Human Future Discusses Nimo Planet | Jonathan Reichental

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Hi, welcome. I'm Dr. Jonathan Reichental and I'm here with Rohil, who is the CEO and founder of Nemo Planet. Now, I spoke to Rohil just a couple of weeks ago and I learned all about his product and I was really impressed. And I said to him, I need to share this with my network and my friends because it's so compelling and interesting. They have to hear your story and, and hear your vision of where you're headed with this incredible new product. So delighted to have you. And as a starting point, just tell us who you are a little bit about your background.

Sure. Thank you so much for having me here, Jonathan. It's an incredible talking to you last week. So, myself, Rohil Devanathalinga, I'm the founder and CEO of Pneumoplanet. I started my startup journey back in 2014 with my first company called Fin Robotics. My core passion, even during my college, is to design new human machine interfaces. How we can make that interface better and better. So I come up with an idea of a ring that we built in 2015, launched in the US market with Brooks, John, Bloomingdale's, Target, all the major retailers. So the experience that we call, it's like from a hardware startup point of view, from idea to prototype to the production and taking to the retail store. So that was an incredible experience that we've been gone through. And right now I'm completely focusing on Nemo Planet and the complete vision. The vision we have is to help people to work from anywhere, even without a desk, using just a pair of glasses. So that's what right now we are focusing.

It's fascinating. You mix the hardware world with the software world. A lot of Silicon Valley is about the software, and we do software really well. But you have the skills and you have the team to kind of intersect not only the software, but the hardware. And you had this ring, which you talked about, which created a new interface. Now you're on to your next thing, which is even a bigger, as you alluded to, a much bigger idea. And so talk a little bit about before we get to it, because I'm kind of building a bit of, you know, the tension here to get people excited. What was the inspiration? Was it in the shower one day or something you observed?

Yeah, you know, as I mentioned, even during my previous company, I used to travel and most of the time I carry just iPad if I'm not coding. Right. The reason, because of the portability, I can just carry super easily. I don't need to bring a Backpack. Right. But if I want to be productive in that device, that's an issue, you know, because of the screen size and the user experience, which does not allow me to do the super productive work just like I'm doing in laptop. And also I need to look down and hold the device and to do the work. I thought why don't the screens just follow me? I can just comfortably, I don't need to stress down. I can just sit, comfort and bring the screens wherever I want. So that's where I started the thought process towards bringing the screens in front of me in the form of a glass.

That's great. It's very much the quintessential entrepreneur moment where you see the problem yourself and you want to solve it for yourself. And then you say look, if I'm having that issue, perhaps it has significant utility for lots and lots of people. So what is the product? Tell us about it.

So Nimo is a wearable device. It's a new computing device which specifically designed for people to work from anywhere with multi screens. So that's the fundamental of what we are doing and that's where we are heading to. I'm seeing the future. People just carry one device and they can do their productive workspace or productive tasks from anywhere like coffee shop, home, office, beach, anywhere they want. So that's, that's the flexibility and freedom we can bring with himo.

It's glasses, right? It's a, it's a pair of glasses.

It's a pair of glasses. A pair of glasses with complete computing on board and just put it on and boom. The applications will pop up in front of you and the experience is like when we wear the glass we can see everything in the things in the real world and in 3 meter distance we see cluster 16 virtual screen. So there I can open my email app for an example. When I turn my head into little bit left there I got another screen with same 16 and there I can put maybe slack. So likewise I will get total six screens, right. And I can manage multiple applications in that. And the first version, the input, that's one of the core things, you know, for people, they want to be productive.

Yeah.

So keyboard. The first version of Nimo will support Bluetooth enabled keyboard and mouse. Or just connect through Bluetooth with Nimo and start using it. Or people can use their smartphone as a trackpad and keypad. So that's another easiest way to control apps on Nimo. In some scenarios people can use voice as well. So these are the three major input interface that we are focusing the initial version.

