Hi guys, I am Kennedy from KL and the founder of @HelloWorld Robotics. I haven't properly introduced myself since I joined this group. We design and build outdoor autonomous robots for last mile delivery and specifically target food and grocery delivery. It is a smaller version of self-driving car with delivery ability that can move on sidewalk, pedestrian areas and public roads. We are the first startup that builds and provides the outdoor last mile robotic delivery solution and service in SEA and the first in the world to develop a safe-drop connecting delivery robots wirelessly to locate the robot more accurate and to automatically unload the package. We combine the self-docking and self-loading behaviors all in one With the safe-drop design, the end-users can pick up their packages in front of the house 24/7 and no need to walk to guard house and parcel locker location and this solution will now be only available in gated communities in early testing. So simply you just order online and the package will "magically" appear in the box 20m away from your house when you are home.
The percentage of using online food and grocery delivery will not be growing rapidly when there are no more promo-codes and free delivery because they are not a sustainable way to do last mile delivery. Nothing is free, delivery platforms and businesses need paid riders or drivers to do all the dirty job. Hardware and technology will be getting cheaper through years but human will not. Robotic delivery service is like another option besides riders for them. Our final goal is to reduce the delivery fee down to RM/USD 1 but still sustainable. Many people ask why not drone delivery? The answer is simple, payload, battery and danger. But we do believe drone is the best delivery for long distance and emergency.
I would like to share some of my ideas and thoughts(from a noobie founder) about what we think about robotics in Malaysia and how we bootstrap our robotics startup without any outside funding and support. Most of the Malaysian tech startups are all about APPs and SaaS. Robotics has been merely being explored and discussed in most communities and news. That's why I started Robotics & ROS Malaysia(A non-profitable community) back in 2016 to gather all the Malaysian robotics experts and Robot Operating Systems Open-source platform users(turns out Malaysian users are only 20-30% and the rest are foreigners😆) So people barely understand and foresee how robotics will benefit Malaysia in the future. When there is a click-bait news title about "Robots Will Replace Us", some people are actually worried about being replaced instead of thinking why they would be replaced. Robots are just an emotionless set of hardware that is created by humans for the benefit of humans. Robots are meant to accurately transform the highly boring, the most dangerous and obnoxiously the dirty jobs that mankind are restrained from doing for ages. Of course, Robots are going to be our co-workers in the near future but to help us not to replace us. The era of digitization and digital transformation will lead us through the most cozy environment of incorporating machines to take up the most difficult and stressful work and paves a way through high intelligence and a more creative atmosphere for mankind. So the point is, mankind will evolve, we needed coachmen for last mile in the last century and when cars came out, people didn't think cars will be the mainstream; Same here today, people question about self-driving cars, electric vehicles and autonomous robots after going through internet, PC and mobile eras. We are building the next 10 years.
HelloWorld Robotics founded in China in 2018 and one of the reasons why we are incorporated in China first because we will be much more competitive if we can survive in China and another reason is the no.1 hardware supply chain. Cheapest and fastest. Being a robotics engineer and a startup founder in China all these years, it has been telling me that we should be working 200% harder especially when we don't have something to rely on and unlimited time and resources. There is a big difference between entrepreneur and intrapreneur. What we have learned the most from China is that even if we are so much behind, we stay calm and keep chasing until we surpass them. An industry depends for it's survival on government subsidies will not make us a great nation.
Malaysia can't be relying on natural resources and low-paid foreign workers forever. Malaysian people are more into earning fast money(Thx to MONEY GAME), so buying and selling properties and investing in real estate have become a common life goal to everyone in Malaysia. A noob startup founder to waste time and money is a joke to them. When I started pitching about our idea and most of the Malaysian people wont be having much interests in automation and robotics because they always think we have low-paid foreigner workers to do all these dirty and repetitive jobs for us and they like to keep it that way(so the salary remains) to avoid industrial transformation and limit the growth of our salary and economy. But yea, technology is driven by customer demand, this another big challenge and issue that HelloWorld Robotics should be taking care of. So as a Malaysian startup we have to build and innovate ourselves to create new models and technology that at least no one has ever tried and the "new thing" will benefit our clients and differ from traditional model. Malaysia should encourage people to innovate and fail and keep doing it until they succeed and that's how we will become a developed nation with specific fields that no other countries can replace us. We keen to build a brand, a robotic delivery service platform in the future, other than just selling mobile robot base and hardware and customized technology solution.
The most ironic thing is that the first grant we received was actually from Dongguan City Gov. not Malaysian Gov. as a Malaysian being in overseas pitched the way out of thousands of startup fou and the saddest thing is that the most turn-downs we received were from Malaysia. And yea, HelloWorld Robotics is neither perfect and nor the best in the world(yet), we still have tons of things to learn from. Many countless nights worrying about the money and time passing by but not yet achieving the target. A module or a fried circuit board could be a very hard moment because they are all your own money and you can't afford to lose them. So to many solo founders and the entrepreneurs who are still hustling(including HelloWorld Robotics), please don't be down when bad things happen, I know exactly how you feel. We have been there and we are still going to be. The strongest comeback is when you don't have anything left to care about. Bootstrappers are the real entrepreneurs, if you can't spend a dime in your startup, just go back to high paid job position.
Ok back to business. We are now looking for co-founders, investors and partners to build a robotic delivery service platform and starting to reduce the cost of last mile delivery, providing another solution to food and grocery delivery platforms. We were born in Malaysia but we aim to raise globally. We are mostly hanging around in Cyberjaya Community now and when you see one in Malaysia or Singapore, please don't kick and steal our robot🤨(ALL ACTIVITIES ARE RECORDED). If you have ideas to do a collaboration with outdoor autonomous robots to build other applications, let us know as well! Feel free to judge our business and talk to us about robotics. We can do this all day!😎
"I knew that if I failed I wouldn't regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying." --Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon
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