240:How a Robotics startup aims to revolutionize Sanitation & Hygiene | Divanshu Kumar(CEO, Solinas)

[00:00:00] The location for a lot of us has always been instruction based in schools.

[00:00:03] That is where I think in B2B and B2G based businesses, I think that business is more about

[00:00:08] relationships, it's absolute relationships.

[00:00:11] It took me 9 months to crack that relationship but today all the chief executives of these

[00:00:17] companies are personally sort of connected with them.

[00:00:21] So how do you go from a project to a product to a company?

[00:00:25] All the clubs come together there and students can do any project they like.

[00:00:29] Literally the tagline is walking with an idea about what's the product.

[00:00:32] Before you could actually capitalize on the opportunity, COVID hit.

[00:00:36] So there was something like this and then we suddenly went to zero.

[00:00:40] Yeah I don't know what is it about the IIT Madras water right?

[00:00:43] I mean that you know people come out with such amazing things right?

[00:00:47] I mean we've had like startups as well like a lot of startups emerged right?

[00:00:52] Hello and welcome to another episode of The Startup Operator podcast.

[00:00:56] I am Roshan Karyuva.

[00:00:58] On this episode we have Divanju Kumar who is the co-founder and CEO of Solinas.

[00:01:03] Solinas operates at the intersection of water and sanitation and it's a robotics startup

[00:01:10] that was founded right out of campus in IIT Madras.

[00:01:13] Divanju is an interesting guy.

[00:01:16] He started an education not for profit right out of college again and he's been running

[00:01:20] this successfully for about 6 or 7 years.

[00:01:24] It facilitates peer-to-peer learning and impacts about 250,000 students across India.

[00:01:31] On this episode however I focus mainly about Solinas and talk to him about the various

[00:01:38] nuances of running a hardware startup.

[00:01:40] You know how does he iterate?

[00:01:42] How do you commercialize?

[00:01:43] How do you build with the customer and discover real practical use cases?

[00:01:48] What is it like working with the policy makers working with the government?

[00:01:52] The support he has gotten from these various stakeholders and other aspects of just building

[00:01:58] a hardware startup.

[00:01:59] We talk about you know a vibe shift to manufacturing, hardware, robotics, AI and so on.

[00:02:07] It is being led by bright young folks like Divanju and esteem who are solving some

[00:02:12] of the hardest challenges in India.

[00:02:15] This was really inspiring conversation and also a ton of insights in here that

[00:02:19] you may find useful.

[00:02:20] So let's get started.

[00:02:30] Hey Divanju, welcome to the startup operator podcast.

[00:02:33] Thank you.

[00:02:34] So glad that you could make time for us.

[00:02:35] Thank you.

[00:02:36] Thank you so much.

[00:02:37] I'm very happy to be here.

[00:02:38] Awesome man.

[00:02:39] I mean I know this was weeks in preparation right?

[00:02:41] I'm really glad that you are here at the studio with us.

[00:02:44] I'm good to be in person because I was thinking that it would be online.

[00:02:47] Virtual and stuff.

[00:02:48] In person is always the best.

[00:02:49] That's what we've realized over the course of the year at least.

[00:02:53] So I want to start at a different place right?

[00:02:56] I mean initially I had an idea of how this conversation will go but based on what we

[00:03:00] spoke on before we started recording, talk about impacting education.

[00:03:06] I think that's something that you're deeply passionate about right?

[00:03:09] Let's talk about that and then move into deep tech and Solinas and all of the other

[00:03:14] stuff that people perhaps know you for.

[00:03:16] So how did it get started?

[00:03:17] So I think a lot of my work in education came from where I was born and brought

[00:03:24] up in which is like Gaya Bihar and was able to first hand see the challenges of

[00:03:29] education there right?

[00:03:32] I was part of the school where it was an English medium school supposedly for

[00:03:36] private school but we did not have an English teacher for like six, eight months

[00:03:40] right?

[00:03:41] So very poor English from that standard and I remember like in ninth grade when

[00:03:46] I actually shifted schools I ended up failing in English which was like I think

[00:03:50] by far the only failure like that I've had in academics.

[00:03:53] So it was like that was the case of education earlier and fortunately when I

[00:03:59] ended up making it to IIT Madras always had this inclination that education needs

[00:04:03] to be better and had been teaching since my tenth grade so had an interest in

[00:04:08] like sort of talking to students and so on.

[00:04:10] And in IIT, I was a part of this organization called Avanti Fellows like

[00:04:14] a couple of IIT Bombay and Harvard graduates came together to start this

[00:04:18] where we as IIT Madras students used to go to Pondicherry in a Javahana Vada Vidal

[00:04:24] two sort of you know get them to prepare for GE and I was involved there for a

[00:04:29] couple of years and in one of the year when I was a part of the leadership

[00:04:33] we were able to get 100% of the kids into GE mains which was a huge success ratio

[00:04:38] then and it still continues to be today.

[00:04:41] So we felt that there was something that we did better during that year

[00:04:45] and one of the things that I had actually implemented with the students was

[00:04:49] peer learning where we got the 12th graders to teach the 11th graders

[00:04:53] and we also had some of the students at IITM take proper 3R classrooms there.

[00:05:00] So my Samyak who is now co-founder of Involve Now

[00:05:06] we were having this discussion that if this has worked here

[00:05:10] can it also work in schools because schools were something that I really wanted

[00:05:14] to do something about and that really sort of is how we came into education

[00:05:18] and started the first organization right.

[00:05:21] So my student entrepreneurship started when I completed my second year in college

[00:05:24] and that was the first organization Involve was founded then

[00:05:27] Afford had started as a project first and then after one year we got into a company

[00:05:31] went on building a team and so on.

[00:05:33] So that was there and the whole philosophy was that

[00:05:37] education for a lot of us has always been instruction based in schools

[00:05:41] that as a student you don't have any choice you just go to the school

[00:05:44] you listen to the teacher you do ABC and then you come back

[00:05:48] absolutely have no idea why you are doing this what is the value of that

[00:05:51] that you will generate sort of post school.

[00:05:54] We said that if really we have to change education

[00:05:57] we need to work at the fundamentals and we need to get the students

[00:06:01] engaged in that why right.

[00:06:04] So that's where the whole pedagogy of peer based learning came in

[00:06:07] and we said that if you're able to create an ecosystem where students are able to learn from each other

[00:06:11] a lot of the things like intrinsic motivation leadership

[00:06:14] and all of this will uptake for these students

[00:06:17] and that's what will change them in the long run.

[00:06:19] So that is how the whole thing started today

[00:06:22] like Involve works with about 250,000 students across six states

[00:06:26] and we have a very strong sort of learning center

[00:06:29] and like learning implementation in Bangalore

[00:06:32] about 50 60 schools that we have partnered with

[00:06:35] apart from that we work directly at a policy level with districts

[00:06:38] and we are also trying to get states.

[00:06:40] The larger idea is that how can we influence the education system itself

[00:06:44] to be able to become more child centric

[00:06:47] more collaborative and influence that sense of agency

[00:06:51] in students that if I am a part of the education system

[00:06:54] I also have an ability to influence things

[00:06:56] and that I can take charge of my own learning.

[00:06:58] So that is the whole education work that started like second year of college.

[00:07:02] Amazing and yeah I mean started it in second year of college

[00:07:05] and like still running it right fantastic stuff.

[00:07:09] Yeah so I mean education is such a big part right

[00:07:13] I mean we see movies like Super 30 or 12th fail and so on

[00:07:16] and they kind of really inspire us because we've seen

[00:07:19] at least we've heard of like these stories in real life

[00:07:22] where you know someone social circumstances changed

[00:07:24] because they cracked an exam and so on and so forth

[00:07:27] and perhaps the biggest like driver of social mobility right

[00:07:31] so yeah fantastic and

[00:07:33] Yeah I think we've also seen that thing that right

[00:07:36] like if some of the students we are able to actually influence

[00:07:39] that sense of change it just changes the whole thing.

[00:07:42] Yeah I just wanted to give a couple of example where in like

[00:07:45] some of these very remote tribal villages

[00:07:49] we have been able to get the like girl students

[00:07:54] to influence so much that they're able to go back to their parents

[00:07:57] and say that I don't want to get married early

[00:07:59] I don't want to you know I want to come back to school

[00:08:02] I don't want to drop out because a lot of times

[00:08:04] the girl drop out in these villages is very very high

[00:08:06] so they're able to negotiate with their parents

[00:08:09] that education is important for us and because we

[00:08:12] follow this model of peer teaching where we have

[00:08:14] the senior kids teaching the juniors

[00:08:16] when the girl students actually teach their juniors

[00:08:20] they realize that they have a career path that they can pursue

[00:08:23] very well and that they can be independent.

[00:08:25] So it just changes the way that they think about their

[00:08:28] whole life.

[00:08:29] Yeah I think it's also like a very natural way that

[00:08:32] all of us learn and imbibe the knowledge right in general

[00:08:35] I feel like you know each of us has perhaps like

[00:08:38] learned from you know people's notes right

[00:08:41] senior's notes etc that get passed on

[00:08:43] right or you have you know a smart classmate

[00:08:47] etc who you ask all these doubts to right

[00:08:49] I mean I think definitely in terms of a model

[00:08:52] that feels like a lot more natural sustainable

[00:08:55] and so on right we could do a whole podcast

[00:08:58] talking to you about education and the kind of impact

[00:09:01] that you've had but yeah I don't know what is it

[00:09:03] about the IIT Madras water right I mean that

[00:09:06] you know people come out with such amazing things

[00:09:09] right I mean we've had like startups as well

[00:09:12] like a lot of startups emerge right

[00:09:14] Zett work off business and bunch of deep tech folks also

[00:09:17] Aether

[00:09:18] Yeah Aether of course right

[00:09:20] what is it about IIT Madras that kind of spurs this

[00:09:23] you know entrepreneurship spirit in people

[00:09:26] I think so one is of course the independence

[00:09:29] that you get at all the IITs to pursue certain things

[00:09:32] and that's why a lot of startups have been able to come out of that

[00:09:35] but specifically I think about deep tech if I talk about IIT Madras

[00:09:38] the whole ecosystem that we have there

[00:09:41] which is from the lens of innovation

[00:09:44] tinkering and so on is really great

[00:09:47] actually to put things into perspective

[00:09:49] we have a center called center for innovation

[00:09:52] it's completely student led it was like sort of founded by the batch of 2006 I guess

[00:09:56] where they gave a shed where all the tinkering materials are available

[00:10:01] all the clubs come together there and students can do any project that they like

[00:10:05] literally the tagline is walk in with an idea

[00:10:07] walk out with a product

[00:10:09] and you'd see students there till like 4 o'clock in the morning

[00:10:12] 6 o'clock in the morning just like building products

[00:10:15] so that is one aspect of them being actually

[00:10:18] doing product development

[00:10:21] which is missing from a lot of technology institutes

[00:10:25] and from there they end up getting this idea that

[00:10:28] okay there is a commercial viability so we can mold that into a startup

