Josh Caputo founded HumoTech in 2015 as a spin-off from his CMU research robotics department. His passion is focused on developing and commercializing cutting-edge robotics technology that addresses current societal needs like prostheses and exoskeletons.
Josh and his team have built a platform to enable the world’s top researchers to more rapidly iterate on their products and designs. This will eventually allow robotics to assist people in achieving higher levels of mobility and a greater quality of life across medicine, engineering, and business. In this episode, Aaron and Josh discuss Humotech’s goals, how they’ve bootstrapped a hardware company, and why exoskeletons will change the way we live. Josh Caputo’s Challenge; Go on a hike, turn off the cellphone and ask yourself what you are doing with your life. Connect with Josh Caputo
If you liked this interview, check out our episode The Construction Robot Revolution with Jeremy Searock where we discuss how Advanced Construction Robotics applies robotics technology in the rebar industry.
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Aarthi Ramamurthy has had a long and successful career in technology. She has lead product teams at Microsoft, Facebook, and Netflix. Aarthi has also built two startups, including Lumoid which went through YC Combinator.
In the midst of the pandemic, Aarthi started a show w/ her husband Sriram on the social audio app, Clubhouse. On the show, they’ve interviewed some of the biggest names in business and popular culture including Elon Musk, Calvin Harris, and Mark Zuckerberg. In this episode, Aarthi and Aaron discuss why we should be optimistic about tech, lessons from leading teams, and practical startup advice. Aarthi Ramamurthy’s Challenge; Build something. Separate it from your identity. Connect with Aarthi Ramamurthy271 Transhumanism, Fighting the Opioid Crisis, and the Future of Wearable Tech with Ryan O’Shea1/2/2018
This interview threw me out of my element. What a great way to start the new year. I get pretty uncomfortable with the notion of transhumanism and implanting technology into the body through an elective procedure. Luckily, I got to talk it over with Ryan.
Ryan O’Shea is a spokesperson and advisor for biotechnology startup company Grindhouse Wetware, which is dedicated to creating technology to augment human capabilities. Ryan is also a founder of the Carnegie Mellon University-based artificial intelligence startup Behaivior, which uses wearables and machine learning to predict and intervene in human behaviors to promote positive health outcomes. Behaivior is currently a competitor in the $5 Million IBM Watson AI XPRIZE competition. Ryan has previously worked as a host and producer for the Pittsburgh ABC Television affiliate. He currently hosts the technology and futurism-themed Future Grind podcast and has produced talks around the world on the topic of citizen science, making, and biohacking Attend my one-day conference January 27th in Pittsburgh. Learn more here. Ryan’s Challenge; Question your assumptions. Why are you scared of these ideas? Reach out and continue the conversation. Resources Harrison Bergeron WaitButWhy on Elon Musk & Neuralink Ray Kurzweil Cyberpunk Connect with Ryan Future Grind Podcast Behaivior Grindhouse Wetware If you liked this interview, check out previous tech-focused episodes with Robert Scoble, Joseph Lubin, and Dennis Mortensen. Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | PodBay 263 Audrey Russo, Lessons from Leading the Oldest & Largest Technology Trade Association on Earth11/22/2017
Since 2007, Audrey Russo has served the technology business sector for southwestern PA as President and CEO of the Pittsburgh Technology Council, the oldest and largest technology trade association in North America.
With a background in information technology, operations and finance, Audrey facilitates interaction across all sectors of the regional economy, which she believes will only succeed and grow through technology innovation and commercialized disruptions across every platform and experience. She previously worked for large multinational Fortune 500 companies (Alcoa, Reynolds Metals), as well as at MAYA Design. Russo earned her Bachelor of Science from Ohio State University. She also has a Masters in Public Administration from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Public Affairs. Russo also co-hosts TechVibe Radio on KDKA 1020 AM Friday nights at 7 to explore technology companies and entrepreneurial issues. Attend our one-day conference in Pittsburgh. Audrey’s Challenge; Open the door for someone else to get a customer. Use your contacts, influence, and buying power to make a meaningful difference for someone’s business. Books Mentioned Nudge by Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown Ayn Rand Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne 1984 by George Orwell Remaking Post-Industrial Cities: Lessons from North America and Europe by Donald K. Carter Connect with Audrey PGH Tech Coucil Twitter Audrey's Twitter Website If you liked this interview, check out episode 187 with Grant Oliphant where we discuss reshaping the future of Pittsburgh to be more just.
Underwritten by Piper Creative
Piper Creative creates podcasts, vlogs, and videos for companies. Our clients become better storytellers. How? Click here and Learn more. We work with Fortune 500s, medium-sized companies, and entrepreneurs. Sign up for one of Piper’s weekly newsletters. We curate links to Expand your Mind, Fill your Heart, and Grow your Tribe. Follow Piper as we grow YouTube Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | PodBay
Mark Leslie was the founding Chairman and CEO of Veritas Software. During his tenure as CEO, the company went from 12 employees to 5,500 employees deployed globally, and from a revenue base of $95,000 per year to $1,500,000,000 per year. In 2000, Veritas was the 10th largest independent software company by revenue, third largest by market capitalization, and achieved the distinction of becoming a Fortune 1000 company.
From 1980 until 1990 he served as president and chief executive officer of two Silicon Valley high-tech start-up companies. His prior experience included sales management, sales executive, systems engineer, and OS programmer. Mark Leslie is a successful retired entrepreneur and continues to be active in the Silicon Valley community. Connect with Mark Resources The Sales Learning Curve by Mark Leslie & Charles A. Holloway Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | PodBay
Barry Rabkin has over a decade of success founding, growing, and selling technology companies. An operational and strategic business leader, Barry's experience ranges from high growth, venture backed startups to Fortune 500 companies. He has also contributed to the development of over 100 successful physical and digital products.
Barry is proud to serve as Chief Marketing Officer of Identified Technologies, President of Hackers & Founders - PGH Chapter, Board Director of Jewish Family & Children's Services, He is also a guest Professor at Carnegie Mellon University and Strategist at Barry Brands Consulting where he advises and invests in many of the region's fastest growing startups. Barry’s Challenge; Write out your do list for the day and systematically eliminate everything getting in the way of your primary goal. Never miss one of our best episodes by subscribing to the newsletter. Connect with Barry Website If you liked this interview, check out episode 43 with Dick Zhang where we discuss Identified Technology for the first time, drone innovation, and entrepreneurship.
Underwritten by Piper Creative
Piper Creative creates podcasts, vlogs, and videos for companies. Our clients become better storytellers. How? Click here and Learn more. We work with Fortune 500s, medium-sized companies, and entrepreneurs. Sign up for one of Piper’s weekly newsletters. We curate links to Expand your Mind, Fill your Heart, and Grow your Tribe. Follow Piper as we grow YouTube Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | PodBay
Jack du Rose is a former jewelry and diamond artist, current blockchain nerd and cofounder of Colony.io & Ownage.io. He is phenomenally excited by the power shift our decentralised future brings. When not making $100m diamond skulls, or paradigm changing social platforms, Jack enjoys a nice cup of tea and a sit down.
