Impact Innovators
Building a Startup in Agri-Tech: Lakshan of Spectrify AI
Send us a text message. Got a question about the show or topic we discussed?
What if technology could transform the livelihoods of farmers around the world? In this episode of Impact Innovators, we sit down with Lakshan, the CEO and co-founder of Spectrify AI, an agri-tech software company that's doing just that. Lakshan takes us through his captivating journey from his agricultural roots in Sri Lanka to becoming a tech entrepreneur focused on solving critical issues like food loss and quality control. He shares how his team captured the attention of venture capitalists at the Collision conference and the strategies they used to showcase their ground-breaking work.
We're also inspired by the resilient journey of a Sri Lankan startup making waves in the tea industry, boasting over 30 B2B customers. As they set their sights on expanding into the coffee and wine sectors, we discuss the innovative AI models they're developing to tackle moisture issues, which are essential for maintaining product quality. This chapter is packed with invaluable advice for early-stage startups, including the importance of understanding product-market fit, playing multiple roles, and making strategic decisions without unnecessary pivots.
To wrap things up, we delve into the complexities of raising funds and the crucial task of choosing investors who align with your long-term vision. We share personal anecdotes that highlight the importance of taking calculated risks and learning from failures. Looking to the future, we explore how advancements in AI, robotics, and blockchain technology could reshape various industries and impact daily life. This episode is a treasure trove of insights, actionable ideas, and inspiring stories that promise to leave you motivated and informed. Don't miss out on this engaging and enlightening conversation!
Send us a text message. Got a question about the show or topic we discussed?
What if technology could transform the livelihoods of farmers around the world? In this episode of Impact Innovators, we sit down with Lakshan, the CEO and co-founder of Spectrify AI, an agri-tech software company that's doing just that. Lakshan takes us through his captivating journey from his agricultural roots in Sri Lanka to becoming a tech entrepreneur focused on solving critical issues like food loss and quality control. He shares how his team captured the attention of venture capitalists at the Collision conference and the strategies they used to showcase their ground-breaking work.
We're also inspired by the resilient journey of a Sri Lankan startup making waves in the tea industry, boasting over 30 B2B customers. As they set their sights on expanding into the coffee and wine sectors, we discuss the innovative AI models they're developing to tackle moisture issues, which are essential for maintaining product quality. This chapter is packed with invaluable advice for early-stage startups, including the importance of understanding product-market fit, playing multiple roles, and making strategic decisions without unnecessary pivots.
To wrap things up, we delve into the complexities of raising funds and the crucial task of choosing investors who align with your long-term vision. We share personal anecdotes that highlight the importance of taking calculated risks and learning from failures. Looking to the future, we explore how advancements in AI, robotics, and blockchain technology could reshape various industries and impact daily life. This episode is a treasure trove of insights, actionable ideas, and inspiring stories that promise to leave you motivated and informed. Don't miss out on this engaging and enlightening conversation!
Hey everybody. It's Shane here, the host of the podcast Impact Innovators, which is success stories worth sharing by real business founders. It's real stories, real founders and actionable ideas. And on the show today we've got Lakshan. He is the CEO and co-founder of Spectrify AI, which is an AI-driven agri-tech software.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. Great to be here.
Speaker 1:Why don't you tell us a little bit about how you got to be the CEO of Spectrify?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm the co-founder of Spectrify. And then how we came about it is I come from a country which does agricultural ports I'm from Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka, like almost 30% of the labor port, is in agriculture. So there's a natural affinity, both culturally and economically, towards agriculture. But what we've understood affinity both culturally and economically towards agriculture but what we've understood is in terms of GDP contribution, or if you take how much of exports are made despite 30% being in agriculture, it's quite very depressing. It's like less than 10% GDP contribution comes from agricultural exports.
Speaker 2:So we were trying to figure out why that is, and part of it is food loss, food-based age and not moving up the value chain. And the underlying reasoning behind it was quality, and ensuring quality control measures is a natural enabler for most books in agriculture to move up the value chain, thereby increase their earnings, move up the socioeconomic ladder. It gives opportunities. So that was the thesis. It started off with a social enterprise mindset and then it evolved. Then we understood that there's a commercial application beyond just Sri Lanka, like agriculture is food is important for everyone, respect people where they live. So some of these quality components could be utilized for different crops. So that's how we started. It was a grand thesis of enabling people to move up the socioeconomic ladder and improve their lives.