[00:10:31] and the moment they start thinking about this

[00:10:33] there are P incubation centers like Nirman

[00:10:35] there is something called GDC for entrepreneurship

[00:10:38] across the way to sort of incubation cell

[00:10:41] which is very active for deep tech

[00:10:43] I'll also talk about this like so for example Nirman

[00:10:46] I don't know what the current policy is

[00:10:48] but during my time they had this thing that up to 2 lakh rupees

[00:10:51] you can invest in a project that you think is commercially viable

[00:10:56] and they won't ask for anything in return

[00:10:59] so if you have a product which you feel that can go to the market

[00:11:03] and you can build a startup out of that

[00:11:05] you can continue to fund it through Nirman money

[00:11:07] which is up to 2 lakh rupees completely uncapped

[00:11:09] you can do it for anything that you like

[00:11:11] and after that if you feel like that this startup is not for me

[00:11:13] and I won't be able to do this

[00:11:15] no questions asked so they are okay with that

[00:11:17] that kind of risk taking ability that they provide

[00:11:21] also enables you to sort of just take that chance

[00:11:25] and that I think has helped a lot of people

[00:11:29] reduces the cost of doing something on your own

[00:11:32] and enables that, they push you to think about that

[00:11:35] it's not a lot of places people inhibit you from doing things

[00:11:40] here it is exactly the opposite

[00:11:42] so I think these are couple of things that have happened very well

[00:11:45] but still when you talk about someone graduating from IIT Madras

[00:11:50] and so on, a premier IIT at that

[00:11:53] there is this expectation that you will get into a job

[00:11:56] you will earn a hefty paycheck and so on

[00:12:00] and you will improve your circumstances and so on

[00:12:04] how do you fight that and say that

[00:12:05] no I am going to do something in education

[00:12:07] which is a not profit by the way

[00:12:09] and then I am going to start something in deep tech

[00:12:11] which again there is not too much of a precedence

[00:12:14] so I think just to set the record

[00:12:17] I still feel personally that the percentage of people doing entrepreneurship in college

[00:12:22] like even IITs is much less

[00:12:24] like this, the number needs to really double down

[00:12:27] absolutely

[00:12:28] so that I still feel that there is a lot of scope for improvement

[00:12:31] but having said that

[00:12:33] I understand that it still sort of is a road not taken generally for people

[00:12:38] couple of things on that

[00:12:40] I think one is

[00:12:43] I have always felt that personally for me

[00:12:45] this is the best time to take a risk

[00:12:47] so one of the things that I do is

[00:12:49] like now when the business has taken off

[00:12:52] I seldom go to sort of talks

[00:12:54] but if there is an opportunity for me to really talk to a college student

[00:12:57] like IIT Delhi recently I went to IIT the hell what I went to

[00:13:00] I don't miss that opportunity

[00:13:02] because I feel that

[00:13:04] when you are in the final year or pre-final year

[00:13:06] you absolutely can try doing things

[00:13:09] without having any risk of failure

[00:13:11] what will happen more

[00:13:13] you will work on something for 6 months

[00:13:15] you will realize that it's not for you

[00:13:17] you will just shut it down

[00:13:19] and you can still go to placement saying that I did a field start up

[00:13:21] so win-win like net-net

[00:13:23] so from that angle I think

[00:13:25] I personally feel that

[00:13:27] you absolutely don't have any risk in college

[00:13:30] to try out something there

[00:13:32] that's how we got into education

[00:13:34] and the thought process when IIT Submeg were discussing

[00:13:36] letting go placements

[00:13:38] we had this conversation saying that

[00:13:40] which again IIT something provides

[00:13:42] and a lot of other IITs do that

[00:13:44] and Bitsplani also I think started doing that

[00:13:46] is that you can push your placement by one year

[00:13:48] so if you don't want to get placed in your final year

[00:13:50] you can push that by one more year

[00:13:52] and you can try doing something that you want to

[00:13:54] which is a great enabler again

[00:13:56] so I said okay let's do involve full time

[00:13:58] we will have some milestones

[00:14:00] and we feel that we have not met those milestones

[00:14:02] we will come back and look for a job

[00:14:04] at least let's do that

[00:14:06] we did not come to that

[00:14:08] so that was one thing that we were able to do

[00:14:12] which was personally for me

[00:14:13] and second thing which worked out very well for us

[00:14:15] is that I realized that in early

[00:14:17] sort of 20s or late 20s

[00:14:19] the requirement of cash is not very high

[00:14:22] because you are like yeah

[00:14:24] yeah

[00:14:26] so I was like as long as I am able to make

[00:14:28] 20k out of what I am doing

[00:14:30] where I can have a place and food

[00:14:32] I am good with that

[00:14:34] so that's the way that both of us thought about that

[00:14:37] 4-5 years horizon

[00:14:39] basic expense covered out

[00:14:41] as long as we are able to have this

[00:14:43] we are able to learn a lot

[00:14:44] we are able to have fun

[00:14:45] we will do that

[00:14:46] so that was like so non-negotiables for us

[00:14:48] so we were like as long as these non-negotiables are met

[00:14:51] then we can do anything we wanted

[00:14:53] so that is how the decision to do full time

[00:14:56] involve

[00:14:57] and involve was doing great

[00:14:59] within college I will tell a funny story also

[00:15:01] when we were registering

[00:15:02] involved as an organization

[00:15:04] we registered it for Delhi

[00:15:06] thinking that after 1.5 years

[00:15:08] we anyway don't want to live in Chennai

[00:15:10] we will go back to Delhi

[00:15:11] and sort of build the organization there

[00:15:13] but within 1.5 years

[00:15:15] we had done so much

[00:15:16] we are already present in about like 50-60 schools

[00:15:18] we had a team of 10 people on board

[00:15:20] that we were like

[00:15:21] yeah up to Delhi

[00:15:22] it doesn't make sense

[00:15:23] because the organization is now based here

[00:15:24] so that growth happened

[00:15:26] and we were able to see that

[00:15:27] now

[00:15:29] fortunately I would say now

[00:15:31] that in final year of college

[00:15:33] we have to do a project

[00:15:35] and I was a double degree student

[00:15:37] where in double degree in IIT Madras

[00:15:38] is where you do bachelor's and master's together

[00:15:40] and I was able to finish my coursework

[00:15:42] in 4 years itself

[00:15:43] so the entire final year

[00:15:44] I only had my project to do

[00:15:46] initially the thing was that

[00:15:48] I would do the project to the bare minimum

[00:15:49] so that I can focus on involve

[00:15:51] and continue to grow that

[00:15:52] but just that

[00:15:54] the problem that I got

[00:15:56] I got interested in that

[00:15:57] so I went to the professor

[00:15:58] and said that I wanted to do something impactful

[00:16:00] and Dr. Prabhu Rajgopal

[00:16:02] who is also my co-founder at Solonus now

[00:16:04] he said that there is a problem that I have

[00:16:06] which is

[00:16:07] couple of people have come to me saying that

[00:16:09] people are dying in CUL lines and septic tanks

[00:16:12] we can develop a technology solution for that

[00:16:14] so would you want to take a chance?

[00:16:15] I said, ok sounds good

[00:16:17] let's try to do that

[00:16:18] so ended up developing a prototype for it

[00:16:20] and the idea was that

[00:16:22] do something for 32 months as a college project

[00:16:24] so I made a prototype

[00:16:28] in 3 months I said that project is done now

[00:16:30] presented to the faculty

[00:16:32] they felt that it was a good thing

[00:16:34] so all was good

[00:16:36] then we had a chance to present our technology

[00:16:39] to a group of manuals, there is a sapphai karamcharis

[00:16:42] who actually are engaged in this work

[00:16:44] and I said ok let's present that

[00:16:47] I do not know Tamil

[00:16:49] so I had a colleague who ended up presenting

[00:16:52] but I could see from the crowd of all the sapphai karamcharis

[00:16:56] that they were absolutely not thrilled

[00:16:58] and in fact one of the person there

[00:17:02] in Tamil said that he started laughing

[00:17:04] and he said this is a toy

[00:17:06] do you think that this solves our problem?

[00:17:08] and I was hurt

[00:17:10] I was like ok

[00:17:11] I am coming from IIT

[00:17:13] how can you say this right?

[00:17:16] not that I had put a lot of heart and soul into that

[00:17:20] but it still took a pinch to my ego

[00:17:22] how can you say this?

