Turns out David was like a mentor to John and was a really, really close friend and made this really big impact on John's life. And Abi was like, ? that's really beautiful. know, like, where is David today? Are you still in touch with David? And John responded that  unfortunately, David's actually passed away. And Abi, very empathetically, was just like, I'm so sorry to hear that. Well, if David were to say today, what would you say to him? And John was like, well, David, you're my best mate. And it just went silent after that. And it was just I think that's probably one of the most beautiful interactions that Abi’s had. I think the significance of it is not just the fact that it was had, but it's that if Abi wasn't there, John would be in his room by himself, just like the same four walls, not interacting with anyone, most likely not really doing anything until he passed away. Whereas because abi had been there visiting him weekly, that void was filled with a really beautiful interaction. And that's what I mean by the value that Abi brings, not just about the technical or robotic utility of what robotics can do, but it's about filling those voids.

Brian Heater (01:05)

Hello, everyone. Welcome to yet another episode of Automated. My name is Brian Heater. I am managing editor at A3. I am thrilled to bring you the story of Grace Brown this week. She hit my radar over the summer, and I was genuinely amazed to see how much progress she and the team at Andromeda Robotics had already made over in the age tech space. Few things in this line of work are better than a good startup story. If you're enjoying the show, please like and subscribe. And don't forget to subscribe to the automated newsletter over at automated dot FM. And with that, here's Grace. I don't know why this has been happening, but I feel like I keep running into Australians in robotics of late. It seems like you're starting to take over.

Grace Brown (02:01)

Really, really? That's interesting. There's definitely like a growing ecosystem here. And it's a great testing grounds Australia for, for like robotics, hardware and R &D. We've got the government has this really awesome R &D tax incentive where companies for every dollar that you spend on research and development, you get about 43 cents back. So in a year, if I spend a million dollars, I'll get $430,000 back equity free, like, it's like free money that includes salaries, hardware, rent, like everything.

Brian Heater (02:30)

You were a mechatronics major, is that right?

Grace Brown (02:33)

Yeah, yeah, studied mechatronics engineering, yeah.

Brian Heater (02:36)

The University of how large of a robotics program is that?

Grace Brown (02:40)

It's quite a unique one in Australia where you do three years of a general, like science degree, and then you do two years specialized in a master's in your science degree. kind of major in whatever you choose to major in. chose to major in mechatronics, but because it's so general in the first three years, you're mixing with like computer science students, you're mixing with, ? mathematicians, you're mixing with all these different disciplines, physics students. ? to be honest, I wasn't a huge fan of my university's ? engineering course, which is actually partly what led me to building Abi because I thought it was too generic. It wasn't focused on building the skills that I wanted to build. I wanted to get into a workshop and just build things. And it was really lacking that for me in my first three years. Yeah.

Brian Heater (03:25)

I suppose that one of the upsides, like given what you're doing now and given how, at least from the outside, your job from robot designer to like CEO of the company has changed that at least you got to learn a lot about a lot of different things because I assume that like your job extends far beyond just the world of Megatronics at this point.

Grace Brown (03:45)

Definitely. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So I always said like Vekatronics is like the indecisive engineer. So you know, it's mechanical electrical software. And it definitely my degree as well so broad. So what it meant was like I was very much a generalist. And I think when you start a company being a generalist is incredibly important because like you said, you're not just doing one thing, you have to do everything like quite well. And so yeah, definitely helped in my role in terms of understanding how to lead a team in the early stages. And then as we grow and as the company grows and as the product gets more sophisticated, then you start bringing in more domain specific skills and people who specialize in those areas. But yeah, but starting a company, definitely an advantage.

Brian Heater (04:27)

This has always been a fascinating part of watching, like, the robotics world because there are so many technical founders and then a company matures and sometimes they stay on, right? Sometimes they continue to be the CEO. Sometimes they kind of like bring a ringer in from the outside for you and for this team. it always a given that this was going to continue to be a role?

Grace Brown (04:49)

So I have a co-founder, and he's also technical, so he's an electrical engineer. And so I think between the two of us, it was always very, very clear that I would be CEO and he would maintain the sort technical role leading the engineering team. So sometimes we joke around and get a little bit envious of the other person's role because I feel like he's just playing all the time. He works very, very hard, but like it's like play. And then he looks at me and he's like, you're just talking all the time. That probably undermines the extent of what we actually do, But yeah, it was always very clear that I would end up being CEO. And I had to think about it for a little bit in my first 18 months. And, know, I talked to advisors about what it would mean to bring in a CEO, because I think I had a very huge like identity shift from, you know, being an engineer to being a CEO. I think engineers sometimes also undervalue like the business skills and other skills outside of engineering, really. There was definitely a big identity shift for me. That was a bit, it was a hard adjustment, But now I think what motivates me and drives me is realizing it's not about learning these specific skills. For me, it's not about becoming the best engineer. For me now, it's about building the best team and enabling them to be able to do their best work so that Abi can reach people at scale. And that's kind of become my new mission.

