S03|10: Building Robots and Resilience with Jana Tian of Upside Robotics

Jana  00:02

You know how much things are going wrong at the back-end, but you still have to show up confident, show up with conviction. And, honestly, that was probably the hardest moments, because that was so early on that I didn't really have like, 110% conviction. This is going to work.I knew that we were onto something, and I just needed to have the time to prove it. So every call, I would just talk to myself in the mirror, and I would just say, “Hey, you can do this.”

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Leah 00:29

Hello and welcome to Season 3 of The Founder Mindset, brought to you by ATB. I'm your host, Leah Sarich, and I'm delighted to be back for another season of talking to Founders about what it's really like to build a company from that first big idea. If you've listened to previous episodes, you know, I was a journalist for over 20 years, so I'm more curious about why anyone would ever want to become an entrepreneur, not so much about the business model, product, market fit and so on. I want to understand why entrepreneurs keep going, why they think they're the ones to solve a massive problem, why they want to make a real impact in the world. And if you're here, I bet you want to know why, too. Let's find out. Joining me today is Jana Tian, Co-Founder and CEO of Upside Robotics, where they’re reducing the cost of farming with in-field robots matching fertilizer to crop meats. Think Roombas for fields. Jana, thank you so much for being here.

Jana 01:28

Thank you so much for having me.

Leah  01:30

This is so amazing. So you know, with this conversation, I always start, let's go way back. Think to how you actually decided to become an entrepreneur. How did this start for you?

Jana  01:43

It goes back to maybe even my parents. I think there's always that line of exposure that you have as a child. So both of my parents are entrepreneurs. They both immigrated from China. They moved to Slovenia, which is a very small country in Europe, beautiful. And they started their businesses with nothing, and my mom went into silk trading, and my dad ended up building furniture shops. Growing up seeing them putting 110% into building their businesses and being passionate about something was something that I wanted for myself. But of course, it also had a lot of downs and not ups. So, for example, my dad's furniture shop that he, the first one that he built, a week later, there was a wiring issue in one of the electricals, and the entire shop just burnt down. Yeah. So seeing that as a kid, I think I was, like nine years old? It was one of those things that it kind of put things a little bit more into perspective. Is this something, you know, that I could see myself doing? So after, like, graduating and going to school, I kind of was a bit afraid of that, because seeing my parents go through those really highs and really lows made me question if entrepreneurship was the right choice.

Leah  03:07

That sounds even a bit scary. Like I mean, that must have been scary as a little kid, seeing that happen.

Jana  03:13

At that point as a kid, I didn't fully understand. But then my parents just handled everything step-by-step, so they weren't phased. It just, was just something that happened, you know? And they were able to take on that pressure and just turn things around. And a month later, my dad had his shop again. So it was just one of those hiccups. And they had a lot of those situations happen to them, like on a weekly, on a daily basis, and they just handled it, you know, one issue at a time.

Leah  03:44

Which you're doing today. You were just talking about that.

Jana  03:48

Yeah, no, exactly. And I think, yeah, seeing that like definitely, I saw the pros and cons of entrepreneurship. And when I graduated, my first thought was, I don't want all these downsides. Could I be happy just, you know, getting a, working in a company that's more established and have more work-life balance stability. So that's what I did for, I think, seven years. But then there was part of me that just felt like something was missing. And I think I was missing item, some level of purpose, and I needed something that I felt like there was more of a mission. And I was really lucky to have been exposed to a lot of problems in the food sector, because I worked at Unilever, and I developed a lot of food products, including Ben and Jerry ice creams, which was a lot of fun. And then through that, I just saw the big issues in our food systems. The quality of food is declining. We're using a lot of waste products. Well, we waste a lot of products on farms. They raise a lot of labor issues. Farmers are struggling to find people to actually continue farming. The population is growing. So we need more food. There's less land because of climate change. So all of those issues compiled together just made me feel like that was the space that I wanted to dedicate myself into, and I could see myself providing a lot of value. So I just felt like, you know, this is something that I could really dive into and at least give it a shot in trying to solve some of those problems.

Leah  05:15

That's amazing, which you clearly did. We're going to talk about that in one second. But I just want to pick up on one thing you said, there you were involved in building Ben and Jerry's? I mean, like, that's an iconic branch. That must have been so fun.

