November 9, 2024 • 30 mins
Ever had that sinking feeling something's wrong with your boat? This week, we're trading land for water as we chat with Matija Jasarov, Co-founder and CEO of VisionAnchor, who turned a frightening personal experience into a game-changing solution for maritime safety.
In this episode, you'll hear how a successful music and video producer pivoted to maritime tech after his anchored boat drifted perilously close to shore during what should have been a relaxing swim. Learn how this wake-up call led Matija and his co-founders to develop a smart anchoring system that's making waves in the boating industry.
We dive deep into:
Available wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Sunday.
In this episode, you'll hear how a successful music and video producer pivoted to maritime tech after his anchored boat drifted perilously close to shore during what should have been a relaxing swim. Learn how this wake-up call led Matija and his co-founders to develop a smart anchoring system that's making waves in the boating industry.
We dive deep into:
- The dramatic origin story of VisionAnchor
- How their smart anchor monitoring system works
- The challenges of building hardware startups
- Slovenia's emerging startup ecosystem
- The unexpected environmental impact of proper anchoring
- Key lessons for entrepreneurs navigating uncharted waters
Available wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Sunday.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the Startup Still Say podcast. Thank you for
tuning in. Do us a favor like subscribe on YouTube
or LinkedIn and be sure to give us your feedback.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hope you enjoy this episode. Hello everyone, this is Anthony Prakash.
Welcome to a brand new episode of Startups They'll Say.
I'm super happy to welcome Matiha from Vision. He's a
founder and CEO and we're going to be talking to
him about a topic I know very little about about sailing, boating,
(00:30):
anchoring and things like that. But guess what I mean.
He thinks there's a superb opportunity there to make sailing
and boating safe and efficient and climate conscious for anyone
who is out there in the waters. So, Matia, welcome
to the show.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Thanks for having me, Anthony, super appreciate it. I'd love
to tell you about what we do and how we
came across it.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, awesome, Thanks for taking the time. So I know
you're from Slovenia or my first guest from Slovenia, or
I've had guests from Germany in the past. Why didn't
you kick us off, Mitia by telling us a little
bit about yourself? I mean, having gone through your background.
I mean, you come from a very different background before
(01:18):
to sailing and boating. So just to maybe talk us
through your life in Slovenia, Lubiana and what brought you
to vision I so to speak.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Yeah, so basically I come from a background of creative
I started like my career or my interest in the
music industry. So I played bass, I still play bass.
I had a band like thisenturing around Europe. Then actually
went to the UK to study music as we all
(01:51):
once wanted to be rock stars and say for a while,
started doing like music production as well, and that got
me into video. So then I moved back and did
a masters in video and new media.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
So visually.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
And yeah, kind of the creative aspect always was interesting
to me, like connecting music and then video. Then basically
I started my own video production company, which was pretty cool,
working for big clients like Amazon, Energizer, Bok Slug and others.
But yeah, then a few years ago, one of the
(02:31):
co founders and I we rented a boat in Croatia
and we were anchored in a beautiful bay and went
for a swim, and then we got back on the
boat and we found out we moved and we were
like fifteen meters close to shore and we almost scratched.
So we said, okay, let's raise the anchor to get
(02:52):
it out of there, but the chain was really light,
so we knew, like, okay, something is wrong. Basically, we
lost the anchor.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
And we had no idea.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
So that got us thinking like, okay, yeah, we're we're
pretty fresh with like operating a vote, but are we
incapable of doing this or is this something that happens
to other people as well? And that kind of got
us into starting a company that solves this, Like as
we started doing interviews with hundreds of captains of different
(03:26):
ages and skill level. At first we thought, okay, this
could be something that I know, younger or fresh boat
operators experience, but then we saw it's like a global
problem and even experienced captains.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Like experience it.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
So so yeah, we said, okay, let's let's make a
solution for this.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Then we start like brainstorming how we can do this.
We started chatting to Andread Thread co founder Yeah, and
then we came up with a smart guy. So it's
a well and place solution that attaches to any anchor
and transmits the data to the users.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
So they can stay safe.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Fascinating. I mean, it's it's amazing. You know how many
founders go through the pain of, you know, just the
personal experience of you know, the problem that they're trying
to solve for, and that is like, you know, when
everything clicks and say, okay, I mean, this could be
an opportunity to do that. But given given the fact that,
(04:34):
I mean, you you've done nothing related to you know,
this this sort of venture, especially say, I mean obviously
you didn't tech music and things like that too, going
going into unchartered waters literally right with with something like anchoring.
I mean, what made what gave you the conviction to say, okay,
(04:57):
you know what I mean, I have it in me
to go solve for something like this. And obviously you've
picked a couple of co founders look like to solve
for this. I mean, what was that thought process?
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Like, Yeah, the thing was, we're we're we've all like
built some kind of products in the past, like nothing
at this scale before. Like Andre he he was was
marketing like a kickstar campaign for a stand up paddle
board that's motorized. It was called Superboards that got like
(05:29):
seven hundred k on Kickstarter. So he had like a
bit of experience with startups in the past as well.
Andrea and I we we started like sailing the sea
has always been close to us, and we're we were
all like a little bit nuts, like I guess most
founders are, because you go against the world by making
(05:51):
something that will like you built from zero to something
that becomes used by everyone in the industry, right, Like
that's the goal. So yeah, we we didn't think that
hard like into the future. We just said, okay, how
can we solve how can we make it? So we
went through iterations of iterations of the product. So initially
(06:14):
we thought, okay, let's make a smart anchor, like that's
an actual anchor, but people don't like changing their anchors
and not want anchor works on all surfaces equally. So
you have like an anchor that's going to hold really
well in sand, you have an anchor that's better for
like mud or rocks, and people are attached to it.
