.
As with any business, accountancy services and advice was paramount to us. We are fortunate to have partnered with the amazing David Baldwin and his team, for accountancy advice and services, allowing us to prepare for investment the way we should.
Along with this prize, came another grant of £10,000 to allow us to pay for something magical…
Writing Patent
That’s right, a patent.
We can’t thank the Baldwins team and everyone who voted for us on the night enough.
The last piece of the jigsaw puzzle was our patent. We are messing around with some seriously innovating technology, conscious not to give away our secrets, we are yet to publicly show our painting robot. However, work is beginning on writing our patent, to allow us to take on the world with our product.
Once we have this filed, HausBots gets serious. Stay tuned
WHAT WE NEED:
So, from this point in, we are needing the following.
- Workspace. Working out of the garage is no longer viable, we’re just too big. Looking for a space with 3 phase power, and enough space to hold plenty of tools and equipment with a small office. Open to location suggestions!
- PEOPLE! We are on the look out for talent. If you know any hardware or software geeks, OF ANY AGE, get in touch. Mostly looking for college or uni students with a passion for learning.
- Advisors. We are building an advisory board from Hardware veterans, through to finance buffs, we’d love to hear from you!
GET IN TOUCH
jack.cornes@hausbots.com
