Rob Whitten & Jane Lo p!ng the Coffee Drive-Thru with AI & Robotics

What happens when coffee meets robotics, convenience meets customization, and the morning drive-through gets rebuilt from scratch?

In this 68th episode of Bald Ambition, Mookie sits down with Rob Whitten and Jane Lo, the founders of p!ng, a startup turning the ordinary caffeine run into something that feels straight out of science fiction. Their fully automated drive-through “Ping Pod” uses AI, robotics, geofencing, and smart design to deliver fresh drinks in under a minute—with no awkward ordering line, no guessing when your drink is ready, and no wasted time.

Rob brings deep engineering and robotics experience from companies like Amazon Robotics and iRobot. Jane brings customer experience, branding, and product strategy expertise. Together, they’ve created a model built around a singular obsession: speed, convenience, quality, and personalization.

You’ll hear how the p!ng app lets users order in advance, arrive whenever they want, and have their drink made only when they approach the location. The system recognizes their arrival, calibrates to their car window height, and serves their drink seamlessly. It’s convenience engineered with precision.

The conversation also gets frothy:

• Why traditional coffee chains are serving one type of customer while ignoring another
• How automation can create new jobs instead of just replacing old ones
• Why affordable franchising could unlock entrepreneurship for everyday people
• How robotics can lower startup costs and scale faster than legacy food models
• Why user behavior, not technology, is often the real barrier to innovation
• How p!ng's future could expand far beyond coffee into snacks, meals, and fully reimagined grab-and-go retail

This episode is a smart, funny, future-facing conversation about where commerce is headed—and how two founders are trying to meet people exactly where they are: tired, busy, in their cars, and wanting something better. If you’ve ever sat in a 20-minute drive-through line wondering why nobody fixed this yet, this episode is for you. And if you've ever wondered how AI and robotics could do more good than harm, give them a listen.

The Guests & Their Startup

Quick survey: Raise your hand if you’re fed up with waiting in long drive-thru lines. After sitting frustrated and annoyed in many coffee shop drive-thru lines with Rob’s three daughters, we knew there had to be a better way. So we built one. With Rob Whitten's experience in robotics and passion for food, and Jane Lo's dedication to creating great customer experiences, our goal is simple: a minimal-wait drive-thru that delivers quality without compromise. We’re opening our first location in Hudson, New Hampshire, with plans to raise the bar for fast, accurate, and genuinely awesome drive-thru experiences nationwide, no matter how many coffees it takes us. We are proud to be a veteran-, woman-, and minority-owned business.

Learn More About p!ng

https://www.pingthru.com/

https://wefunder.com/ping

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Hello and welcome to the Bald Ambition Podcast. I'm your still very bald host, Mookie Spits. And the ones with a whole lot of ambition today are Rob and Jane from Ping.

unknown 0:16

Hey, how's it going?

SPEAKER_03 0:17

Yep. We got the hair too, you know, so we can balance out, yeah, and aggregate.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

An immediate advantage. I'm already jelly. And I love your concept you guys describe for automating, using AI, using robotics. Ostensibly the Barista experience.

SPEAKER_03 0:41

Yeah, it's a fully automated drive-thru experience. Uh, and this whole thing started about three years ago. I had three teenage daughters uh in high school at the same time. They made me go through a bunch of drive-throughs, and I have like Joe Pesci level luck in the drive-thru. It's pretty horrible. Uh, and then one day I was whinging about having to wait 20 minutes for something that will probably come out uh wrong. And uh Jane said, you know, between the two of us, they all you have all the robotics and technical experience, and Jane, she has all the customer experience uh background, like we could totally fix this. We started looking at it. Turns out it's a huge opportunity, so uh we're doing it.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

And you've got a location up and running already. So you guys aren't just concept. This isn't smoke and mirrors, you guys are in operation. Can you tell us the user experience? You got an app, they order, people roll up in their car, they get their drink, turn us on to it.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

I mean, that's that's a pretty much it. We tried to create the least, uh like the most seamless experience that you could have. Like, we want you to wake up, feel it like needing your caffeine fix, and this is like the best way to do it. You feel like Lee feeling victorious. Um, so yes, you order on our app, and then you just show up on our site. We detect who you are. So you don't have to talk to anyone if you don't want to. Um, you don't have to scan a QR code, you just roll up to the window, and the window will present your drinks at exactly the right height. Um, we have like a vision system that'll measure the height of your car window so you can just like easily grab it, whether you're in a big pickup truck or in your low sports car. Um, we've never had one drink spilled as a result. Uh, and we really try to use robotics and AI to complete an experience that is less than one minute. You're so you're on site, hopefully less than one minute.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

As a country, we're ahead of the game in so many ways and in ways behind. And one way we're behind is in vending machines. Like I grew up with those vending machines, you put the quarters in and then you pull the thing, and then you get candy or cigarettes. And meanwhile, a lot of the world has really advanced. Like Japan comes to mind, and they have automated stores pretty much in supermarkets. There's other startups like RoboBurger, where they're bringing some of that dynamic, AI-driven, robotically integrated customer service to bear. And you guys are cutting the swath from what I can tell in a unique way that it cuts into, and as you point out, augments the Starbucks experience. So, can you share how it's similar and how it's different? Jane, you just mentioned one big benefit. You don't have to talk to anyone, it it's expeditious, you don't have to go stand in line at Starbucks, deal with the crowds. And it's all to your point, Rob, like in and out burger here in California. You could just roll in and get your stuff. How is how is it how are you guys changing the game?

