Search Interviews:

 

Jeremy Weisz

Yeah. I want to talk about the first year. But Reuven talk about so Guy comes to you with his idea. Okay. You have a lot of experience and a lot of different realms. How did he convince you to join the team? And, and you know, work on this?

Reuven Della-Torre

Yeah, yeah, festival? Yeah. You’re right. First, first time that I heard about it, it was for me you challenge thinking about having a multidisciplinary system like that with hardware with mechanic, electronics and software embedded, etc. Starting from from scratch, is challenging. I think that this is one of the main thing that the A make me very enthusiastic from the beginning. For me, too, I didn’t have such a wide system that before that I read from scratch. So for me, it was every challenge that I wanted to participate with. Actually, I got to Guy from our first chairman of the company. So I knew him. I was just living my former company that was this. So to Yahoo, so it was acquired by

Guy Glass

the name.

Reuven Della-Torre

Yeah, so giggy levy. I don’t know if you are acquainted with the But anyhow, is one of the I would say that one of the most, one of the most main angels here. Yeah,

Jeremy Weisz

I think I was reading about is it like I Angel and he’s one of the founders of angel. Yeah. So

Guy Glass

so good. Yeah. And, by the way, also an effects from, from the Silicon Valley, venture capital.

Reuven Della-Torre

Right. So yeah, so I had a chat with him I came with i was i was just discussing with giggy a few of my ideas maybe to start a new startup and and he said, Okay, if you want me on board he with whatever ideas that you come, I am in favor, but you have first check out with di as I think that this is, it’s a great chance to do really something big. So yeah, I met with Guy had the first time it was a we said Really? shocking illustrate. Okay, well, we’re starting from from scratch something. But then every I said so we started to take all the components say okay, let’s do it in the best way thing that you we don’t find right now in the market is that we were very innovative in the concept. Even today, but in that time for sure. So, and the main thing that I propose let’s go to, to as much software as we can. And let’s leave the hardware, let’s say yeah, as basic as can be. And, and I think that we are on this concept from day one.

Jeremy Weisz

So that was a strategy for the first year, let’s just make the software amazing and put in a simple hardware package. So it’s not, that’s where I guess you can help people provide a economic solution.

Reuven Della-Torre

That’s great. But it’s not just the first year because I think that this is the main concept that is, is escorting us from day one. And we are still with we are trying to have as much logic as we can in the cloud and and have the robots doing whatever they need to do. And it’s and it’s an interface with a warehouse itself, but all the all the business logic is not there. And we are doing things that other competitors are not even there. Didn’t went to this facility. So you will find that we’re doing nearly everything in the cloud.

Jeremy Weisz

Talk about the technology for people who haven’t seen the videos, watching the little robot robots kind of just stream around the warehouse talk about what what it does.

Guy Glass

Okay, so, so moving on, Okay, then. Okay. Okay. So, a few words about the constant concept of the system, again, is that every components we develop even right now new new components, new feature, everything that driven us is the if it’s not free to scalable and flexible is not entering to our system means our system we can integrate, very tolerant and so I mean almost any type of flow, we can come to be compatible with any type of shell if you don’t need like most of the other solution that need a very unique shelving. We don’t need a very unique shelving we can integrate it with almost any type of a shelf. We are very tolerant almost any type of a box can be plastic box can be beans, it can be towed, it can be carton box. So everything and based on that is our robot again, our robot again, if you can compare it to a, you can compare most of the robotic system is to autonomous car means that they are very autonomous. When they have a problem, they solve it by their own, like autonomous car with a very different concept. So our robots are enabler and they get mission, if something if they cannot do a task that sent from the cloud, the reporting in back and the cloud decide, well, everything. We think that in terms of optimization, we can achieve more. And again, this also serving us in terms of flexibility, flexibility, because if tomorrow morning, we want to add additional manpower, we just send the robot they click the button. Wait for 30 seconds, Robert joined his friends and started to work. So this is what the in terms of technology in terms of let’s say in terms of product, what do we want to achieve and what we achieve?

Jeremy Weisz

What are the biggest pain points Why are Why are people buying the system? One of the biggest pain points at solving for It was a different from what you thought originally.

