Problem: Home ownership is one of the greatest wealth builders for individuals. However, 65.9% of people under the age of 35 currently live in a rental, according to Statista. The real housing price index is now above 200 and its 2005 all-time high. To deny so many young Americans the ability to buy a home is stripping security and valuable assets. Security gives people the ability to take risks and build great companies, a hallmark of American values. Ownership of valuable assets, especially a home, inspires people to bet on America and the success of their community. People “buying in” to their communities provides the highest chance that they will take care of and fight for where they live, making the country a better place.
Solution: BotBuilt is revolutionizing the way homes are built. The process they have developed is to receive home model plans and digitize them. Then, they have a warehouse full of robots that build the key components of the house. Finally, they ship those key components to the homesite for easy assembly. This serves many advantages in homebuilding. First, it is a much more scalable autonomous process that has the chance to dramatically lower costs for home ownership. Second, the homes do not require labor, which is dependent on geographic locations, so small-town homebuilding costs can be reduced even further. Third, the precision of robots can ensure a quality and safe home. Finally, there are no weather or external delays, the ones that so often happen in traditional homebuilding. Currently, BotBuilt focuses on the framing for homes, but they have plans and capabilities to expand that into pre-cut electrical and plumbing work.
Founders: BotBuilt was founded by Brent Wadas, Barret Ames, and Colin Devine and is part of Y Combinator Winter 2021. Brent attended Georgetown and has a military background. Barret has worked at several companies and founded a few before BotBuilt, and Colin has since left to found another company, Wealth Architect.
Implications: Homebuilding has a long history that is not marked by innovation. Changing to a robot-built production line model would be the most dramatic change the industry has ever seen and has profound consequences. The positive consequences of this are spelled out in the solution section. Homes would be cheaper, job sites would be safer, and construction would be more precise. This could do a great deal in allowing young people to buy their first home and start building the wealth that comes with it. Negatively, there are hundreds of thousands of jobs that could be lost to robots if home building is significantly automated. These workers have narrowly defined skills that might make it difficult for them to find a new job. It is hard to say what will happen to these jobs and people, but it is important to recognize the risks. For entrepreneurs, this wave of hardworking people could be the basis of a new business plan. These workers will have to find something to do, and starting a company that takes advantage of their skills could turn out to be very profitable. Automized production can be extrapolated beyond a home-building view, however. Focusing on highly specialized robotics production could prove to be greatly valuable to America as it might lead them to produce their own silicon devices and wean themselves off of TSMC’s watering hose. A much different set a skills is required, but maybe the best homebuilders can be directed to running factories that produce critical silicon. This would give America an upper hand in geopolitics if they are able to gain a significant market share in semiconductor manufacturing.
Conclusion: BuiltBot is building revolutionary technology in a sector that seldom sees anything close to revolutionary. For this reason, BuiltBot has huge upside potential, but also shakes the market in ways that have not been seen before, which is always a call for question. To be sure, expanding home ownership would be massive in securing individual and community benefits for many people.