Interview with Rohal Chandrakar & Atish Patel | InfiVR
We hope this can inspire you to become a successful entrepreneur too! Why is it important to hear the story of a successful entrepreneur?
Having the vision to become an entrepreneur is great. Making it happen is another story!
In that frame, We had the pleasure to interview Rohal Chandrakar & Atish Patel. Rohal Chandrakar & Atish Patel are co-founders of InfiVR. InfiVR is solving core issues using Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. Infi AR/VR platform and solutions are improving client’s productivity, effectiveness, accuracy and safety of their employees and customers.
1. What gets you out of bed in the morning i.e what’s your source of motivation?
We take pride in being a unique startup company, a company which is very focused into core tech implementations of Virtual and Augmented Reality. We take pride in contributing to our nation and we aspire to provide our AR / VR solutions to each and every member of Indian Armed Forces and people working in core industrial companies. And to achieve this dream we have to come up with 5 new ideas daily, be it reaching out to our customers, or offering them our solutions or solving technological constraints. We have to constantly keep thinking and keep solving problems creatively. Few entrepreneurs think that funding solves all problems, It could solve your money issues and buy you time. But ultimately it is your creativity which will help you truly shine and build a true business. We are bootstrapped and despite the unprecedented COVID situation which has nearly brought many startups close to shutdown we are going strong because of the instinct to survive, fight and take each problem as a challenge to creatively solve it and get out of it.
2. Why should people choose your product/services?
We provide the most cutting edge and affordable solutions to any problem faced by our clients. We focus on user experience and do not let our users be it technicians, mechanics or consumers get overwhelmed by these futuristic technologies. Over the last few years we have developed inhouse IP which can be quickly leveraged to create a quality product. This gives us a deep technological and process advantage which make us very unique and unbeatable when it comes to our product and offerings.
3. What’s your competitive advantage and why can’t it be copied?
Our competitive edge is we are a core tech VR / AR company with focus on the core engineering sector only. InfiVR can be easily & deeply integrated with customer processes like; enterprise backend, IOT systems, learning management systems, etc. This makes our solution very easy to meet and measure business goals for stakeholders of our customers. This competitive edge comes with hours of collaboration and innovation done while working with not just one but several customers.
4. What risks are you facing?
We have been more successful in selling our product overseas compared to indian government organizations, because of their sluggish procurement process. Our major target business are defence and big manufacturing organisations who we want to help adopt the latest AR / VR technologies at mass scale. However, we have experienced the slow and complex nature of their procurement process, which is very challenging . Another issue which we have faced is that large conventional Indian organizations, despite holding a lot of cash, are not willing to face even minor risks or ready to invest into futuristic solutions like; AR/VR. They always wait for their competitors to try out first and take that risk. This mindset is the biggest challenge for innovative and deep tech companies like ours, which reduces speed of adoption and puts us at a disadvantage compared to our North american or European counterparts.
5. Have you considered any alliance/partnership?
We primarily work with our partners, we have joined hands with leading IT solutions companies to provide AR / VR solutions to their customers globally. Alliance and partnership have really worked for us in reaching global customers which otherwise would be a lot time consuming.
6. What are your cash flow projections? When will you break even? How much will you need in investments?
We are bootstrapped but already profitable. We were approached by a few early stage investors but we respectfully did not perceive it, since we wanted to get clarity on the direction which we want to take, in our product development process. However we have joined hands with a few strategy partners which truly bring value to the table and help us reach out to large organizations which otherwise would have been difficult. And we are really thankful to our strategic partners. However now that we are in a scaleup phase, very soon we may have some good news for our well wishers on this front.
7. What comes first for you money or emotions?
Of course business and startup has to be about money, else it is some other organization or a group but, there is always an emotion behind it. It takes a very strong emotion which pushes a person to be an entrepreneur and then a rockstar entrepreneur. For some its passion for something and for others its about creating a lot of wealth. Be it businessmen like; Henry Ford, Steve Jobs or Dhirubai Ambani, there was always an emotion which pushed them as an entrepreneur to achieve extraordinary heights. it does not mean that small time entrepreneurs don’t face this phenomena, they too face it, just that their stories are not written anywhere.
