Initial Decisions Are Keys to a Successful Launch with CEO Sankarshan Murthy of Bumblebee Spaces

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weddell. And before we get started, if you want to know exactly how to win again and again, go to Wydell on winning.com webinar now to watch something I've put together for you. Now let's get going into this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind.

I'm here now talking with Sankarshan Murthy and we're going to talk about how he launched the Bumblebee Spaces project. So San Carson, thanks for hanging with me here and letting me ask you a couple more questions.

Yeah, definitely.

Larry, tell me about when you launch the one thing that I notice about your, you know, it's interesting you've got this idea because I'm in a, I've got a place in Palm beach and I got a place in Aspen and the place in Aspen is small but, you know, I've started doing a lot of different things and I started even, you know, during the quarantine and Covid I was stuck here. So I started getting all the art supplies out and started making this into a studio. But I've got stuff scattered out all over my counters and I've talked with some of the contractors around building a thing in the ceiling where we could pull it down, you know, like. So I had my get my counter back when we are not painting and everything. But so this really makes a lot of sense to me because I've already kind of thought through the concept. But the deal is, and you could, people go to your website could see this, this costs a lot of money to build this stuff. I mean this. So how did you get, how did you launch and get the funding? How many people did you start with? How did you get this thing going? And you say you're four years in. It's one thing to launch a furniture company, it's another thing to launch a new concept furniture company. And how did this walk me through some of those steps because there's a other people out there with similar type situations and they're going to be curious like I am about how you worked your way through that. And of course I know the answer is one step at a time, but how did you keep yourself, you know, what were the big moves? Like the big decision, the big thing and then to keep it going, you know.

Totally. Yeah. You know, as beautiful and amazing it looks, it's also engineered for scalability. You know, it's just like we think of it like building, like building a, building an iPhone, building a Tesla. They're all like works of art, like engineering. Like, there's so much going on, but it's built very much to be mass produced and like, deploy rapidly all over as many places as possible. And, you know, we work with, like, developers and architects and all that and build it into. Into the home. So it's not like a construction project. It's actually like adding an appliance into your home. And that has been a key insight. When, you know, like when we first started. Whenever you have these very grand ideas, like, the first thing is always like, what are you going to build first? Right. Like, that's the hardest thing to focus on. Because the initial concept of Bumblebee was what if, like, the whole home transforms? We build this Mickey Mouse clubhouse. Like, rooms come down whenever I need, it goes away. When I don't, it becomes like kids room and game room and office and guest room and all this in same footprint. It's great. Like, it's like when this initial concept was like, really grandiose. But before, before you can move rooms, I realize you have to move your shoes and your clothes and your luggage and, you know, the stuff out of the way and stuff and space are this intermingled problem. You know, I was saying the initial decision around what. What to build first, that was very kind of like an insight that actually talking to some, like, mentor and one of my neighbors, who's a good mentor friend of mine, he kind of gave this insight on what is the first thing you're going to build before you move my room, you need to move my shoes and clothes. And the stuff and space are this intermingled problem. So we focused very much on storage initially, like making space, storage in the clouds or in the ceiling, art supplies and clothes and tools and whatever you want to bring down. And they're all searchable, they're digitally searchable. It's all put away in the ceiling. And then the next moment happened when, okay, like, if you're going to. If this is the business and you want to scale it, and you want to scale it with like, large home builders who are building thousands of homes. And we went and spoke to a few of those initially. They're like, what? This is crazy. You know, like, it's like a attic on demand type of. But then very soon we realized they actually, they've been thinking about this in their own way. They're like, what if you can bring down beds and pantries and closets? And they had a whole, like, list of things they wanted to send in the ceiling. So we Built one and you know, like initially we built one and then like we sold it before we even built it. Like it was almost like the market pulled it out of us. The way I kind of say it is, the market was so, so thirsty for such a such solution that is kind of mainstream, that can potentially scale that. You know, it's like offering a thirsty person in the desert beer. Even though that's not, it's not water, they're going to drink it. It's like so initially we realized, okay, that's the market is really, really needs this like it. And it will truly solve a problem of like footprint, which is like how all real estate is valued today. And it'll create more space because space is all like, you know, houses are getting smaller with or without Bumblebee, like its houses are getting smaller. We just want to give back a really cool, like a dope user experience back to the user and that it feels like living in a much better house. It happens to be an amazing house. Just you don't realize it's in a small footprint because you get everything you want. It's just not sitting on the floor all the time.