Dr. Aron Fischer received his PhD in mathematics from the City University of New York in 2015. His specialization was in Algebraic Topology and Homotopy theory. Since his graduation he has been studying homotopy type theory in his free time and is interested in how (higher) type theory can help us write safer smart contracts. He is working for Colony in R&D, developing the governance protocols, and for the Ethereum Foundation's Swarm team where he is working on state and payment channels for the swarm incentive structure. Jack’s Challenge; Get involved in the Ethereum community and subreddit Aron’s Challenge; Conduct your own Ethereum transaction. Resources Mentioned Ethereum Subreddit Ethereum Github Gitter.im KanBan - Toyota’s Revolutionary Product System Like my crypto episodes? Support the work! Ethereum: 0x1c5f5da1efad45078c41bceb18eb777099138e6b Bitcoin: 13RcQZnZM4Lx6bw37YVdiv6Uc2X5b7anF3 Connect with Colony Slack Website Medium If you liked this interview, check out episode 221 with Ryan Snowden or 158 with Roger Ver for a discussion of blockchains and crypto. Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | PodBay
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Robert Scoble is an American blogger, technical evangelist, and author. Scoble is best known for his blog, Scobleizer, which came to prominence during his tenure as a technology evangelist at Microsoft. He later worked for Fast Company as a video blogger, and then Rackspace and the Rackspace sponsored community site Building 43 promoting breakthrough technology and startups. He currently works for Upload VR — a new media site covering virtual and augmented reality — as its entrepreneur in residence, where he develops new shows, events, and works with other entrepreneurs in the Upload Collective, a coworking space for virtual reality-focused startups. Mentioned Fragments Game on Microsoft Hololens Robert’s Challenge; Get VR. Use it to connect with others. If you don’t, you’ll be out of business. http://www.goingdeepwithaaron.com/podcast Connect with Robert Website Podcast If you liked this interview, check out episode 118 with Kevin Kelly where we discuss the inevitable forces that will shape our future or episode 111 with Kash Dhanda where we discuss virtual reality and building a digital marketing agency.
Aaron Watson: Smartphones and mobile are gonna be coming next in the form of virtual and augmented reality. So definitely a conversation that you're going to want to be paying close attention to and taking notes for. So here is Robert Scoble.
You're listening to going deep with Aaron Watson. Robert. Thank you so much for coming on, going deep with Aaron Watson. I'm excited to be speaking with you today. Robert Scoble: Hey, it's really, really great to be here. Aaron Watson: We've got lots to talk about but starting off with your new podcast inside AR and VR, and that obviously stands for augmented and virtual reality. This is a current passion for you. Something you're really sinking your teeth into over at upload VR. So, I wanted to start off with telling the story of maybe when you realized that this is the next big platform for digital. I know you've got a book coming up talking about how we're moving past the mobile generation, but if you can kind of start us off there with where that realization came from and what's got you so excited about AR and VR. Robert Scoble: It's been a process. I mean, I, first saw VR, I don't know, 20 years ago when my friend owned a store. Flight simulators run by an STI box that takes you back, and there are a few of us old people who are around for the first wave of VR, but this new wave is being driven by mobile because mobile is providing the R and D money to work on optics on screens, on sensors, on AI and other systems that are in mixed reality glasses. I realized this was real at web summit, when I'm Oculus, when Facebook or Oculus was showing off one of its an Oculus rift prototypes with what would become the touch controllers back then. And it was amazing, and everybody who came out of the room, you know, was amazed and used an expletive when they came out, you know, something like holy shit, I couldn't believe it, that's possible right? And yeah, that was pretty much it, that was off to the races, but the book came out of work. That's been going on all the way back to 2011. When I interviewed Mateo CTO, Mateo was the augmented reality leader back then. And apple promptly bought them after the interview. And I believe that they're one of the teams that's working on the next day. So, yeah, that it's been a process, you know, over the last couple of years, it's just been obvious to me, but by talking to people and seeing what's coming from VR and seeing the kinds of money that's being invested in VR. That's something really important is happening. Aaron Watson: Yeah. And you've made some exciting predictions, both about the upcoming Apple products, but just in general for the field, and you mentioned all the research and development that's going into it. Robert Scoble: Yeah. Aaron Watson: You're also very kind of clear about where there are still shortcomings or obstacles to overcome it. And that was kind of my impression. I've tried different versions of VR summit south by Southwest this year and Thrival, which is a Pittsburgh, similar conference. And there was the one where it actually is actually, I think McDonald's was hosting the thing, but you were painting within a virtual box and that was completely immersive. And like that was a game-changing experience for me. But I also had experiences where it was maybe just the headset and actually got like a little sick. So can you talk a little bit about what obstacles there are still to overcome and maybe what the difference was in those types of experiences? Robert Scoble: Yeah. There's a lot of physics for VR. I mean, today, if you want six degrees of freedom, VR, and that means you can move around and play basketball with your friends over the internet, right or shoe, or, you know, walk around things or climb in the climb. You need six degrees of freedom to do that. And to do that today, you need some sensors that are looking at you so that the system understands where your controllers are and where your head is. And that's way too nerdy way too expensive. The headsets are way too heavy, still, you know, on and on. And, and then, you know, its early days, so there's really not a lot of really amazing content, you know, there's a little bit and certainly enough to, you know, keep you in throttled for a week playing it, but pretty quickly after playing it for a month or two. You go, man, I'm bored. I've played all the cool stuff and there isn't any more to play, you know? And that's a function of headsets. Right now, you know, the HTC Vive is sold around a million. The Sony PlayStation sold a few million, maybe three or four like the Oculus rift is sold around a million. The Samsung Gear VR sold a little bit more than a million. And Google's given away a bunch of Google cardboards. I'm sorry. That's not enough headsets to get Hollywood excited because Hollywood gets excited when there's hundreds of millions of potential viewers, and they're just not the potential viewers out there. So Hollywood is not going to throw a hundred million dollars into a film for this yet. It's not there, but what we do have is pretty damn amazing and I believe that Apple solved the headset problem by the end of 2017. And, and if apple solves it, everybody will copy apple and therefore we're off to the races, you know? And then we'll see who really comes out with it. A brilliant design or a brilliant software, because a lot of this stuff is software and that's something, I don't know what Apple's doing. Right. I have some guesses, based on who they bought and based on how many engineers they have, they have 600 engineers working on just the 3d sensor, that kind of thing. But, yeah. It's still too expensive, too big, and too dorky, and normal people haven't had it on their face yet, so they don't even know what's going on. They hear about VR and go, “wow, that's something free for kids”. You know, the average person hasn't had a chance yet to even give it a try. So, that should all change by the end of a year from now. Aaron Watson: Yeah. A lot of entrepreneurs listen to the show Robert and one of the things that I'm fascinated by is there's clearly the avenue for immersive experiences, whether that's gaming or other, you know, where you're fully locked in having that singular experience with virtual reality. But there's also the augmented reality or mixed reality side of things which you know like you're saying what would move somewhere beyond a headset and maybe be a set of glasses. We see like the very, very early stages of this with Google Glass or Snapchat spectacles. And I'm curious, you know, I can remember barely when the first time we started talking about Amazon or these kinds of online e-commerce platforms and the discussion of, well, eventually this is gonna be, you know, most of the commerce that's going on. It's still not the entirety of it, but you-- my family spent most of our Christmas shopping on Amazon, as supposed to being in the mall. And I'd imagine that there's kind of a similar future coming where a lot of the holiday shopping or shopping, in general, would be in a virtual reality platform. So can you speak a little bit to what maybe is on the near horizon with that and how you see that changing commerce and advertising in the future. Robert Scoble: Oh man. First of all, everything's about to change. The technologies that are coming at us are a bigger change for the tech industry than we've ever had. End of discussion. What we're getting with mixed reality and Microsoft HoloLens is the first, you know, real credible effort here. It is a glass that puts stuff, puts virtual stuff on top of your real world. So, if you walk into a shopping mall, you're gonna ask it, you know. Hey, I hate Siri or Hey, Cortana, “where’s the blue jeans in this mall?” And for blue jeans will appear in the air, different brands and different brands underneath of who's selling them. You know, maybe Nordstrom's is selling, I guess, jeans, maybe a Levi's and selling Levi's jeans and stuff like that, where the gap is selling Levi's yet jeans. And so let's say I need Levi's jeans. I clicked on it with my finger or my eyes because there's eye sensors. And, say, take me there. And all of a sudden, a blue line appears on the mall floor taking me there and I follow the blue line and it takes me exactly to where those jeans are and at the gap, that's how everything's gonna work. You're gonna go to you know, sporting event and you got to see stats on top of the players. As they run down the field, you're gonna go to a museum, and you're gonna see videos about the artists next to the art that you're looking at and on and on. Everything is gonna change and everything about entertainment’s certainly gonna change. And that means there's gonna be a new kind of