On January 17, 2008, Colin Angle spoke at CCIS of his experiences founding iRobot. His presentation was light hearted and fascinating.
Angle told us iRobot started building robots in 1990. iRobot tried at least fourteen different projects before the Roomba. They were all really cool, but nothing came of them.
They partnered with large corporations. What was unique to their arrangements was the implicit acknowlegement that these big partners had all the power. Instead of writing defensive contracts that would handcuff the projects, iRobot said, "ok, you have the power, so you must also assume the financial risk." The projects had free reign, and the partners payed for them.
iRobot employees were payed on the last day of each month. At the beginning of each month, iRobot would not have enough money, but by the end of the month they always did. The employees could enjoy the illusion of stability. Angle said, "what makes an enterpreneur great is not taking risks, but managing the risk."
One of their projects was to build an industrial floor cleaner. That's where they learned how to clean floors. Angle described the motivation for the Roomba with this chart: the x-axis is Enjoyment, and the y-axis is Frequency. frequent + enjoyable = fulfilling, frequent + not enjoyable = drudgery, not frequent + not enjoyable = neglect, not frequent + enjoyable = frustration. The Roomba transforms drudgery and neglect into fulfillment.
The first Roomba TV ad was boring and sales remained flat. Then Pepsi released an ad featuring a "generic" robot vacuum eating some dude's pants just before his girlfriend walks in, and that day, iRobot's internet sales trippled. Just the break they needed, and they changed their approach to advertising. They knew Roomba had become a household name when Saturday Night Live did a skit on the Woomba, which iRobot had nothing to do with, Angle noted.
In response to one of the student's questions, Angle said their robots are designed to be hacked. All of their robots have serial ports and documented interfaces. You can pull out the dust bin to make room for your own payload.