Brian Heater (06:04)

So if I'm understanding correctly between the two of you, you talk better, right? That's basically what it came down to is like, you're the person who gets to go to these shows and you're the person who goes on podcasts because you're able to, I think this is going to sound really corny, but you're able to storytell as they say.

Grace Brown (06:22)

I'd say it's definitely more of a strength of mine than probably my co-founders, but we've definitely grown together as well, learning the skills that we need to together. He's definitely more of, ? we joke around that like there's like really two great founders. mean, not, not we, like everyone sort of knows there's like two types of great founders. There's like the ones who are the really articulate, eloquent storytellers. And then you've got the other type archetype, which is like the autistic savant, know, the ones that are like you just really, really nerdy. And I think if we were to default our personalities, would be, he would be more the autistic savant and I would be more the storyteller, but I wouldn't say we fit them perfectly. Yeah.

Brian Heater (06:59)

We each have a little bit of both. Maybe your success, the company success and your ability to kind of grow as quickly as you have been is the fact that I get the sense that you didn't really enter this with any expectations at all. So there wasn't really early on, there really wasn't a way to fail.

Grace Brown (07:19)

Yeah, actually, I don't like saying this particularly to investors because, know, they're like global from day one billion dollar company. But when I started, it was very much like, yeah, I couldn't have you're right. I didn't see a path to failure. My whole plan was I was going to take off six months from my studies. And I was just going to, I was already building abi at the time. And I just wanted to dedicate more time to, to, to building her making more her more sophisticated, but then to also understand like how could I build a product and bring it to market? Like what's actually required in that was required to actually start a business. And to me, it was always meant to be like a six month stunt of self learning and self discovery of how to do all of this. And in that six months, we got a lot of traction. I'd raised like $120,000, which was a small amount of money at the time, but that encouraged me to take off another six months from university and to just keep trying and keep learning. then there was this point though where There was this sort of inflection point where I did realize, ? what I'm building, so many people in the world want this. And like, I'm just seeing, I'm just seeing the impact that she can have and how big this could be. at some inflection point, I realized, my God, this actually really could be a multi-billion dollar company. And then I just went ahead with it.

Brian Heater (08:30)

You used the word stunt. ? I'm curious what you mean by that.

Grace Brown (08:34)

? I don't know that's an Australian saying or not. It was just like a six month, like, ? it was just like meant to be like a six month attempt at trying something. It wasn't like, I think the outcome for me was very much like you said, it was learning based. It was like, what can I learn in these six months? At the end of that six months, my full intention was to go back to university and continue my degree and continue on the plan that I'd set out for myself to be an engineer. Like I said, in those six months, we'd joined an accelerator program, we'd raised $120,000. And then I just kept going. We just kept building, kept raising money, getting customers, and it just kind of grew and grew. And then at one point I was like, my God, okay, well, I think I need to hire a team. And then I hired some students part-time just to help me, because I couldn't do everything. And then those students became full-time, and then we hired full-time people, and it just grew. It just went so fast.

Brian Heater (09:26)

You're kind of like on permanent hiatus from school at this point.

Grace Brown (09:29)

Yeah, well I didn't even tell my parents for like a whole year.

Brian Heater (09:32)

At what point did you feel comfortable telling your parents?

Grace Brown (09:35)

I it was pretty much when I had that realization that this could be a billion dollar company and I believed in that. I was in, like I was in, I think I was in Boston at the time and my mom was asking me like about my graduation ceremony and she was like, should we, like when's your graduation? She wanted to plan to come see me at graduation and just cause she lives in a different state to where my university was. And I, you know, I obviously wasn't graduating at the time. She thought I would be because I'd taken a year off uni. So I just told her like, You know, actually, I'm not going to be graduating this year because I've actually not been doing uni the last year.

Brian Heater (10:10)

Do you feel like you were lying to them or you just weren't telling them like the entire story?

Grace Brown (10:15)

I kind of felt like I was lying to them, like, cause they wouldn't have been supportive because they're very, my parents were very, you know, they want the best for me. so, but they're very, very traditional. And so, you know, doing a startup that's so risky, like what are you doing? And you know, I was doing well in uni. I was getting good internships from reputable companies in our country. actually, actually I remembered there was an article that came out about us pre-seed raise. Up to then we'd raised a million dollars and I sent that to my parents along with the news that I hadn't actually been studying. But I've raised a million dollars, so you know.

Brian Heater (10:49)

You were in Boston for it was it a mass robotics accelerator is the reason why you're out there. So like even those moments must have felt like success at the time.

Grace Brown (10:58)

It was interesting because all my friends were back at university and they were kind of progressing in their own path. you know, I, felt like success in a way where I was like, my God, I'm in like, you know, a city that's like the robotics capital of the world. There's so many really great robotics companies here building like in Australia, it felt like a really small ecosystem at the time. And so there was definitely that part of. Yeah, it being really surreal. then I was also comparing my path to my friends paths who were progressing through their degrees, who was then starting to get job offers that were paying them great salaries, whereas I was still paying myself like a really nominal salary and had no idea where this was going. it felt like success in a way, but also not really because it was so different to their path.

