this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2025
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A couple years ago I worked for a robotics startup that I learned got their start by 100% faking a demo for early customers. They had some magic box that an item would lower into and then the device would “scan” the item and spit out a bunch of data about it. It was entirely fake, the data was predetermined. That landed them a few early series investments that allowed them to do some “real” work. The founders were proud of this sham enabling them to start a company. Whole thing made me sick.
Reminds me a bit of Theranos. “Pay no attention to the man (or woman) behind the curtain”…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dropout is a good mini series on it, I wasn't overly familiar with the story
That's pretty much how all concept demos work at start. At some point they might actually do the thing, but need a lot of careful setup and pushing along. Later on, they start to work for some cases, then more cases and hopefully before they go in the field there's certainty and fault handling that they more or less work.
How honest the marketing is about this process and their market research varies. But investors generally know how the sausage is made, too.