(06:35):
So yeah, then in the end and they came up
with like a solution that said, okay, let's let's do
an anchor BUI. So it's it's a floating device that
attaches to the anchor and it floats on top. It
used to be it was used to mark the position
of the anchor so you can see it like from
it both so you know, okay, it's there, and for
(06:56):
anyone that's coming into the anchorage, they know okay that
boats like anchors there, so I'm not going to go
across it. Then we made it smart. The initial idea
a little bit connects connects a bit with with our
past because the initial idea was let's put a camera
on it as well. So we built a prototype of
a camera pully so you could see it on your
(07:17):
phone as well. And that was that was like the trigger.
That was amazing, Like anyone who saw it was, oh,
this is awesome. But then yeah, with the feedback with
the market that we got like from the boat shows
like we can, like a lot of sail boat owners
are make it lighter, make it smaller. So yeah, we
(07:39):
we pivoted and changed the product like fifteen times until
we got to what it is now.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
That is awesome. So speaking of what it is now
versus you know, just looking back right, I mean, how
has your journey been? I mean how long have you
been at this with you here? And what stage are
you in in terms of say adoption. You mentioned you know,
you've been to a bunch of these boat shows and elsewhere.
Obviously you're based in Slovenia. I mean, you have so
(08:09):
much of water bodies, whether it's you know, the Mediterranean
or other season round. I mean, I see the passion
for it. I mean, especially in your part of the world.
I mean, but speak a little bit about where you
are in your journey, I mean, what stage is Vision
Anchor in and what do your plans say for the
next eighteen to twenty four months.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yeah, we started in the middle of the pandemic, so
in twenty twenty, where with the initial idea we went
through like the first incubator, which likeily put us on
the path that not being stuck in a garage and
just building, but actually going out and talking to people
to see what the most were the biggest pain lies.
(08:52):
So yeah, with the iterations from the initial camera buoy,
which was too big, too heavy, too complex to build
a scale for Star, that just started to basically with
the right people on the team, with the right advisors,
we we got to like a product that's modular that
(09:12):
we're using additive manufacturing. So basically we can iterate quite
quickly and build them anywhere we want, and yeah, smaller, lighter, better.
So we went through the tech Stars program a few
months ago and yeah, there they they helped us out
(09:33):
with like the big vision. So we started, like we
made ten data units that we sent around the world
to get the feedback and now basically we we've done
some pre orders. We sold out the first batch of units,
and we started doing deliveries after three years to the
first customers that ordered the units a few months ago.
(09:58):
So yeah, it really the path was ups and downs
because none of us have built like a hardware product
in the past, and it was learning something new each week,
basically coming from different backgrounds, like we all had links
to it, but none of us have worked on a
(10:20):
physical like electronics product that has that needs to survive
in harsh environments like sea salt, like high temperatures and
low So yeah, that was definitely fun. But yeah, going
back the plan for the next two years in twenty five, definitely,
the US market is one of our goals. We've had
(10:42):
a lot of interest, Like we weren't even marketing in
the US, and people keep finding us and sending us messages.
Hey can we can you ship one to the US.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
I love to have it.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
So that's one of our biggest goals. Like we've we've
done test campaigns in the Mediterranean. We've got a few
distributors here in New as well. So yeah, the next
logical goal is the US and yeah, Australia.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Yeah, I mean I can see for sure that the
US market would be super super hot for this. I mean,
once you get it going and people have I mean,
you know, I live in the San Francisco Bay Area.
I mean the number of boats docked in you know,
every every new con ConA where you see water, all
of them can potentially use it, right, Yeah, so switching
(11:30):
gears a little bit.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
You.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
One of the questions I had in my mind is,
I mean, when you decided saying you and your co
founders saying decided saying, Okay, this is an opportunity. And
amongst all your interviews and speaking to captains and all
of that, I mean, obviously speaking to them is one thing,
but looking at it from a market perspective and understanding, okay,
(11:53):
here's the market potential. What what would you say, is
the market opportunity be out there in terms of you know,
just rough dollars so to speak.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Yeah, we've done some research. We've looked into like how
many boats are there in the world, and there is
like twenty million boats registered each year in Europe, USA
and Australia, which is a surprising number. But the sweet
spot for us is like boats between twenty five and
seventy five feet because people spend their nights on these boats, right,
(12:30):
and that's where the pain is the biggest, because you
don't know what's happening you when you're asleep, you listen
for any sound, right, Okay, especially if the weather changes,
Like if there's a storm coming and you're on anchor,
you're not sleep even if like there's some wind and
you're still pretty close to shore. The person who's in
charge on that boat is not going to get a
(12:51):
lot of shot at So this is like the biggest
pain point. But obviously we're looking at as well. So
you've got like charter companies that want to have like
an overview what's happening. So if there's an unpredictable storm coming,
which is happening more and more, they know like, okay,
these guys seem to be anchored pretty well. Okay, these
(13:15):
guys seem to be dragging every night, so maybe have
something ready to go say them that comes to worse
And yeah, some like commercial fleets of smaller vessels that
have to be on some location anchored for a while
because it takes away. Like normally with bigger vessels, you
(13:35):
need a person a crew member that's in charge for
anchor watch overnight, right, so they have to keep checking
the GPS and see if the boat's moved or what's happening.
