January 13, 2025 • 44 mins
From building apps for Indian farmers to revolutionizing podcast production with AI, Sachin Gaur's journey exemplifies purpose-driven innovation. In this episode, we sit down with the founder of Ukumi.ai to explore how his 'tinkerer' mindset and passion for solving real-world problems have shaped his entrepreneurial path.
Sachin takes us through his evolution from an Adobe engineer to a serial entrepreneur, sharing candid stories about the personal experiences that sparked his ventures - including Mobile Harvest and Samajh.ai. We discuss his transformative time in Finland, where conversations with tech pioneers from Nokia, CERN, and Aalto University reshaped his approach to innovation.
We also dive into Sachin's current venture, Ukumi.ai, which is already making waves with its AI-powered media processing technology. Learn how his team secured their first international client and a $500K investment round while staying true to their vision of democratizing content creation.
Listen in as Sachin shares his reading recommendations and explains how figures like APJ Abdul Kalam and JRD Tata have influenced his leadership style.
Sachin takes us through his evolution from an Adobe engineer to a serial entrepreneur, sharing candid stories about the personal experiences that sparked his ventures - including Mobile Harvest and Samajh.ai. We discuss his transformative time in Finland, where conversations with tech pioneers from Nokia, CERN, and Aalto University reshaped his approach to innovation.
We also dive into Sachin's current venture, Ukumi.ai, which is already making waves with its AI-powered media processing technology. Learn how his team secured their first international client and a $500K investment round while staying true to their vision of democratizing content creation.
Listen in as Sachin shares his reading recommendations and explains how figures like APJ Abdul Kalam and JRD Tata have influenced his leadership style.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the Startup Still See podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Thank you for tuning in.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
You is your favorite subscribe on YouTube LinkedIn you.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Enjoyed this episode.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Hello everyone, thanks for joining us today for a brand
new episode of Startups Still Say. As always, I'm your host,
Anthony Prakash, and today I'm delighted to be joined by
such An Ger who is joining us from Finland and
he is currently the co founder of a very exciting
startup called Ukumi, and he will tell us more about it.
(00:34):
But besides that, I mean, he has a fascinating background
as someone who is always looking to solve problems with
startups and products of its own. I had a chance
to meet such and while he was visiting the Bay
Area last year. His being on this podcast is a
testament to how impressed I was with his background and
(00:54):
what he's doing so such in first of all, welcome
to the show. Thanks putting time later evening in your.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Yeah, thinks samely what you said last year, It seems
like just yesterday, But now that the calendar has changed,
it seems like we have to call it last year.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Indeed, indeed, you know, I mean, you know, we just
think twenty twenty four started and it's going to be awesome.
Here we are in twenty twenty five, right, so before
you know it, you're going to be rocking with Kumi
as well.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
Right. So let's so before we get started such.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
An with the company, with what you're currently doing, it'll
be great to tell the audience about who you are,
where you come from, what are you currently working on,
what took you from India to the Nordics, anything at
a high level you can share to kick us off.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
So originally I come from India from a suburb college, Ghaseba, Delhi.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So I did.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
My initial schooling there and then I went to Deli
for my let's say higher education, went for my bachelor's
in Germimilia where I.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Studied computer science and right from.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
The campus I got an opportunity to work for Adobe.
And I think working in Adobe was very transformative for
me because it was, you know, a small company back
then in two thousand and five in India. Of course
it's an American company, but in India they had a
smaller office. And going there as a computer science student,
I realized that you know, you could create file formats,
(02:24):
you can do a lot of things.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I got lucky. While being at Adobe.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
You know, I realized that you could pay into your ideas,
so I got ten in my initial three months, and
that gave me out of kind of confidence that you
could build a lot of stuff in the knowledge economy.
And I started to read about, you know, in general,
on Internet because Ado we had high speed Internet, and
(02:49):
I realized that, you know, that some people were writing
they were like anthropologists.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
That people in India may not.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Use computers, but they use mobile phones as there kind
of first computing device or to connect to Internet. And
I started to look for, you know, where are the
places in the world they build mobile phones, and then
I zeroed upon finl In because no K used to be,
you know, a dominant player making mobile phones back in
those days. So I applied for a master's program. I
(03:18):
got a good scholarship and that's how I ended up
for my masters in film.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
In my master's program was called.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Mobile Computing and Security, and I ended up studying more
security than mobile. But you know, there was this thing
about my own background, coming from a humble background. My
mother still to date do not have a phone, so
I was kind of very interested in can I build
a phone for her?
Speaker 2 (03:43):
So my Masters was.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
All about, you know, dreaming about interface, which is literas neutral.
So I built a contact book because I realized that
most people in India back in those days, if they.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Had a phone, they were not using contact books.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
They were using speed dial, you know, and they like
most people in the rural areas, they would have only
five contacts. And I realized that being privileged, connected online
educated that opportunities come to you if you have more contacts.
I mean, this podcast is an example of that. So
(04:17):
if we have contact, you know, I have the opportunity
to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Right.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
So I see that there may be like smart and
intelligent people, but if they don't have opportunities, you know,
they are where they are.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
And I wanted to change that.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
So I was doing my doptal studies beyond my masters,
and that's when I've got conviction that, you know, I
should leave my research and you know, go back to
India to start my company and a long story shot.
So that's where my kind of entrepreneurial journey started in
twenty ten. And I was always kind of chasing those
(04:55):
problems which are closer to my heart. So, for example,
this thing that I wanted to build like a literacy neutral.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Kind of mobile phone. I ended up building.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
A proto WhatsApp kind of an app called Mobile Harvest
for India. Went to Telangana, which is you know, back
then it was called Andra and spend time during the
entire state because they used to have a lot of
pharma suicides back then. And I built this application which
people could you know, use without reading writing skills by
(05:25):
sending voice messages to each other. And I realized that
they had exact same behaviors as people would have on Facebook,
and people would care about their profile pictures and they
would wish each other happy brother days. And the head
of You and Women in India saw this because somebody
made a film on it and she wanted me to
build this as a as a real company. So sometimes
(05:48):
for me, this kind of pursuit, you know, like they
start with a curiosity, like it's a problem that I
want to solve, but they eventually become like a full venture.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
So it had happened to me in my life.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
I would say a couple of times that I was curious,
I was stuck to something, and you know, I tried
to do something about it, and then eventually it becomes
her company.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
So yeah, that's where I am.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Yeah, fascinating backstory such and first off, I would say,
I mean, I'm a strong believer in being in the
right place at the right time, you know, whenever it's
in your career is super important.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
You know.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Obviously our stars need to align for something like that
to happen, right, So we thank the gods for.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
That, I guess.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
So Adobe is not a bad place, shabby place to
start off your career, right. I've been a big fan
of Adobe for a really long time. I really think
that products are like world class, right, for a long time.
I've attended a bunch of their conferences as well in
Vegas and one of the best put conferences I think
that I've attended from them. So lucky you You've got
(06:52):
to start off your career in Adobe, I mean, and
at least for a long time. I mean, you know,
they were at the forefront of innovation, right, which kind
of is a solid backbone if you will, for where
your career to start. And then from there on, I mean,
you know, obviously you get high speed internet to your
point for you to harness that and use it and
(07:14):
to apply it. Great great story, such an so I
mean one of the things I always ask founders, and
a lot of founder I mean I also believe you know,
there's a little bit of a founder in all of us, right,
I mean we all have ideas, but very few step
out their comfort zone, including myself, and go execute it. Right,
(07:36):
So what gave you that confidence will power to say Okay?
I mean I see this problem and I think I
have an idea to solve for it. I mean, you're
obviously letting go of a good paying job, and you
know you're in your comfort zone. How do you get
that conviction to say okay, I mean I really want
to solve for this. I mean it might fail, right,
(07:57):
but I mean, is there a is there someone in
your life who kind of encourages you or in those
early stages to be a mentor if you will to
go do that.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
I think it's interesting what you say. And I've often
found myself that, especially my parents.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
They were not a lot educated, so I did not
have anyone to go and ask for advice, and I
have to.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Solve things on my own. So in that regard, I
found that independent decision making was one trait where I
really benefited. So I would say that growing up, you know,
in India, in an environment where I did not have
something which I can easily rely upon. I have to
make my own decisions. It's not that they were always
(08:41):
for good, but this ability that I can decide for myself,
I think it's a privilege.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
I would put it that way. So that's probably what
it burlsed on.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Yeah, I mean you know that's the other thing, right,
I mean, I'm so glad you mentioned that because circumstances, right,
I mean, your your family, situation, whom you surround yourself with,
and not every situation is the same, right, So that
that also kind of contributes in a big way to
successful startups, to successful entrepreneurs. And there's always that spark
(09:18):
or that energy that you build up yourself. So good,
thanks for sharing that such an So you did your studies,
you did ado B then you saw okay, I mean,
you know Nordics or Finland is where they're making the
mobile phones at that time. I mean, no, Kio is
like a more dominator, if you will, right, So how
(09:40):
does that shift in environment for you? I mean what
it was it like, oh my god, what did I do?