[00:17:24] and then he said that have you even seen

[00:17:26] the conditions in which we sort of clean it

[00:17:28] and the reality was that I had not

[00:17:31] so I said ok let's try to understand

[00:17:33] let's see where they are coming from

[00:17:35] so ended up actually visiting one of the sites

[00:17:37] midnight because in daytime you can't do it

[00:17:40] and I was like shocked

[00:17:42] I was like boss

[00:17:44] this shouldn't happen

[00:17:46] by any means this shouldn't happen

[00:17:49] they have to get completely drunk

[00:17:51] when they go inside

[00:17:53] the entire head

[00:17:55] told that it takes on the skin

[00:17:57] the entire mind

[00:17:59] and of course the death risk that is there

[00:18:01] said ok atleast try to make it

[00:18:05] the remaining 9 months that I have

[00:18:07] let's try to do that

[00:18:09] so that is how sort of ended up doing that

[00:18:11] and then realized that

[00:18:13] we have to commercialize it

[00:18:15] so the deep tech journey started

[00:18:17] so it was in mind that

[00:18:19] after being involved in something

[00:18:21] the thing that I do

[00:18:23] but just like turn of events happened in the way

[00:18:25] that ended up

[00:18:27] I mean classic right

[00:18:29] you found a problem so compelling

[00:18:31] that you wanted to solve it

[00:18:33] you couldn't do anything else about it

[00:18:35] and man manuals

[00:18:37] I think there are few things in

[00:18:39] the world as

[00:18:41] really terrible as that

[00:18:43] I mean it's

[00:18:45] so to that end I think what you're doing is like

[00:18:47] phenomenal stuff right

[00:18:49] helping these things

[00:18:51] well that's a noble start I would say atleast

[00:18:53] right

[00:18:55] so how do you go from a project

[00:18:57] to a product to a company

[00:18:59] because I'm sure that

[00:19:01] it's not a very linear path

[00:19:03] you make one and then you do

[00:19:05] 10 and then go on and so forth

[00:19:07] I mean it's not like a very linear thing

[00:19:09] I'm sure that leaps of learning

[00:19:11] in each of these things

[00:19:13] for instance you would have had to think

[00:19:15] of use cases

[00:19:17] so you came up with let's say End of War 10

[00:19:19] HomoSep and your Swast then

[00:19:21] all of that or even on the business

[00:19:23] side of things you would have had to think

[00:19:25] what is the product

[00:19:27] price range that I should think of

[00:19:29] so on and so forth there are so many things

[00:19:31] right so how do you develop these things

[00:19:33] as someone who is just graduating

[00:19:35] so I think

[00:19:37] in some sense I got lucky

[00:19:39] because

[00:19:41] some at a disadvantage also because there is

[00:19:43] not much precedence of

[00:19:45] somebody right out of college

[00:19:47] building a business for the government

[00:19:49] because especially in these legacy

[00:19:51] industries or customers

[00:19:53] like government or B2B

[00:19:55] you need a certain set of expertise

[00:19:57] and experience to go there

[00:19:59] they like the grey hair that you have

[00:20:01] for a 21 year old

[00:20:03] to go there and say what technology

[00:20:05] you have is outdated and let me sort of help you for that

[00:20:07] yeah

[00:20:09] so that of course is there that we

[00:20:11] but I will come to that the journey of how

[00:20:13] we went from a prototype

[00:20:15] or like sort of project to product

[00:20:17] and then to enterprise

[00:20:19] actually was very sort of you know

[00:20:21] zigzag

[00:20:23] because so 9 months when I said

[00:20:25] that okay let's try take a shot at

[00:20:27] building the product 9 months

[00:20:29] went completely into this and was able

[00:20:31] to develop a prototype that the same group

[00:20:33] said this sounds doable

[00:20:35] and couple of also

[00:20:37] like it was that feeling like right

[00:20:39] I mean the same people who had

[00:20:41] laughed at your toy so to speak

[00:20:43] right saying that okay this can

[00:20:45] actually work that essentially was

[00:20:47] the step factor to motivate and say

[00:20:49] let's do something further right

[00:20:51] and I'll be honest like a couple of other things

[00:20:53] also happened that boosted a lot of that pride

[00:20:55] we were able to win a couple of national competitions

[00:20:57] got awarded by honorable prime minister

[00:20:59] and we were like

[00:21:01] chalega right so we said

[00:21:03] let's try to sort of

[00:21:05] build that into a product and see whether it works

[00:21:07] we actually had

[00:21:09] a couple of other folks who were working on

[00:21:11] similar technologies and we said

[00:21:13] Kithi Kairn sounds good to start at full time

[00:21:15] right so that's how soreness came into being

[00:21:17] but

[00:21:19] before you could actually capitalize

[00:21:21] on the opportunity COVID hit

[00:21:23] so there was something like this

[00:21:25] and then we suddenly went to zero because

[00:21:27] we are not software

[00:21:29] right everything is out of the home

[00:21:31] it's a prototyping like people

[00:21:33] have to come together to figure things out

[00:21:35] but the fact that everybody went

[00:21:37] back to their homes really sort of

[00:21:39] pulled things down for us

[00:21:41] so we had a couple of folks we said

[00:21:43] let's come together and at least

[00:21:45] work to the strength of design

[00:21:47] that when we come back

[00:21:49] we're able to work on things

[00:21:51] so that was the

[00:21:53] very challenging time we actually did not know

[00:21:55] whether we would make it to the next stage

[00:21:57] we had not raised enough funding

[00:21:59] there was some like sort of angel funding

[00:22:01] just before but very very less

[00:22:03] so it was exhausted and

[00:22:05] we did not have a market ready product till then

[00:22:07] and the cost of making

[00:22:09] had gone high because

[00:22:11] you had a set of people who were

[00:22:13] working with you full time but the productivity

[00:22:15] was not that great because everybody was

[00:22:17] working from home

[00:22:19] so we actually had to put the team together

[00:22:21] so that is how that

[00:22:23] was the sort of phase and then we came

[00:22:25] back I think around September

[00:22:27] full time like all of us together

[00:22:29] as we said what do you want to do

[00:22:31] right?

[00:22:33] we have to really figure things out

[00:22:35] and that's how we went to Kethige

[00:22:37] let's rewind we were able to sort of

[00:22:39] gather a small set of people

[00:22:41] and we said let's push things together now

[00:22:43] so from there the actual product development

[00:22:45] journey started

[00:22:47] so

[00:22:49] from there we started doing products and the thing about

[00:22:51] also products for these segments

[00:22:53] is that

[00:22:55] the kind of silver lining is that

[00:22:57] you have a very finished product

[00:22:59] you say

[00:23:01] in consumer market if you are building something

[00:23:03] you need a very good design

[00:23:05] finishing so typically we say that

[00:23:07] it has to be 10x better than whatever they are using

[00:23:09] currently but in your

[00:23:11] instance there is nothing like

[00:23:13] exactly exactly and in that

[00:23:15] people don't focus on aesthetics

[00:23:17] they want functionality

[00:23:19] so that time

[00:23:21] we had the other product enderboard also coming

[00:23:23] in for pipeline diagnostics

[00:23:25] and we were primarily focusing on

[00:23:27] a set of pipelines which were

[00:23:29] 200mm above

[00:23:31] which we now realized after some time that

[00:23:33] it had a very limited use case and then we had homo step

[00:23:35] for cleaning

[00:23:37] so we got a couple of pilot orders

[00:23:39] that we were executing

[00:23:41] and we realized that these orders were from the government

[00:23:43] basically

[00:23:45] but we had one semi private also like we had a contract from Mahindra world city

[00:23:47] that we were able to get

[00:23:49] so what happens in our business

[00:23:51] I'll explain the business also a bit now

[00:23:53] for solinas right

[00:23:55] so for solinas we are developing technologies

[00:23:57] that solve for asset management

[00:23:59] in these water and sanitation segment

[00:24:01] so all the utilities have

[00:24:03] water pipelines, sewer pipelines

[00:24:05] drainages, manholes

[00:24:07] septic tanks

[00:24:09] all of this STPs

[00:24:11] so all of this is something that we do diagnostics

[00:24:13] and cleaning

[00:24:15] and now that we are doing software

[00:24:17] we do end to end AI based management also for them

[00:24:19] so that is the common goal that we are working on

[00:24:21] now

[00:24:23] with the first products that we started

[00:24:25] we essentially went from

[00:24:27] diagnostics of pipelines

[00:24:29] and cleaning of septic tanks

[00:24:31] this was like what we started with

[00:24:33] and then

[00:24:35] the first few customers that we got we realized that

[00:24:37] one government is the customer

[00:24:39] but also there are places where the large real

[00:24:41] states are there which are managed privately

[00:24:43] so Mahindra was there

[00:24:45] Mahindra has a city

[00:24:47] township exactly

[00:24:49] and that engaged us to do diagnostics of their sewer

[00:24:51] network

[00:24:53] and that is what a very good lesson I learnt

[00:24:55] so what had happened was

[00:24:57] we had promised them that we will do the diagnostics through robots

[00:24:59] but our robots did not work

[00:25:01] how does they discover you in the first place

[00:25:03] something that I think they reached out to

[00:25:05] IITM one of the innovation center

[00:25:07] which was ICCW International Center for Clean Water

[00:25:09] and Nanda Kumar sir who is the CEO there

[00:25:11] he knew us so he said he was going to do a job

[00:25:13] small job

[00:25:15] and we were supposed to do the diagnostics of the sewer networks

[00:25:17] our robots did not work beyond 5 meters

[00:25:19] so after that we used some Jugaar solution

[00:25:21] and we tried to finish the job

[00:25:23] and I was actually

[00:25:25] quite

[00:25:27] sort of afraid that they would not pay us

[00:25:29] but

[00:25:31] the moment we finished the length

[00:25:33] and they ended up paying us

[00:25:35] so I was quite surprised

[00:25:37] so I went to their operations head

[00:25:39] and asked him which promise that we will do it through robotics

[00:25:41] but

[00:25:43] we had to do Jugaar to finish the job

[00:25:45] so why did you still pay us and you did not like create a first

[00:25:47] he said boss

[00:25:49] I don't care where it is robotics or something else

[00:25:51] I needed insights about my pipelines

[00:25:53] I got it like job done

[00:25:55] and that was a very important learning for me right

[00:25:57] that technology

[00:25:59] and business are two very different things

[00:26:01] you can create a very sexy technology

[00:26:03] but if it doesn't solve the problem of the customer

[00:26:05] great point they are not going to buy it

[00:26:07] on the other hand if you have a decently working product

[00:26:09] but if it solves their problem

[00:26:11] that's good

[00:26:13] that's very good

[00:26:15] basically technology is a means to an end

[00:26:17] exactly that's a means to an end

[00:26:19] it gives you leverage

[00:26:21] but it cannot be the only thing that you

[00:26:23] build up for

[00:26:25] yes it has to solve a tangible problem

[00:26:27] it has to either

[00:26:29] solve for their time

[00:26:31] it has to give them returns on money

[00:26:33] or the headache that they take on the overall plane

[00:26:35] somewhere it has to solve for that

[00:26:37] it cannot be just because technology is great

[00:26:39] let me adopt it

[00:26:41] so that was a very big learning for us

[00:26:43] so then we realized

[00:26:45] we will

[00:26:47] do R&D

[00:26:49] but first R&D will be

[00:26:51] informed by the customer problems

[00:26:53] and 2 the moment we are able to come up

[00:26:55] with a prototype

[00:26:57] we will try to find a partner who understands that

[00:26:59] early prototyping should be implemented

[00:27:01] even if you fail they are not going to say

[00:27:03] next time I will not give you contract

[00:27:05] but they understand that implementing a prototype

[00:27:07] is a learning journey because you need

[00:27:09] to have a good simulation right

[00:27:11] if I have to build a product that

[00:27:13] cleans manholes

[00:27:15] I cannot just build it by cleaning

[00:27:17] an artificial system

[00:27:19] I need to have it in the manhole

[00:27:21] so that was a very strong learning journey

[00:27:23] that we took from there

[00:27:25] so it's a good thing that has been in the R&D team

[00:27:27] now is that in 9-12 months

[00:27:29] we are able to ship out a product

[00:27:31] because we understand that early prototyping

[00:27:33] and learning journey

[00:27:35] that has been great

[00:27:37] and from then onwards

[00:27:39] we had homo-separate still under

[00:27:41] sort of development

[00:27:43] Endobot had come out faster

[00:27:45] so we had Endobot being in the market

[00:27:47] couple of clients

[00:27:49] that's when we realized that

[00:27:51] and I say this even now

[00:27:53] that if we ever building solace about

[00:27:55] 1 or 2 decades earlier

[00:27:57] we would not have been anywhere near successful today

[00:27:59] because penetrating government early on is very difficult

[00:28:01] the reason why we were able to

[00:28:03] grow

[00:28:05] we figured out there were private operators

[00:28:07] who were taking operations

[00:28:09] and maintenance contracts from the government

[00:28:11] for example company like Suez, Veolia

[00:28:13] L&T

[00:28:15] they take the entire contract of the city

[00:28:17] and when you are selling to them

[00:28:19] that is very clear

[00:28:21] it's of course a bit challenging that you go to them

[00:28:23] and prove that you're metal

[00:28:25] but at least if they find value

[00:28:27] they will give you a contract

[00:28:29] so it took me about 9-10 months to convert Suez

[00:28:31] but since then

[00:28:33] we have been one of our greatest customers

[00:28:35] they gave us visibility

[00:28:37] our first contract in Coimbatore

[00:28:39] we have continued that contract

[00:28:41] since 2.5 years now

[00:28:43] we expanded last year

[00:28:45] to Mangalore

[00:28:47] basically growing with them

[00:28:49] and based on their reputation

[00:28:51] we were able to get to Veolia, L&T

[00:28:53] and what not

[00:28:55] so that was a very good thing

[00:28:57] that is where I think

[00:28:59] in B2B and B2G based businesses

[00:29:01] business is more about relationships

[00:29:03] it's absolute relationships

[00:29:05] it took me 9 months to crack that relationship

[00:29:07] but today

[00:29:09] all the chief executives of these companies

[00:29:11] I am personally

[00:29:13] sort of connected with them

[00:29:15] because they know that the value that we are creating

[00:29:17] and that we can work together with them

[00:29:19] so that was one major chunk of how we were able to get into business

[00:29:21] and then slowly because we had time

[00:29:23] and we were having revenue kicking in

[00:29:25] we were able to experiment with government also

[00:29:27] because we realized that

[00:29:29] despite private operators being there

[00:29:31] a major volume of our business will still come from governments

[00:29:33] right?

[00:29:35] so B2B2G players like Veolia, Suez

[00:29:37] and all of that

[00:29:39] the government of course is a major customer

[00:29:41] and then very recently last year

[00:29:43] when we were working

[00:29:45] we got a call from Pfizer

[00:29:47] to do audit of their underground sewer networks

[00:29:49] and that's when it clicked

[00:29:51] that any industry

[00:29:53] with a sizable real estate

[00:29:55] would also have their privately managed

[00:29:57] network drainage systems and so on

[00:29:59] that they would need to audit, clean or check for

[00:30:01] right?

