He Built a Self-Cleaning Toilet Seat… And Raised $1M | Episode 62
  • Apr 14, 2026

He Built a Self-Cleaning Toilet Seat… And Raised $1M | Episode 62

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About Podcast

Rob Polecki was an elected official in Idaho when he took his 4-year-old son into a dirty airport bathroom and couldn't find a single hands-free way to clean the toilet seat. Everything else in the restroom was touchless. Just not the part that mattered most.


That moment in 2015 turned into Washi — a self-sanitizing commercial toilet seat Rob has been building, bootstrapping, and fighting for ever since. He cashed out $100K+ from his government 401K, raised over $1M from angels one check at a time, made it to the final round of Shark Tank, spent a year in licensing talks with Georgia Pacific (only to get ghosted), and is now launching a home version via Kickstarter in May 2026.


What he covers:

→ Taking his 4-year-old to a dirty Salt Lake City airport bathroom — and walking out with a business idea

→ Carrying a toilet bowl through the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas to audition for Shark Tank

→ Making it to the final round of Shark Tank before getting cut — and why he calls it the best thing that happened to him

→ Cashing out over $100K from his government 401K to go all-in on the company

→ Spending an entire year in engineering discussions with Georgia Pacific (the largest restroom company in the US), only to be told "go launch it yourself and we'll buy it later"

→ Raising $500K in a friends-and-family round from Pocatello, Idaho, then going angel by angel for $50K–$200K at a time

→ Firing his internal sales team and switching to distributors after years of slow B2B cycles

→ Landing Delta Sky Clubs, major gas station chains in the Midwest, and convention centers in the South

→ Why airports in Wyoming took 9 months from first meeting to closed deal

→ Launching the home version of Washi with a Kickstarter in May 2026 — and why B2C changes everything

→ What James Dyson's story meant to him every time he almost quit

→ Why having other people's money in the company means there's no Plan B




🔗 CONNECT WITH STU

Instagram: @stu

Website: https://startupswithstu.com




#entrepreneur #startups #founderstory #sharktank #bootstrapped #hardwareStartup #invention #washi #toiletseat #startupswithstu



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