Find The Right Partner

Anba Srinivasan

Devin Miller

The Inventive Journey

Podcast for Entrepreneurs

9/7/2020

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The Inventive Journey

Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.

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so it's always i always talk about three points right number one make sure you find the right partner so you can it's all about people see business is all about if you want to solve the problem it's all about teamwork by yourself you can do certain things it's you always need to have somebody who can able to challenge you at the same time so try to find a re correct partner which is in align with your personality or culture whatever it is right so make sure he's the right guy pick the right guy as quick as possible don't delay that process [Music] hey everyone this is devon miller here with another episode of the inventive journey i'm your host devin miller the uh serial entrepreneur that's founded and grown several startups into seven and eight figure companies as well as founded miller ip law where we help startups and small businesses with their patents and trademarks and uh today we have another great guest on the episode that's going to tell a little bit more about his journey it's a and i'm going to and i've already tried to figure make sure that i got the name right but if i slaughter it forgive me amber nevison i caught him yep you got it right oh i don't think he was even close but we're gonna count it all right and uh he's a bit of an engineer and a problem server is problem solver so he started a kind of a hybrid cloud cloud system in 2008 and they wound that down he's now on to a second startup and he'll tell you a little bit more about that today so welcome on to the podcast hey thanks devin thanks for having me it's really great to share my story and uh well we're excited to have you on so i gave this a brief intro a little bit about your journey but let's uh take those couple steps back and talk a little bit about your journey and what brought you to where you're at today yeah so as i said i'm a core engineer i started writing a code i used to still i used to write still i write a code i'm an engineer i'm a coder so and also i'm a problem solver but so in 2008 so i was before i was working for mostly my most of my life i was working for high tech company writing code and solving problems on the itec industry mostly on the infrastructure networking networking and storage compute infrastructure industry uh in 2008 there was a big because of the recession and also consolidation on the infrastructure people are thinking about they need they need to move towards the computing industry at the same time it's not very cheap to accommodate so that's why the cloud came up as a really really best way to how we can able to build the infrastructure cheaper and also it can able to enable most of the people to use the compute infrastructure right so that's how the cloud came in but if you see the so the part of the cloud so that's where we i thought public cloud will solve certain problem and also there was an investment made on the uh the infrastructure private cloud so we have we i thought there is a need for hybrid cloud so when i took the journey after that in 2016 again i'm a more like an entrepreneur so i have to do on my accelerate faster so before you jump off of the second startup let me just jump in real quick so the the idea of the the first startup is you know cloud-based system and now everybody uses the cloud and half people don't really know what the cloud is other than their data all goes somewhere and it doesn't store it on their device and whether they need it it comes but the idea was on that one if i understand it right is you kind of had a hybrid where you had private and public cloud right and i'm just not trying to put words in your mouth so certainly correct me if i'm wrong but it is you know some things you put on the cloud you want to remain private meaning nobody can access only you can access is secure and you know it's data while other things you want to share publicly and you want to be able to share to multiple people so at the time it was how do you're making a cloud system that you can keep the things you want private private all the things you want to share make public or make it publicly available is that about right uh uh so there was you're right on the private cloud and public cloud but there was a need for the hybrid cloud what i mean by that is like so think about it you want a car that's your private you want a infrastructure you want a car still there is a need for you to for you go for a long vacation or when your car whatever it is still you need a policing car or a rental car right so think about the same analogy from an infrastructure perspective so you need to have your own private infrastructure if you use it very heavily or if you use it like a periodically on-demand basis then rental car is best but you only use it for a certain period of time lease car is best so think about analogy perspective you want a lease car you want a rental car i want a one car so there is a need for how i can able to use both whenever is needed so that's what the lease car is the model where so you still want it for a one year but after that if you want to give up right so how you can able to build the infrastructure infrastructure with accommodate both public and private based on your business needs that's what hybrid clouds are like private and public clouds provide the needs what is needed for the business provides even more agility okay no that makes sense so so you built the private cloud or sorry private slash public hybrid cloud in order to provide that and then i think after you go grew that for a while was the company quiet or it seemed like that you took or that when we talked a little bit before you had the core you know almost a core team that when worked on another business together so how did that work so i was about to raise the money seriously so we got a seed money for a half a million dollar so after that with that we built the product