From Developer to Successful Machine Learning Entrepreneur: David Moss, Co-Founder, President and CTO of People Power Company (Part 5)

David Moss: The third thing we do is we’re bringing people together. If we look at the history of computing, in every era, killer apps would emerge. These apps were killer because they’re viral. They’re viral because they’re social. What’s key is to take the newest technology of the day and find how we can intersect that with elements that are social.

There is nothing more social than taking care of somebody. We are bringing together family caregivers and we are bringing together professional caregivers to provide care. Usually, it’s a primary caregiver who steps up. This person has a lot of stress. What we need to do is distribute that stress to the rest of the family and provide them with a better lifestyle.

Sramana Mitra: Often, there are multiple children of the elder person.

David Moss: That’s exactly right. Even though they may not be able to respond to an alert, they should still be reaching out to their grandparents. That’s another thing our system will do – remind people.

Sramana Mitra: You’ve also built a family social network around caregiving.

David Moss: That’s right. One of the roadmaps for this whole industry that we’re in is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. At the bottom are physiological and safety. Those two layers can be addressed by internet-connected sensors. We can know that dad didn’t take his medicine or that grandma got out of bed.

The next layer up is love and then self-esteem. You’re not going to fall in love with technology and internet-connected sensors, so we have to bring people together. We need to make sure everyone’s needs are taken care of. They can just do whatever they want and live life to the fullest. Our People Power has maintained this long-term vision of us wanting to make the world a better place for people.

Sramana Mitra: Very good. I love it. Talk about your financing strategy. This has been a long journey.

David Moss: We have received some non-dilutive grant funding. I encourage entrepreneurs to explore that. Here’s the key though. When you write these grants, it has to align with your roadmap. We have to make sure that the grant isn’t going to take us off course. It’s very easy for a company to get distracted and miss the greater mission here. We were very careful in making sure that our grants aligned with our ultimate mission.

We partnered with some universities to do this. For example, our $4.5 million grant (which has now turned into a $3.2 million follow-on grant) was done in conjunction with UC Berkeley. We partnered with Professor Bob Levinson who runs the largest psychology lab in the world studying families, aging, and Dementia. This is a great partnership. That’s a key one.

As for the more traditional investments and financing, a lot of our funding has been from angel investors. Part of this is through Gene’s network. He knows many people who have also been successful entrepreneurs. They’re helping each other.

We have received money from traditional venture capitalists. A lot of our funding has been from corporate investors. Some people think that corporate investors aren’t great to go with. I think corporate investors are some of the smartest type of investments you can get. The reason is that corporate investors can not only fuel up the tank but they also act like customers and get us into these large companies.

Navigating through the org chart of a large organization is very difficult for any small company to do. By getting these corporate investors on board, they are invested in you and they will help make sure that you’re making the right connections to scale this business. We are now in the final stages of raising a Series C. Largely, we’re looking more on the corporate investor side to fill out these rounds.

This segment is part 5 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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