Speaker 1:Wonderful. So listen, I usually ask everyone do you know Simon Sinek? He did that famous TEDx talk quite a few years ago, just about the why of business really is what it is, and so he said a couple of things that really strikes a chord for me, maybe for you too. We said the mind can be convinced, but the heart must be one. People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it and what you do simply proves what you believe.
Speaker 1:So why do you do this? Like there must be something that's driving you.
Speaker 2:It's a great way to synopsize. Why would you start something? The whole underlying principle for me as a person and in terms of a personal mindset, is I want to be a part of something bigger than myself. I know it sounds cliche, but sometimes you figure out depending on the time you're alive. In the world there are different movements, sometimes it's political, sometimes it's social based and in our case it's technological based, for example, the technology way. Now it's at a much faster pace of change it ever was, maybe.
Speaker 2:If you take, say, 1969, when we first went to the moon, things have changed so much compared to the 2000 years before that. So it's a great opportunity to look at introspection and figure out what you want to be as a person, and for me it's to do my part. As someone who has been in economics, finance, agri-tech, fintech, I felt there was a natural ability for me to participate in this particular endeavor and I enjoy what I do, and most of the time it's problem solving. So problem solving especially, there's a social outcome where people are better off for it. That always is a rewarding fact and that's part of the reason why I do what I want to do and I like what I do.
Speaker 1:Nice. So you and I met as a part of the DMZ Business Accelerator luncheon that we had lunch at, and you were also at Collision, the conference for startups that wanted to pitch to the VCs, and I saw you pitch on the stage. You want to tell us a little bit about the excitement behind that and how it turned out and what you're doing now?
Speaker 2:Thanks, shane. To be very honest, I didn't know that we selected to pitch at Collision. I think there were over 2,000 applicants and there were about 70 folks who presented, so we had the good fortune of being able to present. So one is having that global platform, that audience, like looking at you so you can get your messaging right and then, on top of that, be a part of a program which can upskill you to understand the global startup space as well as the venture capital space, and that was a great experience preparing for that. It was a three-minute pitch. I've done pitches in the past, but this was more for global audiences by one of the big platforms I've done it in. They gave great support. We had folks who were backstage doing breathing exercises for us, doing some yoga sessions.
Speaker 1:I was really proud. They didn't see that. It was really nice they did that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. They were pretty chill folks.
Speaker 1:You don't get a lot of time to do your pitch, though. How did you work on honing down what you're going to say?
Speaker 2:I think we went to the basics of what the problem is, what the solution is, how big the market opportunity is, who we are, why it should be us solving this problem. So kept to the basics and got the messaging right and in my experience of attending some of these events, it's like getting that first impression created with either the VC or whoever the stakeholder you're trying to address. And second is doing the follow-ups, like afterwards you can talk to them, get their cards cards, connect on linkedin or email, then keep the correspondence going. That's where the conversions happen. So I was sticking to a very basic template on how to navigate the space and it was very productive for us.
Speaker 1:Congratulations on making it that far, man. That's a testament to you and the startup that you've founded, because getting from potential startups down to 70 shortlisted to be able to pitch at Collision, that's a big accomplishment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is. It's a rewarding fact, especially coming from Sri Lanka, Not known for startups, but we're trying to create our mark and say that hey, look at us, we have a good funnel of startups, good talent here. That's a great help.
Speaker 1:I had an opportunity to see the final three that got shortlisted. I saw them pitch on the big stage and the one that won. I can't recall the company name, but it seems like they were fairly progressed in their company. They've already got a lot of customers, They've already had a couple of rounds of VC and pretty good company. What stages is your startup at?
Speaker 2:We did a pre-seed round last year, so we're in a stage right now doing a fundraiser. If you know anyone, we'd be happy to interact with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so then, in terms of customers, can you give us an?
Speaker 2:idea of what's going on there.
Speaker 2:Sure. So we right now have a B2B approach and, being Sri Lankan, sri Lanka has a pay-to-tour towards tea. So we work with most largest tea exporters in the world and even in Sri Lanka. So largest tea exporters in the world and even in Sri Lanka, so we have a paid customer base of over 30 users and that's a good thing because it's a B2B sale. We gather data, we build up the models, so it's good traction in the tea industry. We're also getting into coffee and also we're getting into wine and we have a few funnels that are flooding in some customers and partnerships for us.