Jana  05:27

It was so fun. There were there were weeks that I had to calibrate my taste buds so I would just eat vanilla ice cream. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Leah  05:40

Yeah. You had an opportunity to really learn about what that looks like from other entrepreneurs as well.

Jana  05:45

Yeah. 100% and it taught me how to bring ideas into a product, but also more scalable products, because Unilever is a global company, so I've traveled around a lot from Europe to Asia to North America, bringing and scaling products all across the world. So I knew what it takes to, you know, to take that through entire product development cycle. So getting exposed to that gave me a kind of level of confidence that I can build something. I could probably take it from the idea stage all the way to execution.

Leah  06:14

Ooh, that's exciting, yeah. Giving you that idea that, yeah, I could do that. I could totally do that. Good for you. I love this. You actually said you were sort of a late bloomer to entrepreneurship. As you said, you worked sort of in the big corporate world for quite a while.

Jana  06:29

Yeah, yeah. Because I always struggled. I felt when I graduated, I always knew that I had the itch for entrepreneurship, just given that, like I mentioned, like in my childhood, like I was excited by the ideas of like building something from scratch and bringing it to the world. And seeing my parents do that, I've always had that itch. But at the same time, I felt like it was a selfish decision to go into entrepreneurship.

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Leah  06:51

Selfish, how?

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Jana  06:53

There were a certain level of responsibilities that I had, like taking care of my family members and also my parents worked so hard so I could have a more stable job and have more stability than them. Especially being immigrants from China, my parents didn't have a choice but to be entrepreneurs. Neither of them had college degrees, so they worked so hard so that me and my sister could get a great degree and then have more stability in life. So it felt like if I chose entrepreneurship, that all the hard work that my parents kind of put in went into waste. So it felt like it was going to be a very selfish decision to do that. So I put it off, and I really tried to not be an entrepreneur for a long time. But I just always had so many ideas, and I always started like trying different things. And I just, I got so much energy talking to other Founders, to other entrepreneurs. I just always knew that that's something that was more authentic to me. When I turned 30, that was kind of the wake up call for me, that if I don't do it now, then when? So, yeah, a bit of a late-bloomer.

Leah  08:00

And then you did it. That's so exciting. Okay, well, that brings us to, of course, Upside Robotics. So tell us what that is.

Jana  08:07

Yeah. So Upside Robotics builds small, autonomous robots that currently apply nutrients on the field. So we primarily serve corn growers, because corn actually uses about 60% of global fertilizer. It's also one of the largest crops, and currently about two thirds of the fertilizer is actually wasted. So that's about $300 billion per year just, you know, washed away, pretty much damaging a lot of our waterways, and a lot of it turns into algae blooms and a lot of issues down the line. So our small autonomous robots, essentially what they do, they spoon-feed the nutrients to exactly what's needed and when needed. So we can do precision application directly to the roots at the right time, at the right place. And on top of that, we are also able to monitor all the crops and collect a lot of data that enables us to really understand how healthy the crops are, what's happening in the fields, without farmers even having to go to the fields, which is the craziest part. Yesterday was Sunday. I was just watching our robots at home on the screen like fertilizing the fields, and it was 35 degrees Celsius, so no farmers wanted to be outside at that point doing the work. So I felt like Upside Robotics is really revolutionizing that, because we can do a lot of the farming from the comfort of your own home. And you're able to see your fields live on almost like a live stream, and see the robots do the work. So it does feel like we're living in the future. Yeah, when I look at what we do, sometimes I'm like, go up and smack myself. I look at it, I'm like, I can't believe this is happening right now, that we have that technology to be able to farm at home.

Leah  11:01

It's incredible. That's amazing. Congratulations. Well, let's, let's dig into that just a little bit. So do you mind sharing, like, how much money you've raised so far?

Jana 11:05

So we were super lucky. We had two Co-leads. They have been amazing investors to us. So we raised about 3.5 million USD, and because we are based in Canada, we can actually deploy that capital very efficiently. In Canada, you have a lot of shred, which is basically about 60% of all the R&D spent on employees or anybody that you bring on to the team gets basically reimbursed back. And there's a lot of other support, like grants. The government has been amazing in Canada, pushing innovation through the door by supporting startups like ourselves. So honestly, I felt like Canada was one of the probably best places to start a company, which is… Usually it's not that way. It's the other way around. There's a lot of brain drain from Canada going to the US. But for us, we had the right market here. So there's about $4 billion worth of corn. We had the right talent. We are located right in Waterloo, next to University of Waterloo, so we have some of the best Mechatronics engineers. So yeah. So that's how, like, we made the move from San Francisco to Canada, to Canada.