So and even that fails sometimes. This way they could
just have like an app on a smart watch and
just make sure if anything starts to happen to get
(13:58):
a notification instantly.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Got it. And before you started developing this, I mean
did you kind of scan the market to see if
there's anything like this out there? I mean, do you
have any competitors doing anything similar?
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (14:13):
The first thing was obviously okay, as someone invented this,
how are people solving it at the moment?
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Right? Was?
Speaker 1 (14:20):
And the first like initially we started with the video
and the most common answer was, well, I jump in
the water and I go check physically if my anchor
is holding.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
But if you look at.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
It, that's assurance, which lasts until you get back on
the boat. The wind changes, that the weather changes in
the middle of the night, they're not going to go
check it. So a lot of people are using like
anchor alarm apps, so they track your phone's position, so
you're on the boat and then the boat moves. It's
(14:54):
doing calculations right where the anchor should be, where the
boat is, but your phone's GPS can for like thirty
feet and what happens You get alarms in the middle
of the night, false alarms, which just gets you frustrated,
and then you give up, you turn it off and
then you don't sleep.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
There are, like.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Lately a few other similar solutions coming to the market,
ones like I can mentioned the Anchor Guardian or a
Swiss company startup. It's got a solution that actually attaches
to the anchor, but there ain't more like super odds
bigger boats. It requires a modification to the hull. Yeah,
(15:37):
there's like some other smart buoys, but where we basically
start creating the market category of like smart anchor buoy,
that smart anchoring.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Yeah, that is always fascinating, you know, even in a startup,
I was we were trying to disrupt the market by
creating a brand new category. The exercise that you go
through to try to do that, I mean it is scary,
but pretty fascinating for a lot of big companies have
succeeded in that model. So go ahead.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
You need to educate the people about it, like there's
there's the caveat to it, right, Like, yeah, we're creating
a new market category. Awesome that if people don't know
what it is and you need to, you need to
do like some educating, like introducing the solution to the
people so they know what to search for.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Yeah, And you mentioned app a couple of times that
the booty tries to connect to these So is there
a you know, a live connectivity needed for in your
phone or I mean, let's say in the middle of
the water, the middle of the ocean rather, I mean,
how does that work? I mean, is it bluetooth or
(16:51):
how do you do that connect to?
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I Like, Anthony, I love it how I said, how
it tries to connect here from Luckily for us, it's
a super secure.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Connection, right.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
The first problem we had was exactly what you mentioned.
So we used Wi Fi for connecting directly from the
phone to the BUI and that was unreliable at times, right,
because I don't know, if you have a boat and
you go like a little bit underwater like where you
normally sleep, but you can lose the connection quite quickly.
So how we solve that was using like an intermediary device.
(17:28):
So you've got like a base unit that you install
on your boat that communicates with the buoy, and then
the base unit uses the low energy to connect to
your phone, so you have a secure connection. And if
you lose your phone, if your battery runs out, you
have a backup alarm in the base unit as well,
(17:48):
so that's going to start beeping if anything happens.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Yeah. I like that approach. I mean it innovates like
a planning plan B, plan C sort of thing. I
mean especially Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Yeah, and you don't need to be connected to like
LT five G or anything. Sometimes you're anchoring in remote
locations where there's no signal, you don't have like cell signals,
so we wanted to make sure that like the connection
is not reliant on anything else.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, so so far, I mean I love everything I've heard.
You know, this is going to be super useful just
in terms of number one safety, right, safety on the board,
whether it's a commercial vehicle or even on a family trip,
like you said, I mean, you know, just peace of
mind is going to be awesome through this. You've also mentioned,
(18:41):
you know, an impact on climate or sustainability. I mean,
can you explain that a little bit you as to
how this solution caters to that.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Okay, not many people know or many people have started
to find out that most of the oxygen and are
at sphere doesn't come from land for us, but actually
from the sea, and anchoring does a lot of damage
to the to the sea biodiversity. So basically, if you
(19:13):
anchor in a certain spot with with underwater growth, you're
destroying it and that's irreparable damage. Like there are angos
that we're we've been working with that are regrowing the
protected sea grass in the Mediterranean. It's called Posidonia or
oceanicaa just go li. And it's similar like with the
(19:36):
corals and and with other ecosystems.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
And the bigger the anchor, the more the damage.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Right, So you can imagine like if a huge object
falls to the ground and starts dragging all this all
this vegetation, it's destroying it quickly.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
So our initial.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
The video can unit was used to actually start mapping
the seabed like different types of vegetation. Is it sand,
is it grass or anything. And with us here we
want to start getting information from the sea as well.
So number one is mapping out the protected areas. So okay,
(20:23):
is the sea grass which is protected?
Speaker 3 (20:25):
You shouldn't anchor here.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Other things are getting data from the sea so like water,
like sea temperature, wave height, pH additional information that can
be useful because the good thing about it is basically
we can get information about the sea in coastal areas
which are super populated as well as people are using
(20:51):
it with their boats. So far, like big research buoys
weren't able, Like you're not going to put a huge
research bully that tracks data in a hugely populated area.
So with us we can get this in the populated
coastal area, so we can see like any changes in
(21:13):
the environment and the water temperature in the pH which
can start telling you information about changes quickly, or like
wave height.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
I don't know if one.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Of the boots starts notifying okay, there's huge waves fifty
miles in that direction and the weather forecast.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Didn't get it.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
It cannot fight like all the other people in the
area as well. Okay, something's happening, so there's a lot
to go into here. Where at the start of this journey,
our initial like offering is based on safety, but we
this is like where we're moving into and this is
really important to us, so we're not like just another
(21:56):
piece of plastic in the ocean, but actually or the.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Good helpful plastic.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, I love it. I love it. I mean, you know, yeah,
and I learned a bunch through that answer that. I mean,
I had no idea. I mean, you know how much
damage those anchors are crossing in the bottom of the
ocean when you drop it, And yeah, I mean the other.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Some countries actually started finding people for anchoring in these areas.
