247: Lessons from a Serial Entrepreneur: Mark DeSantis on Startups, Robotics, and Commercializing Tech

What if accepting failure was the key to entrepreneurial success? Mark DeSantis has built and sold multiple companies over the years and like any entrepreneurial journey, it’s been a mixture of ups and downs, failures and successes. But in this episode, we hear that acknowledging the possibility of failure is what gave him the courage to keep on going.

Mark shares his entrepreneurial story – why he began it, how he stays motivated, and some of the best lessons he’s picked up over the years. One of the top points he makes in this episode is to be problem-focused, not solutions-focused. When building tech solutions, it’s easy to get lost in the tech itself and lose sight of the real problems you want it to solve. But to make anything commercially viable, especially something as “new” as robotics, it needs to solve real problems.

Mark also sings the praises of Pittsburgh, which he says is one of the best cities for robotics innovation today. He’s seen the city decline and grow over the years into what’s now a college town that’s thriving in the tech space.

In this episode, find out:

• Mark shares what he’s been up to recently, after seeing Bloomfield Robotics acquired by Kubota Corporation
• The challenge of living with uncertainty as an entrepreneur and the story that inspired him to embrace fear
• Why entrepreneurship is like climbing Mount Everest in that you should look in front of you, not at the summit
• Mark’s secret to enjoying the journey of entrepreneurship and the moment he decided he wanted to do this for the rest of his life
• Why AI and robotics are perfect for the “big and boring” problems in our lives
• Why we might need a Henry Ford-style revolution to take robotics to the next level
• How Pittsburgh is growing in the tech and robotics space
• Why asking if someone wants to buy your solution is the wrong question for an entrepreneur to ask

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Tweetable Quotes:

• “Where technology, particularly AI, can make a difference is in the big and boring problems. The places where nobody thinks to take an advanced technology."
• “Go where everyone else isn't with advanced solutions and make sure the problem's big enough where you can make a difference.  
• “If you’re frozen with fear because you're worried about the failure of the company, or your personal failure and the humiliation that that might bring, you're not going to make good decisions. You're gonna fail. It's like playing not to lose in sports. Entrepreneurship’s all offense, no defense.”

Links & mentions:

• Mark DeSantis, his bio is stacked
• Bloomfield Robotics, combining plant-level imaging and deep learning to assess the health and performance of every plant, at any scale continuously
• Kubota, manufacturing and assembling Kubota lawn tractors
• Pittsburgh Robotics Network, facilitating commercial business growth and economic development opportunities for the Greater Pittsburgh region's robotics, autonomy, and AI cluster
• Watch this episode on YouTube

Make sure to visit http://manufacturinghappyhour.com for detailed show notes and a full list of resources mentioned in this episode. Stay Innovative, Stay Thirsty.