Leah  11:01

How incredible. How many employees do you have currently?

Jana  11:05

We currently have 12, eight, actually full-time, and then about four, usually more contractors. But we are ramping up super fast, so we now have a talent pipeline of probably about six additional people that we want to bring on to the team just to support the operations.

Leah  11:22

That's so exciting. Okay, and so did I have this right last year you covered 70 acres of fields, and this year you're already at 1200?

Jana  11:30

Yeah. So it's been an immense growth for us. I think it's like 30x. And growing, so there's a lot of growing pains associated with it. First of all, last year, we did, like trials, so across seven different farms, 10 acres each. So we did about 70 acres of just testing if, if our robots could actually reduce the fertilizer use. That was the first thing. And the second thing was learning about the conditions on the field. So we lived in the RV. We slept on farms the entire summer so we could prototype really fast and develop products that right and actually built for the farms, on farms. And because of that, I think farmers just saw the level of effort that we put in and could actually buy into the future. So we ended up with about 100 farmers signing up for our product and wanting it to basically deploy on their farms this year. So we actually qualified a lot of the farmers and growers, and ended up selecting about 13 of those that we felt like were the right fit. So we ended up deploying 15 systems on 15 fields this year, and I was just constantly still building more and more robots to try to basically service those farmers on the wait list.

Leah  12:45

Wow. So how many robots do you have now?

Jana  12:49

So right now, we deployed 15. We are building another 15 in the next week, and then probably another 10 the week after. So we pump in the mouth.

Leah  13:02

I also love the name. Maze Runner, like, that's so great.

Jana  13:07

Yeah, that was a fun name that we came up with when we were on the field. But yes, definitely that's, that's our main product that we want to focus on right now.

Leah  13:14

That's incredible. Okay, but we have to go back to something that you just sort of glossed over, which is actually a massive deal. You rented an RV and slept in the fields?

Jana  13:027

Yes, yes. We are still sleeping on the fields, but last year, honestly, both me and my Co-Founder, we had some level of exposure to agriculture, like being on the fields. But neither of us are farmers, so to be able to ramp up our learning curve and really, truly understand what farmers go through, the best way’s just to live right next door. So we basically got an RV, parked it right next to the farm sites and just slept there and then rotated across farm to farm to farm the whole summer. And that enabled us to build such close relationships with farmers, who, by the way, are the best people.

Leah  14:06

I agree. I'm from Saskatchewan. I get it.

Jana  14:09

The hardest working, the most humble, just grounded and kind… I cannot… I think the reason why I wake up now, it used to be the product, but now it's because of our customers. Like they feed us when we're on farms. I had, yesterday a farmer has brought us pizza, ice cream, birthday cakes. They are there whenever we need them. We had a bit of an issue two days ago on one of the farms where we had to replace a battery, and a farmer said it was too hard for me to walk, and he didn't want me to walk on the fields myself. So he just took a sprayer, put me on the spray, drove me right to the battery, and then I could just replace it. And he just went above and beyond in helping us basically build this technology. And I was really stressed out, because I was like, I'm so sorry our robots are not working right now. Like there was a bit of an issue. And he was just so kind. He was like, Don't worry. Like, you know, this is your first year. What you guys are doing is so amazing. And he just is so sold into it, and just wants to be part of it. So I just absolutely love all our customers.

Leah  15:14

How wonderful. I love this for you. And, you know, it doesn't surprise me. I'm from Saskatchewan, you know, I've got farming in my family history, so I understand this, this personality type. But I mean, talk about getting to know your customer. I mean, you're essentially living with them and really getting to understand the problem that you're solving.