Or you know, did it give you that sense of freedom, saying, oh,
this is a great stepping stone to what I want
to do next.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Yeah, I think if I simple different points in my life,
like doing my undergrad in one of the universities, it
was quite cheap education and we didn't really know, you know,
what could we do. I mean, if I go back
to college today, maybe I would probably want to do
as many internships and let's say, you know, build a
startup while I'm in the college, because you're really blessed
(10:18):
to have a good you know, team players and you
don't have to search for them while we're in the college.
But we ended up spending our time chasing competitions.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
So for example, me and.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
My classmates were presented at university in a national level
course competition. We wild away time, I would say, while
we were in college. But the Adobe, like I said,
you know, I got a different inspiration through Internet and
I started to learn about things which were very fundamental.
So Adobe was very enriching because people were coming from
(10:52):
a very different approach.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
I would say.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Then, you know, where I was a bit unguided in Jamia,
I got some kind of pathway, you know, the be
that you could protect your idea, you could patent them
things like that. But when I ended up in Finland,
you know, so I was in this program where we
had to go to five countries, so I chose Finland
and Estonia, so Assunia, I did my exchange program, and
(11:18):
I also did my summer insern in a nuclear physics
laboratory in Geneva. Back in those days they were starting
the large hydron collider. So I was really lucky to
be in some of the top most research environments, I
would say in the world. Because in Finland, for example,
one of the professor who came to teachers during my
(11:39):
doctoral studies, he used to have no care for ten years,
so he had seen it all. From ninety six to
two thousand and six, Uria Nehva was the CEO of Mokia,
so he would bring one CEO to our class every week.
And I always tell this to people that my professors
in Finland were saying, light is coming from the east.
(12:00):
I was wondering what I'm doing in the west because
we were writing a book on China.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
So that environment where.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
You could really question anything and think about future because
Nokia was.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Starting to go down.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
I was in Finland from two thousand and seven to
ten so they were not I would say the prime
days of Nokia. These were days when Apple had already
come up with a.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Touchscreen phone and Apple started to dominate.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
And Nokia was already you know, I think sold very
quickly to Microsoft. So for me it was I would say,
the whole mood in Finland was, you know, of self doubt.
You know what happens beyond Nokia. There was a transition period.
Even in our university, they ended up changing the name.
We were called the HERZQ Investor of Technology. It's called
(12:47):
the Alto University. The logo of Alto is a with
a question mark. So the idea was question everything. And
I had the privilege to be in a environment where
it was taught that students can do anything. For example,
my peers in Finland, the student group we started although
Social Impact, which was to connect the social sector people
(13:09):
to the university. My peers they started out the Entrepreneurship Society,
which ended up creating Slush, which is one of the
largest events in the world about entrepreneurship. So in our eyes,
while we were students, we thought we could do anything.
So we would have the prime minister candidate, we would
have the philosophers, we would have all the resources that
we could think of. So I think filling just amplified
(13:32):
my confidence. Like you know, it's like a step by
step process, right, so every exam you crack, every award
that you win, it kind of reinforces your belief that
you can take on a bigger challenge. So I think
for me leaving a pushy job from Adobe to fill in,
my scholarship amount was more than my job salary, so
(13:54):
financially it was not that difficult.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Although if I would have.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Stayed at Adobe the last fifteen years, the stock market
has really rewarded Adobe in that sense, so I would
have probably not been a bad decision to stay at Adobi.
But I think I wanted to venture out, and with
every step I wanted to realize that what's beyond, you know,
So I think that's more about curiosity. And when I
(14:18):
went to sun I could see a lot of top
tier scientific people, although I'm not from physics, but.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
It was enriching.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
And when Orio started to bring these CEOs or big
companies to us when we were writing this book, we
were visiting China, so I was quite convinced that, you know,
you have to go.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
And build something. Then maybe I should go back to India.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
And around the same time, a classmate of mine he
was in Africa and he wanted.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Also to leave. So we came back and we started
this venture. So maybe it never happened.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Like a step function, you know, it is bringing in
you like and every year you start to think about, okay,
maybe you can do it.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
Awesome, awesome, So let's talk about your venture. You call
it Kami.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
I mean, is there a backstory to why you called
the company Ukumi?
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Yeah, so I think, like I said, you know, I've
always been fascinated by my own problems, Like my mother
was inspiration for this story that I told you about
mobile harvest.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
So around twenty seventeen, my.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Car was toolen and it was in Deli, and you know,
I thought, they have CCTVs, they can find it. It
turns out that they have CCTVs, but they don't have
time to look at them because if you're somebody ordinary,
why should they, you know, traverse the traffic cameras of
the city. So we built a company around the time.
It's called Sammuch Dotti. So Sama is like the Google
(15:41):
of traffic in India. So it can you know today,
for example, if a car that happens in Delhi, you know,
the police can come to Sammuch and ask, you know,
can you tell us if this car was seen on
this national highway. So when I was part of this
venture building this venture, AI was kind of becoming mainstream
(16:03):
in this current avatar. Although you know, the topic of
AI exists the last sixty seventy years, but the way
deep learning made an impact in twenty thirteen and in.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Around twenty seventeen, we all kind.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Of convinced that, okay, maybe we can solve this traffic
monitoring problem as a supervised learning approach, you know, collect data,
train models.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
This is what we did until twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
And around this time, I was leaving India for good.
And you know, although you attributed my location today to Finland,
but I'm actually in Oslo in Norway. So I ended
up coming to Oslo and my day one assignment was
to coordinate AI research for Norway. So I was in
(16:49):
this very small team where my role was a senior advisor.
So I wrote a bunch of proposals for Norway to
build a national research school, which had in the very
initial years around two hundred and fifty PhD candidates and
we organized a lot of kind of I would say
pioneering stuff like we organized the first Alpha f Hold workshop,
(17:12):
for which now the Chemistry Nobel Prize is given last year,
so when the papers came out, you know, I organized
this workshop which we had.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
The first author of Rosetahold.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
We had people from various organizations talking about impact of
algorithms like alpha fold on protein folding.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
And all that.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
So in this three year journey where I was kind
of a friend sitter in a way to law of
progress that was happening in the field of AI, because
from deep learning we moved to genetibi and there came
a moment that I was starting to reflect on what
we were doing in so much we were building a
model for everything, so if we have to do a
million things, will be a million models, and which was
(17:54):
not really scalable and not viable. And around this time
my co founder visited me slow which was last year
December I named twenty twenty three, and he started to
pick my brain.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
You know that's what what what do I think in
my opinion is the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
So I told him, you know, the way AI is
kind of changing from supervise learning to you know, this
new air of genitive AI. We don't need a lot
of data anymore to solve problems. And we started to
think about video because we were doing traffic monitoring and
we thought, okay, video is a bunch of pixels. Not
really understands video. So how about we build a technology
(18:32):
that can help democratize then intelligence and radio to the
world and then we could be really at the frontier
of it. And around this time so we started to
play with this idea could we build.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
A new venture which would do this?
Speaker 1 (18:46):
So we named this venture as Universal Knowledge and Understanding
of Media.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
That's what UKUMI stands for. So we don't have any cultural.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Ideas that for this name, but it's just that I'm
what is it technology or scientific inspired bent that we
want to understand the media and that what UKUMI is about.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
So we have spent the entire one year I would say,
twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
You know, we may be pivoting a couple of times,
shaping up what we wanted to do, and in that
process I ended up meeting you in Palernto, so you
have already witnessed some of it.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Awesome, Yeah, I mean for me, I mean, you know,
both of us coming from India, I thought there's a
you know, a Sanskrit background to Kumi or something like
that that you were going to say, but.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
It sounds like that.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
But I mean you have a more logical reasoning to
why you call it Kumi, which makes a lot of
sense coming from say Su much the Dai to Ukumi.
