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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Fear and Greed Business Interview. I'm Sean Aylmer.

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Speaker 1: Listeners get in touch with us all the time on

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Speaker 1: this podcast. Sometimes it's a common about a story. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: they've got feedback. Sometimes it's because they're doing something a

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Speaker 1: bit different and want to tell people about it. Today's

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Speaker 1: interview is one of those. Recently we were contacted by

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Speaker 1: Joel Bell, a former Australian Army engineer now living and

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Speaker 1: working in North Carolina in the US. Also a fan

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Speaker 1: of Fear and Greed for the last five years, so

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Speaker 1: we like that. He's a director of Bot Built b

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Speaker 1: U T b U I L T bot Built, a

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Speaker 1: startup using robots to build houses. Joel joins me this

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Speaker 1: morning from the US. Joel, Welcome the Fear and Greed.

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Speaker 2: Hey, Sean nicely on the call. Long time listener, first

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Speaker 2: time caller. Is that how we do it?

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Speaker 1: That's something like that that'll do? Tell me Bot Built

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Speaker 1: what is it exactly?

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Speaker 2: So? Bob Build is a tech startup based in North Carolina.

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Speaker 2: As you mentioned, we use robots to build homes and

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Speaker 2: what that means is we rescue automotive robots who used

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Speaker 2: to build cars. We say rescue because we buy them

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Speaker 2: secondhand on eBay. We give them an a lily. Yeah literally,

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Speaker 2: on eBay they go out of tolerance for automotive manufacturing.

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Speaker 2: So we buy them, give them an AI powered brain,

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Speaker 2: and we have them build house frames so the walls

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Speaker 2: are the house. We use them to build those.

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Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, and I presume if you've got robotics building

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Speaker 1: the frames, things like tolerances and measurements and stuff like

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Speaker 1: that are pretty spot on.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So the way the system works is we first

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Speaker 2: take the PDF floorplan so you could send me a

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Speaker 2: blueprint today. We have artificial intelligence that we've developed that

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Speaker 2: reads that blueprint turns it into computer code. So we

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Speaker 2: pick up every dimension, every door, every window, or the

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Speaker 2: ceiling and floor joist layouts. We put that into the AI,

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Speaker 2: which writes the code for the robots to follow. And

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Speaker 2: then the really cool part is that we don't tell

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Speaker 2: the robots how to build the house. We tell them

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Speaker 2: what to build, but the artificial intelligence inside the robots

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Speaker 2: goes ahead and plans all that all on their own,

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Speaker 2: so there's no human involvement. We joke that all the

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Speaker 2: humans have to do is reload the nail guns and

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Speaker 2: the robots go ahead and build everything exactly as it's

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Speaker 2: drawn on the plan by the engineer, very few errors.

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Speaker 2: Every nail's perfect, every stud's in exactly the right place,

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Speaker 2: which means that we get a really good result for

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Speaker 2: the homeowner at the end, but also the builder saves

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Speaker 2: time and money. It's a very cool product.

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Speaker 1: How did you end up a lot in that? I'm

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Speaker 1: going to go the AI part first, right, So how

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Speaker 1: did you introduce AI into the process to the point

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Speaker 1: that it can actually the robots can be told by

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Speaker 1: AI what to do and how to build it.

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Speaker 2: So the first part is the reading of the plan,

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Speaker 2: and if you think about it, that's the really human part.

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Speaker 2: The human part is interpreting what's drawn on the page

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Speaker 2: and turning that into usable code for the robots. So

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Speaker 2: we have a large language model which everyone would have

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Speaker 2: heard of before that we've trained. We've processed something like

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Speaker 2: ten million square feet. I've been in the US so

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Speaker 2: long now, I think in imperiod. I'm not sure if

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Speaker 2: the comparison for that, but ten million square feet.

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Speaker 1: You've still got the accent, Joel, It's okay, he's still

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Speaker 1: one of us.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it gets me in a lot of doors

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Speaker 2: in the us, which is great. They love Australians over here.

