Roomba strikes me as having a very similar challenge to many hardware companies:

1. Prove you can do something amazing 2. Raise a bunch of capital to scale it, betting on future revenue 3. Deliver! Great product, stellar growth, soaring revenue, re-invest in product 4. Flood of copycat competitors, drives up acquisition costs, eliminates higher price point, revenue tanks 5. Pivot. Try to sell another story, build the start of another product leap, loose traction in a new way, pivot. 6. Seek an acquisition before the music ends 7. FTC

In other words, product development (esp. app + hardware) is expensive, difficult, and constantly changing.

We don’t have a capitalist system competing on product merit but acquisition arbitrage. In almost all cases the inferior product wins.