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Yeah, so today, basically, like if you went to a Starbucks or Duncan and you order on a mobile app, well, you basically have to time it to whenever they get the drink ready, right? They'll give you an ETA. With our system, you don't actually you can just like come whenever you want. So you we've had customers who ordered the day before and then they show up and their drink is made super fresh for them because we don't make your drink until we you enter our geofense. Um, we've had moms want to like drop off their kids, come get something, or run errands first, come get something. So it's really up to you when you want to get it. Um, we're using technology to create that customer experience that is completely catered to you. Um, and our whole thing, our whole mission is speed and convenience. Like Starbucks today, they're going back to that whole third place, sit down, they're redoing their stores, they got rid of their express to go stores. So we're we are looking at a different customer segment that they're not uh addressing today. And it's a big segment.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

Starbucks has always been that in-between place. That's how they started. Like on my way to work, I can chill for a little bit. And then it created a whole ambiance, and it's a physical, lived experience of in between commuting and getting where you need to go. So it's kind of like a little safe place. But you're highlighting a different customer segment, which is immediacy, personalization, hyper convenience with all the AI goodies plugged into it. So you describe analyzing how tall your car is. So presumably, when you get served, it's accurate. You mentioned geofencing, so it'll act, it'll know where you are and activate when you're nearby. So that's an added ordering convenience. And what about the drinks themselves? I'm assuming it's automated inside the little boxes. There are no gnomes in there or no, it's it's pure magic features.

SPEAKER_03 5:48

If you ever saw Star Trek, it's just like that, it just magically appears, you know, real gray hot. That's all you have to do. No, it's uh uh inside. So our pod is about as efficient uh as we can make it. And so um we made it out of a shipping container and it's a giant refrigerator. And so inside there, there are these two robot work cells, you know, one behind each window, uh, making the drinks. And it looks like a giant 3D printer for drinks, rail-mounted systems, you know, moving the cup around underneath a bunch of dispensers. Uh, it all happens, you know, pretty quickly, between you know 30 and 60 seconds. Uh, you know, we can make a drink and we put it out into the window. And our goal is to make that just before you get there. So it's nice and fresh, uh, you know, kind of perfectly timed, and you can adjust the drink to whatever you want. Eventually, there's a ton of cool things that we can do. Like right now, we're working on the you know, the basics uh uh of the experience, but eventually, you know, now you can take AI and uh dial the whole menu to your sweetness level. You could um, you know, tell it a few things that you like and it can create new drinks for you, uh, you know, using you know just a you know 10 different ingredients and varying amounts that have never been used before. Or uh the other fun part is we're putting uh labels on the side of the cup. Now we can do an AI-generated label based off of a couple of prompts uh you know to make it really personalized for you.

SPEAKER_02 7:08

It sounds super fun and it sounds wired into somebody's lifestyle. So some people might push back and say, hey, I got a courage at home, right? And in your office, especially corporate situations, they have those bigger kind of automated machines, right? To make espresso, latte, americano, and then you go through the menu manually and it it pumps it out for you. But it seems like your focus is very experiential too. So you got the soccer mom driving, you got people commuting, they don't want to wait and have that in-between experience of Starbucks. So you have a nice niche target, which is people who are on the fly in their cars and want a quick drive-through experience with a nice fresh customized cup of coffee with extra kudos for your little label and with preventative maintenance so it knows how to serve you and it doesn't mess up your brew. Does that sound about right? That's what you guys are going for.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

That's right. And we wanna um we want to deliver high-quality drinks too. We know that people think automation leads to poor quality drinks, right? Like you mentioned the carry, for instance. And we know that taste is completely subjective, so we're not out here telling anyone that like the carry isn't great, but like we went out there and we sourced the best quality ingredients that we could find to do this as well. And not only are we serving up like traditional coffee shop uh favorites like your lattes, things like that, we have energy drinks, teas, lemonades, like we have a whole category for the family. Um, so you can't necessarily get that out of a Keurig, right? So, like it's all about personalization and feeling uh really appreciated and valued as a customer. Like everything around the experience is tailored to you.