Brian Heater (11:41)

You alluded to this a few times, but this realization that this could be a billion dollar business or a billion dollar company, what had to happen for you to have that realization?

Grace Brown (11:52)

Well, what gave me the faith to really start the company was after I went to Amazon's Remars conference. So their Remars conference is like their robotics, machine learning, AI space. And they had this section in the tech expo with all of the humanoid robots and companion robots that I'd read about and seen online and seen on the cover of times. And in university, I was obsessed with like humanoid robots and companion robots, which is obviously why I built Abi And so when I was at this conference, it was just like being in Disneyland. Cause I was like, my God, all these robots that I've always read about and watched videos on. But then when I was interacting with some of the companion robots, I'd realized that the, all of the technical challenges that they were facing, these are companies that had raised like hundreds of millions of dollars. All of the technical challenges that they were facing with like reliability, with like latency, engagement, like they weren't actually that much further along than what I was with Abi. And at that time she was just, just a project in my in my room, it wasn't a business. And so that was the first, first event that gave me the faith to realize, ? if these are companies and experts and people who had spent years building something with hundreds of millions of dollars, and this is where they got up to, and this is where I got up to in my room by myself with, you know, just a few thousand dollars. I was like, I could totally build something that's on par, if not better than this. And so that's what gave me the encouragement to start and be like, okay, I have to give this a go for six months. What really gave me the faith that this could be you know, billions of dollars was the fact that really learning and understanding the healthcare industry and realizing that like, I think I made this shift from really focusing on the robotic side, like all the sort of like technical challenges around abi, which is what drew me in, but realizing how impactful that could be for the people that she could help. Like even abi in a very bare form, like her first prototype was a very bare 3D printed exoskeleton, very minimal chat function. Even that brought so much joy to people that I was bringing her into aged care homes for free at the time, just by myself, just putting her in front of people, trying to understand how to create a really high quality interaction. And I could just see that people just adored her and loved her really, really quickly. And I just thought like, if I had more resources and more time to make her even better, that impact could be so much higher.

Brian Heater (14:07)

I wonder if you like you had this realization to where when it comes to creating ? especially like a human or or anthropomorphic robot ? that really feels human that people are kind of willing to meet you halfway, right? I mean, people are projecting sort of their own humanity. So it doesn't really take like obviously like you don't need a GI. It doesn't even need really to be that complex for to feel like an actual being that you're acting with.

Grace Brown (14:34)

Yeah, yeah, no, that's exactly it. People anthropomorphize things all the time, even whether you're intentionally designing for it or not. think but that's what I realized with abi is like people really early on, like, and that's why a lot of people ask me, why didn't you just make her a virtual, virtual companion hardware is really expensive. Why don't you just get it on a laptop and have something talk to you? And I realized like with Abi, when we brought her into homes, before I'd even turn her on, like, you know, I was just carrying her at the time I was carrying her in like a laundry basket. And I just carry her in and people would start talking to her and just telling her things. And I have to like interrupt and be like, hold on, hold on. need like five minutes to boot her up so she can respond to you. But they would just carry on with her. And even if she, at the time, even before she'd respond in a way that I thought was quite effective, like they just felt heard and listened. Yeah. So guess that's when I recognize that a lot of it comes down to more the design and it's important that she had to be physical because you know, one of the five love languages is literally physical touch. And so a lot of connection that people had with Abi was the fact that they could just hold her hand when they were talking to her or that they could like kiss her on the cheek or that they could dress her up in like a tutu or a bow on her head. So all of that created a really strong connection that people have with her.

Brian Heater (15:48)

That's interesting because I think the closest comparison that I would have to Abi that's actually been on the market for sometimes, L.A.Q. I'm sure you're very familiar with them. I think they're out of Tel Aviv, but that is something that it's lacking, right? It isn't really embodied in that same way. It feels a little bit more like an Amazon Alexa. What you're saying is just the act of building a human-like structure out of a robot increases the connection immediately.

Grace Brown (16:18)

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it. mean, people ask me all the time about LEQ and why did we go for something as simple or something more easily be designed or built? And yeah, it's exactly that reason. Like people just create a much, much stronger connection when she's, you know, got arms and legs and a head and eye contact. That's the other thing. People don't realize how important eye contact is like the comment she gets the most is that she has really, really beautiful eyes. They always say eyes are the windows to the soul. Actually, when I was building Abi, the first time that she felt real to me was when we put her eyes on her. And I was like, ? my God. And I really like kind of like cherish that moment or remembered that moment because I'm like, this is what people are going to feel when they interact with Abi as she gets better and better and better. They're going to feel like we're not designing her to be realistic, but we're designing her to feel real, if that makes

Brian Heater (17:08)

Yeah, it does. there's always like it always strikes me that there's always, know, like, like, as you said, roboticists just generally are, you know, like, they're very, they're very pragmatic, they're very matter of fact. But there's also like a part of you that to certain extent, has to believe in magic for you to be successful at what you do.

