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1. MushroomX
Day 1: Drone pollination
104 Interviews Later: Autonomous mushroom harvesting

2. Team
MushroomX
Rongfei Lu Div Garg Julia Di Jamie Balsillie
Stanford Degree 2nd year MS in AeroAstro 1st year MS in CS 3rd year PhD in robotics 1st year in MBA
Role Designer/Hacker Picker/Hacker Hacker Hustler

3. Current Status
For mushroom farmers growing white button mushrooms
indoors
who have difficulty paying for increasingly expensive labor,
MushroomX is an automated harvesting system
that automatically identifies and picks desirable mushrooms.
Compared to traditional methods, we reduce labor costs by 20%
and increase yield by 15%

4. Our Journey Over The Last 10 Weeks...
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Week 1

5. We started with autonomous drone pollination...
To bee or not to bee, that is the question…
Week 0
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Week 1

6. And we bee-lieve we are onto something big!
Bees are 5-15%
of total costs for
fruit, nut, and
some vegetable
farms
Bees pollinate
just 30-70% of
flowers on each
plant, limiting
fruiting and yield
Pollination
suffers when it’s
too hot, cold,
windy, or wet.
Bad weather
during flowering
is devastating
U.S. Honeybee Colony Loss
Week 1
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Week 1

7. “Pollination is not a problem at
all, water and labor costs are.”
- Farmer, Swank Farms
“The big need for pollination is
almonds, which is once a
year.”
- Sole Proprietor, Coria
Bees
But upon getting out of the building, we heard...
“You are required to use bees to
qualify for crop insurance.”
- Professor, UC Davis
“I would never give up crop
insurance.”
- Farmer from Farmer’s Market
“My biggest costs are harvest and
crop thinning. Maybe pollination is
third, but it’s not a big deal.”
- Farmer, GoldLeaf Farms
Week 2
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Week 1

8. We are “dead in the water” Week 2
This is an unattractive problem to
solve:
● Slow iteration: Once a year event
● Bad problem: Not massive pain
point, major downside to messing
up pollination
● Regulatory barriers: Insurance
requires using bees, so we
couldn’t replace them, only
supplement
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Week 1

9. Without an inspired idea, we went where great
entrepreneurs go on their down days: the farmer’s market Week 3
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Week 1

10. We met Laura from Far West Fungi… Maybe there’s something
here
“Our production is like a
factory.”
“Labor is my biggest cost
and my biggest problem.”
Week 3
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Week 1

11. Finding and paying for harvesting labor is a huge pain
point for mushroom farmers Week 3
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Week 1
“There aren’t enough harvesters. It’s a specialized skill, so we’re
paying them 50% more than other agriculture labor.”
- General Manager, FarWest Fungi
“Harvesters are more than half of my labor. Their productivity makes or
breaks a farm.”
- General Manager, Phillip’s Mushroom Farm
“I make, say, 10% bottom line. I couldn’t pay [harvesters] more if I
wanted to! That’s why farms are moving to Mexico and Canada.”
- General Manager, Premier Mushrooms

12. “Harvesting labor is my biggest
cost and my biggest problem”
- General Manager, FarWest
Fungi
“Labor is the ONLY issue”
- President, Ostrom’s
Mushrooms
“I’m switching to food service
because I can’t find enough
harvesters”
- General Manager, Farmer’s
Fresh
“If you have something that works I
would buy right away”
- General Manager, Phillips
Farms
“I’d renovate my entire farm’s
shelves if it meant I could automate
harvest.”
- Growing Coordinator, To-Jo
“This is 30% of my cost.”
- General Manager, Farmer’s
Fresh
After many conversations, we found an intense interest in a
better solution than manual harvesters
“Is this what Steve means when he says 10/10 problem where they’d rip a solution out of your
hand?”
Week 4
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Week 1

13. But is this a big enough market? Week 4
$47B of mushroom sales
globally!

14. But is this a big enough market? Week 4
Farmers make $18B of
that

15. But is this a big enough market? Week 4
$4B of that is white
button in EU & NA for
retail

16. But is this a big enough market? Week 4
And 25% is harvest labor:
$1B

17. But is this a big enough market? Week 4
Increasing yields would be
another $1B of value created

18. But is this a big enough market? Week 4
Increasing yields would be
another $1B of value created
Is $2B a big enough market for a hardware
startup? Although this is the market size for our
product, not our company - maybe there are
adjacencies?