I mean, there's obviously a correlation that both have videos,
both have pixels and all of that. What's what's the
vision for Ukumi? I mean, what is kind of the
(20:00):
a narrow down problem that you're trying to solve with comit.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
So, Anthony, I think you're sitting in the place in
the world where future is built and which is the
Bay Area. So we wanted to test our idea and
when we visited Bay Area twice last year, the idea
was to see what we want to build does the
world need it? And it seems like from a technology standpoint,
(20:25):
we were sounding a bit theoretical that we want to
understand video. Then people would come back to say and say,
understand video for what what is the use case? So
we realize whether we need a solid use case and
we stumbled upon this whole ecosystem around YouTube, that there
are some two hundred million creators out there which are
uploading videos every day on YouTube, and we realize that
(20:48):
a problem that a specific category among those are podcasters,
including yourself, who are producing content, and this content the
moment they kind of record it and post it, it
may actually take them two to three weeks to publish it.
So we realize that one way we can land our
(21:09):
technology aspirations on understanding video is to go back to
these podcasters who are high frequency podcasters, that could we
enable what they want to do in ten minutes, not
let's say matter of two to three weeks. And we
realize that people spend up two thousand dollars, depending on
(21:30):
you know, their set up, maybe even two hundred two
thousand dollars two to three weeks. So we thought, maybe
we can automate this. So this is where let's say
we started around six months ago. So we put up
a discord server and we started to put these skills,
you know, where somebody could punch in a video URL
(21:53):
and they could get let's say bunch of functions on
top of it. Let's say they want to create a thumbnail,
they want to great viral shots, so and so forth,
and from there we took it even further that we
realize that, you know, this DIY kind of stuff is good,
but still people have a lot of cognitive effort. And
(22:13):
we also realize that the current AI tools they do
not give leavers to people that they can really control
the output. So it's like the current batch of AI
tools are like, you know, throw something at it, something
comes out.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
If it fits you, you got lucky.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
If it doesn't fit you, then there is a struggle,
you know, to make it work iteratively. So this was
the kind of pain point we wanted to solve for creators.
And in this journey, you know, we have been learning
and we have been adopting. Right now, our approach to
this is that we are spending time with creators.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
What we call is recipe, so we want to learn
their method.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
We bake their method for one time into our interface.
From then on they don't have to do a lot.
They come and put their recording URL and following their recipe,
we can give them their episode, let's say in ten minutes.
What we are calling this is as a cognitive architecture.
So we are basically making decisions on behalf of our customers.
(23:17):
At the same time, we're helping with a log or
a reasoning interface that they understand if we edit this,
why did we edit this? For example, in this podcast,
at some point I was coughing, and maybe in the
actual version you may edit it, right, So can I
detect that automatically?
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Can I remove it?
Speaker 1 (23:38):
And all you've see in the interface is that this
portion was removed because the guest was coughing, And so
you are okay with that decision because you are convinced
with the reasoning.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
So this is the approach.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
That Ukumi is building, and as we move forward, think
for us, it will become more and more relevant that
what are the decisions that a creator has to make
in their journey and how can we assist them in
their DISI making process makes sense.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Yeah, I mean that's great. I mean, you know, I
use this tool that we're currently recording on right. I mean,
I see some of what you're saying real hand, I mean,
but still a lot of what I do is manual
to do post production and push it out and in
a way, I mean, you know, the problem or the
challenge you're trying to solve for it doesn't necessarily have
(24:33):
to be for the so called you know, tagged.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
Video creators and YouTube.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
I meant, in today's world with a phone, everybody is
a creator, right, whether it's your family Christmas video or
your birthday video if you will. I mean, you know,
instances or examples like what you said, like a very
small example to remove some unwanted distortion from a video
could be used by anybody, right, I mean, so, I
(25:01):
mean you're starting off somewhere, but I see the vision
for video because I mean video is like omnipresent. Everybody
uses it, right, and it's just not a YouTube thing anymore.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
So that's that's pretty cool. So where are you in
I think?
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Sorry, I think for us, you know, it's it was
more about picking a focus area. Yeah, it seems like
people like yourself, you know, are doing this and there
is a sizeable number of podcasters out there today, and
for us to perfect our kind of product, this seemed
(25:40):
like a natural choice where we could have high volumes.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Yeah, indeed, indeed, I can. I can see the potential.
So where are you in the journey such an I mean,
as a product ready to go? Do you have some
pilot customers using it? What are you seeing.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
So initially we were building it out for fun, so
we were called it like an alpha release, so, which
is what we had in a Discord community where we
had processed a couple of thousands of videos already in
the one month of launch. And then we realized that
Discord was limiting us in the way we want to
build the functionality going out, so Discord would remain as
an experimental playground for us.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
From there, we.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Went to a kind of a beta launch where we
wanted to see how creators want to see end to end,
not more like a DIY, not just another thing in
their toolkit.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
So we ended up working with a ec based creator.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
They have four podcasts and just last week we ended
up raising our first invoice to them.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
And what we learned working with them that for example,
for them, we're interviewing people, let's say like Sunda Pichai
or anybody who's a high flyer, they were having a
backlog of six months. So when you are interviewing let's
say a world leader on a topic of AI where
progress happens in a matter of days, right, how relevant
(27:01):
the content is six months down the line? Maybe it's
already outdated, right, So their biggest pain point was that
can they put these episodes out with speed? And they
were working with an agency outsource model, So it seems
like that's the biggest thing why they come to Ukumi
is that they can give us an episode and it's
done in no time, exactly following their requirements.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
So we are lucky there. These people are using Zoom.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Now we're adding a couple more platforms, including the one
that you are recording on right now, and also Studio,
So we are adding this kind of platform coverage step
by step. So we are targeting like a public launch
later this month, so I'll keep you post it. When
it's ready, you can probably come and experience it.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
Yeah, I'll look forward to that.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
So in terms of funding and you know where the
company is in For those folks listening, I mean, are
you talking to investors right now? Are you open to angels?
What is your current funding situation?
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (28:10):
So, like I said, you know in the beginning that
sometimes you know, I'm just curious, you know. So a
couple of years ago, you know, when I was in
this position to organize the AA research funnel, where we
were you know, creating webinars, in v Are, So it
was something really interesting.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
I don't know if you've tried that. So we could
have also, you.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Know, hung out in Oculus v Are and done the
same thing but with more of our avatars.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
You know.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
So when I was doing that, I got some ideas
and you know, I wrote a proposal to Meta. Meta
gave me thirty thousand dollars, which was the first money
that we used to build this company. Right, So in
that sense, we were lucky that initial first six months
or so we could build our experimental prototype with that
money that the grant we got. And from there my
(29:05):
co founder was and myself we were.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Kind of self funding it.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
And then when we got convinced with our direction, let's say,
after making a couple of Bay Area visits, you know,
you get the feedback direct and honest and on the face.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
So that's what you really learned from the area is.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
That we realize that, okay, which is our focus area
in this video understanding and then when once we understood
that it's podcasters, I think it took us five minutes,
two days more than half a million dollars, and we
again got very lucky. My co founder, he is from Boking,
dot Com and his exposs from there was the chief
(29:42):
product officer.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
He made a commitment that he would do.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Angel invest and he was on the board of companies
like Fiber and Weeks.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
So I think it was.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Just a five minute online call with the founder of
Fiber and he was just disappointed in us that why
are we raising so less? And we we've are you know,
we just need this build money and the use case
itself is kind of paying and rewarding that we can
build a company from there.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
So raising money had not been struggled, and we have
been lucky.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
There to find very very formidable angel investors. So we
have a vice president from Meta, vice president from Google,
and two of these founders from you know, Fiber and
bigs dot com.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
So it seems like we have.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Right kind of support right now in terms of people
who could help us, you know, go to our next
phase of the company.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
We are since then, so.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
This is November that I'm talking about, Since December, whole
of December, we have been focused on servicing this customer,
building its product out, and now from here on we
want to basically convert from this amysical to one to
let's say, anhysical two hundred. The day we have let's say,
you know, we can demonstrate that what we're building has
(31:03):
a reputable you know, value, and there are more than
one customer for there, then we probably go for a
seat round. And we also believe that the way we
are billing and kind of processing our customers, it's going
to be a quite cash rage business.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Very cool, very cool. Yeah, I mean not not. I
mean everyone is as lucky when it comes to funding, right.
