Balaji Krishnan: Venture Studio

Summary

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The Investor With Joel Palathinkal

Episode: Balaji Krishnan: Venture Studio
Date: January 22, 2026
Host: Dr. Joel Palathinkal
Guest: Balaji Krishnan

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the entrepreneurial journey of Balaji Krishnan, a serial founder and the architect behind several consumer hardware and AI-driven startups. Dr. Joel Palathinkal and Balaji dive into the origins of Balaji’s career, the culture of Silicon Valley, the realities of startup life (including fundraising, exits, and bootstrapping), and the unique operational and ownership advantages he’s engineered in his venture studio model. The episode is rich with insights for both aspiring entrepreneurs and institutional investors, weaving together themes of innovation, risk-taking, and practical advice for building and exiting technology businesses.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Balaji’s Early Life, Education & Career Path

[02:16 – 05:55]

• Family Engineering Tradition: Balaji grew up in India with a strong engineering influence—his father was a mechanical engineering professor and both sisters were engineers.
  • “You have no other option. It's engineer or medicine.” (Balaji, [03:03])
• Choosing Computer Science: He picked computer science as it was the only branch not already represented in the family.
• Immigration & Early Career: Moved to the US to work for Sun Microsystems at the height of the dot-com era, followed by roles at HP and Oracle, focusing on backend operating systems.
• Transition to Entrepreneurship: After gaining experience at top Silicon Valley companies, Balaji founded his first startup, Snapstick, which marked a pivot from backend systems to consumer hardware/software.

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2. The Reality and Culture of Silicon Valley Tech

[05:55 – 12:42]

• Contrast in Compensation: Early 2000s engineering salaries were robust only in special teams, not the typical sky-high levels seen today.
  • “It also depends upon which team you work for... The kernel development team... was pretty heavily compensated.” (Balaji, [08:33])
• Choosing Opportunities: Sometimes the smallest perks (like free soda at Oracle) tipped the balance.
• Corporate Culture: Learned invaluable technical and leadership lessons, especially collaborating with highly intelligent teams.
• Exposure to Visionaries: Interactions and feedback from industry legends like Vinod Khosla at Sun Microsystems shaped Balaji’s vision.
  • “The kind of feedback I would get from people... even before you have a product... is invaluable.” (Balaji, [11:12])

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3. From Engineer to Founder: The Snapstick Story

[14:54 – 24:40]

• Origin Story: Snapstick was inspired by Balaji’s own frustration with TV guides; he built a recommendation system long before such tools were mainstream.
• Rapid Prototyping: Created a multi-device hack combining Comcast, TiVo, and Linux mini-PCs to deliver content recommendations.
• First Investment & Validation: MovieLabs provided the first check—$25k—to turn the hack into a real product.
• Product Milestone: Snapstick became the first mobile-to-TV casting company, showcased and awarded "Best of CES 2011".
  • “Once we won the Best of CES, then I had to quit Oracle, and then I had to do this full time.” (Balaji, [21:48])
• Family Concerns: Leaving a stable job for startup life brought family anxiety, a common immigrant experience.
• Consumer Product Passion: Balaji stressed the satisfaction of using his own products—preferring consumer over B2B ventures.

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4. Startup Realities: Fundraising, Commandments of Exiting, and Importance of Ownership

[24:40 – 32:26]

• Bootstrapping Preference: Consistently invested his own money before taking investor funds, maintaining higher ownership and flexibility.
  • “I felt so much comfortable using my own money... As soon as you take someone else's money, then you are obligated to answer them.” (Balaji, [24:40])
• On Exits: Key lesson—don’t sell, “be bought.” Focus on building traction, let acquirers come to you.
  • “If you try to sell your company, then you’re going to be getting nothing. But if you keep building the product, if you keep getting traction, then you will get a lot of inbound interest.” (Balaji, [27:53])
• Optimal Fundraising: Keep valuations and teams lean to make $20–40 million exits viable and attractive for all stakeholders.
• Navigating Deals: Relied on a close network of advisors and mentors to make critical business decisions, beyond legal counsel.
• Mentorship: Assembled an informal board of experienced peers for strategic guidance during deals and exits.

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5. From One Exit to the Next: Evolution of Entrepreneurial Focus

[32:26 – 39:22]

• Post-Exit Period: After Snapstick’s acquisition, took personal time before launching Dabkick, which further innovated consumer streaming.
• Dabkick & Dabby: Introduced “Dabby,” an AI-powered streaming device with universal search and automatic subscription management—directed more at pain points of the modern streaming landscape.
  • “It will know you’re not using HBO and automatically go cancel it for you... When you want to watch Game of Thrones again, it'll automatically re-enable.” (Balaji, [33:27])
• Differentiator: Unlike bootleg “jailbreak” boxes, Dabby focused on legal aggregation and convenience, leveraging browser-based tech for wide compatibility.
• Manufacturing During COVID: Adapted to pandemic challenges, utilized PPP loans, and navigated a tough supply chain.
• Successful Exit: Dabkick was acquired by a public company in 2021.

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6. The Venture Studio Model & Managing Multiple Companies

[39:22 – 45:43]

• Rationale for Venture Studio: With seven active companies centered around "AI for consumers," Balaji created a model to systematically launch and fund new products within a shared operational framework.
• Team Structure: Each company runs with its own mini-team ("pods") for autonomy, while sharing resources at the studio level.
• The Consumer AI Thesis: Believes consumers will not differentiate “AI products”—what matters is the practical utility delivered by AI in everyday devices.
  • “There will be no AI product but AI will be living in other consumer products... Are they getting value from the products?” (Balaji, [39:49])

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7. Product Ideation, Wearables & the Future

[41:09 – 44:24]

• On Ambient Computing: Discussed potential for always-on wearable tech, such as cameras or gimbals integrated into wearables (suggested by Joel), and the necessary focus on battery and heat management.
  • “Your idea of always having a piercing on your ear, that could be more like ambient computing... Figure out how to get that battery life and how to remove the heat, then, yeah, it could be something interesting.” (Balaji, [44:24])
• Latest Wearable Tech: Praised Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses for their design and AI but noted wearable adoption barriers like battery life and comfort.

