Trošelj: We want a big step forward into the EU and US markets

This year STEMI, a robot for education and increasing awareness of natural sciences, arrives to CES as well. As Marin Trošelj points out, this year he wants to open up to western markets (EU and US) and they hope to make good contacts and cooperation that will go in that direction.

You are a successful startup that is developing its product - a robot for learning and education, but you have not had too much success in Croatia. Why is that so?

I would not agree that we have not had success in Croatia. Quite the contrary, we believe that we achieved remarkable success in Croatia despite the price of the product which is a bit higher for our standard of living, and the delivery time of one year. In the crowdfunding campaign, we were supported by over 20 IT companies that will donate 50 robots to Croatian schools, and by over 40 private persons that ordered robots for themselves. This is almost 2/3 of the total number of robots.

Do you think that CES should help you be more successful?

We are very much looking forward to the CES experience. The mere preparation for the presentation helped us to better brand the product, to segment the market and to create business plans. According to the announcements that we can see through the system, people are interested in our booth. We are looking forward to every meeting and the conversation and we believe that we will learn a lot but also to make contacts that will help us to launch the product on the demanding markets. We're going as a strong team, so we will be able to have quality interviews in all fields. We are proud of the design of the exhibition space itself, and the web page we have launched today.

Could you describe the product in more detail and what's been done so far to improve it?

Our product is actually a STEM fields learning experience through projects and consists of four important segments - packaging, hardware and software components, video training and online platforms for learning and collaboration. The first product on our platform is DIY Hexapod robot - we send to users a box, after which they connect to our online platform and by assembling the robot they learn programming, development of mobile applications, 3D modeling and electronics. In late December, we delivered robots to the backers of the crowdfunding campaign and the people told us that we have greatly surpassed their expectations.