Max Minakov hated shoveling snow. He made something of that early: his sixth-grade science project was a remote-controlled snowblower.
Now, at 19, he’s making it into a business. Minakov won the student division of the Minnesota Cup for Nivoso, his startup that makes a ‘Roomba for snow.’ It’s an autonomous robot that — you guessed it — clears snow.
He’s been tinkering with the business idea since he got his driver’s license at 16, but said the business really took off last year. Nivoso filed a utility patent, made its first minimum viable product and graduated from Beta.MN’s fall accelerator program.
That patent centers on the self-activation of the robots. Basically, they clear the snow during the snowstorm instead of after. After buying a robot from Nivoso, a customer steers it around the driveway or sidewalk with a remote control so it can record coordinates and use an algorithm to fill in those borders.
Nivoso is prioritizing its launch of the commercial robots, which are larger and more powerful than the residential counterparts. The company has partnered with three snow-clearing companies and a large nursing home to pilot the tech.
Because the robots cost about $10,000 to build, the company doesn’t have a fleet yet. It’s making tweaks as needed before starting any type of mass production. Nivoso is taking orders, though. Those robots are expected to be delivered by August.
Minakov isn’t in a rush to start fundraising. He said he bootstrapped about $25,000 from a serving job during high school, plus got $26,000 from Minnesota Cup. He's fine with running lean for now.
“My philosophy is a company shouldn't raise until they have a fire going.” He said a venture-capital fund is like gas. If you pour gas on something that doesn’t have a flame, “you’re not going to get anywhere.”
He’s gunning to get Nivoso into an upcoming gener8tor accelerator and maybe begin a fundraising effort after that.
Minakov wants to someday see every nursing home and other facility with zero tolerance for snow or ice to have their sidewalks cleared by a Nivoso robot.
“I want people to see Nivoso robots at the hardware store right next to a snow blower and people be faced with the choice of whether or not they want to back pain from manually plowing the rest of their life,” Minakov said in a University of Minnesota writeup last month.
