Episode 46

IoT Has a Marketing Problem. Here’s What to Fix. - Afzal Mangal

Afzal Mangal, former founder of IoT Creators at Deutsche Telekom and founder of Hello Things, talks about why most IoT companies are solving the wrong problem. After years building and scaling IoT platforms inside a global telecom, Afzal argues that the biggest constraint in IoT isn’t technology — it’s momentum.

In this conversation, he explains why marketing is consistently undervalued in IoT, why the industry must “sell the problem before the solution,” and how companies across the value chain — from device makers to network operators — share responsibility for developing the market. Using practical examples, including temperature monitoring in pharma and everyday connected devices that users don’t even recognize as IoT, Afzal makes the case that adoption fails when the category itself isn’t clearly understood.

He also discusses Hello Things, his new initiative focused on collective market development. Rather than leaving ecosystem growth to chance, Afzal proposes coordinated storytelling and consistent messaging to move IoT beyond its internal bubble and into mainstream decision-making. For LoRaWAN professionals, this is particularly relevant: he highlights how authentic community-driven engagement has given LoRaWAN an edge over traditional cellular IoT approaches.

The episode also explores how small engineering-heavy teams can use AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity as practical co-pilots for research, strategy, and messaging without sacrificing technical integrity. For founders, engineers, and ecosystem builders alike, Afzal’s perspective reframes IoT growth as a business discipline, not just a technical one.

Guest Links

Afzal on LinkedIn

Afzal on the web

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Transcript
Speaker:

Today's guest on Medio Scientific's.

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The business of Laurin is Afzal Monger,

an IoT strategist,

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former founder of Deutsche Telecom's IoT

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creators, author and the mind

behind the new Hello Things initiative.

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Marcel has spent

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years working at the intersection

of connectivity, product and go to market,

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and he's best known for a clear,

sometimes uncomfortable argument.

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Most IoT problems aren't technical.

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They're marketing and adoption problems.

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In this conversation, we dig into

why IoT companies struggle to create

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momentum, why the industry often

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needs to sell the problem

before it can sell the solution,

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and how LoRaWAN has succeeded in areas

where other IoT technologies have lagged.

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We also talk about what Hello Things

is trying to fix at an ecosystem level,

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why engineers shouldn't

dismiss marketing outright,

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and how small teams can use AI tools

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to communicate their work more effectively

without turning it into fluff.

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This episode is sponsored

by the Helium Foundation and is dedicated

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to spreading knowledge about LoRaWAN.

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If you'd like to try Helium’s

publicly available global LoRaWAN for free

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and support

the show, sign up at metsci.show/console.

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Now let's dig into the conversation

with Afzal Mangal.

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Afzal,

thanks so much for coming on the show.

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I'm super excited to have you here.

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Yeah same here.

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And actually I wanted to say before

the session started, when there are beep

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I tend to provide, the audience will know

like this is a real conversation.

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Yeah. True fact.

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That's useful.

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I try and make most of these conversations

where I come into it, not having had

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this whole pre conversation with you,

and we don't have a canned piece.

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And with that,

the first question I've got for you is

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you're well known for saying like hey,

IoT has got marketing problems.

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And we were just talking

about some of the issues that IoT has.

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If you were thrown into a random

IoT company, you know, tomorrow

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you wake up and you've been assigned

like you're working for this company.

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Whatever job you want.

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What are the two things or maybe three?

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You know,

you're going to have to fix that.

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They're kind of wrong

with almost every IoT company.

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What things you think you'd be

working on first? Marketing.

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But maybe

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maybe specify like random IoT company.

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Is it like a like an integrator

or someone doing because everyone else

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has a different definition, right.

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When we talk about it,

maybe, maybe, maybe.

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Tell me about your definition first,

because this is even the first time

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that you and I are meeting.

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Yeah. Yeah.

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So maybe we just define it

pretty broadly as any company where IoT

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is their first line of business,

whether they're a hardware manufacturer,

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whether they're offering software,

or whether they're doing some integration,

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whatever it is across the board,

they all seem to have, you know, reading

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the the book, you've got this IoT hype

no one knows about.

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They all seem

to have some pretty common problems

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that usually have nothing to do

with the technology.