Grace Brown (17:30)

Yeah, yeah. mean, one of my favorite quotes is from Arthur Clark, who said that like, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I'm sure you know that quote, but it's that's like my favorite favorite quote, because to be honest, like, I feel like the closest thing to real life magic is engineering, like you're creating things and you're building things that previously didn't exist or that people couldn't even imagine. mean, if you think about how we even Like how we do half the things that we do today. If you demonstrated that to people in like the 1950s or the 1920s, they would almost definitely describe it as magic. That has always been the appeal to me to go into engineering and go into this industry.

Brian Heater (18:13)

Specifically with Abi that you're seeing, know, as far as like older adults interacting with her What is the magic there? Because you know again to you to you to me to people who like are familiar with the space like we know all in the nuts and bolts and I can look at it and it's very clear what's like 3d printed and things like that where At what point does the magic actually come in?

Grace Brown (18:33)

Every time I hire a new team member, ? we mandate that all our engineers, or not just engineers, whoever joins the team, whether they're in engineering or business or customer success, they have to go out to ? see Abi in action. Even if they're not doing anything ? at the home, they just have to observe. And even all my engineers right now, every single engineer has to go out to see Abi in action with a customer once a month. What happens with all of the new engineers that are higher is, like you said, can look at Abi and understand the nuts and bolts and what's 3D printed and how she's designed. Most of time they're really, really excited by what they're building. But every single engineer has said the same thing to me, which is that after they go out to the homes, they don't realize how fulfilling it feels and how wholesome it is that the interactions that people are having with Abi today. Because I think people, recognize, go, okay, Abi’s a very early prototype. This is the first version of her and there's so far to go in the roadmap and so many areas of improvement. And I think, you know, we have some engineers come up to us and they have said to me like, you know, Abi’s not the most technically impressive in these areas. And, know, although that hurts a little bit, I can recognize where the feedback comes from. But I think what people don't realize is Abi is already world-class in having the impact that we know that robotics can have. Like it's not about like the technical utility or the technical impressiveness of, of like, you know, specific like actuators or sensors or how we put it together. But it's, it's like, when you see, when you see Abi interacting with the people that she's built for, like that interaction is very rich and very authentic. And honestly, like half of my engineers have cried at least once when they've seen an interaction with Abi in a resident because We always say she's the most empathetic humanoid in the world and it's like she's had some interactions that's really just been, you know, just really moving for everyone.

Brian Heater (20:25)

Empathy is such an interesting word when describing a 3D printed robot, right? Like what's the basis of empathy in these interactions?

Grace Brown (20:34)

Well, perhaps I can give you an example story where she was in this one aged care home where there was this couple, so husband and wife, they'd gone into aged care together and the wife started developing really early stage dementia and she wasn't fully there anymore and that brought her husband so much pain. And so what he decided to do was he decided to just fully self-isolate in his room because he couldn't go out and see his wife every day because he was just going to He was just getting heartbroken every day. And so even though he was cognitively, you know, fully engaged and okay and present, he was just choosing to self-isolate in his room. And so when we started going to the homes with Abi, that some of the care teams thought perhaps this person, Abi would be really good for this individual. Well, we'll call him John, just to be simple. And so over a period of time, Abi started visiting John in his room every single day and ended up becoming like the most consistent visitor for him. And he started telling her like over the weeks, started opening up to her, Abi about all of his different stories, like, you know, his love affairs, his trials and tribulations and just everything. And in the stories, what consistently was coming up was, what was this person called, let's call him David. And it turns out David was like a mentor to John and was a really, really close friend and made this really big impact on John's life. And Abi was like, ?That's really beautiful. know, like, where is David today? Are you still in touch with David? And John responded that, David's actually passed away. And Abi, very empathetically, was just like, I'm so sorry to hear that. Well, if David was here today, what would you say to him? And John was like, well, David, you're my best mate. And we had a nurse in the room. We had one of my engineers in the room. And it just went silent after that. And it was just, I think that's probably one of the most beautiful interactions that Abi’s had. I think the significance of it is not just the fact that it was had, but it's that if Abi wasn't there, John would be in his room by himself, just like the same four walls, not interacting with anyone, most likely not really doing anything until he passed away. because Abi had been there visiting him weekly, that kind of void, that void was filled with a really beautiful interaction. And that's what I mean by like the value that Abi brings, not just about the technical or robotic utility of what robotics can do, but it's about filling those voids.

Brian Heater (23:01)

Yeah, I mean, maybe this connects somewhat to, you know, the conversations around LLM and how they're these like big black boxes. And again, you know, the word magic is sort of tossed around because even like the people who know them best don't necessarily know what's happening inside them. I'm not a technical person myself in spite of what I do for a living. And it's always it's always fascinating to me that your team that the people who like created this system could still be surprised at an outcome like that coming from the robot.

