A Founder's Story. Creating the World’s First Laundry Robot — Joshua Rabanne, Laundrx

I was born in Iran and then I lived the first years of my childhood there. And then I moved to Malaysia. I studied economics there. I was traveling very often across Southeast Asia, so I can say I was in Southeast Asia rather than just Malaysia. Afterwards I moved to Netherlands. I graduated from Erasmus University in Rotterdam. After the university, I just wanted to. I knew always I wanted to be entrepreneur because I always wanted to create new experiences. That was what I was most excited about since I was 12. I was selling Nootropics tea to like my fellow students before the exam. So I always wanted to look for something that doesn't exist and then bring that experience in a beautiful packaging and story. So one area that I thought was interesting was actually tissue paper because it's one of the lowest interest product categories in supermarkets. Yet I thought we interact with it every day and it's come from really like unsustainable solar purses. So the me and another classmate of mine, we started looking for different alternatives. I asked for my father to join us because he's a chemical engineer. The story goes back to my childhood. My father is a genius scientist and as many of those genius scientists, engineers, he wasn't much of a business person. So I could always see that once he came to the business world, those amazing ideas that he could have and transform the world did not come to reality. So that was kind of one of my childhood inspirations for starting a company and learn how to do business. So once I was about to graduate, I saw this and that was an opportunity, you know, I felt like this much of talent, this much of, you know, like power should come to, to have a bigger impact in the world. So he was very happy to hear that because yeah, like he always wanted to spend more time with me. I was separated from him since I was 15. So yeah, So actually the first time he came to Rotterdam that we go together to the KA exhibition in Dusseldorf is the largest plastic exhibition, which was his main major and expertise. During that exhibition I talked about business behind each of those companies and he was talking about the science between each of those companies. And then we got so excited over beer at night and then we said, okay, I need you to improve this and make it softer. And it was like, okay, if I make it softer, can you sell it? I said, yeah. So that's how things started. And one thing led to the other. And then we found bamboo and I started working to tweak it to make it better, softer. So it would not be a sacrifice for the quality would be same thing. But Sustainable. It worked pretty well in the beginning. We talked to all major supermarkets in the Netherlands and France. They were just few inches away from like having our product on their shelves. So I was like hoping, okay, this is really good. And I had a partner back then, so I. But he was French and then he could like handle most of the customers. So I thought, okay, that would be great. He can run the operation in Europe and I can go to North America to expand it. There especially we had connection to one of the biggest producers in North America. Just a few weeks before hitting the shelves, pandemic happened. So the shipping costs like soared up and then we couldn't guarantee supplies. The cost went up two, three times more. And because we were not in operation before, we couldn't get a good deal from the shipping companies. So that was already the time I already applied for Launch Academy. So meanwhile in the process of getting to Canada, we had to abandon that idea and then work on something else that we've been working on for the past five years, but in more of a stealth mode. Right after that exhibition we saw like different industrial cleaning methods for cleaning parts of petrochemical components. And then I thought to myself, like chemical engineering has really advanced, but kind of laundry is the same as it used to be. And I was living in a building without any laundry in it on suite, so I really despise doing laundry. And then so we started working together to find a better way to do laundry. Because this way we're doing is based on a 200 year old technology actually used to, they used to use horses to turn it around. And so we worked with everything as you can imagine, like super critical CO2 to ultrasonic waves. And then at the end we came off with our idea to make the laundry faster, easier and more sustainable. I actually went for a trip to see my grandma in Iran. And then because production of prototype was cheaper in Iran and my father back then was in Iran, we built one unit there to build a prototype and test it with people like how they like it. So I can say like they were kind of customers. So because we got feedback and the first customers were actually my aunt and uncle. So they, they really liked the idea. Especially they're very frank doctors. So I really appreciate their opinion. It was very exciting to finally someone put their clothes in it and then it comes out clean and dry and ironed. So yeah, so when you want to do something that build something that never existed, a lot of times you get very excited about a certain idea. For example, at one point we thought Ultrasonic base are really interesting because they increase the molecular movement and then they can make the cleaning really fast. So for a few months we were so excited. Oh, this is going to be an amazing product. And then you build everything into one product. It doesn't work. So perhaps it's problem of physical product rather than software is that your ideas do not necessarily translate into a product. So after each of those setbacks, when we