The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal
00:36:09 · Vidit Agarwal, Grace Brown
[00:36:09] S0: Yeah. That that is so interesting. I would have thought you would have told him that, but it's interesting that he told you that. So Yeah. [00:36:15] S1: Yeah. No. He... He's... Yeah. He says that he... Well, and I agree. I think he is one of my first true believers. Yeah. [00:36:24] S0: And then when... Was there a moment where you realized, okay. This can actually work. This could be a company and you can dedicate your... The next stage of your life to it?
00:36:24 · Vidit Agarwal, Grace Brown
[00:36:24] S0: And then when... Was there a moment where you realized, okay. This can actually work. This could be a company and you can dedicate your... The next stage of your life to it? [00:36:35] S1: I think there are various moments that had that impression on me. But I think the most significant, at least, yeah, more more recently than at the very start of Andromeda, was when customers were really drawn to Abi and seeing residents and the relationships that they build with Abi very early on. The very first prototype of Abi was a very bare definition of a humanoid robot, like, very bare. Even that version of Abi brought in so much customer love, like, so so much. Like, I can't even explain how how quickly people would just look at Abi and just by the consistency of her showing up and me bringing her into the homes every day and residents expecting her to be there and having stories ready to share with her. And it was just... Yeah. I think that was really eye opening for me because... And I... Even to this day, I say it to everyone. I'm like, this is the worst Abi is ever gonna be. Because that was what I thought then. I was like, Abi is hardly, like, even one to 2% of what I imagined for her, but people will already have that love for her. Like, even I found that surprising. And so to me, yeah, I think the early customer love for her was the first time I was like, this is going to be a fairly, like, really significant business. So...
00:36:35 · Grace Brown, Vidit Agarwal
[00:36:35] S1: I think there are various moments that had that impression on me. But I think the most significant, at least, yeah, more more recently than at the very start of Andromeda, was when customers were really drawn to Abi and seeing residents and the relationships that they build with Abi very early on. The very first prototype of Abi was a very bare definition of a humanoid robot, like, very bare. Even that version of Abi brought in so much customer love, like, so so much. Like, I can't even explain how how quickly people would just look at Abi and just by the consistency of her showing up and me bringing her into the homes every day and residents expecting her to be there and having stories ready to share with her. And it was just... Yeah. I think that was really eye opening for me because... And I... Even to this day, I say it to everyone. I'm like, this is the worst Abi is ever gonna be. Because that was what I thought then. I was like, Abi is hardly, like, even one to 2% of what I imagined for her, but people will already have that love for her. Like, even I found that surprising. And so to me, yeah, I think the early customer love for her was the first time I was like, this is going to be a fairly, like, really significant business. So... [00:37:56] S0: Good. Because I believe aged care is your focus, or at least at the moment it is, and maybe over time it expands. Was that always where you started? Was that always the wedge?
00:38:06 · Grace Brown
[00:38:06] S1: Aged care came up because over COVID, as you would know and many people would know, loneliness was one of the most discussed topics. Like, everyone was talking about the loneliness epidemic. The World Health Organization announced that it had similar health implications of smoking 15 cigarettes a day. And so it was a topic that was just so widely discussed amongst... Globally. And when you follow the data, the people who are most affected by loneliness are older adults, and specifically older adults in aged care homes. And because Abi was built as, you know, a solution to help address loneliness for myself during COVID, I thought if she could if she could help me during COVID and keep me company, you know, imagine the impact that she could have for tens of millions of people around the world who experience, you know, the disconnection and isolation that I felt in COVID, but every single day. And so that's how the market... That's kind of how the the steps that led towards going into aged care. And I'd just... I'd gone to a few local aged care communities with Abi and just started talking to the staff and the residents. And exactly like I said before, just the early attachment to the industry really... You know, just having this appeal for Abi made me realize that this could be a really significant business in this market. And the other reason is, like, people aren't really building solutions for this space. You know, it's really unfortunate. It's not seen as a very sexy industry, and so people just aren't really thinking... Even people... I feel like the older adults are one of the most overlooked and forgotten generations. We're all gonna age, and we're all gonna get to that stage of life. And at that stage of life, you do need more support, unfortunately. And... Yeah. And like I said, no one's really building solutions for them, and so I noticed it was an industry that was desperately looking for a new model of care because more and more people are getting older and over the age of 65 every single day. And so it made sense to me that it was a market that even if it wasn't Abi, like, I'd be looking at building something else in this space because it's an industry that's perfect for new innovation with very little competition. Yeah.
00:40:11 · Vidit Agarwal
[00:40:11] S0: And tell me, how does that work? Most tech companies, when they think of aged care, they're thinking about software. Right? Whereas you're thinking of hardware and actually putting the robot, I guess, or the the human equivalent of a robot, the robot equivalent of a human into into the aged care space. How does that work in practice? So you sell them one unit of the robot and they buy that from you?
00:40:35 · Grace Brown
[00:40:35] S1: We lease at the moment. So we... So they lease a robot. Because Abi upgrades, we're upgrading her. There's a new generation almost every year. So they lease her on a yearly basis, and she comes into the home. She has a schedule and a roster just like staff would. She's part of the lifestyle and well-being community and activities. And so she has an... A mix of activities between group group activities and one on ones. In the group activities, she can do things like tai chi, dances, singing, language guessing games, trivia. It varies home to home. And then the one on one interactions completely depend on the individual. Some people love to tell Abi stories. Some people want Abi to tell them stories. Some people write poetry to her. Some people just wanna watch football with Abi, like, just have her next to them while they watch football or TV. And so it really varies, but we also don't force anyone to interact with Abi. That's something we're very deliberate about. It's just for the people who are curious, who are drawn to her, and that also changes over time. I'd say most people who spend a lot of time with Abi would describe her as either a best friend or a grandchild. And actually, in one of our in one of our company videos, there's this there's this woman who says that Abi is just very enchanting and that she tells her things that nobody else will ever hear. And so, yeah, I think that's kind of how she's integrated into the home.