Yeah, yeah. And it's the kind of product that you actually have to wear. You got to put it on to experience it. You can't really show it in a, in a slideshow. People can go to your website, nemoplanet.com and they can see some great videos. So if you're intrigued, I think that's a good way to kind of get a real idea of what Raheel is talking about. Now just to talk us through. So you're sitting in a coffee shop. You know, you go to any coffee shop in Silicon Valley and everyone's doing something on a laptop computer. You're proposing something different here. So you sit in the coffee shop, you put on these glasses or you have them on. Just talk us through what you can expect. What does it look like?

Yeah. So, you know, as you mentioned, a lot of people work from coffee shop and different locations. So the way Nimo could help the first to put it on. And they caught giant screens in front of them. And each screen they can put multiple applications. So the way we build Nemo, I would say the two core focus we have to Nimo is one is the hardware definitely to make the form factor smaller, better display that readable to the text, etc. Another side, the custom oyster that we are building. So that's we're doing a lot of magic and that software piece is helping us to make the hardware smaller too. So people really good experience, user experience. On Mimo, for an example, I got an email app with two attachments. And now I need to open these two attachments and review it, right? And if imagine those kind of experience we are doing from iPad or smartphone, it's so hard, you know, the email app will go down, I need to open another one switching between multiple things, right. But Nemo, I can just plug that one email with one swipe gesture will come into another screen, just that email. My main email app still there. And I open two attachments there from that specific email. Those two attachments I can bring to another screen side by side. So now I can review those two attachments quickly, then come back and do the replay for the email specific email which I offer. So those flexibility super fast. You know, I don't need to switch and back between each and every window or apps. Everything is super easily accessible. So that's one way. And I'm seeing the next two years people gonna use along with their laptop or smartphone too as a extension of their extension of screen with their laptop. For an example, somebody is Coding, they can use a web browser in another site, you know, a little bit in the left or right side of the laptop using Nemo or, you know, the Slack or communication tools. So ultimately, you know, they are getting that flexibility to open multiple apps in really good space.

Yeah.

And that's where productivity goes up.

Great. And if I'm not mistaken, all the technology is inside the glasses. There is no. You don't have to use your laptop computer to power it or your phone. It's self contained. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. So the story is like in 2018, we built the first prototype of Nemo with multiple wires, another processing unit sitting in the corner. And you know, even for doing the demo to different people, it was a mess. You know, I hate it because it's not good at all. That's the reason we thought, we believed that making that completely standalone will add a lot of value because the focus we have to deliver portability and comfort for people to work from anywhere. So that's the reason we built all the computing everything on board. And you can just connect Nimo with any WI FI network and start using applications installed on Nemo.

Lovely. There are many industries. We spoke about the information worker, that seems like an obvious one. What other industries do you think will be interested in? Are you, are you seeing interest from other industries?

Oh yeah. So we launched our subversion campaign a few weeks ago. Right. And I got a chance to talk to a lot of people. They are in different, different industries. They really like these case that we are coming up with. And so there's one, one person I talked to, she's working in a banking sector and she was saying, I need two monitors for visualizing data. She's using different tools, etc. To see the data in a big form. And when things changed, she forced to work from home. And now right now she's setting up a big enough space with monitors, all these things in her living room. And she got children's and all. So it's kind of a mess. And she was proposing, if I have Nemo, I don't need to utilize this big space in my living room. I can just have a small table, that's it. And even I can work from my couch. I can go back to my backyard and do my work. So that kind of freedom, people are looking forward. So I would say the customer, the potential people, one, the financial side definitely manage multiple, you know, data. And another one, developers, I believe they're gonna use Nimo for, you know, bringing the information like a browser or team communication, email all these things while they are doing the coding.

Yeah.

And you know, more than a lot of people, they moved into remote or flexible workspace and we are targeting those kind of people to get our key and ultimate productivity for those people they working remotely.

Yeah, yeah, I can see, you know when people first started having, you know, the jawbone, you know, earphones and you saw people just talking aloud on the street or on buses and trains, it was like what's going on? And so it took us a while to get used to it. Now when people have, you know, these glasses on and they're making gestures and using their phone and even talking, it'll be just part of what society is like in the years ahead. Question for you because I imagine people are watching this, are thinking, look, others have tried this whole sort of heads up display with glasses and they failed. What makes yours different?