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Okay, so you know my definition

because you have read the book

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and looking at what you just said,

we have a similar definition,

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but I still think that my answer

would be the same.

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Marketing is the most undervalued

side of business in the world.

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In any business, but it hurts most in IoT

because that's the industry

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or the category that needs marketing most.

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So yes, in one word, that is what I would

try to fix in any IoT company.

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And the other thing is that

I would also invest some time and effort

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in a step

that maybe even sits before marketing,

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and that is creating momentum

or getting people

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used to the idea of connecting

the physical world to the digital world.

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And I think,

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you know, regardless

of your position in the value chain,

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even when you are a semiconductor

and you never see and uses of IoT,

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even then, I think you have

a responsibility to invest a bit

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in this activity, creating momentum.

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Okay. Can you define that?

What do you mean by that?

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What I mean by that is that

if you sell these guys, then your customer

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no knows exactly why, but you need it

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to stay reachable to reach others.

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Okay.

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And by these guys, for people listening,

you mean a phone a phone.

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Yeah yeah yeah, yeah.

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Oh, yeah. Sorry.

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This is without a seat for people

who are not watching the video.

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Yeah, yeah.

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And if you sell microwaves,

then your customer knows exactly why.

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Why you need some microwaves.

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Yeah,

but that's not the case for IoT solutions.

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Even when the value is clear,

they are not used to the category yet.

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The category of connecting the physical

or the digital world,

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they're not used to it.

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So it's a category

that you still need to explain.

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And when I say explaining, it's

not only highlighting the value

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or the business case,

but also highlighting the fact

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that this is becoming normal

and it's even inevitable.

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Right.

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And this must be the wound versus bandage

problem that you were talking about.

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Is that. Yeah.

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So the good way to describe it,

can you go into that

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for the folks who are listening

who may not have heard this?

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Yeah.

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So what I mean by that is, look,

if I, if I do Google meets or Microsoft

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Teams and any video meeting today

except for this one,

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then there is another entity

that also joins

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the conversation

and that is my fireflies note taker,

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which I love,

and I cannot live without it anymore.

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But before this note taker existed,

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I never saw it as a problem that I didn't

have a note taker joining my meetings.

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It was never a problem.

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The solution didn't exist.

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So the problem was also not visible.

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You know, it's crazy.

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So you had to be around because normally,

you know,

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a lot of smart people in

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this industry are like,

we have to sell solutions for a problem,

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but actually we have to sell the problem

first.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, that's

I think that's good sales 101.

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And maybe that's the piece that people

come into is just, you know, problem

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discovery for the customer.

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And then from there, once

you figure out the problem then you see

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does it fit and where does it fit

and how does it fit.

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And what can I do to solve this problem.

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But as you say, if you don't know

about it, very difficult to solve it.

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Yeah, exactly.

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Ignorance.

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Ignorance is a well covering blanket issue

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because now

I took another example that IoT.

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But if you look at pharma, for example,

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the fact that they throw away

very expensive medication

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every month, waste

tens of thousands of dollars or euros,

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they don't see it as a problem

because they think it's a given.

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It's a given that sometimes

a human being makes a mistake

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and keeps the door of the fridge open

for longer time than we want.

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Yep. So let's just, you know, we put it

in our business case for this year,

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and it's a given

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that we are going to waste medication,

that we are going to waste money.

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And they don't see this as a problem

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because they just don't know

that there is solution for it.

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For the people who are new to

the solution, I'm talking about the sensor

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on alerts when a door of a fridge is open

for a certain time, right?

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I was it's funny

because it's such basic stuff that,

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you know, generally

I know what folks are talking about

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when they're talking

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about some IoT solution, but I can easily

imagine someone saying like what?

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How would you ever solve that problem?

That's impossible.

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Yeah, exactly.

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And is that even a problem?

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Like, oh no, we just like,

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we know we're going to spend ten grand

on throwing medicine away.

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Like that's just part of the

the price of doing business.

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And yeah, it sounds like it's not okay.

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Tell me about hello things.

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We'll kind of jump around a little bit,

but I saw this just popped up.

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What's, what's going on with hello things.

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Hello things.

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So Hello things is a side project

that I recently started.

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You know, that

I've been working at Deutsche Telekom,

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the mother company of T-Mobile. Yep.