So are you building for certain, you know, for these smaller houses, these tiny houses, these 400 square foot sized houses?

It's funny, I mean, we work with all kinds. Like the smallest house, like we have like from 300 square foot all the way to like 3,000 square foot. We have like houses that we go into. It's not only for a tiny house, it's not only for certain types of home. The beauty of Bumblebees, it's truly modular and you kind of design it for your own home. That's the beauty of it. We work with home buyers and kind of like design it for them and it gets installed just as they're ready to move into the home.

That's incredible. I'm sure you've thought about this, but this is a lot like recovering real estate inventing space. It's like they did in the big cities like New York, where they had all those train yards and they, and they just built, you know, just put a layer of, put the structures in, put concrete, steel beams and poured concrete. And all of a sudden they had, you know, hundreds of acres of new real estate to build buildings on in New York. So that's why they have so much underground structure in major cities. They, you know, this is the kind of thing of, you know, it's like skyscrapers really, you know, so it's, it's funny how even A new idea like this is really key to the past. Talk about your sales, your first year, second year, third year, fourth year, your sales, your ramp up. How many people did you start with?

Hey, listen, there's a lot of information online, but there aren't a lot of people who have actually done something. In my case, I've actually built a successful business that's accrued over $5 billion.

In assets under management and has done.

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Yeah, we started off, you know, it was a very small team. Like, first core team of five people. And we've been, like, together throughout, like, the core team's been like, that's been, like, very strong. And then. So right now we're, like, growing rapidly. Yeah, the first year of Bumblebee, you know, was just like, a few deployments, handful of units out in the world. Now we're, like, in three major cities and scaling rapidly. We'll be several hundred people living in Bumblebee within the next year. Hundreds of people, hundreds of families, not just like individuals, like hundreds of households living in Bumblebee nationwide. This is. And that's just like the beginning, right? Like, just scratching the surface of how big the real estate market is. And most of our, like, you know, customers have thousands of thousands of units that are, like, fit for Bumblebee. And some. We have some really interesting projects which are, like, being built with Bumblebee in mind. Like, the design itself is being done with Bumblebee, and those will be going live in 22 and 23. Some of those I'm, like, really excited about. You know, the one thing about building, like, a deep tech company, you realize you're, like, working for the long, long haul. It's a long term. You have to have a long vision. Some of it, you know, like, within the first year, you're not like, you're basically building and, like, figuring out what is the product going to be and getting, like, the first few people using it and that once that, you know, like, we had, like, several breakthroughs like that, and now we have, like, several awesome apartments and condos in New York, in San Francisco, Bay area, Chicago, soon, Miami. We're doing all these deployments all over.

Yeah. And the thing is, these will be your best advertising Exactly.

I mean we let the users talk about us and we don't even, you know, like I think they tell a better story than I do sometimes. Like how, how Bumblebee works for, you know, for them. Right. Like it's. They talk about how much how their footprint, like how their like financial load on buying homes like decrease. Like it's. Instead of buying a two bedroom, they can now do with one bedroom with two bumblebee rooms. You know, things like that. They can just like get a kids room and an office and a guest room. Like just by adding it into the ceiling, we kind of make space for using. It's a productized version of space.

Yeah. And the thing is it's a lot like it's always fun to get into industries where you know, you can come up with an idea and it's a retail product and it's a low cost thing and everybody gets it, they see it, they like it, they get it. And then you can have explosive growth as quick as you can get them made and stick them in retail. But when you're doing a product changing thing, like even the original iPhones took a while to get going because people didn't understand them. But something like this, it's a lot like, you know, there's a, it's a three year mark before you start to get traction. But once you get the traction, it can be accelerated. How do you plan to keep up with the construction? When you say you're in three cities, does that mean you got manufacturing in three locations? Showrooms in three locations? What does that mean?