we built a couple of customers we took this journey for a one one year one enough years uh actually one year so after that we want to raise uh serious a money so when we are trying to see a raise or seriously money it's a 2008 financial crisis so the environment was not very good and also the cloud is too early on the market so we were too early people are not even know what is public cloud private cloud we started introducing the another terminology hybrid cloud so the market was very confused and although they're not ready to consume so what happened was we the whole core team like the core team we went and part of the other business and started helping them to build their product and do that okay now that makes sense so so then you had the core team went and did that for a period of time and then you said okay now we want to go back into the startup life you want to go back to the startup realm and engage and do that yeah once again so how did you come up with you know what it and that's where you're at today right is with the tenosis and and how did you come up with that idea and what made you decide to jump back out go back out and uh do yet another startup and and go through that down that path again so i'm a more technologist so i always look for where is the technology is going right so for example if you see my whole uh career path in 2003 we were talking about 3g and 4g attack time cellular itself is a two there is no phones mobile phones mobile phones are like a bricks so that time we are thinking about how the wireless can enable all the mobile like you feel the internet everything on your mobile in 2003 and in 2000 five six we started thinking infrastructure as a service where more like a cloud how people are can use infrastructure as a cloud as a service rather than building your own infrastructure in 2014 i started seeing the artificial intelligence the way you build your application on the computer infrastructure or the way you run your application it will be totally changed the way you build it so today if you see the most of the people builders you you acquire a talent you give the spec you ask them to build it right like how nasa gives a spec to some contractor they build it right but ai is going to change that so ai what yeah the way ai dork is like you give the data i try to learn the requirements and learning from the data as a human as the domain expertise then i'm going to build a code for you right that's like how you can able to build the requirement from the data then build the product and application so that's what the ai will completely change the way there is nobody is not going to give a requirement to my expertise it's going to more learn from the data so when i saw that okay i see there is opportunity since i'm an entrepreneur and i'm a startup guy i really work in a very small environment because i i nimble agility go faster it's a more entrepreneurial characteristics right so when i saw it's 2016 i decided okay that's a time i think it's a time for me to go out and start another one and yeah ai technology is the one which is going to be accelerate next decade as a big technology horizontal enabler in all industries okay no that makes sense so one question i almost had with all of that as you know you you come up with a new idea you get the second startup going you you bring the core team back to do you know tackle that again you know what was the diff or what or maybe it was or was there wasn't different when you're looking at the old startup and that original experience when you did the first one versus the one you're working on today you know was it a lot the same field did you learn lessons did you do a better job the second time did you make more mistakes a second time or kind of what was the difference in that experience between the two different businesses the tech like the problem perspective more technology area right so if you see from a domain perspective it's a pure technology technology enabler from a business perspective the first startup was more like i'm more like a technology enabler and i had a partner who does the business enabler right so that time i didn't have a much business experience so we kind of grew apartment with one more person was kind of build the team so if you see the fact startup is more like um i would say the first startup is more like a you you kind of try to accelerate so many things in a much more faster way try to doesn't have a that try to gauge what is going on from external forces perspective right at the end of the day you need to make sure whatever your problem solving is make sure the external forces the equal system or the the the business environment make sure it fits the timing trend everything has to be in align for you to be make it a sustainable business the first startup is much we are more like like a technology enabler let's go do this let's force the force it to make it enabling so that's kind of a first startup the second startup is like i learned a lot of things from the first startup second startup is like always listen to the customer listen to the domain expertise listen to the market what is going on still you disrupt but you don't just go disrupt because you want to disrupt try to learn what is really what is the transformation happening if it is too early they won't get it if it is too late already there will be too much crowd right so you have to be on the timing perspective how you messaging the storytelling that is very very very critical you can tell the same problem in a different way so how you can message it what you are doing in a much more consumable way on that timing perspective on that particular so today if you take ai and ml is the end users are ready to consume l and ml in the right way so rather than using ai and ml what is the right way to message it so the consumer will get it so that way they can able to see the value of what we are building okay no that makes good sense so now as you've been in the you know the tino systems for a while and for a good period of time as you guys have been working and building that if you're to take kind of the next six months