SPEAKER_02 8:55

And it sounds like you guys are scaling up too. So now you have a basic menu, you've got one location and crawl, walk, run, I'm assuming, is a sound business model. Exactly. Yeah. So so what's the current menu like? How I'm an espresso guy. When I go to Starbucks, I always do the triple iced espresso in a grande cup with a splash of uh skim milk. That that's how I roll. That's my thing. Uh, I know others like their Americano, they like their mochas, they like their flavored drinks, and Starbucks has done a pretty good job at matching menu item with audience expectation without it turning into a supply chain disaster, right? You gotta you gotta balance feasibility with inventory, with supply chain, and customer interest. So, how'd you guys get that golden golden mean out of the gate? And what can customers expect now and as your kiosk experience evolves?

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Yeah, you could do a lot with just a few ingredients. Um, like put putting together coffee shop drinks, sort of like uh Mexican food. Like it's all kind of the same ingredients, and you're just in like different formats.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

So that's kind of what we're modular and scalable.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

Exactly. So if we have lemonade, it can be lemonade with like tea, but we can also put lemonade in our energy drinks, which is somehow like how people like it. No, we could also use our like our the same syrups and energy drinks as well as your lemonades, as well as your teas. So there's a lot of like cross uh like capabilities there that we so that it can like enhance and uh make our menu uh like more attractive to more people. So we really are trying to maximize the ingredients that we can that we have in there.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

You mentioned that they're top quality, so you're differentiating from just the uh R2D2s that people have in their homes, which is which is which is cool. And let me let me bring up some potential concerns that that folks obviously do that you guys can address off the top. The first one is what happens with no people around? What if uh you know the cup's upside down or it spills or it's the wrong drink? What what do you do? What's the backup since uh customer service has to be so indirect?

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Yeah, we found that well, we've done tons of customer testing, by the way, like tons. Um, and we talk to our customers every single time. Um, so we do plan to have a site host, uh, in that they'll be there during peak hours because you do need someone to, you know, direct people who haven't downloaded the app yet to a specific spot on our site. And then for people who have already downloaded, you usher them through the line quickly. Um, but you know, just like answering pretty typical questions and um figuring out any queuing issues, things like that. So we will have during peak hours a site host. And we found that even though people are or oriented to the speed and convenience, like that's why they came, sometimes just like a quick, like human touch, like they really like that. Just this hello. Um, they love it when you remember things about them. And we can do that too with AI, but having a human presence is of course still very necessary and something we will need. And that, but we don't need as many people, we just need that person to be like a rock star.

SPEAKER_03 12:18

Yeah. And then we can operate overnight and uh you know, we have a big friendly help button basically by each window, and then also through the app, you know, if you're if you drive away.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

Don't panic.

SPEAKER_03 12:28

But exactly. And it's 42, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Yeah. And just make sure that we have as many channels as possible for customer service, right? Today I get texts, I get phone calls, people uh we just make sure that in the app, people really understand how they can reach out to us immediately so that we can fix any problems before they leave the site. Um, we have like two customer service like parking spots so that if they aren't happy with something, they can park, we can take care of it right away before they leave. Um, so we just want to make sure that customer service, but we're both very accessible and that the service is really good.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

AI and robotics is a double-edged sword. So people love them when it benefits them, and then they freak out when they sense disruption, uncertainty, and even a threat to their pocketbooks and even jobs. You guys did a great job delineating your positioning as being distinct from Starbucks, let's say. It's not the in-between spot. People who would normally not go to Starbucks anyway would think of doing a ping stop because it's a different kind of market experience. It's a different kind of segment. But I'm sure some people are expressing concerns that you're taking away barista jobs. The Starbucks union just had a huge situation. They had strikes of employees, they feel their jobs are threatened, their benefits, their pay. And now you guys are introducing an AI robotic. I'm doing air quotes if you're on audio, replacement for the barista. Can you address some of those concerns and calm people down and show how you're not eating other people's lunch with your startup?

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Yeah, I think it's a really fair question. And um, I think that there will there will always be a need for baristas. Absolutely. Like there are always people who want to go to their neighborhood coffee shop or they want to sit down and work or talk or catch up with a friend. That's why we're always gonna need baristas. So I don't we don't think that um it's necessarily like we're taking away the jobs, they still exist. Uh baristas today are also really stressed because they're metric on the drive-thru time, right? And so all they do today is they make drinks as fast as they can and get it out, and then they have less time to focus on the customer service aspect, which is actually what they're really good at. Um, so this will help alleviate some of that as well. Um, and last of all, like I just think that uh we don't have as many baristas on site, but we still will have uh site hosts, we will have technicians that come to the pod and service the pod, resupply the pod. There'll be a lot of like supply chain and logistics behind all of that. So we still will need to hire a lot of people and really creative people to fill in for stuff. So um I think that it's not necessarily taking away jobs, it's just creating a whole subset that supports the robotics and what we have going on.

