Introduction To Guest

Saurav is the CEO and Chief Technology officer of SIERA.AI, an AI company that provides a SaaS solution for industrial vehicle inspections and an IoT driver assistance technology for collision prevention, behavior tracking, and productivity management.

Saurav got his start in robotics during his undergraduate at IIT Bombay. He went on to do an M.S. from Cranfield University in U.K. and then PSTN Autonomous Systems from Texas A&M. Over the past 12 years, Saurav has developed self-driving cars, autonomous drones and computer vision systems and now self-driving forklifts.

The Call To Action

Since Saurav was in high school, he was very interested in building machines. He would come home from school and work on constructing model airplanes – which greatly excited him. He loved to build things and make them work. It only made sense that when Saurav went to university, he took up engineering, a field of study that came naturally to him. During this time, he picked up an interest in mechatronics – where you take something mechanical, control it with a bunch of electronics, and add in software that controls a robot. Saurav’s passion for robots grew, for he thoroughly enjoyed making a machine “think” and “take decisions”. This passion grew into an interest in self-driving cars, which sparked an inclination to make something in autonomous robotics.

After a visa rejection from the US, Saurav earned his masters at Cranfield University in the U.K. which later led him to attaining a visa and studying at Texas A&M where he earned his PhD. It was here in Texas where Saurav’s research on autonomous machine learning got really deep.

After some trial and error, after he completed his PhD, not to mention a ton of thought and consideration, Saurav made the decision to branch out on his own and start his own business. Saurav wound up receiving funding from the National Science Foundation to go and begin customer discovery, while learning the process of a lean startup. He learned that first, it is crucial you understand the customer, listen to the problem of the customer, look at the gap, and find a solution to the problem. This new venture filled with customer discovery began with the focus on forklifts.

Coming Up With The Idea

When Saurav was finishing up his PhD, he received two really great offers to work in the Bay Area from self-driving car companies. However, after visiting both companies, Saurav felt that self driving cars was not something that was going to take off in the near future, and there are also many unsolved problems with self driving cars. However, Saurav came across another industry that needed immediate attention. With a million forklifts sold every year globally, 25% of those forklifts sold in the US, and 40 billion dollars spent a year on forklift operator wages, Saurav saw an opportunity.

Warehouses and factories have such huge investments in forklift fleets, power industrial trucks and heavy lit trucks. And, unfortunately, they suffer from labor shortages and accidents – not to mention the high costs of accidents. These accidents are scary and deadly, even common in this field of work. Since Saurav loves automation and knows how to build this particular type of technology, Saurav knew his idea could not only be revolutionary, but save lives as well.

Saurav soon came up with a way to apply technology for automation, autonomous driving, and safety into these existing vehicles, that bring a benefit of safety and automation to low value jobs to businesses without having the business to spend a lot of money buying expensive forklifts and/or new equipment. Low and behold, SIERA.AI was born.

Founding A Team

Right off the bat, Saurav brought on his co-founder, a dear friend that he knew personally and professionally for over 15 years. His friend has a background in business and had previously sold two companies. With his co-founder holding the business knowledge, while Saurav held the technology knowledge, together they incorporated the company in 2017. At first, both Saurav and his business partner discovered some trouble gaining funding from Silicon Valley, which required them to put down some of their own money. They did gain additional funding (under $50,000) from Dorm Room and private angel investors. Based on references, Saurav and his co-founder also hired a few more people, all on equity and a low salary, but with the same drive and determination to make a change in the world.

Validating The Market & Testing The Product

SIERA.AI has two product lines – safety and self-driving. Most of the market validation has come from starting with the customer and not the technology. SIERA.AI took the time to understand the problem and the implications, where normally entrepreneurs get excited about the technology and try to apply this technology to problems they think they can solve. At SIERA.AI, they validated the pain points around safety and started working backwards to the solution.

How SIERA.AI tested the product was they started off in automation, or self-driving. From here, they quickly realized that customers urgently wanted driver assistance and collision prevention. With this feedback, SIERA.AI launched both driver assistance and collision prevention with a flagship customer, who happened to be a big, multi-billion dollar Fortune 100 company. With trials going well, SIERA.AI wound up getting more and more orders soon after. They can happily say they had a fantastic first quarter of 2020.

Challenges Encountered

In the Bay Area, retaining employees is extremely difficult. With new startups popping up everyday, everyone raising a bunch of money all over the place, and people easily quitting and moving on from jobs, Saurav realized he needed more stability. With the kind of technology he’s using, he needs people to sustain and stay long term. With this in mind, Saurav decided to station his company in Austin Texas, which has proved to be an excellent choice.

Saurav iterates how important finding the right people is, which can be one of the most challenging aspects of the journey. When building a startup it is so important to find the right team – because at the end of the day it is all about the people and the quality.

Future Endeavors

Human robot collaboration is where SIERA.AI is headed in the next three to five years. SIERA.AI can expect more customers in this industry of: manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution to get more comfortable with the idea of having some automation – especially with their vehicles. SEIRA.AI helps people make their supply chain more resilient. They are predicting to see their customers adopting the safety solution really heavily, since companies cannot afford to have more accidents and lose more people. Also, not many people are interested in these types of jobs that prove to be more dangerous.

SIERA.AI will be helping customers upgrade to the next level, which is full automation and getting the human effort focused on high value jobs. From there, you can have a command and control center with a few people sitting remotely. The robots will be performing 90% of the work which the other 10% will be handled by a human off-site. This, in turn, will help shift the human population in being more productive, while at the same time, improving the quality of life by making jobs more safe.

Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Every entrepreneur’s journey is different and unique. But the biggest piece of advice is make sure you start with your customer. Put your customer first so your target is in the right place. Make sure you’re always doing something to make your customer happy. Know your customer well.

Also, be aware that sometimes your investor might not understand you and that is OK. Do not give up, even during the tough times. Starting a business can be like a rollercoaster journey. Through the ups and the downs, learn from your mistakes, be open to new ideas, and do not get stuck in your own paradigms. If someone else or the data is proving you wrong, be willing to change and adapt.

Advice for Industry Leaders

Do not let lawyers, who are on the fence, run your business. Keep your eyes open, and be flexible to changing your ways and adapting to the times. The technology is here and not going away. Do not be afraid to experiment, for it you don’t experiment, you don’t change. And if you don’t change, you realize you’re really behind.

www.sieria.ai
www.sauravag.com