We are passionate about interactive technologies and our passion is what pushes us to keep on going. We want to leverage these skills to develop cutting edge virtual reality solutions for organizations be it blue collar workforce, research scientists or armed forces personnel, so that they can feel empowered and achieve heights by doing their daily tasks intelligently and efficiently.
8. Tell me about an accomplishment you are most proud of.
We are proud to deliver innovative, quality and value-for-money services that our clients want. For just a young startup we are doing good. We have already provided virtual reality and augmented reality products to defence organizations like Indian Airforce who are using it for mission-critical training and simulations. In fact we are the only AR / VR company working with leading aerospace companies in India to provide solutions for their production and assembly processes. Not only that, we have seen very good international traction. Within a short span of time we have exported our products and solutions to defence and other organizations of North America, Middle East and Asia Pacific.
With our virtual reality and augmented reality simulation & training solutions we were able to achieve below results;
a. With just investment of $40 K we helped them save $ 1.2 M over a period of 3 years.
b. We brought down training and infra cost by more than 65%.
c. We improved overall average KPIs of training for employee by more than 76%
d. Trainee engagement and retention increased by more than 116% .
9. How do you handle the pressure?
We believe the only way to handle pressure is with passions. We are passionate about what we are building, we are a unique startup company, a company which is very focused into core tech implementations of Virtual and Augmented Reality. We take pride in contributing to our nation and we aspire to provide our AR / VR solutions to each and every member of Indian Armed Forces and people working in core industrial companies.
And to achieve this dream we have to come up with 5 new ideas daily, be it reaching out to our customers, or offering them our solutions or solving technological constraints. We have to constantly keep thinking and keep solving problems creatively. Few entrepreneurs think that funding solves all problems, It could solve your money issues and buy you time. But ultimately it is your creativity which will help you truly shine and build a true business. We are bootstrapped and despite the unprecedented COVID situation which has nearly brought many startups close to shutdown we are going strong because of the instinct to survive, fight and take each problem as a challenge to creatively solve it and get out of it.
10. If you sold your company today, what would be the tone of the conversation? What would you want to gain? What would you want to avoid losing?
We had already received few acquisition opportunities, but we respectfully declined them and continued being on our own. We are here to build a leading company in virtual reality and augmented reality technology solutions.
Augmented reality, virtual reality is undoubtedly the future of computing, it is delayed but it is now inevitable. We are in the year of 2005 in which there were a number of different mobile phone devices and form factors, small, large, feature phones, palmtops, etc. and then came the first iPhone in 2007 which changed the way mobile phone devices were used. AR / VR technology is on the brink of transformation very soon AR / VR technology will soon see mass adoption in enterprise as well in consumer domains. Hence we are here to stay and confident of making it really big.
11. What advice would you give to someone starting out?
– When you are starting up don’t start with the mentality that you will try out something for 1-2 years and if it works it works. Get into the world of entrepreneurship with an aim of being there for at least 10 years. We know it’s very difficult, it’s easier said than done. We too face many challenges, on a daily and weekly basis; every time you are in a problem you feel like quitting. Think creatively you will definitely figure out some way out.
– Don’t do a startup with an aim of raising funds and then growing, funding is rare and doesn’t ensure success. Try to think beyond funding, there are several other ways of running and scaling your business. Funding is something which your business would naturally ask for and that would be the most suitable time to get funded. When you are starting, always have plan B apart from funding.
– Don’t aim to build a unicorn business, an entrepreneur is one who utilizes resources available to create some value and wealth. Start with aim to create value and business around it, rest things will automatically follow. There are many companies which are small which build life saving technologies and products but are not as big as e-commerce giants or home delivery businesses. What they are building is useful and critical in their own way. So aim should be to create value & wealth through some good product or service rest things will automatically follow.