Jana  15:34

Yeah, they didn't really have much say in it. We just turned up and just camped outside their doors. So they kind of felt sorry for us for the first couple of days. And then, and then, you know, you have a couple of beers with them, and then slowly the friendship develops. And right now, like I felt, like every single farmer that we work with, we have kind of friends. You know, we are very transparent with where our technology is. They want to help when things break, farmers are engineers. They fix things all the time. So, yeah, exactly. And one of the biggest problems was with robotics, I feel like, is that, like you build tech and then you hand it over, and there is no connection between that. The user doesn't truly understand, how does the technology work? And then there's that frustration when things break. So we wanted to bridge that gap and build the trust with our technology by building it with our farmers in mind, and them being exposed to it, too. So now they totally understand how everything works, and they know when things break. They actually have their own ideas on how they want to fix things or how to make things easier for them. So I honestly think it was very hard to to be on farms, 24/7 across, like the summer. The conditions are not great. It's fun for the first week, but then, you know, there's like, manure that gets applied. So then you wake up with amazing smell in the morning. Yeah, you have flies like, it gets unbelievably hot. But it was honestly one of the best decisions that we made. Like we wouldn't have been able to build this authentic relationships with our customers, we wouldn't have learned so much about the conditions of the field. It was a hard thing to do, but I think absolutely the right thing. And even this year, we also have the RV. It goes around different sites, and we're doing the same thing where we, when we launch something new, we are there observing it and monitoring it, 24/7, so if anything goes wrong, like farmers, know that we're just right outside the door, literally.

Leah  17:32

Literally. That's incredible. But I mean, talk about building trust, right? With your clients and your customers. I mean, that's so essential when you're building something new.

Jana  17:44

Yeah. Yep. absolutely. And it's a lot to ask of your customers too, especially when it's still so cutting edge. Because they are taking immense amount of risk by trusting us to fertilize their fields. To put into context, so farmers right now, the way they fertilize is they would apply ahead of time, and they will apply immense amounts of fertilizer, hoping that will last the whole season, and unfortunately, today, like in the middle of the season. So the season starts in April, ends in probably October. If you realize there's any fertilizer deficiencies in August or July, which can happen if there's a lot of rain, there is nothing that the farmers can do with today's equipment anymore, because the tractors will just trample through the corn, so there'll be more damage created by the equipment, because corn grows really tall, so you just be basically running over it and killing all the crops rather than adding the nutrients. So there's no benefit or no ROI of doing another application if there's deficiencies. Which is why farmers are so conservative, and they apply in a lot of excess at the beginning of the season to make sure that there is enough that it will last. Now our technology enables you to basically go on a weekly basis and go and follow closely more to what the crop needs, which is the crop needs a lot more nitrogen towards the end of the season, not at the beginning. But the way it's been applied is like reverse. So with our technology, we had to ask farmers to not apply nitrogen at the beginning of the season, and trust us that we will be able to handle it and that we'll be able to apply nitrogen. So that is each field, probably the revenue of that field usually is about like 100 acres to 200 acres is about $100,000 to $200,000. So if we, if our technology doesn't work, farmers can go back in. So the level of trust that they had, that we could make this work is immense. So this year, all the farmers that we worked with just fully trust us with their field, even though they have not seen the robots work, they have not seen the technology we are building, deploying all at once, but they trust us. So the farmers said, I don't I don't care what you're building. I've seen you last year. I've seen how hard you guys work. I can see that you guys execute, and I trust that you will make it work and you'll figure it out.

Leah  20:04

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Leah  20:31

That's an incredible honour, isn't it, really, to receive that trust?

Jana  20:33

100%. It is immense amount of pressure, too, but in a good way, because I felt like they believe in this more than sometimes we do ourselves.

Leah  20:41

That's incredible. What does that tell you, too, about the need for this? I mean, it sounds like they really see the opportunity here and the need like they want you to succeed.

Jana  20:53

Yeah, there's nothing like it right now on the market. There's just nothing else that can actually go out there during the entire season, and monitor the crops and actually be able to apply the right nutrients. Like this is just… if this works, this is revolutionary, and all farmers see it. I have not spoken to a single farmer that would say this doesn't make sense. All of them say this makes sense, but my concern is, how we gonna get there? They all believe with autonomy, the future is not big tractors, big machines. The future is in the small, autonomous machines that you can just leave out there, and they do the work, and you just monitor. Especially with all the labor shortages, right? We have to move into that system. So the farmers are just questioning, when will that happen? And then, like, how are we going to create that technology to be reliable? So all of them are bought into the vision. Like, I've never had a farmer question that. They just are questioning you guys or who? Who's going to bring this and who's going to be the first one, and do I want to take that risk being an early adopter? Because there's an immense amount of risk in doing that. So every single farmer that we're working with was so grateful because they’re taking an immense risk on themselves and helping us push this forward. Without them, we would not be able to to build this technology. So they're making a huge difference.

