Founder Fridays: Neuron Robotics

Who are the faces behind a company? How did the company get started? These are common question you may have about startups you see and hear about. If you don't get a chance to personally meet the founders, you're unlikely to ever know their story. That's where we're starting Founder Fridays. 

This week we are featuring Neuron Robotics  founded by Robert Breznak, a company that provides open source, programmable and cross-platform solution, the Bowler Communications System (BCS)  by lowering the costs of entry into robotics and CPS development to within the ability range of the average person.

1) What is your current Startup? (Name & URL) 

Neuron Robotics - http://www.neuronrobotics.com

2) What's the elevator pitch?

We are changing the way that people interact with the real world from their computer. We are building tools that allow average people, people without any background in roboitcs, electrical engineering or other engineering field, to build robotics / cyber-physical systems. Our flagship product, the DyIO, allows anyone with a computer to build a robot within 8 minutes.

3) When did you know you wanted to be an entrepreneur?

I've wanted to be an entrepreneur forever. My family has a background of starting their own companies and running them successfully. It has always fascinated me that anyone could build a small idea into something that is wildly successful and could change the world. Neuron Robotics went from being a weekend project to a company when we realized that we had something really unique that people were looking for. We felt that we could continue as a side-project, but if we wanted to build something that would really help developers then we'd have to have a full product with support and we would need to continuously evolve to meet our users' needs.  

4) How did you meet your co-founders?

We knew each other from WPI. Kevin Harrington and I would meet while working on our senior projects to swap war stories. It was during one of these meetings that we decided to start something. Kevin and I needed some help and decided to bring on a friend who could do circuit design and PCB layout. That's how Alex Camilo joined. After about a year, Kevin met Greg Cole while working as a graduate student at WPI's Automation and Interventional Medicine (AIM) lab. Greg brought a unique mix of mechanical design and general product design knowhow.

5) What was the best advice you ever got?

Jerome Schaufeld, a Professor of Practice at WPI, has said time and time again that as a company grows, the founders can too. Not every startup needs to find new management at every step but the early founders must grow with the company and evolve to make it work.

6) What Startup(s) are you most excited about today? Why?

Quassu (http://www.quassu.com ) is a startup that I am very excited to see grow. They're working to help students improve their LSAT scores and connect with tutors. I know one of the founders there and he's very connected with the startup scene in Boston. Talking with him has been a great way to bounce ideas and get a sense of where things are going.

7) What's your favorite part about being an entrepreneur?

I love being able to create and see ideas come to life. It's a rush to iterate on ideas and see how everything is connected from software to packaging to marketing.

8) If you could recommend one book for entrepreneur's to read, what would it be and why?

Take a look at The Myths of Innovation by Scott Berkun (http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596527051). It's a fantastic look at how we as a society view innovation and what influences true innovation. As a book, it's well written and is just fun to read.