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8. Balaji’s Unique Studio Model: KG Lab

[44:48 – 45:43]

• Studio Funding Model: KG Lab internally funds projects through Balaji’s personal capital up to seed stage, de-risking later investments for LPs and providing outsized ownership.
  • “At KG Lab I put my own personal capital to do the ideation phase... When one basically gains traction... we bring those companies as portfolio under KG Lab which means we are de-risking the whole investments from LPs but the ownership... is still significant.” (Balaji, [44:48])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On the pressure of Indian family expectations:

“You have no other option. It’s engineer or medicine... I would be a terrible doctor. I cannot actually even stand needles or blood.”
—Balaji, [03:03]

On choosing Oracle for the perks:

“Network Appliance’s salary was the highest... but I chose Oracle because Oracle said, they'll give me free soda. What the hell?... That was the reason I chose Oracle.”
—Balaji, [08:33]

On feedback from Silicon Valley legends:

“The kind of feedback I would get from people... even before you have a product... is invaluable.”
—Balaji, [11:12]

On building consumer products:

“For me, if I become one happy customer, at least there’ll be one happy customer, even if...”
—Balaji, [23:13]

On bootstrapping and control:

“I felt so much comfortable using my own money... As soon as you take someone else's money, then you are obligated to answer them.”
—Balaji, [24:40]

On exits:

“Don’t try to sell, you should be bought.”
—Balaji, [27:51]

On startup valuations and exits:

“Keep it low so that if you want to exit it is going to be a lot easier when things are not going well.”
—Balaji, [27:53]

On wearable tech:

“Your idea of always having a piercing on your ear, that could be more like an ambient computing... Figure out how to get that battery life and how to remove the heat, then, yeah, it could be something interesting.”
—Balaji, [44:24]

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Important Timestamps

• [02:16 – 05:55] – Balaji’s upbringing, education, and move to tech in the U.S.
• [08:33] – Decision factors in choosing Oracle; corporate culture insights.
• [11:12] – Lessons from interacting with top tech leaders.
• [14:54 – 21:48] – Snapstick origin story, development, and product launch.
• [24:40 – 27:53] – Raising capital, ownership strategy, and exit philosophy.
• [33:22 – 39:22] – Dabkick, Dabby AI streaming device, and the pivot to a multi-startup model.
• [39:49 – 41:09] – Venture studio structure and centering on consumer AI experiences.
• [44:48 – 45:43] – KG Lab’s unique internal funding model for early-stage de-risking.

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Episode Takeaways

• Bootstrapping offers ownership and flexibility: Balaji’s success in consumer hardware/AI stems from his consistent commitment to investing in his own ideas before seeking outside funding.
• Let the market come to you: Focus on building genuine user traction—“be bought,” don’t pitch yourself for acquisition.
• Consumer hardware still needs bold hackers: Balaji’s stories show that even in a software-centric world, there’s still room for innovative consumer devices.
• Venture studio models can maximize both de-risking and ownership: KG Lab’s structure gives LPs confidence and Balaji outsized returns.
• AI as an embedded value, not a product: The next generation of consumer tech will seamlessly integrate AI, rather than market “AI” as a standalone product.

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For founders and investors alike, Balaji’s career illustrates the power of blending technical depth, hands-on product passion, prudent capital management, and a clear-eyed view on exits and ownership, all within the entrepreneurial ecosystem of Silicon Valley.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Investor, a podcast where I, Joel Palo Thinkle, your host, dives deep into the minds of the world's most influential institutional investors. In each episode, we sit down with an investor to hear about their journeys and how global markets are driving capital allocation. So join us on this journey as we explore these insights.

[B]

All right.

[A]

All right. So really excited to have my guest today, Balaji. I've gotten to know him for the last couple months now and just we've been, you know, doing some really cool collaborative stuff together. So biology, just welcome to the show. I'll just do a quick intro and then I want you to kind of go a little deeper. But I was, I was given biology a little hard time because I saw a blog post somewhere saying that biology is the next Steve Jobs. So that for me, I don't really have any friends that have been given that reference. But you know, from my understanding, you know, he's built some really unique hardware technologies which he's going to go deep on. And I've looked at some of the products and the websites that he's built. So super innovative. It looks like more on the consumer hardware tech, but some of them are much more large scale products that are out of the box. So we're going to talk about just how you can come up with, number one, one venture that's successful, but how do you build multiple businesses that are generating revenue and how do you manage your time making sure all those businesses are successful all at the same time as a portfolio? It's tough enough for many startup founders to just launch one business and focus on that. So, you know, that's where the concept of a venture studio model comes, comes about where you're essentially doing company creation. So I think that's a very innovative thing to, to think through. But that's my high level intro biology. Welcome to the show. Let's do some serious reflection, man. Let's go back, you know, way, way back. Tell me about your family, your upbringing, you know, what did you believe when you were kind of growing up and what did you think you wanted to do? And tell me about this path and this journey that you went on. And then, you know, we can, we can just take it from there and do this together.