Leah  22:15

They really are. Wow, that's incredible. Help me understand this, though, you did say you're doing this in Canada? Well, we all know it snows for half a year here. So how are you building this company? Are you working elsewhere in the States, etc?

Jana  22:28

Yeah. So we basically follow similar seasons to what farmers are used to anywhere that we go. So right now in Canada, like it is one season because of the weather, but farmers also buy equipment, a lot of expensive equipment, like sprayers that cost $2 million for that one season, because the season lasts, yeah, between April to October and the amount of because corn is a row crop, the fields are huge. So you basically work almost overtime during that season, and then you have a cool off period with, like in October onwards, you just have to fix all the things that have broken down during the season. So that's how we operate in Canada, and our robots live in the field, and then during the winter time, as a company, we also have other sites that enable two seasons. So we did trials in Florida. So over winter, we actually go to Florida, and there's a lot of sweet corn in Florida. Actually, 90% I think of US sweet corn is actually farmed in Florida during winter periods. So a very small region, and it supplies everything across the US. So we go there and we help farmers to just get food that season, because it's also very manual. Everything is getting applied. Sweet corn requires a lot of fertilizer. As a company, we try to see where the opportunities are. So we're looking at potentially going into some warmer regions during the winter, and then we're looking at Mexico as well. Brazil, which has two seasons. Australia, is another one. So there's a lot of ample opportunity to go to different places and bring this technology depending on the climate and the need.

Leah  24:03

Wow, that's incredible. I love this for you. Okay, so every person that sits in this chair, I always ask them, go back to a time when you're building your company and there was this do-or-die moment, this, like pivotal moment, when you're like, I have no idea if this is gonna work or not, and think that through, and then maybe just share that story with us so we can understand sort of what happened. And then we'll talk about how you move through it. Can you think of an example? How many?

Jana  24:33

Gotta learn to narrow it down, but just go with the first one that was, like the scariest, I guess. My Co-Founder and I, so Sam, who is my Co-Founder, he is the CTO, so he built a prototype of the robot. We took that prototype, brought it to Canada, and then we tried to basically talk to the customers. We signed up, like I said, seven different customers that wanted to use this prototype. And then this prototype was actually stored in San Francisco in one of the co-working spaces. And then the season was about to start, so we were going to transport that prototype and then bring it to Canada again, so then we could actually start fertilizing the fields. So Sam went back to the space, put the finishing touches on the robot, put the suitcase next to it, ready to ship it the next morning. And then the next morning, Sam comes to the place, and literally, there's like fire trucks all outside and police and everything is shut down. And he's like, Ah, don't know what's happening around here. No idea. Okay, let me just walk to the front door, and then everything is shut down. He's like, okay, there's something wrong. Not sure what. And then he gets informed that the entire co-working space got burnt down and the robot.

Leah  25:48

No. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, what did that feel like to hear that?

Jana  25:52

Well, we were already very delayed because we literally did not expect to have seven customers that wanted the product. We only had one robot. We wanted to have three of them so we could service all the farms, and then we had zero. So we didn't know what to do. So we basically had to come up with a game plan. At that point, I was also fundraising in San Francisco, so I already had a couple of investors that were interested in being able, like I was very scared, because this is not good news. Exactly. So during fundraising, also sharing that news was a scary moment for me, but it was the right thing to do, right being transparent, building relationship on trust. And so, yeah, so that was happening, so I had to stay and fundraise. And then Sam immediately flew back to Canada and decided that we're going to just build a prototype in Canada. On his way there, he was just buying all the components on his phone, trying to get next day delivery as quickly as possible. He drove around trying to buy the right components, and just, basically he shut himself in his home for like a week, just building. He just spent the whole week and built the prototype in a week. And then we immediately, when I finished my fundraising, I flew back and we got the RV and then we started operating.

Leah  27:04

That is unbelievable! So, okay, but explain to me how you can receive news like that and know what your Co-Founder is doing and still be out there fundraising. Like, how did you even do that?

Jana  27:17

I mean, at that point, it was really hard to do that, to be honest, because you know how much things are going wrong at the back-end, but you still have to show up confident, show up with conviction. And I think for me, honestly, that was probably the hardest moments, because that was so early on that I didn't really have like, 110% conviction. This is going to work. But what I knew was that I wanted to work with my Co-Founder. I knew that we were onto something, and I just needed to have the time to prove it. So every call, I would just talk to myself in the mirror, and I would just say, “Hey, you can do this. Like this is going to be something. You might not have all the answers.” But my gut feeling was, this is going to be big. So I just went into every single call, into every single fundraising, just yeah, egging myself on. Being like, I know that we're not there, but I have a lot of hope that we will get there.

