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Deep Tech Without Stealth: Inside Dusty Robotics’ Origin Story
Construction workers spend hours on their hands and knees snapping chalk lines to mark where walls, plumbing and utilities should go. It’s painstaking, back-breaking labor. And that’s how it’s been done for centuries.
Tessa Lau saw an opportunity — and built a robot that does it faster, safer, and with surgical precision.
In this episode of Fund/Build/Scale, the Dusty Robotics founder and CEO shares some of what she's learned about transitioning from a researcher to a deep tech founder, including:
If you’re interested in robotics, deep tech, or why some concepts fall into the valley of death while others sail over it like a Red Bull stunt team — listen in.
RUNTIME 43:10
EPISODE BREAKDOWN
(3:00) “ I always thought I would be a professor someday, and that was my planned career path.”
(5:39) How a home renovation project led Tessa into making construction robots
(9:16) “ We thought we were going to build a vacuum cleaning robot.”
(12:24) “You have to establish that someone is willing to pay for the technology and that it's doable.”
(14:15) “ We needed to build something that was 10x better than the status quo in order to scale at venture speed.”
(15:41) Finding a deep tech TAM is “ a hard problem, especially when you're creating a new category.”
(19:16) “ You can't try to be everything for everyone.”
(21:00) Their first prototype “could barely do anything,” but fast pilots helped them iterate quickly.
(26:08) How Tessa figured out their pricing *before* they went to market
(29:24) Why marketing and branding are table stakes for a deep-tech startup
(33:11) “ As the CEO, you are the face of the company whether you like it or not.”
(37:06) “ Our marketing team doesn't need to be very technically savvy.”
(38:22) “ I have yet to see a good reason to be in stealth, ever.”
(40:53) The one question she’d have to ask a deep tech CEO before accepting a job offer
LINKS
SUBSCRIBE
📥 Get the Fund/Build/Scale newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7249143254363856897/
📸 Follow FBS on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fundbuildscale/
Thanks for listening!
– Walter.
View all episodes
By Walter Thompson
5
2525 ratings
Construction workers spend hours on their hands and knees snapping chalk lines to mark where walls, plumbing and utilities should go. It’s painstaking, back-breaking labor. And that’s how it’s been done for centuries.
Tessa Lau saw an opportunity — and built a robot that does it faster, safer, and with surgical precision.
In this episode of Fund/Build/Scale, the Dusty Robotics founder and CEO shares some of what she's learned about transitioning from a researcher to a deep tech founder, including:
If you’re interested in robotics, deep tech, or why some concepts fall into the valley of death while others sail over it like a Red Bull stunt team — listen in.
RUNTIME 43:10
EPISODE BREAKDOWN
(3:00) “ I always thought I would be a professor someday, and that was my planned career path.”
(5:39) How a home renovation project led Tessa into making construction robots
(9:16) “ We thought we were going to build a vacuum cleaning robot.”
(12:24) “You have to establish that someone is willing to pay for the technology and that it's doable.”
(14:15) “ We needed to build something that was 10x better than the status quo in order to scale at venture speed.”
(15:41) Finding a deep tech TAM is “ a hard problem, especially when you're creating a new category.”
(19:16) “ You can't try to be everything for everyone.”
(21:00) Their first prototype “could barely do anything,” but fast pilots helped them iterate quickly.
(26:08) How Tessa figured out their pricing *before* they went to market
(29:24) Why marketing and branding are table stakes for a deep-tech startup
(33:11) “ As the CEO, you are the face of the company whether you like it or not.”
(37:06) “ Our marketing team doesn't need to be very technically savvy.”
(38:22) “ I have yet to see a good reason to be in stealth, ever.”
(40:53) The one question she’d have to ask a deep tech CEO before accepting a job offer
LINKS
SUBSCRIBE
📥 Get the Fund/Build/Scale newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7249143254363856897/
📸 Follow FBS on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fundbuildscale/
Thanks for listening!
– Walter.
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