Interviewee
Marlon Hall, Business Development Manager at Techmetics Robotics, a company on a mission to provide end-to-end autonomous delivery of goods.
Transcript
Marlon Hall: So, you know, I'm from University of Maryland College Park, so I have, my degree is in kinesiology. So, you know, I played football and was an athlete, so I was always involved in human emotion. And I had a fellowship after I graduated from Maryland at Michigan State University where I was involved in their biodynamics lab. You know, I wanted to be in my goal, I wanted to be a biomedical engineer, I wanted to design artificial limbs like the bionic man. I'm a little bit older than you guys, but I remember the bionic man and the bionic woman, Jamie Summers. So I remember wanting to design like robotic limbs and things of that nature for people that needed that. But after I went to school, ended up getting married, had a sort of a life change, got involved in the healthcare system with Johnson and Johnson, worked in their healthcare system across all three sectors of the company, selling not only pharmaceutical products, but medical devices as well as their consumer division. You know, then, you know, moved out here to Silicon Valley, outta to California, got involved in the tech industry, worked for Oracle Corporation, a number of other high tech organizations, and that led me to the nexus that I wanted to combine my skill set of technology with.
Combining that with the healthcare industry and the healthcare industry, by, by nature is a slow walking industry. Healthcare changes very, very slowly for a good reason because, you know, you know, healthcare has been around, doctors have been around for thousands of years. A lot of your technology has been around for five years. So I understand the reluctance of healthcare professionals to embrace new technology, but it is necessary to move forward in our current environment. So this opportunity with Teched Robotics about a year and a half ago, to sort of combine my skill set of understanding the value of automation and filling sort of these gaps in workflow operations with the complexity of working in a healthcare environment where there's so many dynamic and static obstacles involved, that it sort of separates us as a company from other operators that are, they're, they're selling robots and, and warehouses and, and places that facilities, restaurant robots, hotel robots. And that, that's a level of complexity in of itself.
But to operate in a healthcare environment, highly regulated, many different types of environments, we think we're the leaders in that industry. So that's what brought me to tech medics, and that's why, you know, I, I joined here and, and, and I'm helping the company move forward in that aspect.
Elisa Muñoz: So especially now that you're mentioning the healthcare system and the hospitality service sector, are you planning on expanding with casinos, hotels, restaurants?
Marlon Hall: Absolutely. So just how we started, we started in Singapore as a company in 2012, like 10 years ago. We've been around for 10 years. And we originally started at a hotel in Singapore and just delivered a delivery robot, taking, you know, things from the, the counter up to the floors and back and forth. And it was just one robot, it was one robot with one window. And if you look at our portfolio, we have many different robots that handle many different workflows, but it started from that one robot that could actually do the delivery. It could actually take the elevator, open the automatic doors, use their PA b system, call inside and answer and, and tell the person, Hey, I'm outside with your product, answer the door. And that's where we started.
And then we expanded to two robots with two doors, and then we had one and one of the champagne. So we made them with bigger doors, and then they said, Hey, can you deliver our, our, you know, food products from the kitchen to the floors? Yes, we can do that. And then what about our linen products? So we made the linen robots. So we've always listened to our customer and our mantra is we are interior material transport individuals. We can transport anything from point A to point B, whether it's to bandaid or surgical equipment or hazardous materials or pharmaceutical products or linen or bedding. If it's in a building, we can transport it with an effective ROI because of our robotic solutions.
We want this to help out with the workflow of our facilities. You know, we're not selling robots, we're trying to enhance people's lives via robots.
Elisa Muñoz: And talking about the business model, I know that you have only been a year and a half at the company, but how will you say it's, it has changed over the past year?
Marlon Hall: I think how we've changed is we've realized that autonomous mobile robots are a new option in the healthcare sector and the hospitality sector and the United States, but it's not new worldwide. We've been doing this for 10 years in Singapore, Australia, Dubai, Malaysia, and other places, but it's new here. So we think in the past year we've been able to realize that the hospitality sector is not where we wanna focus. We wanna focus on the healthcare sector. That's where we think we can make the most amount of attraction. And by the way, at least this is the highest roi. We don't sell robots, we sell workflow solutions. So we go into a hospital and we say, okay, you have 15 employees, they're delivering products from point A to point B all day, all long. They are, they work at this amount of hourly wage, it takes them this amount of time to take, you know, things from the kitchen up to the floor. We use these metrics and then we figure out, hey, we can automate this procedure.
We can bring in a robot that after eight to 18 months pays for itself. So theri, you know, our robots will pay for themselves in eight to 18 months, guaranteed. And then from there, the robot works with maintenance and everything for about $4 an hour. Our robots aren't replacing jobs, we're, we're trying to supplement. So let's let the human beings communicate with the humans face to face, spend their time doing human things versus robot things, taking things from point A to point B. We want this to help out with the workflow of our facilities. You know, we're not selling robots, we're trying to enhance people's lives via robots.
Elisa Muñoz: How did you find the public market fit once you join the company, and how will you say it has changed? Maybe let's say in the past couple of years since the pandemic started?
Marlon Hall: In a weird way, robotics has gained traction because people don't want to deal with other people, right? So our robots by definition are contactless. There's no hum to human contact. The pandemic has also exacerbated the labor shortage worldwide. Not only have people died, but a lot of people don't want to go back to work at the hotel or the restaurant or the, you know, the casino or whatever, because I, I don't wanna get c or I can make more money doing Uber or something else. The gig economy has sort of taken over. So we feel that because of the current conditions, we've actually been able to expand our value proposition in the fact that we can offer automation in this service sector space where people are leaving for obvious reasons and we can help to supplement so that workflow as humans leave out of industry, if we can automate it and bring robots in to help supplement that, I think that's a win-win.
Elisa Muñoz: Do you have any advice for future business managers starting in this industry?
Marlon Hall: I think, well, we're encouraging everyone to get into robotics. Some of the hottest industries out right now are tech, like AI, robotics and even, you know, battery technology, which would make sense to me when I wake up every day. It's fun. I love technology. I think that if you love technology, robotics is a huge play. It's gonna be in every sector of our life. There's pizza making robots, there's delivery robots. Robotics is gonna be a part of our society. So embrace it. It's, it's, it's gonna be fun. It's, it's a, it's a, like I said, I don't, I don't feel like I go to work every day. It's like I'm doing my hobby, but you know, I just encourage people to live your dream. If you love technology and you want to come in robotics, we need more people. It's a small but growing community, but there's a lot of opportunity for people to come in and help us change the world.
Elisa Muñoz: Perfect. Well thank you so much, Marlon. I highly appreciate it.
Marlon Hall: Absolutely. We'll talk soon and, and best wishes for everybody, hit up Builder Nation!