[B]

Yeah, cool. Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah. I grew up in India. My dad was a mechanical engineer, so he was a professor. So he's a very organized, very well known professor in India and so he used to teach mechanical engineering and then he also did a lot of organizational research and there's a Lot of in the mechanical side and mechatronic side as well. So. And I have two older sisters, they are all engineers. So as you know, Indian families are engineers.

[A]

Either an engineer or doctor. Yeah, I'm an engineer and I got a doctorate.

[B]

So there you go. Yeah.

[A]

And then I got married. So I, I'm the, I'm the, I'm the, I'm the golden child now, right?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. You have no other option. It's engineer or medicine. So.

[A]

Yeah, it doesn't stop them. And you gotta get. You gotta either be an engineer or doctor, maybe a lawyer now, you know, because we're in more modern times. And then you definitely have to probably get married at a certain time and have kids. So I'm like, like, dad, are you happy now? Like, I've done everything you wanted me to do.

[B]

Right. That is a standard path. Yeah. But I would be a terrible doctor. I cannot actually even stand needles or blood. So yeah, I went down the path of engineering. But then the reason I chose computer science was because that was the only left out department in my family. Mechanical, my sisters or electrical and electronics. And computer science was the only left out. I thought I'll choose that. So yeah, so I did my engineering in India and then I moved to the US to work for Sun Microsystems. So that was my first company. And this was like during the dot com boom when sun was at its peak. And did you meet the.

[A]

This is how like the note left way beyond after actually the node was.

[B]

There when I. Yeah, I joined sun way early. But it's early. It was not like the starter, you know, starting point, but at its peak.

[A]

But.

[B]

But we know it was not CEO by then. So we. But I joined when it was all like 99s and 2000s when it was a dot com boom. But I joined here in the US but by the time I left sun it was. The stock price went down significantly lower. So I moved from Sun. But I was a Solaris engineer. I was building Solaris operating systems at Sun. And then after Sun I moved to hp and hp, I was building operating systems as well. So I was in the HP UX team. And then I joined Oracle and Oracle, I was an engineer too. I was transaction processing development team. But after Oracle is when I started my first startup, it was called Snapstick and that was acquired by TiVo after two and a half years. And then I started Another startup called Dapkick, which was acquired in 2021 by a public company. And then I started all these other startups that I'm running now and the Vega studio. But the surprising thing is my engineering career at Sun, HP and Oracle, they were all at the system side, on the backend side. Yeah, all my startups are consumer hardware software startups. So that it just happened because, you know, I was building it for myself and then it just became a company. So.

[A]

Yeah, one thing that's really interesting is, you know, Elon Musk, you know, he shared multiple times that he just, you know, he, he's a product person. So, you know, when you, he's mentioned this a few times too. So when you, when you become a CEO, you have all these chores, right? You got to do the, you know, you got to do the audited financials, you got to make sure that there's a great company culture. Like there's a lot of these kind of chores that you got to do. And especially if you like building product, you know, it just, you can't do it, you know. So he was just like, look, I'd rather just be a product person. And he's hired CEOs to run most of his companies, right. Twitter, I think he hired the woman from NBC Universal who understands monetization, right? Yeah. And he's just found people to kind of do those chores and kind of be the operating person to do the day to day running of the company. And then I think it's a great outcome if you own these portfolios of companies and you get some type of, you know, monthly P and L reporting in terms of how the companies are doing as like maybe like a, a chairperson. So, you know, there's a lot to unpack here. So tell me like how the culture was when you worked at these different tech companies in the Valley as an engineer. Because I know like, probably in 2014, you know, engineers were making crazy money. But I, I think back in that time I don't think engineers were like earning that well. And I'm only saying this because like my uncle worked in the Valley, I think way before the 2000s, and he was kind of one of the founding engineers of like, you know, the WiMax technology. So like wireless technology, like 5G. And then he ended up. Yeah. And then his company, he ended up like moving to Bangalore and that company got acquired by like Broadcom or something like that. So then, you know, he essentially ended up becoming a broad, Broadcom employee. And then, you know, as, you know, big companies, they have, you know, probably a lot of different bureaucracies. But, but, but, you know, how was it? There was the compensation and obviously you don't have to tell me how much you're making. But just in general, like were tech employees like the praised, kind of like high paid people? I know for me, like I was working in tech in probably 2008 and like, you know, the people that were getting paid the most were still people in finance. And I'm from New York, I'm in New York, right. So I mean people on Wall street, bankers, PE people, those were really the top people. And then after the recession a lot of those people left, they got burned out from finance and they got into tech. And then now tech started to be those jobs that are paying like, you know, half a million to like 800k if you're working at Google. But like, how was it back then? Was it like.

[B]

Yeah, you know, the, the salary was not that bad when I was at Oracle. So it, it also depends upon which team you work for. So I was at the kernel development team which was pretty heavily compensated. But yeah, yeah, yeah, it was a funny story because when I was at HP I was looking for a change and then I applied. So I got into Microsoft and I got into Oracle. I got, I got an offer from Network Appliance. So Network Appliance was pretty close to my apartment that I used to live back then and network appliance salary was the highest compared to Oracle and Microsoft. So Microsoft. I didn't want to actually move to Redmond, so I declined the offer. But then I had to choose between Oracle and Network Appliance. And then finally I chose Oracle because of, I used to drink a lot of soda back then and Oracle said, they'll give me free soda. There's like free soda. What the hell? It was, I stopped drinking soda after that, but it was too much soda back then. But that was the reason I chose Oracle. But Oracle was one of the best teams I've actually ever worked with. Oh yeah, that was a really, really strong, very smart people. It's called Server Technology team. And people you meet there, they are like ridiculously smart people. And that is one of the best teams in Oracle and they are pretty good in terms of compensation when it comes to startups. Of course, when you do your own startup you have to sacrifice all of those things. You're not really paid that much. So that was actually, as you know, coming from an Indian family, that was a big concern from the family side when you quit like a well paying job.

