After his start-up collapsed his first year at Virginia Tech, Marco Gonzalez Hauger didn’t slow down – he scaled up.
The senior in the College of Engineering, who will earn degrees in both computer science and industrial and systems engineering, founded Virginia Tech Competitive Robotics Organization (CRO), the university’s largest competitive robotics team.
What started in the corner of a lab turned into a multiteam operation with students from across disciplines.
Gonzalez Hauger’s early setbacks only ignited his passion for innovation. “Seeing this go from a name scribbled on a chalkboard to the largest design team in the history of the university has been the most rewarding experience of my life so far,” he said.
Here, Hauger answers a few questions about how he built the Virginia Tech CRO.
CRO exploded from a handful of students to three lab spaces and multiple teams. What was the turning point for that growth?
We founded the team only four months before our first competition, SoutheastCon 2023. We were forced to deliver a bot that could win against 35 universities that had been working on theirs for over a year.
The team of six engineers initially said it wasn’t possible and asked me to postpone competing until the next year. I was certain we could do something great and encouraged them to move forward.
We recruited more engineers and devised a strategy to get the most points per unit of effort from our team. That experience changed everything.
You described CRO as “a club structured like a start-up”. What does that mean in practice?
From the beginning, CRO had to do a lot with very little. We won second place at SoutheastCon 2023 with a total budget, including travel, of just $2,300, and we were working off a small table in the corner of a lab.
Each success helped us make the case for more resources, create new teams, and grow our membership. That early stage especially resembled a start-up. But we structured the organization from day one to allow for rapid growth, and that decision has paid off.
You founded a start-up, saw it fail, then built Virginia Tech’s largest competitive robotics team – all before graduating with a bachelor’s degree. What kept you pushing forward?
My start-up, Ambassadoor, was a platform that connected Instagram influencers with businesses looking to commission sponsored posts. We raised $160,000, and I ended up writing about 140,000 lines of code.
I also managed two full-time programmers based in India, which meant waking up at 6.30 am every day before school to meet with them.
Eventually, the platform failed, which was a big shock. I attribute the failure to our tendency to continually add nonessential features, which made the app unstable and eroded trust with our users.
My original plan was to work on the app full time after my first year of college, and without that, my life felt empty.
Looking back, robotics was a strange direction for me to go in, but it was the first opportunity I had to build something new. I jumped at the chance to create something valuable for both students and the university.
In addition to its startup feel, you mentioned industrial systems engineering (ISE) thinking shaped how you built CRO. What’s one concept that’s made the biggest impact on how you lead?
The central takeaway from ISE, for me, is learning to make decisions that maximize results per unit of effort.
In practice, that means objectively evaluating every opportunity and deciding what to say no to. A lot of things might look appealing on the surface, but many simply aren’t worth the manpower and opportunity cost of not doing something else.
You made a meaningful connection with an industrial systems engineering graduate, Jennifer Van Buskirk ’95, that reinforced your interest in building an organization from the ground up. Why is that relationship important?
When I was part of the APEX Center for Entrepreneurs my freshman year, I pitched Ambassadoor to a board of judges for a start-up competition, and this one judge kept asking me harder, more relevant, and specific questions than the others.
I really appreciated that since the questions made me think, and she clearly had a fundamental understanding of marketing.
When I found out she was also an ISE graduate, I decided to reach out and chat with her for advice, and that was my first meeting with Jennifer.
While starting a company is a larger-scale endeavor than launching a student organization, the tough “people” decisions often feel similar.
Being able to connect with Jennifer – someone who’s built a company from the ground up and has made those hard decisions for decades – has been incredibly valuable to me.
With her support, I ended up at AT&T for the summer of 2023 as a data analytics intern. During that time, Google reached out to me and asked me to interview with them. I ended up landing an internship with YouTube for summer 2024.
Whatever career path a student wants to pursue, finding someone who’s already walked that path is an invaluable asset.
You’re about to graduate and head to Google. How do you feel about leaving CRO behind?
YouTube is a very exciting place to work, and I’m looking forward to returning. But leaving CRO behind will be tough. I’m confident the people succeeding me will keep doing incredible things. The organization’s best days are ahead.
What’s your advice to someone who has a big idea but isn’t sure how to pull it off?
Everything you see in your life was created by people, so that means you can create those things, too. Have the courage to be the first person through the wall. Once you prove it’s possible, people will follow.