advertising. I believe every brand is gonna have a virtual component to it. Virtual articulation about what that brand is and what it stands for. And we're already seeing that Sephora is already building augmented reality makeup and their augmented reality makeup works and works today on an iPhone. You can get their app, download it, look at your face, put pink lipstick on your face, on your lips, and see what it looks like. And the virtual makeup, the augmented makeup is color-matched to the real makeup. So if you buy the real product, it matches what you saw on your face, with the virtual product, right? And every brand is going to have to do that in the next 10 months because as soon as you figure out Apple's coming with it, this kind of product, you're going to be investing, right, in innovation. Otherwise, you're going to go, you're not going to be innovative anymore. And if you don't get into this, right? Aaron Watson: Absolutely. And you mentioned Cortana or Alexa or Siri as these virtual assistants whom we're interacting within these virtual or augmented worlds. And that is another interesting component. I bought Amazon Echos for a bunch of my family this year to-- cause there's also this movement from text-based computing to computing, where you are speaking with the computer and training yourself to be able to do that, I think is just a great skill for people to start learning. And that kind of leads me to the next question of, as we move in this direction with more virtual reality, clearly familiarity is going to be valuable. But for someone who maybe isn't necessarily building tech or an explicit tech skillset, what skills are going to become more important or where can people build competencies now to benefit from this shift that's going to be happening? Robert Scoble: My advice is, to brands and to people who work in strategy and stuff like that, you have to get VR today. There's not enough. It's not an option anymore. You have to get VR because VR is the stepping stone to what really is coming and it'll teach you. It'll teach you how it works. It'll teach you how to build software for it because unity is the development environment that VR and AR is going to use. And it starts thinking, get, getting you to think about a user interface. That's spread all over the world. That in other words, it's a 3d user interface. They use your fingers to control your eyes and VR is how you are starting to get used to this and how you're learning about how customers are going to react to it. And if you don't have a VR system like an Oculus rift or a Vive, you're not in business in this business and you will be forced to get into this business in 10 months because Apple is coming, but why not get in there earlier? Because if you want to be on stage with Apple and, you know, be a modern, innovative company you need to be in VR today. Aaron Watson: One last question then we'll start wrapping up, Robert. It seems as though there is a general positivity to your view of this kind of new transformation that is coming. Would you say that you are generally optimistic about this kind of next stage of digital innovation? Robert Scoble: Yeah and that optimism comes from owning it. This is why you have to own it. You have to own it. There's no option. You can't go to make Microsoft store for an hour and think, you know everything about VR. It's not going to happen. I've had it all summer and I'm still learning a lot. And I'm certainly learning by having my friends come over and play it and watching my kids play it. And I know it's going to be huge because of that experience. Everybody loves it. And when it gets cheap enough and gets small enough, it's going to explode and that's called an Apple. Apple, Apple, Apple. And if everybody, who wants to be an innovative company, understands that, then they're building for it already. And they're going to be ready for when Google comes in and Microsoft comes in and magic leap because there's hundreds of billions of dollars being spent in this world. Now on this new technology, augmented reality, that's coming and it's quite stunning. You know, and here's one thing. I have a Microsoft HoloLens, which puts virtual stuff all over your space. And there's a game there called fragments. And you have to go through and map out your room, and then it puts a murder into your room and there's rats crawling on the floor and there's stuff on the walls and that, and it's on your walls because it knows where every surface is in your room. Right. And it's stunning. There's nothing like it. You can't do this on TBU or in movies. So there's a new world coming and it, we all know it's coming and, you know, in the next three years, Apple's coming in 10 months. Aaron Watson: So people can definitely get ready for apple and hop on that train when it comes. But if someone is really feeling inspired.. Robert Scoble: No, you're not going to be ready if you want to be on stage with Tim Cook like if you're a let's say you're a hotel chain and you know, like Marriott is number one, right, or Aaron Watson: Yeah. Robert Scoble: If you want to be on stage with Tim cook saying, “Hey, we just designed augmented hotel of the future. It's like Disneyland, come in and bring your apple, a new apple phone to a Marriott property and see how cool it is.” You have to be building now. You can't start building when Apple announces something you have to build before Apple announces something. And that means you have to have faith with Apple is actually doing something important, but Tim Cook has been telling you that he's doing something important for the last eight weeks. He's every week he's been mouthing off to the press, AR is coming. It's going to be huge. So if you don't believe Tim Cook, then you're just not a rational business person. You're just not a rational business person. You should just quit your marketing job today and go home. Right? Aaron Watson: Absolutely. I totally agree. Having tried it out, there's definitely something cresting on the near horizon. I'm with ya. And I hope that people will hear this and get inspired to get educated. Robert Scoble: I mean, magically we've got $1.4 billion dollars without having a customer without having a product. And why? Because they showed off credible mixed reality. And in a fantastic optic that turned out, they couldn't make it. So they're going to more standard optics, which are still mind blowing. Keep in mind, everybody, I put a HoloLens on, this is absolutely mind-blowing. And, the HoloLens is too big and too expensive and not high enough resolution yet. And the viewing angle isn't there yet, but it's still mind blowing even with all those problems. So we're way ahead of where the apple too was, right? In terms of kicking off a new industry and in the next year, you're going to see another version of HoloLens, which will be a lot smaller. How good will it be? We'll see the guy whose building says, you know, version two is going to be a big improvement and version three is going to be the one you want to own. Well, that's three years away, right? So we're about to get version two and see how cool the Microsoft one is, when it is and how, and then we'll go see apple and apple is the big event because apple has a brand that Microsoft doesn't have. And, Apple is a brand that people want to wear on their face and which is a prerequisite for this new world and its, and they own, the best companies they buy. You know, Tim Cook for the last seven years has been working on this next iPhone. Been buying a lot of companies for billions of dollars. So it's gotta be a lot of fun. Aaron Watson: Absolutely. And you are going to be covering it both on the podcast and in the other forums where people follow you. If people want to connect with you in the digital world, Robert, where can we direct them? Robert Scoble: The best place is Facebook and that's where I put most of my effort but coming in 2017, you'll see me spread my effort out to a few places. But you always find it on Facebook. The other places like the podcast and the newsletter and other efforts that we're doing. Aaron Watson: Fantastic. We'll be sure to link to that in the show notes for this episode, but as we do at the end of every interview, Robert, I would like to give you the mic a final time to issue an actual personable challenge for the-- Robert Scoble: But, I think I already laid it down, get VR and tell me why I'm wrong, but you have to do it from a credible place, which means you have to play it, you know, 20 hours of VR first. And then you can tell me how I'm wrong. But so far nobody's done that. I get VR because one it's fun. Number two, your kids will love you more. It's helping me out with my kids because I am the cool parent on the block right now. I have VR and nobody else does right and it helps you figure out what's gonna work in this new world and it will help you iterate into that new world in a reasonable way. Instead of you being forced to in three, in three years, you're going to have to do it if you're a business strategist, right. Because it's going to be so obvious that if you don't do it, you're out of business. And three years from now, if you're going to have to hire a unity of programmers and get a software team working together and, and being creative, that's really hard to do from the, from zero to a hundred miles an hour, right? It's really easy to do right now because you have to go to 10 miles an hour this month, 20, the next month, 30, the next month, 40 in the next month, 50 the next month. And you can figure out how to do that in a calm, measured way right now, I, if you wait you're not going to be successful and I can show you how that happens. Aaron Watson: I love it. I think a lot of people are going to be inspired and take the challenge. And I think another thing that just kind of baked into that challenge, that was interesting was the idea that you're using to connect with your family. You're the, got the cool house on the block that other people are coming to try it out. And really the idea that VR can be an avenue to connect and not kind of the dystopian separation between people. I think that we kind of take social networks in their current form for granted and what they can turn into on a virtual reality platform can be pretty exciting. Robert Scoble: That's a good point. If you get VR, you understand where things are going and if you're building software and building a company that $3,000 is not going to be a major expense. You know, I understand this step is expensive for normal everyday people, but I'm not talking to normal everyday people here who are listening to that show, I'm talking about business strategists, people who are going to drive major companies, you got to get into this. It's not going to be optional soon. Aaron Watson: Awesome. Well, I'm sure people are gonna be inspired. Robert, thank you so much for sharing your time and wisdom with us today. We just went deep with Robert Scoble hope everyone out there has a fantastic day.