to a year kind of what you guys are going to be working on kind of you know where do you see that going and you know what's what's the trajectory you guys are going to take yeah so if you take any startup there's a three phases right number one is validation phase where you make sure there is a what problem you're solving your technical problem in line with the business problem in line with a niche so you find a niche a target customer for that saying and you make sure everything works together so that's the first phase so we already completed the past three years our initial validation phase so we have a couple of customers they're paying it they're using the service now we try to see from a go to the next one two years we want to understand from a go-to-market strategy perspective right so what is how we are going to scale this business and how we are going to sustainable business by scaling the business and also sustaining it so that's what the next two years focus will be how we are going to build this business much more sustainable and much more so either you go with the partner ecosystem or you go with the thing so figuring out from a go to a market society perspective how we can able to grow this business um okay so excuse me so now if we're to kind of jump into so you're doing that now and maybe in one thing we jumped over just a little bit so the current business tino assists or you know what is the business and i know you know we talked a little bit about it kind of is looking at ai and analytics to make a customer experience better right but maybe just give a bit more of an insight as to kind of what is the current business what are you guys doing and how is it different than what's already out in the marketplace yeah so that's that's a great question so what you know this does is like stenosis enables the businesses to do serve their customer better so what that means is if you take a customer experience you have three stages of customer experience so first stage of the customer experience is your early customer or your new customer customer adoption customer acquisition that's the first phase of the customer how you identify your new customer your target customer and the second stage is like when you grow the business how you are going to onboard your customer faster how you are making sure you are satisfying your customer on the growth phase right that's the second stage of customer experience and the third stage is like you establish business you are you're already a long-term business how you can able to retain your customer so acquiring a customer engage make sure you're delivering the customer what is required and just retaining the customer right these three phases and if you take any part of the company there's a three stages of the company one of the early stage of the company one is the growth phase of the company and mature stage of the company so every stage of the company people have a different kinds of customer experience made if you take an early stage of the company you want to make sure they going very fast and they don't have enough resources they don't have enough tools so they want to use the existing tools available the public data available to help them to acquire the customer faster so that's that's where we are helping we are helping we are gathering the data from uh public data and try to help them to understand the market better and make sure they are able to get the customer faster that's the first phase of the customer that's what we are helping how we can able to help the any early stage of the company to get the customer faster acquire the new customer faster and the second is the growth phase company right growth phase company has certain data with them and also they're growing fast they don't have enough resources but they want to deliver faster so there what we are doing is like we kind of taking the existing data existing tools and we're trying to providing the analytics and prescriptive descriptive analysis to be able to see how part of the customer engagement onboarding perspective where is the where is the problem how they can able to build the strategy so that's what we are providing the customer experience system very specifically on the growth company and retaining company we kind of using the existing data try to see what does the current model work how you retain the customer maybe you slip the customer you don't have much visibility so the stage growth stage of like a very growth stage or a mature stage of the company we are helping them to how you retain your customer how you can able to make sure your customers are not going away from that so this is the three stage of the company we are using different kinds of the data one is public data one is hybrid of public data and private data the mature companies completely their data try to get their data try to analyze their data and provide the insights very specific on customer experience to give the visibility on their customer segmentation customer sentiment customer uh frustration whatever it is so what is their customer feelings and segmentation so they can able to take a right strategy right action to make sure make the customer experience better that's what we're building a platform as a service and also we provide some customization on top of it using our partner ecosystem professional service partner ecosystem they kind of help us to build the customization for our customers so that's what we're providing we have we are building customer experience uh analytics platform as a service so and also parallelly building the professional services ecosystem to help our customers to customize their needs on our platform okay no i think that's a good explanation so thank you so okay now as we kind of uh as we talk through you know your journey and you've gone through the first startup you went you know went and worked with another company for a period of time with the core team now we're doing the second startup you guys are looking to grow into the different areas um you know and all that so maybe what we'll do now is jump into i always ask two questions at the end of