Building a Robotics Company from India: Ritukar Vijay CEO of Ottonomy (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Six months later after you got all the feedback and incorporated all the feedback, was there a big check?

Ritukar Vijay: It was a monthly subscription. We did a contract of a rolling window of six months.

Sramana Mitra: What kind of pricing structure did you set up?

Ritukar Vijay: It was around $3,000 a month per robot.

Sramana Mitra: How many robots did you put out?

Ritukar Vijay: We deployed two robots at Concourse B at Cincinnati Airport.

Sramana Mitra: Before this check started to come in, you had already raised capital?

Ritukar Vijay: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: Now we are in 2021. You have this six month window and have a paying customer. Did other airports kick in gear?

Ritukar Vijay: They did. At the same time, they also wanted to wait and watch. It was a business development phase.

Sramana Mitra: When did airports start to come in?

Ritukar Vijay: There were a lot of organic reach outs and we also reached out to multiple airports. Airports is a close community. That’s how we started post CVG (Cincinnati) launch in the US and outside the US. The compliance guidelines are similar across geographies.

Sramana Mitra: In your go-to-market strategy, what is the sales cycle for an airport? First one was very different because you were building the product and proving the concept. In the subsequent airports, were they buying multiple robots and deploying the use case upfront?

Ritukar Vijay: Still, people want to test it out in their facility. The local administrative staff at the airport wants to be comfortable with these robots. These are now paid pilots that come in with a design sprint at the end. That created more engagement because they can scale the operations how they want to deploy.

We are building the case with them. Right from the beginning, we started working with our customers as partners. One of the learnings which we had was that innovation teams are one of the best entry points for startups. That works very fast with the business team post that. That’s what we did. Our target list was focused around innovation teams.

Sramana Mitra: That’s an important insight. Every organization has a different way of buying new technology. Does the innovation team always come with two robots and a six-month pilot?

Ritukar Vijay: Yes. After the pilot, the safety and commercial teams come in. You need to have those innovation team members.

Sramana Mitra: Internal champions are really important. Have you reached full deployment in Cincinnati?

Ritukar Vijay: Not yet. The new robots have been launched. We are tying up strategically with the concessionaires which are present across different airports. This is helping them realize what benefits they will get. Airport is the enabler, but the ultimate customers are concessionaires. It’s a multi-stage problem within airports. We are through stage two where the products are working. Now is the time to scale. How can we add more concessionaires?

Sramana Mitra: The concessionaires are the retailers in the airport?

Ritukar Vijay: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: You have to sell individually to each of those?

Ritukar Vijay: No, that is tied up with the airport. The innovation team is the champion for the airport. Then the airport becomes the champion to get the concessionaires. It’s a chain of events.

This segment is part 5 in the series : Building a Robotics Company from India: Ritukar Vijay CEO of Ottonomy
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