Guy Glass

Yeah, I can’t tell thumbs up originally when we started the system. On top of that, we started that our a, our robots not only bring boxes to the picking station, but they also build the infrastructure of the warehouse itself. But so we change it a bit. And eventually we understand that the infrastructure is very, very expensive. So it’s better to integrate for with existing infrastructure that is currently in the market. I think the main challenges for us is, first of all, you know, small company in terms of business, you know, small company, from Israel at the beginning. I think people like, it’s not so easy to integrate to a startup company, especially in the hardware world, when you, you need almost 100% uptime. So I think a lot of people are afraid of that. And I think this is the currently This is our main challenge, because in terms of concept of the system, and how does it work, everybody really like the concept. But I think some of the customer are less an early adopter. So for us, this is I think, the main challenge in terms of cloud everybody like the cloud at the beginning, we saw that people like to install in promises servers, but as time goes by, everybody understand this is a huge advance for them to be in the cloud. So it was a huge challenge at the beginning. And right now, it’s something that is not really USAF, and, again, currently the claim and in this period with the Coronavirus, and I think it’s a huge challenge, how you can do remote support, and how you can support your customer, again, we talked about that, we already have a supporting detail the stage, again, we design our system in such a way that every component of our robot connected to the cloud means the motto, the driver, or the sensor, everything connect to the cloud. And we know that’s why we can do a lot of predictive maintenance. And we control everything remotely. And of course, at the end of we need something inside and we have a support and service in the state. So in that way, when you when you

Jeremy Weisz

are getting before your first customer and you’re testing it, how did you test it? How do you test the test the software and then the hardware together?

Reuven Della-Torre

So we started in the beginning, we had not like a usual sort of set, they take two rooms and working on the software, we had to take a lot of space. And we took with the Indian Navy, Navy, well, we had a love that was there about 200 300 square meters. And we started working with rubber that we manufacture for the lab. We built up a small warehouse. And and we’ve, we’ve experienced this Guy of working in real world warehouses. We knew what we were looking for. And that’s that’s the starting point that we started. So eventually, we had to, I think, very big advantages when we started to sell one was the lab itself. And the second was that customers came and we have a very unique simulation to that it’s a realistic in its real simulation. It’s not something that trying to simulate the the reality but it’s one to one with the reality. So we started to show them real, real virtual warehouse running on their data that they provided to us. So they started to look at it and says, we know this order is ours. This our SK is amazing that this visual Roberts knows how to take the boxes and stuff and bring it to the station. And it was very convincing. So big, big customers. were willing to to really start looking into our solution in depth.

Jeremy Weisz

Yeah, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think one of the selling points is let the robotics do kind of the my new details and then send it to the human who needs to do certain Human checks.

Guy Glass

Yes, though. So, yeah, you’re right, we are saving. And actually, I think most of the robotic solution everyone has its own approach. But most of the, let’s say, the solution robotic solution defuse sterilized area. I’m not talking about Collaborative Law, but most of them save around 80% from the labor force, the rest of the rest of the 20% is based on what we call peaking station. So the robbers bring the boxes to the picking station and human pick an item the screen daily and you need to pick this item put it in customer order. And so, this is 120 percent, by the way, other very nice startups that trying to solve the deacon pick a pick and place, place solution, this to focusing on this 20%. So, yes, we are solving this 80%, as you said, bringing the boxes to the peaking stage and inform their human peak and put it in customer order.

Jeremy Weisz

Talk about the first few customers, I imagine, you know, like you said, you need an early adopter, right and talk about how it was getting the first few customers.

Guy Glass

So first customer we had. One of them was from Germany, again, connected from one of our investors. It’s a company called via sto, it’s distributed to the GCC distribution company that they have their own technology, but also distribute other technology we did with them pilot. It was in Germany, and the other one that is company called Bergen logistic, they are based in New Jersey, a three PL third party logistics bear focusing on the fashion industry. So again, we met with them just in the beginning, let’s say it was like a 2016. And we the introduction made by one of our small shareholder did the introduction the product wasn’t mature enough. So we stopped and after two years later, we reconnect with them. Again, the product was more mature but still not only final. So they started his videos as partner with us. We start to jump on that together. They really helped us in terms of designing and we start very small without with only two robots around 100 150 square meter around 1000 square foot of warehouse very small, and we grew every grow every like one month to month, we added additional space where did additional and additional robots, we did a lot of changes based on their experience based on their requirement. We send them the our engineers, and one of our QA guys did relocation for one year to Bergen logistics before we recruit someone that someone to our US, US us subsidiary. So we started step by step. It wasn’t so easy. We had a lot of problems at the beginning, a lot of glitches, a lot of stops, but both sides know I knew in advance that it will take time in order to stabilize the system. And right now we are running there with 25 robots. Around more than 2000 square meter around 20,000 square foot warehouse we have around 25,000 boxes running there. And pretty soon we’ll expand this area A expand this area, probably multiple this area. And again looks really promising and very, very good. What do you think about some of the videos you’ve seen before? Is from from this look? Yes?

