Bhawna🌱

[Bhawna🌱 @pixawna]

Great products can start with a single Discord message.

One small message caught my attention at @superplanehq server than I thought, "This should be automated"

So I built a DevRel Community Assistant that brings the entire workflow into Discord.

Here's a quick demo 👇

[Muskan Kalra @muskan_kalra24]

It’s been a wild few months for physical AI.

Every week, there’s another massive funding round, a new robotics company coming out of stealth or a major product launch.

@TheHumanoidAI raised $152M to build general-purpose humanoid robots, with Bosch lined up as its manufacturing partner.

@RhodaAI came out of stealth with a $450M Series A to build foundation models that help robots understand and act in the real world.

@WaldenRobotics launched with $300M at a $1.1B valuation — a unicorn from day one, backed by Toyota.

@NEURARobotics announced a round of up to $1.4B, reportedly the largest robotics funding round in Europe.

@SkildAI raised $1.4B and is now valued at over $14B as it builds foundation models for robots.

And now Atoms has raised $1.7B after eight years in stealth to build industrial AI for mining, construction, heavy transport and food production.

At the same time, @MistralAI released Robostral Navigate, its first embodied model. @1x_tech unveiled its new tendon-driven hands. And YC opened its latest Requests for Startups with:

“AI is moving into the physical world.”

Robotics companies had already raised $18.8B this year before the Atoms round. That number is now above $20B

A lot of this is still early.

The demos are controlled, the valuations are aggressive and many of these companies will take years to build something genuinely useful at scale.

But something has clearly changed.

For years, robotics moved forward through gradual improvements in hardware, software and automation.

Now everything seems to be improving at the same time.

Better models. Better hardware. More data. More capital. Stronger manufacturing partners.

AI spent the last decade getting smarter inside screens.

Now the race to bring it into the physical world has properly started.

[Dara @dara_venture]

You raise your seed round.....now what?

The first thing you do when $1-2M hits the bank account is open the app, look at the number, take the screenshot, smile, send it to your family group chat to make your dickhead brother jealous....then close it.

You just got 18-24 months if you're disciplined, 8-10 if you're stupid.

Firstly,
Don't change your fucking life.

Pay yourself enough to not stress about rent. $80-120k depending on city, even lower if you can stomach it.

If you pay yourself $350k after a $2M raise.....chances are, you will not last. You're not running a company just yet.....it's an experiment...one that will end quickly if you prioritize short term gains > long term greatness.
Same with office. You don't need one. The "we need a real space for the culture" is bullshit.

Work from home.
Your only job for the first 6 months is to talk to users and ship quickly.

If you raised $2M and you're not doing (minimum) 5 customer calls a week as a founder........your priorities are messed up.

You need to understand as quickly as possible if the people who use your product, come back without you begging them to do so!
Almost everything else is a vanity exercise.

Series A timeline in 2026 is 600+ days from seed.
Less than 15% of seed-funded startups ever raise an A.
So track burn weekly.
Know your runway to the day.
Every dollar should ship product or facilitates customer feedback .
If a tool, hire, or expense doesn't do that, stop it.

Conference tickets? No. PR firm? Absolutely fucking not. "Brand consultant" don't be stupid. Logo redesign? GTFOH.

72% of seed stage burn is "people".
74% of startup failures involve premature scaling.

You raise, you feel pressure to "build the team," you hire 4 people in 90 days, burn goes from $40k/mo to $180k/mo, the new hires don't have product to work on because there isn't one yet, you spend your time managing them instead of talking to users, runway evaporates, you're back fundraising at month 9 with worse metrics than when you started.

Stay 2-3 founders + AI for as long as humanly possible.
The teams crushing right now have 4 people doing what 15 used to do just 24 months ago.

When/If you do hire.......focus on builders, forget managers. Focus on operators, not "credentials".

If you're not using AI for code (Cursor, Claude Code), customer support, sales prospecting, content, ops, brand, recruitment vetting......your competition is winning.

Tech is commodity now. GTM and data are the moats. Use AI to compress everything that isn't either of those things.

Try to avoid giving advisors equity.
An "advisor" (who you mistakenly thought would enhance "credibility optics") who takes 1%, for doing absolutely nothing, is the same prick that costs you seven figures in a future round.

Model dilution before signing every SAFE.

Don't talk to VCs for 6 months. (forget the "always raising" mindset for now) Keep relationships warm with periodic updates but take the foot of the gas slightly.
I know. I'm a VC saying this. But I mean it. The gravitational, distractional pull of the next round, will fuck up your focus harder than anything else.

