Student Entrepreneur Invents ‘Roomba For Snow’

Inspiration for Carlson School sophomore Max Minakov came at a time almost everyone in the Upper Midwest can relate to — shoveling the driveway after a large winter storm.

Minakov, in sixth grade at the time, was tasked with digging out his parent’s driveway one shovel-full at a time. He knew there had to be a better way.

“I really, really hated shoveling snow,” he says. “As a kid, you’re either doing it after school or you’re getting up at 5 a.m. to do it, which I had a hard time doing. I knew there had to be something easier.”

Minakov has taken that idea and ran with it since then. He is now the founder of Nivoso, a self-activating snow-clearing robot for driveways and sidewalks. The robot is completely autonomous and keeps surfaces safe and accessible 24/7 without human intervention. It’s a “Roomba for snow,” explains Minakov. 

The idea is being noticed throughout the state of Minnesota, and not just during winter. Nivoso was the winner of the Student Division in the 2023 MN Cup this fall, earning a total of $26,000 in seed money from the startup competition. He has letters of intent from some large snow-clearing companies and is working with large senior living facilities to pilot his product. For residential use, people can sign up for beta testing beginning in the 2024-25 winter season.

“I want people to see Nivoso robots at the hardware store right next to a snow blower and people be faced with the choice of whether or not they want to back pain from manually plowing the rest of their life,” he says. 

His ambitions don’t stop there. “Additionally, I hope every nursing home and other zero-tolerance facility in the country will have their sidewalks consistently cleared by Nivoso robots during every snowstorm.”

Entrepreneurship and inventing have been in Minakov’s blood since birth. His grandfather was an inventor, and the two of them would tinker and build with their hands all the time when he was growing up. One of their projects was an elaborate backyard treehouse modeled after a sailboat that included just about anything you could imagine, from shingles on the outside to a mini fridge on the inside.

At the Carlson School, Minakov has been able to hone his entrepreneurial skills in a multitude of ways. For instance, while enrolled in Carlson School Impact Lab, Amee McDonald, who taught the class, tailored Minakov’s curriculum so that his class assignments applied to his work at Nivoso. He also joined Atland Ventures, a student-run venture capital firm managed by students at the University.

“Everyone at the Carlson School wants you to succeed,” he says. “So many people have gone above and beyond to help me get Nivoso up and running. Without the connections I’ve made at Carlson, I would be lost, with very little footing going forward in the challenging world of startups.”

For those looking to get into entrepreneurship, Minakov has a simple message: Go for it.

“I see a lot of people who don’t have the confidence to begin their startups while still in college,” he says. “But to me, this is the best time to do it. You have more free time than you will after you graduate and you have all of these resources at your disposal. I have failed so many times already, and the fear of that shouldn’t stop anyone from pursuing their dreams.”