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And I've been running a startup

for the Deutsche Telekom,

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which was called IoT creators.

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That startup is now resting in peace,

at least the sales channel and the brand.

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The platform is still up and running,

but maybe we can talk about it later.

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So I left Deutsche Telekom

last year in November,

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and I have some time left right now.

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And I thought, you know,

let me do something about the problem

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that I'm complaining about already

for years, the fact that we we don't spend

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collectively, we fail to do market

development, market as a market education.

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Because I also realized that

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it's actually very obvious

that no one is doing it.

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And you can't blame anyone

for not doing it.

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The reason for that

is because no one knows how to do it,

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and no one knows when it's going to work.

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So it's it's like an investment

that you cannot justify.

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You know, we still have to figure out

for all industries

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how we should

and how we can create momentum.

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And for healthcare,

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it will be completely different

than for agriculture, for example.

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So it's it's not even when a big company,

a large company like T-Mobile

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or AWS is going to invest

like one FTE in market development.

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Not even then.

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It's you can justify it because

it's unclear what's going to happen.

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So I thought, okay,

but it still has to be done. Yep.

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So what if it's what

what if it's a joint investment?

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The collective investment.

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That's basically how hello things started.

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So what I'm going to do simply is together

with the Alliance members,

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simply triple momentum.

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Take stories, existing stories

from the members, success stories

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about IoT adoption, how it adds value,

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but then making sure that these stories

are also reaching the right audience.

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And that's not not staying

inside the IoT bubble or LinkedIn.

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That's one part of the job.

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The other part of the job that I think is

going to do is create some consistency,

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because we have a lot of IoT

success stories out there,

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in podcasts,

at events, on stage, on LinkedIn.

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But it's not only a problem

that they never reach the end customer.

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The other problem is that there is no

consistent way of talking to the market.

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And if you do that together

with an alliance, then

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you can create some consistency. Got it.

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And for someone listening, you know, this

this podcast has this kind of hard

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core of Laura, Laura, when listeners, who

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is there something that you'd say, look,

I get that you're an engineer

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and you think that marketing

is a waste of time.

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Like, I understand that.

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Let's just assume that you want to try

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marketing for a week

or a weekend or a month.

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What would you say for the first

1 to 3 things

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that they should at least ask questions

about and get their curiosity triggered?

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Because I found once,

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once engineers curiosity is triggered

than they do a fantastic job.

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But a lot of times they're just like,

I'm focused on the problem.

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Let me search,

try to win some trust here, okay?

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I have two backgrounds network

engineering and marketing communication.

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I know how to write code.

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Okay. In some languages I have my CCNa.

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I know how to troubleshoot

Cisco and Juniper Networks.

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Okay.

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But you know, the thing is marketing

is it's a waste of time.

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If you feel that it is marketing.

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And marketing is not a waste of time when

you don't feel that, hey, this is Mark.

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They know if most of your listeners

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are coming from the LoRaWAN community,

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they are probably in the LoRaWAN community

because of the community

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engagement activities of the things

the things network or helium.

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Right? Sure.

And that was marketing as well.

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You know, setting up a discord server

that's marketing,

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having a monthly call to talk about

technology, that's marketing.

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So I know why why engineers

don't usually don't like marketing,

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because most of the marketing,

especially from big companies, large

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companies,

it's usually bad, it's very cheap.

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And you know, right away

when you see a commercial

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or when you read a white paper

like the hey, this is BS marketing.

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If it comes from from those guys,

the large companies.

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And that's maybe also a reason why,

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LoRaWAN is far ahead

of the cellular IoT technologies,

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because they've invested

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the Lora

Alliance has invested in some marketing.

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Yeah, and in real marketing.

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Authentic marketing maybe.

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Okay. Yeah.

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And is there a specific piece

or kind of set of advice

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that you would give, or is it just like,

hey guys,

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this is something that will change

your company.

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It's worth investigating,

assuming that most of the listeners

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are into LoRaWAN devices developing,

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maintaining LoRaWAN devices.

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The only advice that I could give

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is, just talk about it a bit more.