19. Can we solve it? Seems like yes!
Iterate with each batch
The technology will be provided as a service to provide
clear ROI and to minimize operating costs
Computer Vision
determines the
mushrooms to pick
Autonomous
harvesting system
picks mushrooms
Advanced Analytics
predicts and
optimizes yield
Week 5
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Week 1

20. Will margins work?
Is the market big enough?
Has this ship sailed given
those two guys in Ukraine are
also building a harvester?
Is there really an opportunity
here?
But it’s still hardware… there’s a reason it’s not called
‘easyware’
How fast would it have to be?
How much would it cost?
How fast would it need to pay
back the hardware?
How effective would it need to
be?
We also learned more about mushroom growing and learned more about opportunities this will
unlock: Increasing yield through continuous picking, increasing yield through connecting with
perfect yield data
Week 6
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Week 1

21. What metrics would matter most to our success
● Price: ~$1 cent / pick => annual subscription fee / month depending on the volume (e.g. $ 1M / Yr for 5M lb /
Yr mushroom farm)
● Competitor charge (labor: ~$1.2M for 5M lb / Yr mushroom farm; other robotic solution ~$1.2 cents / pick)
● CAC: $100k
● Churn: monthly 1%
● LTV: $645k for 5M lb / Yr mushroom farm
● Mostly direct sales
● Indirect sales: promotion / trial cost: $10k / customer
● Referral cost: $5-10k / customer
Value
Proposition
Customer
Relationships
Operating
Costs
Channels
Revenue
Burn Rate
● ASP: $600k / Yr (3M lb / Yr mushroom farm)
● Fixed:
○ Lab space cost: ~$60k
○ Development tooling cost: $10k
○ R&D Labor cost: 3x $100k / Yr for
ME + CS + robotics engineer
● Variable: (typical 3M / lb Yr Mushroom farm)
○ COGS for robot: ~$10k / unit
○ Replacement / Repair: $1k / unit
○ Maintenance contractor labor cost: 2* $80k
/ Yr
○ Sales: $100k
○ Ops contractor labor cost: 5 * 50k / Yr
● Burn rate: $12.5k/ month, 12 months of runway with 1.5M initial investment
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Week 1
Week 7

22. Who we would work with to make this happen
Physical /
Hardware
● Gantry system
● Grippers
● Cameras / sensors
● Metal frames
● Computation Platform
Software
● Computer vision system
● Motion planning
● Control system
Human
● Engineers
● Designers
IP
● Brand/trademark/logo (trademark, copyright)
● Robotics technology (patent, trade secrets, licensing)
● Commercial-in-confidence / trade secrets re supply chain, customer deals etc.
Partners
● Equipment OEMs and retailers
● Robotic components manufacturers
● Warehouse operators
● Local governments , mushroom grower associations
● Corporate partners
● Product Development Lab + Tooling
● Manufacturing space
● Warehouse space
● Install / Maintenance tooling
● Service fleet (vans / trucks)
● Predictive Analytics
● Production Planning / Optimization
● Data Collection
● Development environment
● Predictive maintenance
● Sales / Business Development
● Customer Success
● Public relations
● Maintenance staff (contractors))
● Mentors / technical
advisors
Week 7
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Week 1

23. What we learned from him:
1. Some guy in his garage could build a prototype that’s fast enough
for production (it’s easier than we thought?)
2. He’s keen to work together, which could accelerate us by 6-9
months
Week 8
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Week 1
And then we met John...

24. “I can get you into our Morgan Hill
facility; let’s keep talking!”
- R&D, Monterey Mushrooms
“YES I WANT THIS. Let’s do a trial!”
- General Manager, South Valley
We got tour & demo offers!
It feels good to be wanted!
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Week 1
“Let’s test something!”
- General Manager, To-Jo
“I can get you a tour for our
facility!”
- General Manager, Phillips
Farms
Week 9

25. This is a ~$2B market with an intense enough
problem such that adoption pace would not
be our constraint. There are challenges, but
we’re seriously considering diving in.
Where are we now Week 10
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Week 1
Contact us: jbalsil@stanford.edu,
rongfeil@stanford.edu,
juliadi@alumni.stanford.edu,divgarg@stanford.ed
u