[A]

And then like what happened? Biology. What's going on, man? What happened?

[B]

Well, I mean everyone was upset because.

[A]

When I quit you're throwing, throwing your life away. They're like, oh, you, you had this great opportunity, you came to America, the American dream. And, and so, so did you meet Larry Ellison as well?

[B]

I've seen multiple times because now Larry used to do like every quarter he'll be coming and giving a speech and I've never met him in person like pretty like on a personal side. But, but I've seen him giving like demos and talks and all this stuff. So. Yeah.

[A]

So you know, I'd love to hear any maybe life changing or just groundbreaking leadership, you know, lessons from Larry Ellison or just I mean, I guess how are your maybe talk about like your interactions with Vanode, what were some things that you learned from them as leaders? Because those are like, you know, obviously tier one tech, tech leaders.

[B]

Well, we know I've, I've talked only like a few times when I was at Sun Microsystems. But then after that I actually had an opportunity to meet with him a couple of times for the startups. I don't know if, I don't know if he, if he remembers that but, but we, I mean the kind of feedback I would get from people when you pitch ideas even before you have a product. And it's invaluable because now I always like love to basically get feedback from people who have done this before, but not in terms of directional, but in terms of inspirational. Right. So you could, you could just take it and then you could decide what you want to do with that feedback. It's not like an advice, but they will share their opinion. But everyone has an opinion and then you know, you can actually your own opinions and then you can form a decision. But that was something that I heard when I was pitching the first version of my first startup to Vinod. You know, feedback that I got from him was very helpful and I've never interacted personally with Larry Ellison or any other top leaders. Yeah, but, yeah, I mean, but even in the tech industry, you know, there were a few people at Oracle, they were like highly technical and at the top level when you talk about technical ideas, the kind of feedback, feedback that you get from them, it is, it is really, you know, invaluable.

[A]

Yeah. You know what's interesting too is I forgot who's the CEO of Salesforce. It's Mark Benioff. Right. So I think he worked. You know what? One thing that I think is interesting about, you know, the successful entrepreneurs, you know, they're not the Mark Wahlberg. I mean the, the Mark Benny. Not.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What's Wrong. No, I mean, why am I, you know, having a brain. Brain issue today? But the founder of Meta. Right. I mean they're not the, they're not the Harvard. Yeah, they're not the Harvard dropouts. You know, we're seeing a lot of people that have worked in industry for a long time. So Mark Benioff worked, I think he worked at Oracle or worked at like another cloud based company, but they built some real serious industry experience. They really understand how to work with clients, you know, how to follow processes, how to deal with hierarchy. Because I think that's going to help you over time if you're trying to build a multi generational, big, huge organization. You know, some of those disciplines I think help, you know, the email etiquette versus just kind of being a scrappy founder. Right. Eating ramen. Right. Kind of like back from the, the 2007, 2006 era where like people were like, you know, you know, building startups as their first career. So I think you kind of fit in the same situation as Mark. And I think Vinode just went in and started Sun. Right. Or did he work somewhere else in the industry?

[B]

No, Vinod was already like an achieved entrepreneur because he created a company called Daisy Systems, I guess before.

[A]

Oh, that was his first company.

[B]

Okay, that was his first company. And then he sold the company and then he started sun along with. Yeah, along with I think a bunch of Stanford guys.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. No, that's interesting. So tell me, you know, what was going on. So you told your parents that you're gonna go off and start a company, they push back and then what was the first thing that you did and how did you come up with the idea? Tell me like the origin story and, and what you remind me what was in the, in the audience, what was the first business?

[B]

So, okay, so the first company was called Snapstick. We were the first company to do mobile to tv. What you see today in different casting devices. We were the first company to do mobile to tv. But again, I did not actually start that as a company. I was still at Oracle. And when I was at Oracle, that was the first time I got Comcast action. And then I was trying to watch some movies from the Comcast TV Guide guys, remember back in those days, Comcast TV Guide used to be like really bad interface. And so I could not actually find. Because you had to go through this matrix of the TV Guide. Right. And then using the remote control and I could not find anything that I wanted to watch. And I had a TiVo box with me so what I started building was this was the time MySpace was getting, was very popular and then Twitter was also up and coming. So I started building a kind of a recommendation algorithm based on these kind of social networks. So I was extracting all like profiles and tweets and all this stuff and then try to understand, you know, what sentiment. If someone says, I watched Gladiator, I loved it, then what is the sentiment behind that? So I started creating this interest graph from all these people that are from the social network. And then you apply your own social network account into that one and then combine that with the Comcast TV guide. Then I was wondering if it can spit out, hey, now here are the movies that you might like to watch that is going to be played at this time. And then I fed that into people to record those movies. So it was more like, okay, so.

[A]

You built the software first? Yeah, I guess you were. What language was that written in?

[B]

It was all Python and cc, so it was all software. But I actually ran everything in the Linux operating system. I built a custom Linux operating system on one of the mini PCs and then I fed all these software through that so that the mini PC operating system is what will be coordinating between TiVos and Comcast, TV Guide and all the stuff. So it was more like a hack, like, you know, fun project that actually worked actually, because then how did you.

[A]

Feed that into the Comcast box?

[B]

So I had to feed the Comcast out into my mini PC.

[A]

Oh, got it. Okay.

[B]

And then my mini PC will be feeding into the TiVo. So I had to do some hacks.

[A]

So straight up, like electrical engineering. Yeah, Kind of integrating in. Okay, got it.

[B]

That was the only hardware part I was doing, but it was more like a hack.