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Jacob Zax’s company, Edify, develops technologies that make learning more fun, creative, and accessible for people around the world. Their current focus is music, with a new app, MusiQuest, that inspires beginners to love and understand music by teaching them to compose their own songs in styles from pop to classical. MusiQuest is an educational expansion of their first app, Sketch-a-Song, which has been used by over 300,000 people to create over 2,000,000 pieces to date. Jacob’s Challenge; Diversify the media sources that you are consuming. http://www.goingdeepwithaaron.com/podcast Connect with Jacob Website jacob@edify.co If you liked this interview, check out episode 151 with Matt Keener where we discuss telemedicine and delivering brain health. 169 Bonin Bough, from Fortune 50 to Small Business Success + How Your Phone has Changed Your Life12/19/2016
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B. Bonin Bough is one of the foremost-awarded marketing executives in his field, the host of the CNBC reality show Cleveland Hustles, and the author of Txt Me (646) 759-1837. Throughout his illustrious career as one of the youngest C-suite executives in a Fortune 50 company, Bough has spearheaded some of the industry’s largest global marketing campaigns across digital, mobile, television, print, and experiential, including the premier of the first ever 3D printed food product, the customizable, real-time 3D printed Oreo at South by Southwest. Having served as the Chief Media & eCommerce Officer at Mondelēz International (formerly Kraft Foods) for the last four years, Bough has created some of the first marketing programs across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Paramount Films, ABC, NBC, Fox, to name a few, and takes precedence in fostering partnerships with startups including Instagram, Foursquare, and Buzzfeed. Before working at Mondelēz International, Bough led digital marketing globally for PepsiCo. Bough is seen as one of the top mobile marketers in the world, having been named “Mobile Marketer of the Year” by the MMA. Over ten years of experience in the space, ranging from digital marketing, strategic planning and project execution to leading and building global digital marketing practices within agencies and on the client side. With a focus on creating industry-leading practices like Gatorade Mission Control, the industry's first model for real-time marketing, and PepsiCo10, a global digital innovation platform. Bonin’s Book Txt Me: Your Phone Has Changed Your Life. Let’s Talk about It Bonin’s Challenge; Dedicate time to making a person or group better than they thought they could be. The mark of a great number one, is where their number two goes to lead. http://www.goingdeepwithaaron.com/podcast Connect with Bonin Website (646) 759-1837 If you liked this interview, check out episode 161 with Tim Summers where we discuss how hackers think, or episode 123 with Tucker Max where we discuss brand building and book writing.
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A hacker, professor, and consulted expert, Dr. Tim Summers is a cyber and risk strategist specializing in identifying cyber risks and sensitivities within public and private organizations. He is a specialist in understanding the relationship between human cognitive psychology and socio-technical systems. He has served as an Executive Advisor for one of the world’s oldest multinational strategic management firms. He has also been a consultant for Fortune 500 companies worldwide and is a regularly invited speaker. He’s the CEO of Summers & Company, Founder of WikiBreach, and the Director of Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Engagement in the iSchool at the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Summers is one of the world’s leading experts in understanding How Hackers Think. Tim’s Challenge; Identify seven people and seek a unique way to inspire and empower them. Ways to empower include; Smile, be positive, encourage creativity, challenge others, and connect. Connect with Tim Website If you liked this interview, check out episode 95 with Dennis Mortensen where we discuss artificial intelligence, smart assistants, and entrepreneurship.
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Nick Adkins is a passionate kilt-wearing leader with start-up experience & 5 acquisition adventures. He is focusing on manifesting/attracting like-minded people who are making a difference/changing the world! Nick’s Challenges
http://www.goingdeepwithaaron.com/podcast Connect with Nick Website If you liked this interview, check out episode 151 with Dr. Matt Keener where we discuss brain health, telemedicine, and technology. 151 Dr. Matt Keener, Exploring Telemedicine, Starting a Health Network, and Improving Brain Health10/31/2016
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Dr. Keener is a board-certified psychiatrist passionate about applying neuroscience in non-traditional settings to help families and adolescents. He set out to work with "kids and brains" 20 years ago and never looked back. Matt completed his medical training and residency in Child & Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, where he served as Chief Resident of Research. He subsequently undertook a postdoctoral research fellowship in Pediatric Neuroimaging Research under an NIH grant fellowship, studying brain systems/circuits that form our sense of self in bipolar disorder, depression. Fascinated by big waves however–and believing that applying neuroscience outside traditional routes could have a broader impact for good–in 2012, he jumped into the wave of healthcare innovation. He co-founded Emodt, a company quantifying emotion through language. LIke 99% (yes, that's the actual number) of digital health startups, Emodt didn't make it as a stand-alone business, but the team did have a win in helping one of the world's largest pharmaceutical firms create their first non-drug digital health tool to be launched in 2016, presently in pilot testing. In 2015, wishing to put all this experience into serving adolescents and their supporters, Dr. Keener began assembling Blackbird Health as a way of delivering a supportive health framework for those in greatest need. Book Recommendation Ready Player One by Ernest Cline Matt’s Challenge; Notice and pay attention to friends who are letting you know that they are struggling http://www.goingdeepwithaaron.com/podcast Connect with Matt Website If you liked this interview, check out episode 140 with Richard Citrin where we discuss resilience and how to deal with stress.
Kristi is the Creative Environments Lead at Maya Design consultancy and innovation lab. She pulls together interdisciplinary teams to think deeply about the interaction between physical and virtual space, and explores the widest possible definition of “environment” in service of our client’s desired outcome.
Prior to joining MAYA, Kristi worked in Washington, DC as a management consultant, facilitating culture change tied to physical change for federal agencies. She has worked in California and Arizona as a behavioral strategist creating workplace, mixed use development, and hospitality strategies. Kristi was also the CEO of her own firm that provided consultative services for architecture, interiors, FF&E (furniture, fixtures and equipment), and construction. Additionally, she was on the faculty at Arizona State University teaching in both the Colleges of Architecture and Business, with research focused on the impact physical environment has on human behavior. You can also find her speaking about workplace, culture, community, and the future of work at conferences across the country. Kristi’s Challenge; The boundaries of your potential are drawn in your own mind. Ask yourself Is there more? Aim higher. Advice from Christopher Dorris. Connect with Kristi If you liked this interview, check out episode 74 with John Beck where we discuss product design and the internet of things.