26. Fundraising & Operations Plan
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
2021 2022 2023 2024
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
Cash
reserves
5M
10M
20M
30M
Seed
$2M
Series A
$10M
Series B
$20M
Operations
Protect IP Build salesforce and sell across US & Canada
Sell and service first 2-3 customers with very
manual solution
LLP
Optimize hardware for robustness and
manufacturing
Hire part time
mech design eng
Engineering
Development
Improve
hardware for
speed
Optimize
software for
pick speed
Initiate manufacturing
& supply chain
development
F&F
$0.3M
Start manufacturing Manufacture at scale
Expand salesforce to Europe
Optimize software for speed, robustness, and
optimizing yield
Design 2nd generation hardware for scaling
manufacturing
Expand hardware to include sensors across farm
operations
Improve AI for optimal pick pattern and timing Build optimization for growing conditions
Hire engineers, build and manage operations org, fundraise, protect IP,

27. Business Model Canvas
Problem: harvesting
is mostly manual and
more expensive to
hire and pay for. Non-
continuous harvesting
leaves yield on the
table
Operate and service
harvesting robots
Off the shelf
hardware
manufacturers
Consultation on how
to harvest in a non-
traditional way
Large scale (>1m
lbs/year) white button
mushroom farmers in
high income countries
with aluminum
shelving having
trouble finding and
paying for harvesting
labor
Exceptional
engineering talent in
autonomy, computer
vision, and hardware.
Direct to grower sales
force
Hardware costs: robot, cameras, etc. Customers are highly willing to pay if they expect to
save costs and improve yield
Customer needs: We
are satisfying the
customer’s need for
more efficient,
cheaper solution for
harvesting
Computer vision,
autonomy, and other
general-purpose AI &
software providers
Innovation to
minimize hardware
and operating costs
Shelving and control
system suppliers
Proof of efficacy and
accountability for
performance below
expectations
Deep operations
understanding to fit
into existing set-ups.
We plan to offer harvesting as a service. This will allow
us to minimize operational burden for the farmer and
guarantee positive unit economics for the customer.
Distributor costs: Sharing profits with retailers,
maintenance engineers
Operating costs: energy, repairs
Yield prediction and
data analytics

28. Appendix of Past Slides

29. Potential Partners
Spawn company Sales financing company Shelving company
Why do we need
them?
Revenue opportunity (channel
partner for them)
Improve attractiveness to
customers / improve our cash
flow
Channel partner for us
Why might
they need us?
Sales channel More businesses
Additional value for converting to
their solution
Risks They’re uninterested Increases our COGS
Few companies that we can work
with → low power
Costs Data preparation Interest Time for co-selling

30. Start diligence of Pluk Robotics:
● Assess technical capabilities of Pluk Robotics’ current product
● Understand the technical bottleneck with Pluk Robotics’ current progress, then build refined
estimates of engineering / funding requirements
● Develop a strategy for negotiating licensing / collaboration
● Understand IP requirements to defend the technological edge
Develop better understanding on the operational / customer requirements
● Discovery more precision on farmer’s shelf heights and yield variances
● Set up date to visit with Monterey Mushrooms’ farm in Colusa
Next Steps

31. Potential Partners
Spawn Companies Sales Financing
Companies
Shelving Companies
MushroomX

32. Drivers/assumptions over next 3 years
Customer:
● CAC: $100k
● Churn: monthly 1%
● LTV: $1.8M for 3M lb / Yr mushroom farm
Goods and services, revenue model
● Variable: (typical 3M / lb Yr Mushroom farm)
○ COGS for robot: ~$20k / unit
○ Replacement / Repair: $1k / unit
○ Maintenance contractor labor cost: 2*
$80k / Yr
○ Sales: $100k
○ Ops contractor labor cost: 5 * 50k / Yr
Sales and Marketing
● Mostly direct sales: $80K
● Indirect sales: promotion / trial cost: $20k /
customer
Expenses
● Fixed:
○ Lab space cost: ~$120k
○ Development tooling cost: $100k
○ R&D Labor cost: 5x $200k / Yr for ME +
CS + robotics engineer

33. Key Activities
● Negotiate collaboration with Pluk Robotics
● Partnerships with research institutions and mushroom farms
Maintenance /
upkeep
Customer
development
Fundraising
● Identify sources of funding and programs (debt and equity both an option)
● Complete applications and manage interview processes
● Replacing / repairing broken equipment
● Training for humans to work with the robots and basic maintenance
(lubrication, cleaning)
Partnership
development
● Provide and sell harvesting as a service to customers
● Lend, install, train and maintain equipment for customers
Product
development
● Collaborate and iterate on prototype development
● Iterative design for manufacturability, robustness, efficacy, speed
and cost