[A]

But it was still transmitting and receiving the data.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I had to, I had to take the Comcast out and then I had to convert that into IP protocol. Right. Because it was a different protocol that will be coming in. So that was, that was something that I wrote. And then. And then again it will be feeding into TiVo and it'll be communicating with TiVo. And TiVo was also. TiVo was also a Linux box. So it was, you know, it was also more like a hack. How do you communicate the TiVo box?

[A]

So then you built that, and then you built that for yours, I guess.

[B]

As an experiment for myself. Yeah, so because I actually, I want to. I want to record all the movies that I might like to watch that.

[A]

You got some sentiment almost, because back then they didn't have like I don't think they had rotten tomatoes. Right.

[B]

So you kind of tomatoes. But it will. So if I tell the recommendation algorithm saying that I like Gladiator, then can it actually start recording all the movies that I might like to watch? This is what TiVo was doing a little. Right. But based off of social networks. Can you create a new type of recommendation algorithm that will actually bring this to you? So that worked. Then I started applying that to online videos. So then actually go find great vimeo videos or YouTube videos. And so that was also working. So this is the time when Apple opened their third party developer platform for iPhones. So then I thought, okay, let me bring this recommendation algorithm onto the iPhone so that.

[A]

Onto the App Store.

[B]

On the App Store. Yeah, exactly.

[A]

Yeah. But didn't you get any. I mean, there's still, you're still kind of bootstrapping this technology. There's probably wires sticking out. Right. With like the TiVo, what are the devices? So it's a Comcast device and then the TiVo device as well. Right.

[B]

Comcast device, TiVo device, and then my mini PC with operating system in the center.

[A]

Okay, how do you sell that with like, I guess those people not coming after you? Right. Because you're kind of. Because now you're integrating.

[B]

Yeah, this was just for me. So I was just for you.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then I gave it to my friends. They used it and they liked it.

[A]

And then they started using it. Yeah.

[B]

So then I had to switch from that kind of a hacking mode to actual, actual product. So this is when I met one of my really good friends. Now his name is Craig Seidel from. This is the company called Movie Labs. So Movie Labs is more like an innovation slash venture arm from movie studios. And he was the head of innovation back then. And then he wrote me the first check to actually convert this into a product. And then, then I had to remove the Comcast. I had to remove TiVo from the picture. The product that it became was. I will be able to find content on my mobile phone and then I can tap on the content. It will be handing it over to the mini PC. The mini PC will be directly plugged into the TV that will play the content.

[A]

Got it. Okay. That's what the stick is. The stick plugs into the hdmi.

[B]

Right.

[A]

The tv.

[B]

Got it.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And you. Yeah. You understand, I mean a lot of them are Linux boxes. So you understand how to kind of do the wiring and, and the, the hardware, you know, electrical design, which is very difficult to do.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So that Definitely helps you to do that. And then you. And then, I guess. How did you scale that to, like, I guess, product market fit.

[B]

Yeah. So even with that small, you know, check that I got from movie labs, it was still like 25k or whatever. I don't remember. But. But that helped me actually make the actual hardware that I had to basically plug into the TV and then do all the education. It was still just me. And then I met a couple of angel investors and they invested, and then we took the product to CES. CES 2011 is when we actually showed the fully functioning product. We won the Best of Cesar.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[B]

Okay. So that is when I quit Oracle.

[A]

I gave you a lot of exposure to. And gave you validation as well.

[B]

Yep, exactly. Yeah. So once we win. Once we won the Best of ces, then I had to quit Oracle, and then I had to do this full time, so. And then, you know. Yeah. So then we actually started working with.

[A]

So even when you told your parents that you're like, hey, you know what? I won this award. This has promise, I guess they still got probably worried as well, right.

[B]

Yeah. Because it's always a risky thing. It's risky. Yeah. Risky thing. And zero salary. It's. It's a lot of complications there.

[A]

But that's the culture that would. But the good thing is you were around that culture. Right. I feel like if you lived in Oklahoma or like, if you lived in, like, Florida or something, like, like I did, it would be a different scenario. But I feel like the DNA, especially at that time, you know, everyone was probably leaving at some point to build. Build something.

[B]

Right, Exactly. Yeah. The Bay Area culture, you know, like you said, area culture is very, you know, attuned to this kind of.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Who want to build products, and risk is like. Risk is everywhere. But my main thing is, even though I loved the team that I worked for, you know, for Oracle and the kind of technology that they were building, they were a lot, but they were still B2B. And I really enjoy the consumer products, so. Because I can actually use it, for me, if I become a. I become one happy customer. At least there'll be one happy customer, even if.

[A]

Yeah, that's a good point. Something that you use.

[B]

Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah. So I am. I mean, since then, I've always been a fan of consumer products. I'm not a good B2B, you know, business person, because I don't think I can actually sell to businesses. I would rather just try with consumers. And then if. Because you can actually get a Quick feedback, whether they like it or not. So that was the main reason I, I left Oracle because I really wanted to build this product for myself. And then, yeah, it worked out good after that.

[A]

Yeah, I actually followed Vinode for a long time and I look up to him. I mean, he's someone that's definitely super inspirational. But one of his quotes that comes to mind is like, your willingness to fail is what will let you succeed. And a lot of times he was talking about Sun Microsystems and just saying, look, you know what, There was a couple of times where we didn't even know if we would make payroll.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So a lot of people think it's sexy to build a company, but, you know, there's a lot of dark sides that you have to kind of go through. Right. I mean, cash flow. Cash flow is always a thing that you're. You're balancing. Right. Should you take outside money and scale, or should you bootstrap and go slowly and be profitable? You know, those are things. So what are some things that go back and forth in your mind? You know, you took in some money, right. So once you take money in there, you know, you have investors that you have to kind of, you know, deliver milestones and communicate with. Right. So what was going on in your mind?