Neil’s site, Above Avalon, originated from a Tumblr blog about Apple in 2010. At the time, he was a Wall Street analyst focused on the financial sector, while all things related to Apple and technology were his evening and weekend projects. After being disappointed with the lack of relevant Apple analysis from both a financial and business point of view, he decided to begin building a new kind of Apple analysis site based on his financial background and critical thinking skills. By examining Apple from both a Wall Street and Silicon Valley perspective, he has positioned Above Avalon to provide unique insight into how Apple functions and its worldview.
Along with weekly Above Avalon posts and podcast episodes, Neil publishes exclusive daily updates for Above Avalon members. Members range from Wall Street experts to weekend hobbyists. Neil’s Challenge; Try saying “No” to things that you can’t put your whole self into. No one has enough time to do everything. Connect with Neil Website If you liked this interview, check out episode 47 with Avi Geller where we discuss technology and the future of hearable tech.
If there’s something interesting going on in Pittsburgh, Kit Mueller is probably involved in it. If there’s someone important you want to meet, he probably knows how to get an intro.
Kit is a relentless self-starter, with recent projects including Speak Freely, Data Driven Creative and Fygment. In addition to his own endeavors, Kit is dedicated to his community and constantly pushing to raise awareness for young aspiring companies and causes. His story is one we can all learn from. Kit’s Challenge; Go get coffee with someone who look different than you do. From a different background than you. Connect with Kit Website
Jim, Executive Director of Pittsburgh’s AlphaLab accelerator program, provides mentorship, education and network-building for technology startups. His accelerator helps companies rapidly iterate through early stages of product and customer development.
Launched in 2008, AlphaLab is ranked #6 among accelerators in the US and a charter member of the Global Accelerator Network, where Jim currently serves on the Advisory Board. AlphaLab alumni companies include The Resumator, No Wait, Black Locus (acquired by Home Depot), Shoefitr and SolePower. Jim guides companies by leveraging his experience and network gained from working closely with over eighty companies in the Innovation Works and AlphaLab portfolios and from his prior management experience in Silicon Valley. In the Bay Area, Jim built and managed software businesses at Hewlett-Packard, Agile Software (acquired by Oracle), and Instill Corporation (acquired by iTradeNetwork Inc). As a management consultant at Booz Allen & Hamilton, Jim advised executive management of Fortune 500 companies on marketing, strategy, and organizational issues. Jim holds a BA and MA in Economics from Stanford University and an MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business. Jim’s Challenge; Go out of your way to explore viewpoints opposite of the ones you hold. Connect with Jim Website
Hahna is the Chief Technical Officer and cofounder of Sole Power Technologies. The company builds an shoe insole that charges a battery while the used walks. That battery can be used to charge a cell phone or other electronic device.
As a child, Hahna was inspired by the technology in science fiction books, shows, and comics. She became an engineer because she wanted to make such technology a reality. For her, developing an energy harvesting shoe insert meant creating a device that could be found in an Isaac Asimov book. She also has a lifelong dream of going to space, which grew bigger while designing robots at NASA. As company CTO, she leads product design and is the only one capable of drawing more than stick figures. Hahna’s Challenge; Spend some time every day learning about a topic you want to get smarter on. Popular Science Invention of the Year
Ilana Diamond is the Managing Director of AlphaLab Gear, Innovation Works’ hardware start-up accelerator which provides physical product startups with connections, investment, mentorship and more. Ilana helps entrepreneurs rapidly progress through the early stages of product and customer development by leveraging her experience and network, gained from over 20 years of leading and growing companies, from early stage to exit.
Prior to running AlphaLab Gear, Ilana served as the President and Chief Executive Officer at Sima Products. She built Sima’s management team, developed and managed a network of Asian manufacturers and led profitable sales growth at national brick and mortar retail chains such as Target and Walmart, internet retailers such as Amazon.com, and specialty catalog retailers.Based on innovative technology developed by Sima, she also founded and managed a commercial alerting startup, raised outside capital spun it off into a separate entity. In 2010, Ms. Diamond negotiated the sale of Sima and transitioned operations to the new owners. Ilana currently serves as a Member of the advisory board at Sole Power, LLC. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Pittsburgh Technology Council and Tie Pittsburgh. Previously, she sat on the Executive Board of the Consumer Electronics Association. Ilana’s Challenge; Pick one thing every day that you are going to do well. You can’t do everything well every single day. Connect with Ilana Twitter @Ilanadiamond @AlphalabGear AlphaLab Gear Website Hardware Cup
Avi Geller has taken a long and thoughtful route to entrepreneurship. During his time on Going Deep, he discusses how he moved to progressively smaller companies and developed a vision for the future of wearable tech.
He is now focused on “hearables”, a segment of tech focused on headsets and earpieces that deliver real time information to users. As a member of the AlphaLab accelerator, Avi is leading Maven Machines towards being a player in the Internet of Things. Avi’s Challenge; Start something, like a social gathering or a project, that you take ownership of and do a great job. Next Pittsburgh Article Connect with Avi Twitter @avishaigeller @MavenMachines Website avishai@mavenmachines.com
Aaron Watson: So Avi, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I really appreciate it.
Avi Geller: Thank you for having me here. Aaron Watson: So, I just want to start off by giving a chance to explain what Maven Machines is and kind of where the idea of Maven. Avi Geller: Sure Maven Machines were a, a young startup, a wearable devices company. Specifically, we make smart headsets. Or as what we’re, trying to get, it's going to be called hearables in the industry. Aaron Watson: Okay. Avi Geller: So smart, earpieces and headsets. The first product we deliver is a headset for the trucking industry, and it's a Bluetooth headset, connects to your smartphone, for truck drivers. And it detects if a driver is fatigued or distracted, while they're driving, it constantly monitors their performance and their in situation, for alertness and things like that while they're driving, in order to keep them safe on the road. The way, the way we came up with this was actually initially by knowing that we wanted to be a hearables company and make this kind of technology and then looking for the best market to go out with. I myself, come from a enterprise sales type of background. And, and the thinking was rather than start with a consumer product, we're going to start with a business oriented product and with a number of possible markets. And the market has seemed to lead to the best fit for our technology and a market that's ready for this kind of technology was trucking. So that, that's what we set out to do and created a product for the trucking industry. Aaron Watson: Okay. So you, you said that the, the product senses, when a driver is getting fatigued or how their performance is doing, how does it actually go about measuring that or sensing the effectiveness of the driver? Avi Geller: Okay. Yeah, so what's important is that the headset has a number of sensors inside of it. So if you think of kind of a typical Bluetooth earpiece or, or, a headset that you might, envision kind of a call center person, wearing what is a band over the head and there's a microphone, boom. That's physically what it looks like. Really quick, the reason it has a microphone, boom, in the bigger incident advantage. Is that drivers drive for about 10 hours a day and day after day after day, they need something that's very comfortable and the truck is a very loud environment. So you need a, the microphone similar to what we're holding here so that you can be heard well, rather than a Bluetooth system in the, in the dash of the car, something like that. But in this headset, we have an array of sensors. A three-dimensional accelerometer and a three dimensional gyroscope and a three-dimensional magnetometer. And we get, GPS readings, and there's a few other sensors like temperature and a few more actually that we're adding right now. And what we've done is created a number of algorithms that are analyzing the data that's coming from mostly from the driver's head motions. And it turns out, the motions of a driver's head are very insightful into the status of a person in their situational context or, or really how they're performing, what, the function they're trying to, to accomplish at that time. So for trucking, a very straightforward example is mirror checking. So we can actually detect emotion that is checking the right mirror, checking the left mirror of a truck. And there's a federal guideline the drivers should check your mirrors, truck drivers, check their mirrors every five to eight seconds. That sounds like a lot, but it's actually right about where somebody is when they are naturally where they are when they are focused and alert and not fatigued and driving a vehicle. So that's one thing that we monitor at all times, we call that the heartbeat of safe driving. Other things are the head bob, if you've ever been driving down the street and, you get tired, it could be late at night, early in the morning where you just haven't slept much recently