Founder & CEO | Robotics (HealthCare)

Founders Factory; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 150,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

NightWatch, led by Founders Factory, seeks a Founder/CEO to steer a hardware‑based, robot‑as‑a‑service venture for US senior living. You will define the operator profile, pilot strategy, and scale the business with initial hires and fundraising, while forging credibility with care operators and investors on US soil.

You will build the product, shape the buyer, and drive multi‑site deployments, aligning technology, partnerships, and go‑to‑market execution to deliver ROI.

Qualifications

• Founder or senior operator who has built a hardware/robotics or hardware‑as‑a‑service product from zero to one, ideally in the US market.
• Deep familiarity with at least one buyer segment: US senior living / CCRC operators, eldercare, or enterprise facilities operations.
• Enterprise commercial instinct: you can navigate multi‑site operator sales cycles and turn a pilot into a fleet rollout.
• Strong product and technical instincts: you can reason about robotics, sensing, edge compute and unit economics even if you are not building the robot yourself.
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity: shaping the product, defining the buyer, and making irreversible calls with incomplete data.
• Credibility with conservative care operators and forward‑looking venture investors, and willingness to be on the ground in the United States.
• Motivation by category creation — building the operational backbone for how America ages, on robots you put there first.

Responsibilities

• Define the wedge: choose the operator profile and the 3-state cluster (consistent regulation) where you run concurrent pilots first.
• Turn the thesis into a product: work with our partner's robotics teams to take the night‑patrol robot and its remote‑monitoring layer from concept to a fleet operators can run.
• Win the first pilots: land 2–3 CCRC / senior‑living operators and prove FTE substitution through the pilot sequence while maintaining service levels with one less night headcount.
• Sell savings, not safety: frame the buy as an ROI decision for the CFO/COO, positioned as redeployment rather than redundancy.
• Drive the economics: push the robots‑to‑operator ratio toward the levels that make margins trend to software, working with our partner on a path to lower unit cost.
• Build the company: hire the initial team, raise capital, and establish the venture as the automation layer for senior living.

Job description

Founder & CEO — NightWatch

One robot. One floor. One job. The automation layer for US senior living.

Location: United States

Start date: ASAP

About the Venture

We are building NightWatch, a mobile UWB‑radar robot that patrols senior‑living corridors at night, senses movement through doors and walls, and reports fact‑based data (in bed, out of bed, in the bathroom, on the floor). It delivers a two‑to‑three‑month payback and is the easiest pilot in the category, offering zero CAPEX, zero installation, and fully reversible deployment. The robot is sold as robot‑as‑a‑service and delivers a trusted safety solution without cameras or wearables.

Our Offer

The programme runs in two phases:

• Months 0–6 (Build): $128k ring‑fenced build budget to cover founder stipends and specialist resources. Founder stipends are $6,675 per month drawn from this budget. Embedded studio team throughout: a full‑time venture builder plus studio lead and growth marketer. On‑demand access to specialist support across data science, applied AI, fundraising, legal, finance, PR, and commercial partnerships. Dedicated network access from day one.
• Months 6–12 (Accelerator / Spinout): At incorporation, the founding team receives 70% equity in a new company with the studio receiving 15%. The remaining 15% is reserved as an employee option pool. $320k cash investment goes directly into the new venture's bank account. Accelerator support includes a dedicated squad covering growth, product, and fundraising, with continued access to shared services.

Jobs to be Done

• Define the wedge: choose the operator profile and the 3‑state cluster (consistent regulation) where you run concurrent pilots first.
• Turn the thesis into a product: work with our partner's robotics teams to take the night‑patrol robot and its remote‑monitoring layer from concept to a fleet operators can run.
• Win the first pilots: land 2–3 CCRC / senior‑living operators and prove FTE substitution through the pilot sequence while maintaining service levels with one less night headcount.
• Sell savings, not safety: frame the buy as an ROI decision for the CFO/COO, positioned as redeployment rather than redundancy.
• Drive the economics: push the robots‑to‑operator ratio toward the levels that make margins trend to software, working with our partner on a path to lower unit cost.
• Build the company: hire the initial team, raise capital, and establish the venture as the automation layer for senior living.

Your Ideal Experience

• Founder or senior operator who has built a hardware/robotics or hardware‑as‑a‑service product from zero to one, ideally in the US market.
• Deep familiarity with at least one buyer segment: US senior living / CCRC operators, eldercare, or enterprise facilities operations.
• Enterprise commercial instinct: you can navigate multi‑site operator sales cycles and turn a pilot into a fleet rollout.
• Strong product and technical instincts: you can reason about robotics, sensing, edge compute and unit economics even if you are not building the robot yourself.
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity: shaping the product, defining the buyer, and making irreversible calls with incomplete data.
• Credibility with conservative care operators and forward‑looking venture investors, and willingness to be on the ground in the United States.
• Motivation by category creation — building the operational backbone for how America ages, on robots you put there first.