So we have installed networks in three cities now. Like, and then we've. We're actually live in customer homes in three cities and, and we're going nationwide. Like it's. So the way our manufacturing is kind of like this global supply chain that finally gets manufactured in San Francisco. So our furniture is built out of Germany. Our robotics come out of kind of like this global supply chain. And they kind of come. They're married together in the Bay Area. So it's a global supply chain. And then it's a very much like we call it like delayed kitting so we don't have to do you know, every. Like the Bumblebee that you may buy is completely going to be different than the Bumblebee your neighbor buys just because of the configurations that work for you. You may need a bigger desk, a smaller bed. You may say, I need more shoe rack, give me some storage. You know, so versus your neighbor may have a completely different. And that's like, the beauty of this modular productization of this. We can customize it without changing the product. You know, so the install is done within the same day. Like, we just come in and out of the home. It's like. It's not like a construction project. It's like installing an appliance. We're, like, in and out of a home very fast.

Yeah. That's exciting. And is it your vision to get yourself a factory and build a big monster factory like Elon Musk, as with robotics and, you know, they bring in the plywood and the robots take over. And.

Yeah, I mean, our systems are built with automation first. And, like, today we leverage, like, great partners who have that automation capabilities in their factory. That way, we're not running factories. You know, we're doing technology, and we're able to kind of partner with the right type of partners. But, yeah, there are some, you know, the ambition. The ambition of the company and our roadmap of things that we're building is very, very, like, interesting. Like, and you can think about it like, first principles, right? Like, you walk into a home, like, why is. Why do I have a doorway, a hallway? Or why do I have this, like, keychain table? Why do I have. So you question everything, you understand. Like, you can, like, redefine how a home is.

Yeah. That's fantastic.

Yeah.

What's the most exciting. Let's wrap this up. What's the most exciting thing that's happened to you? You say the more these things go, the more excited you get about it. What's the most exciting recent development for you with the evolution of the company?

I think, like, few, like, really exciting ones are. We've had, like, few new residents who moved into some of our bumblebee homes. And just, like, you know, we interviewed them after, like, they've been in the unit for, like, a month or a couple months for, like, hey, how's it going? Do you mind, like, just, like, telling us, like, and. And we had one of these couple interviews, like, these, like, three or four interviews. And the way they describe these problems, product, how they live in it, that gets our energy levels so high. They're so excited to be in it. And to the point that they are the big fans. Like, one of our residents, their mom's. And their mom embroidered a bumblebee onto their housewarming gift. And these things, like, we're like, oh, my God, this is our brand. Like, people are like, you know, this is. And she's been embroidering, like, like, kind of monumental things. Onto the, onto the housewarming gifts and she did Bumblebee. So it was like such a, such a amazing nod to all the great work we've been doing, you know, that that's what excites us.

Yeah. That tells you you're, you're in the right business for you. When people get your products and they are as excited or maybe even more excited about them than you are and seeing and sharing in their joy, it's great to make money and to be successful. It's another thing to be able to add that joy and that impact into a person's life, a family's life. Any last, last word that you'd like to give to people that are coming along the entrepreneurial highway and what would you, anything in your mind that you would pass on to them as a final word?

Yeah, I think, you know, one like big, like one of the traits that really made me an entrepreneur was kind of this curiosity. And sometimes it's like dumb questions like why, why did you do this? You know, it's like dumb question, curiosity and sometimes pulling on it, you realize, you know, it's just all of these are like people made decisions. Nobody, you know, like, it's not like it's, it's, it's not like such a thought out decision that we, in the world that we live in, a lot of these were like just people making decisions and moving forward and somebody iterated it, somebody else iterated it and that just like being curious and like being in motion with an idea, that's, I think that's the best thing you can do for any idea. Like, I think it's just like, yeah.

Once you get it cranked, once you get a movie down the street, you can improve it. But until it's moving, you know, it's like people would come to me and their career and say, you know, give me advice. In your career. I say, well, first of all, do something because.

Do something. Exactly.

I can't steer a parked car, you know what I'm saying? And do something, get going, give me something to analyze. And that's good advice for all of us. And a great reminder. Thanks so much, San Carson Murthy, the 150 pound vegetarian who's revolutionizing spaces in homes and coming to a home near you or your own home very, very soon. Bumblebee spaces. Thanks so much San Carson.

Thank you, Larry.

If you enjoyed what you've heard and are dead serious about finding out for yourself exactly how this works you in the real world. I've taken the most valuable business lessons I've learned over 40 years and put them into something for you to watch. Go to whiteellawinning.com webinar now in order to move up as fast as possible. I'm Larry Wydell, and I run the Million Dollar Mastermind. Go, go, go.