[B]

Yeah, that is a good point. Because all my company, one of the actually key differentiating factors for the venture studio as well that I'm running now is even my first company, even before we got the 25k from the, from, from Movie Labs, I was putting my own cash, you know, my own money. And because I felt so much comfortable using my own money to play with some ideas and doing some experiments, as soon as you take someone else's money, then you are obligated to answer them because it's your fiduciary duty to actually tell them what's going on. Whether the ideas worked or not. Then you have to spend time in actually answering people who actually give you money. I would rather put my own money and then get to a point where you see the product working. Then for you to actually, that point onwards, if you want to take someone else's money, then you'll be in a better position to actually answer them. So that was my thesis. Behind every product, every company that I built and my first company, I invested heavily. I was actually in the cap table. I was close to 30% of the investment I did for the, for my first company and my second company, I did 50% of the investments. In total, I did my, my own investment and Then currently I'm doing all bootstrapped, everything I'm investing, so. Except one company but, but everything else is, is all bootstrapped. So yeah, you're right. As soon as you bring external investors then you have to basically carve out some of your time to basically answer and update them. I mean nobody's going to harass you, but still it is your duty to basically update them. But then you're not going to be spending that much time to build the product. So when you're in the product building mode then I would rather really focus on building the product.

[A]

Yeah, I'm going to post a book recommendation here. There's a guy that I look up to, his name is Mark Ackler. I think he scaled, I think he, he deployed like three funds. But before that he had a couple exits and he co authored this book called Exit. Right. Really amazing book. I think the foreword was written by Brad, Brad Feld. But Mark Ackler is someone who I just like really look up to. He's like an og, you know. But like he. This book is really good because it talks about. And we'll get into this too. Like things you need to think about, right? Like what is an earn out? Like you know, is it a cat? If you have an exit because you had like, you had multiple exits, right? Like you know what, what are the terms of the exit? Is it cash and stock? Is it cash only? Yeah, and like all of those things too. So, so, so you, you know, so obviously one great exit. You know what, what are some things that you learn from that? And, and just in general exiting, what's advice did you give to new founders that are maybe on that path?

[B]

Yeah, I mean there is a famous saying in the, in the Valley that don't try to sell, you should be bought.

[A]

Oh yeah.

[B]

So I think that is very, very true. If you try to sell your company then you're going to be getting nothing. But you are. If you keep building the product, if you keep getting traction, then you will get a lot of inbound interest. And that's what happened even for my first company. The inbound interest were good. And always keep the doors open, don't say no to anyone, just evaluate it and then if it's good, then take it. Otherwise just keep moving forward. Right. But the exit wise, I always believe the multiple matters. It's not about valuation because I always prefer not to raise the valuation super high in the initial phase. Keep it low so that if you want to exit it is going to be a lot Easier when things are not going well. Right. So if things are going really good, then you're awesome. But 99% of the time, the things will not go well in the startup, in a company. So in my first startup, I think the multiple was pretty significant because we raised only 1.25. And so the multiple was pretty good both for investors and for the team and the founders. So if you operate lean and keep a very small team and don't raise too much capital and keep the valuation low, when you raise the capital, then you will be able to exit even at like $20 million or $30 million. Right. So there's a lot of companies that can acquire you at that point. Then raising a first seed round at $20 million pre money, then you have to exit at $100 million for you to see meaningful returns. $100 million exit is going to be really, really hard unless you create significant revenue or significant traction. And there are only few companies that will be willing to acquire $100 million exit. So when things are not going well, if you can be falling in the sweet spot of 20 to 30 million dollars, a 20 to 40 million dollars exit, the best. So which means you have to keep the valuation low initially.

[A]

Yeah, no, absolutely. And you know what, what should people think about when they have different options, like a, you know, like a stock sale versus like a cash sale versus a hybrid, you know? And who, who have you looked to for advice? You know, kind of navigating, obviously got your attorney.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But yeah, you need mentors. You know, asking business advice from an attorney is definitely great, but then sometimes the attorney can only go so far when it comes to, like, actually making strategic business decisions. Right. So did you kind of build like a little advisory board of mentors to kind of help you that, you know, hopefully essentially have also gone through that same experience?

[B]

Yeah, I have a lot of. Even now I have a lot of advisors on, like, on, on the advisory board, but they're all my friends, good friends, because these are the people that I actually met through some connections. And you know, one of my really good friends who was on the board of my previous company, and he's also one of the advisors now. His name is Ranjit. You know, he's, he's a. He's a serial entrepreneur and he has sold multiple companies. So I actually met him for some kind of partnership that I wanted actually when, when he was running a different company. And then we became really good friends and he was one of the advisors, you know, because last company's exit it had some issues. So he was actually helping me a lot through, you know, navigating through this. And then my attorn, of course. No, he, he's also a really good friend. I've been working with him for the past like 10 years now. So there's a lot of people that you can actually get advice or even like inputs. And then like I said, at the end of the day you have to put your own opinion and then see what, what you think is right. And then go for it. Because everyone will have different opinions, everyone will be having like different kinds of thoughts as to what I should be doing. Right. So someone might say, oh, you know, this is a pretty low valuation. Don't take all stock, don't take all cash, or four year vesting versus three investing. Right. So all these things. I think if you feel comfortable.