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Speaker 2: But we've trained our AI on about ten million square

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Speaker 2: feet of blueprints and what that means is that it

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Speaker 2: recognizes everything that's on the blueprint. So it recognizes a door,

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Speaker 2: it recognizes a dimension, a toilet, cook top, anything that's

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Speaker 2: on the plan, that AI will read it because that's

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Speaker 2: what we've taught it to do. The next part of

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Speaker 2: the AI is what's called motion planning. So the CTO Barrett,

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Speaker 2: who's the one of the co founders, he used to

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Speaker 2: work at NASA. He used to build robots for NASA,

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Speaker 2: and then when did his PhD at Duke University over

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Speaker 2: here in North Carolina, and his PhD was all about

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Speaker 2: motion planning, which is where the robots do their own

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Speaker 2: mathematics so that they're intelligent. They plan their own movements

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Speaker 2: based on the shape of the house we've told them

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Speaker 2: to build. So we just stack two by four studs

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Speaker 2: up next to them. They go and pick up the wood,

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Speaker 2: place it on the table, cut it, nail it all

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Speaker 2: all on their own and so it's a two step

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Speaker 2: process there reading the plans and then planning their own motions.

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Speaker 1: So what's the finished product when it leaves builds factory.

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Speaker 1: What does it look like.

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Speaker 2: So you get the wall panels or the wallframes we

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Speaker 2: call them in Australia, very very common. Almost every house

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Speaker 2: in Australia is built from factory built wall frames. We'll

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Speaker 2: shift them to site, stand them up and you get

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Speaker 2: all the benefits of the speed and accuracy on site.

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Speaker 2: Int of what's very common here is stick building. So

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Speaker 2: you have a team of framers who would just get

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Speaker 2: a pile of lumber and build the house from it.

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Speaker 2: We prefabricate it so it's much faster and more cost efficient. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So how much cheaper is it?

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Speaker 2: We think we can take about just with this product,

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Speaker 2: we can take ten percent off the cost of building

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Speaker 2: a house, which is significant. It costs about five hundred

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Speaker 2: thousand dollars build a house, say fifty thousand dollars. That's

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Speaker 2: a significant saving.

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Speaker 1: Okay, stay with me, Joel, we'll be back in a minute.

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Speaker 1: My guest this morning is Joel Bell, director of bot Build.

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Speaker 1: I'd like to know how you, Joel, ended up in

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Speaker 1: North Carolina at bot Build as the founder of bote Build,

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Speaker 1: given that your background is in engineering but with the military.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so I was an Army engineer for a long time.

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Speaker 2: I did that for about sixteen years in total. Quit

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Speaker 2: that back in twenty twenty three. I then did an

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Speaker 2: MBA at Melbourne Business School. Shout out to m very

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Speaker 2: good business school for those that are considering doing an MBA.

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Speaker 2: I had the opportunity to do in exchange here in

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Speaker 2: North Carolina at the University of North Carolina at a

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Speaker 2: great business school here. Came over here, fell in love

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Speaker 2: with the place. It's a really beautiful part of the world,

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Speaker 2: North Carolina. The people were wonderful. There's a lot of

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Speaker 2: a lot of tech development here. It's a real research center,

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Speaker 2: a lot of business going on. It's a real growth

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Speaker 2: area as well. I'd spent a lot of time in

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Speaker 2: the US with the military. I really like Americans and

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Speaker 2: working with them, so I've been thinking about coming here

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Speaker 2: for a little while. And then, of course I met

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Speaker 2: a pretty girl, My wonderful girlfriend, Courtney, gave me a

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Speaker 2: real reason to come back. So I found Bob Built

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Speaker 2: just on LinkedIn, connected with the founders. They were looking

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Speaker 2: for someone like me. At the same time. I was

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Speaker 2: looking for a job, so a business degree and with

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Speaker 2: a background in construction to build out some of this product.

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Speaker 2: So I made a connection, came over here, and now

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Speaker 2: I have a house and a baby on the way.

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Speaker 2: So the Americans have stuck with me for a little while.

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Speaker 1: Congratulations, well done, how big bot built At this point.

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Speaker 2: We've built forty houses at this point, so it's not

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Speaker 2: a sciences sperm anymore. But we are still a startup,

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Speaker 2: so we're on that journey, which has also been really

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Speaker 2: fascinating to observe how that goes. Raising funds, building out

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Speaker 2: the business, funding your customers, getting the product out there,

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Speaker 2: doing the marketing, which is a lot of the stuff

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Speaker 2: that I work on. It's fun. I'm not the robot guy.

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Speaker 2: I get to go out and sell the robots, which

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Speaker 2: is the fund yet and I get to talk on

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Speaker 2: podcasts like this about how great the product is. But yeah,

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Speaker 2: we're looking to scale up now. So we've got a

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Speaker 2: product that works, we've got a product that customers really like,

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Speaker 2: and then looking to scale so how big can you get?