the podcast and so we'll go ahead and jump to those now so the first question i always ask was what was the worst business decision you ever made so if i take if i take my first startup so i exited too early so there should be a different way say startups are like right what is startup it's all about you accelerate the problem faster so most of the time what we do is like we kind of get into the panic mode oh i cannot get the customer i cannot raise the money i cannot able to do that right so there is always way to find it's not about all about money right you are able to fight if you have a convention and if you have that desire to solve that problem you always find a way so the first decisions like we decided too early we kind of panicked in the first time i kind of panicked in the first time oh oh financial crisis is happening i cannot raise the money how i'm going to do it oh let's go find somebody to hug it so immediately we kind of wind up cool too quickly in one hour one and a half years we made the decision we really but that was amazing market right hybrid cloud is a that's a real problem now today if you see microsoft is acquired so many companies on that area hybrid cloud vmware all this hypervisor uh sorry orchestrations so there are so many kind of companies acquired on this area and microsoft is a leader vmware and microsoft so we kind of missed that boat because of we tapped out very early that's a one of the worst decision i made in this business okay so basically you know the mistake was exiting the first company too early and not not seeing it through or taking to the point you necessarily would have wanted to so okay so because we jump to the the second question is um you know if you were to take if you're talking to someone that's just getting into a startup or small business just get your starting out what would be the one piece of advice you'd give them so it's always i always talk about three points right number one make sure you find the right partner so you can it's all about people see business is all about if you want to solve the problem it's all about teamwork by yourself you can do certain things it's you always need to have somebody who can able to challenge you at the same time so try to find a re correct partner which is in align with your personality or culture what one number two try to make sure you pick the problem where you're comfortable with your domain a lot of it takes a lot of time to learn anything it looks everything simple it always looks like oh that's easy but it takes time to learn anything so make sure what is the domain you want to pick up or you have some history behind the domain either your partner or you or your core team make sure you have enough expertise on that domain and pick that domain everything looks simple but when you dig deeper domain expert is really really critical the third thing is like do the homework talk to as many people as possible try to gather as much data as possible data data data data information information information if you don't have information as a human beings we have impulse we kind of make a decision really quick sometimes it doesn't have enough information if you make the decision once you make the decision you follow that decision for a three to six month then you figure it out it's a problem it's too late it takes a lot of energy at some point you lose your energy so it's always important to gather enough information before making delaying in addition if it's okay but once you make the decision you have to stick to it but make sure you make the right decision by gathering enough data and talking about them okay no i think that's good i mean data can be used for a lot of things but i think even in early startup getting the data about what your customer wants how they can help it what the you know what the everything from the what the market will pair to pricing to what they want in the in the product and all sorts of things there's a lot of data that can be gathered and a lot of things that can be garnered from you know from that data that you know too oftentimes you just want to get to building the product just want to get to solving the problem without having the full set of data so i certainly think that's a helpful uh insider you know helpful thing that for people you know they're getting into startups to know so so as people want to as they as they you know is people want to get involved with your product get to learn more about it reach out to you invest in you whatever the case may be you know if it connect up with you what's the base best way to reach out and connect with you yeah please email me at a n b a a n b a unborntenosus.com or linkedin search on my name ambassadors and and connect through the linkedin linkedin is the best way to reach out it's easy to search easy to connect so please reach out to me either via email or through linkedin awesome well i certainly invite everybody to reach out to you get to learn more a little more about tinosis see if it's right for you and for your customer service needs and also to connect up with onboard any questions or any or anything that you have for him so thank you again for coming on the podcast it's been fun to talk about your journey and how it's going and uh uh wish you all the the next leg of your journey or the best and for all of those people or all of you that are out there that are wanting to tell your journey and share that um feel free to go to inventivejourneyguest.com and you can apply to be a guest on the show and if you're a listener make sure to subscribe to um excuse me uh make sure to subscribe to the channel so that you can get a make sure to get notifications for this uh this episode and all the new episodes and certainly if you need any help with the patents and trademarks feel free to reach out to us at miller ip law thank you again onboard it has been a pleasure to have you on and to hear your journey and wish you the best best next leg of your journey okay thank you davin thanks for having me it's really enjoyed talking to you and thanks [Music] English (auto-generated) All Cryptocurrency Recently uploaded