[00:30:03] in some of the industry there is ISO requirement also

[00:30:05] from an audit point of view

[00:30:07] so that's when we realized that there is an entirely new industry

[00:30:09] that we can sort of you know

[00:30:11] disrupt with our entire set of

[00:30:13] diagnostics and cleaning solutions

[00:30:15] and this was a very key learning for us

[00:30:17] that also has like sort of now very well in the way that we can grow ourselves

[00:30:19] we realized that

[00:30:21] we are one of the very few companies across the world

[00:30:23] who understand the intersection

[00:30:25] of water sanitation together

[00:30:27] so with our pipelines we do

[00:30:29] water, sewer, drainage all three

[00:30:31] so we can do as small as

[00:30:33] 80-90 mm of pipelines

[00:30:35] all the way up to 2100 mm of pipelines

[00:30:37] very few companies across the world do that

[00:30:39] we do diagnostics, we do cleaning

[00:30:41] and now with Swastvaya we are able to do an entire analytics

[00:30:43] based prediction based solutions also

[00:30:45] right? so the whole gamut of solutions that we provide

[00:30:47] there is a very strong stickiness

[00:30:49] with the customer because they have one

[00:30:51] sort of partner

[00:30:53] or a vendor who can solve for multiple problems for them

[00:30:55] and any B2B

[00:30:57] or B2G based customer likes that

[00:30:59] they don't want to go to like sort of 10 other companies

[00:31:01] 15 different companies

[00:31:03] they have one partner they know that you can execute

[00:31:05] take other contracts as well

[00:31:07] so that has enabled us to now

[00:31:09] not just increase our stickiness

[00:31:11] with the customer but also

[00:31:13] give us more ticket size

[00:31:15] so this has really sort of worked out well for us

[00:31:17] awesome so I want

[00:31:19] to very briefly summarize like

[00:31:21] some of the points that you mentioned right

[00:31:23] so one is

[00:31:25] like talk to your customers and let

[00:31:27] their problems sort of inform your R&D

[00:31:29] don't start the other way around

[00:31:31] don't do the R&D first and then take it to customers

[00:31:33] that's the first thing

[00:31:35] second thing is preferably sign up

[00:31:37] someone for a prototype implementation

[00:31:39] because whatever you are building

[00:31:41] you have to sort of deploy it in a

[00:31:43] real world scenario and prove your metal

[00:31:45] and of course it hedges you from

[00:31:47] an investment perspective also

[00:31:49] and third thing I think you know

[00:31:51] particularly for entrepreneurs who are

[00:31:53] more on the tech side of things relationships

[00:31:55] relationships are like super valuable

[00:31:57] right really

[00:31:59] investing relationships

[00:32:01] and I think like a fourth would be that use cases

[00:32:03] start to develop as you like go deeper

[00:32:05] into a domain right

[00:32:07] like you will discover adjacent that

[00:32:09] you perhaps might not have thought of

[00:32:11] absolutely the one nuance

[00:32:13] to your business is or one big

[00:32:15] nuance to your business is the hardware

[00:32:17] of things right

[00:32:19] and what we see is

[00:32:21] that you know hardware is not

[00:32:23] as easy to iterate a software

[00:32:25] right has a bunch of challenges

[00:32:27] in terms of cost being

[00:32:29] front loaded you have to put up that money before you make

[00:32:31] that machine right

[00:32:33] raising money is not

[00:32:35] a super difficult

[00:32:37] right finding talent is again

[00:32:39] very difficult right so

[00:32:41] how do you manage

[00:32:43] hardware this whole aspect of hardware

[00:32:45] so I think

[00:32:47] on a very personal front I think you have to

[00:32:49] passionate about it like that is the first

[00:32:51] requirement right as an entrepreneur if

[00:32:53] you

[00:32:55] are not attached to the problem

[00:32:57] hardware is not like the right

[00:32:59] thing for you because like you said right for

[00:33:01] multiple reasons mentioned

[00:33:03] it always

[00:33:05] keeps you one step behind

[00:33:07] in terms of what you can build with the same

[00:33:09] talent if you deploy it other

[00:33:11] place it is challenge of like cost

[00:33:13] investment ecosystem

[00:33:15] talent availability and so on

[00:33:17] so one I think of the personal

[00:33:19] level is that you have to be passionate about the problem right

[00:33:21] and so that's something that was

[00:33:23] there

[00:33:25] other aspects may

[00:33:27] I think we have found a couple of things that we were able

[00:33:29] to solve for so for example

[00:33:31] like I mentioned when you are

[00:33:33] building prototypes it is very

[00:33:35] very important from the day one

[00:33:37] that you think about implementation

[00:33:39] you cannot build

[00:33:41] best product and

[00:33:43] thing before you deploy with the customers

[00:33:45] right and I think

[00:33:47] somebody said this also that

[00:33:49] if you think that you have arrived at the best

[00:33:51] product you have already sort of

[00:33:53] you know gone on the right path

[00:33:55] yeah yeah so

[00:33:57] we are very clear that we will

[00:33:59] build as a prototype and we will deploy

[00:34:01] and then we will see if there is a customer who

[00:34:03] is willing to pay us

[00:34:05] because it hedges the bits on two cents one

[00:34:07] then if they are paying us

[00:34:09] paying you a bit at least your some cost

[00:34:11] gets covered with that and two

[00:34:13] the markets also realize that you have some product

[00:34:15] market fit there right so that was something that we did

[00:34:17] very very well other thing that

[00:34:19] we and again product of the

[00:34:21] ecosystem there that we were able to get

[00:34:23] some early grants to develop

[00:34:25] so we did not use an investors

[00:34:27] money to

[00:34:29] do the lot of early product development

[00:34:31] and that really sort of worked in our favor because

[00:34:33] by the time we actually went to the market to raise investment

[00:34:35] we said that see there are few working customers

[00:34:37] we have a product that works

[00:34:39] right and there is this potential

[00:34:41] so it was easier for them to take a bit on that

[00:34:43] compared to saying

[00:34:45] and the entire couple of crores are going to get into product development