[A]

Yeah, then go for it. Sure. And then what? Tell me about the next venture, you know, kind of the next business and what, what motivated you to kind of start the next company And I guess like what did you do afterwards? I guess did you still have to spend some time at that company? Because a lot of times too, like when you, when there's an exit, you have to obviously, you know, run and operate the company for some time. And then there's usually like a term where yeah, they'll hire a CEO. Right.

[B]

Yeah, I, I, yeah. So when my first company got acquired, I did not join that startup. So I left some money on the table because people who joined, they actually had some, you know, some, some more cash coming in over a period of vesting period. But I, I did not join because I, I was going through some personal like, you know, life situation. So I had to deal with that. So I started my next company after one and a half years after the exit.

[A]

What did you do in that time? Did you just take some time off and just.

[B]

Yeah, like I said, no, I was dealing with the personal life situation. Yeah. So I was, I was going through that. But then I was also actually ideating for the next startup. And the next startup was more like an extension to my first startup in the same space. It's in the TV entertainment space. But this was a little bit better than what I was doing before with all the lessons learned. This was also a streaming device that I was building.

[A]

So this is the TV that's like super thin.

[B]

That is now what I'm doing now.

[A]

Okay, got it.

[B]

Yeah, that's a new one. Yeah. So that's displays. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. But my last company was called dabkick, where we built an AI powered streaming device. It was called dabi. So DABI was kind of a universal search engine that we created and it will navigate through all the subscriptions that you have. So we want to actually create this kind of one subscription manager because people have HBO subscriptions and then they watch Game of Thrones and then you forget to basically cancel the subscription. So the platform that we created was it will understand what you're watching, it'll know you're not using HBO and then it'll automatically go cancel it for you. And then when you want to watch Game of Thrones again, it'll automatically re. Enable for you. So it, it will do everything in the back end. And then you are not going to be switching between apps. You just say, I want to watch Top Gun Maverick. And then it will find the best source for you and then it'll immediately play, instantly play on your tv. So that was the, that was the.

[A]

How does it play without you paying for it though?

[B]

So we were charging subscriptions.

[A]

Okay, got it. Okay.

[B]

So you pay us a flat subscription fee, a monthly subscription fee for.

[A]

So you're like almost like a separate Paramount pretty much.

[B]

Exactly. Yeah. But because a lot of those, those.

[A]

A lot of those streaming services, it's the same price for a lot of those movies, right? I mean, we, we change them up all the time. But if you get Paramount, sometimes some of those movies are already on Amazon as well.

[B]

Right, right, right, exactly. So people, people, you know, they may not know that this movie is available on Tubi TV for free. You may want to watch like a couple of ads and people may be okay with that. Right. So that was the whole search engine that we created where it will navigate through different sources that you may not be actually aware of, but you don't have to know where it's coming from. All you care about is, is it 4k, is it high quality and is it going to be playing for free and with no ads? Right. That is the ideal combo. So we will try to find that ideal combo for you. And then it will instantly play.

[A]

Did you meet any of those people that would program those boxes? Because it's kind of like in your. In your area. I knew a guy when I was in Florida, I don't think this was 100 legal, but he would take those boxes, they're like these little mini. I think it was actually the Apple TVs and they would reprogram it and essentially you could pretty much watch anything. And I think they also Added a new thing, which was games. Yeah. And I, I actually bought one from him. And it. But the only thing is it wasn't really working all the time. Like, yeah, I would say, like, oh, you know, like Maverick or something. So I was like, this is not, this is not reliable. So I'm just gonna pay for Netflix.

[B]

It's only. Yeah, exactly.

[A]

At the time it was only $9, like a month. So it, it wasn't worth it. But, but he was, he was doing pretty well. I mean, he would, like, he would handle shipping and send it out to people. I know there's some people. And, and what he was saying, apparently that it was, it was legit, you know, I think because it's open source. But I don't know if you came across it. It sounds like something that's similar to your.

[B]

Well, there were a few jailbreaking companies. That's what they do. Basically. They, they get these streaming devices and then they'll do the jailbreaking. Yeah, but, but there were other companies where, like, like Plex, for example. So Plex is actually a legal open source software that'll be like bringing all these content together. And so Plex was one of the competitors that we were actually dealing with. But nobody was actually having a device that you can buy because ours was so one, the device will be connecting to the TV through hdmi. And then we also believed that the second screen experience is very important, so we were shifting a touch screen along with that. So that is where you'll be browsing. Not on the tv, you'll be browsing on the touchscreen. And then you tap on the content that you want to watch and then it will instantly play on the tv. Similar concept to my first startup, but this is more like an advanced search engine. And we applied a lot of subscription models into that. You don't have to deal with different apps and different content switching. So that was the whole idea. Plus, how do you bring the entire web? Because today if you look at the tv, there are streaming apps. But what if you Want to watch TikTok? What if you want to basically watch Wall Street Journal videos? The problem with those things is now Wall Street Journal has to create a TV app for their content and they don't have engineering resources for that.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

And the TV ecosystem is also so fragmented now you have Roku operating system, you have Samsung operating system lg. So everyone has their own operating system. Which means as a video provider, you have to create apps for all these platforms. Be incredibly harder to manage. But if you look at the web web. There is only a thing called website and people create just for website like you know, and Wall Street Journal, WSJ.com if you go and then you can watch all the videos and that website can play in any browser. That is the whole model that we used for Dabby where it will be browser based operating system so that we can play any content that is available on the web. But you will see it is more like an app. So you as a consumer you will not see any URL bar or nothing. That was a big difference that we made in Dabi and again we launched Dabi 2020 just before COVID and. And we won the best of CES again and, and that then we started shipping during COVID time. You know that was a hard time because everything was shut down. We were not able to manufacture and so we had to take PPP loans and all these things. And then we started shipping and we turned the company around and then we got acquired in 2021 by a public. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. That's crazy. And then so then after that you realize maybe you can kind of grow a business of just kind of building these kind of consumer. And then do you, do you now have like pods of teams like. Of like maybe a mini CEO that kind of runs? Because, because for all this you got product development, you got marketing, you got distribution, you know, supply chain. So there's probably like, you probably have to kind of build teams. Yeah. And you got, you got how many now you got six under your belt that you're managing seven active companies.