and you kind of uncontrollably what's called microsleep, for a split second, and then it usually scares you enough that your head snaps up suddenly. So that's a pretty distinct motion that we pick up. And these are examples of what we can pick up through these motion detecting sensors we have on the headset. Aaron Watson: Gotcha. So is there a then like central some sort of central location where this is all being analyzed or is it, specific to that single headset and the headset kind of self regulating for that individual driver? Avi Geller: So it's actually both, there's the headset, which is kind of an independent entity with sensors inside of it. And it's got its own computer or micro-controller inside of it. And it's doing some of its own analysis. At the same time this headset is paired to a smartphone, so you can do phone calls and on the smartphone, we have an app. So the data is actually flowing from the headset to the phone, many, you know, tens, dozens of times a second. And we do some of the heavier algorithm, excuse me, algorithm processing on the phone. And then for fleet management, now we sell our solution to trucking fleets rather than directly at truck drivers. So the data actually flows the event data from the phone to a cloud database and an analytics platform. And then a fleet manager or safety manager can log in through a web browser and see the status of all his or her drivers on the road at any given time perform analytics, monitor driver performance over time and things like that. Aaron Watson: Gotcha. This blending of so many different sensors and wireless capabilities and artificial intelligence seems, at least what it sounds like to me is the type of technology that maybe would have been potentially possible to create a decade ago, but would have been basically on not, not, not something to be capable of buying from inexpensive when you couldn't put it in one affordable package. But as these sensors have become less expensive, it seems like it opened up the potential for this market that otherwise wouldn't have existed. Is that, is that a fair analysis? Avi Geller: You're absolutely correct. So one of the reasons I founded this company now, and this is what we're doing is because we're at the perfect time for this kind of thing. It's something that you really couldn't do even two or three years ago. And the fact that you can buy off the shelf sensors for in volume, for pennies, or even at low volumes for a few dollars, and not only the price of them, but the technology that's available, the sensors are, are extremely, high quality and accurate something that didn't even exist 15 or 20 years ago, let alone small enough to fit inside of an earpiece. The power consumption, in terms of, electricity or battery power has improved dramatically. So now you can, our headset will work for an entire days use of constant talk to him. You can be on the phone with our headset for 14 hours straight before you have to recharge it. So it's for a full day's use that kind of thing. Wasn't really possible. A number of years ago, as well as we can we take advantage of smartphones, the computing power inside of a smartphone. Is remarkable. And you think, you know, less than 10 years ago, there was no iPhone. So all of this has come together in addition to the 3g cell network. So we have data, as I mentioned, flowing from a phone to a cloud database analytics platform. So 10 years ago that didn't exist. And the only way you could, you could send data from a moving truck to a data platform is via satellite connection. And that's gonna be the origins of this industry of technology and trucking and mobile tracking is really from satellite based systems. So you have technology has changed so quickly and so dramatically that's opened up possibilities for the kinds of things that we're doing. And I talked about the safety use case, but in the future, there's other use cases around productivity, tracking, optimizations for the trucks. Aaron Watson: Gotcha. You mentioned earlier on that you knew that you wanted to get into hearables and kind of be a, maybe a leader in that niche. Why hearables, what attracted you to that realm? Avi Geller: Yeah. So when I was first looking into starting this company, I looked at the opportunities out there where I could get a company off the ground, and really it needs to be a game changer. I wanted to start a VC backed high growth, innovative startup, the kind of Silicon valley type a startup. I come from I'm an engineer by training. I have a degree in computer science spend number of years, both developing software and management type roles. Things like that. So I was looking at the opportunities out there and internet of things is a tremendous opportunity. And we're related to that as well as wearable devices. And then we looked at wearable devices. This is now a couple of years ago when I first started researching it at the time Google Glass was getting a lot of attention and it was the beginning of the smartwatch, a phenomenon. This was before the apple watch, but there started to be products like the pebble watch. And when I looked at Google Glass, you know what I saw as a product, that's pretty cool technology, but going in the wrong direction in terms of social acceptance, and it was getting a lot of bad publicity around people where, you know, I don't know if I can say this on, on the air, glass holes, things like that. It's just not socially acceptable and comfortable by any means to be talking to somebody with a camera on their face, looking at you. Kind of the point of technology is that it disappears as it gets more advanced it's useful while not being visible and, and Google glass was the opposite of that. So I realized socially that's going to be a problem. And then the watch is interesting, but really the value proposition isn't there. You've put something on your wrist. It doesn't, it doesn't provide a lot of value compared to something else which, which I realize is a hearable. If you look at your phones, people are comfortable wearing headphones in public. We do it all the time. You're comfortable being around other people, wearing headphones in public. There was a period of time where everybody was kind of cool to have a Jawbone style you're young and Bluetooth earpiece, and, and now it's maybe less cool, but it's still used by a lot of people. It's pretty useful. And I said, okay, socially, this is going to be really accepted. You can do that. In terms of the value proposition here, you have a piece of technology that can speak to you, literally speak to you privately. You could speak back to it for the most part privately. It's on your, on your head so you get a lot of the value of Google glass that you don't get out of a watch that you get it in a socially acceptable form that said, all right, I'll bet we can make some pretty, pretty useful and cool products around the ear versus the other wearable form factors, in that kind of place my bet on the future of wearables being hearables, and we went from there. Aaron Watson: Gotcha. That's very well thought out. And interestingly kind of leading to the decision to actually start your own company. In episode 43, talked to your buddy Dick Chang and in our conversation, he mentioned that he kind of had the philosophy of, you jumped right into entrepreneurship, like dive in face first and that he's had some debates with you about kind of having a different philosophy and your history leading into starting this company is you were at a company with 10,000 people in a company with a thousand people, then a company with a hundred people. And now you're the CEO and founder of company with less than 10 employees. How do you feel that that kind of progression prepared you to be successful in this venture in entrepreneurship? Avi Geller: Yeah, that's it, you know, Dick's a great guy. We're, we're, we're really good friends. It's funny, we're similar in many ways, but we have taken the complete opposite paths to get to where we are today, which is running a founding and running a startup company. And that's actually, what something that's beautiful about it is, you know, for people out there that are interested in and starting their own companies and running their own company. There is no right way to do it. So it's great that you can look at Dick's story and then you can see my story and I'll talk more about it now and then find your own story to get to where you want to be. I think that's wonderful. It's one of the great things about a business entrepreneurship is that there is no right way. There's no recipe. But I, I took a path where I started by working for SAP, a 50,000 employee company. And I graduated from MIT with a degree in computer science and I was you know, writing software and in this gigantic company and in one office of, of many, not in the headquarters they're based in Germany. But I learned a lot along the way, ended up being there for seven years and I didn't really know, realize how much I was learning along the way. One thing I did realize that I learned is that I don't want to work for a 50,000 person in company. And I knew I wanted to get into the startup business and maybe one day start my own company, but rather than just quitting my job and starting a company, I guess I took a more conservative approach. I got an MBA along the way in a kind of, they call it an executive MBA where you're, you're getting it while you're while you're working. So that took a couple of years and I learned a few things and, and really to benefit in that or, is the great friends and contacts I got from them. Aaron Watson: So that was like night classes after work. Avi Geller: Yeah. Right. So that was like, yeah. Night class and weekend classes. And it was a nice program joint with Kellogg, and I was living in Israel at the time, so Tel Aviv university in Kellogg, and we traveled all over the world and it was a really cool program. And I started learning, especially as an engineer, you can, then you start seeing balance sheets and income statements and financial planning and marketing and pricing class and all these