We are Starting Up Again

Yes, this is the news I have been sitting on for a while now.

After my stint with jobs, I realized I need to get back into my natural habitat – being an entrepreneur. I want to solve some exciting problems in a field where I could be for the next 10-15 years of my life. Being a product engineer in startups wasn't cutting it for me. Learning and innovations I could do were hitting the ceiling.

So, what have I built before?

In 2018 - Buzy Tab, I went around with my then co-founder (Kunal) selling digital solutions for customers to place orders from the table in the restaurant through a digital menu (very similar to dotPe today). We were shooed away from the restaurant owners because they thought the idea was frivolous and also they didn't want to pay any money. (I was 20 back then)

In 2019 - Hacktern, we attempted to build a platform that could help students get hired as interns by working on projects to show it as proof of work. This would happen offline first with 50 students, and then we would emulate the same online. Sponsors for the event pulled out last minute, and eventually, we had to cancel the event. (Have a very interesting story of my current co-founder from this stint, will share it below, read on.)

In 2020 - Botby, Covid took over, my consulting gigs were off. I had enough savings to make the ends meet for the next 6-8 months. Sitting idle was getting to me, and I wanted to do something about standing in long queues for getting groceries. I built a pick-up app where you could book your groceries in advance and pick them up. A couple of stores used it, but they were not willing to pay for the solution because the margins were low. I had to shut the shop because I could only pay the payment gateway fees (2%) from my own pocket for so long.

the first store which started using botby

Meanwhile, I heard Dukaan raising millions of $$ even without any product or customer. This hit me hard and made me realize I am definitely missing out on something which I am not understanding by sitting and building in silence.

I had good enough skills to work on mobile apps and front-end. I saw an opening on Twitter (a tweet from Preetam) and reached out to him. When he asked, "what am i look for?" This is what I answered for it.

screenshot from the email to Preetam, Dec 2, 2020

I worked for a couple of years with a bunch of founders to understand the game from the inside. And here we are today, back at it! With so many learnings, very little FOMO, and a much more patient approach to building a profitable business rooted in scientific innovation.

What are we building now?

Initial CAD of our mini-model under works

We want to build robots which can build houses for us (not 3D printed ones). Over time, the art form of building palaces and monuments has faded away, and we are just building buildings that are combinations of rectangles. The architecture has turned more analytical and logical than creative. We want to bring back this art form, where each wall of a given house is a canvas of a great artist. And make it accessible to everyone at the same price.

This art form faded away because the monuments or mansions were built on the backbone of slavery. Today, the cost of just putting 4 pillars, walls and a roof above your head is equivalent to the cost of artistry; hence, the art in building a beautiful home is deprioritized.

Apart from this, our nation is going through exponential growth in infrastructure, and believe it or not, there is a manpower shortage in building these infrastructures. If you speak to any contractor out there, they are living at the grace of their laborers to make any money at the end because of their timely availability. A major factor is our societal conditions where we look down upon manual labor work; hence, there is no active inflow of talents who want to learn the intricate details of building a great house.

We want to help build houses and public infrastructures to be an art form that communicates a message for what they stand for, rather than simply manual work of putting together rectangles.

Who am I building this with?

My sister Sanjana, who has been an electronic engineer at heart after 10th grade and wants to redeem herself for getting into a developer role after college while her heart lied in making current flow through complex hardwares which simplified lives and the gray area (not 0s & 1s) of electronics.

The interesting story I spoke about during Hacktern would show you guys why I am so lucky to have her on my side in this journey.

While we got to know sponsors pulled out of the event at the last minute, my last resort was to turn it into a ticketing event to cover the costs to make it happen. I started running a Facebook ad for it, where we used to get close to 100 leads (their contact numbers) every day. Sanjana and I called each one of them and ask them to buy the tickets. We did this for 20 days straight, where we both heard 50 "NO" every single day.

Ah, the resilience and the foolishness 😅 On some days, she has more faith in me than I do in myself.

1 of many pages in this notebook; this is what hearing 50 NO a day looks like, very humbling experience 😅

So what's my goal while building this?

I don't want to build in silence, so I will be documenting and sharing the journey all along here in my blogs (so subscribe) and on Twitter. There have been tons of stories in each journey I have covered and so many lessons learned, but unfortunately, it's not documented. I don't want to make this mistake again.
Want to build a world-class resilient product that can work under any conditions at scale.
It gotta be a profit-first business, once the product is perfected and tested in the Indian market. Learned this hard lesson while working in startups in the peak of a bull run and now seeing them in the peak of a bear run.
Want to traverse the journey with a lot of patience because we want to be in this field that is going to redefine human-computer interface (HCI) for the coming next 10-15 years and make a career out of it. We are just getting started now, a great time to start learning more about robots and building them.

Some footnotes:

We have been researching the market & working on the product for last couple of months now, also raising a small pre-seed round for us to get prototype out and get some initial customers to validate and test the product.
You will be seeing small demos, as we progress in this journey.
We haven't finalized on a trademark name yet - once it is finalized will share it over socials and here.
And if you're a software engineering student in your 3rd or final year, we have an internship opening for ROS developer, which can be followed with a PPO. You can drop an email with your work on hey@souravk.com. (if you know someone, please share it with them)

See you until next one! With more learnings and realizations on this journey 😌