Speaker 1:Interesting. It's funny because I recently read, actually, that coffee actually is a big problem in terms of mold and mildew and spores, so I didn't realize how big of an issue it really is. I don't know a lot about your software, but I take it that it would help in identifying that kind of issue.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, because moisture is at the heart of most of these things and in our case, like for tea, we focused on moisture. Moisture results in the longevity, contributes towards the shelf life, so food wastage, at its core, is caused by a little bit of moisture too. For coffee, for example, you need 11% moisture for it to be ideal if you're exporting coffee and for tea, for example, it should be 7% or less. Moisture is a component which we have solved for in tea, which we're extrapolating into coffee models as well. So we're mapping out the coffee industry in terms of aerobic beans to robust beans, and we're also talking to a few folk in some of the South American countries, to even Southeast Asian countries. So right now we're building up our AI models, because it takes a lot. Some of these models need to be built ground up and it takes a lot of testing. For example, if you take the tea industry, there's a gold standard for moisture testing that's called the oven drying method and that's generally for all food items. That's the method people use. And then the subsequent one is the moisture analyzer, which is about 80% accurate to that, but it takes about six hours. Our method takes about 10 seconds.
Speaker 2:Our next few months are going to be based on building up models for coffee, building up models for wine and then onboarding potential early customers, because the customers who come on board need to understand we're a startup as well. We work together with them and sometimes get samples from them, which are outliers, so that our model is more representative. The next couple of months is going to be building up the models, building up the partnerships, building up funnels, even to North America. We had a few chats with some folks from Canada who was doing in, for example, in wheat, because wheat moisture is a big component and, for example, if you're having wheat, ideally you need to have moisture content less than 14%. It affects quality, it affects the transportation costs and it has a lot of economic and also quality factors. So we're having a few calls as a part of the DMC and also part of collision, that we're doing follow-ons.
Speaker 2:I take it. Oh it is, it was later than we could have ever expected. I have a lot of regard for the folks in the startup space in Canada. Like Toronto to Montreal I had the good fortune of visiting Montreal for a day as well Very interesting place.
Speaker 1:It's a fun city.
Speaker 2:It's a great wide and it shows the diversity in Canada as well. Despite being only like 40 million people, it's quite I don't know.
Speaker 1:That's amazing Nice. So listen a lot of our listeners. They're smaller startups. Maybe they're a little behind in terms of what stage they're at. Maybe they haven't gotten any funding. They're bootstrapping. What kind of advice, looking back, would you give to those kind of founders?
Speaker 2:Sure, great question. I'm glad to answer that. One, if you're starting off is like why are you doing it? It can be you have a certain technical competency, maybe you're passionate about it and maybe you are like you want to do something on your own. So, despite all those reasons, when you actually start the business you'll understand, for the first phase you're going to be like the CEO, the COO, the CFO, the HR, the PR. So be aware that when you're starting off you need to play all these roles.
Speaker 2:And if you're positioning with a product, just get your product market early on so that you don't have to keep pivoting because continuous pivoting means that you haven't fully captured your product market fit on, so that you don't have to keep pivoting because continuous pivoting means that you haven't fully captured your product market fit. Pivoting is good in the grand scheme of things, but pivoting too much, too often, too early might mean that you want to spend some time finding your product. And second is talking to investors. Ideally for the first few customers, if you could bootstrap, maybe, do friends and family, don't burn any bridges. But if you have friends or family who you can borrow first three months of runway or build up your prototype. Definitely do that. And then get in front of the right investors, get your messaging and your story why you're doing, what made you do this, the problem, the solution, how big this market is so that it's a sustainable model.