[B]

Yeah. So you know that is the main reason I actually started the Venture Studio, because all these companies, so the, the, the seven companies. The commonality between these seven companies is AI for consumers. So that is. So we strongly, I, I strongly believe that no, there will be no AI product but AI will be living in other consumer products. So. And because consumers don't care whether it is AI or not. Are they getting value from the products?

[A]

Yeah, I think it's just, it's a, it's a very well known user experience now. Like any, like a lot of times when I do stuff now when I search I'm looking for a prompt. You know, like I, I like I was doing this thing with my son. I think I told you this a while back but like we printed these T shirts and you can, you know, I was expecting like a prompt. I was like oh, that'd be cool if I could just use AI to generate it. I think it's going to be like just the next, the prompt is just going to be as common as the next search bar. So whenever you want to do something, just be like, hey, you know what, pull up, you know, pull up the top, you know, searches of military movies from 1980. And it'll, it'll kind of give you a lot more context as like a prompt versus like search. Right. So I think it'll just be like a native user experience everywhere. And then, and then look, you, you've made hit after hit. These companies are doing well. Tell me like, like a, like the, like a next level product that you've been thinking about. I got one and maybe you're gonna tear it apart. But like, I just think it's still a pain. Like when I'm, you know, when I'm taking photos with my family, I still gotta go like this and take a photo. And like, hopefully they don't. I imagine if there was like a piercing that I had and like it was like a camera and it was like a gimbal where like, even if I'm, you know, turning in any side, it would still be focused because in that way, like, I get the true feeling of like my memory that I had. Because like, usually all the memories that we have is coming from our eye, from our eyesight. Right. So like, I feel like you can capture that same memory. If there's like a camera or something here, obviously you can turn it off, you know, but you know, especially if there's like, you know, I've been, I've seen, you know, some of these crazy videos on YouTube where like people get abused by cops. You know, cops are like kind of, you know, you know, wrongly using their authority and abusing their authority on people. And you know, people are trying to pull out their camera and then the cops are like, hey, you know what, like they just snap the camera, the phone out of their hand. But if they know they're in, in real time, you tap your ear and they're real time recorded for their behavior, they may actually, you know, behave, you know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I think that accountability. But I don't know what your thoughts are on that around privacy. And even if you think it's a good product or business.

[B]

No, I mean, wearables is definitely something that it's been going on for the past like, no, even a decade. Right. So if you remember the Google Glass, you know, that was the first kind of a. What they talk about. And then I, I actually bought recently the Meta, you know, Ray Ban glasses.

[A]

Yeah. How are those?

[B]

It's pretty good. I mean, I, I wear prescription glasses, so I don't wear sunglasses, but I, I just want to see how well it is. But it's very well made. I would say that. No, it's, it was, I was even surprised to see how well it works so that you can actually use to take videos and you can take pictures and it also has this meta AI so you can actually ask a question. You can say that, no, what am I, what, what am I looking at? And then it will say I'm looking at some orange or whatever.

[A]

So it has a speaker that tells you, kind of talks to you.

[B]

Yeah, but the problem is like, you know, the battery life and you have to charge. So I keep it in the car, but I don't charge that all the time. So they have done a really good job in thermals because all these variables. The problem is the battery life and then the heat.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So. But I would say that the meta glasses, by far, I'm not a big fan of wearables except the Apple watch that I wear and even that I'm, I would, I would consider my phone to be much better than my Apple Watch. But yeah, I'm not a swimmer, I'm not a kind of a, you know, like a, like a workout health. But Apple Watch I kind of like. But any, any variable like you know, where you're piercing or you put on the face that. I still call that as a kind of an on demand computing. Right. You have to put it on your face. But your idea of like always having a piercing on your ear, that could be a more like an ambient computing. Sure. Yeah. Figure out how to get that battery life and how to remove the heat then. Yeah, it could be something interesting. Yeah, absolutely.

[A]

Yeah. Well, hey, man, this hour flew by. Really just appreciated learning from you and you know, enjoyed your story and congrats on all the success and, and you know, I just think it's a unique model. I've been talking to a lot of venture studios as you know and you know, I think some of the other benefits too is ownership. Right. You own more of the company and you know, essentially if you've bootstrapped everything, then you can really have the true direction of where you want to take it.

[B]

And yeah, the biggest difference in the Kija lab that I'm running now is before because the traditional venture studios will be ideating within the venture studio. So they'll be charging the LPs as management management fee and then use those fee to form a team to come up with ideas at kg Lab I put my own personal capital to do the ideation phase so I think Asian to seed stage and then one basically gains traction in the market Then we bring those companies as portfolio under QGLAB which means we are de risking the whole investments from LPs but the ownership of KG Lab in all these companies is still significant venture studio so the return of investment on these companies from venture studio point of view it is still the same. That is a big difference and I think very unique compared to any other visual studio.

[A]

Yeah no well that's exciting man. Really appreciate you sharing that and I think like I said you know super happy to hear all these amazing accomplishments and you know happy to have you as a friend and you know hopefully I see you soon in New York or in San Francisco. Absolutely.

[B]

Yeah yeah thanks Joy.

[A]

Yeah of course thanks. Appreciate it.

[B]

All right, thanks. Bye Bye. Sam.