[00:34:47] that's a very risky bit on that sense

[00:34:49] third on the talent

[00:34:51] I think couple of things we have done on that

[00:34:53] one

[00:34:55] we have relied a lot on

[00:34:57] tier 2 and tier 3 cities talent

[00:34:59] where people have this

[00:35:01] fire in the belly

[00:35:03] to really prove something and they want to do

[00:35:05] and

[00:35:07] they are okay with

[00:35:09] hustling with

[00:35:11] sort of their hands

[00:35:13] it's not just click click click develop a software

[00:35:15] but they are okay with getting their hands dirty

[00:35:17] I think that has helped us a lot in terms of

[00:35:19] talent retention and getting the right people on board

[00:35:21] some of the engineers that we have

[00:35:23] are truly amazing

[00:35:25] manufacturing team

[00:35:27] operations like engineering

[00:35:29] great talent

[00:35:31] all of these youngsters

[00:35:33] second I think

[00:35:35] somehow helped that we are in Chennai

[00:35:37] because

[00:35:41] still the whole

[00:35:43] startup as a very

[00:35:47] sexy thing

[00:35:49] has not the same thing that is there in

[00:35:51] Bangalore is not there yet in Chennai

[00:35:53] so people are okay with sort of working

[00:35:55] in a hardware company

[00:35:57] and it also helps in some way that we have

[00:35:59] a very strong social impact associated with it

[00:36:01] so

[00:36:03] people are like I am doing hardware

[00:36:05] I am working a bit harder but the impact

[00:36:07] is very sort of right

[00:36:09] the mission is something that I can actually

[00:36:11] work towards so that creates

[00:36:13] a sense of satisfaction also in them and

[00:36:15] we have like sort of prioritized this communication

[00:36:17] right from day 1 so you have said that guys

[00:36:19] every company that you can go

[00:36:21] you will be able to learn like startups

[00:36:23] are for learning right you will be able to hustle

[00:36:25] but always remember that

[00:36:27] the effort that you are putting here today

[00:36:29] solves a very real problem

[00:36:31] solves a very burning problem

[00:36:33] so every time that our products get deployed

[00:36:35] in the market in the city

[00:36:37] with water for water or sieve rage

[00:36:39] you are saving lives

[00:36:41] you are improving the health of people

[00:36:43] and you are actually

[00:36:45] improving the assets that we have for the country

[00:36:47] so to give an example on that

[00:36:49] when we work in water

[00:36:51] couple of cities we have actually

[00:36:53] reduced the water contamination of the city

[00:36:55] we have been able to

[00:36:57] look for blockages where water was not coming for like

[00:36:59] 2018 months

[00:37:01] that's really impact and at scale

[00:37:03] at a scale of a city right

[00:37:05] so that when people see it

[00:37:07] and that constant communication with them

[00:37:09] helps us you know

[00:37:11] really retain that talent

[00:37:13] so having said all of that

[00:37:15] it's still kind of a

[00:37:17] challenging game to build hardware

[00:37:19] no but I do sense

[00:37:21] a bit of a vibe shift

[00:37:23] to manufacturing and hardware

[00:37:25] I mean we've had

[00:37:27] hardware startups on the podcast

[00:37:29] and we've tried to focus more

[00:37:31] on that off late

[00:37:33] we've had orange wood ethereal machines

[00:37:35] and few others as well

[00:37:37] and one thing I see is that

[00:37:39] now especially now

[00:37:41] people are sort of open to hardware

[00:37:43] I mean otherwise this was

[00:37:45] not the case earlier I would say

[00:37:49] some of these challenges that you solve

[00:37:51] are like really technically hard

[00:37:53] really hard problems

[00:37:55] can you give us a glimpse

[00:37:57] of like a few things that you had to

[00:37:59] get your robots to do

[00:38:01] that were really technically hard

[00:38:03] and somehow you found a way out

[00:38:05] so I think

[00:38:07] I'll talk about the previous point also a bit

[00:38:09] where you said that

[00:38:11] ecosystem is now sort of coming up

[00:38:13] I see that also as a shift because

[00:38:15] at least when you're doing hardware

[00:38:17] there is cash flow

[00:38:19] right so

[00:38:21] from an investment point of view

[00:38:23] once you have achieved a product market fit

[00:38:25] the likelihood of risk

[00:38:27] comparatively reduces

[00:38:29] because like compared to software

[00:38:31] where you would like sort of earnings would be seen

[00:38:33] after a long time when you have sizeable customers

[00:38:35] there with every customer

[00:38:37] that you add your sizeable cash flow

[00:38:39] your unit economics are very solid

[00:38:41] margins are good so

[00:38:43] from that perspective now

[00:38:45] investors have sort of there are like

[00:38:47] specifically in climate and deep tech

[00:38:49] those it is but definitely I think

[00:38:51] grateful for that ecosystem change

[00:38:53] even slow but kind of sort of helpful

[00:38:55] now going back to the other

[00:38:57] thing that you were saying about solving some

[00:38:59] difficult problems

[00:39:01] a lot of them I think

[00:39:03] there was a place

[00:39:05] where we had to

[00:39:07] do sewer line inspection

[00:39:09] which was I think

[00:39:11] 12 or 15 meters deep

[00:39:13] and

[00:39:15] flowing situation in the sewer that actually

[00:39:17] the robots can actually sort of

[00:39:19] you know

[00:39:21] completely get flow

[00:39:23] it will come out

[00:39:25] so much flow will come out

[00:39:27] so that was one of the very challenging

[00:39:29] situation we actually had to figure out a way

[00:39:31] because what happens in these kind of situations

[00:39:35] just product alone will not solve for things

[00:39:37] you need to have supporting solutions

[00:39:39] as sort of

[00:39:41] accessories

[00:39:43] to be able to solve that problem

[00:39:45] because

[00:39:47] as a if you see say that okay there is a robot

[00:39:49] there is a pipeline

[00:39:51] it goes inside it diagnoses for things

[00:39:53] but the situation in which this pipeline is there

[00:39:55] is very challenging

[00:39:57] some of the situations the pipeline could be just 1 meter deep

[00:39:59] some cases 10 meter deep

[00:40:01] some cases the pipeline would be empty in some

[00:40:03] cases it is flowing continuously

[00:40:05] there was one place similarly where we

[00:40:07] were doing a pipeline inspection

[00:40:09] and there was actually

[00:40:11] the pipeline was flowing across the river

[00:40:13] so our team had to go in the middle of the river

[00:40:15] on the bridge

[00:40:17] and put the robot down

[00:40:19] vertically

[00:40:21] robots are also heavy right

[00:40:23] so if you go a little further

[00:40:25] then the camera will break

[00:40:27] so with a lot of stability

[00:40:29] we had to sort of put that robot down

[00:40:31] and show that it goes in the right way

[00:40:33] and then it did the inspection very subtly

[00:40:35] we were able to sort of do all of those things

[00:40:37] so getting insights on those fronts were really difficult

[00:40:39] so that is on the sort of diagnostic side

[00:40:41] couple of places I think

[00:40:43] where

[00:40:45] cleaning has been very difficult

[00:40:47] in the sense I will give you one example

[00:40:49] generally what happens is

[00:40:51] in India

[00:40:53] there is no predictive ways of cleaning

[00:40:55] only when it goes above the head

[00:40:57] then people are like

[00:40:59] they have to clean it well

[00:41:01] so there was one place where we were cleaning the sewer lines

[00:41:03] it was completely choked

[00:41:05] choked to the extent where it became a hose

[00:41:07] solid like the silt and everything

[00:41:09] so we had to deploy a homosep to

[00:41:11] churn the whole thing out

[00:41:13] initially it felt like it hit a solid

[00:41:15] like wood

[00:41:17] we did not expect the sludge to be that way

[00:41:19] fortunately

[00:41:21] when we put water there

[00:41:23] and softened

[00:41:25] we had designed the blades to be

[00:41:27] much stronger than

[00:41:29] what general requirement is

[00:41:31] so it was able to sort of strike through

[00:41:33] I have a couple of videos where we have actually seen

[00:41:35] that sludge

[00:41:37] it has been chipped

[00:41:39] after a lot of vegetation 10-15 minutes

[00:41:41] it was slowly coming out of the walls

[00:41:43] then the data is getting mixed

[00:41:45] and then we were able to suck it out

[00:41:47] so I think the reason also

[00:41:49] the challenges are sort of high there

[00:41:51] because everything is underground

[00:41:53] you do not know what is the

[00:41:55] condition of your asset

[00:41:57] till you actually visualize

[00:41:59] generally let us say

[00:42:01] and the reason why

[00:42:03] these problems can kind of continue coming

[00:42:05] the sewer line

[00:42:07] every 30 meters there is a manhole

[00:42:09] now what generally people do is when the manholes start flowing

[00:42:11] the clean up the manhole

[00:42:13] but the problem is actually

[00:42:15] in the horizontal part of the pipeline

[00:42:17] so it will happen that even if you have cleaned the manhole

[00:42:19] again it will get choked

[00:42:21] now because you do not have a system

[00:42:23] that can diagnose inside the pipeline

[00:42:25] where exactly is the problem

[00:42:27] you are actually not solving the problem

[00:42:29] you are just delaying it

[00:42:31] delaying it

[00:42:33] so when we finally

[00:42:35] we were diagnosing it

[00:42:37] we realized what is the system

[00:42:39] I have looked into

[00:42:41] water pipelines

[00:42:43] in a sense where after looking into the

[00:42:45] you will never again drink from

[00:42:47] tap

[00:42:49] there are couple of places where

[00:42:51] and I think

[00:42:53] I do not think if there is anybody to blame

[00:42:55] just that we have to improve the systems consistently

[00:42:57] there are places where

[00:42:59] because the pipeline had a small crack

[00:43:01] because of that inward pressure in the water pipeline

[00:43:03] insects were

[00:43:05] germinating

[00:43:07] and India has this specific thing of

[00:43:09] intermittent water supply

[00:43:11] where you do not get water 24-7

[00:43:13] and because of that what happens is

[00:43:15] we used to think

[00:43:17] that directly in the US you can get water from the drain

[00:43:19] but you cannot do it in India

[00:43:21] it is because when the water is not flowing continuously

[00:43:23] there is a good chance of

[00:43:25] contamination happening in the pipeline

[00:43:27] because of the inward pressure

[00:43:29] for the

[00:43:31] 20 hours that water was not getting supplied

[00:43:33] because of that crack

[00:43:35] insects were germinating inside the pipeline

[00:43:37] and then the 4 hours that it would come

[00:43:39] the water would flush it through the insects

[00:43:41] and the water would actually be completely contaminated

[00:43:43] so that part of the city was actually

[00:43:45] having a lot of health issues

[00:43:47] and people were not able to identify because it was just a crack

[00:43:49] it was not really a big leak that

[00:43:51] it would be visible outside of the surface

[00:43:53] so only when we deployed

[00:43:55] the robot we realized here is crack current

[00:43:57] insects are actually

[00:43:59] germinating there

[00:44:01] so it took us a long time to figure out

[00:44:03] what the problem was

[00:44:05] but ultimately when we were able to do that we were very happy

[00:44:09] aside from

[00:44:11] these hardware technical issues

[00:44:13] that you not necessarily solved

[00:44:15] through let's say hardware innovation

[00:44:17] itself, I mean the key is to look at

[00:44:19] other aspects that can help

[00:44:21] the overall innovation

[00:44:23] whether it is perhaps like

[00:44:25] adding water to sort of

[00:44:27] clean the sludge a little bit

[00:44:29] dilute it a little bit or positioning the robot in such a way that

[00:44:31] it's properly

[00:44:33] properly captures things

[00:44:35] I think

[00:44:37] the other big challenge

[00:44:39] on the product front would be that you had

[00:44:41] to build a lot of stuff

[00:44:43] on the software side from first principles

[00:44:45] it's not like you're building

[00:44:47] the nth product in something

[00:44:49] that you have existing libraries

[00:44:51] and APIs and this and that

[00:44:53] you can leverage

[00:44:55] so you have to think through all aspects of it

[00:44:57] from infrastructure, security and so on

[00:44:59] and so forth but the good thing is

[00:45:01] that I think you can at some point

[00:45:03] stand alone make this a SaaS

[00:45:05] software of sorts

[00:45:07] I think so because

