‘Startup’ has become the buzzword
for the current generation. It has become a career path where the students and professionals
are changing their career to pursue their dreams and passion. For decades this
wave has hit India, making it the 3rd largest ecosystem globally.
The "Crafting
Bharat - A Startup Podcast Series" powered by AWS, and an initiative by NewsReach, in association with VCCircle, unlocks the secrets behind
these successful entrepreneurs’ journeys aiming to equip aspiring entrepreneurs
and business enthusiasts with invaluable insights. The podcast series is hosted
by Gautam Srinivasan, famed for hosting a diverse range of TV and digital
programs, currently consulting editor at CNBC (India), CNN-News18, Forbes
India, and The Economic Times.
The Indian Startup ecosystem has
witnessed an exceptional leap with AI/ML technologies. Sravanth Aluru,
Co-Founder and CEO of Avataar, is the light bearer in revolutionizing the
industry with the power of spatial storytelling. In the Crafting Bharat Podcast
Series, Aluru talks about his entrepreneurial journey, spatial storytelling and
trends in the AI industry.
Explore the tales of Indian startup
founders' transformation from dreams to reality, navigating challenges to seize
opportunities through the Crafting Bharat Podcast Series.
Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWoaGhvSEGc
Segment 1: The Incubator
How
did your previous stints help you zero in on this new way of enabling consumer
interactions for brands?
I found the passion of spatial
storytelling and the power of spatial depth towards visual discovery at
Microsoft, where I kind of started my career, I was a computer vision fanatic
back then. Kinect is a depth sensor that would sit on top of Xbox and do the
skeleton tracking and some of those early AI and computer vision use cases.
That’s where I saw the power of spatial depth and just to allude to that we all
live in a physical world which has a third dimension, our digital experiences
are flat today on the flat screens that we carry be it a mobile, laptop or
tablet and I could see there’s a huge gap or a digital physical divide, in
terms of how consumers are today consuming content and visual experiences on
digital versus how physical happens.
Anything
that we should look forward to from your moonshot factory called Avataar
Reality Labs?
I think the physical and the digital
reality will not be distinguishable anymore if you were to fast forward to
maybe 5 years from now, we are seeing that already in the pilot R&D POC’s
that we’re doing internally in the Avataar Reality Labs. But the kind of photo
realism and the way we can blend the physical and digital reality today with
devices like Quest 2 by Meta or Vision Pro by Apple. I think it is going to
give superhuman capabilities across everything digital starting from
communications to even just information consumption to productivity in various
different contexts.
Could
you expand on your partnership with AWS and how it helps you scale up and
innovate?
We are focused on a very clear AI
computer vision convergence era and having said that AWS gives us a lot more
capabilities to connect various dots that either remove friction or create
delight for our clients or the end consumers and that’s where I see the
partnership to be very complimentary of a strong win-win for both entities.
Segment 2: The Accelerator
What’s your idea of the perfect product?
Honestly, the perfect product is
like infinity to me, where you can tend to it and limit it but there’s nothing
called reaching infinity. Similarly, I don’t think there’s a perfect product
that exists in the world. But if I must express my point of view, a perfect
product would be something that is continuously improving with a very clear
utilitarian purpose of either removing existing friction today or driving value
in terms of delight where you are able to do things that you couldn’t do
yesterday.
How
challenging was it to attract the right talent?
I do think that people want a
purpose, they want to be part of a journey that’s value creation from nothing
and if you can spin on the ability for people because it’s a collective journey
as just one founder cannot achieve anything by himself but it’s a collective team that achieves it.
Everyone
wants to scale quickly but how about staying small till you really understand
the business inside out and scale smartly and sustainably? Your thoughts?
I think there’s a little bit of
instant gratification that’s creeped into the startup philosophies. I am not
sure if that’s the right approach, I’m not saying that you should spend 10
years. What I mean is you really need to find a true value proposition that’s
sustainable.
The Indian Startup Ecosystem is
having a quantum shift with motivated startup founders bringing forth
exceptional innovation. Startup founders' vision and dedication drive India's
startup surge.
Stay tuned to the Crafting Bharat Podcast
Series as we bring you these inspirational entrepreneurs for insightful and
candid discussions with Gautam Srinivasan.
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