SPEAKER_03 15:28

And uh, you know, on top of that, our original business case was to address the 30% of line bulb, meaning the customers that wanted an order installed along line and went without, they left, you know, because they they just couldn't wait in that line, right? So we're really trying to service the people that aren't being serviced right now. Yeah. But the other really cool part about this, and it it's my you know kind of personal passion because um I I I like that our site can actually be um you know created and put into operation for under 200k of opening, uh pre-opening cost. And so if you compare that to a Duncan's, you need at least a million liquid in the bank. You have to be rich to franchise the Duncan's. Whereas we're going to be able to offer like an affordable franchise option for other people like us that have some money, just a lot of motivation. And now instead of you know having a job and a shop, you could own it, right? And you could start with one pod and you can grow and grow and grow. So I feel like this is like the perfect example of robotics creating opportunities, uh, you know, serving us in a way that uh will allow people to grow, right? You know, not only you know professionally, but you know, financially. Um, and and I I just think that's super exciting. I I think this is exactly what robots should be used for, for serving us, for you know, being helpful in that way and letting humans do what humans are good at. This talking, you know, that site post piece where they're interacting with other people, that sort of thing. I I I think that's exactly how uh automation should be used.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

I think back to when I got my MBA in 2009, and being a social media manager was not a thing. I'm of course dating myself, but like it wasn't that thing. Like nobody, but now there's this giant ecosystem of social media managers and directors, influencers, right? Like that that did not exist before. And I think that that is going to be true for robotics. Like, we're just gonna have a whole new ecosystem that people can participate in.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

I totally agree. There's tons of disruption, and disruption freaks everyone out, but with every technological quantum leap or milestone, there's a realignment of human capital. And that's happening in AI now. And you guys illustrate the key benefits. So, number one is a almost strategic shift. If the lines are shorter at Starbucks or it's not as crowded because you're taking off the extra, extra burn on that, baristas will have more time to relate and do the barista thing, which is what customers want is not just a cup of coffee, but a human experience. And that's endemic for a lot of AI. In the corporate world, AI is now enabling people to do less grunt work and concentrate on more customer-facing work, maybe think more strategically. Then you have the business angle. You're going to be hiring a bunch of people, but in different roles. So you're not hiring baristas, but you're hiring supply people, you know, people maintaining and servicing the pods, and even potentially marketing people, because you have a burgeoning franchise business. And that enters the other benefit I heard, which is this is a viable business opportunity to entrepreneurs who might not have a million to slam down for a Dunkin' Donuts, let alone a Starbucks, if they even could. But uh, own your own business for uh for one-fifth the capital expense. And you guys are built to scale, so it's lock and load, right? Like Mookie the Podcaster. All right, I'm gonna roll my 401k into ping.

SPEAKER_03 19:04

Hey, that sounds great.

SPEAKER_02 19:06

So you guys sold me already. It's it's basically an opportunity to grow with you and then participate in that kind of growth. And the growth is kind of automated like your business model. It's plug and play. It works here, it'll work here, and then you build up brand reputation and you do the franchising thing.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Yes. I could have put a but better. That was actually a great summation of what we said.

SPEAKER_02 19:30

Yeah. Okay. And on podcasts, it's good because people are now cooking and they're driving, and they don't always hear everything. So I try to. I'm like the road runner with the little sign meet me. Turn the hood. Yeah. Yeah. So let's look under the hood now. You guys sold me on it. I'm converting my retirement into my first ping. As far as consumers go, it sounds like a really viable thing. I'm sure most people listening and watching would be like, that would be awesome if I had a ping like a mile away as an alternative to pit stopping at Starbucks or or cranking out my courig at home. It's a nice kind of middle solution to that. Rob, how how did you think of this idea? How'd you partner with Jane? You've got that AI expertise, and and Jane, you've got your customer service expertise. So, how did uh peanut butter and chocolate come together to make Reese's in this in this idea?

SPEAKER_00 20:32

Well, Rob and I actually met uh working together on the same product development team at Shark Ninja. We were on the Ninja brand making kitchen appliances. Um we had a small but like mighty team, just really enjoyed it. It was super fast-paced, super entrepreneurial. Uh Rob set the tone. He's a people leader. So our the culture of our little team was great. Uh we just really enjoyed working together, so we knew that we could. Um so I think that's what really uh drove us. And then there's the part of it where he's the technical founder and he has all this amazing experience from iRobot, Amazon Robotics, um, BAE, like just a ton of experience. And then for me, I'm voice of customer, I'm brand marketing, product marketing. Um, we worked on product development together. I'm also uh, as you said, customer service as part of the customer experience. Um I used to be an analyst leading a team of uh customer experience analysts, and so um I lend a very different perspective than Rob, and we're like the yin and yang of our company. So I think it's a good matchup. Um we really do need more of the customer voice whenever we're developing anything for customers.