Jeremy Weisz

Yes, exactly. What do you think that saves them from time or human labor having 20 robots?

Guy Glass

Yes. So we saved them first of all space space because first of all, we go higher you know where an Angular at a peak. Mine in terms of manual can peak around efficiently up to 1.8 meter. Are you And we can go two times higher. So first of all, in terms of space, and not only in terms of physical space, but also in terms of optimization. We know how to do consolidation take, you know, boxes that left with only small items, connect them together and things like that. So the space is more efficient. And also in terms of inbound inbound process in our system is very easy. Because we can use any type of a box, the inbound process is very, very quick deselect boxes, put it in regular shelf, Robert come from the other side. So labor costs in terms of inbound and labor cost in terms of, of course, labor in terms of pickers that would need to walk in the warehouse. And of course, mistakes By the way, like, three or four months now, actually, right now with the Quran around six months ago, we also closed the lights in this warehouse. So think about it around, I saw that

Jeremy Weisz

the robots have like little headlights on them.

Guy Glass

Yes, exactly. So. So around 20,000 square foot without a light at all. Imagine terms of air conditioning and lights, how much it can save them? Yeah.

Jeremy Weisz

What made you think of that? That seems like something I would never think, you know, just let’s turn off the lights and let the robots see what they think of that.

Reuven Della-Torre

Because they don’t care.

Jeremy Weisz

Even thought to do that. But yeah.

Reuven Della-Torre

We had that one of our pilots, were in a place that people couldn’t wear because it was 50 degrees Celsius. Heat. That’s that slave and I am they It was a user space for them. And we said, you know, you can put robots and they can it can work. So actually, the beauty is it’s where robots can work in an environment that people are not able to work. You know, like, he said,

Jeremy Weisz

what did you learn from the first install? You said, there’s always the first time going to be glitches or customisations. What did you learn from the first install that you brought to the next one to make it easier?

Reuven Della-Torre

I think that actually, the main thing, the thing that we found that when you are testing in lab in a very good bid environment, it’s to steroids. So you will not you will not real have real life problem, like you have in real warehouses. And one of the advantages that might be a disadvantage, but it was an advantage from this perspective, that this warehouse that we started with, is not the best, let’s say surface and the best space that someone can think about. So we had a lot of challenges that we didn’t think even that we’ll find an occur in words as we find them there. And we had to define solutions. So that one of the main things,

Jeremy Weisz

what’s the difference? So,

Guy Glass

Jeremy, Jeremy, it’s never, never underestimate the challenges.

Jeremy Weisz

Is it kind of like a military? Is it kind of like the army

Guy Glass

like that, but we always, you know, you want to promise the customer it will be good that it will work. Don’t worry. And, and but yeah, you know, the way I buy between two of us, you know, between me and Reuven, I mean, between me and Reuven, I am the one that don’t worry, would walk and always Reuven tell me how we tested we have some kind of a balance between it. Yeah. as years go by, yeah. No way, you know, even without talking, we know how to get to know each other in terms of what we can and what we can do.

Jeremy Weisz

I can hear that. I can hear that from the first conversation you had, because I could see you going, listen, this is gonna be the best thing and then I could see Reuven’s brain going well, how how are we going to do that? Like, look at all this stuff we need to create to get to what you’re talking about, like, you’re probably like, don’t worry about it. Reuven like I’m worried about it. But

Reuven Della-Torre

you have something that we have really, the idea is that the concept is so great that this custom as it came in the first time he really didn’t see anything. You can imagine after half a year that we had the this startup So he but he understood the concept, he understood that this is a really an innovative concept that he didn’t see any, any anywhere. So he has the patience to go with us. And to say, okay, understanding the first time it will not be easy, but they, you know, is dying faster, they became more and more enthusiastic, once they fully running and working.

Jeremy Weisz

What seems to be the motivator for the companies that want to take this on? Is it like, work staff? Is it space? What is the motivator for them to pull the trigger to be like, okay, we’re gonna take this, you know, it’s not just a ton of money investment, it’s just a time to get it right. What do you think their biggest motivator is?