I think Spain and the bally Eric Islands. They monitor
the anchors and they check. People can get fined up
to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for anchoring in
these areas. So the governments are starting to.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Notice as well.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
So oh wow, okay, that is great to know. Thank
thanks to that. I'm gonna shift gears a little bit. Mitia.
I mean, since you're from Slovenia, you're from Lubiana as well.
I've heard through friends of mine about a startup culture
or a startup ecosystem of so I mean, even though
Slovenia is a small country, you can be a brand
(23:03):
ambassador for Slovenia and Lobiana for a couple of minutes
and tell us a little bit about that that particular
ecosystem for those who don't know.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Yeah, like Slovenia is a super small country. We've got
like two million people here, but there are some some
well known names like now since today the first lady
is Slovenian again, and we've got Luka Doncic for any
basketball fans. But yeah, the stars system for the size
(23:34):
of the country is amazing.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Player.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
I feel like the amount there aren't like many unicorns,
but I think on the amount of numbers, like the
amount of startups events accelerators here and the funds that
enable startups to to get like some European funds, it's
(24:00):
it's amazing. So I guess that's the good thing about
it that we're small, because you can quickly like get
in touch with everyone else. So yeah, and there's accelerators
and incubators that are helping the super super early ones
to get started, like ABC Accelerators where we started. You've
(24:24):
got the Libyana University Incubator as well, Miladi Pugetnik, which
is like a young entrepreneur, and many others like in
most cities as well. Quotem's a great conference as well,
that's seriously amazing every year. I would recommend coming if
anyone's in the area. And yeah, it's really super cool.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Thank you very much for that. And as a founder,
I mean, in a way I would say, you're already
a serial entrepreneur given your video production company and now
this and you know what you've been trying to do.
I mean, are there any common patterns that you've seen
as a founder where I mean, what are some of
those hard learnt lessons for you as a founder through
(25:13):
the years. I mean, for those listening, this is a
startup focus and there's a lot of you know, want
to be founders tuning into this one. Any message you
have in terms of, you know, what are your core
principles as a founder or as an entrepreneur.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Yeah, apparently a few fails in the past obviously as well.
And the most times that I failed was I started
building something before actually testing the market, right, So the
first thing like test the market for free. That's that
was something like fail fast and fail cheap, and like,
don't put money into something if you don't know, like
(25:50):
until you have some sort of a demand. Obviously you're
not going to have a perfect market fit from the start,
but pivoting changing and actually find out finding out that
there is a demand instead of just shuffling money into it.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Oh okay, I'm not targeting the right people. Oh okay,
I'm not.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Just putting cash into ads a few times in the past,
but actually having a product that people want or need.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
That's that's something that's really important because yeah, you mentioned
that a Slovenia and Slovenia are Slovenians are traditionally very
very engineering focused.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
So everyone's going to build the product in their garage for.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Three years and then they're going to launch it and
sometimes no one's going to buy it, and then you're
like instead of like more, if you look at the US,
it's like I'm going to talk about it, I'm gonna
go share the news, I'm going to go ask people,
I'm going to get feedback on it. So yeah, i'd say,
like the big the biggest core was actually getting something
(26:54):
out there that the people want. And with the Vision
Anchor as well, like we started with a more expensive
other that was more complex to build a bigger, heavier
which was great and we did have a lot of demand,
but basically the feedback from a much bigger piece of
the market was make it lighter, make it smaller. I
(27:15):
don't need the camera. I've got a sailing boat. Like
any like space is super tight. So like anything that's
does big, if it can be big, it's a win.
So yeah, iterations until until you find that sweet spot.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Okay, that is that is great input. You know, obviously
fail fast, failed cheap is I think an ever evergreen message.
But everything else you said made supercent. So just to
wrap up into your back to Vision Anchor, just in
terms of where you are in the company, the next steps,
(27:52):
I mean, are you fundraising, I mean are you looking
for people to reach out to you, if there are
angels out there or what sort of stage are you
in right now for those interested in you know, reaching
out to you, helping you out, partnering and those sort
of connections.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Yeah, definitely. So basically, anyone if you have about reach out,
if you want to try the product if you want.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
To buy it.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
We are raising around eight hundred k pre seed. We've
got a one hundred and fifty committed But yeah, like
I said, with this, the plan is we're going to
be profitable quite quickly in twenty five, but we want
to grow faster, right, We don't want to do badges
of fifty units or one hundred units and then again
(28:41):
doing pre orders. We want to grow faster, so we
want to go quickly to doing batches of five hundred units.
Actually having a budget to like push marketing harder to get,
like more distributors on board so we can like create
more stock and chip it out. The demands really like
easy to get. Like whenever we introduce this, whoever needs
(29:05):
it and understands it is immediately Okay, when can I
get it? So the plan, yeah, in twenty five is
to grow faster US market. Like, if you're in the
US and like have any links to the voting industry, yeah,
just reach out. We're also at the web summit in Lisbon.
