Bootstrapping an IoT Company from North Carolina: Bob Witter, CEO of Device Solutions (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: When did you hit upon this as a key go-to-market strategy for sourcing projects and being brought into projects?

Bob Witter: It was specific to these vendors. These are the relationships that we started to build in the first couple of years of our operation. We knew a lot of these vendors through our experience in the cellular business. We cold-called on them a lot and asked them if they had opportunities come in to them looking for design teams to build their devices. We hit them up every month and say, “Anything new?”

Sramana Mitra: So very early on, you figured out that these component vendors would be good sources of leads for you in terms of new projects?

Bob Witter: That’s right.

Sramana Mitra: What was the ramp of the business? You said you started in 2003. You’ve now been in business for more than 12 years.
>>>

Bootstrapping an IoT Company from North Carolina: Bob Witter, CEO of Device Solutions (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Can we double-click down on what exactly happened in the first  couple of years? It sounds like you started with a hypothesis and that didn’t get any traction in the market. You had to pivot. How did you figure out what to pivot to? What happened? What struck the cord?

Bob Witter: We stuck with our core expertise, which was RF design. We just shifted a little bit. Instead of helping people get their own designs through the certification process, we actually started helping people design. It was just a matter of a lot of cold-calling and actually seeing where it went to a large extent. Where it kept going and where people really wanted help was on the design side.

Sramana Mitra: What kinds of customers were looking for this help?
>>>

Bootstrapping an IoT Company from North Carolina: Bob Witter, CEO of Device Solutions (Part 1)

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. Today, some of that talent has come together around IoT.

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. >>>

Thought Leaders in Internet of Things: Colin Sutherland, Co-Founder of Geotab (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Why did you pitch for Internet of Things story?

Colin Sutherland: The product that we’re actually delivering is data. That’s where our entire industry is moving. The practical application of the data in reducing accidents and improving fuel economy is terrific. You can collect information and store that on the cloud. It is an asset that enables managing, not only where the data is. but also with outside sources like weather.You can then match the weather-related data and the vehicle performance to alert the driver that five miles up ahead, the road is about to freeze.

This is the type of information that’s coming on now—the accessibility of data in the vehicle and making it available in a Big Data environment, sharing it with smart cities so they know where the most risky intersections are so they can make this intersection more safe. >>>

Thought Leaders in Internet of Things: Colin Sutherland, Co-Founder of Geotab (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Can you net this out for me? Who are your customers?

Colin Sutherland: 50% of our sales are to the wireless carrier industry. In North America, the top seven wireless carriers themselves represent our technology. We consider them to be our customers because we’re selling to them. They, in turn, sell to end users. We also sell to customers like the fleet management industry that manage or lease vehicles on behalf of customers.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s talk about the fleet management industry. Specifically, what ways are you adding value? Walk us through a fleet management company workflow. Where are you impacting their work flow? Where are you adding value?

Colin Sutherland: The number one piece of data that drives a lot of your decision making is the odometer on a vehicle. It sounds pretty silly, but being able to go and actually record the odometer in a vehicle from every vehicle that you have and have that collected in a central cloud-based server every day is incredibly >>>

Thought Leaders in Internet of Things: Colin Sutherland, Co-Founder of Geotab (Part 1)

There’s a ton of data being  generated through vehicle telematics that need apps to make sense of. Entrepreneurs looking for problems to solve – please read on!

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to you as well as to Geotab.

Colin Sutherland: I’m the Global Vice President of Sales and Marketing, and one of the Founders of Geotab. This is our 15^th year of being involved in what’s called the telematics industry, which is a technology that essentially moves the data from a vehicle’s location over a wireless method, and into the cloud, to enable fleets to better understand how their assets are being used in order to improve.

Sramana Mitra: What are the trends of the telematics space as it pertains to vehicles at this point?

Colin Sutherland: The industry reached a major milestone six years ago when, as a total collective, the industry became a billion dollar industry. That was a big milestone. Industry researchers have projected tremendous growth for the business. Overall, the industry has been growing 15% per year, but that doesn’t really tell the whole story. >>>

Thought Leaders in Internet of Things: John McDonald, CEO of CloudOne (Part 5)

John McDonald: Think about all the data points in the car example that have to be correlated to be able to make that work. You have to have situational awareness, positional awareness, data about customer preferences, knowledge of how to interface with the store’s ordering system, and many other data points to infer that you need a cup of coffee. I would encourage folks that are looking to get into the Internet of Things space to look very hard at that issue and say, “Where’s the value coming from?”

Yes, it’s coming from those pieces of data, but more value is coming from correlating those particular pieces of data into an inference that you need coffee. There’s very few companies right now that grasp what I just said. Ultimately, the ability to subscribe to different streams of data and help companies infer the need for products and services based on what that data is telling you is a very interesting and largely unexplored area of Internet of Things. This may ultimately be the best way to monetize the opportunity around IoT.

Sramana Mitra: Interesting. I saw that you are located in Indianapolis. What is it like to do this business out of Indianapolis? >>>

Thought Leaders in Internet of Things: John McDonald, CEO of CloudOne (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: If you were to point to some open problems that you see out there that you think entrepreneurs should be digging into, where would you point them?

John McDonald: To answer that question, I will first tell you what I wouldn’t look to do. What I would not look to do is form yet another company that is trying to, in some way, provide what I would call a widget to the marketplace. What do I mean by that? Perhaps a piece of software, perhaps a chip or component where the hope is that if we form a company or project around building or prototyping that component, we can sell millions of them and monetize our company through the creation of widgets. I would say to you right now that the marketplace is flooded with companies that are trying to do that. >>>