I mean, I know I use the word lucky, but
I mean, you know, it's also a testament to what
you're building, right, I mean when people look at it,
you get funding in five minutes and you have a
live customer. I mean a lot of startups so die
(31:43):
for that particular kind of start, right, So.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
Kudos to you and your your co.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Founder for knocking on the right doors, knowing the right
people to do that, and of course narrowing down on
a potential, which is also super important. Right. I mean
you rightly said the use cases might be one hundred,
but you want to start with one hone the product
better before you kind of branch out into other things.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
So you got the right recipe going there.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Such and while you mentioned that I was also going
to ask you about the work you did with the
Oslo ecosystem right while you were there and Norway. Can
you share a little bit more about how that experience
has been, I mean, because from what I heard from
you in person, I mean it was a fascinating set
of people. Obviously the government is involved to help companies
(32:37):
there in that particular region.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
Can you share a little bit more about that such a.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Yeah, definitely so, I think thanks to Chad gpt.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Ever since it came out, I think area has become
a very mainstream discussion Before that, abeat, it was happening
in a closer kind of circles let's say, move developer,
research centric people. But I think post chat jipity, not
just Norway, but I think the conversation became mainstream political
(33:06):
conversation in Europe, and the target there has been language.
So here in this part of the world where I am,
let's say Norway, you know less than five million people here,
and they speak a language, they have their own culture.
And when you start to use tools like Chad jipety,
which is let's say developed in your part of the world, right,
(33:27):
then how you perceive that as a society especially it
becomes so pervasive in your day to day use, you
can actually end up overpowering let's say, whatever is yours
from what is coming from outside.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
So there was this whole.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Debate Let's say, I would say two years ago going
on that big American companies, which let's say has the
resources and the talent to develop such big AI models,
what can small countries do?
Speaker 2 (33:55):
What is their.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Relevance in the future, right, because we know that some
of the big tech companies are already bigger than many
small countries.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
So it boils down to I would say three things.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
And if you think from a policymaker's perspective that if
you want to keep your work force relevant for the
future and not make a future which is very asymmetric
where power is in few hands and.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Not everybody is able to.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Read the benefits, so you want to give people the training,
so meaning people should have access to knowledge.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
And there we.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Should also mention for example, fell In, one of the
professor from the University of Helsinki Ti Murus, he started
elements for AI already in twenty eighteen nineteen and they
ended up educating four percent of their population in just
one year. Right, And then that course was distributed in
the whole of Europe. So I think training is one
where let's say I was heavily involved, which was how
(34:55):
do we take care of PSD candidates?
Speaker 2 (34:59):
So I built collabor on behalf of Norway.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
With the alent During Institute in UK, with Helmholds in Germany.
So how do you build a more robust kind of
environment to train next in AI? So I think that
has been a bigger focus in Europe. So there are
much more bigger initiatives like in Sweden and Europe wide,
which is called LS for example, which there's a lot
(35:21):
of spending money on training doctor students.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
The other is compute. You cannot do much.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
You may have heard the GPU song right, So Jensen
Huang is these days everywhere, so I think when you
see him in Europe mostly it's because some European government
has invited him to launch a supercomputer.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Which is powered by Nvidia.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
So I think this is another democratization that the governments
here are pushing for that.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Do they have enough compute? Yeah, you know wherever they
cannot give it to the.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Companies because that will be violating competition laws, but.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
They can give it to researchers, they can enable them.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
Yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
And the third element here is that if I go
back to my original point about language, you cannot work
on let's say Chadgividy for Norwegian, right until you have
good data set for Norwegian language. And for example, here
in Norway there's something called as Royal Norwegian Library where
for last manty years one hundred and fifty people have
(36:25):
been working on digitizing Norwegian culture. So which becomes like
a national asset that you can use to train a
language model, right, or a transcription model. Because whatever is
built let's say by opening eye, for example, if we
take Wisper, right, which is going to transcribe, so the
word error rate for Norwegian is not anywhere close to English.
(36:50):
So Whisper would work perfectly well for English. So if
Norwegians have to, let's say, improve their productivity where they want,
you know, Norwegian to be transcribed. For example, whenever I'm
using my Apple iPhone, it says not boch mail is
not available because it's not a priority for Apple. Five
(37:10):
million people do not matter. So who's want to solve
it for Norway? So Norway has to solve.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
It for itself. So that's the kind of operating principle here.
Entry that if these three things.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Are available, and then you come as a startup person,
you may have a talented person available to you. If
you have a research collaboration, you may have compute available
to you.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
And then the last thing is data sets.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
If these three ingredients are there, I think this is
more like a qualifying aspect. So many countries world over,
they may not have a very structured approach in making
these enablers, but I think as politicians world over are
waking up to the reality which you know, the next
future is going to be, they're trying to make these
(37:55):
enablers for the ecosystem.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Yeah, I'm always fascinated to see how some of these
small company countries around the world, I mean try to
do what is right for them and their people stand up,
you know, make the investments to do it, which is
super forward thinking of them. I mean obviously in your
part of the world, like you said, I mean, you know,
(38:18):
much like where we come from, right, every state speaks
a different language. I mean, every country has its own language.
So they need to figure out what works for their
own people and the speed at which they operate. Also
fascinates me. I mean, I've been in Germany and Oslo's ecosystem.
Despite the small population that, despite the small economy, all
of those governments do what is right to cater to
(38:42):
the needs of their own people and their economies, even
if it means that, I mean doing something different from
what the rest of the world would do, and that
translates to the startup ecosystem the funding that they get
for those ecosystems.
Speaker 4 (38:57):
I mean, I was in a.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Conference in India three months ago, and there were so
many Nordic countries that were trying to tap into India
talent and investments from India because they have a laundry
list of problems for their country they want to solve
for right, But I mean they're obviously reaching out elsewhere
to tap into the talent and investments.
Speaker 4 (39:18):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
So let's wrap this up with a quick few rapid
fire questions such and I call this, they'll say a questionnaire. So,
any role model for you in your career whom you
keep going back to for advice? I mean, you obviously
have your ups and downs, you know, anyone whom you
tap into, Yeah, I think definitely.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
So, I mean some of the people I will mention,
they're more like ideal not people I can really access.
So when I was starting my first venture, I thought
of apt Abu Kalam as someone that I would always
look up to in terms of innovation, and you know,
from Tata, you know, I would say Jad Tata in
(40:03):
terms of building an ethical business and issually theren you know,
for building something world class, you know, like he built
the Deli Metro, which you know every time you use
your surprise that you can have something you know, high quality,
you know. So I think in that sense, there are
a couple of people that in my life and in
(40:24):
the companies I built, I feel that, you know, I
can look up to on a on a personal basis,
you know. I was always been lucky to find people
around me who I can draw inspiration from.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
So unfortunately, my.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Close contact, doctor Baker saying he passed away early last year.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
So he was an.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Army general and he came to me when he was
seventy that he wanted.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
To do a startup.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
And I had met him because I had written a
chapter in his book and the other editor of the
book was from although he was a professor.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
So Paul lil Rank had connected us.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
With K, and I spent nine years with doctor v
K collaborating on various healthcare topics, wrote several books. But
I was so amazed by simple things about his own life,
you know, the way he conducted himself. So that nine years,
when you know, doctor Singh was let's say from seventy
(41:27):
one to seventy nine, I would say a lot of
mentorship for me, so, you know, for me something to
give back to society. You know, how do you make
yourself available to others? I think this is what I
learned from him. So yeah, I'm really thankful for you know,
such people in my life who have kind of made
(41:47):
me part of their life and you know, shared their wisdom.
Speaker 4 (41:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
Yeah, we always come across those good Samaritans and you know,
people whom be thankful for life.
Speaker 4 (41:58):
So I'm glad you have them.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
I know you're an avid reader such an you're always
on top of I mean, in a few times we've met,
I mean, you always know what's going on in the world.
Any favorite books or recommendations for who want to be
founders or anyone for that matter.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Yeah, I think this one book that I would draw
lessons for entrepreneurship is Siddharta, which is like a classical,
very small.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Book, fast read. But in my recent readings.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
That books that are impacting me. So a friend of
mine suggested me The Ministry for the Future. It's about
the climate change led impact starting from countries like India.
It's a science fiction novel. So it led me to
sponsor a hackathon last year on heat waves in India,
and so that has kind of kind of encouraged me
(42:49):
to do something this year.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Again. I've been reading some books.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
So a book is about, you know, super processed foods,
so it's called super processed people. It's about you know,
all the food that we eat, which is not even food.
So yeah, I don't know. Maybe you're looking for one suggestion,
but it's always.
Speaker 4 (43:07):
I have not heard with some of these books myself.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
So thanks for sharing and given your experience, given the
serial entrepreneurship and investments that you've done. I mean, if
somebody were to ask you for advice, you know, somebody
who says, okay, I have an idea of such in
any word of advice that you would give me before
I get started, what would that be?