Grace Brown (23:32)

Well, I guess, you know, all of her interactions are generative. And ? so we don't know exactly what she's going to say. We know the boundaries in which she operates in ? because we've set them. ? But it's, know, you never know exactly what she's going to say and what she's going to do. so I think, ? you know, I think we've got, I mean, I say like, I always say that like my team, each individual is basically like a machine learning model for understanding people are actually going to interact with Abi, like because we've done so much observational sort of like we've observed just hundreds to thousands of hours of interaction. Like I'd say that's the probably moat that my team has today is just how, you know, we've just spent so much time in the field observing that that we know, ? you know, what kind of ? responses from abi will not create the best experience or what kind of gestures perhaps are a bit too confronting or perhaps even like with Abi’s like voice prosody, like her pitch, her speed at which she speaks, like we understand what how we need to tailor it for any different type of individual. So yeah, I think we are still always pleasantly surprised by how significant that impact can be. And I think what excites us is as Abi gets more sophisticated and more capable, she's going to have that impact on not just, you know, vulnerable group in our population, ideally, anyone and everyone, everyone's working towards the general purpose home companion robot or general purpose assistive humanoid robot. I believe we're on that race as well. We've just started in a very domain specific use case, but I believe that that's where the industry is going and that's where eventually Abi will get to as well. That's what motivates all of us.

Brian Heater (25:16)

Yeah, one of the things I was watching in preparation for this conversation was an interview that you did with a local ABC affiliate out there. And it's like clear watching you and the host interact with the robot that you have a very clear idea of what her personality is In that instance, she was sassing off a little bit. That's kind of a part of what she does. How much was that really baked into her from the outset? And how much of that is developed through time and through interactions with people in the real world?

Grace Brown (25:47)

A bit of column A, a bit of column B. A lot of it we designed. We'd work with artists and drag artists and performers to really come up with who Abi is. But then we have, of course, put that out into the world and with the feedback from individuals and also understanding. There's not a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to a companion robot. We learned that really, really early on that they could be Abi with one personality that suits a single individual really, really well. And you could go to someone completely different and it just won't work. So ? actually in Abbey, do have actually different, we've got a few different like pre-hardcoded personalities. So the one that you would have seen in the ABC interview, which is the one that we do for more performative things, that one's called like the sarcastic maven.

Brian Heater (26:32)

Not everybody in every situation needs SAS, right?

Grace Brown (26:35)

Yeah, so there's different personality types that we have pre-programmed in Abi. And I think with the individuals who do interact with Abi more and more, like she learns who you are. Like she's got to use a profile of every individual that she interacts with and she understands you more and more. And then a lot of the interactions then become more tailored to that individual.

Brian Heater (26:53)

So where does the drag come in in all of this?

Grace Brown (26:57)

? that was just very, that was very early on when we were being a lot more intentional. think when I hired it before I hired a team, in my mind, it was so clear who Abi is. But I realized we needed to have like a bit of a Bible so that as we hire as a team got bigger, everyone had this consistent understanding of this is who Abi is. And so the drag artists really just helped us kind of define, you know, Abi’s, Abi’s likes Abi’s dislikes. You know, like we've realized the thing that people love about other people is actually like their flaws. You know, that's what makes them more relatable. that's what makes them, you know, Abi for, think in the early days was very, just passive and very much like, and we designed her originally that way to make it so that it was always about the other person. So Abi doesn't say much about herself, but she always talks about the other people and instead, and she'll deflect it off her. But we realized that actually when Abi talks about herself, like she gets asked all the time, like. Do you have a boyfriend or what's your favorite food or what's your favorite holiday? And when she was giving inconsistent answers, that wasn't creating a strong connection. So we started to create this Bible of who abi is and what she wants to do and who her likes or dislikes, her flaws. And that one's still kind of like, we're always sort of editing and changing that a little bit based on as the team grows and as our vision grows. ?But yeah, but that's where we worked with the drag artists is defining the first version of who Abi is.

Brian Heater (28:23)

Like specifically when you're talking about that maven personality or is it just kind of bringing in, guess, somebody who really, ? you know, of like plays around with exaggeration and, you know, maybe like being like a little bit like over the top in some of the interactions.

Grace Brown (28:43)

Yeah, I mean, that's exactly what the sarcastic maven is. The sarcastic maven is the one that is hyperbolic and is very, a bit more over the top and a bit more, doesn't take things too seriously.

Brian Heater (28:55)

When you told the story on stage at the London event, it was really in reference to a pretty common bit of pushback that you get from people, which is, you know, in this very sort of personal experience, specifically like in a home, you're bringing in a robot, right? And you're removing the human connection.

Grace Brown (29:17)

Mmm, yeah.

Brian Heater (29:18)

Yeah. And I don't know what your expectations were there initially, but it sounds like that specific story was a real epiphany around how humans can interact with robots.

