Grove City College Alumni Jake Loosararian founded Gecko Robotics in 2012 to address the issue that in-person power plant inspections are insufficient to identify certain issues and are both dangerous and costly. This combination led him to employ his skills as an electrical engineer develop an inspection robot that could scale the walls to the power plant and conduct extensive inspections to provide superior inspection results in less time and at a lower cost.
in 2018 his company raised $7 million in Series A funding. This allowed the company to increase revenue and expand to the 110 employees it now hires. This company is a great example of the entrepreneurial process and the passion it requires. In the time between 2012 and 2018 Jake Loosararian had to subsist on as little as he could just to keep his venture afloat financially. This kind of unglamorous lifestyle is often necessary in the early stages of a startup and really tests the commitment of the founder to their dream.
I really liked how this post pointed out the dirty work of entrepreneurship. From the outside, entrepreneurs look so glamorous since we often only see them in their place of success. But often, we fail to realize that their success was hard-earned. It’s not easy. But most things that are worth doing are not easy.
Awesome to hear about a story of a GCC Alumni! Jake had an innovative idea that both improved safety and was cost effective. I had heard somewhere recently that the company was worth over 500 million today! Crazy how success can become exponential. Good article and a interesting topic.