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Yeah, So I think what I am always learning in
these context is that you know how to really start small,
how to make let's say failure easy. You know, so
instead of investing a lot of time and energy in
doing something really big, can we prove whatever is the
thesis by doing something very very small.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
That's super important advice, but still a lot of founders
fall prey to saying, oh, let me build out the
whole thing before I knock on potential customers doors. Right,
So thanks, thanks for that, So Sartin again, thank you
for taking the time, best of luck to hook me
to you and your team. Like you said, you're at
(44:14):
an equal to one. I wish any equal to multiple
times x very soon and we will get you back
on the podcast then. Until then, thanks so much, all
the best to you and the team. Lovely speaking to you,
and we'll stay in touch.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Yeah, the pleasure is all mine, Anthony, Thank you very
much for having me
This is the Startup Still See podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Thank you for tuning in.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
You is your favorite subscribe on YouTube LinkedIn you.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Enjoyed this episode.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Hello everyone, thanks for joining us today for a brand
new episode of Startups Still Say. As always, I'm your host,
Anthony Prakash, and today I'm delighted to be joined by
such An Ger who is joining us from Finland and
he is currently the co founder of a very exciting
startup called Ukumi, and he will tell us more about it.
(00:34):
But besides that, I mean, he has a fascinating background
as someone who is always looking to solve problems with
startups and products of its own. I had a chance
to meet such and while he was visiting the Bay
Area last year. His being on this podcast is a
testament to how impressed I was with his background and
(00:54):
what he's doing so such in first of all, welcome
to the show. Thanks putting time later evening in your.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Yeah, thinks samely what you said last year, It seems
like just yesterday, But now that the calendar has changed,
it seems like we have to call it last year.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Indeed, indeed, you know, I mean, you know, we just
think twenty twenty four started and it's going to be awesome.
Here we are in twenty twenty five, right, so before
you know it, you're going to be rocking with Kumi
as well.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
Right. So let's so before we get started such.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
An with the company, with what you're currently doing, it'll
be great to tell the audience about who you are,
where you come from, what are you currently working on,
what took you from India to the Nordics, anything at
a high level you can share to kick us off.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
So originally I come from India from a suburb college, Ghaseba, Delhi.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So I did.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
My initial schooling there and then I went to Deli
for my let's say higher education, went for my bachelor's
in Germimilia where I.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Studied computer science and right from.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
The campus I got an opportunity to work for Adobe.
And I think working in Adobe was very transformative for
me because it was, you know, a small company back
then in two thousand and five in India. Of course
it's an American company, but in India they had a
smaller office. And going there as a computer science student,
I realized that you know, you could create file formats,
(02:24):
you can do a lot of things.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I got lucky. While being at Adobe.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
You know, I realized that you could pay into your ideas,
so I got ten in my initial three months, and
that gave me out of kind of confidence that you
could build a lot of stuff in the knowledge economy.
And I started to read about, you know, in general,
on Internet because Ado we had high speed Internet, and
(02:49):
I realized that, you know, that some people were writing
they were like anthropologists.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
That people in India may not.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Use computers, but they use mobile phones as there kind
of first computing device or to connect to Internet. And
I started to look for, you know, where are the
places in the world they build mobile phones, and then
I zeroed upon finl In because no K used to be,
you know, a dominant player making mobile phones back in
those days. So I applied for a master's program. I
(03:18):
got a good scholarship and that's how I ended up
for my masters in film.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
In my master's program was called.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Mobile Computing and Security, and I ended up studying more
security than mobile. But you know, there was this thing
about my own background, coming from a humble background. My
mother still to date do not have a phone, so
I was kind of very interested in can I build
a phone for her?
Speaker 2 (03:43):
So my Masters was.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
All about, you know, dreaming about interface, which is literas neutral.
So I built a contact book because I realized that
most people in India back in those days, if they.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Had a phone, they were not using contact books.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
They were using speed dial, you know, and they like
most people in the rural areas, they would have only
five contacts. And I realized that being privileged, connected online
educated that opportunities come to you if you have more contacts.
I mean, this podcast is an example of that. So
(04:17):
if we have contact, you know, I have the opportunity
to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Right.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
So I see that there may be like smart and
intelligent people, but if they don't have opportunities, you know,
they are where they are.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
And I wanted to change that.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
So I was doing my doptal studies beyond my masters,
and that's when I've got conviction that, you know, I
should leave my research and you know, go back to
India to start my company and a long story shot.
So that's where my kind of entrepreneurial journey started in
twenty ten. And I was always kind of chasing those
(04:55):
problems which are closer to my heart. So, for example,
this thing that I wanted to build like a literacy neutral.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Kind of mobile phone. I ended up building.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
A proto WhatsApp kind of an app called Mobile Harvest
for India. Went to Telangana, which is you know, back
then it was called Andra and spend time during the
entire state because they used to have a lot of
pharma suicides back then. And I built this application which
people could you know, use without reading writing skills by
(05:25):
sending voice messages to each other. And I realized that
they had exact same behaviors as people would have on Facebook,
and people would care about their profile pictures and they
would wish each other happy brother days. And the head
of You and Women in India saw this because somebody
made a film on it and she wanted me to
build this as a as a real company. So sometimes
(05:48):
for me, this kind of pursuit, you know, like they
start with a curiosity, like it's a problem that I
want to solve, but they eventually become like a full venture.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
So it had happened to me in my life.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
I would say a couple of times that I was curious,
I was stuck to something, and you know, I tried
to do something about it, and then eventually it becomes
her company.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
So yeah, that's where I am.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Yeah, fascinating backstory such and first off, I would say,
I mean, I'm a strong believer in being in the
right place at the right time, you know, whenever it's
in your career is super important.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
You know.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Obviously our stars need to align for something like that
to happen, right, So we thank the gods for.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
That, I guess.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
So Adobe is not a bad place, shabby place to
start off your career, right. I've been a big fan
of Adobe for a really long time. I really think
that products are like world class, right, for a long time.
I've attended a bunch of their conferences as well in
Vegas and one of the best put conferences I think
that I've attended from them. So lucky you You've got
(06:52):
to start off your career in Adobe, I mean, and
at least for a long time. I mean, you know,
they were at the forefront of innovation, right, which kind
of is a solid backbone if you will, for where
your career to start. And then from there on, I mean,
you know, obviously you get high speed internet to your
point for you to harness that and use it and
(07:14):
to apply it. Great great story, such an so I
mean one of the things I always ask founders, and
a lot of founder I mean I also believe you know,
there's a little bit of a founder in all of us, right,
I mean we all have ideas, but very few step
out their comfort zone, including myself, and go execute it. Right,
(07:36):
So what gave you that confidence will power to say Okay?
I mean I see this problem and I think I
have an idea to solve for it. I mean, you're
obviously letting go of a good paying job, and you
know you're in your comfort zone. How do you get
that conviction to say okay, I mean I really want
to solve for this. I mean it might fail, right,
(07:57):
but I mean, is there a is there someone in
your life who kind of encourages you or in those
early stages to be a mentor if you will to
go do that.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
I think it's interesting what you say. And I've often
found myself that, especially my parents.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
They were not a lot educated, so I did not
have anyone to go and ask for advice, and I
have to.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Solve things on my own. So in that regard, I
found that independent decision making was one trait where I
really benefited. So I would say that growing up, you know,
in India, in an environment where I did not have
something which I can easily rely upon. I have to
make my own decisions. It's not that they were always
(08:41):
for good, but this ability that I can decide for myself,
I think it's a privilege.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
I would put it that way. So that's probably what
it burlsed on.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Yeah, I mean you know that's the other thing, right,
I mean, I'm so glad you mentioned that because circumstances, right,
I mean, your your family, situation, whom you surround yourself with,
and not every situation is the same, right, So that
that also kind of contributes in a big way to
successful startups, to successful entrepreneurs. And there's always that spark
(09:18):
or that energy that you build up yourself. So good,
thanks for sharing that such an So you did your studies,
you did ado B then you saw okay, I mean,
you know Nordics or Finland is where they're making the
mobile phones at that time. I mean, no, Kio is
like a more dominator, if you will, right, So how
(09:40):
does that shift in environment for you? I mean what
it was it like, oh my god, what did I do?
Or you know, did it give you that sense of freedom, saying, oh,
this is a great stepping stone to what I want
to do next.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Yeah, I think if I simple different points in my life,
like doing my undergrad in one of the universities, it
was quite cheap education and we didn't really know, you know,
what could we do. I mean, if I go back
to college today, maybe I would probably want to do
as many internships and let's say, you know, build a
startup while I'm in the college, because you're really blessed
(10:18):
to have a good you know, team players and you
don't have to search for them while we're in the college.