(29:28):
If anyone's there, come and say hi. We're also pitching,
so come and support. Yeah, next year, I'm sure we're
going to be in the US a lot a few
boat shows like Tampa, Miami, Annapolis probably as well. So yeah,
happy to meet anyone.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
That is a great input for anyone listening. So with
thanks so much for taking the time explaining to the
audience about Anchor. That is a super unique but very
problem that you're trying to solve for so on behalf
of my show. Wishing you guys all the best. We'll
stay in touch and I'll publish all the information about
(30:11):
Anchor and how they can reach out to you as
a part of the show. Thanks so much for joining me.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Thanks Anthony, been a pleasure. Yeah, Bux a great day.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Here as well.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
Bye.
This is the Startup Still Say podcast. Thank you for
tuning in. Do us a favor like subscribe on YouTube
or LinkedIn and be sure to give us your feedback.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hope you enjoy this episode. Hello everyone, this is Anthony Prakash.
Welcome to a brand new episode of Startups They'll Say.
I'm super happy to welcome Matiha from Vision. He's a
founder and CEO and we're going to be talking to
him about a topic I know very little about about sailing, boating,
(00:30):
anchoring and things like that. But guess what I mean.
He thinks there's a superb opportunity there to make sailing
and boating safe and efficient and climate conscious for anyone
who is out there in the waters. So, Matia, welcome
to the show.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Thanks for having me, Anthony, super appreciate it. I'd love
to tell you about what we do and how we
came across it.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, awesome, Thanks for taking the time. So I know
you're from Slovenia or my first guest from Slovenia, or
I've had guests from Germany in the past. Why didn't
you kick us off, Mitia by telling us a little
bit about yourself? I mean, having gone through your background.
I mean, you come from a very different background before
(01:18):
to sailing and boating. So just to maybe talk us
through your life in Slovenia, Lubiana and what brought you
to vision I so to speak.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Yeah, so basically I come from a background of creative
I started like my career or my interest in the
music industry. So I played bass, I still play bass.
I had a band like thisenturing around Europe. Then actually
went to the UK to study music as we all
(01:51):
once wanted to be rock stars and say for a while,
started doing like music production as well, and that got
me into video. So then I moved back and did
a masters in video and new media.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
So visually.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
And yeah, kind of the creative aspect always was interesting
to me, like connecting music and then video. Then basically
I started my own video production company, which was pretty cool,
working for big clients like Amazon, Energizer, Bok Slug and others.
But yeah, then a few years ago, one of the
(02:31):
co founders and I we rented a boat in Croatia
and we were anchored in a beautiful bay and went
for a swim, and then we got back on the
boat and we found out we moved and we were
like fifteen meters close to shore and we almost scratched.
So we said, okay, let's raise the anchor to get
(02:52):
it out of there, but the chain was really light,
so we knew, like, okay, something is wrong. Basically, we
lost the anchor.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
And we had no idea.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
So that got us thinking like, okay, yeah, we're we're
pretty fresh with like operating a vote, but are we
incapable of doing this or is this something that happens
to other people as well? And that kind of got
us into starting a company that solves this, Like as
we started doing interviews with hundreds of captains of different
(03:26):
ages and skill level. At first we thought, okay, this
could be something that I know, younger or fresh boat
operators experience, but then we saw it's like a global
problem and even experienced captains.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Like experience it.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
So so yeah, we said, okay, let's let's make a
solution for this.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Then we start like brainstorming how we can do this.
We started chatting to Andread Thread co founder Yeah, and
then we came up with a smart guy. So it's
a well and place solution that attaches to any anchor
and transmits the data to the users.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
So they can stay safe.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Fascinating. I mean, it's it's amazing. You know how many
founders go through the pain of, you know, just the
personal experience of you know, the problem that they're trying
to solve for, and that is like, you know, when
everything clicks and say, okay, I mean, this could be
an opportunity to do that. But given given the fact that,
(04:34):
I mean, you you've done nothing related to you know,
this this sort of venture, especially say, I mean obviously
you didn't tech music and things like that too, going
going into unchartered waters literally right with with something like anchoring.
I mean, what made what gave you the conviction to say, okay,
(04:57):
you know what I mean, I have it in me
to go solve for something like this. And obviously you've
picked a couple of co founders look like to solve
for this. I mean, what was that thought process?
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Like, Yeah, the thing was, we're we're we've all like
built some kind of products in the past, like nothing
at this scale before. Like Andre he he was was
marketing like a kickstar campaign for a stand up paddle
board that's motorized. It was called Superboards that got like
(05:29):
seven hundred k on Kickstarter. So he had like a
bit of experience with startups in the past as well.
Andrea and I we we started like sailing the sea
has always been close to us, and we're we were
all like a little bit nuts, like I guess most
founders are, because you go against the world by making
(05:51):
something that will like you built from zero to something
that becomes used by everyone in the industry, right, Like
that's the goal. So yeah, we we didn't think that
hard like into the future. We just said, okay, how
can we solve how can we make it? So we
went through iterations of iterations of the product. So initially
(06:14):
we thought, okay, let's make a smart anchor, like that's
an actual anchor, but people don't like changing their anchors
and not want anchor works on all surfaces equally. So
you have like an anchor that's going to hold really
well in sand, you have an anchor that's better for
like mud or rocks, and people are attached to it.
(06:35):
So yeah, then in the end and they came up
with like a solution that said, okay, let's let's do
an anchor BUI. So it's it's a floating device that
attaches to the anchor and it floats on top. It
used to be it was used to mark the position
of the anchor so you can see it like from
it both so you know, okay, it's there, and for
(06:56):
anyone that's coming into the anchorage, they know okay that
boats like anchors there, so I'm not going to go
across it. Then we made it smart. The initial idea
a little bit connects connects a bit with with our
past because the initial idea was let's put a camera
on it as well. So we built a prototype of
a camera pully so you could see it on your
(07:17):
phone as well. And that was that was like the trigger.