topics, which are, which is actually really useful. But that was one. So I said, oh, I'll get an MBA. And I'll learn more about business to masters in business. So I learned about business. Does that prepare you to start a company or nothing really prepares you, but it's something I did. And then I said, all right, I need to go work for a startup company. So I actually ended up getting a job managing a product management group in 140 person company. And it was again in Israel, it was a company backed by Sequoia well-funded. It was around for five years or so. I mean, maybe in seven years at the time had, you know, tens of millions in revenue, but still that kind of startup feel to it. It was an internet advertising company with really cool technology and, you know, analyzing tens of millions of webpage hits and clicks and actions in real time and deciding which which ad for which person and which time and all sorts of. Really really advanced stuff with analytics and, and saw the whole business from that. And I learned a lot about really managing technology in a in a startup type environment. So that was a great experience, did that for two years. And then I knew I wanted to get into a smaller company and I was starting to play around with founding my own company, and I had some ideas and it was kind of working at a business plan written for a different idea and starting to talk to potential investor types. And then I met somebody who was running and was founded and was a CEO of a startup company and that was about four people. And he, you know, we really hit it off. At first I thought he might invest in my company. And then I realized that he, he kind of invest, he, he had invested in, was now running this, this other startup and he offered me to join. So I was one of the very first people and I joined and the reason I did it, cause this was his fourth company and he's a very talented guy he's been around for a while. Obviously. And I realized that this was going to be a great education. So I went to work and I was kind of the number two in the company is a head of sales, had a product management, you know, he and I went together to raise money. We raised $4 million from venture capital. We created a product, it was a product in big data analytics working with social media data. We went out to get customer and as we got customers, actually telecommunications companies in Southeast Asia, Had a big need for what we're doing with the kind of data we are analyzing. And we signed some pretty big contracts with companies in Singapore and the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia. And that was a tremendous experience. Just watching this experience, CEO you know, leading meetings where we're investing or we're talking to investors, but I was there and I was more on the technical side yet the kind of the young, younger entrepreneur type in a meeting. And we were a great. A great pair for these meetings, but that was a tremendous learning opportunity for me. And then ended up moving back to the states with my, with my wife who got into a master's program in Boston. So we came back to Boston and that was a very, you know, kind of two years have gone by. And it was a good opportunity for, for me not to take this kind of in the last 10 years of work experience and knowledge and. And say, okay, now, now it's really the time to go out and start my own company. Aaron Watson: As you made that transition from the big SAP to that last startup, before you started your own, you talked about that being great learner experience. What were some of the big takeaways that contrasted to your experience in the bigger organization? Avi Geller: Yeah. Why is that different? So the big organization, everything moves relatively slowly, very slowly than you could say. And you develop product on a timescale of years. If you start thinking about an idea today, and you think it's the greatest idea in the world, even if you need three months and three people to develop it, it's going to take three years and 300 people. It's just how those companies function and all the processes you have to go through. And the kind of the levels of management that you have to go through. And the thinking and everything is very well. Segregated in terms of here's product management, here's outbound product management and on private there's marketing here, sales here's development, here's QA, and everything is different offices and different people and different countries, they just move on a very different scale and they're signing deals. You know, a company like SAP, a product that might bring in a hundred million dollars in revenue is a waste of time. It just doesn't move the needle. And it's, it's an experience, and so previously I learned more than I, and I realized I was learning. You realize you, you really learn what professional product management is and professional sales and professional R and D how you develop a product with a thousand people working together through the stages of defining a product, understanding requirements, developing initial versions, how you do QA, QA is a whole world that you see done professionally by people who've done it for decades. So you learn a lot about that. When you go to a company of five people. When I was at regrew about 10 or 12, while I was still there, things are very different. You're trying to get your first customer and when you get a customer and he says, I want, you know, you have these features, which is great, but if it can do this other feature, then I'm really interested. You do it and you do it in a month. And you kind of half understand what you're doing and you and the customer, you realize customers say things and it sounds like it's a done deal, but sometimes they're just brainstorming along with you. But a lot of it is relationship. And, and kind of building a certain level of trust between, we were selling to big companies, telecommunications companies, and here we are in this little 10 person company, but we got the deals and a lot of it, it it's a different mentality. It's being as quick. Your advantage over SAP or any other large company is that you can do what they want. Years faster than what the, you know, the bigger company can do. And then your challenge is to convince them that you will be around for years and what they get is going to work and you're going to support them. And they're going to be able to succeed with you. Cause that guy who you're selling to has to convince his boss, why he chose you over a bigger company. So you have to enable that. So very different mentality. The great thing about it is you get to do all of it. You you know, there's only a handful of people in your company. You are talking to customers, you're understanding latest technology, you're defining requirements for a product you're involved in testing it. You're involved in rolling it out. You're involved in supporting it. You're involved in NDAs and other contracts you're involved in the whole business. So if you're the kind of person that enjoys seeing the whole picture, then it's wonderful. If you're the kind of person that really enjoys being an expert in one subset, you might feel a little bit overlooked. Aaron Watson: Absolutely. If you're not willing to round out your skillset, then that's probably not the role that's going to be for you. So now that Maven Machines is a little over a year old, when you look back on the last year or so, is there anything that you wish you knew like day one that you know now or anything, any advice you'd give yourself day one that you've had to learn as you went on? Avi Geller: Yeah. I mean, the advice I would give myself if I talk to myself a year ago, It was advice that was given to me, but I would make sure I followed it better than I did. And that is you got to get out there and, and talk to your customers as early, as often as possible. And as often as possible, I mean, really, you can't get out there too early and you can't do it enough. And what would I do? I mean, by that, for our specific use cases, we make headsets, right? So of course, you know, when we were looking into headsets for trucking, said, all right, let's go talk to truck drivers and, and trucking company management and owners. And we did that and we talked to a few dozen drivers and we talked to them in truck stops. And we talked to them at potential customers that we visited and we wrote up a S kind of a survey or questionnaire that we, when we were interviewing and we would kind of fill it in to kind of see if we can learn. We had a bunch of questions about how often they use a headset, what the user, for what they'd like in a headset, what they're looking for. And we felt like, oh, we're doing this great marketing. We're doing the right thing. And then when we went out and we said, okay, we're onto something. We are going to make a heads-up for the trucking industry. This is going to work. And we said, okay, we don't to actually make the headset. We want to make the electronics with the technology and put it inside of an existing headset. I don't want to actually make the plastic and learn how to make a comfortable headset. So we looked at the headsets that were out there on the market, and initially we thought they don't look that impressive. Let's get a really good quality Bose style headset. So one more vantage we give to our potential customers is that the drivers get a really high quality headset. So we got a bunch of, you had like 10 different headsets from different distributors and manufacturers. And we took them to drivers and their big cushy, comfortable looking headsets versus the ones in the market, which were much, flimsier looking less substantial headsets. And we showed them the bigger ones they said, what do you think? And they said, it looks good. I would like to try it. So based on that, we went out and we developed our first product for that from one of the better headsets. And we released it. And initially a driver said, Rail, you know, you know, when we got our first customers, we rolled out to the drivers and then not long after we started getting feedback, it's