PickTheRobot

Hey IH — I just shipped PickTheRobot (picktherobot.com).

If you’ve ever tried to buy a business robot (warehouse AMR, cleaning scrubber, restaurant server bot), you know the problem: every vendor page is “we’re the best,” blogs are thin, and most “advisors” want your email before they help. Operators still need the same answers:

• What robot type actually fits our site?

• Buy, lease, or RaaS?

• Which vendors are worth talking to?

What I built

A 2-minute matcher for warehouse, cleaning, and restaurant use cases. You answer practical questions (layout, volume, staffing pressure, budget preference), and get:

• Best robot type + score breakdown

• Buy vs lease vs RaaS recommendation

• Ranked vendor list with plain-language reasons

• Shareable results link

It’s rules-based (no ML hype), runs client-side, and is intentionally buyer-side — I’m not a robot vendor.

Why now

I kept seeing the same research loop in ops teams: Google → vendor demo → repeat. Robotics is growing, but the buying experience is still brutal for normal businesses.

Business model (honest version)

Right now it’s free. Long term: outbound vendor traffic (UTM tracking, optional affiliate URLs when partnerships exist). No pay-to-win rankings — sponsored only gets a small boost when fit is already there.

Where it’s at

• Live on Vercel at picktherobot.com

• 3 categories, 14 vendor profiles

• Early SEO signals around RaaS/cleaning queries

• Very early traffic — trying to earn organic before spending on ads

What I’d love from this community

1. Is the matcher flow clear in the first 30 seconds?

2. What would make you trust a recommendation tool like this?

3. If you’ve bought automation before, what question did nobody answer upfront?

Happy to share stack/architecture if useful (Next.js, client-side scoring, JSON vendor data, Vitest).

Thanks for reading — and if you know an ops/facilities lead researching robots, I’d appreciate a share.

— Sean