As a boss, I allocate resources in initiatives that will provide a return. Just like how an investor in a venture capital firm would. Instead of financial capital, my resources are human capital. And I take significant risks, so long as they seem sound.
With Sapiengraph, the company arrived at a crossroads for which I had to decide whether or not to double down on the CCTV direction.
Context
I left my full-time position at LandX with a pile of technology refined over the years. I have Proxycurl, which allows me to crawl semi-private data such as Facebook and Professional Social Network profiles in scale. We also pieced together a facial recognition technology.
With these building blocks, I sought to piece a product together. And there lies the problem. I started solution-first, not problem-first.
Rapid iteration
Rapid iteration is both a core strength and weakness. I can take a product to market fast. Bringing a product into the market brings about data. And with data, I can build a clear picture of
- the business model
- efficacy and viability of the distribution channel of the product
- most importantly, the market's appetite for the product
The voracity our customers have for our product defines product-market fit.
So, I knew what we had, big data and facial recognition to glue the real world via images captured via cameras to the data. In other words, we were seeking to offer analytics and data augmentation to our customers.
With the mass market as a customer, a tool like such will be a tool for creepers to stalk girls.
I do not want to build a Google for stalkers, so I decided to focus on businesses.
B2B
With businesses, either you offer a way to increase revenue, or decrease cost. So Sapiengraph has to provide a clear value proposition.