But we ended up spending our time chasing competitions.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
So for example, me and.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
My classmates were presented at university in a national level
course competition. We wild away time, I would say, while
we were in college. But the Adobe, like I said,
you know, I got a different inspiration through Internet and
I started to learn about things which were very fundamental.
So Adobe was very enriching because people were coming from
(10:52):
a very different approach.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
I would say.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Then, you know, where I was a bit unguided in Jamia,
I got some kind of pathway, you know, the be
that you could protect your idea, you could patent them
things like that. But when I ended up in Finland,
you know, so I was in this program where we
had to go to five countries, so I chose Finland
and Estonia, so Assunia, I did my exchange program, and
(11:18):
I also did my summer insern in a nuclear physics
laboratory in Geneva. Back in those days they were starting
the large hydron collider. So I was really lucky to
be in some of the top most research environments, I
would say in the world. Because in Finland, for example,
one of the professor who came to teachers during my
(11:39):
doctoral studies, he used to have no care for ten years,
so he had seen it all. From ninety six to
two thousand and six, Uria Nehva was the CEO of Mokia,
so he would bring one CEO to our class every week.
And I always tell this to people that my professors
in Finland were saying, light is coming from the east.
(12:00):
I was wondering what I'm doing in the west because
we were writing a book on China.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
So that environment where.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
You could really question anything and think about future because
Nokia was.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Starting to go down.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
I was in Finland from two thousand and seven to
ten so they were not I would say the prime
days of Nokia. These were days when Apple had already
come up with a.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Touchscreen phone and Apple started to dominate.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
And Nokia was already you know, I think sold very
quickly to Microsoft. So for me it was I would say,
the whole mood in Finland was, you know, of self doubt.
You know what happens beyond Nokia. There was a transition period.
Even in our university, they ended up changing the name.
We were called the HERZQ Investor of Technology. It's called
(12:47):
the Alto University. The logo of Alto is a with
a question mark. So the idea was question everything. And
I had the privilege to be in a environment where
it was taught that students can do anything. For example,
my peers in Finland, the student group we started although
Social Impact, which was to connect the social sector people
(13:09):
to the university. My peers they started out the Entrepreneurship Society,
which ended up creating Slush, which is one of the
largest events in the world about entrepreneurship. So in our eyes,
while we were students, we thought we could do anything.
So we would have the prime minister candidate, we would
have the philosophers, we would have all the resources that
we could think of. So I think filling just amplified
(13:32):
my confidence. Like you know, it's like a step by
step process, right, so every exam you crack, every award
that you win, it kind of reinforces your belief that
you can take on a bigger challenge. So I think
for me leaving a pushy job from Adobe to fill in,
my scholarship amount was more than my job salary, so
(13:54):
financially it was not that difficult.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Although if I would have.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Stayed at Adobe the last fifteen years, the stock market
has really rewarded Adobe in that sense, so I would
have probably not been a bad decision to stay at Adobi.
But I think I wanted to venture out, and with
every step I wanted to realize that what's beyond, you know,
So I think that's more about curiosity. And when I
(14:18):
went to sun I could see a lot of top
tier scientific people, although I'm not from physics, but.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
It was enriching.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
And when Orio started to bring these CEOs or big
companies to us when we were writing this book, we
were visiting China, so I was quite convinced that, you know,
you have to go.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
And build something. Then maybe I should go back to India.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
And around the same time, a classmate of mine he
was in Africa and he wanted.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Also to leave. So we came back and we started
this venture. So maybe it never happened.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Like a step function, you know, it is bringing in
you like and every year you start to think about, okay,
maybe you can do it.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
Awesome, awesome, So let's talk about your venture. You call
it Kami.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
I mean, is there a backstory to why you called
the company Ukumi?
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Yeah, so I think, like I said, you know, I've
always been fascinated by my own problems, Like my mother
was inspiration for this story that I told you about
mobile harvest.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
So around twenty seventeen, my.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Car was toolen and it was in Deli, and you know,
I thought, they have CCTVs, they can find it. It
turns out that they have CCTVs, but they don't have
time to look at them because if you're somebody ordinary,
why should they, you know, traverse the traffic cameras of
the city. So we built a company around the time.
It's called Sammuch Dotti. So Sama is like the Google
(15:41):
of traffic in India. So it can you know today,
for example, if a car that happens in Delhi, you know,
the police can come to Sammuch and ask, you know,
can you tell us if this car was seen on
this national highway. So when I was part of this
venture building this venture, AI was kind of becoming mainstream
(16:03):
in this current avatar. Although you know, the topic of
AI exists the last sixty seventy years, but the way
deep learning made an impact in twenty thirteen and in.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Around twenty seventeen, we all kind.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Of convinced that, okay, maybe we can solve this traffic
monitoring problem as a supervised learning approach, you know, collect data,
train models.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
This is what we did until twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
And around this time, I was leaving India for good.
And you know, although you attributed my location today to Finland,
but I'm actually in Oslo in Norway. So I ended
up coming to Oslo and my day one assignment was
to coordinate AI research for Norway. So I was in
(16:49):
this very small team where my role was a senior advisor.
So I wrote a bunch of proposals for Norway to
build a national research school, which had in the very
initial years around two hundred and fifty PhD candidates and
we organized a lot of kind of I would say
pioneering stuff like we organized the first Alpha f Hold workshop,
(17:12):
for which now the Chemistry Nobel Prize is given last year,
so when the papers came out, you know, I organized
this workshop which we had.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
The first author of Rosetahold.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
We had people from various organizations talking about impact of
algorithms like alpha fold on protein folding.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
And all that.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
So in this three year journey where I was kind
of a friend sitter in a way to law of
progress that was happening in the field of AI, because
from deep learning we moved to genetibi and there came
a moment that I was starting to reflect on what
we were doing in so much we were building a
model for everything, so if we have to do a
million things, will be a million models, and which was
(17:54):
not really scalable and not viable. And around this time
my co founder visited me slow which was last year
December I named twenty twenty three, and he started to
pick my brain.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
You know that's what what what do I think in
my opinion is the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
So I told him, you know, the way AI is
kind of changing from supervise learning to you know, this
new air of genitive AI. We don't need a lot
of data anymore to solve problems. And we started to
think about video because we were doing traffic monitoring and
we thought, okay, video is a bunch of pixels. Not
really understands video. So how about we build a technology
(18:32):
that can help democratize then intelligence and radio to the
world and then we could be really at the frontier
of it. And around this time so we started to
play with this idea could we build.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
A new venture which would do this?
Speaker 1 (18:46):
So we named this venture as Universal Knowledge and Understanding
of Media.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
That's what UKUMI stands for. So we don't have any cultural.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Ideas that for this name, but it's just that I'm
what is it technology or scientific inspired bent that we
want to understand the media and that what UKUMI is about.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
So we have spent the entire one year I would say,
twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
You know, we may be pivoting a couple of times,
shaping up what we wanted to do, and in that
process I ended up meeting you in Palernto, so you
have already witnessed some of it.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Awesome, Yeah, I mean for me, I mean, you know,
both of us coming from India, I thought there's a
you know, a Sanskrit background to Kumi or something like
that that you were going to say, but.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
It sounds like that.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
But I mean you have a more logical reasoning to
why you call it Kumi, which makes a lot of
sense coming from say Su much the Dai to Ukumi.
I mean, there's obviously a correlation that both have videos,
both have pixels and all of that. What's what's the
vision for Ukumi? I mean, what is kind of the
(20:00):
a narrow down problem that you're trying to solve with comit.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
So, Anthony, I think you're sitting in the place in
the world where future is built and which is the
Bay Area. So we wanted to test our idea and
when we visited Bay Area twice last year, the idea
was to see what we want to build does the
world need it? And it seems like from a technology standpoint,
(20:25):
we were sounding a bit theoretical that we want to
understand video. Then people would come back to say and say,
understand video for what what is the use case? So
we realize whether we need a solid use case and
we stumbled upon this whole ecosystem around YouTube, that there
are some two hundred million creators out there which are
uploading videos every day on YouTube, and we realize that
(20:48):
a problem that a specific category among those are podcasters,
including yourself, who are producing content, and this content the
moment they kind of record it and post it, it
may actually take them two to three weeks to publish it.