[00:45:09] you mentioned about this one of the principles that we follow

[00:45:11] at Solinas also is first principles

[00:45:13] don't expect that

[00:45:15] something has already been there and that you can just

[00:45:17] incrementally build on that

[00:45:19] because even though

[00:45:21] there is a solution that let's say exists in the western part

[00:45:23] of the world you cannot just

[00:45:25] copy it and replicate it here

[00:45:27] it doesn't work because your

[00:45:29] ecosystem is not the same as it was

[00:45:31] there right the pipeline condition

[00:45:33] the infrastructure is not the same

[00:45:35] so first principle is like a very fundamental thing

[00:45:37] that we follow for us

[00:45:39] now

[00:45:41] of course each aspect you can have

[00:45:43] its own disadvantage in terms of building but the advantage is that

[00:45:45] you're the first mover

[00:45:47] in that you actually have a set of

[00:45:49] information so for when we were

[00:45:51] our journey in software

[00:45:53] started when lot of customers came back

[00:45:55] to us and they said that through the robots you're able

[00:45:57] to solve the problem of today but do I get

[00:45:59] insight any insights about the future

[00:46:01] right and we realized that's true

[00:46:03] like for a systemic asset where let's say

[00:46:05] a city has 2,000, 3,000 kilometer of pipeline

[00:46:07] network 1,000, 700, 1000 of

[00:46:09] manholes how do you

[00:46:11] help them

[00:46:13] assess about the future

[00:46:15] through what you're doing in the present

[00:46:17] can you leverage AI to think about how the pipeline

[00:46:19] are degrading can you help them

[00:46:21] predict things based on the historical

[00:46:23] map of the city right based on the digitization

[00:46:25] of the pipelines that you are doing so

[00:46:27] from that angle we started developing the

[00:46:29] software right and in that way yes

[00:46:31] the AI models that we are developing right

[00:46:33] now we had to start from the scratch

[00:46:35] but the good part was that because we already

[00:46:37] had the hardware and we had

[00:46:39] like sort of kilometers of pipeline data

[00:46:41] with us we were able to run those

[00:46:43] AI to improve the accuracy of our

[00:46:45] algorithm right so that really

[00:46:47] helped that we transitioned from a hardware

[00:46:49] company to being now doing software as well

[00:46:51] rather than standing alone as

[00:46:53] only software right so that really

[00:46:55] helped because our journey

[00:46:57] went again always in front

[00:46:59] from what the customer wanted and then

[00:47:01] implementing the same interesting so you can

[00:47:03] basically take the data from somewhere

[00:47:05] else if required yeah right and

[00:47:07] then crunch it analyze it and also like

[00:47:09] show it in the form of a dashboard or report and so on

[00:47:11] and the other thing also that helped us is from a

[00:47:13] point of view that because we already had

[00:47:15] customers accepting our hardware or using

[00:47:17] our hardware when we went to them

[00:47:19] saying that this is a software that we have

[00:47:21] developed we did not have to go through

[00:47:23] the same cycle of customer acquisition that

[00:47:25] we did three years back when we were

[00:47:27] launching our first products so this

[00:47:29] really kind of helped us a lot in that

[00:47:31] framework right so there are really

[00:47:33] two different types of businesses that

[00:47:35] you run right so one is the hardware

[00:47:37] aspect or the product aspect of things

[00:47:39] and then as a services right services

[00:47:41] kind of makes sense because you don't want not

[00:47:43] everyone would be willing to pay the

[00:47:45] you know five or ten acts of fifteen

[00:47:47] lakhs upfront right they just wanted

[00:47:49] to be cleaned periodically right but

[00:47:51] I don't know how

[00:47:53] like you can think through

[00:47:55] both of these aspects because I feel

[00:47:57] like they are divergent sort of businesses

[00:47:59] right so how do you kind of train

[00:48:01] and adapt your mind into thinking

[00:48:03] like how hardware has to or product has

[00:48:05] to run this way and software has to run this way

[00:48:07] so I think very

[00:48:09] honestly we are at a very learning phase of this

[00:48:11] very early phase of this because

[00:48:13] as an industry itself

[00:48:15] we are like sort of early entrance

[00:48:17] into the market and

[00:48:19] of course with the new technology that we are

[00:48:21] developing this way

[00:48:23] software for asset management

[00:48:25] in water and sanitation

[00:48:27] we have a couple of

[00:48:29] companies in the west have started

[00:48:31] coming up with AI products but

[00:48:33] in India we also have sort of you know reference

[00:48:35] is not there so hence

[00:48:37] I think what we have

[00:48:39] kept as our true north

[00:48:41] is focus on solving the problem

[00:48:43] of the customer right so just

[00:48:45] selling hardware also will not work

[00:48:47] as an a hardware we are the only ones who are developing it

[00:48:49] west may people had developed crawler robots

[00:48:51] but the reason it did not pick up very well

[00:48:53] in India is because

[00:48:55] hardware ko operate karne ke liye

[00:48:57] jo knowledge ki zeroat hain and

[00:48:59] the kind of accessories that I talked about

[00:49:01] that enable the hardware to actually solve

[00:49:03] the problem of the customer that was missing

[00:49:05] so we said right from the beginning that

[00:49:07] we will sell our products but

[00:49:09] at places necessary we will also provide

[00:49:11] service in the hardware itself

[00:49:13] right so from that angle we were able

[00:49:15] to get into customers

[00:49:17] sort of place very very easy

[00:49:19] right and then when we got

[00:49:21] the software that service model

[00:49:23] was like sort of by default there

[00:49:25] right so I think

[00:49:27] but honestly I think

[00:49:29] while we had some of the early success in this

[00:49:31] we are still trying to figure out what is a long

[00:49:33] term sustainable model for us right

[00:49:35] right now

[00:49:37] we sell the products

[00:49:39] with some of the private players we do

[00:49:41] end to end service also and

[00:49:43] we do the service for the software also

[00:49:45] it's all of these three business models are there

[00:49:47] we're trying to see

[00:49:49] if to a certain extent where there is

[00:49:51] you know awareness in the market

[00:49:53] and the ecosystem also develops where

[00:49:55] we are able to outsource the entire

[00:49:57] hardware service part to somebody else

[00:49:59] we will just limit ourselves to

[00:50:01] a business model where one will be on the hardware

[00:50:03] side you just sell the products

[00:50:05] and on the software side you make recurring revenues

[00:50:07] that's a larger goal that we want to build

[00:50:09] and these two still will be very

[00:50:11] different revenue streams but that is okay

[00:50:13] that could be the two businesses that we would

[00:50:15] have ultimately for us

[00:50:17] yeah it's kind of an inescapable fact

[00:50:19] I think of the business that you run because

[00:50:21] you know the two examples I mentioned earlier

[00:50:23] orange wood and ethereal have had similar

[00:50:25] journeys as well right so take

[00:50:27] the case of ethereal I mean they made

[00:50:29] the C&C machines and to prove the use

[00:50:31] case of the C&C machines they had to

[00:50:33] produce stuff right so today

[00:50:35] I mean they have this platform where

[00:50:37] you can request things and they will

[00:50:39] use their C&C machines to sort of do

[00:50:41] these things I think in the future

[00:50:43] maybe like you know selling

[00:50:45] your machines to other

[00:50:47] entrepreneurs like a franchise

[00:50:49] or something like that should

[00:50:51] evolve but now I think it's

[00:50:53] yeah inescapable fact of

[00:50:55] running the business right

[00:50:57] you know one aspect of

[00:50:59] on the business side of things

[00:51:01] on the sales side of things is selling to the government

[00:51:03] right and

[00:51:05] I've had the

[00:51:07] unique opportunity of you know selling

[00:51:09] to the government and dealing with the stuff

[00:51:11] right I mean and so it's

[00:51:13] painful right I mean for what it's worth that

[00:51:15] machinery itself is slow there are so

[00:51:17] many checks and balances that at the end

[00:51:19] of it you feel like is it even worth it

[00:51:21] and so on right what are

[00:51:23] some things that you have realized as

[00:51:25] like you know hacks or principles

[00:51:27] in terms of selling to the government

[00:51:29] sure I think

[00:51:31] for us fortunately

[00:51:33] and unfortunately we do not have a choice

[00:51:35] right we do not have a choice to not sell to the government

[00:51:37] because a significant chunk of

[00:51:39] the whole utility system is still managed by the government

[00:51:41] right so that way

[00:51:43] we had to get in

[00:51:45] I think the hacks

[00:51:47] are a couple of things that worked well for us

[00:51:49] right one was that

[00:51:51] we focused a lot

[00:51:54] on bureaucracy right the bureaucrats

[00:51:56] who were there like IS officers

[00:51:58] who are the commissioners of each city

[00:52:00] because at the city level they are able to make those decisions

[00:52:02] they're able to say that okay if the technology is good

[00:52:04] and they're pretty smart people right

[00:52:06] they understand the grasp of technology very very well

[00:52:08] so

[00:52:10] and they are to a certain extent

[00:52:12] I would say risk takers as well

[00:52:14] they cannot go a lot high

[00:52:16] on the monetary side in terms of giving you a contract

[00:52:18] but early pilots may if they are convinced

[00:52:20] they'll give you a small order 5 lakhs

[00:52:22] and so on so that was one strategy

[00:52:24] that we did and that has worked out quite well for us

[00:52:26] like most of the cities

[00:52:28] we are able to approach the IS officers

[00:52:30] the commissioners were there

[00:52:32] they look us as young people trying to do something

[00:52:34] for the country and then they say okay

[00:52:36] let's give you a chance right

[00:52:38] and of course you have to build your relations with the engineers

[00:52:40] also there and show that

[00:52:42] we really care we understand the system

[00:52:44] but at least also the entry point in some things

[00:52:46] so that is one thing that has worked well for us

[00:52:48] second has been

[00:52:50] the relationship right

[00:52:52] since the very beginning

[00:52:54] I had taken that effort

[00:52:56] to

[00:52:58] like spend time with people

[00:53:00] on the sort of government side

[00:53:02] to share with them what technology can do

[00:53:04] not as a salesman not as a person

[00:53:06] who is selling my product

[00:53:08] but as to just general

[00:53:10] evangelizer of technology

[00:53:12] to say that if you can bring

[00:53:14] technology irrespective of whose product you use

[00:53:16] or what kind of problem you use it for

[00:53:18] it can actually do things better for you

[00:53:20] in terms of saving time

[00:53:22] in terms of saving cost, in terms of hassle and so on

[00:53:24] so that way there was a trust

[00:53:26] built with some of the people

[00:53:28] who sort of helped us get to the right platforms

[00:53:30] so for example right now

[00:53:32] we sort of have some

[00:53:34] entry with the ministries at the state level

[00:53:36] at the center as well with ministry of housing

[00:53:38] and urban affairs, minister of just shakti

[00:53:40] where they value the opinions that we bring

[00:53:42] right there are

[00:53:44] organizations who are project

[00:53:46] management unit for the government

[00:53:48] and their senior officials know that

[00:53:50] like we

[00:53:52] walk the talk in terms of technology usage

[00:53:54] right so that has been a great thing

[00:53:56] we have been able to there are like

[00:53:58] very senior industrialists

[00:54:00] or like let's say the senior leadership of these

[00:54:02] companies like Sivir and so on

[00:54:04] who will go to platforms and say that

[00:54:06] Soloness worked for us

[00:54:08] and it was good

[00:54:10] so you are able to solve a trust deficit

[00:54:12] there very well because government

[00:54:14] domain expert are not simply as a vendor

[00:54:16] yes yes that is very

[00:54:18] important because

[00:54:20] see government may be

[00:54:22] people ultimately human right

[00:54:24] they want to solve their problems