Speaker 2:Sometimes idealism needs to have a little bit of pragmatism for it to work. So it gives you, because doing a startup for me personally is knowing myself more. Every time I like be puzzling, I'm like, oh shoot, I never knew that I had this ability. Or maybe this is my weakness, because it's an honest introspection of who you are, because who you are is going to come out at different stages in your startup journey. So be comfortable with being uncomfortable and talk to people, reach out. Worst case is they're going to say no. So be ready to be said no to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, some good advice for sure. Being comfortable with being uncomfortable is a big one. Sometimes it's easier said than done. I worked on a product launch with a New York Times bestselling author. His name is Robin Sharma Don't know if you know him, but he's written quite a few books and in his product launch, one of the things that he talks about is for entrepreneurs any entrepreneur that is. You've got this idea and you're trying to make it work and you're all excited in the beginning, but then at some point you hit that valley of despair. Something goes wrong. You take a wrong turn. Or maybe you try to do a pivot and it didn't work out. Maybe you try to do a pivot and it didn't work out. Maybe you try to do a pitch and you didn't get your VC funding. There's all kinds of things that can happen. So we all go through those valleys of despair. Sometimes we're in them more often than we're on top of our game and having the successes. Do you have any secrets for pushing through or getting past those valleys of despair?
Speaker 2:Great point, shane. Quite. Honestly, it's like riding a bicycle. You can't read about riding a bicycle and ride it. You'd have to ride it, you'd have to get up, find your balance. Some people are lucky, they get it right day one. Some people are lucky later on in life.
Speaker 2:So be open-minded. Just lamentably condition yourself saying, hey, I'm going to give this an honest attempt, it can be a month, it can be three months. Obviously, have timelines, because if you have family commitments and you have to be considerate of that as well, but give yourself like realistic, practical timelines and kind of work with that, because if not, you're going to have this mindset of could have, should have, would have, which is the epitome of regret or the origin story of regret. So you don't want that part. My advice is keep at it, turn up, turning up at events.
Speaker 2:People say networking is overplayed. Maybe there are certain elements of truth, but for me personally, coming from Sri Lanka, which doesn't get highlighted much, it was all networking, like always turning up, always 80% of the time I turned up. Most of it didn't work out. For example, I went to Montreal. I couldn't take the plane because there was a strike and airfare was like a thousand bucks. It actually took a minute and came back.
Speaker 2:It was 24 hours and the investor met me really good. They're not going to have any allocation for us this time. So in my head I'm like okay, that was like a 12-hour trip, spent some time Like what's the worst that could have happened. You just be aware that when you're taking a loss, just don't make it personal. Feel it. I'm not saying, just put it somewhere else so that it builds up and at some point it boils up. Just be aware of what you're feeling. Just be like okay, it's fine, it's part of the process. When you go to a gym, you work out, your muscles are going to be short, it doesn't matter what you do.
Speaker 1:There's so many decisions and choices that we have to make and you can choose to go left or right or you can go straight on the same path that everyone else. I typically don't I usually zag while everyone else is zagging, but every experience that I have, I find you learn something from it. Even if you don't consider it a win or a success, you've learned something from that process or from that experience. So, to me, every experience that we have is good and, like you said, you met with people and you never know, maybe a year down the road, that relationship, you met somebody. Maybe somewhere down the road they introduce you to somebody else. A lot of people don't like doing it, but I like doing selective networking. A lot of people don't like doing it, but I like doing selective networking. Pick your events, pick the things that are important to you and just try to talk to and meet people, yeah exactly For sure.
Speaker 1:Hey, I'm interested, though you said that they helped you behind the stage when you're pitching with some breathing exercises and the meditation and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:I'm into that stuff.
Speaker 1:I don't really talk about it a lot because some people get weirded out by it but I just find it, it helps.
Speaker 1:I like to take the first two hours and give it to myself, so I'll get up and do some of that breathing exercises, do some meditation. I take my HRV test daily, my heart rate variability, because it tells you where you are in your sympathetic nervous system. So you've got it's like having a dashboard for your body If you're in a position today to hammer down the accelerator or, if you need to, maybe tap the brakes because you're coming into a corner too fast, and so I love doing that stuff and I read a little bit and write a little bit, so it just gets the creative juices flowing and I feel good when I start my day. So, having gone through that with the collision, has that changed anything for you? Did you already have a practice or do you do any of that kind of stuff?
Speaker 2:I do a bit of that. Hre like actually something good that you suggested, because I feel like that whole process has an impact on your decision making ability.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And, like I get up at 630 myself, I have a very routine schedule where I get the gym, then I start. I have a ritual verse week for about 20 minutes. I feel like journaling and writing down your thoughts actually helps because it breaks down the thinking process. And to add to your earlier point on creativity, I feel at the heart of an entrepreneur is creativity, because we're trying to solve problems through unique approaches and that involves like the first principles or contrarian views or whatever you want to call it. That comes from like an innate ability to be creative, and anyone could train themselves to be creative. But I feel like once you get into the grind, sometimes what you sacrifice first, components that contribute to your creativity. I have those practices but I feel like I need to.