That was amazing, Like anyone who saw it was, oh,
this is awesome. But then yeah, with the feedback with
the market that we got like from the boat shows
like we can, like a lot of sail boat owners
are make it lighter, make it smaller. So yeah, we
(07:39):
we pivoted and changed the product like fifteen times until
we got to what it is now.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
That is awesome. So speaking of what it is now
versus you know, just looking back right, I mean, how
has your journey been? I mean how long have you
been at this with you here? And what stage are
you in in terms of say adoption. You mentioned you know,
you've been to a bunch of these boat shows and elsewhere.
Obviously you're based in Slovenia. I mean, you have so
(08:09):
much of water bodies, whether it's you know, the Mediterranean
or other season round. I mean, I see the passion
for it. I mean, especially in your part of the world.
I mean, but speak a little bit about where you
are in your journey, I mean, what stage is Vision
Anchor in and what do your plans say for the
next eighteen to twenty four months.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yeah, we started in the middle of the pandemic, so
in twenty twenty, where with the initial idea we went
through like the first incubator, which likeily put us on
the path that not being stuck in a garage and
just building, but actually going out and talking to people
to see what the most were the biggest pain lies.
(08:52):
So yeah, with the iterations from the initial camera buoy,
which was too big, too heavy, too complex to build
a scale for Star, that just started to basically with
the right people on the team, with the right advisors,
we we got to like a product that's modular that
(09:12):
we're using additive manufacturing. So basically we can iterate quite
quickly and build them anywhere we want, and yeah, smaller, lighter, better.
So we went through the tech Stars program a few
months ago and yeah, there they they helped us out
(09:33):
with like the big vision. So we started, like we
made ten data units that we sent around the world
to get the feedback and now basically we we've done
some pre orders. We sold out the first batch of units,
and we started doing deliveries after three years to the
first customers that ordered the units a few months ago.
(09:58):
So yeah, it really the path was ups and downs
because none of us have built like a hardware product
in the past, and it was learning something new each week,
basically coming from different backgrounds, like we all had links
to it, but none of us have worked on a
(10:20):
physical like electronics product that has that needs to survive
in harsh environments like sea salt, like high temperatures and
low So yeah, that was definitely fun. But yeah, going
back the plan for the next two years in twenty five, definitely,
the US market is one of our goals. We've had
(10:42):
a lot of interest, Like we weren't even marketing in
the US, and people keep finding us and sending us messages.
Hey can we can you ship one to the US.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
I love to have it.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
So that's one of our biggest goals. Like we've we've
done test campaigns in the Mediterranean. We've got a few
distributors here in New as well. So yeah, the next
logical goal is the US and yeah, Australia.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Yeah, I mean I can see for sure that the
US market would be super super hot for this. I mean,
once you get it going and people have I mean,
you know, I live in the San Francisco Bay Area.
I mean the number of boats docked in you know,
every every new con ConA where you see water, all
of them can potentially use it, right, Yeah, so switching
(11:30):
gears a little bit.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
You.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
One of the questions I had in my mind is,
I mean, when you decided saying you and your co
founders saying decided saying, Okay, this is an opportunity. And
amongst all your interviews and speaking to captains and all
of that, I mean, obviously speaking to them is one thing,
but looking at it from a market perspective and understanding, okay,
(11:53):
here's the market potential. What what would you say, is
the market opportunity be out there in terms of you know,
just rough dollars so to speak.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Yeah, we've done some research. We've looked into like how
many boats are there in the world, and there is
like twenty million boats registered each year in Europe, USA
and Australia, which is a surprising number. But the sweet
spot for us is like boats between twenty five and
seventy five feet because people spend their nights on these boats, right,
(12:30):
and that's where the pain is the biggest, because you
don't know what's happening you when you're asleep, you listen
for any sound, right, Okay, especially if the weather changes,
Like if there's a storm coming and you're on anchor,
you're not sleep even if like there's some wind and
you're still pretty close to shore. The person who's in
charge on that boat is not going to get a
(12:51):
lot of shot at So this is like the biggest
pain point. But obviously we're looking at as well. So
you've got like charter companies that want to have like
an overview what's happening. So if there's an unpredictable storm coming,
which is happening more and more, they know like, okay,
these guys seem to be anchored pretty well. Okay, these
(13:15):
guys seem to be dragging every night, so maybe have
something ready to go say them that comes to worse
And yeah, some like commercial fleets of smaller vessels that
have to be on some location anchored for a while
because it takes away. Like normally with bigger vessels, you
(13:35):
need a person a crew member that's in charge for
anchor watch overnight, right, so they have to keep checking
the GPS and see if the boat's moved or what's happening.
So and even that fails sometimes. This way they could
just have like an app on a smart watch and
just make sure if anything starts to happen to get
(13:58):
a notification instantly.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Got it. And before you started developing this, I mean
did you kind of scan the market to see if
there's anything like this out there? I mean, do you
have any competitors doing anything similar?
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (14:13):
The first thing was obviously okay, as someone invented this,
how are people solving it at the moment?
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Right? Was?