SPEAKER_03 21:38

It's funny, I I brag to other robotics founders that um that you know I have a chain and they don't because uh, you know, I I think it's really easy for robotics to get super obsessed with the technology and get a little bit lost on what they should be making, right? You know, they they don't have that direct uh line to the customer, and so. But with Jane, she she doesn't care how hard it is for us to do technically. Uh she she just knows like what she wants, like the customer to have access to. And she's gonna you know put her foot down until we figure out how to make it happen. And she knows how to prioritize without you know um getting obsessed about some cool new robot or like ooh, lasers, you know, like that's the kind of stuff we do all the time. And and Jane kind of reels us back in. So yeah, it's it's a great partnership and uh um it allows us to move quickly. I think we also have this uh somewhat um uh uh you know unfair advantage to other robotics companies because we're using our own robots. We're not we're not trying to make a robot for somebody else to try to figure out how to use, and we're not trying to match their requirements. We're actually the users, right? So we're developing systems that you know we can make all of these trade-offs almost in real time in a lot of ways. So uh, you know, it just gives us a ton of flexibility in terms of what we're able to offer and how quickly we can do that.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

I was gonna ask you, it's not like you guys plug in Amazon robots from the warehouse, and instead of moving stuff around and from bin 86C to 2912, it's uh they're making coffee. But you guys have designed and developed the the ping, what do you call them? A ping pod, a ping kiosk?

SPEAKER_03 23:23

Ping pod, yeah. Yep, it's a ping pod with two podlets inside.

SPEAKER_02 23:26

Yeah, ping pod with two podlets inside. Say that three times really fast, and then you get your own, you get your own franchise. So you guys have engineered it and built it up from scratch, pretty much.

SPEAKER_03 23:40

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, uh you know, we what we didn't want to do is what a lot of so so there's other automated coffee out there. So uh sort of my pet peeve of automation is when somebody pulls a human out of a process, drops a six degree of freedom manipulator, big robot arm that's super expensive in there with two fingers, and uh you know says, oh yay, I've automated it. It's it's usually not the right answer at all, right? It's usually the right answer, is usually taking a process, pulling it apart completely, uh, and then putting it back together in a more efficient way. And so that's what we've done with our pod. And we've also had an eye for scalability and manufacturing. This thing was basically made to go in a contract manufacturer. So that's the nice thing, having scaled a bunch of programs and things like uh Amazon. I've seen things operate at scale because once the robotics becomes boring, it's a logistics and operations problem that you have to solve. And so that's where uh you know I get to really leverage my background uh at Amazon.

SPEAKER_02 24:43

And and what you mentioned is interesting. There's often this conflict between the engineers, the technical people, and then the front-end customer service. So, to your point, customers don't really care about what's going on inside, they just want that ideal customer service experience. If you go to a movie and your mind is blown by the CGX, they don't care how those things were programmed. They don't care about the work that went into it, they just want to be wowed. And a disconnect that often happens is the engineers get all obsessed with the details and the customer service people don't understand how it works. And it seems like you two have a good, a good conversation.

SPEAKER_03 25:25

Yeah, oh yeah. No, it definitely it just helps so much to actually see in real time your product being used, your your robot or whatever piece being used, and get direct customer. Like I'm talking directly to the customer on the site post right now, right? So I get to see what is happening on the other end, and um, you know, it it drives everything we do, like uh, you know, the customer feedback and you know, the way uh all of that works is just um it you know, it's right there in front of us, and we just have to solve the problems that we see. We get to do an after-action review after every test and just go through and we're like, oh, this dashboard didn't work quite the way we want. So let's do this, this and and then you know, a couple days later we have our new dashboard. And and so, yeah, there's there's a lot, there's a lot that we can do in very real time, right?

SPEAKER_02 26:17

Take us through that experience. So I know you guys got an app. Obviously, you're app driven, you're a mobile app with a physical ping pod with two pods inside. Uh, take us through that experience. So we're gonna have links in the description below for your website for people to sign up. I'm assuming you're it looks like you guys are on the iPhone iPhone app. You're you're gonna have the Android version soon.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

We have one.

SPEAKER_02 26:45

I'm just doing you have it already?

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Yep, it's out there. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 26:49

I was trying to do my homework and I'm behind the time. So so what happens here? They go to the app store, download your stuff, uh, they start ordering. Uh, and it's gotta be you have one location so far. So where is it and how can people start pinging up?

