How Mehul Nariyawala Built Matic, the Smartest Home Robot Vacuum

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Mehul Nariyawala’s path to robotics started long before Matic ever existed.

With a background in computer vision and a sharp eye for consumer needs, he was fascinated by how machines perceive the world, and how that perception could transform everyday life.

After co-founding Flutter, a gesture-recognition startup acquired by Google for $40 million, Mehul took on product leadership at Google Nest, where he worked on the Nest Cam lineup. But the more he worked on smart devices, the more he saw a bigger opportunity: home robots weren’t living up to their promise.

He realized the gap wasn’t just in hardware; it was in perception, navigation, and autonomy. So in 2017, alongside co-founder Navneet Dalal, Mehul launched Matic to build a fully autonomous, vision-first floor-cleaning robot; one that could finally move intelligently through the unpredictable landscape of a real home.

Now, Mehul is pushing the boundaries of home robotics, creating products that aren’t just technically impressive but meaningfully useful, changing the way people live with technology.

Listen to Mehul’s interview on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.

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• Don’t chase cool tech, solve real problems instead. Mehul learned (especially after Paul Graham’s feedback) that building “sexy” or futuristic products doesn’t matter if you’re not solving an actual pain point. Basically, resist the temptation to tinker just because something is technically impressive.

• Build on top of experience and compound your learnings. Matic Robotics wouldn’t have been possible as a first startup; Mehul says his earlier ventures were essential for learning the hard lessons. You should see each startup or role as building blocks that help them tackle increasingly complex challenges later.

• Choose markets that already exist, but innovate on product. Instead of creating a market from scratch (which is much harder), Matic focused on a massive existing consumer pain -home cleaning- but approached it with radically better technology. Look for underserved but proven spaces.

• Define long-term alignment and “rules of engagement” before starting. Mehul and his co-founder had a clear framework for picking their next problem: it had to align with their skills (computer vision), have a known business model, be useful and iconic, and be challenging enough to keep them engaged for decades. Set your own criteria upfront will guide you to better decisions.

• Raise money at the right time, not just because you can. As a repeat founder, it’s tempting to raise money early just because you have the credibility. But they chose to bootstrap first to make sure they built a culture of capital efficiency and avoided the trap of raising just to survive. Venture capital is “rocket fuel”, and you don’t load up the rocket until it’s on the pad and ready.

• Build a long-term mission, and let people self-select. From the start, Matic was brutally upfront with hires: if you want a one- or two-year stint, this isn’t the place. They even set six-year vesting schedules to make sure people were truly signing on for the marathon, not a sprint. This helped them attract mission-driven people who believed deeply in the long game.

• Conviction grows over time. Watch for the signs. They used Scott Belsky’s framework: as you work, is your conviction strengthening or fading? Even though the robot wasn’t perfect early on, customer testing showed flashes of delight; those “wow” moments were a key signal to keep going. Stronger conviction, not just sunk time, justified pushing forward.

• You won’t get pricing, go-to-market, or messaging perfect on day one; plan to iterate. Even experienced founders with YC background and industry mentors admit they got pricing and subscription models wrong. The lesson: treat pricing and marketing as experiments, not permanent decisions. Build in flexibility to adjust based on real customer feedback.

• Stay laser-focused: don’t open too many battle fronts too early. The war analogy is powerful: you have to win and secure one front before expanding. Founders should resist the temptation to chase every opportunity or new idea too soon; scale what’s working first, then explore adjacent products or markets.

• Solve real, specific problems people don’t buy “robots,” they buy solutions. This is a great reminder: focus on solving meaningful, concrete pain points, not just building cool tech. Always work backwards from the problem, not forward from the gadget.

Listen to Mehul’s interview on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.

00:00 What’s coming in the episode…

00:13 Introduction

01:39 Mehul’s background

07:49 YC’s Paul Graham’s insight on Mehul’s previous startup

11:54 From Flutter to Matic

16:48 Matic’s first robot

22:14 Matic’s early days and fundraising

25:37 Building the right team

28:07 Known and unknown challenges in robotics

34:28 Last few days before launch

36:08 The mentality for a long job

40:23 Figuring out Matic’s market strategy and pricing

50:41 Building the present and planning the future of Matic

Best,
Justin

Founder of Just Go Grind

P.S. Hiring? Check out the team at Athyna