Defining Vision, Strategy, and Roadmaps: How Boundless Robotics Built a Scalable Product
I started Boundless Robotics because I was deeply concerned about food security—where our food comes from, how it’s grown, the inefficiencies of supply chains, and the immense waste from spoilage. While vertical farms aimed to address some of these challenges, they faced unsustainable costs due to real estate and labor expenses.
I saw an opportunity: What if we could bring food production directly into people’s homes? My hypothesis was that if we could help people effortlessly grow food at home, we could eliminate real estate and operational costs while still capturing the benefits of controlled-environment agriculture.
Step 1: Defining a Vision That Resonates
Before building anything, I needed to understand if this idea resonated with others. I interviewed ~50 people (Phase 1 of Research – Test Your Hypothesis) to validate the need.
Key Findings:
✅ People care about food security, but see it as a future problem.
✅ People know growing food is hard.
✅ People think growing any meaningful amount of food at home isn’t possible—only herbs and leafy greens.
Crafting the Vision:
Based on these insights, I formulated a clear vision statement:
"To help people effortlessly grow 5% of their food at home by 2030."
This vision works because:
🔹 It aligns with people’s concerns about food security while making the problem feel solvable.
🔹 It makes growing food feel achievable by emphasizing effortlessness.
🔹 The 5% goal sounds small but is highly impactful (5% of food = ~18 days of meals).
Step 2: Forming a Strategy with Customer Insights
To validate the vision and start developing a strategy, we spoke to another 50 people, sharing our vision and gathering their thoughts.
The response was clear:
💡 "I love this! And you know what? If this tech can also grow cannabis effortlessly, I’ll buy one for myself—and one for my parents."
At the time, cannabis legalization was expanding, and people were becoming more open about home cultivation. I initially resisted the idea, given my background from Mexico and personal views on the war on drugs. But as a product leader, I had to listen to the market. I spoke to their parents and friends and discovered a clear demand for effortless home cannabis cultivation.
Strategic Shift: Why Cannabis Was the Right Entry Point
✅ Growing it is extremely difficult—If we could automate cannabis cultivation, we could apply the same tech to food crops.
✅ It’s a larger crop—Leafy greens alone won’t feed people; we needed to learn how to grow larger plants.
✅ It’s expensive—Consumers were willing to invest in a solution with a clear ROI, which meant we could use early revenue to fund further innovation.
Step 3: Building the Strategy – How Do We Achieve the Vision?
We conducted a third round of 50+ interviews to refine our approach. The three key strategic pillars emerged:
1️⃣ Make home cultivation effortless – Users wanted automation, not a complicated process.
2️⃣ Design for urban living – Many people live in apartments without gardens or basements.
3️⃣ Ensure it’s aesthetically pleasing – Since it would take up prime space in the home, it had to be beautiful.
Core Strategic Elements for Success:
💡 Hardware: Build a beautiful, functional device that people want in their living rooms.
💡 Software: Develop an intelligent, learning-based system that simplifies plant care without user intervention.
💡 Technology: Reduce technological risk through early iterations and fast prototyping.
💡 Cost Efficiency: Use "cheats" like computer vision + AI instead of costly sensors.
💡 Data Collection: Enable real-time data gathering to improve future crop recipes via A/B testing.
💡 Future-Proofing: Design the system to adapt to B2B applications and new crops.
Step 4: Translating the Strategy into a Tactical Roadmap
With a clear vision and strategy, we moved into tactical execution—defining roadmaps for hardware, software, and technology development.
🛠 Hardware Roadmap
📌 Iterate early and often – Rapid prototyping (3D printing) to test form factor and usability.
📌 Balance aesthetics with function – Ensure high-tech automation while making it sleek and modern.
📌 Modular design – Separate core tech from outer casing, making it adaptable for future models.
💾 Software Roadmap
📌 Seamless automation – Users should only need to press a button—the system does the rest.
📌 Cloud-based intelligence – Real-time growth optimization and remote monitoring.
📌 Cross-platform integration – Device, Cloud, and Mobile apps must work effortlessly together.
🤖 Technology Roadmap
📌 AI-powered monitoring – Use vision AI instead of expensive sensors to track plant health.
📌 Automated growth recipes – Machine learning models improve over time based on real-world data.
📌 Scalability for future crops – Build the system to expand beyond cannabis into fruits and vegetables.
💰 Cost Strategy
📌 Leverage low-cost components – Replace expensive sensors with AI-powered vision systems.
📌 Use high-margin early adopters – Cannabis users provided the initial revenue stream to fund R&D.
📊 Data Collection & Learning Roadmap
📌 Build a global data network – Every deployed device should feed back insights to improve future plant growth.
📌 Enable A/B testing – Optimize plant recipes remotely, improving results without user effort.
Step 5: Preparing for the Future
While the initial focus was cannabis, we always kept future scalability in mind. Our long-term plan included:
✅ B2B applications – Expanding tech into commercial indoor farming.
✅ More crop types – Iterating on growth methods for fruits, vegetables, and medicinal plants.
✅ Adaptable hardware – Designing modular components for easy adaptation to new markets.
Final Thoughts: How This Framework Applies to Any Product Strategy
This structured approach—Vision → Strategy → Roadmap—is applicable far beyond Boundless Robotics. Whether building robotics, AI-driven automation, or next-gen hardware/software ecosystems, the core principles remain the same:
🔹 Start with the customer problem, not the tech – Validate demand before building.
🔹 Craft a compelling vision – Solve a meaningful problem with a clear, inspiring goal.
🔹 Let strategy emerge from real-world feedback – The best strategies come from customers, not boardrooms.
🔹 Build for flexibility and scale – Design roadmaps that allow for future pivots and expansion.
🔹 Leverage technology wisely – Use AI, automation, and data-driven insights to drive efficiency and scalability.
By adopting a structured, customer-driven approach, companies can navigate ambiguity, build breakthrough innovations, and scale products that truly make an impact. 🚀