[00:54:26] it's just that they are part of the system

[00:54:28] that doesn't let them take a lot of risks

[00:54:30] because government may

[00:54:32] be at a position of

[00:54:34] employee there

[00:54:36] you are not rewarded for taking

[00:54:38] risks but you are punished for

[00:54:40] any sort of failure that you had

[00:54:42] so in that position it becomes very difficult

[00:54:44] for you to give chances to any newcomer

[00:54:46] right because even in hardware

[00:54:48] right you have a lot of unbaked products

[00:54:50] that will come to you

[00:54:52] so if you have trust built

[00:54:54] across various IELs

[00:54:56] and people are recommending saying that

[00:54:58] its product is a trike you can try this out

[00:55:00] you have that leverage there

[00:55:02] so that was the second thing that we were able to do

[00:55:04] third thing that kind of helped us very well

[00:55:06] and second part may honestly

[00:55:08] I think the IITM ecosystem helped us a lot

[00:55:10] like going through some of the mentors who made a connect

[00:55:12] who made a connect like that

[00:55:14] third thing that worked out well for us

[00:55:16] was storytelling

[00:55:18] branding

[00:55:20] up to some extent right that

[00:55:22] we were always communicating

[00:55:24] about the social impact that we wanted to create

[00:55:26] there were couple of media coverage about

[00:55:28] the problem that we were trying to solve

[00:55:30] the awards that we won

[00:55:32] coming on Shark Tank

[00:55:34] getting award from chief minister, prime minister

[00:55:36] so that kind of helped us also get visibility

[00:55:38] so when we would go to people

[00:55:40] some cases may be like

[00:55:42] I have seen you this place

[00:55:44] there is some government event workshop

[00:55:46] happening and that's why we get invited as a speaker

[00:55:48] it sort of has an impact

[00:55:50] so for example last year

[00:55:52] I think when

[00:55:54] the finance minister

[00:55:56] launched the budget for

[00:55:58] water and sanitation

[00:56:00] there was a budget webinar that was happening

[00:56:02] on this mission of Hargar Nalsejad

[00:56:04] which is every sort of

[00:56:06] home with tap water

[00:56:08] and they were looking for domain experts

[00:56:10] across various segments the prime minister was very clear that

[00:56:12] he needed

[00:56:14] bureaucrat sort of

[00:56:16] inter-sillist startup to come in

[00:56:18] and through some reference

[00:56:20] purely like sort of by chance

[00:56:22] one of the mentors got to know from the ministry

[00:56:24] that they are looking for some startup

[00:56:26] he said that they want to work there why don't you

[00:56:28] try talking to him

[00:56:30] they asked for my profile went through a bit of

[00:56:32] interviewing there and they said it is thick like that

[00:56:34] right so I was able to come on a webinar

[00:56:36] for like

[00:56:38] Hargar Nalsejad

[00:56:40] which was inaugurated by the PM

[00:56:42] and like

[00:56:44] I felt that I did not fit there because all of the

[00:56:46] stalwarts of experts

[00:56:48] in water and sanitation were there right from inter-sillist

[00:56:50] to bureaucrats there

[00:56:52] and you are a young

[00:56:54] startup person 2-3 years old

[00:56:56] into the ecosystem talking in that webinar saying

[00:56:58] how do you think

[00:57:00] we can achieve Hargar Nalsejad

[00:57:02] so I think those things really helped

[00:57:04] because then you can sort of

[00:57:06] show that off also saying that

[00:57:08] I was there right you can show the agenda

[00:57:10] of government right

[00:57:12] PMO or the ministry saying that

[00:57:14] they want to Namlikavawapar

[00:57:16] and Salina Salamlikavawapar

[00:57:18] so that kind of has a good impact

[00:57:20] so I think these are the 3 things that we do

[00:57:22] and we continue to do that right

[00:57:24] that has helped us penetrate into the government a bit

[00:57:26] being seen as

[00:57:28] more than your product

[00:57:30] right it's such a valuable thing

[00:57:32] even if you are in SaaS or something

[00:57:34] whatever it is you are trying to do

[00:57:36] whether it is sales productivity

[00:57:38] or accounting efficiency or whatever

[00:57:40] I mean if you are known for that

[00:57:42] problem

[00:57:44] and your prospects are seeking you out

[00:57:46] your opinion to understand more about it

[00:57:48] I mean that's the highest level I think

[00:57:50] because if they trust you with the solution

[00:57:52] then they trust you with your product as well

[00:57:54] and it's very long term also right

[00:57:56] it's not a transactional relationship

[00:57:58] what's it like

[00:58:00] being part of some of these

[00:58:02] schemes and government policies and what not

[00:58:04] right because I am sure that there is a huge overlap

[00:58:06] between Swach Bharat for example

[00:58:08] or some of the stuff that

[00:58:10] the urban housing

[00:58:12] affairs ministry and so on do

[00:58:14] and so on so what kind of support

[00:58:16] have you got from the government

[00:58:18] if you can talk about that

[00:58:20] so I think

[00:58:22] I will talk about the good part

[00:58:24] and the not so great part

[00:58:26] so the good part is that the moment

[00:58:28] like

[00:58:30] ministry launches a scheme which is relevant to your sector

[00:58:32] it tells the world that

[00:58:34] this is a tangible problem to solve

[00:58:36] it's validation Militayav Chiska

[00:58:38] and again I often

[00:58:40] like when I am giving my pitch I talk about

[00:58:42] the three things that have happened for India very well

[00:58:44] which has enabled startups like us to come in

[00:58:46] which would not have happened like two decades back

[00:58:48] is one privatization

[00:58:50] like O&M players like

[00:58:52] Suarez, Vyulya, Linti coming in

[00:58:54] and the second is policy

[00:58:56] the moment government came and said

[00:58:58] there is a ministry of Jalshakti

[00:59:00] everybody understood that water and sanitation

[00:59:02] are the problems that are important

[00:59:04] and we need to solve it, it's a priority

[00:59:06] third is they walk the talk with saying investments

[00:59:08] like launch schemes like Amroth, Smart City

[00:59:10] Harghar Nalsedjal, Swach Bharat mission

[00:59:12] poured in lakhs of crores

[00:59:14] in that to make it a reality

[00:59:16] that opened up a lot of

[00:59:18] interest around that sector

[00:59:20] I think Swach Bharat was

[00:59:22] the first scheme that was announced

[00:59:24] even before Jandan and so on

[00:59:26] and

[00:59:28] I had a hard time trying to tell people

[00:59:30] how much of a trickle down effect it is

[00:59:32] because I think us

[00:59:34] urban folks in cities don't value that

[00:59:36] as much, you live in your

[00:59:38] housing societies and townships

[00:59:40] and you don't realize that

[00:59:42] everything from healthcare

[00:59:44] to some of the social circumstances are

[00:59:46] linked with sanitation

[00:59:48] so that way

[00:59:50] what happened was when

[00:59:52] central government allocated budgets for that

[00:59:54] because at a city level

[00:59:56] there is a lot of times they are not able to adopt innovation

[00:59:58] also because there is no budget

[01:00:00] they are running in losses, water is a free product

[01:00:02] they are not making money on that

[01:00:04] now a lot of cities have started

[01:00:06] charging for water but otherwise municipalities

[01:00:08] net net are running in losses

[01:00:10] the only time they are able to adopt innovation

[01:00:12] is when there is a scheme, central government is pulling in money

[01:00:14] state government is putting in money

[01:00:16] there is a multilateral bank like ADB World Bank

[01:00:18] like the other projects and like that

[01:00:20] so in that case when central government is actually doing these

[01:00:22] schemes we benefit from doing

[01:00:24] those pilots, that is a standard way

[01:00:26] so there is a budget allocation that

[01:00:28] for these innovations something could be done

[01:00:30] a very good thing that has been done by ministry of housing

[01:00:32] and urban affairs

[01:00:34] is when they launched this mission

[01:00:36] Amruth, they put clear

[01:00:38] guidelines on what are the parameters

[01:00:40] that you wanted to solve for

[01:00:42] and if you are able to align with them

[01:00:44] you are able to immediately get a contract

[01:00:46] other thing that

[01:00:48] Tara Ma'am did, Tara Ma'am is the

[01:00:50] sort of very senior bureaucrat

[01:00:52] who is the head of the entire Amruth mission

[01:00:54] and one of the fabulous like

[01:00:56] phenomenal IS officers that I have

[01:00:58] had a chance to interact with

[01:01:00] she said

[01:01:02] I am going to support startups

[01:01:04] I am a believer in technology

[01:01:06] and I believe that technology needs to come in this segment

[01:01:08] she said

[01:01:10] she launched this thing called startup challenge

[01:01:12] where she said as we select

[01:01:14] startups through like of course

[01:01:16] the sort of merit means

[01:01:18] and once the startup is selected

[01:01:20] we give them 20 lakhs

[01:01:22] because the challenge is that

[01:01:24] while central government can allocate budget for the cities

[01:01:26] that final decision making of whether the cities give you money

[01:01:28] is still theirs

[01:01:30] water and sanitation is still a municipal subject

[01:01:32] you cannot go to central government and say

[01:01:34] I am a big tender, that is not possible

[01:01:36] it is still a city based or state based subject

[01:01:38] but what she did was we said from the center

[01:01:40] we will give you that 20 lakhs

[01:01:42] and one of the Amruth cities and we say that

[01:01:44] you don't have to worry about money

[01:01:46] just give them operational support

[01:01:48] and the entire money will be paid by us

[01:01:50] and they ended up giving 5 lakhs as advance also

[01:01:52] like government may advance

[01:01:54] so

[01:01:56] clearly walking the talk on supporting

[01:01:58] startups

[01:02:00] and that was phenomenal

[01:02:02] and now the ministry is also trying to

[01:02:04] sort of double upon that saying that

[01:02:06] of the first few startups that were selected

[01:02:08] the ones who had successful case studies

[01:02:10] and we will double the sort of money

[01:02:12] that they gave for piloting

[01:02:14] so I think some of these things

[01:02:16] really helped us a lot to get that visibility

[01:02:18] right, now policy is being made

[01:02:20] for drink from tap

[01:02:22] and there actually

[01:02:24] some of the people call us to say

[01:02:26] is this okay do you want to introduce some of the technologies there

[01:02:28] not to sort of focus on your product

[01:02:30] but generally if you want to talk about the ecosystem

[01:02:32] and I think that's a great thing

[01:02:34] right, government where people are coming

[01:02:36] to you saying that okay we value the technology

[01:02:38] we want to sort of add value

[01:02:40] I think it's a great thing for an entrepreneur

[01:02:42] those are the great things

[01:02:44] not so great as well

[01:02:46] not so great I think would be again

[01:02:48] the thing that I said right

[01:02:50] despite the budget allocation by the center

[01:02:52] the

[01:02:54] actual support has still to come by the city

[01:02:56] if they are not able to sort of give you money

[01:02:58] beyond the pilot contract you will not be able to do much

[01:03:00] that is one

[01:03:02] two, there are lot of times there are challenges

[01:03:04] and

[01:03:06] losses transmission

[01:03:08] loss leakage from what the center

[01:03:10] is trying to do and what it ends up coming

[01:03:12] to the cities so for example

[01:03:14] under the smart city scheme

[01:03:16] there was a

[01:03:18] sort of good procurement policy

[01:03:20] that was framed for startups

[01:03:22] where cities could

[01:03:24] give a contract to a startup based on the

[01:03:26] problem statement without having to go through the tender process

[01:03:28] up to 20 lakhs

[01:03:30] that's a clearly great guideline from the center

[01:03:32] most of the cities don't even know about it

[01:03:36] right

[01:03:38] we used to go to the city and say

[01:03:40] we are a beast like contract missac there

[01:03:42] and they were like how do we know that

[01:03:44] we said there is a letter

[01:03:46] but we do not know the process

[01:03:48] how do we apply for this money, how do we get

[01:03:50] so that while the policy exists somewhere

[01:03:52] the implementation around it

[01:03:54] is quite unclear at times

[01:03:56] so

[01:03:58] over there also you are not able to take the benefit of that very well