So we realize that one way we can land our
(21:09):
technology aspirations on understanding video is to go back to
these podcasters who are high frequency podcasters, that could we
enable what they want to do in ten minutes, not
let's say matter of two to three weeks. And we
realize that people spend up two thousand dollars, depending on
(21:30):
you know, their set up, maybe even two hundred two
thousand dollars two to three weeks. So we thought, maybe
we can automate this. So this is where let's say
we started around six months ago. So we put up
a discord server and we started to put these skills,
you know, where somebody could punch in a video URL
(21:53):
and they could get let's say bunch of functions on
top of it. Let's say they want to create a thumbnail,
they want to great viral shots, so and so forth,
and from there we took it even further that we
realize that, you know, this DIY kind of stuff is good,
but still people have a lot of cognitive effort. And
(22:13):
we also realize that the current AI tools they do
not give leavers to people that they can really control
the output. So it's like the current batch of AI
tools are like, you know, throw something at it, something
comes out.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
If it fits you, you got lucky.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
If it doesn't fit you, then there is a struggle,
you know, to make it work iteratively. So this was
the kind of pain point we wanted to solve for creators.
And in this journey, you know, we have been learning
and we have been adopting. Right now, our approach to
this is that we are spending time with creators.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
What we call is recipe, so we want to learn
their method.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
We bake their method for one time into our interface.
From then on they don't have to do a lot.
They come and put their recording URL and following their recipe,
we can give them their episode, let's say in ten minutes.
What we are calling this is as a cognitive architecture.
So we are basically making decisions on behalf of our customers.
(23:17):
At the same time, we're helping with a log or
a reasoning interface that they understand if we edit this,
why did we edit this? For example, in this podcast,
at some point I was coughing, and maybe in the
actual version you may edit it, right, So can I
detect that automatically?
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Can I remove it?
Speaker 1 (23:38):
And all you've see in the interface is that this
portion was removed because the guest was coughing, And so
you are okay with that decision because you are convinced
with the reasoning.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
So this is the approach.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
That Ukumi is building, and as we move forward, think
for us, it will become more and more relevant that
what are the decisions that a creator has to make
in their journey and how can we assist them in
their DISI making process makes sense.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Yeah, I mean that's great. I mean, you know, I
use this tool that we're currently recording on right. I mean,
I see some of what you're saying real hand, I mean,
but still a lot of what I do is manual
to do post production and push it out and in
a way, I mean, you know, the problem or the
challenge you're trying to solve for it doesn't necessarily have
(24:33):
to be for the so called you know, tagged.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
Video creators and YouTube.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
I meant, in today's world with a phone, everybody is
a creator, right, whether it's your family Christmas video or
your birthday video if you will. I mean, you know,
instances or examples like what you said, like a very
small example to remove some unwanted distortion from a video
could be used by anybody, right, I mean, so, I
(25:01):
mean you're starting off somewhere, but I see the vision
for video because I mean video is like omnipresent. Everybody
uses it, right, and it's just not a YouTube thing anymore.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
So that's that's pretty cool. So where are you in
I think?
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Sorry, I think for us, you know, it's it was
more about picking a focus area. Yeah, it seems like
people like yourself, you know, are doing this and there
is a sizeable number of podcasters out there today, and
for us to perfect our kind of product, this seemed
(25:40):
like a natural choice where we could have high volumes.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Yeah, indeed, indeed, I can. I can see the potential.
So where are you in the journey such an I mean,
as a product ready to go? Do you have some
pilot customers using it? What are you seeing.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
So initially we were building it out for fun, so
we were called it like an alpha release, so, which
is what we had in a Discord community where we
had processed a couple of thousands of videos already in
the one month of launch. And then we realized that
Discord was limiting us in the way we want to
build the functionality going out, so Discord would remain as
an experimental playground for us.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
From there, we.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Went to a kind of a beta launch where we
wanted to see how creators want to see end to end,
not more like a DIY, not just another thing in
their toolkit.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
So we ended up working with a ec based creator.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
They have four podcasts and just last week we ended
up raising our first invoice to them.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
And what we learned working with them that for example,
for them, we're interviewing people, let's say like Sunda Pichai
or anybody who's a high flyer, they were having a
backlog of six months. So when you are interviewing let's
say a world leader on a topic of AI where
progress happens in a matter of days, right, how relevant
(27:01):
the content is six months down the line? Maybe it's
already outdated, right, So their biggest pain point was that
can they put these episodes out with speed? And they
were working with an agency outsource model, So it seems
like that's the biggest thing why they come to Ukumi
is that they can give us an episode and it's
done in no time, exactly following their requirements.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
So we are lucky there. These people are using Zoom.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Now we're adding a couple more platforms, including the one
that you are recording on right now, and also Studio,
So we are adding this kind of platform coverage step
by step. So we are targeting like a public launch
later this month, so I'll keep you post it. When
it's ready, you can probably come and experience it.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
Yeah, I'll look forward to that.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
So in terms of funding and you know where the
company is in For those folks listening, I mean, are
you talking to investors right now? Are you open to angels?
What is your current funding situation?
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (28:10):
So, like I said, you know in the beginning that
sometimes you know, I'm just curious, you know. So a
couple of years ago, you know, when I was in
this position to organize the AA research funnel, where we
were you know, creating webinars, in v Are, So it
was something really interesting.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
I don't know if you've tried that. So we could
have also, you.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Know, hung out in Oculus v Are and done the
same thing but with more of our avatars.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
You know.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
So when I was doing that, I got some ideas
and you know, I wrote a proposal to Meta. Meta
gave me thirty thousand dollars, which was the first money
that we used to build this company. Right, So in
that sense, we were lucky that initial first six months
or so we could build our experimental prototype with that
money that the grant we got. And from there my
(29:05):
co founder was and myself we were.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Kind of self funding it.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
And then when we got convinced with our direction, let's say,
after making a couple of Bay Area visits, you know,
you get the feedback direct and honest and on the face.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
So that's what you really learned from the area is.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
That we realize that, okay, which is our focus area
in this video understanding and then when once we understood
that it's podcasters, I think it took us five minutes,
two days more than half a million dollars, and we
again got very lucky. My co founder, he is from Boking,
dot Com and his exposs from there was the chief
(29:42):
product officer.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
He made a commitment that he would do.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Angel invest and he was on the board of companies
like Fiber and Weeks.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
So I think it was.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Just a five minute online call with the founder of
Fiber and he was just disappointed in us that why
are we raising so less? And we we've are you know,
we just need this build money and the use case
itself is kind of paying and rewarding that we can
build a company from there.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
So raising money had not been struggled, and we have
been lucky.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
There to find very very formidable angel investors. So we
have a vice president from Meta, vice president from Google,
and two of these founders from you know, Fiber and
bigs dot com.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
So it seems like we have.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Right kind of support right now in terms of people
who could help us, you know, go to our next
phase of the company.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
We are since then, so.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
This is November that I'm talking about, Since December, whole
of December, we have been focused on servicing this customer,
building its product out, and now from here on we
want to basically convert from this amysical to one to
let's say, anhysical two hundred. The day we have let's say,
you know, we can demonstrate that what we're building has
(31:03):
a reputable you know, value, and there are more than
one customer for there, then we probably go for a
seat round. And we also believe that the way we
are billing and kind of processing our customers, it's going
to be a quite cash rage business.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Very cool, very cool. Yeah, I mean not not. I
mean everyone is as lucky when it comes to funding, right.
I mean, I know I use the word lucky, but
I mean, you know, it's also a testament to what
you're building, right, I mean when people look at it,
you get funding in five minutes and you have a
live customer. I mean a lot of startups so die
(31:43):
for that particular kind of start, right, So.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
Kudos to you and your your co.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Founder for knocking on the right doors, knowing the right
people to do that, and of course narrowing down on
a potential, which is also super important. Right. I mean
you rightly said the use cases might be one hundred,
but you want to start with one hone the product
better before you kind of branch out into other things.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
So you got the right recipe going there.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Such and while you mentioned that I was also going
to ask you about the work you did with the
Oslo ecosystem right while you were there and Norway. Can
you share a little bit more about how that experience
has been, I mean, because from what I heard from
you in person, I mean it was a fascinating set
of people. Obviously the government is involved to help companies
(32:37):
there in that particular region.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
Can you share a little bit more about that such a.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Yeah, definitely so, I think thanks to Chad gpt.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Ever since it came out, I think area has become
a very mainstream discussion Before that, abeat, it was happening
in a closer kind of circles let's say, move developer,
research centric people. But I think post chat jipity, not
just Norway, but I think the conversation became mainstream political
(33:06):
conversation in Europe, and the target there has been language.