Leah  28:16

Wow. That is so inspirational that you were able to do that, that is incredible. So looking back on it now, how does that sort of inform or change how you say, fundraise now or talk to investors now, as an example?

Jana  28:31

What we care about is finding the right people more than anything. So we really talk a lot about the vision. Why does the company exist? Like, what's our grand vision? If this all works, like, what are we changing? What's the impact that we can make? Why are we the right people to do that? So we really focus on that, and the right investors will… if they come on board on the vision, the rest is just details. Like the people that we really, really try to find are those that already thought about it. Already know the issues that are happening in agriculture. Already know that the only way out is through innovation. There's no other way out. Like it's a trillion dollar industry, and right now it's collapsing, and there's a lot of investors already have that thesis. They've already looked into it, because they know all the problems are coming all at once, like it's just at a boiling point. So the only way that we could succeed and continue farming, continue like, continue growing food, is if we build technology for the future, and that needs to happen now. So like, there are investors that come to us, to pitch to us, and all the investors that we have currently on our cap table are those investors. They came to us with, “I see all of these problems happening in agriculture, and you are building this. How is this going to solve the problems that I'm seeing?” And then we have a very, very, I'd say, fruitful conversation on where does our company align with the kind of the bigger picture? And we go straight into that, rather than talk about the details of, you know, like, how much revenue are you going to generate next month or so? Yeah, those things are going to come if you truly believe on the, kind of, the bigger picture, this is the right thing. This needs to happen.

Leah  30:12

Right. That's incredible. You know, it's funny, because I remember when we chatted in the prep call, you'd said, you know, despite these incredible moments where things were blowing up and burning down and all this kind of stuff, you said that even on your worst days, you would never stop building.

Jana 30:29

Yeah. I mean, I had a really, really rough day. But even… because yesterday was very hot, we had a lot of issues, like I said, with some of our robots, because they’d never experienced this immense of heat. So things about to go wrong the first time you know you have different conditions. So we fixed it all. So everything's fine, but like in the moment, it is really hard. You're outside in 35 degrees Celsius, you're like, about to die, but you have to just keep going and keep pushing. But I think it's just an immense level of motivation that I get just because I truly believe that this needs to exist, and I question if it's not us, then who? And I have not seen anyone else building something like it yet. And I also truly believe that we built an incredible team of people that so dedicated into this mission. Like yesterday was Sunday. Everybody was working on our team. I had three engineers on the fields with me, fixing, figuring out what's going on and really getting all the robots working by like 1am in the morning. So it's just that level of purpose and mission.

Leah  31:44

You know, but I have to ask, and I do ask every single Founder the same question... You just talked about working on Sunday and 24/7 and sleeping in the fields, but like, does this leave any room for a personal life? Like, how do you even, or do you have a life outside of the work? Like, how does being an entrepreneur affect your personal life?

Jana  32:04

That's a really hard one, and that's something that I haven't yet figured out. I'm trying to, but just trying to be realistic. When you are at early stage of the company, there's a lot of sacrifices that need to be made, and I think a lot of the times being a Founder is so glamorized. People show the successes. They show when people have exited, but you don't really see the beginnings of how hard it is and the long hours, the uncertainty that you have to navigate. The realistic truth is the beginning couple of years of the company are going to be hard, but if you have the conviction that what you're building is right, and you have enough belief in yourself that you're the right person to build it, I think it's worth the shot for me, at least. And then accepting that I'm gonna have to make sacrifices, which could be sacrifices on my sleep, sacrifices on hanging out with friends on the weekend, or sacrifices on even personal relationships, like having, you know, a partner that you could go see and actually spend time with. I believe that you can have everything, but you can’t have everything all at once, and if you're truly onto something, like realistically, I'm telling myself, for the next five years, the company just comes first. This comes first to me, and I know that nothing else in my life is going to be perfect, right?

Leah  33:27

Right? Wow. You know, a lot of Founders have talked about that. They have this awareness that, you know, this is something that I need to work on, but, you know, I can't do it at the moment. So to your point, you know, it's not about that it won't happen. It's just about the timing, right? It's about having you can have everything, but you can’t have it, maybe all at the same time.