[01:04:00] because it goes through a lot of process

[01:04:02] and people may not be aware

[01:04:04] these are the 2-3 things that are not so great because

[01:04:06] and I think

[01:04:08] rather being pessimistic about it

[01:04:10] let me also say that I think there is hope

[01:04:12] things are getting better

[01:04:14] they may take their own time

[01:04:16] because of the system that is there

[01:04:18] but I think things are going

[01:04:20] towards the better

[01:04:22] yeah, I mean hopefully

[01:04:24] right also I feel like

[01:04:26] India is such a large and complex

[01:04:28] country right I mean it's like

[01:04:30] the second order impact of some of the stuff

[01:04:32] that people do is

[01:04:34] crazy right

[01:04:36] it's very hard to control these things

[01:04:38] and also I really

[01:04:40] like the focus on startups right I mean

[01:04:42] because I think definitely you have to democratize

[01:04:44] some of these problems to a larger

[01:04:46] base of people for sure right I mean this

[01:04:48] you know 5 year planning

[01:04:50] commission types you know Soviet style

[01:04:52] top-down approaches

[01:04:54] cannot really work at our

[01:04:56] scale, something that we have proven as well

[01:04:58] right

[01:05:00] so how are you taking all of this

[01:05:02] beyond India because

[01:05:04] I'm sure that you know there's a huge

[01:05:06] market let's say for example in

[01:05:08] Southeast Asia or in Africa

[01:05:10] where to you know I mean

[01:05:12] maybe the city municipalities are not

[01:05:14] evolved to a degree where

[01:05:16] you know this is a solved problem

[01:05:18] and also affordability is a key part

[01:05:20] right also they can't like really

[01:05:22] go to European machines from US

[01:05:24] or Europe right so what is the plan

[01:05:26] to take it out sort of India

[01:05:28] quite on spot we are actually just

[01:05:30] in the process of expanding to

[01:05:32] Southeast Asia and Middle East right

[01:05:34] Africa not so yet because

[01:05:36] we have not figured out the sort of ways

[01:05:38] and means there but I think

[01:05:40] Africa, Middle East, Southeast Asia

[01:05:42] hold a huge opportunity for us

[01:05:44] because also technology point of you say

[01:05:46] as Indians we are very good

[01:05:48] at building technology and

[01:05:50] we are good at providing the service that

[01:05:52] US and Europe cannot be able to provide

[01:05:54] and we are cheaper also affordable

[01:05:56] and we are not able to expect from that

[01:05:58] perspective so I think the opportunities

[01:06:00] for us are quite good there

[01:06:02] we can do a lot of great stuff

[01:06:04] we have been able to find reliable

[01:06:06] partners also in this journey who

[01:06:08] will help us go there for example last

[01:06:10] year we won this award by Imagine

[01:06:12] H2O which is accelerator program

[01:06:14] based in Singapore who gave us the

[01:06:16] award for best start up ready for

[01:06:18] Southeast Asian expansion and now

[01:06:20] they are helping us connect with

[01:06:22] Indonesian markets sort of Cambodia

[01:06:24] and explore some implementation there

[01:06:26] similarly there are organizations

[01:06:28] like let's say water.org, ADB

[01:06:30] and so on who

[01:06:32] want to sort of support technologies

[01:06:34] in these areas so they are likely to sort of fund

[01:06:36] your pilots to do that so that's

[01:06:38] why we think the Southeast Asia could be a very good

[01:06:40] focus for us it works very similar to

[01:06:42] the India market right Middle East holds

[01:06:44] even larger opportunity from that lens

[01:06:46] because they have paying capacity

[01:06:48] and if they have something

[01:06:50] of quality they will pay for that

[01:06:52] if we give them right products it's able to provide them

[01:06:54] the service we think that there is good potential

[01:06:56] in Middle East as well. Awesome

[01:06:58] so what are some of the other things that you are excited

[01:07:00] for you know in the coming 12 to

[01:07:02] 18 months time frame

[01:07:04] I think from a business front

[01:07:06] I am very excited about

[01:07:08] our expansion in

[01:07:10] industrial segment we have not explored

[01:07:12] that a lot I think we would like

[01:07:14] to go all in into that segment

[01:07:16] right we see a lot of scope in that

[01:07:18] because industries are very proactive

[01:07:20] we have gotten a couple of contracts from there

[01:07:22] and the ROI is great

[01:07:24] so that's something that we want to do

[01:07:26] second is

[01:07:28] couple of high end R&Ds that we are taking on

[01:07:30] that people have not solved for yet

[01:07:32] for example recently

[01:07:34] ACT GANS supported us

[01:07:36] to develop

[01:07:38] horizontal sewer cleaner

[01:07:40] right that

[01:07:42] people have not solved for that in India

[01:07:44] a lot of the world as well

[01:07:46] so we have this 9 to 10 months to sort of

[01:07:48] take a shot at that and build it

[01:07:50] and similarly the AI solution

[01:07:52] that we are building we think that can be a game

[01:07:54] changer for India because think about it

[01:07:56] if we are able to actually predict some of

[01:07:58] the problems that would come in these underground assets

[01:08:00] a real life example of that could be let's say

[01:08:02] flooding in any of the cities

[01:08:04] right if you know

[01:08:06] the sort of

[01:08:08] assets of the sewer assets to the extent

[01:08:10] which part of the city

[01:08:12] is more likely to get choked

[01:08:14] you can deploy your

[01:08:16] strengths of maintenance

[01:08:18] towards that particular part rather than doing it evenly distributed

[01:08:20] right and that will help you fight these

[01:08:22] problems in a better way

[01:08:24] if you are able to know that these part of the drainage

[01:08:26] of get choked because there is mixing

[01:08:28] or some blockages

[01:08:30] if you solve that before the rain comes

[01:08:32] your flooding sort of goes down

[01:08:34] so there are lot of things that you can solve to prediction

[01:08:36] so I think one is of course expansion into business

[01:08:38] second is this R&D

[01:08:40] and

[01:08:42] I think third would be just the team itself

[01:08:44] I think we have now

[01:08:46] gone from

[01:08:48] like 15 member team to now being a

[01:08:50] 17 member team at Solinas

[01:08:52] and will continue to grow to more than 100

[01:08:54] let's say so how does the

[01:08:56] whole culture

[01:08:58] of the team evolve

[01:09:00] and you ensure that you still have got in the right people

[01:09:02] they are still motivated and passionate it is the same

[01:09:04] sort of 10-15 member team that used to be

[01:09:06] I think I am quite excited about how

[01:09:08] that is going to play out

[01:09:10] the kind of people that you work with

[01:09:12] will really define the journey

[01:09:14] I mean they will keep you excited about

[01:09:16] the problems that you can solve

[01:09:18] always

[01:09:20] like way beyond

[01:09:22] what you can think of

[01:09:24] people are amazing that way

[01:09:26] they will push you to things that

[01:09:28] you are not truly

[01:09:30] can't even imagine

[01:09:32] you have had a journey

[01:09:34] of about 3-4 years with Solinas

[01:09:36] and then before that with involvement

[01:09:38] so you have seen a bunch of this stuff

[01:09:40] what is your advice to someone

[01:09:42] who might have an idea

[01:09:44] wants to start up

[01:09:46] let's say particular to

[01:09:48] hardware or so on

[01:09:50] what are those things that they should learn

[01:09:52] they should be prepared for

[01:09:54] that has kind of helped you as well

[01:09:56] I think first I will talk about the general aspect of somebody

[01:09:58] trying to start

[01:10:00] I have always felt that

[01:10:02] people should figure out their value add

[01:10:04] just having an idea

[01:10:06] would not create a

[01:10:08] deep-seeking shitter

[01:10:10] because let's accept it unless you are

[01:10:12] really creating a deep-take patentable product

[01:10:14] which comes out of 4-5 years of research

[01:10:16] nothing is something that

[01:10:18] people haven't thought about before

[01:10:20] right

[01:10:22] so the key lies in execution

[01:10:24] so if you have an idea

[01:10:26] really ask yourself

[01:10:28] what is the value add that you can do

[01:10:30] in making it work

[01:10:32] and if you have a very strong yes for that

[01:10:34] whether you are good at product development

[01:10:36] or at sales then only you should get in there

[01:10:38] otherwise first go towards learning

[01:10:40] so I always see

[01:10:42] myself in this journey of

[01:10:44] learning and value creation

[01:10:46] that if you are not creating value right now

[01:10:48] you first learn

[01:10:50] and then of course if you have learned

[01:10:52] then think about value creation

[01:10:54] that's something that I think people should do

[01:10:56] second would be

[01:10:58] really know your market

[01:11:00] well

[01:11:02] so let's say if you have a product that you think can work

[01:11:04] there is a problem that you need to solve

[01:11:06] don't just go from your perspective

[01:11:08] but get validation of that also

[01:11:10] know the deeper insights of that

[01:11:12] I think

[01:11:14] all great entrepreneurs that I have seen

[01:11:16] that I sort of find my inspiration from

[01:11:18] they know their industry very well

[01:11:20] they would have an insight of

[01:11:22] what should I do that would actually

[01:11:24] work in the industry 5 years, 10 years down the line

[01:11:26] so they have those insights

[01:11:28] like Peter Thily talks about

[01:11:30] what are some few truths

[01:11:32] what are some truths that very few people agree with you on

[01:11:34] right so I find that

[01:11:36] very very powerful because

[01:11:38] you need to find some of these insights

[01:11:40] that like very few people know

[01:11:42] about that gives you that operating leverage

[01:11:44] right so a big fan of leverage that way

[01:11:46] so you need to have that leverage

[01:11:48] that leverage also gets developed

[01:11:50] I feel right

[01:11:52] there is so much that you can learn

[01:11:54] from reading

[01:11:56] talking to people etc a lot of this

[01:11:58] unique leverage also gets developed from executing

[01:12:00] absolutely absolutely so

[01:12:02] that was like sort of first is of course like

[01:12:04] value at second is this creating this leverage

[01:12:06] and coming specifically

[01:12:08] to hardware I think

[01:12:10] truly learning this journey

[01:12:12] of you know iteration

[01:12:14] prototyping and implementation prototyping

[01:12:16] implementation right you need

[01:12:18] to get the first product out

[01:12:20] where you feel that it will decently

[01:12:22] be okay and you have to

[01:12:24] be okay with failures also like there are

[01:12:26] countless times that we have developed

[01:12:28] something and put into a field and it has

[01:12:30] not worked and then I'm looking at the customer

[01:12:32] looking at me and I'm like so really sorry

[01:12:34] just I'm really sorry just like

[01:12:36] apologize wholeheartedly and say that's

[01:12:38] sorry I'll come back again and

[01:12:40] solve it for you right and

[01:12:42] it is okay if there are some people who say that no I will

[01:12:44] not give you second chance but there are large enough

[01:12:46] pool will say that okay guys come back

[01:12:48] again right because the problem is still unsolved

[01:12:50] right so that is there and the last bit

[01:12:52] of entrepreneurship I think is

[01:12:54] think about like so

[01:12:56] building relationships

[01:12:58] don't be transactional into this right

[01:13:00] where you are with it

[01:13:02] it's a long game entrepreneurship is a marathon

[01:13:04] right

[01:13:06] whether it is going into sales

[01:13:08] or building a team

[01:13:10] go from that sense of

[01:13:12] building that relationship

[01:13:14] being fair about things that you're doing

[01:13:16] I think that from

[01:13:18] a culture lens from an attitude

[01:13:20] lens is very very important to get into

[01:13:22] entrepreneurship right

[01:13:24] yeah I mean people severely underestimate

[01:13:26] two things right how hard it is

[01:13:28] eventually gonna be and how long

[01:13:30] it's gonna take for any meaningful outcomes

[01:13:32] because absolutely I feel like all of us

[01:13:34] have this image of

[01:13:36] you know someone like a Zuckerberg

[01:13:38] or something coding something in a dorm room

[01:13:40] and then instantly becoming famous right I mean that's

[01:13:42] not the case

[01:13:44] Zuckerberg himself has been at the helm

[01:13:46] for like 20 years now right

[01:13:48] come to think of it right so

[01:13:50] before we wind up any books or

[01:13:52] podcasts that you would recommend

[01:13:54] oh yeah I think

[01:13:56] podcast something that is very much

[01:13:58] right now there is

[01:14:00] Nikhil Kamath's I think

[01:14:02] in a like sort of stage of like

[01:14:04] 10 minutes 15 minutes thing

[01:14:06] these long hour podcast of 3-4 hours

[01:14:08] where you actually deep down it with industry

[01:14:10] with some sort of stall words I think it's a great

[01:14:12] learning experience similarly like

[01:14:14] Babash of Vishantanu

[01:14:16] like had a chance to

[01:14:18] listen to Ashish Mahapatra from

[01:14:20] yes yeah and very different perspective

[01:14:22] like you might disagree on some of these points

[01:14:24] with very different perspective I am very

[01:14:26] spot on right so podcast these are the couple of ones that

[01:14:28] I sort of got

[01:14:30] hooked to right now

[01:14:32] in terms of books I just finished

[01:14:34] reading Never Split the Difference

[01:14:36] it's a book on negotiation

[01:14:38] and like sort of talking to people

[01:14:40] oh I love that book

[01:14:42] I love the perspective the way

[01:14:44] that it teaches you a lot about conversations

[01:14:46] listening and so on

[01:14:48] so that was there

[01:14:50] from a philosophical standpoint I think

[01:14:52] Almanac of Navalavikant

[01:14:54] that's a good read

[01:14:56] from a tactical point of view I think

[01:14:58] this book

[01:15:00] Andy Grove

[01:15:02] who is the CEO of Intel

[01:15:04] High Output Managing

[01:15:06] that I think for me

[01:15:08] is a book that I keep by my side

[01:15:12] Crash Course in Management

[01:15:14] so I hide one of them

[01:15:16] I think

[01:15:18] it's phenomenally written

[01:15:20] about the way you might

[01:15:22] I mean it was written in the 90s I suppose

[01:15:24] yeah

[01:15:26] it's just phenomenal

[01:15:28] I think these are couple of books that I

[01:15:30] keep with me as a

[01:15:32] not just as a one time read

[01:15:34] but also something that I think I would go back to

[01:15:36] again and again

[01:15:38] so I think this would be my best couple of best reads

[01:15:40] awesome

[01:15:42] man this was a fascinating conversation

[01:15:44] we went through many many

[01:15:46] detours and

[01:15:48] rabbit holes

[01:15:50] certainly the kind of work that you're doing

[01:15:52] I mean we could talk for hours afterwards also

[01:15:54] but thanks for doing this

[01:15:56] I think it makes me very optimistic about

[01:15:58] India

[01:16:00] being

[01:16:02] I think we have so many capable people

[01:16:04] in India

[01:16:06] I think we can solve all of our problems ourselves

[01:16:08] yeah I always tell you about India

[01:16:10] it's a good thing that you are part of India

[01:16:12] because you don't have a scarcity of problems to solve

[01:16:14] exactly

[01:16:16] best time to be an entrepreneur

[01:16:18] yeah best time to be an entrepreneur

[01:16:20] so thanks so much Devanshu for making the time again

[01:16:22] and wish you all the best for everything that you have coming up

[01:16:24] thank you so much Roshan

[01:16:26] awesome

[01:16:28] thanks so much for joining us on this episode of the startup operator

[01:16:30] podcast

[01:16:32] if you like the content don't forget to share and subscribe

[01:16:34] I'll see you on another episode

[01:16:36] with another fascinating story

[01:16:38] and a fantastic honor for them