Speaker 1 (14:20):
And the first like initially we started with the video
and the most common answer was, well, I jump in
the water and I go check physically if my anchor
is holding.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
But if you look at.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
It, that's assurance, which lasts until you get back on
the boat. The wind changes, that the weather changes in
the middle of the night, they're not going to go
check it. So a lot of people are using like
anchor alarm apps, so they track your phone's position, so
you're on the boat and then the boat moves. It's
(14:54):
doing calculations right where the anchor should be, where the
boat is, but your phone's GPS can for like thirty
feet and what happens You get alarms in the middle
of the night, false alarms, which just gets you frustrated,
and then you give up, you turn it off and
then you don't sleep.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
There are, like.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Lately a few other similar solutions coming to the market,
ones like I can mentioned the Anchor Guardian or a
Swiss company startup. It's got a solution that actually attaches
to the anchor, but there ain't more like super odds
bigger boats. It requires a modification to the hull. Yeah,
(15:37):
there's like some other smart buoys, but where we basically
start creating the market category of like smart anchor buoy,
that smart anchoring.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Yeah, that is always fascinating, you know, even in a startup,
I was we were trying to disrupt the market by
creating a brand new category. The exercise that you go
through to try to do that, I mean it is scary,
but pretty fascinating for a lot of big companies have
succeeded in that model. So go ahead.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
You need to educate the people about it, like there's
there's the caveat to it, right, Like, yeah, we're creating
a new market category. Awesome that if people don't know
what it is and you need to, you need to
do like some educating, like introducing the solution to the
people so they know what to search for.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Yeah, And you mentioned app a couple of times that
the booty tries to connect to these So is there
a you know, a live connectivity needed for in your
phone or I mean, let's say in the middle of
the water, the middle of the ocean rather, I mean,
how does that work? I mean, is it bluetooth or
(16:51):
how do you do that connect to?
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I Like, Anthony, I love it how I said, how
it tries to connect here from Luckily for us, it's
a super secure.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Connection, right.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
The first problem we had was exactly what you mentioned.
So we used Wi Fi for connecting directly from the
phone to the BUI and that was unreliable at times, right,
because I don't know, if you have a boat and
you go like a little bit underwater like where you
normally sleep, but you can lose the connection quite quickly.
So how we solve that was using like an intermediary device.
(17:28):
So you've got like a base unit that you install
on your boat that communicates with the buoy, and then
the base unit uses the low energy to connect to
your phone, so you have a secure connection. And if
you lose your phone, if your battery runs out, you
have a backup alarm in the base unit as well,
(17:48):
so that's going to start beeping if anything happens.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Yeah. I like that approach. I mean it innovates like
a planning plan B, plan C sort of thing. I
mean especially Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Yeah, and you don't need to be connected to like
LT five G or anything. Sometimes you're anchoring in remote
locations where there's no signal, you don't have like cell signals,
so we wanted to make sure that like the connection
is not reliant on anything else.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, so so far, I mean I love everything I've heard.
You know, this is going to be super useful just
in terms of number one safety, right, safety on the board,
whether it's a commercial vehicle or even on a family trip,
like you said, I mean, you know, just peace of
mind is going to be awesome through this. You've also mentioned,
(18:41):
you know, an impact on climate or sustainability. I mean,
can you explain that a little bit you as to
how this solution caters to that.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Okay, not many people know or many people have started
to find out that most of the oxygen and are
at sphere doesn't come from land for us, but actually
from the sea, and anchoring does a lot of damage
to the to the sea biodiversity. So basically, if you
(19:13):
anchor in a certain spot with with underwater growth, you're
destroying it and that's irreparable damage. Like there are angos
that we're we've been working with that are regrowing the
protected sea grass in the Mediterranean. It's called Posidonia or
oceanicaa just go li. And it's similar like with the
(19:36):
corals and and with other ecosystems.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
And the bigger the anchor, the more the damage.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Right, So you can imagine like if a huge object
falls to the ground and starts dragging all this all
this vegetation, it's destroying it quickly.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
So our initial.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
The video can unit was used to actually start mapping
the seabed like different types of vegetation. Is it sand,
is it grass or anything. And with us here we
want to start getting information from the sea as well.
So number one is mapping out the protected areas. So okay,
(20:23):
is the sea grass which is protected?
Speaker 3 (20:25):
You shouldn't anchor here.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Other things are getting data from the sea so like water,
like sea temperature, wave height, pH additional information that can
be useful because the good thing about it is basically
we can get information about the sea in coastal areas
which are super populated as well as people are using
(20:51):
it with their boats. So far, like big research buoys
weren't able, Like you're not going to put a huge
research bully that tracks data in a hugely populated area.
So with us we can get this in the populated
coastal area, so we can see like any changes in
(21:13):
the environment and the water temperature in the pH which
can start telling you information about changes quickly, or like
wave height.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
I don't know if one.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Of the boots starts notifying okay, there's huge waves fifty
miles in that direction and the weather forecast.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Didn't get it.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
It cannot fight like all the other people in the
area as well. Okay, something's happening, so there's a lot
to go into here. Where at the start of this journey,
our initial like offering is based on safety, but we
this is like where we're moving into and this is
really important to us, so we're not like just another
(21:56):
piece of plastic in the ocean, but actually or the.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Good helpful plastic.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, I love it. I love it. I mean, you know, yeah,
and I learned a bunch through that answer that. I mean,
I had no idea. I mean, you know how much
damage those anchors are crossing in the bottom of the
ocean when you drop it, And yeah, I mean the other.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Some countries actually started finding people for anchoring in these areas.
