iRobot's Journey: From Moon Missions to Roomba Revolution

iRobot Founder Scrapes Path to Roomba

Colin Angle stood in a cluttered academic lab, staring at the promise of robots that never materialized. Frustrated by the gap between science fiction dreams and reality, he co-founded iRobot in 1990 with a simple question: If not us, who? If not now, when? That spark ignited a 35-year journey marked by moonshot failures, battlefield triumphs, and the unlikely birth of the Roomba—a disc-shaped vacuum that redefined home robotics and sold over 50 million units.

Early Days: From Moon Missions to Military Robots

iRobot began not as a consumer gadget maker, but as a rebellious band of MIT researchers determined to deliver the robots the world had been promised. Colin Angle, alongside co-founders including his professor Rod Brooks, drew on Brooks' pioneering AI technology that embedded machine intelligence into low-cost robotics. Their mission was audacious: build cool stuff, deliver great products, have fun, make money, and change the world.

The first business plan? A private mission to the moon, with plans to sell the movie rights. It flopped spectacularly, but the tech they developed powered additions to NASA's Mars Pathfinder mission—Colin's name is etched on Mars to this day. Undeterred, the team pivoted to practical applications. They created robots for extreme environments, starting with the PackBot, the first ever deployed in a U.S. Army combat mission.

"We would get postcards: 'You saved my life today.'"

PackBot crawled into Afghan caves and became the primary tool for defusing improvised explosive devices. Later, after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, iRobot's machines mapped disaster zones. In the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis, they donated half a million dollars worth of robots to Japan, sending six engineers to train locals. Those bots were the first inside the reactor doors, mapping radiation and carving a safe path for workers to access the control room—earning credit for enabling the shutdown.

These weren't cushy lab projects. iRobot scraped by through 35 years of near-death experiences, bootstrapping military contracts amid technical hurdles and cash crunches. The team operated from Colin's living room at times, embodying the gritty indie hacker ethos of solving real problems with whatever resources were at hand.

Key Milestones: The Roomba Breakthrough and Scaling Pains

For 12 years, iRobot chased rugged, mission-critical robots while consumer vacuuming remained a distant dream. People assumed robots meant humanoids with arms and legs pushing upright vacuums—impossibly complex and expensive. Then, in year 12, a toy team prototype changed everything.

Colin gave them $15,000 and two weeks: "See what you can do." They returned with a clunky disc that bumped around, sucking up dirt. It wasn't perfect, but it worked. Scraping together funds, the team built prototypes. A year and a half later, Colin convinced the board to produce 10,000 units. Launch day arrived with zero marketing budget.

• First customers and revenue explosion: Media buzz did the heavy lifting. Reporters, fascinated by real robotics, spread the word. "My God, it actually worked," they marveled. iRobot sold 70,000 Roombas in the first three months—pure organic demand.
• Nearly fatal overproduction: High on success, engineers ramped to 300,000 units the next year, even shooting a TV ad. It bombed. Post-Cyber Monday, 250,000 unsold Roombas piled up in the warehouse. The world seemed to end as cash burned and doubt crept in.
• Survival and iteration: They clawed back, refining Roomba into a household name. Over decades, it evolved with sensors over lasers for true cleaning smarts, proving robots didn't need humanoid forms to dominate. Sales hit 50 million lifetime, turning iRobot into a robotics pioneer.

Pivots defined the path. Military bots funded consumer dreams, but Roomba forced a shift from government contracts to mass-market scale. Each milestone tested resilience: from moon failures to life-saving deployments, then viral launch to inventory apocalypse.

Lessons Learned: Scraping Paths for Indie Founders

Colin's odyssey offers hard-won wisdom for early-stage builders grinding in garages or co-working spaces. Here are three practical insights drawn from iRobot's trenches.

1. Prototype fast, fund frugally—momentum trumps perfection. With $15,000 and two weeks, a toy team birthed Roomba. No VC war chest, just scraps and hustle. Founders today can validate ideas with MVPs using off-the-shelf parts, iterating based on real feedback rather than endless planning. Colin's board bought into 10,000 units on faith and a demo—proof that traction sells itself.
2. Embrace pivots from "cool stuff" to customer reality. Moon missions and PackBots built cred and cash, buying time for Roomba. Early failures honed tech that mattered. Indie hackers should chase revenue early via B2B or niche contracts, using profits to fuel consumer bets. iRobot survived 12 lean years by delivering value where it counted, not chasing vanity metrics.
3. Scale scares are growth signals—learn from the warehouse wake-up. Selling 70,000 then drowning in 250,000 inventory exposed geek blind spots like marketing. They adapted, blending engineering grit with business savvy. Founders must stress-test supply chains and demand forecasts early; overproduction hurts, but it teaches demand forecasting and customer intimacy better than any spreadsheet.

"When we first built Roomba, we would ask people, 'Is that a robot?' People would say, 'No, that’s not a robot. A robot has arms and legs and a head.' Yet Roomba cost 10,000 times less."

These lessons underscore a founder's core grit: persist through "near-death experiences," let media and users amplify your story, and redefine categories on your terms.

Though iRobot's story ends in recent Chapter 11 bankruptcy—blamed by Colin on an 18-month FTC regulatory saga blocking a $1.7 billion Amazon deal—its legacy endures. From living room experiments to 50 million Roombas, Colin Angle scraped a path that inspired generations of robot builders.

What is your biggest takeaway from Colin's journey? Have you had a "warehouse moment" or scraped together a prototype on a shoestring? Share your thoughts in the comments below!