Guy Glass

I see. I see. I think that we are looking for customer that again, if our main advantage is in terms of flexibility and scalability. So we are looking for customers that flexibility, scalability is the most important thing for them. For example, three PL, they have a lot of very different type of customers. So they need a lot of flexibility. So if they took customer and put it in our demo customer in our system, and tomorrow morning, the customer will leave them another customer come to their to their facility with different boxes. And if the automated the automated the robotic system cannot fit for that. So this is not flexibility. So they need the flexibility. If customer grow ecommerce customer that growth 20 30% a year, he must have flexibility must act fast. So we see a wants to open a new a new warehouse in a six month. And you know, we can move our system without almost zero downtime, without a huge investment in terms of capex, you know, this is flexibility. So, we are looking for customer if customer you know it’s a b2b customer grow 1% 2% a year, very limited number of isqi. You don’t have any spikes like Cyber Monday, Black Friday, very stable. This is not the customer you’re looking for. And actually those customers not looking for us. We are looking for customer, they look for flexibility and scalability. So this is, this is where this is the first thing I do with customer that call us. The other few questions that relate to flexibility scalability, if it’s not feeder, I can recommend them a other solution but not our solution.

Jeremy Weisz

Yeah. So when you say, you know, flexibility, do you mean size of packages and weight of packages? Or what is what is flexibility?

Guy Glass

mean? Yes,

Reuven Della-Torre

go ahead. Yeah, it shows that we can work with nearly any kind of shells, any kind of boxes, we don’t, you don’t have to change anything. You can, you can add space or decrease space, you can close part of the warehouse for the robot and then open it the day after nothing is changing, you are using the same software, you just have to configure and this configuration is really intuitive and very easy. So it’s, it’s really a thing that it’s going without saying from the customer perspective, that he has a new challenge. He he knows that we we don’t have to, to find a solution that will be tailored for him. Our our system is flexible enough to do a solid and contain it and and and work with it. So that’s a you can add robots decrease robots, you don’t have to configure it anywhere just put a robot in switching on and he will start working with the system. So nothing is is too complex to change that that’s the main thing there. So

Guy Glass

for example, if you know customer wants to, let’s say you bought shelving from specific manufacturer, and tomorrow he wants to add the additional two aisles without from different manufacturers. All he wants to replace the boxes for different size of boxes. He wants to move between warehouses there. He wanted to change the structure of the warehouse again, as Reuven said, edmo robots remove robots, he can do whatever he likes very easy. And you know, on Cyber Monday wants to lease a few more robots for the spikes. It’s very easy. So again, flexibility is the key.

Jeremy Weisz

So I have two questions for each of you. And then I want to To end on Guy a a crazy not top secret IDF story. Israel Defense story. Somebody is not top streaker because I don’t want to share anything on here. It’s gonna get someone’s gonna hunt you down. But, um, but for two questions for each of you first, what’s been a really big, low point or challenge point? And then on the flip side, what’s been a proud moment? Reuven, you want to start? What’s been a challenge, a big challenge moment or low point? You know, because obviously, any startup any company, there’s its peaks and valleys.

Reuven Della-Torre

Right, I think that, for me, at least, one of the main was quite in the beginning, when we had a little bit different concepts. In the beginning, they wanted to want to the stackable bins, that was the idea. And we were working on this concept. And then came this first customer via stories The guy mentioned, and they said, Look, this is what will not work. And in the first second, it was like saying, you know, you have a great concept, but it will not work, just change it. And it took us, you know, one day to say, Okay, let’s, let’s go to the drawing again, let’s start from the beginning and think how we can use the same technology, the same thing, but changing the concept. I think that this was one of the great thing as well, because eventually, that gave us this flexibility. That’s right now it’s from our perspective, every new design is we are thinking First, it is flexible, it is scalable. Is it elastic? If yes, okay, it’s not?

Jeremy Weisz

Yeah, it’s a bit I mean, I don’t know if it’s like, it’s, it’s not meant to be a slap in the face. But it’s like, you’re working so hard behind the scenes, and then someone in one second just goes, No, not gonna work. Like, okay. You almost have a straight face and go, Okay, I hate you right now. Guy, what about you? What’s been a big challenge moment or a low point?