Speaker 2:Ideally, I'd like to be this 4am entrepreneur. I'm struggling with it myself. 530 is the best I've done. 4am is a bit above my pay grade for now, but hopefully I can get there. But, that being said, I'm quite glad I have these practices because I've read in this book I think it was Atomic Habits like where, when push comes to shove, you like fall into your processes, not your enduring goals.
Speaker 2:You like fall into your processes, not your enduring goals. So the process is what, like, keeps you going. And I'm a big proponent of that, because even when I travel for work, like coming from Sri Lanka to Canada, there was a, I think, a good 12 hour difference and I wanted to be on top of my Canadian day. What I did is that particular day I stayed up till nine in the night and I got up in the morning and then I hit the gym and again the next day I went to bed at 10 and then collision came. I pushed it back because there were like networking events, perhaps hang out, meet people. I push it back to 11, then I keep getting up at 7 am.
Speaker 2:So I was very much aware of what I was doing. It was very mechanical and to help me that I'm aware of how processes work and what need to give them, what need to be. It's like a give and take right, if you're hanging out till 11, you're probably not going to hit the gym at 6 in the morning, so you need to figure out I'm going to do like a workout routine in my room or like in my living room, something like that. Yeah, I always try to look at those small components, that that's toward the big picture yeah, yeah, it's important sleep.
Speaker 1:He brought that up and it's an important thing. I try to track my my sleep, not just how long I sleep, but the quality of the sleep, and I know if I've had a rough night of sleep then it's probably not going to be my day to crush the goals. But what I try to do is and you brought up Atomic Habits it's one of my favorite business books. I recommend it to everyone.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite things in there was just how to establish a habit the cue, craving and reward cycle and what I learned from James Clear in that book was look, you don't have to absolutely crush it and like making a list of all the goals or all the tasks that you have to complete for today sometimes isn't the best way to do things, especially if you're hitting that valley of despair or you're not on your best day. So what I really liked that he said was that just getting 1% better each day, just doing one little thing, progresses you to the point that it's no one else is doing, because if you're 1% better each day, he worked out the mathematical formula that you're 38.9 times better by the end of the year, whereas if you get 1% worse. Each day you're like negative, you're below zero, and so if you're hitting one of those points where you're not feeling great, you're not getting the wins, just do one little thing. One little thing will get you there each day.
Speaker 2:Exactly Because it's about keeping an eye on the big picture, like, why am I doing what I'm doing?
Speaker 1:I don't know what happened with my headphones, but hey, it reminds me of this novel that I read a long time ago called Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, a poem, I want to say a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, but I can't remember. Don't quote me on that, but it goes something like the best laid plans of mice and men go after glay Old language, but basically just means sometimes shit doesn't happen the way you think it should, so you have to adapt, improvise and overcome. So that's what we've done. So on that topic, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2:I'm saying it's. I guess that's the origin story for Murphy's law. Anything that can go wrong yeah.
Speaker 1:And so that's a good segue on that topic. Have you had any like big downfalls or big pivots that you've had to make where you had to adapt, improvise and overcome? Maybe with this company, maybe with the previous one?
Speaker 2:I've been in the startup space for the last, I would say, eight years. When I joined startup space I came from a very traditional finance background. I was in New York, worked in an investment bank, then had a hedge fund, then moved into the startup space, primarily in Singapore, coming to Sri Lanka. In my experience, sometimes what I've understood is hindsight is obviously 2020. That's a caveat I'm going to give. But sometimes the market is not right, sometimes the technology is not available. For example, I was part of a fintech in Singapore which was similar to Venmo for Southeast Asia and they were allowing laying out bills and receipts and all that stuff. So the banks in Singapore started offering more transfers. That kind of killed the model.