SPEAKER_00 27:09

It's in uh uh it's in Hudson, New Hampshire, uh which is a pretty short drive from Mass up to uh Hudson. Um yeah, you do we have both the iOS, we have the Android, just down the app, come by, or if you just want to come by uh when we're testing with customers, um then we can help you with the download uh and take you through it. But it's really, really simple. You can save as many favorites as you like, and it's a two-click reorder. So we have a lot of uh returning customers who do that. Um we made it simple because we once were trying to reorder something that Rob enjoyed, and it took 13 clicks on the uh Starbucks app. So how do we make this the easiest experience ever? So uh we think a lot about accessibility in our mobile app since it is the digital touch point for our customers.

SPEAKER_02 28:00

Cool. So I'm a soccer mom, I don't look like one, but let's just say I am. And then I got your app on my iPhone or Android, got the little icon, I click on the ping. And then if I've ordered before, I'll have my favorite. And then I don't have to specify a time, it sounds like you guys know when I'm around. That's a super cool aspect of this. So I know that between 10 and noon, I'm gonna be in need of caffeine. I'm not quite sure when, but if I do that setup, and presumably I can even order days in advance, right? You guys have a scheduler, and boom, it'll be ready. And then what exactly happens? You mentioned geofencing. So you come in and it recognizes when my car is near and it's and your robots start to do their thing. Is that right?

SPEAKER_03 28:50

Yeah, that's exactly right. Uh, you share your location, and so when you start getting close, you we see you on the uh geofence, so that's a GPS, and then we have some uh local sensors that help us figure out exactly where you are in in terms of the sequence, you know, with the other cars, whether or not two orders are in the same car. And so uh, you know, once we have that all figured out, the robot makes your drink, serves it in the window. Like Jane said, you know, the uh AI figures out your your window height, serves it at the right height, you just grab it and go. No scanning, no waiting, no tipping.

SPEAKER_02 29:24

That is very cool. Now, this will bring up um concern number two. Concern number one was the disruption caused by AI. And you guys had three really good answers, including the franchise one, which was uh which was which was enticing. Um, in this sense, we're talking about data privacy and security. So you guys know where I'm at, because you got to know when I'm nearby to know the drink. And then there's all the signups and data. So for those types of concerns, what's what's your response?

SPEAKER_00 29:59

Yeah, I mean, um we are very, very aware of uh customer concern over data privacy. We do know when you enter a geofense and when you leave the geofense, and then when you're on site, but we don't store any of that data today. So um we're not tracking anyone. Uh we don't uh we don't scrape uh your license plate, we don't take images of your face, for example. So we're very uh very uh aware of that. In terms of uh the data, that's all stored in the cloud. We use Square as our POS. And so Square owns all of your information uh in terms of like the credit card and all the payment information. We don't own it, um, so all of that is secure. Um so yeah, we really try to make sure our customers feel that they can come without any like detriment to uh their own privacy.

SPEAKER_03 30:53

Yeah, and you know, so the nice thing about having worked at Amazon, um other people from Amazon started uh you know a software company that uh they they wanted to help support startups. That's where we get our software, you know, a lot of our software work from. And so um, you know, they have a deep understanding, you know, from Amazon, you know, how to make sure we're able to protect you know the customers' uh data on the app, how to um, you know, do all this in in such a way that it you're you're only getting tracked when you get close to the site and you have an active order. Uh, you know, nobody else can you know come in and try to take that data or do anything with it. So uh, you know, having all those protections in place and also making sure that the software you're loading onto your phone, you know, that that app itself is uh you know in good shape. Uh isn't gonna have any malware or any anything crazy like that. And then um, you know, also like uh just the way the app is structured to make sure um you know that you know it's actually the one connecting to a beacon and then sending you the data. So so all that app uh you know work is is just very much uh structured to protect the privacy of all of our customers. And and you know, it's kind of funny because Jane uh will only download an app when she absolutely has to, otherwise it goes on my phone and even she's downloaded. So that that's gonna say something, I think. Oh, if Jane, if Jane considers your app safe, then yeah, she she refuses to download apps, and uh so that's the mindset. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

I'm not gonna I'm not gonna say I'm a Luddite, but I do have an iPhone 10. That's an old phone.

SPEAKER_02 32:36

It's it's still probably they still even let you use it and the battery isn't like at 12% all day long.

SPEAKER_03 32:45

It is possibly, but we use it for backward compatibility for our old like, oh, what about our older users who use Jane's phone for that?

SPEAKER_02 32:55

It's yeah, if they have to relaunch the space shuttle, they're gonna they're gonna contact Jane to get her to get her iPhone 10. Yeah, that's right. You're you're giving us assurance that your AI and robotics aren't gonna take over the world or take our jobs, and you're assuring us that the data is private, you're using proprietary safe services, and uh, and also different folks are handling the data. So Square is responsible for your transactions, they've got their own security situation, and obviously, your app is available through the iPhone store and the Android app marketplace. So, right on. It's like uh you're at least as safe as the other apps that people are already using. That's right. So that's good assurance.