34. Key Resources & Partners
Physical /
Hardware
● Gantry system
● Grippers
● Cameras / sensors
● Metal frames
● Computation Platform
Software
● Computer vision system
● Motion planning
● Control system
Human
● Engineers
● Designers
IP
● Brand/trademark/logo (trademark, copyright)
● Robotics technology (patent, trade secrets, licensing)
● Commercial-in-confidence / trade secrets re supply chain, customer deals etc.
Partners
● Equipment OEMs and retailers
● Robotic components manufacturers
● Warehouse operators
● Local governments , mushroom grower associations
● Corporate partners
● Product Development Lab + Tooling
● Manufacturing space
● Warehouse space
● Install / Maintenance tooling
● Service fleet (vans / trucks)
● Predictive Analytics
● Production Planning / Optimization
● Data Collection
● Development environment
● Predictive maintenance
● Sales / Business Development
● Customer Success
● Public relations
● Maintenance staff (contractors))
● Mentors / technical
advisors

35. Metrics that Matter
Value
Proposition
● Price: ~$1 cent / pick => annual subscription fee / month depending on the volume (e.g. $ 1M / Yr for 5M lb /
Yr mushroom farm)
● Competitor charge (labor: ~$1.2M for 5M lb / Yr mushroom farm; other robotic solution ~$1.2 cents / pick)
Customer
Relationships
● CAC: $100k
● Churn: monthly 1%
● LTV: $645k for 5M lb / Yr mushroom farm
Operating
Costs
Channels
● Mostly direct sales
● Indirect sales: promotion / trial cost: $10k / customer
● Referral cost: $5-10k / customer
Revenue
● ASP: $600k / Yr (3M lb / Yr mushroom farm)
Burn Rate
● Fixed:
○ Lab space cost: ~$60k
○ Development tooling cost: $10k
○ R&D Labor cost: 3x $100k / Yr for
ME + CS + robotics engineer
● Variable: (typical 3M / lb Yr Mushroom farm)
○ COGS for robot: ~$10k / unit
○ Replacement / Repair: $1k / unit
○ Maintenance contractor labor cost: 2* $80k
/ Yr
○ Sales: $100k
○ Ops contractor labor cost: 5 * 50k / Yr
● Burn rate: $12.5k/ month, 12 months of runway with 1.5M initial investment

36. Our MVP Brochure

37. Diagram of Payment flows
MushroomX
$0.20 / lb picked
Equipment sales,
upgrades

38. 3-year Income Statement

39. Channels: We plan to primarily sell direct to growers
Direct to grower sales: Target Head of Operations / Growing, quickly get to President / Owner
R&D:
$1 million
CapEx:
$1 million
OpEx:
$100K / yr
* 5 yrs
CAC:
$100K
Profit:
$2.4 million
Selling through shelving & control system company referrals
5 million lb grower: LTV = $5 million
R&D:
$1 million
CapEx:
$1 million
OpEx:
$100K / yr
* 5 yrs
CAC:
$300K
Profit:
$2.2 million
Argument for: Ensures focus, controls customer experience & impression, few sales targets, small CAC to
LTV
Argument for: Leveraged channel

40. Recap: We are focusing on automating harvest for indoor white button
mushroom farming
● Consistently the #1 problem and cost category
for at-scale white button mushroom farmers.
Multiple people told us they’d buy it if we can
solve it
● Appears to be technically possible to solve
● Imperfect solution may be acceptable since
automation will also bring yield increase
● Serves $47B mushroom market. Harvesting labor
in high income countries is ~$1.5B.
Why we’re excited about this problem
● Question of whether the market is big
enough to support hardware investment
(Steve B & Heidi say yes)
● Inconsistency of shelf set-ups across farms
● Technical difficulty of developing effective
solution and scaling with a novel gripper
● Competing start-up that’s currently raising
a seed round (Steve B & Heidi say don’t
worry)
What’s concerning us about this problem