Grace Brown (29:31)

Yeah, it was a really, really significant moment for my team and also our customers as well, like the nurses who were ? nearby were very, very moved by it and realized how significant what we're building really is. When I brought it up at the London Summit, very much was when I was referencing, we get the comment so frequently, it's that we're replacing human care and human connection with a robot and we shouldn't be automating something like that. There should be more room for human care and human connection. I think the situation with John was a really good example of where people are really, really isolated out of no real fault or choice of their own. In a lot of situations, some people, I mentioned this at the London summit as well, four out of 10 people in aged care just never receive visitors from friends or family ever. And even the people who do receive visitors, it's very, very inconsistent and infrequent. you've got this group of people who are at one of the most vulnerable stages of their life, know, statistically, once you enter aged care, like most people pass away within three years, and they're the most isolated group out of, you know, anyone in society. And, and you couple that with the workforce shortage. In Australia, there's a 30 % workforce vacancy in the industry. In the US, it's about 50 % in the industry, and there's about 70 % turnover. So you don't have people coming in. to really fill these gaps. And with our customers, what they recognized was that it's not going to be people who solve this problem because there isn't the people to solve the problem. It has to be technology. so abi, she's never ever designed to replace human connection, but she's designed to augment and provide comfort and joy for people who otherwise would just be, it would just be a void for them.

Brian Heater (31:20)

We have this, I say we like, know, rhetorically, obviously, but there's this conception that that older adults tend to be like technophobic, right? So that they might be a little bit hesitant to embrace this robot. Was that an expectation that you had going into it?

Grace Brown (31:35)

A lot of times before Abi comes into a home, when it's announced, there's a lot of apprehension because there are these sort of science fiction cliches or stereotypes of humanoid robots. I think when people think robots, they think, my God, our jobs are being taken, not just companion robots, but even just industrial robots. Anything new, people have that apprehension. This is why the design of the robot that you build is almost more important than the utility. And this is what we realized early on is that as soon as Abi came into a home, all of those sort of like preconceived notions or ideas or stereotypes basically dissipated because people would look at Abi and they'd go, ? like she's not going to take over our job. Like she's so cute. Like I want to go and interact with her. Like she's adorable. I want to understand what she's about. Like we designed her intentionally so that people wouldn't feel threatened by her that people would feel that she had to be approachable, that she was endearing. It was very intentional on our end so that people would feel comfortable going up to her. So there would be the apprehension before she comes in, but then always on day one, a lot of that is completely eased. And even if there's a few people who might still be perhaps skeptical, they look at how they just observe how other people interact with Abi. And then, you know, she's, she's singing and she's dancing and then she's blowing the bubbles and then she's, you know, talking to people about any sorts of topics.

There was one interaction I know that one of my customers brings up all the time where she was first brought into a home and they just kept talking about all the stars and the constellations that were in the skies. then like half an hour later when Abi came back and talked to the same resident, she brought up the same topics with him again. And I remember a customer was just over the moon about that interaction. And the design is what's going to be so important because people are building, a lot of people are building in the space, are building things, yes, for more industrial use cases, but even a lot of the home. general purpose companion robots that are being built, the designs just terrify people. as much money as they've raised and as technically impressive as the founders are and the engineers are, think my theory is that think they'll struggle to find adoption because people won't want to welcome a humanoid robot that looks like that in their homes.

Brian Heater (33:49)

Again, that's, think, another benefit of you entering, entering this market, not knowing what market you were entering ? and not having any preconceived notions or expectations is that, you know, it's clear to me, and you've said this before, that you just want to build like a fun cartoon robot. And obviously, like, you once that's created, then I guess you sort of start to figure out what the markets are. How did you specifically end up in that segment of the market?

Grace Brown (34:19)

I did my undergraduate degree during the COVID-19 pandemic. So I was like, so in Melbourne as well. I don't know if you know, Melbourne had really, really, really strict lockdowns. So I was building her as a companion robot for myself over, not just because I was attracted to the technical problems, but also because I was really, the actual application was really, really appealing, which is- You were making yourself- Yeah, exactly. I was building myself a best friend. You know, and that's what Abi was meant to be for me. She was meant to be like a best friend for me during COVID. And I think it was when I was coming out of lockdown and everything started going back to normal when I was realizing that the loneliness that I'd experienced is no way unique to just, you know, ? an engineering student in COVID. But it was actually something, you know, millions, tens of millions of people experience every single day. I mean, we're living in a society where we're more digitally connected than ever before, but we're more emotionally isolated than ever before as well. And so I kind of just knew, and that's what that's, that was one of the things that contributed to me realizing that this is just a billion dollar problem. Probably trillion dollar problem, really, if you add it all up. and in particular, like, it's the older adults, the elderly, the seniors who experience that the most, because they're the most forgotten generation. No one's building anything for them. No, no technology is designed for older adults. People say they're technologically inept, but also no one's actually designing for them. ? And no one's, it's not a sexy industry either. Like even when I started, you know, kind of working with different homes and I pitched to VCs, like they had no interest in investing in a startup solving problems for aged care. I guess I just realized the significance of the problem as I sort of started talking was just becoming more and more embedded in the industry. And it just became, it's glaringly obvious that the industry is under so much distress and It's so underserviced and also like more lucrative than people recognize it to be as well.