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Speaker 2: We see this being in every state in the US

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Speaker 2: and internationally, so we've had some discussions with Australian manufacturers.

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Speaker 2: The product works in Australia because timber is timber. Australian

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Speaker 2: houses are very similar to American houses. There are some

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Speaker 2: differences obviously, but the fun thing is we can have

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Speaker 2: the AI teach itself how to build an Australian house.

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Speaker 2: It's just a matter of training it on the Australian

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Speaker 2: Building Code and we'll see robots building houses in Australia

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Speaker 2: in the not too distant future. Is the plan?

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Speaker 1: So what's the size of the price? You've built forty

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Speaker 1: in an environment in the US where, to be honest,

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Speaker 1: the building environment and this is just based on James

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Speaker 1: Hardish sare price that rather than any particular knowledge hasn't

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Speaker 1: been great the last couple of years.

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Speaker 2: It really.

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Speaker 1: I mean that renovations have been good, but new builds

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Speaker 1: hasn't been great. What's the outlook then, I mean, if

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Speaker 1: you can build homes and be successful in a not

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Speaker 1: say great environment, then plenty of opportunity.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. One of the things that really struck me moving

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Speaker 2: to the US is just the size of the opportunity.

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Speaker 2: So we haven't seen a drop in new homes in

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Speaker 2: the US, but they're building one point five million homes

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Speaker 2: every year in this country and the vast majority of

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Speaker 2: those are single family built from timber, so very very

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Speaker 2: big market, very big opportunity and similar to Australia where

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Speaker 2: builders have thin margins. It's a tough industry construction. They're

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Speaker 2: looking to save wherever they can and home builders want

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Speaker 2: a better product. In order to save money, we've had

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Speaker 2: to cut costs and I don't think anyone would disagree

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Speaker 2: that the quality of housing in Australia hasn't been improving.

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Speaker 2: And in order to build more houses we need to innovate.

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Speaker 2: And this is the key here. It works. We're competing

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Speaker 2: in a very strong market, but we're saving builders money

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Speaker 2: and we're saving developers money and giving home owners a

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Speaker 2: better product.

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Speaker 1: So it works saving money. I presume safety is another issue,

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Speaker 1: which when you've got robots doing it rather than individuals,

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Speaker 1: that's probably benefit there too.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So my dad Mick Bell, shout out dad. He

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Speaker 2: used to run a wall frame a RIF Trust plant

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Speaker 2: and he's been a carp under his whole life. And

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Speaker 2: his hands tell the story. I like to talk about this.

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Speaker 2: So he's had a number of surgeries on his hands

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Speaker 2: because it's backbreaking work building. It's difficult, you're out in

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Speaker 2: the sun all day, takes a long time and it's

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Speaker 2: very manual and so if we can displace some of

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Speaker 2: that very dangerous work, then that's a benefit there. The

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Speaker 2: phrase we use in robotics is dirty, dull, and dangerous

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Speaker 2: is what robots are good for. And this is definitely

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Speaker 2: in the dull and dangerous bracket. So if we can

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Speaker 2: have robots help out humans, make it faster, improve humans productivity,

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Speaker 2: and that's a win for everybody.

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Speaker 1: I got to ask you, Joel, what's your dad think

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Speaker 1: about you doing via robotics what he spent his life

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Speaker 1: laboring on.

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Speaker 2: It's just another tool, It's the next evolution my dad.

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Speaker 2: My dad did his apprenticeship before power tools, which probably

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Speaker 2: dates him, but he talks about buying his first ever

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Speaker 2: electric drill after he finishes apprenticeship, and it's just the

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Speaker 2: next evolution of that. It's the future. We talk a

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Speaker 2: lot in Australia and across the West. It's the problem

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Speaker 2: here in the US as well of an aging population

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Speaker 2: struggling to get young people to join the trades. There's

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Speaker 2: a labor shortage across the market. The only way to

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Speaker 2: improve that is through automation and robotics. This is an

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Speaker 2: area that's been severely lacking in innovation in that space

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Speaker 2: for a while.

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Speaker 1: Good luck with a Joel and thank you for talking

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Speaker 1: to Fear and Greed.

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Speaker 2: Appreciate it. Sean.

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Speaker 1: That was Joel Bell, director at Bot Built. This is

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Speaker 1: the Fear and Greed Business Interview. Join us every morning

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Speaker 1: for the full episode of Fear and Greed business news

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Speaker 1: you can use. I'm Sean Elmer. Enjoy your day.