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: How she turned past startup mistakes into a rigorous customer discovery process The structured approach Dusty used to land its first paying customer Why she says stealth mode is overrated — and how building in public gave them a head start How “cool tech” can lead you astray if you’re not solving a real problem Smart ways to pivot and iterate based on actual user feedback What it takes to build a mission-driven team that scales with you 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 Tessa Lau Dusty Robotics Philipp Herget, CTO IBM Research Willow Garage, Wikipedia “Savioke is now Relay Robotics,” 5/2/2022, The Robot Report Crossing the Chasm, 3rd edition, Harper Books 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.