How Not To Deliver A Cooking Robot — Part 1

Rohin

Logistics

4 July 2026

Day 0

I land in San Francisco.

I come to San Mateo, the site of our office-cum-garage, to see this beautiful sight of our bots waiting and am raring to go. Let’s start deploying!

We’ve been in R&D for a while and then setting up a production line for these bots has been a challenge as well. But we’re now past it and finally closer to being in real homes.

I open up a bot to run some checks. Oil not flowing.

Open another bot. Oil not flowing.

Open another. Oil not flowing.

Why? Let’s talk to the team. These were all tested and verified before being shipped!

After a complete day of grueling debugging we figure out what’s the reason.

It’s a pinch in the pipe! A pinch means the pipe was getting constricted and this was preventing the oil to flow.

The image of the “pinch”. This image will haunt me for a long time.

But how did this happen? We’ve spent weeks on ensuring exactly issues like these don’t happen.

I go to sleep trusting the team will come with a solution.

Day 1

I wake up, go for a run.

The Hardware Team tells me a solution to fix the oil-not-flowing problem.

I will now have to unpack all 35 robots, make the fix for oil-not-flowing problem, run some tests and pack them all again.

Day 2–5

I follow a tight schedule.

Wake Up → Run → Unpack bot → Repair → Pack → Do other founder work (which is a lot!) → Sleep

I get 20 robots ready in 4 days.

Day 6

A big day. Our first two in-person deliveries to two users — let’s call them User A & B.

I come back from the deliveries. I go back to sleep to catch up on my jet lag. I wake up. I see a litany of error messages on Slack emanating from the robots I’d just deployed a couple of hours back.

Turns out that User A’s bot has an issue with the Induction System.

And there are many problems occurring with dispensing seasonings.

Not a problem — we can roll out some software fixes — can’t we? No — we can’t.

The relevant team is on leave. All of them. All at once 😓

Day 7

I go back to User A’s place. While the main Induction System issue is resolved — I discover something else. The oil is still not flowing 😰🫢😮🙀

And it hits me. So so hard. Because I realize something —

The solution told to me by the team for the oil-not-flowing problem is not working.

And that I’ve already readied 20 bots with a fix that’s not working.

And it’ll have to be redone again.

I let it sink in. I stare at a big mountain of work.

Day 8

The Hardware team tells me a new solution to the oil-not-flowing problem which would take much more longer to implement but hopefully will resolve the problem for good.

Day 9

I test it out and it works.

Day 10

I sit back and think — should we fly someone in from India? I do a quick mental calculation.

Time to	Me	Fly someone in from India
Plan Travel + Book Tickets + Fly	N/A	4–5 days
Acclimatize / Jet-Lag	N/A	2–3 days
Doing Repairs on 35 bots	5 days	5 days
Total	5 days	13–14 days

I take a chance on myself, can’t afford to lose so many days when we’re already running late.

Always → speed above all else.

Day 11–15

I follow a set schedule:

⏰ Wake Up → 🏃 Morning Run → 📤 Unpack bot → 🔨 Repair Oil Pipe → 📥 Pack Bot Back → Manage Org / Work with Team / IST Check-Ins → 😴 Sleep → Repeat Next Day

In 5 days we have 35 bots ready.

I’ve also collected all pieces of oil pipes that were cut and replaced. Like battle scars that you want to remember — so that we do not make the same mistake again.