Jana  33:48

Exactly. And I think that's the way I tend to now live my life is like in chapters. Like I know my life the way I see as I'm writing this book. And each book obviously has different chapters. And this chapter for me is Upside, you know. And this chapter might last two years, three years, five years… I don't know, but right now I'm writing this chapter, and then maybe afterwards, there's going to be a chapter about family or a chapter about, you know, friendship. So then I'm going to prioritize that. But like, I try to be realistic that I just can't do Upside, family, friends, work-life balance, fitness, and have all ample time to go travel and all of that, all in one chapter.

Leah  34:33

Right? Thank you for sharing that. I think that's actually very insightful and really helpful for the folks that listen to this podcast. So if that's the case, and I love how you're thinking about this, it sounds to me that you're very sort of driven by this notion of creating impact in the world. Tell me a little bit about how you think of creating meaningful human impact in the world.

Jana  34:55

I think the way I thought about impact is like, different like Russian dolls. I guess there is, like the immediate impact that you could have just within yourself and the people that you kind of surround with. So being kind and, like, being generous with other people, that's like an immediate impact that any person can have, right? It's like how you show up on a daily basis and how you interact with people. It's got like butterfly effect, right? If I'm angry and miserable, and then that's how I treat other people, that's gonna escalate, and that person's probably gonna treat someone else like that. So like, I do think like impact is like, there's different levels of impact, but probably the most important one is that first immediate impact of how you show up, and then the other impacts, like around your community. Community, like how you show up in your community, how you're like, helping, I don't know, like your neighbors, or people that you kind of know in the place, and making the place better. So that's how I think about this kind of second layer of impact. And then you feel lucky, which I am very fortunate, is kind of the third layer of impact, which is kind of the bigger picture. Like, given all the skills that I have and everything that I've learned, what are the big problems that I could solve, that I could contribute and add value on a bigger scale? And that's how I was telling you about like, I feel like, given my experiences and what I've seen, I could really contribute a lot to the future of the food systems. That's how I dedicated myself. And I said, this is the area that I could work my entire life. And if I just move a little bit of that needle, I'll be very happy. I would feel like that's worth it, you know, if I can just make food a little bit better for the future generation. And then if I have my own children, and I said, Hey, your mom, you know, made this whatever vegetable healthier. Your mom used a lot less like required like chemicals and fertilizers to grow with us. That's something that I would feel very proud to share. And if I ever have my own kids, I would want them to also build or work on something that they want to, like, deliver back some value on, kind of the grand vision. But not everyone has that, because there is obviously, like, different martial hierarchy of needs, right? You have to first look after yourself, look after your community, and then, you know, look after I don't know, like some you might have other responsibilities, so you might never get to that third layer of impact. And that's okay.

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Leah  37:18

And that's okay, yeah.

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Jana  37:19

That's totally okay. Like, I don't think everyone has to be born with “I have to solve this big problem.” No, take care of yourself, first. Take care of your neighbors. Take care of the people around you. And then, if you have more capacity and space, go and look for problems. There's so many problems in the world to solve.

Leah  37:36

Yes, and look at you solving one of the biggest ones out there. You know, what did you say you're, you're feeding the next generation of people? I mean, that is huge.

Jana  37:46

Yeah, it's definitely a big problem. And that's what, why it motivates me. Like, if you're gonna choose any problems, like, the way I see it is, I like challenges, so why not pick something that's really hard? Then not a lot of people want to, like, stick in the RV in the middle of summer to get things to work. Like, I know I have a lot of resilience and I have immense amount of work ethic, so I want to pick a problem that I know is challenging. And if I can just do a little bit on it, I feel like it's going to be worth it. Yeah

Leah  38:17

Yeah. Because you know, a lot of people would be like, That's just too hard, like, I can't do that. That's… that is, that doesn't seem like something I could even move the needle on at all. And here you are saying, I'm gonna do it. I'm jumping in, I'm throwing my hat in the ring. A lot of people would be saying, No way, that's too hard. But not you.

Jana  38:34

I guess not. Like, I don't know if I'm just, you know, like, maybe something's wrong with me? I have no idea, but it's just, yeah, I just feel like, for me, having a hard problem, that if you can solve it, it's extremely rewarding.