Yeah, so I would say just like we have desktop computing and mobile computing, the glasses also will have two categories. So one that is top category which is those glasses can provide super immersive experience, you know, high computing. I can put a big 3D object in my living room for example, I can put it also in my living room. So those kind of immersive experience. And because of that the device form factor is not that much portable. It's not fit in our pocket and easy to carry. So there's another category which is more portable smart glasses I would say like focal spinar, VO6, Google Glass, etc. But the problem those those devices have very small screen and all the applications they design to deliver simple notifications calls, all the information from smartphone, other third party devices for us. You know, I know people love portability. Now that's cool thing. You know, people really care about portability. Yeah. But just delivering simple notifications call, that's not solving any problem. So that's the reason we find that niche where the hardware should be super portable. At the same time that should solve some really great problems that existing in the market. So that's where we are sharply focused. And at this point all other glasses existing in the market, no one come up with the same direction that we are going with.

So a couple of remaining questions here I have for you that are not directly related to Nemo, which is I've spoken to you now twice and I love your energy, I love your enthusiasm and I have to note that this is your second hardware software company. Both in tough complex spaces. What gets you going every day? Where do you get your energy from?

Yeah, see somehow I got this from my I think from childhood itself, right. Even my school days, I used to build electronics. Small, small things. You know, I used to build some kind of. I still remember one of the first electronics that I built, put with this small sheet, some electronics, you know, inside. And I put under my, under, under the, near to the door and somebody get in, he just touched on that, that sheet and it makes some sound. It was when I was in, I think eighth or seventh standard. So then I got a chance to use the computer first time, I remember 10th or 9th standard. And from that onwards I was like super impressed with the basic programming that time I can do and seeing the output. So that's where the inspiration started. Then I completely focused in the computer. I used to learn programming language, I used to learn about all the updates, everything. And so that's where I started. And even now that energy, that's something that's breaking my energy up with doing new things, cracking problems, finding right solutions and just move forward. Yeah, that's always there somehow sometimes we

can't put our finger on it. But you obviously were, it looks like, born with it, born with this passion. So the last question today for you is a lot of my audience are startups. A lot of my friends and colleagues are people who are either starting businesses, running businesses or want to run businesses. And so your second time on this and you're very creative in how you actually have raised money and moved forward. What are one or two pieces of advice that you could offer to entrepreneurs?

Yeah, see, so from my experience, that's very little still. But from that experience, the one thing I learned was if you have that sharp focus, then we can make something that small point that's super great and we can just get rid of all of the unwanted things from that system. And I believe that focus really helped to drive the company, the product in a good level compared to if you try to do multiple things at the same time. So that's what I did at Nemo. Right. I learned initially we started with multiple things and we learned, you know, that's not gonna work. So we have to be super, super focused and make that part super perfect. That's how we gonna get into the market. That's how people gonna see us as a company. You know, if they think about work, Nemo should be there. So that's what we want to do. And I think every startup, you know, startup is like a lot of struggle that coming up, right. They need to sacrifice a lot of things. So putting a lot of things in that space and making things complicated. That, that's bad idea. And the other one, somehow I, I believe we need to care a lot about design. You know, each and every part. If you can put design, that's another, another way I think we can win.

Yeah.

So that's, you know, even for me that's a start. But I believe design is one of the core, core things everyone should care about.

Yeah. Yeah, great, great advice. You know, this is definitely a product that has sort of wow factor and just in my own personal observations, everyone else can make their mind up. So how can people experience it or learn more about it?

Yeah. So right now we are running a reservation campaign on Nemo planet.com so we put a couple of the use cases and the features that we're going to bring to Nemo. And also we have a couple of real footage of current working model in the same website. So that's how right now people can experience and anyone they want to see the demo in real, in person. I'm in San Francisco, so anytime can fix meeting and with the social distancing, I can show the demo. But in the next six months that I'm looking forward to the new release, the new design release of our beta, the team and everyone is working towards that. And once we reach that stage, we can ship a couple of units to the initial partners, influencers of the early customers. They are super interested.

Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, Rohil, it's been just great to speak with you again. It was as much fun this time as last time and I really do wish you huge success, you and your team in the future and wish you well.

Thank you so much. It's incredible to talking to you as well.