Disrupted!

November 08, 2022 / Steffen Bartschat

The first “disruption” moment in three years hit me while cruising the TechCrunch startup exhibition in San Francisco last month. I had just checked out the booth for Jasper, a startup that runs a robot “ghost” kitchen at the bottom of an apartment tower in Montreal. The idea here is not incremental innovation, i.e. offering a cheaper-labor substitute for regular restaurants. This kitchen creates a brand-new menu for every lunch and dinner, and prices are affordable ($3-$8 CAD per dish), so that if you live nearby, you will be tempted to order here daily. If Jasper is successful in achieving its vision, it will disrupt residential dining. With every new apartment tower sporting a robotic ghost kitchen at street-level, will takeout from McDonald’s or Chipotle or even regular home cooking still be a habit – or become a faint memory?

Taking this robot disruption concept further, I have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of a general-purpose robot like Rosie-the-Robot in the home, to assist with chores such as tidying the house and cleaning the floors, kitchen, and bathroom. While we have seen some cool demos at CES over the years, an affordable consumer solution still seems a decade or more away. But Jasper made me realize that the robot investment can be shared even in consumer applications – for example, an apartment complex can employ one or more robots to perform weekly cleaning for all the units. The added bonus is that an apartment complex has standard floor plans, so that makes robot navigation easier. Startups like Peanut Robotics are already cleaning hotel bathrooms - is automated apartment cleaning next in line for a disruption?

I almost skipped attending TechCrunch in person – after all, I could be more "efficient" by working from my home office, working my way through the descriptions for each startup on the TechCrunch 200 website... But then I would have missed chatting with the entrepreneurs at the booth, and understanding their plan for world domination. Then the second insight hit me – the full name of the show was, after all, TechCrunch Disrupt. Duh! Anyways, it's good to be back in the saddle…