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And outside your bubble that especially,

you know, in the last two months,

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I'm having a lot of chats

with end to end solution providers in IoT,

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because I want to have a big variety

of device makers

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in the alliance, because then only

then I will have enough stories to tell.

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And most of these companies

are small companies

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with 5 or 6 people.

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Let's say if it's we talk about a company

with six people,

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then slice and a half are, are focusing

on development and engineering,

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and a half is focusing on communication.

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Sure.

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And I think right now, like collectively,

there are always exceptions.

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But collectively, as an industry,

we already overengineered.

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Now it's time to talk about it.

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So maybe this is a nice time

to talk about what you had recently.

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Looks like you done for your daughter.

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This Group eight app that you've created,

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which was with, as far as I can

tell, was probably

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you and I working together to say, hey,

can I code this thing up pretty quickly?

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This has been something that I think

is transformative that a lot of folks

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aren't doing.

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But maybe let's talk about

how you integrate AI into your marketing

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strategy as a company with six engineers,

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and half of one of those engineers

has to deal with marketing.

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Yeah.

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Is this something where you say, like,

look, here's how I'd use it.

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I didn't expect this question,

but I love it.

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Okay. Yeah.

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This app, because, you know,

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she has to pick a new school next year

after she turns 12.

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But every time we visit the school

and we ask the question like, hey,

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how do you feel that you like it?

She doesn't answer the question.

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So I just created this app

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and she can read the different schools

based on smileys emojis.

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And yes, I used lovable for that one. Yep.

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And it really took me

20 minutes. I'm not.

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Not more than that. Yep.

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And how to use AI in your marketing?

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I mean, let's start with the LMS.

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And I would like to share my experience,

with the LMS

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because these days it's,

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I think, a hype among the real

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AI experts to say that

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cloud, you know, is destroying ChatGPT.

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When I

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started hello things, I thought, you know,

let me let me create a management team.

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And the management team is perplexity

clouds.

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And, and ChatGPT I share everything

what I do with these three tools

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and all the meetings that I have,

I make sure that I anonymize like the,

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the company details and, that,

first and last name.

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And I share it with the,

with these tools and,

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and then I ask a lot of questions like,

hey what do you think that I should do?

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What kind of, focus areas

do you see right now.

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My takeaway from that

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after doing that for two months

is that perplexity didn't surprise me.

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I mean, it's helpful,

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but I already knew that perplexity

is going to be my head of research.

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Market research.

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Okay?

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And it's fulfilling

that job in a amazing way.

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But, you know,

when it comes to cloud and ChatGPT,

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I really ask myself,

who's going to be the co-CEO?

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And the co-CEO, it's simply ChatGPT.

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But because cloud is cloud

is more like like this CEO that you hire

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in the early phase of the startup

to make sure that there is execution.

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So cloud, you know, analyze everything,

all your input and then comes up

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with a very tangible plan

like this is what you should do a, B, c,

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blue points

with very concrete activities.

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ChatGPT is really the

the colleague was challenging me

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my way of thinking,

showing me other perspectives.

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But I also have to admit

that I had to train

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ChatGPT for a long time to stop the B.S..

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And tell me stuff that I don't want to

hear.

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Right.

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It is super supportive over time.

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Yeah. Supply. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Oh that's a great idea.

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You want to make a satellite

in your garage with rubber bands and spit.

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Here's how to do it.

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You're like oh that's exactly that.

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And it'd be very important to to that to

that is that if you are going to use it,

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if you're an engineering company

and you want to use these tools

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for marketing, it's very important

that you tell them the same.

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Like stop the B.S.,

don't tell me what I like to hear.

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Tell me, tell me the other stuff.

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Yeah, yeah, it's funny because I meet

I meet engineers all the time

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at conferences and they ask, oh,

what do you know? What do you do?

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And I said, I do marketing for LoRaWAN.

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And as soon as I say marketing,

they kind of roll their eyes like, oh,

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here's another dummy coming along.

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And I think, like, look,

we're all on the same team

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and what you do is super important,

but if nobody knows about it,

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then it doesn't get you.

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So and what I do,

I think is pretty important.

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But if you don't build the thing,

there's nothing for me to talk about.

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And so it's like these two pieces

of a really important

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if you want a successful IoT businesses,

you have to have great product.

