The Hunger Games Guide to Internet of things

May the odds be ever in your favor!

Cough, "Battle Royale" cough cough.... How has the journey been in an IoT Startup?

I relate to Hunger Games and reference how significantly close this game is to the hustling that startups have to go through in the IoT arena. This article is for those who want to invest or want to start an IoT company.

Someone said, - the best way to predict the future is to create it. And we (human kind) set out creating it. Connected cars, connected cities, connected people, connected homes, connected world; is that it? Is this why so many large Enterprises focusing on IoT, why so many startups building so many cool products ?

Nope! Its better than that. But it's also War!

Welcome to the world of Internet of Things. 

When people talk about Next big thing, next big idea, next big innovation, somewhere they are 1. Not thinking big enough and 2. Talking (and PR) too much. It's not that they lack imagination, its lack of observation. 

We are talking about real life problems that need solving that are current and that will occur in an unspecified future time in a dystopian post-apocalyptic world! 

Internet of Things is set out to be a $30 Billion by 2018 and the race by the Tributes (like in Hunger Games) is on. Only one wants to reign and establish the monopoly like the Google, Linkedin, Facebook etc., did. 

If I asked you, what IoT product are you familiar and using it right now thats solving a major problem you have always faced? Anyone has a positive answer?

No real product launch so far that's out there killing it in the world of IoT. 

As a startup Co-Founder in IoT, as much as I feel I am sitting on a Gold mine of a $30 Billion growing large global market, I also feel the part of being in District 12. It's not a helpless situation, but we need to fight harder than usual and fight all the battles against the districts as we get picked in our reaping.

Many investors want to validate your price point, your core team's domain knowledge (and IoT itself has not bloomed to call anyone an expert yet), competition, technology etc., and if you have a wearable in your product portfolio then it gets even complicated with sales channels, stock expiry, goods, manufacturing, returns, shipment, high budget marketing, low margin mitigation, and lots more. 

If you thought you solved a great problem using the Arduino, LinkitOne, Intel IoT Developer Kit etc., and built your first prototype, that is not shippable to a customer. End product needs a hardware circuit custom designed, manufactured (definitely a Chinese company, Make in India doesnt work practically), and then sold to the first 4000-5000 customers in no time! Then you get funded! 

Deep pockets is Mandatory! 

You can't start an IoT startup from your Garage with even $100,000 as investment. That is not enough to even get you started, if you have a hardware included in your product, not in India (unless you are from an Ivy League college with a well connected HNI onboard and other ifs and buts apply).

I learnt the hard-way, that, even with a great team or with the right team it is very tough. Jim Collins may have to correct his statement that he said "Its not people who make a company great, it's the 'right' people" and change it to "It's not people, or right people but the right manufacturing partner, sales partner, investor and God make a good company great"

If you are a regular, who is equally as potential as an IIT or an IIM but never went to either of those (like me) then you are the Tom Cruise of Mission Impossible series. (imagine the Limp Bizkit tune of the movie in the background now) 

District Twelve. Where you can starve to death in safety. Katniss

Adom Technologies is a IoT data stream network for the Telematics, Transport and Logistics companies. We are building a platform to connect many IoT devices and apply our products to solve a lot of problems. I am glad even when we were piloting, we had found a customer and we were making money. 

"I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever." - Muffin

Adom Technologies, ventured out to create its own product. No we did not raise money. In a way, although we did try, we stayed away from it. 

Then we asked ourselves, Which Indian Product that we see is used in the IoT domain be it B2B or B2C, there is none. You can't call a Plug and Play OBD II connector an IoT product. IoT is bigger than that. We don't have a single amazing (problem solving) product. 

Our idea of saving millions of people's money, fuel and time; applying technology using Big Data analytics, data science to solve complex shipping and logistics operations' problems has thus been a struggle we have endured for more than a couple of years now and have learnt so much about this market and people. 

So if you are a startup in the world of IoT, don't be discouraged by my, rather pessimistic view of IoT as a market. Its important to know the facts and operate with clarity. "Clarity Breeds Mastery" 

Treading carefully but aggressively is the need of the hour for IoT companies. Its not cool to make FitBit anymore. Your product has to be something without which one cannot accomplish a particular tough task or an activity. Most importantly at Adom we focus on our product to be 1. Intuitive 2. Immersive and 3. Natural. 

Like this frog in the video below: 

 Look how natural it is for the frog to catch a bug when he sees it and how immersive he becomes when he is doing it. 

This is what Mobile phones did to us, what TV did to us, what iPod did to us, what laptops did to us and so on. 

If IoT is going to be the next big thing, observe the problems carefully and let your imagination fly. After chasing the dreams and crossing the first level of chasm, this has been my journey of learning so far and I know that "Quarter Quell" is coming soon (hope you are familiar with Hunger Games). 

To investors, hope, I can request them to be more considerate and measure IoT startups in a different bound of time compared to other startups who have products in Advertisements or other B2C and allow IoT products to grow into a higher sense of maturity with their funding and support. 

Fire is catching! And if we burn, you burn with us!

We are grateful to have been resilient so far and continue to endure the battle of hunger games and welcome other startups in this field to join us to help each-other to make the world a better place. I don't want to brag about how tough it was or how hard we struggled. It's no good, it's a part of the deal. But the fear of falling apart constantly keeps us awake and the sleepless nights seem longer than usual

It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart-Finnick from The Mocking Jay

But we love what we're doing and we will launch a product that will be for the IoT and ambitiously looking forward to be the answer to my question of an Indian startup making it big purely with its technology, problem solving and a customer centric culture!

Remember, were madly in love, so its ok to kiss me whenever you feel like it - Everdeen

Hope you also enjoyed the quotes from Hunger Games, they sort of relate to the game when I first heard them. It is a game after all, right? :P

Thanks for sharing and please share your comments.