SPEAKER_03 33:43

And it's pretty rigorous, right? I don't know if you've ever tried to get an app approved by uh, you know, the app store or Google, but it's tough, it's not easy. You you have to go through like a series of, you know, there's security requirements and you know, performance requirements, all sorts of things. So we often have to go through several cycles of making sure we've met every requirement before it's approved.

SPEAKER_02 34:05

Yeah, and then you're not you're not sleeping the night before because if they reject you and you're not on the store, then where are they gonna get you?

SPEAKER_03 34:13

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:15

Yep. And how are you guys scaling up? So you got the one ping pod with the two pods in there? Are there gonna be you know more ping pods with lots of pods all over the place? And what's the timing look like for your scale up?

SPEAKER_03 34:32

Yeah, yeah, ping, ping, ping, ping, right? So uh right now we're working on uh you know making this thing run perfectly. And uh, you know, it's funny you when you first envision something and exactly how it's gonna work, um it changes completely when you get on site and you start actually operating and you start serving customers, and we're like, oh, okay, I need to change that a little bit. And and you you find all these little corner cases like I never thought to drive through this backwards, you know, those sort of things. Uh and and so working through all of you know those improvements and bug fixes and that sort of thing, but uh we're raising uh a seed round pretty soon to go ahead and uh make all the improvements to the uh hardware design of the pod because we built one, learned a ton of lessons, but uh we really want to make it much more manufactual. Uh, you know, we we learned all the lessons on on how to put this thing together and do it in a much more efficient way. So all that will get rolled in. We're gonna build three more uh that the company uh runs ourselves. We're gonna get uh our operational process down super smooth. And so, like I said, when the robotics can become boring, then it's an operations problem, right? And logistics. And so we'll get that running smooth. We uh use a hub and spoke model. So uh we have one hub that's a commissary, that's where we do all of our cleaning and uh refilling of all our containers. Um, and then you know we bring them out to the pod, you know, wipe down the pod and do all the replacements. But one of the nice aside benefits, I don't know if I mentioned this earlier, but we don't require uh water pursuer because we bring all of our own filtered water uh to the pod, and there's no waste because everything goes directly into the cup. Uh so it's a very efficient uh system overall. But, anyways, we're we're going to uh get all those processes down, and then after that, we plan to scale. Like this thing is designed to go in a contract manufacturer, you can crank these things out in a factory, and then uh, you know, we we love the the um the model of going out and uh allowing people to find the sites for us, uh, you know, so once we have the franchisees, you know, coming to find stuff. And you'll do this. Like now that you understand, like, oh, you could use this little parking lot for a pod, you're gonna be like, oh, I can put one there, I can put one there. You know your town, right? So you're you're gonna find all these sites. Uh you'll know if the town is uh you know open to this sort of thing. Uh that'll bring all the sites to us and and uh it'll give people you know opportunities and a place for a way for us to scale very, very quickly. So I think the next you know three to five years is just super exciting in terms of like what we're going to be able to do and how quickly one of these will start showing up in your own neighborhood.

SPEAKER_02 37:06

Well, it sounds scalable, and you beat me to the punch about investor capital. So I'm assuming your single location now is your beta test. So it's live, it's working, you're experimenting, you're tweaking, and then once you nail it down, then you're able to replicate and and make it make it more official.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

Exactly right.

SPEAKER_02 37:26

And you are taking investor capital. So if you want, we can put that link in the link. See the link below. See the link below. So uh, you know, look at look at it as an opportunity to check it out at the location, look at it as an opportunity to invest early, and then down the road, once things become operational, participate in a franchise partnership. Absolutely. Well, it's a great, it's a it's a great model, and uh it's a nice mid mid-range solution between the Starbucks, where you need to dedicate usually 15-20 minutes of your life, whether whether you settle down into it or not, and then rushing into the kitchen and popping out a courig or an analogous kind of kind of little custom coffee experience. The next question is is aspirational in the sense of what I was hinting at earlier with the Japanese self-serve stores and the super deluxe vending machines, because not only are you scalable in terms of these individual pod locations, but you can expand your menu and you can get into other stuff too. Is that kind of at the back of your mind? Are when you're designing these things, are you thinking about more than just coffee? I mean, really, the sky's the limit as we automate and integrate AI into so many aspects of our lives, especially food and drink service.

