In this episode of Beyond One Million, host Parna Sarkar-Basu sits down with Chase Olle, founder of Robot on Rails, a startup accelerating scientific breakthroughs through automated lab robots.
Chase shares how he moved from automotive robotics into biotech, why he focused on drug discovery companies instead of big pharma and how one early customer relationship evolved into a multi-year, multi-million-dollar partnership.
His entrepreneurial journey offers practical lessons for founders building complex products, especially in robotics, hardware, biotech and AI, where growth depends not just on selling the product, but making the customer successful.
Key Takeaways
Start with a Problem That Hasn’t Been Solved
Chase first saw the opportunity years ago when a pre-med roommate was spending late nights in the lab because “the cells can’t wait.” His reaction was simple: why can’t a robot do that?
Nearly a decade later, after working in automotive and then building robots for biotech workflows, he realized the problem still existed.
That was the opening.
Biotech labs needed automation, but not the kind designed for automotive manufacturing. Cars are built through repetition. Drug discovery requires flexibility, precision and constant experimentation.
Founder lesson:
Great startup opportunities often emerge when a real customer problem has stayed unsolved for too long — especially because existing solutions were built for a different operating model.
Choose the Right First Customer
For a robotics company serving life sciences, big pharma may seem like the obvious target. But Chase knew large pharmaceutical companies were not the right first market.
They are highly regulated, risk-averse and unlikely to adopt unproven technology early.
Instead, Robot on Rails focused on biotech drug discovery companies — customers with urgency, flexibility and a need to move fast before the next funding milestone.
Founder lesson:
Your best first customer is not always the biggest company. It is the customer with the clearest pain, the strongest urgency and the highest willingness to partner.
Don’t Sell a Product. Deliver Customer Success.
Chase saw labs filled with expensive equipment that had become “paperweights” — systems that were purchased but not meaningfully used.
That shaped his company’s approach.
Robot on Rails did not treat the sale as the finish line. The company stayed close to the customer, adapted the solution to fit the workflow and helped support the customer’s own business goals.
When the customer later moved into AI drug discovery, Robot on Rails helped provide the technology, visuals and proof points that supported that story. After the customer raised money, one of the first things they did was invest further in Robot on Rails.
Founder lesson:
Customer success is not a support function. For early-stage companies, it can be the growth strategy.
Founder-Led Sales Matters.
Chase is clear that in complex categories like robotics and hardware, early sales cannot always be handed off to a sales team.
The founder knows the product, the customer problem and the tradeoffs better than anyone else. That matters when customers are making large investments and need to trust the team behind the technology.
Founder-led sales also helps protect the company from bad-fit opportunities.
Chase shared that Robot on Rails has turned down projects that were outside its focus or not aligned with what the company wanted to build.
Founder lesson:
In the early stage, the founder’s job is not just to sell. It is to qualify, learn, build trust and know when to say no.
Build the Prototype Before You Chase Scale.
Chase’s advice for robotics and hardware founders is direct: commit fully.
He quit his job, moved into his parents’ basement, spent personal savings and built the first prototype. That prototype became the proof point he needed to win the first customer.
Without something tangible, he says, it would have been nearly impossible to close the deal.
Founder lesson:
For complex products, credibility starts with proof. Investors and customers need to see that the technology can work before they can believe it can scale.
Slower Is Not Always Worse.
Robot on Rails bootstrapped and grew deliberately — from one person to two, then four, then ten.
Chase believes that not taking money early made the company slower, but not weaker. It gave the team time to build the technology properly, learn from customers and avoid scaling before the product was ready.
Founder lesson:
Speed matters, but premature scale can be expensive. Sometimes going slower helps founders build a stronger foundation.
AI Is a Multiplier, Not a Replacement.
Chase also shared a practical perspective on AI.
Robot on Rails uses multiple forms of AI in its equipment, but Chase does not see AI as a replacement for skilled people. He sees it as a multiplier.
AI can help teams move faster, reduce repetitive work and improve productivity. But it still requires human judgment.
He gave a simple example: when an AI-powered robot was told to put one box next to another, it placed the box on top of the other box. Technically, that was one interpretation of “next to,” but it was not what a human intended.
Founder lesson:
AI creates value when skilled people use it with context, judgment and oversight. The advantage is not replacing talent. It is making strong talent more effective.
The Bottom Line
For founders trying to scale beyond $1 million, Chase’s story is a reminder that growth does not always come from chasing more customers.
Sometimes, the smarter path is to serve the right customer deeply, build around their success and turn that relationship into the foundation for scale.
The first customer is not just a revenue milestone. Handled well, it can become the company’s strongest product development partner, proof point and growth engine.