From Developer to Successful Machine Learning Entrepreneur: David Moss, Co-Founder, President and CTO of People Power Company (Part 2)

David Moss: We realized that one of the big barriers to entry is that people have to buy some thing before they realize the value. We got to thinking about how do we get past this barrier to create more of a freemium model of the IoT. In 2013, I came up with the concept that we could transform a spare smartphone into a free internet-connected security camera. We created this app called Presence which did just that.

The iPhone 5 was coming out. We went down the lines of all the Apple fans in Phoenix, Palo Alto, and in Toronto and asked everyone what they were going to do to their old phones. About 25% said that they would give their phones to a family or friend, 25% said they were going to sell them. Over half said, “I don’t know what I’m doing with my old phone.” That was an opportunity. There are these computers that are sitting inside of people’s socks drawers now.

Sramana Mitra: Powerful computers.

David Moss: Yes, with sensors, cameras, and microphones. If you connect it over WiFi, you really have a machine there that you can play with. We created this app to bring new life into these old phones. You could see what’s happening live from anywhere in the world. You could get motion detection video alerts from inside your home.

You can also talk back to people and pets who are nearby your camera. This app took off. We immediately had a lot of media coverage. Eventually, we reached the top 1% of revenue-generating apps on the Apple App Store.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s double-click down. You started tinkering in 2009 and you had started conversations with your former CEO at Bitfone. You are a developer. You didn’t really have the background of taking a product into an entrepreneurial venture. Could you describe how you developed yourself in acquiring all that knowledge?

David Moss: It did start with having this entrepreneurial spirit. Even when I was in high school, I had been exploring businesses. Without a mentor to provide the structure, it’s tough to do on your own. Having Gene Wang as a mentor has helped me develop my own business acumen. I strongly recommend that to anybody.

Lots of people have great ideas. Building a product is just one part. There are so many other aspects of the business that you have to learn about. Gene helped teach me that. I think Gene and I are a really good team. He was a computer science major but has had a lot of experience with running businesses and starting companies. I have a more visionary technology background.

When you put the two together, it’s a good combo. It’s great to have a founder like this where if one of us having a bad day, the other person can pick you up and keep you going.

Sramana Mitra: Interestingly, what you said about your journey from being a programmer to an entrepreneur is exactly what we are trying to achieve in 1Mby1M. A vast majority of our audience are techies like yourself and me. I didn’t grow up in a business school environment. I started my first company as a grad student at MIT in EECS. I had to figure it all out as I went along.

That was in 1994. The internet was just starting to happen. Fast forward, I did three startups as Founder CEO. In 2010 when I started 1Mby1M, this was what was at the back of my mind. I think you can teach business to techies.

It’s really easy. Business is not that complicated if you break it down to value proposition, validation, market sizing, customer acquisition, team building, financing, bootstrapping. You can teach business to a techie like that. That’s exactly what we wanted to do.

David Moss: There’s a lot of material out there. You can teach business aspects to product-oriented people. One of the things that I found enlightening in my career path is realizing that the product is not the whole business.

There’s a great book called Connecting the Dots. It lays out this concept that you have to first get your message right as far as the pain point goes. There’s marketing around that. You have to describe to the person that your product is going to fit all of the problems they have. There’s more marketing and messaging there. You have to complete the transaction and make it seamless and easy. Finally, it’s only after you’ve collected the money that you hand this product to the person. Your product is only 25%.

This segment is part 2 in the series : From Developer to Successful Machine Learning Entrepreneur: David Moss, Co-Founder, President and CTO of People Power Company
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