How this video analytics company is saving lives in the construction industry

Who are you and what business did you start?

I have 5 years of experience developing and deploying large-scale enterprise software solutions, leading global teams of more than 100 people and 3 years of pre-sales and consulting. I am a technology geek and AI enthusiast, and I normally spend my free time following up with the latest breakthroughs in AI and software development. I strongly believe in work smart, play hard culture and appreciating any good memes.

Monitoring of any operations is tedious, costly and prone to human errors. Many companies still rely on manual supervision.Our business helps companies in the industrial sector leverage on existing cameras infrastructure to gain additional insights into their operations when it comes to safety, productivity, progress and security.

What's your backstory?

During our 2 years of research with HDB, we saw how the technology could positively impact construction operations and at the same time due to technological advancements, it could be done in a cost effective way, making it more accessible to everyone. On top of that, COVID-19 acting as a catalyst for the industry to look for more effective solutions meant the stars aligned for this industry to leverage and benefit from video analytics like how many other industries are doing so already (E.g. Security, Retail, etc)

What led you to specialise in your industry?

Wanted to really leverage on our strengths in AI (Computer Vision) to really solve major challenges that the industry has been facing for the past few decades.

How did you spend your First 100 Days of launching your business?

Testing out our many different hypotheses in the field and by working closely with our first few customers and industry champions to ensure that we were really solving the problem in the correct way and to continuously fine-tune our AI parameters to reduce false positives as much as possible.

Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain partnerships/customers?

Our product was really addressing a need in the industry so once the first few customers got to experience it, they started to share it with friends from other companies in the industry and through referrals and word of mouth. Beyond that, we also worked really closely with ecosystem partners such as developers, regulators, system integrators to really scale and extend our network reach.

What is one underrated thing in your industry that business owners should start doing/using?

Don't make everything a transaction or expect monetary gains for your actions. Sometimes a small favour you do for a customer / partner might not have immediate benefits but it will eventually come back around in various forms, and more often than not its where you least expected it as well in a positive way.

What were the biggest challenges you faced and how have you overcome them?

I sometimes struggle with exhaustion. For almost a year, I was juggling my full-time work along with my part-time MBA as well as running this startup. My key for overcoming this was to force myself to take dedicated breaks as and when I could even though I had an urge to work or reply to that email. Along with this I am also very blessed to have very supportive family and friends that really helped.

What platform/tools do you use for your business?

I would highly recommend Lark. The platform is a combination of google docs + slack + dropbox and for startups they are quite generous with both the available features as well as storage capacity.

How are you doing today and what does the future look like?

Today I am very fortunate to have made it this far with this startup, from escaping the valley of death for 3 times to having a decent number of contracts and raising our seed round. Even though the economic outlook for the next 2-3 years is bleak, the future for my startup is bright as we are starting to reap the benefits of our months-long conversations with developers on setting the standards of the usage of video analytics for the construction industry whilst we continue to get many inbound requests, referrals and sales of our product. As for myself, I am very thankful for the team that has been put together thus far as we start to build out our leadership team and surround myself with extremely talented people to take this startup into the scaling phase.