too big and bulky. And that's when we realized we could have done more to know not just asked the drivers what they think about this bigger, more comfortable headset, but actually go on the road with them or given to them without any technology inside, just go wear it for a day. And then when we realized that it's comfortable for a few hours, it's actually the headset we went with was designed for DJs and music industry. And it's great for a couple hours. It's comfortable and sound quality is great, but if you wear it for 10 hours and you're in and out of a truck and it's hot or it's cold, It, it starts to be less comfortable and you actually want something that's less substantial, which is similar to what's out there on the market. So that's an example of a lesson that we learned. I would say the hard, the hard way. I mean, we went, we, we fixed it. We now have a much better headset for the trucking industry on the market and it's getting great reviews and it's something that didn't actually set us back very much. The things would have been better and it's kind of an example of how important it is. It's never too early. If you're, if you have an idea before you build anything, or if you have one hint of functionality of what you want to build, put it into a customer's hands and you have no idea what you're going to work. Aaron Watson: Absolutely. And there's a big difference between testing and surveying. Cause if you survey them and they put it on like, oh yeah, this would, this would work. I mean, there's so many things where the customer thinks they know what they want, but then when they're actually using it, that kind of differs from what they perceive might be the best fit for them. So that's a great insight. Thank you. When you think about. The future of Maven, your company, or just the kind of hearables market in general, what do you have your eye on? What, where would you like to see this industry go and, and how can it serve customers or companies better? Avi Geller: Yeah, I think there's going to be a huge future in in hearables. There's there's a, a good chance. Well, I don't know if I'm hoping is the right word or what what I think is actually the way the iPhone changed the world. I think there's a possibility that hearables could have a similar revolutionary effect. I think as you put in an earpiece in your ear and you're comfortable wearing it all day as the earpiece has, what's known as contextual awareness. So it knows what you're doing, what you're trying to do in those. If you're in a conversation with somebody, if you're sitting down, if you're standing up, if you're indoors, if you're outdoors, what your schedule looks like for your calendar, it starts to know you, what you prefer and knows that you're running low on milk and you happen to be driving by a supermarket and you're going to need to buy a couple of things on the way. That it's going to be basically a personal assistant with you at all times. And what Apple's trying to do with the watch is actually going to end up happening with the earpiece, the hearable, where the phone gets left at home. You don't use the phone that much. And most of what you're doing is actually by an earpiece in your ear, as you get messages, it dictates them to you as you respond, you know, nowadays messages, nobody writes letters anymore. Everything is. A few words, maybe a few sentences maximum, it can be done orally kind of verbal verbally. And I think that's where things are going to go. And I think as, as the technology advances and integration between the earpiece with Siri and connectivity and artificial intelligence and machine learning and dependent algorithms that we're developing and the whole system comes together. It's going to say when, when you, as you're walking out of your house, one, you forgot to take the garbage out. Two, it's going to rain in about two hours and you're going to be out at that time, bringing an umbrella with you. Three, you might want, you know, traffic's building up, you might want to tell that person, whoever you're meeting now, you're going to be 15 minutes late and all this happens automatically. And at the end of the day, it's a personal assistant. That's with you like a thing of like a human personal assistant, not a PDA, but like something very human like that's with you at all times. And that's the long-term vision. And in something that we're, we're trying to play a part. Aaron Watson: That sounds really exciting. I think that's really requires a little bit of imagination to see that next generation of computing, because a lot of people are used to everything being manually entered through a keyboard. And then, you know, a lot of people have Siri on their phones, but they're not necessarily utilizing it or they just do it say, you know, series what's the weather outside or something very, very basic. But having that kind of more intense integration is really. Opens up a whole lot of possibilities for what your, what your computer can be. Avi Geller: Yeah. Aaron Watson: So I'm going to start wrapping up here. I want to be respectful of your time. Before we tell people how to connect and you should issue the personal challenge for the audience. Is there anything that I didn't give you a chance to say? Avi Geller: Yeah, no. First of all, I think it's great that this program exists. I think I'll say something. I don't know if most of your listeners are in Pittsburgh. We are in Pittsburgh. So I'm I'm relatively new to the city. I came to the city to found the company, Maven Machines and what brought me here was actually the accelerator program, Alpha Lab Gear, that's where I met Dick as well. And want to say is about Pittsburgh. It's a, it's got a bright future. I, I think I'm, I'm blown away by the amount of people that are interested in startups by the quality of the people by quality of the city, a lot of the history of the state of that comes into creating what it is today. It's you, you can see it, you know, clearly by companies like Google and Uber opening, big offices and bigger offices. And Apple's coming, universities that are here. I think it's a, it's a tremendous city and I'm very excited to be a, a piece of it. And, and I think as as a company, as hopefully Maven Machines grows, you know right now we're, we're about eight people and hopefully some 20 and then 200. I mean, this city is going to go through a massive growth in the technology space and this kind of a program, hopefully it helps people do that. Helps people be a part of it. And. People are welcome to reach out to me with questions. And however I can help somebody take that step forward towards a startup career entrepreneurship or being a business off the ground. We'll be happy to help. Aaron Watson: Great. You definitely hit on something that we've, we've mentioned before in this show, but it is the community of the Pittsburgh startup scene where, you know, you're about one degree, Bobby's Apollo was on the show and he basically talked about how everyone is, you know, one degree of separation from anyone else in town. So if you don't know the person, you know, someone who knows the person that you need to meet, who can help you. And everyone's so willing to help because there is that kind of smaller community aspect to it. So that's great. If people do want to connect with you, ask questions, learn more about Maven Machines, where can they find it digitally? Avi Geller: Yeah. I mean, I'm on LinkedIn and Twitter and Facebook through our website, but really feel free to email me. I'll do what I can to answer. I'm usually pretty good about it. Feel free to reach out it's. My first, my full first name Avishai , A-V-I-S-H-A-I and mavenmachines.com. So please do reach out and we are located at Alpha Lab Gear. So if you know where that is also, it's a great place. If you're really interested in the startup scene to, to come by and we'll give you a tour of the company and the other companies there and the whole program and yeah feel free. Aaron Watson: Cool. All of that will be linked to in the show notes@goingdeepertherein.com/ podcast. Make sure you check it out. Obviously gonna give you the mic one last time to take it away with the personal challenge. Avi Geller: Oh yeah. So you told me a little bit about that before. I think it's great. I was thinking about it during our conversation. One thing that helped me. Do what I'm trying to do today with this with Maven machines is go out and do something, be responsible and own something, and it could be organizing a dinner party. It could be organizing a gathering of friends, you know, around some kind of event or some kind of topic, but take the leadership. Come up with the idea and you know, it could be, and as I said, any, any idea you know, it could be, let's all get together and watch the Steelers next weekend. But if that's your idea of find the right people to participate, find the right venue, get the right food, make the whole thing happen, invite people own something. And that's a very small scale. You got to where you can do bigger things and help the community and help the environment, or, but I would say own something and then make it happen. Take the responsibility. And as you go through that, there's there's periods as you're organizing, no matter how small or big it is, where, oh my God, it's not going to work. The people I thought were going to come work in a calm it's raining foods, companies out something's going to happen. And that experience of, of going through the process of creating something is invaluable. And it's just, it's the same thing as running a company, it's just a different scale and different period of time, amount of time. So that would be my challenge is Is do something that Steve Jobs would say, you know, make a dent in the universe. Aaron Watson: Absolutely. I love it. We just went deep with Avi Geller of Maven Machines hope everyone out there has a great day. Thank you so much for listening, Avi, thank you again for coming on the show. |
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August 2023
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