Speaker 2:I've understood your earlier point that despite having a good model like in terms of your economics, your go-to-market you can still get and that's beyond your control but at the same time, I've been in startups where the team didn't gel well, so that had a natural death. So in my experience of doing my third startup now is that there's always room for things to go wrong and that's something you like to live with. But at the same time, how do you give yourself the best chance to succeed? That is, I think, on true experience. Some of the things have been bad actors in terms of investors, like going sour because they wanted to take more ownership. These things happen because we see not we see per se, but, depending on if it's angel investors, there's a thing called smart money and dumb money. So when you're raising funding, for example, you need to be very aware of who you take funding from, because the marriage it's not going to be like the first couple of years, like a year. Or who you take funding from because the marriage it's not going to be like the first couple of years, like you're going to be ideally about 10 years.
Speaker 2:So it has to be someone you can deal with on a day-to-day basis, who's someone supportive of you, because if it's an opportunistic mindset, someone comes in. That happens like when you're at a late date startup. People do second resale, so that's a different matter. But early on you need the right kind of team to gel well, because if you have the right team, you're probably going to weather any storms that come your way. So those are some of the learnings. The mistakes were very amateurish, but mindset. Most of those downturns are like those bad experiences we're learning through. So I don't want to say it as failures per se, because I feel like the real failure is not trying at all or not keeping at it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. If you've never ventured anything, then you can't gain. So you've got to sometimes take those risks. And on that topic, in terms of risks, what's the riskiest move you've ever made and did it work out or did it not work out? I?
Speaker 2:feel like I hope it works out. For example, when I was a kid living in Sri Lanka, I wanted to move to New York City working wall street. I always loved finance when I was younger, so I was very lucky. I was able to go to school in New York and I actually got hired to work in a Wall Street hedge fund and I got the opportunity. I always wanted to live in Manhattan when I was young, so at 22, I was working at a hedge fund, living in Manhattan. I thought that was a dream.
Speaker 2:But then three, four years in in you realize, okay, there's more to life. I like to create stuff. This is no reflection of footballs. There are like people in finance or they're like great folks doing really hard work, but at the same time, as a person, I want to do my own thing. So then I just realized I had to take a bet on myself to get to where I want to get.
Speaker 2:And I got an opportunity in singapore at the time and I was like everyone was trying to talk me out of it, saying, hey, this is the best thing that can ever happen to you. I don't know, maybe, but at the same time I'd rather fail by trying and not trying at all. So it was like for the first six months when I joined a startup, because it crashed six months later in my head I was like, oh, this is it. That was a pretty dumb move, but I kept it long enough where the odds were in my favor. I feel like it's like a sample right, even if your chances of success is 10%, but if you give yourself enough chances, then that 10% comes into fruition. So you add it and then you like double it long enough and you learn and you grow as a person. That transforms into some perceived notion of luck or good fortune.
Speaker 1:That's how I like that You're right. The more that you're right, the more chances you take, the higher you increase your chances of getting a win or getting a success. That's so interesting. Yeah, what about future? If we just forecast into the future, you see anything. Everyone's talking ai right now, but obviously that's a topic for you too. But what do you see? Is there anything emerging in the world of startups? Maybe marketing and sales, or maybe tech? What do you see? Is there anything emerging in the world of startups? Maybe marketing and sales, or maybe tech? What do you see happening over the next five I want to say 10 years, but I feel like that's way too far out Maybe the next three to five years?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. I think it goes back to my earlier point. Like the velocity of change is quite fast compared to, let's say, 10 years ago. I think we're seeing inflection points on an everyday basis now, like everything is better than what it was three months ago or six months ago. So with that in mind, I feel like industries that require hard labor, especially AI, improving robotics, might be the beneficiary.
Speaker 2:For example, blockchain would have a more real-world use case as people become more aware. If you're having data sets, the whole issue is are these data sets legit? Who owns it? How do you manage ownership? Do we create smart contracts around data so that anyone who needs to get compensated or copyrights need to be honored? Would that be doable in the current context? I feel like there's going to be an amalgamation of all these technologies. Like right now, some of these exist in silos. For example, people have Y blockchain AI. People say, oh, yeah, it's great for XYZ things, but not for ABC thing.