I think Spain and the bally Eric Islands. They monitor
the anchors and they check. People can get fined up
to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for anchoring in
these areas. So the governments are starting to.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Notice as well.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
So oh wow, okay, that is great to know. Thank
thanks to that. I'm gonna shift gears a little bit. Mitia.
I mean, since you're from Slovenia, you're from Lubiana as well.
I've heard through friends of mine about a startup culture
or a startup ecosystem of so I mean, even though
Slovenia is a small country, you can be a brand
(23:03):
ambassador for Slovenia and Lobiana for a couple of minutes
and tell us a little bit about that that particular
ecosystem for those who don't know.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Yeah, like Slovenia is a super small country. We've got
like two million people here, but there are some some
well known names like now since today the first lady
is Slovenian again, and we've got Luka Doncic for any
basketball fans. But yeah, the stars system for the size
(23:34):
of the country is amazing.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Player.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
I feel like the amount there aren't like many unicorns,
but I think on the amount of numbers, like the
amount of startups events accelerators here and the funds that
enable startups to to get like some European funds, it's
(24:00):
it's amazing. So I guess that's the good thing about
it that we're small, because you can quickly like get
in touch with everyone else. So yeah, and there's accelerators
and incubators that are helping the super super early ones
to get started, like ABC Accelerators where we started. You've
(24:24):
got the Libyana University Incubator as well, Miladi Pugetnik, which
is like a young entrepreneur, and many others like in
most cities as well. Quotem's a great conference as well,
that's seriously amazing every year. I would recommend coming if
anyone's in the area. And yeah, it's really super cool.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Thank you very much for that. And as a founder,
I mean, in a way I would say, you're already
a serial entrepreneur given your video production company and now
this and you know what you've been trying to do.
I mean, are there any common patterns that you've seen
as a founder where I mean, what are some of
those hard learnt lessons for you as a founder through
(25:13):
the years. I mean, for those listening, this is a
startup focus and there's a lot of you know, want
to be founders tuning into this one. Any message you
have in terms of, you know, what are your core
principles as a founder or as an entrepreneur.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Yeah, apparently a few fails in the past obviously as well.
And the most times that I failed was I started
building something before actually testing the market, right, So the
first thing like test the market for free. That's that
was something like fail fast and fail cheap, and like,
don't put money into something if you don't know, like
(25:50):
until you have some sort of a demand. Obviously you're
not going to have a perfect market fit from the start,
but pivoting changing and actually find out finding out that
there is a demand instead of just shuffling money into it.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Oh okay, I'm not targeting the right people. Oh okay,
I'm not.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Just putting cash into ads a few times in the past,
but actually having a product that people want or need.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
That's that's something that's really important because yeah, you mentioned
that a Slovenia and Slovenia are Slovenians are traditionally very
very engineering focused.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
So everyone's going to build the product in their garage for.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Three years and then they're going to launch it and
sometimes no one's going to buy it, and then you're
like instead of like more, if you look at the US,
it's like I'm going to talk about it, I'm gonna
go share the news, I'm going to go ask people,
I'm going to get feedback on it. So yeah, i'd say,
like the big the biggest core was actually getting something
(26:54):
out there that the people want. And with the Vision
Anchor as well, like we started with a more expensive
other that was more complex to build a bigger, heavier
which was great and we did have a lot of demand,
but basically the feedback from a much bigger piece of
the market was make it lighter, make it smaller. I
(27:15):
don't need the camera. I've got a sailing boat. Like
any like space is super tight. So like anything that's
does big, if it can be big, it's a win.
So yeah, iterations until until you find that sweet spot.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Okay, that is that is great input. You know, obviously
fail fast, failed cheap is I think an ever evergreen message.
But everything else you said made supercent. So just to
wrap up into your back to Vision Anchor, just in
terms of where you are in the company, the next steps,
(27:52):
I mean, are you fundraising, I mean are you looking
for people to reach out to you, if there are
angels out there or what sort of stage are you
in right now for those interested in you know, reaching
out to you, helping you out, partnering and those sort
of connections.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Yeah, definitely. So basically, anyone if you have about reach out,
if you want to try the product if you want.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
To buy it.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
We are raising around eight hundred k pre seed. We've
got a one hundred and fifty committed But yeah, like
I said, with this, the plan is we're going to
be profitable quite quickly in twenty five, but we want
to grow faster, right, We don't want to do badges
of fifty units or one hundred units and then again
(28:41):
doing pre orders. We want to grow faster, so we
want to go quickly to doing batches of five hundred units.
Actually having a budget to like push marketing harder to get,
like more distributors on board so we can like create
more stock and chip it out. The demands really like
easy to get. Like whenever we introduce this, whoever needs
(29:05):
it and understands it is immediately Okay, when can I
get it? So the plan, yeah, in twenty five is
to grow faster US market. Like, if you're in the
US and like have any links to the voting industry, yeah,
just reach out. We're also at the web summit in Lisbon.
(29:28):
If anyone's there, come and say hi. We're also pitching,
so come and support. Yeah, next year, I'm sure we're
going to be in the US a lot a few
boat shows like Tampa, Miami, Annapolis probably as well. So yeah,
happy to meet anyone.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
That is a great input for anyone listening. So with
thanks so much for taking the time explaining to the
audience about Anchor. That is a super unique but very
problem that you're trying to solve for so on behalf
of my show. Wishing you guys all the best. We'll
stay in touch and I'll publish all the information about
(30:11):
Anchor and how they can reach out to you as
a part of the show. Thanks so much for joining me.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Thanks Anthony, been a pleasure. Yeah, Bux a great day.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Here as well.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
Bye.
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Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.