Leah  38:51

Absolutely. And I think you learned that resilience from your parents, too. You know you’re like I have some tools here. I have a skill set that I've learned from my parents that are… that is gonna allow me to do this work.

Jana  39:57

Yeah, 100% and I feel like seeing my parents like, even on their worst days, like, when everything feels like it's doom and there's nothing that can be done, there's always the next day, my parents always get back up. They've always did. I feel like I have that mindset too, when things really, really go wrong, it's easy for me to just, like, kind of take a step back and be like, Okay, these are all the problems. We will be okay. Like, we just have to, like, figure out step-by-step, what's the priority? What do we need to solve first and then just, just, just keep moving and nothing too far ahead. Because once you start thinking too far ahead, you start creating all those doubts, and then you can never take the first step. What I really try to do is like, focus on I know the vision, and then I focus on the steps ahead of me, and then don't think anything in between. Anything in between is too scary.

Leah  40:06

I love that. That is a very interesting way to think about that. Yeah, get the big vision, and then just the one step at a time–the middle. Let's not worry about that.

Jana  40:06

Yeah, yep, because the middle is where all the doubts creep in, right? Because if you've never done it anything, or if you're bringing new technology, you're going to have thousands of reasons why it is not going to work. Everyone's going to tell you, Oh, but then this and that, and then you're not going to be able to get growers, because they don't. They're not going to trust, not going to trust you. I got 15 amazing growers that love us right now, so that's what I'm going to focus on. The next 100 are going to come, but I'm not going to focus on the next 100 until they deliver to this 15.

Leah  40:34

That's an incredible way to think about it. Okay, so as we start looking down the road and wrapping up this conversation, I ask everybody the same two questions. So let's, let's ask that to you now. So you're the Co-Founder of Upside Robotics. You're writing the story for your company. How do you help the story goes for Upside?

Jana  40:50

Upside just got started. To be honest, I have an immense amount of ambition with this company, because I truly believe right now is the right time for robotics, and especially robotics that has a positive societal impact and can also solve climate change. And I felt like Upside is basically… that's why we called it Upside, because we wanted it to have an upside on this, on the society, an upside on the planet, and an upside to our investors. So it's just a constant reminder that all the robots that we're going to build, and I'm pretty sure this is not our first robot. Need to basically meet those criteria, and we're starting with agriculture, because it's just in the dire need right now. There's so much that's happening and things are moving so fast that we have to deliver and bring that technology first to the farmers. I do see that once we build those capabilities right now, we can drive basically all our robots autonomously, and we got that done in like eight months, which is incredible to the timeline. It just shows the talent that we have built, like the engineers that we have honestly some of the best. And I lived in San Francisco. I've seen engineers there. I've worked with a lot of engineers around the world, and I can, hands down, say that the group of engineers that we have are the best of the best, and I'm so lucky to have found them. So we started with basically our first product, which is the Maze Runner, like solving critical problems in agriculture, but the same level of technology, on autonomy, on actual hardware, can be applied across multiple verticals. So it doesn't stop us from solving problems in the medical like area/fields or going into construction, or there's so many different verticals that you could still utilize similar type of technology, maybe in a little bit of different format, and solve big problems there. So I just want Upside to just build capabilities that basically enable robotics to make a positive impact and build robotics that actually make sense and deliver value.

Leah  42:51

You're founding this company. How do you hope your own personal story goes as a Co-Founder?

Jana  42:57

I haven't really thought about myself for some time, I've really been just thinking about Upside, but I am so energized by Upside. It's kind of part of my identity, too, now, right? Like it's part of me. So I just really hope that I get to see it grow. I get to see it continuously develop and build value, provide great products to our customers, and I really enjoy the team that we have. So on a personal level, I'm very fulfilled. I kind of don't want this to ever stop, but I do want it to calm down a little, so I do try to make sure that I'm able, at some point to build some work-life balance, I'm able to spend more time with family, more time with friends. And I hope we are slowly getting there. Right now with seed stage, we're moving towards Series A. Hopefully with Series A, Series B will have more capacity to bring on more people, and then things will stabilize on the product level as well. So for me, like, just continuously trying to basically build this company, work with my amazing team, and just see where this goes. Like, I am very open to where this takes us, so I'm not trying to have any plans for myself, and just take one step at a time.

Leah  44:17

Which you're very good at it. Jana, thank you so much for this conversation.

Jana 44:32

No, thank you so much for having me. This was fun.

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Leah  44:40

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