Speaker 2:So that whole evolution of these technologies, we might see convergence, which is exciting, because once that happens, like that whole question about how, like in human purpose, what would you do if you can't do anything comes about. Right, if you can't do anything and you don't have to worry about you, get a universal basic income token. You have your food. Are you going to like Netflix and chill all day? These are like questions I can ask myself as well. I think at that point you need like real meaning in life and that might come in the form of creativity or like philosophy or like poetry, like liberal arts. There's no finite way. For example, there could be a solar flare and all antennas and everything could break down. That's a caveat, yeah. But we're exciting where tech is heading and I think hopefully everyone's going to have a very egalitarian mindset about technology and its usage, because in the hands of the wrong actors, the perceived notion of what technology would become and its potential would get vilified. So that egalitarian approach is required to give a level of comfort, especially for those who are not skilled. Think of immigration, think of technology taking over. The same psyche would be active.
Speaker 2:So we need to be aware that the phase of evolution happens in certain stages the resistance from regulators, for example. I think in the US yesterday or the day before, there was a thing called the Chevron Deference. That was a legal proceeding given in 1984 with regards to the authority of government bodies to give verdicts, and now they have lifted that. What it means is and I'm not giving legal advice that there are certain laws in countries where, when the regulation was made, the technology did not exist. Because of that, the legal framework does not have the capability to accommodate that technological evolution.
Speaker 2:One of the things that Kroslov said during collision was Europe, for example, has regulated themselves out of the AI game because they're so much regulated that you can't actually do anything Right and and it's thought-provoking Obviously you have to if you're a republic or a democracy or whatever the frame of government you want to operate under. It's that whole principles of human existence would come into. Maybe an initial conflict before it kind of converges, maybe. But at the same time, if we are smart enough which I hope we are we could find like how it'll be for bigger benefit, right, if we have medtech taking off, if we could predict certain diseases, lives could be saved, like resources they're utilized, if we start like doing heavy industries in space, like we don't have to worry about global warming. It sounds very far-fetched and they probably are, but I wouldn't put them like that far out. That's exciting for me. I'm a huge sci-fi buff, so technology excites me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's amazing. It really makes you wonder like what could the average person's life change like over the next five to 10 years? It's going to be really dramatic. I remember I'm dating myself a little bit here but when I was in college I was one of the first waves of people that came through doing a computer science degree, and so at that time my degree was half electronic technology and half computer science, like programming, and there hadn't been too many people graduate with a computer science degree before that.
Speaker 1:And I remember being in school and I really took to programming. I really liked it, and so I bought. My first computer that I had at home back then was an apple. I think was an apple macintosh 2e monitor, a big, giant, heavy keyboard monitor, a big, giant, heavy keyboard, and it had in those days we used the five and a half floppy disk or a big floppy disk drive on top of there. But I was able to learn basic programming back then and I was interested in it, so much so that I handed in my programming assignments and I was getting like 95 to 100 on all of them. So then it got to the point where other peers were asking me to do some of their programming reports and I had a little side business just doing their programming.
Speaker 2:You're like on the frontier of technology and you use it. That's real worth just saying because, in terms of technological adoption, I think it's the enthusiasts that like drive it, Even the PC. Like it started off at mainframes but it really took off. Arcade games were there. Everyone wanted to play arcade games at home and it evolved and now it's like some what's funny is.
Speaker 1:bring that up, because that was my little side hustle. I would do people's programs and they could hand it in and I would get paid for it Like 20 bucks or something per assignment. It made a bit of money and then. But I also worked in what was a toy store, but we had an electronics division of the toy store and that was where we had the Coleco game and the Atari game and all of these games that were just coming out. That was. My job was to stand behind the counter and play these games on a TV and there would be a big crowd of people coming around to buy the game and yeah. So it's crazy what happens. Our lives get changed by technology. That's as you said earlier. It's really accelerating. How much is progressing? You just think about it.
Speaker 1:It was only like what a little over 10 years ago, when the smartphone was introduced.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because the smartphone came when I was a like a sophomore in college and I remember before that it was the Motorola Wii 3. That was like all the rage with the millennials were younger and then it was like overnight it was like the iPhone 3G and I actually had the first iPhone. So I've actually never moved out and I've seen the evolution of the phone. Yeah, and it's crazy. What I thought was really cool in 2007, I think, yeah, excuse all the Samsung over there yeah, is dated now and the rate at which it changes, because back in the day when they made electronics, they made it last like longer. Right, the whole premise is you buy like tv, it's going to be there for the next 10 years, yeah, yeah, but now everything's dated.