So here in this part of the world where I am,
let's say Norway, you know less than five million people here,
and they speak a language, they have their own culture.
And when you start to use tools like Chad jipety,
which is let's say developed in your part of the world, right,
(33:27):
then how you perceive that as a society especially it
becomes so pervasive in your day to day use, you
can actually end up overpowering let's say, whatever is yours
from what is coming from outside.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
So there was this whole.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Debate Let's say, I would say two years ago going
on that big American companies, which let's say has the
resources and the talent to develop such big AI models,
what can small countries do?
Speaker 2 (33:55):
What is their.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Relevance in the future, right, because we know that some
of the big tech companies are already bigger than many
small countries.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
So it boils down to I would say three things.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
And if you think from a policymaker's perspective that if
you want to keep your work force relevant for the
future and not make a future which is very asymmetric
where power is in few hands and.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Not everybody is able to.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Read the benefits, so you want to give people the training,
so meaning people should have access to knowledge.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
And there we.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Should also mention for example, fell In, one of the
professor from the University of Helsinki Ti Murus, he started
elements for AI already in twenty eighteen nineteen and they
ended up educating four percent of their population in just
one year. Right, And then that course was distributed in
the whole of Europe. So I think training is one
where let's say I was heavily involved, which was how
(34:55):
do we take care of PSD candidates?
Speaker 2 (34:59):
So I built collabor on behalf of Norway.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
With the alent During Institute in UK, with Helmholds in Germany.
So how do you build a more robust kind of
environment to train next in AI? So I think that
has been a bigger focus in Europe. So there are
much more bigger initiatives like in Sweden and Europe wide,
which is called LS for example, which there's a lot
(35:21):
of spending money on training doctor students.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
The other is compute. You cannot do much.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
You may have heard the GPU song right, So Jensen
Huang is these days everywhere, so I think when you
see him in Europe mostly it's because some European government
has invited him to launch a supercomputer.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Which is powered by Nvidia.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
So I think this is another democratization that the governments
here are pushing for that.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Do they have enough compute? Yeah, you know wherever they
cannot give it to the.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Companies because that will be violating competition laws, but.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
They can give it to researchers, they can enable them.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
Yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
And the third element here is that if I go
back to my original point about language, you cannot work
on let's say Chadgividy for Norwegian, right until you have
good data set for Norwegian language. And for example, here
in Norway there's something called as Royal Norwegian Library where
for last manty years one hundred and fifty people have
(36:25):
been working on digitizing Norwegian culture. So which becomes like
a national asset that you can use to train a
language model, right, or a transcription model. Because whatever is
built let's say by opening eye, for example, if we
take Wisper, right, which is going to transcribe, so the
word error rate for Norwegian is not anywhere close to English.
(36:50):
So Whisper would work perfectly well for English. So if
Norwegians have to, let's say, improve their productivity where they want,
you know, Norwegian to be transcribed. For example, whenever I'm
using my Apple iPhone, it says not boch mail is
not available because it's not a priority for Apple. Five
(37:10):
million people do not matter. So who's want to solve
it for Norway? So Norway has to solve.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
It for itself. So that's the kind of operating principle here.
Entry that if these three things.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Are available, and then you come as a startup person,
you may have a talented person available to you. If
you have a research collaboration, you may have compute available
to you.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
And then the last thing is data sets.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
If these three ingredients are there, I think this is
more like a qualifying aspect. So many countries world over,
they may not have a very structured approach in making
these enablers, but I think as politicians world over are
waking up to the reality which you know, the next
future is going to be, they're trying to make these
(37:55):
enablers for the ecosystem.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Yeah, I'm always fascinated to see how some of these
small company countries around the world, I mean try to
do what is right for them and their people stand up,
you know, make the investments to do it, which is
super forward thinking of them. I mean obviously in your
part of the world, like you said, I mean, you know,
(38:18):
much like where we come from, right, every state speaks
a different language. I mean, every country has its own language.
So they need to figure out what works for their
own people and the speed at which they operate. Also
fascinates me. I mean, I've been in Germany and Oslo's ecosystem.
Despite the small population that, despite the small economy, all
of those governments do what is right to cater to
(38:42):
the needs of their own people and their economies, even
if it means that, I mean doing something different from
what the rest of the world would do, and that
translates to the startup ecosystem the funding that they get
for those ecosystems.
Speaker 4 (38:57):
I mean, I was in a.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Conference in India three months ago, and there were so
many Nordic countries that were trying to tap into India
talent and investments from India because they have a laundry
list of problems for their country they want to solve
for right, But I mean they're obviously reaching out elsewhere
to tap into the talent and investments.
Speaker 4 (39:18):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
So let's wrap this up with a quick few rapid
fire questions such and I call this, they'll say a questionnaire. So,
any role model for you in your career whom you
keep going back to for advice? I mean, you obviously
have your ups and downs, you know, anyone whom you
tap into, Yeah, I think definitely.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
So, I mean some of the people I will mention,
they're more like ideal not people I can really access.
So when I was starting my first venture, I thought
of apt Abu Kalam as someone that I would always
look up to in terms of innovation, and you know,
from Tata, you know, I would say Jad Tata in
(40:03):
terms of building an ethical business and issually theren you know,
for building something world class, you know, like he built
the Deli Metro, which you know every time you use
your surprise that you can have something you know, high quality,
you know. So I think in that sense, there are
a couple of people that in my life and in
(40:24):
the companies I built, I feel that, you know, I
can look up to on a on a personal basis,
you know. I was always been lucky to find people
around me who I can draw inspiration from.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
So unfortunately, my.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Close contact, doctor Baker saying he passed away early last year.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
So he was an.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Army general and he came to me when he was
seventy that he wanted.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
To do a startup.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
And I had met him because I had written a
chapter in his book and the other editor of the
book was from although he was a professor.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
So Paul lil Rank had connected us.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
With K, and I spent nine years with doctor v
K collaborating on various healthcare topics, wrote several books. But
I was so amazed by simple things about his own life,
you know, the way he conducted himself. So that nine years,
when you know, doctor Singh was let's say from seventy
(41:27):
one to seventy nine, I would say a lot of
mentorship for me, so, you know, for me something to
give back to society. You know, how do you make
yourself available to others? I think this is what I
learned from him. So yeah, I'm really thankful for you know,
such people in my life who have kind of made
(41:47):
me part of their life and you know, shared their wisdom.
Speaker 4 (41:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
Yeah, we always come across those good Samaritans and you know,
people whom be thankful for life.
Speaker 4 (41:58):
So I'm glad you have them.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
I know you're an avid reader such an you're always
on top of I mean, in a few times we've met,
I mean, you always know what's going on in the world.
Any favorite books or recommendations for who want to be
founders or anyone for that matter.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Yeah, I think this one book that I would draw
lessons for entrepreneurship is Siddharta, which is like a classical,
very small.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Book, fast read. But in my recent readings.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
That books that are impacting me. So a friend of
mine suggested me The Ministry for the Future. It's about
the climate change led impact starting from countries like India.
It's a science fiction novel. So it led me to
sponsor a hackathon last year on heat waves in India,
and so that has kind of kind of encouraged me
(42:49):
to do something this year.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Again. I've been reading some books.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
So a book is about, you know, super processed foods,
so it's called super processed people. It's about you know,
all the food that we eat, which is not even food.
So yeah, I don't know. Maybe you're looking for one suggestion,
but it's always.
Speaker 4 (43:07):
I have not heard with some of these books myself.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
So thanks for sharing and given your experience, given the
serial entrepreneurship and investments that you've done. I mean, if
somebody were to ask you for advice, you know, somebody
who says, okay, I have an idea of such in
any word of advice that you would give me before
I get started, what would that be?
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Yeah, So I think what I am always learning in
these context is that you know how to really start small,
how to make let's say failure easy. You know, so
instead of investing a lot of time and energy in
doing something really big, can we prove whatever is the
thesis by doing something very very small.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
That's super important advice, but still a lot of founders
fall prey to saying, oh, let me build out the
whole thing before I knock on potential customers doors. Right,
So thanks, thanks for that, So Sartin again, thank you
for taking the time, best of luck to hook me
to you and your team. Like you said, you're at
(44:14):
an equal to one. I wish any equal to multiple
times x very soon and we will get you back
on the podcast then. Until then, thanks so much, all
the best to you and the team. Lovely speaking to you,
and we'll stay in touch.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Yeah, the pleasure is all mine, Anthony, Thank you very
much for having me
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