1Mby1M Udemy Courses with Sramana Mitra: Domain Knowledge

At 1Mby1M, we believe in learning from case studies of successful entrepreneurs. These case studies involve discussions on opportunities and challenges specific to the domain such as Generative AI, E-Commerce, Digital Health, Cyber Security, and FinTech. 

Smart City Use Cases and Opportunities: Jay Chandan, CEO of Gorilla Technology (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: In general, the issue of internet of things and all kinds of monitoring is that there is a lot of data being generated. That data does need to be protected in a holistic and wholesome way. Your point is well taken that that problem needs to be thought about more accurately and more precisely.

Jay Chandan: It’s a long-term issue. We are working very closely with a lot of the government agencies to address them.

Smart City Use Cases and Opportunities: Jay Chandan, CEO of Gorilla Technology (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: In those situations, they are the tier one system integrator and you come in as a tier two or tier three.

Jay Chandan: I’m happy being tier two. I wouldn’t call myself tier three today.

Sramana Mitra: Your genesis is Taiwan. Where are you getting the traction? Is it more in Southeast Asia?

Smart City Use Cases and Opportunities: Jay Chandan, CEO of Gorilla Technology (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: The point that I’m probing here is, you have a cybersecurity business. Then you have a transportation management business. Is that the best way to manage a business to have such diversity? In each of those, you’re going to encounter pure play providers. Cybersecurity is an extraordinarily competitive market. You’re going to be facing all the competition from the cybersecurity world.

Smart City Use Cases and Opportunities: Jay Chandan, CEO of Gorilla Technology (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How do you do that? How do you intervene in reducing infractions?

Jay Chandan: That is by better traffic management at the intersections. We have a traffic management solution which we have built and deployed at a fraction of the cost.

Smart City Use Cases and Opportunities: Jay Chandan, CEO of Gorilla Technology (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Is it a product company or a services company?

Jay Chandan: It’s a mix. Today, about 60% of our revenue comes from product and about 40% from services.

Sramana Mitra: What’s in the product?

Smart City Use Cases and Opportunities: Jay Chandan, CEO of Gorilla Technology (Part 1)

Jay talks about Gorilla’s Smart City system integration business that heavily focuses on IoT security, analytics, and workflow. In the end, we discuss open problems that could warrant new entrepreneurs building startups around.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? What kind of background?

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped an IoT Company from North Carolina

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

North Carolina, at one point, had a large concentration of cellular technology companies. Some of that talent then came together around IoT, including Bob Witter, CEO of Device Solutions. He shared his journey with me in 2016.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of circumstances?

Bob Witter: I was born in Springville, New York. It’s in the western part of New York. I grew up in central New York. I went to school at State University of New York and graduated in 1981 with degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics. I started my career in Rochester with Eastman Kodak company in the medical products division that was brand new at that time. I learned a great deal about how to do medical products that has certainly served me well even today at Device Solutions.

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