Guy Glass

I think, first of all, it’s something that relate to the software, you know, at the beginning, we just need to remember that we need to remember that, that we had the conversation, what would be the concept of the system, how much autonomous or non autonomous will give to our robots. And at the end, we decided to go with the approach that will not give them the ability to be real, autonomous robots. And every and it was a really huge challenge, because we didn’t find anyone in the market that doing something like that everybody told us that we are crazy to do something like this, it’ll require a lot of computing power, and things like that. And, and the opposite side for that was that it was for me, only after win. So it was only a year, I think, more than a year from now, not a little bit more than a year from now that I came to bear again. And I saw more than 10 robots working together on this concept based on the cloud, nothing installing this well, we have five mega bandwidth of warehouse 10 robots work perfectly, because before they did run on simulation, and Reuven told me that simulation is exactly what you can expect in the real world. And I it was hard to believe. To be there. I remember that I like stood around for four hours on the same place. Look at the robot took videos sent to all my friends or the employees or my investor, everyone. It was amazing. It was amazing. And it took me to see that around four years, more than four years. And it was I was really proud of that.

That was a proud moment for you. Yeah, I can imagine, like four years of work, you know, seeing in action.

Yeah, right. You know, before that we saw you know, one robot two or three robots. But when you start to work on, you know, real production site with more than 10 robots, it’s really it’s amazing. Yeah,

Reuven Della-Torre

yeah. When we started it was something that was really disruptive because no one knew this and this kind of navigation, the way that we are using it, and it was something we have a phantom suppose in it, but then when we started I remember the discussion. A Guy that he said, Look, if this will not work, we are going all home. And we don’t have anything, you know it. And I said, Look, I am going to it because if it will work, this is something that no one will be. So it will not it will not be easily adopted by others. And eventually

Jeremy Weisz

their works a tough road, there’s a moat there, someone can’t just start this up in in a day. I mean, there’s a lot of work that goes behind it. So it’s very protectable in that sense. But first of all, thank you, both of you. Everyone could check, check out Caja Robotics, it’s c AJ a, a robotics and check out what they’re doing, check out some of the videos and you can go to Cajarobotics.com to check out what they have going on. So I figured Guy will leave people with, you know, I asked about the IDF story army story, because not just for fun, but because, you know, it’s part of what gives the the resilience in decision making and the risk taking to Israel that’s unique to Israel. Right. And, you know, any of the people I’ve interviewed talked about that, you know, having that experience is, is huge from a, you know, maturity standpoint, from a risk taking standpoint. So I’m wondering, one of the IDF, you know, experiences that shaped you. And plus, you know, we were talking about fout, before we hit record, so I

Guy Glass

will not talk about it, he’ll but I agree with you that in terms of risk, it’s not something we afraid to take, we are familiar to a to b failed. A we want to run pretty fast, a lot of the time, and it’s not, again, still, you know, startup it’s like in like a life, you know, it started at the beginning, you need to run pretty fast. And in Israel, we know how to run pretty fast, you know, we started to run. And a lot of the time we start to run and only after that, we start to think a and this is I think one of the advantage the unit vented here in Israel a bout on the other end, we need to understand that it’s not good for a for it’s good for a certain point of the company. And for a for a certain point, you need to change the state of mind and move it. And by the way, you that’s why you’re the reason you see a lot of SATA companies is well selling in a very short period, because the Nissan is still we don’t have a lot of experience how to take a small company and convert it to a huge, a huge company. It’s not so easy. It’s we can see more and more than that in Israel, but it’s only a matter of time. And I think this is one of the things we learned from Tao me again, a huge advance, but we need to understand that there are also a lot of disadvantage in this this kind of approach.

Reuven Della-Torre

So I think I think that eventually you’ll learn how to sell, I think in the army, you know that you have always to have Plan B, you always have to see what happened if and this is something that not everybody are used to thinking this way. I think that’s why I said to you in the beginning that one of the challenges were they Okay, they told us this is not the concept look and think about So, you know, it’s easy to fell in this spot. And, uh, but but you know, okay, we’ll find a way, we have to find a way because that’s the only way that we can really succeed. So I think that eventually from from the army, all of us learned how to handle very complex situations and and all the way to seeing what happened if

Jeremy Weisz

I read it on your site.

Guy Glass

You know, so if you’re aware,

it’s like because you know, if your kids ask you something you don’t have patience to answer him said him. Why? Because just do it because So, so this is one of the meaning and a lot of a lot of other meanings. So we like the combination of robot move boxes in the most optimal way. And we like the combination with the Israeli war. So

Jeremy Weisz

yeah, boxing And is really just do it because I write right so everyone check out Caja Robotics cajarobotics.com thank you both for for sharing the journey.

Unknown Speaker

Thank you Jeremy

Unknown Speaker

Good luck