SPEAKER_03 38:52

Oh, yeah. I mean, it it's not just at the back of it. It's like raw, like a swirling around inside. And it and we have like this incredible role because right after we finish with drinks, we want to go to package snacks, convenience items. I've always been excited. I'm a foodie. I even had a food truck, and I've always thought that food and automation could come together in this like crazy cool way and create these new experiences for people. So, oh yeah, we we we have a ton of things that we want to do, a lot of things that we want to offer in the future in the very similar format because we focused on making sure we have a great pickup experience. And so that is our number one focus here. You know, coffee and drinks, like they were fairly easy to automate. We thought people would understand, you know, ordering from an app and driving up to a pod and grabbing it, it more so than like a convenience store. Uh, so we thought that was the right place to start. But uh, but yeah, the sky's the limit. And the hardest thing for us is like picking what to do first. You know, it's like, okay, we've got to focus. We gotta get the basic thing down, and then we can do all of this, you know, uh cool, expansive stuff. Because, you know, we it can go all the way from offerings there to like how you order, like just hey Siri, order my next ping, uh my favorite ping. Oh crap, I just set off Siri. But you know, or or order my favorite ping uh thing and I'll stop at the next pot.

SPEAKER_00 40:10

I mean, I think that um yeah, from day one we've had this vision that we could take it further. We just want we picked the drinks because it was it didn't require any change to customer behavior. But yeah, there's a long runway ahead of us, and we reimagined the whole experience of picking up a drink in your car. We were like, why wouldn't we reimagine everything else? So today, if you got like a breakfast sandwich, you're in the car, you've picked it up, it's sort of like falling to pieces, like in your hands. It's very inconvenient, right? I've had that happen to me a lot. And we're like, well, why does it have to be in that shape? Why does it need to be in that format? So this could be a way for automation to work makes you a delicious breakfast sandwich in a way where it's not like disintegrating all over the place. So I think that for everything we're envisioning going on in the future, we can reimagine it, redefine what that experience is.

SPEAKER_02 41:01

And tweak the end product itself as well as the customer experience. It's it's kind of cool. Every every touch point in the transaction, you can optimize and you can integrate AI and robotics. So, really, the sky is the limit in terms of offering that kind of value. And an even bigger obstacle, I think, and you bring this up, Jane, and you hinted at this, Rob, too, is not only to get the tech right, but to get people accustomed to this huge change in their lifestyle. Like, look at the development of every digital application. Like, remember Friendster?

SPEAKER_00 41:38

Yeah. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 41:40

What what what happened to that, right? And and everyone evolved into Facebook and Twitter, and the technology was already there. There was nothing revolutionary about it. It was just getting people to change their user behaviors, catch up to the technology. And your craw crawl walk run works good for your beta testing, but it also market conditions your audience to get used to the fact that that AI-driven robots are gonna prepare a drink, a meal, and provide products and services. That's a huge state change for people to get acclimated to.

SPEAKER_00 42:15

Yeah, absolutely. Every time a customer comes through the first time, even their second or third time, they have their phone out, taking photos or video or sharing with somebody. They brought a friend, for example. But once you've got gotten past that first or second experience, the next time it's like, if you know, you know. Like our customers come, uh, we have customers that come almost every day. They hardly stop their car, they've got their arms like stretched out of their window, and they they just like whiz by. Like, like they've already been conditioned to accept the new norm. Like this is their new norm. It's like when Amazon uh launched Prime, everybody was getting their packages in weeks, and then Prime was like two days, and then everyone became used to it, and that just became the new norm. That's really exactly what we're seeing in our customers today.

SPEAKER_02 43:04

It makes sense, and it's exciting.

SPEAKER_00 43:06

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 43:07

And then and to your point, the sky's the limit. It can be really, really transformative. So good good luck to you guys. This is uh an exciting startup that is pushing the boundary not only for technology and the user experience, but our overall evolution into a situation where AI and robotics isn't the enemy, but they're heightening convenience and they're shifting roles and responsibilities and jobs even in the workforce, and not necessarily for the worst, but it could even be better. So you have people doing some of the menial stuff that could be doing other and better things. And meanwhile, to your prime example, I mean, toilet paper in 12 hours. Who would have thought? And they sell just about everything now, and we're we're used to it. Yeah, how did we ever live before uh Google Maps? And Amazon Prime. And if you guys are lucky and successful, then how could we have ever lived without a nearby ping pod?

SPEAKER_00 44:10

I like that.

SPEAKER_02 44:12

I'm really hoping to do us. You guys are great. Thank you for making time on the Bald Ambition podcast. Like, subscribe, share. And as we mentioned several times, please check out the links. Go to their website, check them out. They're already operational. They're also soon to be taking more investor capital if you liked what you heard. And be on the lookout when they go full franchise so you can get a piece of the action in a way that's much more economical than uh starting your own Dunkin' Donuts or coffee shop with all the overhead and capital and hassle. Just plug and play. And you're not even stealing the local water, maybe a little juice. That's nothing compared to the data center, which is across the street. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:06

We're very efficient. We have solar panels, it's okay. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 45:10

Now solar panels, and you got you know hamsters and habit trails powering the robots. Jane's out back on a treadmill, you know. Thanks so much, Rob and Jane. You guys are awesome. Best of luck to you with Ping.

SPEAKER_00 45:25

Thanks, Muthie.

SPEAKER_02 45:26

Thank you very much.