build a lot of excitement, it was such a bummer to see that stop working to pick it up and see that vision. Okay. I really, my goal is not to bring this particular technologies to make laundry faster, easier and more sustainable. So then we had to pick up another technology and build another dream around it and then think about it. So I think that was the hardest part. It depends full time, actually just me. My father was also working on something else. But we had part time employees, like engineers and everything of about seven people. So different parts of it, electronics and computer robotics. Yeah, because we wanted to manage our cost and then find mainly like freelancers because I couldn't have people on payroll. So it was one specific project, working with them over certain time. So right now we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 team members. And then they're in Korea, Sri Lanka and Canada. And mainly what we are doing right now is the final part of building the maps for the machine. So it would have production ready files. And also you're working with really cool industrial design team from South Korea that are doing the aesthetics of the machine. So it's finally very good to see how the machine would look like as a consumer product. Because. Because everything was very rough and ugly before. So. So financially we are just basically on our capital and we have one investor so far. We have now like interest for investors to build our product, maybe have a crowdfunding campaign to secure the orders and start producing ourselves. And the other option is which is can be done simultaneously to work with bigger companies, license our technology and then have them build similar products to ours. I guess it all started one time I was in Amsterdam and then someone asked me, where are you from? And having all this background, I felt like I really can't say anywhere, you know, that there's nowhere that really matches me. And then my girlfriend is from South Korea. We've been together for more than 10 years. And at that moment I was like, where do I want my kids to grow up? You know, like having this international background. And then I thought to myself, I want to go somewhere that is built by immigrants. You know, I have that Feeling in me, the feeling inside of me that I want to be part of a immigrant community. Some came earlier, some came later. So Canada was one of the first options. I made an Excel sheet of, like, all the available options for applying to start a visa. I started contacting each one of them, asking questions. To be honest, none of them were really active. And then some of them were downright, like, rude to us. And Launch Academy felt so warm and active. And they said, please apply, we have many cohorts. And then after application, I got confirmation that you applied for it. So I felt that everything is very active. Rest of the startup programs, I felt more like, oh, a dead program, nothing's gonna happen. But I really like this about it. And afterwards, after having interviews and everything, I feel like everything just moving fast, everyone's so friendly. So that was the main reason, I would say. The first thing. It really feels like a community. So, um, like when I joined the program, it was Gene, Ray and Sam and they were so happy about, you know, what they were doing if they were feeling so fulfilled. And when I saw the team grow and all the other people were added, but, like, they're enjoying what they're doing and it didn't seem like, oh, they're doing a service because they're paid for it, like, you know, many other companies. So that made me feel very comfortable. I felt like, okay, there is a happy place in Vancouver, a place I'm going to set my life. I have actually some people that would care about me if anything happens. So that was the main thing I would say in the beginning of the program, they had these sessions, like every week to talk about a certain issue. And that also really took the load off, you know, our mind, like, talking about accounting, like real estate, how to settle up, settle down here. So all these things made the whole move much easier. So I really appreciate these two. Having been to different, like, cities. There's something very unique about Vancouver. It is a very metropolitan city with many things to do, like many options, like any kind of food that you want. Yet it feels a bit like a village, which in my opinion is very good. You know, feels cozy and then you don't feel overwhelmed. Like for many other places like Kuala Lumpur, Seoul, Busan, like even Amsterdam, which is actually famous for being very cozy and small. I felt a bit lost, but kind of here you feel like, you know, you get used to the city quite fast. And then location wise, being between us and Canada, everything, like all the major Vasco cities are less than three hours away. It's also very strategic for us to have meetings or later on like build our teams or around it. So even though like the Scandinavian countries for Netherlands are famous for being flat societies but like it was very hard for me to get the right connections or even to have like their attention for a little bit. And in this case I feel very comfortable in Vancouver when I see like oh this company is based in Vancouver so I can talk with them you know in a way and I think that's very unique about it and that's what you need when you're building a small company and growing it because you need to make sometimes connections with bigger companies and then if you're constantly like being shut down it's not going to be very helpful. But in Vancouver I feel like oh these people are from Vancouver so probably I can make a connection there. I think that's a really good feeling and perhaps a very big asset.