About Video

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

📌 CHAPTERS

00:00 – The airport bathroom that started everything

[~03:00] – From Idaho elected official to full-time founder

[~07:00] – Carrying a toilet seat through the Venetian Hotel to audition for Shark Tank

[~11:00] – Getting cut — and why it gave him what he needed

[~14:00] – The Georgia Pacific year (and how it cost him more than time)

[~18:00] – Cashing out the 401K and raising $1M+ from angels

[~24:00] – Firing the sales team and going to distribution

[~29:00] – The B2B sales cycle reality: 9 months for a Wyoming airport

[~34:00] – How James Dyson kept him going

[~38:00] – Why "providing for my family" is going to the moon

[~43:00] – Launching the home seat on Kickstarter in May 2026

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