From Missteps to Momentum: How IoT Paved the Way

At the intersection of IoT and self-reflection lies how to turn missteps into forward momentum. In my previous role at MIMOS, a MOSTI-affiliated R&D agency, I helped develop wireless technologies focusing on the IoT and new 6LoWPAN standards. Despite later creating new IoT applications, we should have considered viable business models and paying customers.

Moving into the telco industry after leaving MIMOS, we encountered the challenges of applying theoretical knowledge to practical settings. In the early days of Favoriot, we were optimistic about the IoT market and believed that customers were eager to adopt IoT solutions as soon as they become available. However, this belief needed to be revised, as the market was far from ready.

Our early errors were numerous, including needing to recognize the dearth of talent in the industry to develop IoT solutions. While we thought people would subscribe to and use our IoT platform in their deployments, we failed to consider that many individuals need to know how to connect sensors or even use these devices. Even in 2017, IoT was a new concept for many educational institutions, and only a few courses at that time integrated IoT into their curriculums. We recognized that training is a crucial component of IoT development and that formal methods are necessary for proper comprehension.

Moreover, customers are often unaware of how to begin their IoT journeys, and it cannot be easy to get organizations to justify their IoT budget. The process can be slowed down by too many stakeholders involved in decision-making. Businesses often need to learn how much it costs to deploy IoT solutions or who should be responsible for managing them. With a catalyst, it can be easier to start IoT projects.

We also missed out on IoT training opportunities, focusing instead on building and marketing our platform. Despite these missteps, we regrouped and began building a Generation-IoT community to raise awareness and provide training courses using our platform. By doing so, we refreshed educational syllabuses to reflect industry needs and managed to groom many trainers, lecturers, and individuals with IoT knowledge and hands-on experience using Favoriot IoT.

This initiative marked the beginning of our transition from education to commercialization. We have since become one of the IoT platforms of choice, offering an alternative to existing options on the market. We have positioned ourselves as the go-to option for IoT projects by providing local support and expertise. Our courses teach individuals how to select the best IoT platform without evaluating hundreds of products on the market.

Looking back, we regret not taking the education path sooner. However, through these mistakes, we've learned the importance of training, support, and community building.

"Mistakes can turn you into something better than you were before." - Dr. Mazlan Abbas

Based on the original story "IoT – How We Learned 7 Mistakes and Turned into Traction."