Send your existing investors a 5 line monthly email. Don't go to investor dinners. Don't "build relationships for the A." If you're talking to VCs more than building, again, your priorities are misjudged and it will show up against your development goals.

The money will fuck with your head. People will ultimately treat you differently. Nobody really prepares you for that.
You'll get DMs from people you haven't talked to since school. You'll feel the urge to announce, to LinkedIn post, to look like a "real founder."

You'll also be lonelier than ever. You raised, your "friends" think you've made it, you can't tell them you're scared shitless and don't know if it'll work.
I would recommend finding 1-2 founders.....who are 6 months ahead of you, and text them weekly.
That's effective therapy (at least from my personal experience).

Last thing.
The party ended when the money hit.
Now you have a shot and a clock.....the only thing that matters is whether you ship something people genuinely want before that timer runs out.

Most people who give you advice in the next 6 months are probably going to try selling you something. Filter everything ruthlessly. Trust your user feedback and trust the burn rate.

Now go build and say "no"...... consistently.

Godspeed.

[Bhawna🌱 @pixawna]

@igor_sarcevic So relatable 😭

[Bhawna🌱 @pixawna]

@themanikdiaries Yes it will be distributed by August mid by per devcon team assisted during distribution of ticket

[Bhawna🌱 @pixawna]

For 10 days, I disappeared from the internet.
No phone, No internet & No conversations.

Just me, my thoughts and 12–14 hours of meditation every day. Believe me, it was not easy but most meaningful experiences of my life.

Read my experience 👇

[Bhawna🌱 @pixawna]

@anurag__kochar You can learn around the same in the blog or here : https://t.co/Tfuz8BMIvk

[Bhawna🌱 @pixawna]

@MoneyCrptBunny Truly agree, even those days i got lot of clarity around the things

[Bhawna🌱 @pixawna]

@TheThrottleBit I learned this as well during the retreat. Just tell yourself i got distracted and now i need to focus on my breathe. It works for me

[Bhawna🌱 @pixawna]

@themanikdiaries Thank you manik for your kind words🫶

[Bhawna🌱 @pixawna]

@smilewithkhushi Thank you, can't wait to meet you in-person super soon🫶🫂

[Bhawna🌱 @pixawna]

I documented my entire journey from why I decided to go, what actually happens during those 10 days, my day-by-day experience and the lessons I brought back with me.

Blog link : https://t.co/PZG6YwlxiD

[Bhawna🌱 @pixawna]

@markoa Agreed 💯

[The Techno Optimist @technooptimist1]

Chamath Palihapitiya @chamath "Bro, there is no failure."

"That is what other people think of you to keep you down. There's no failure. If you were left on an island and it happened, you would just brush it off and move on. It's everybody else that you think is judging you. But then, here's the secret. They don't give a fuck about you. They are living their own lives. So it's your perception of what they think of you."

"There is no failure. There's do and learn. Do and learn. Do and learn. Do and learn."

@StanfordAILab

[Naval @naval]

You won’t get rich just working hard, but if you don’t work hard, you won’t get rich.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

I was clearly wrong about Anthropic. They are obviously currently the leader in AI. No company has released a model as good as Mythos/Fable and they will undoubtedly have Mythos 2 ready soon.

And I would never cut them off in a way that hurt them badly, even as a competitor. That’s not my style.

Tesla open sourced its patents and we made the Supercharger network available to all competitors, even though we could have made it a walled garden.

SpaceX launches competing satellite systems with no increase in price or use of unfair terms.

Even my worst enemies can attack me on this platform.

…

[Bhawna🌱 @pixawna]

@theayacommunity @EFDevcon @satyaki44 All the best builders 💪

[Bhawna🌱 @pixawna]

@vrajdesai78 @met_engine Best of luck @vrajdesai78 🤝

[Vlad Tenev @vladtenev]

The future of crypto is in real-world assets.

[Paul Mit @pmitu]

nothing hurts my ego more than seeing 17-year-old startup millionaires on X first thing in the morning

[Bhawna🌱 @pixawna]

@sp_archer_007 @superplanehq lfg😀

[Bhawna🌱 @pixawna]

Great products can start with a single Discord message.

One small message caught my attention at @superplanehq server than I thought, "This should be automated"

So I built a DevRel Community Assistant that brings the entire workflow into Discord.

Here's a quick demo 👇