Speaker 1:Oh, you can't stream this anymore because your phone ends up getting updated, yeah, so once upon a time when I was a kid, we had tvs for a long time and I remember there being tv repairmen who would come around and replace tubes in the TVs. That's when I was really young. So if your TV broke down, they would come and replace basically the transistors in it and you would keep it going. Now something happens to your TV. It gets thrown out because after you've had it for a year or two, it's probably outdated anyway and you just buy it, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think just buying like doing it, yeah, it's great. I think it shows how adaptable humans are. Like every five years we refresh, like the refresh tab goes on, yeah.
Speaker 1:And they were like oh, this is too slow, too much latency I feel like it's also having a side effect, that it's accelerating the rate of learning for kids, though, too. Kids just the things that they can do is just astonishing and I just saw the new um ipads that were announced, the new software from apple that it's got ai built into the technology and you can literally take your apple pencil and write the formula down and it will literally break it down and solve it for you right there using the ai, the. The old timers go it's no good. You got to know how to do this stuff manually, but no, you don't, it's all. The calculator is bad. Yeah, exactly when I went to school, everyone we all had the texas instruments calculator and we could program our formulas into it to go into the exam. But the old-timer said that's cheating. You're programming the formulas, you need to know it and do it the long form. But it's really accelerating humankind's progress. I think there's good things and bad things about it yeah, well, that's with anything.
Speaker 1:I feel like it's just how, yeah, these things work for sure yeah, so I want to be respectful of your time and our listeners time, so we'll start wrapping things up. I'm just curious what about legacy for you? What kind of legacy do you want to leave on your community? Maybe the startup world, maybe your company, maybe just humans in general? What's on your mind?
Speaker 2:As I said earlier, I'm a bit of a sci-fi buff. I feel like to be a part of something bigger than yourself, and for me, the tech movement has been that. I feel like my natural abilities in tech are limited. My passion is massive in terms of what I feel like, so my legacy would be just to be a part of that. Do what I can, the best I can be, and that could be improving lives, giving people products and services they like to use, which transforms their lives, and maybe have a legacy for someone who never gave up and kept at it up until he hit the target that he wanted to. So maybe like a story of perseverance and, you know, resilience, maybe that's more of a human spirit.
Speaker 1:I like it. You're a true example of that, so I think you're going to do big things. What about? The last question really is just if I only knew then what I know now. So, looking back at your younger self, what advice would you have given?
Speaker 2:I think if you're I'm in my mid thirties now and especially if you're like in your mid twenties, it doesn't matter. Like where old you are, I feel, don't take yourself too seriously that we all do that. I still do that. Sometimes. It's not as bad as it do. Like most things, it appears to be harder before it's done and then, once you start doing it, if you're passionate about it or driven by it, you'll find creative ways to solve it. So my thing is don't be set in your ways. Have an open mind. If the point or an argument is strong enough and data supports it, be willing to change your mind. Because when you're young, in your 20s, you're like I've graduated school Three years in. Go to a good grad school. Four years in, be a consultant. I'm just saying don't be set in your race, because the world is evolving, so we don't know what's going to happen next. So the best we can do is to have an open psyche, and I would tell myself that I'm an open mind. You don't be in a rush.
Speaker 1:Enjoy the ride yeah, I think that's a refreshing concept be open, try new things. Everything's not going to work out. As a matter of fact, probably 80 of everything we do just by by rule is not going to work out. But, like we talked about earlier, each one of those little I don't even want to call them failures but each one of those little non-successes contributes to the success you eventually have. So I think that's a wonderful thing. Yeah, so just last thing. Is there anything that I should have asked you that you feel you want to talk about, or any last thoughts?
Speaker 2:I think I like to thank the opportunities I've got, like the people I met along the way my parents, my I got married last to my wife, so everyone's played a big part in being supportive, and I lost my dad about two years ago so that was a bit of a bummer and that's, such is life. So I feel like having a good household, like for any kid and the most girls I look up, it's good to have that support system and I feel like I just want to give a shout out to them.
Speaker 1:Very nice. I love that. That's really good. All right, Lekshan, I wish you all the best in your future endeavors. Keep us updated. We'll keep the community updated as to how you're progressing through and congrats.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much, Shane. Pleasure to be here. We'll get summer talks.
Speaker 1:All right.