41. We talked to:
Interviews this week deepened our understanding of the
opportunity to automate mushroom harvesting
● 5 mushroom growers
● 2 robotics CEOS
Hypothesis What we heard Implication / learning
Growers would accept a
solution with ~90% efficacy
Half of the growers we spoke to were content with 90%
efficacy if we could increase yields and reduce overall costs
Our hypothesis here is still intact.
We need to push further on this question.
>50% of the market has
shelving that can support a
robotic harvesting solution
An estimated 10% of US farms, 90% of Canadian, and 90%
of European have aluminum shelving.
Most aluminum shelves have 14-15.5 inches of space
between the mushrooms and the shelf above
We are considering this hypothesis confirmed.
All growers have 14” - 15.5” height aluminum
shelving, and 5-10% of US farms have
aluminum.
There is a plausible robotic
motion that would pick with
>90% efficacy
Growers and mushroom academics we spoke to both said
that the preferred motion is to twist and then pull the
mushroom. 2 robotics experts said this is possible.
We’re considering this hypothesis confirmed.
We’ll revisit once our solution is concrete.
We will be able to develop a
robot gripper that picks with
~90% efficacy
A gripper narrower than caps should avoid damaging others
Growing conditions can be altered to make harvesting easier
(increase CO2, lighten growing substrate, stage fruiting). We
have prototyped potential gripper solutions.
Our hypothesis here is intact but uncertain.
We need to understand picking best practices,
potential gripper solutions, & continue
prototyping
We can build a solution
economically
We estimate COGS of 20K for which would take about a year
to pay back at our dimensions and performance requirements
Our hypothesis here is intact but needs to be
pushed further by talking to robotics experts
with experience in scaling
● 1 robotics investor
● Stanford farm manager
They’d
buy
this
We
can
build
this
We
can
sell
this

42. Customer Relationship Funnel
Acquire Activate Keep Customers Up-Sell Next-Sell
KEEP
Cross-Sell Referrals
GROW
GET
Sales Team
Paid Media
- Ag Trade Show Demos
- Ag Magazine Ads
- Press conferences
Earned Media
- Extension school (Penn
State, UC Davis) papers
- Ag blogs
Recurring Value
- Regular software updates
- customer calls & support
- integrated maintenance
Upsell (potential future
products)
- Sensor network & data
analytics for yield optimization
- ERP based on sensor data
Referrals
- C2C
- 3rd party shelving firms
- Virtual cycle

43. Customer Acquisition Cost
Direct to Customer
Convert to
Paid User
2
20%
Conversion
Estimate
Paid
Acquisition
1
$20K
Trade Show Demos,
Magazines, Sales Force
$100K
Customer Acquisition Cost

44. Customer LTV
Annual Subscription
Assumes a 5 million pounds per year mushroom grower (medium scale)
A. MONTHLY REVENUE (K)
$7.5
B. MONTHLY CHURN
1%
C. CAC (K)
$100
D. GROSS LTV (K)
A*(1-B) / (B)
$742.50
E NET LTV (K)
GROSS LTV - CAC $642.50

45. Demand Creation Budget & Forecast
● Word of mouth: Total $80K
● 2 systems for “Demo day events,” 20K ea
● 2 systems for customer demos, 20K ea
● World Ag Expo + PA Farm Show: Total $30K
● 1 x 20 x 20 corner booth with demo
● Hold press event breakfast
● Booth decor, banners, hotels
● Mushroom Magazine Campaign: Total $20K
● 3 ads in 2 magazines
● Goal – get 2 articles on us
● Ad agency ($10K)
● Total $130 K

46. Learning Goals Midpoint Self-Assessment
LEARNING GOAL SCORE
R/Y/G
COMMENTS EXPLAINING YOUR SCORE AND/OR
WHAT YOU WILL CHANGE
1. Form hypotheses
y
Good at understanding how to form hypothesis
2. Design and conduct customer, partner, and supplier interviews We are getting very good at landing customer interviews, but need to focus on landing a mushroom farm partner, as
well as making sure that we don’t ask leading questions.
3. Design and build minimum viable products (MVPs) We have MVPs in the form of slides and brochures for customers. We need to focus on updating system specs based
on customer feedback, and developing gripper technology that works.
4. Design and run experiments Need to focus on iterating and testing more! High priority for us to try to find a farmer to partner with to close the
customer iteration loop.
5. Determine if hypotheses are true or false based on interview
and experimental results
We’re getting good at this, but still something to improve upon
6. Work effectively in teams under pressure Good team dynamic!
7. Communicate your progress in weekly presentations Great note-taking and communication.
8. Form new hypotheses based on learning Very analytical team
9. Pivot (adapt strategy) based on new data Objective with data, pivoting based on learnings
10. Achieve (or know you have not achieved) product-market fit