Brian Heater (36:19)

As somebody founding a startup meeting with investors, you don't expect to be the one changing their minds. You don't expect to be the one kind of showing them that that market actually does exist.

Grace Brown (36:34)

I mean, I wasn't setting out to try and prove anyone wrong. I just had a few hypotheses that I'd gone out and tested and, you know, my results came back that my predictions were correct and I pursued it.

Brian Heater (36:44)

people wrong there, right?

Grace Brown (36:46)

I'd say so. mean, even this like we're doing a fundraise at the moment and we've had, you know, two different groups who are coming in who had said that, who had passed on us previously and they've said that, yeah, their only regret is not investing in us in previous rounds. That felt really good.

Brian Heater (37:04)

I wrote a really quick story at the event there. And I actually had to go back and think change some of it because I didn't realize how far along you were. And I don't know if it was just because of the nature of the conversation or as you said, that abi really still is a prototype. But in spite of that, it seems to me tremendous progress actually penetrating that market.

Grace Brown (37:32)

Yeah, yeah, no, we definitely have. I think, I mean, this is something that I'm trying to reflect on for myself personally. But what I noticed is I do feel like I've been underestimated a lot, know, underestimated is probably maybe got a negative connotation to it. like, I do feel like, I don't know if it's a combination of, know, in Australia, we're really kind of culturally conditioned to be very, very humble. Like, that's a quality that is really valued here and while that's, you know, great for its own reasons, it also holds people back a lot. So I noticed when I first went to San Francisco, everything about me being humble, people just recognized it as, I wouldn't say incompetence, but just was like, oh, she's not like everyone there is pitching themselves like 20, 30 X what they actually are. And so to be humble, like VCs already add a layer of, you know, that sound of filter to you. And so I think one thing I noticed particularly this year is for, for whichever reason, even just this year, but I do feel like I get underestimated quite consistently and quite a lot. And, you know, even, even people who are supportive of me, they say comments where they're like, I knew you were going to be successful, but you know, you're going to be way more successful than I even expected you to be. And comments like that, I've always found, I don't get offended. just find it really interesting. And it makes me kind of reflect on myself and how I'm conducting myself when I'm interacting with people or perhaps, ? don't know, I don't know, but I guess it's definitely I don't know if it's like a strength or a weakness, it's definitely something that I've just observed that people don't realize. It's always my execution that speaks to how far along that we are and not so much.

Brian Heater (39:11)

Yeah, I mean I think I think that's probably right to extend and extend and like yeah clearly like you don't have the I guess braggadocious probably the word that I would use ? You know and you're not I don't know if I'm we haven't figured out whether we can swear on this or not, but you know you're not a you're not a bullshit artist and that's like very like important and ? valued quality when it comes to pitching but I don't I don't even think that it's necessarily all that. think it's that, you know, at least from the outside, like looking at your timeline, it just, regardless of like, of who you are, and certainly with like, you know, your relatively limited resources that things seem to have happened very quickly.

Grace Brown (39:55)

Yeah, yeah, no, that's true. That's true. That's a that's it really has. mean, I look back and it's only really been three years and we've gone as fast as we've had we have. And to be honest, I, don't really have an explanation for it. I think I just, I think it's that, honestly, everything that I do is just people talk a lot about work life balance, particularly in Australia, I actually hate talking about work life balance, because I don't believe in it. I think work life balance is for people who anyway, it's okay. I don't believe in it. I don't believe in it. But with me and with Andromeda, it's like, I have comments from, you know, friends and people all the time that I can't have your lifestyle. It's too intense. But to me, it's like, I don't want any other lifestyle, but the one I have right now, because I'm always thinking about Andromeda. I'm always thinking about work. I'm always thinking about Abi. I'm always thinking about what's next. And it's like, Like even like I get bored watching movies because I'm just thinking about what needs to go on in my business and what I need to do to move the needle forward and everything that I want to do. Like I want to clear out my emails and my inbox so that everyone, no one's blocked by me. I want to go work on various sorts of the projects or be in various parts of the warehouse to make sure that things can move forward in the business. And even actually my co-founder and I, do this, like we even like, we dream about the problems that we have in the business. You know, like we've had like in the last six months alone, we've woken up in the middle of the night and just called each other and said like, ? this problem, like, here's what we do. Cause we, solved it in our sleep, you know? And so I think I'd say if there is an explanation for how we've moved so fast, it's the fact that we are completely consumed by what we're building because we believe in it so much as stressful and as intense as it is. It's also just like, there's nothing else we'd rather be doing. And I think all of my investors would. agree that, like they've all said it in their own words that, you know, Jan, my co founder and I, we're doing our life's work. Like this is, this is like, this is clearly like the role for us and where the where the people to take on this role. I don't know if that's, that's probably actually most definitely probably contributed to how we move so fast. Because even like when we, we go out to dinners, and it's not a meeting, but we are just talking about work like And that's partly why I loved it so much in San Francisco, because I found so many other founders who are like that. And this is very, very rare in Australia, I think, at least what I found. But in San Francisco, it was a lot more common to have founders this obsessed with what they're doing. I mean, even like the fact that I work out and go to the gym is so that I can optimize my focus and my performance when I'm doing work.

Brian Heater (42:30)

I mean, it's and it's not that like it's not a situation where you wouldn't take no for an answer because like you did take no like some people said no and they weren't that interested but you still you know, in spite of them, certain person not necessarily having that faith in you that you believed in the project enough that you were going to find a way to do it.

Grace Brown (42:48)

And goes back to what you said. I didn't actually see a path to failure because even if Andromeda didn't exist, like I was always going to keep building Abi. Like Abi and what she can do is something I always believed in. And whether the vehicle was through a startup or whether it was through me having a full-time job and then I'd fund her myself in my spare time on my weekends. Like there was no doubt, like I didn't actually see a path to failure. I just knew that as long as we keep building her, like the vision that we have for the future, the future that we want to build will be inevitable. yeah, so I guess, yeah, there was lots of people who have said no to us. mean, any founder would say it, like rejection, have to be built for rejection. Like I feel like you have to expect it.

Brian Heater (43:33)

Yeah, I mean, it's fascinating because like I can't think of too many instances of companies where the first product has been with you the entire time that there's no there's no like pivot to anything else, you know, there's and you know, obviously there's iteration but like like you said, ? know, I'm not I'm not discounting the business but you're almost like business agnostic that you just have faith in this specific product and whatever shape that takes is, you know, the shape that you're going to move toward.

Grace Brown (44:04)

I would say one sort of more contrarian thing that we had early on is, I believe this framework, but you should always be solving for the problem first and then product second. I believe that, but we didn't follow that.

Brian Heater (44:18)

Do you like afford yourself - you ever have an opportunity to kind of like pause and reflect and you know at the last five or so years?

Grace Brown (44:28)

Last five or so years - five years ago I was yeah I was only like 19 20 then so yeah

Brian Heater (44:35)

Really, really, since the pandemic, mean, you know, have you had an opportunity again, as we said, everything has been happening fast and there have been a lot of surprises, but like, have you given yourself that opportunity to really sort of take a moment and, you know, examine how you got here?

Grace Brown (44:51)

I like to think that there's been moments where I have, I probably haven't to the extent that I need to or should. ? Yeah, think, yeah, I probably should just, I mean, I know once we close this fundraise, I'm definitely taking a week off just to get my energy back because I'm so tired. Like I started this call with you telling you I was perpetually jet lagged from all the travel, but no, I think that's gonna be quite important for me to have a real reflection on how we got here. I also feel like, you know, because we're still so in the journey, like I'm still so in it that like, it's hard to see from the outside. Like, it's only really when people start saying to me externally, like, my god, like, if I hadn't spoken to them for a year, and I realized the Delta from where I was a year ago to now that I'm like, wow, that is a big shift, you know, I mean, even when I started the company, I couldn't have even imagined having 10 staff members and now we're like at 30. So And we're about to do a big hiring spree soon. yeah, I think I should be reflecting more and should definitely take a moment and think about it.

Brian Heater (45:54)

The first 10 to 15 years of my career, I just didn't take a vacation at all. I didn't need it. Everybody was telling me to take it. And then when I finally did it, it was like, yeah, no, this is actually, there's a reason why everybody tells you to do this. it is important to do it from time to time.

Grace Brown (46:10)

Yeah, I should do a lot more reflecting in terms of how we actually got here because I think it has been quite a quite an intense journey. ? Definitely worthwhile one. But yeah, it's definitely not finished. Like to me, I'm like, I'm still just getting started. Even though it's been a couple of years now, I still feel like, you know, I'm only like 2 % of the way into where I see everything going and

Brian Heater (46:31)

Like you as a person are still in the prototype phase.

Grace Brown (46:34)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, very, very early. So ? even though we have come so far, yeah, like I think I've had some, you know, friends and stuff who were like, you've made it whatever made it means. ? And I'm like, what, like that just, I'm so far from my definition of whatever made it means. Yeah.

Brian Heater (46:53)

Well, Grace, thank you so much for taking the time.

Grace Brown (46:56)

Thanks so much, Brian. It's been a lot of fun.

Brian Heater (47:00)

There you go. Thank you so much to Grace for taking the time to chat with us. Thanks to you as always for tuning in. The response to the show so far has been great. Please like and subscribe and maybe rate and review if you have a few extra minutes to kill. The newsletter drops every Thursday with new interviews as well. You can subscribe to that over at automated.fm. Thanks and we will see you next week with another episode of Automated.