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You have to have the engineers design

something that'll work,

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and then you have to have people

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who know about it

and understand how it solves the problem.

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And so rather than it being a thing,

it's like, oh, I guess I have to do that.

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It's like, God, it's

nice to have a right and a left hand.

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They're very useful to have both arms

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and, you know, no one I,

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no one would look at a human

would be like, man, it would be way better

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to have like a wicked strong right arm

that does everything and no left arm.

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Yes. It just seems that's

how a lot of the engineers

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I meet are like now works to do right arm

only man,

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when I pull up,

it's all the way down the line.

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If if

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so, let's see.

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When you published the book, the IoT.

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It's the hype that no one knows

about what was.

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And that was last spring.

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I think.

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I ordered a copy and got it within

like a week or two.

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So. Right.

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So it's spring of 2025,

something like that.

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Right before MWC,

right before I moved. See?

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Okay. Yeah. Okay. So I got it back.

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I was I guess I was early,

so I think that's right when I got it.

366

:

Has there been any surprising feedback

where someone wrote in and said

367

:

whatever it was, you're like, oh,

I actually didn't think of that at all.

368

:

Or if I had to rewrite the book,

I would totally change that. No.

369

:

I feel like I got everything right.

370

:

I do have a very bad review on Amazon.

371

:

Yeah, and it's visible because just 3

or 2 people a day read it on Amazon.

372

:

Okay. Well,

go on and I'll read a nice one.

373

:

Thanks I appreciate that.

374

:

Yeah.

375

:

The thing is that

376

:

I'm sure that there is negative feedback,

but I just don't hear about it.

377

:

A feedback that,

I mean, most of the people who read

378

:

it were like, hey, we're like send like,

hey, this is exactly what I wanted to say.

379

:

But I don't know how

or this is the problem

380

:

that I'm facing already since

I started in this, this IoT business.

381

:

But I never knew how

to overcome the challenges.

382

:

And then there is also a lot of feedback

that people gave me to challenge me,

383

:

because I made a lot of comparisons

between IoT and I.

384

:

The feedback is usually but that's not

that's not fair

385

:

because IoT involves hardware

and AI doesn't involve hardware there.

386

:

Right.

387

:

But the comparison

was always based on adoption

388

:

and the stuff that the community managers

and the marketing people of the

389

:

AI companies are doing versus

the IoT companies.

390

:

But for some reason, I don't know, people

391

:

still think it's not fair

that I made that comparison.

392

:

Yeah, I can see it making sense

because AI is so easy

393

:

for a normal person to use, right?

394

:

They just get on, they go to chatgpt.com

or whatever your PCs.

395

:

Yeah. And you're using it like that.

396

:

Whereas with IoT

I've got a drawer full of sensors.

397

:

I think like most, I have people.

398

:

Yeah.

399

:

Where I'll deploy one

to solve a problem that I have.

400

:

And that will be a very specific problem

that there's, you know, maybe

401

:

only 1 or 2 other ways to fix it

or to solve it,

402

:

but even deploying it, I mean, I've been

doing this for a couple of years now.

403

:

It's still like,

oh, I've got to get for LoRaWAN.

404

:

I got to get the UI right, and

I got to do this API and we've changed.

405

:

We've updated this

and this is how it works.

406

:

Now, it's certainly from my perspective,

not as easy to use IoT is I.

407

:

So I can see that people make this

comparison like it's an unfair thing.

408

:

Yeah.

409

:

The flip side is like,

hey, when you want to compete and win,

410

:

you've got to understand

the playing field. Yeah.

411

:

And then you, you know, it's

the only way you can win now.

412

:

That's right.

413

:

But on the other hand,

I would say, you know, for my daughter,

414

:

it was very easy to use her bike's

records.

415

:

It's just that

416

:

if I wouldn't have been her father, no

one would have told her that this is IoT.

417

:

You know, and for my mom, it's

very easy to use her phone

418

:

to manage the climate system

in the living room.

419

:

But no one tells her that it is IoT.

420

:

And that is the, you know, comparison

that I.

421

:

That I made many times in the book. Yeah.

422

:

Because when they

when they used that shipped, they know

423

:

that it is AI or when they use Canva.

424

:

Yeah. To create a birthday invitation.

425

:

They know that they're using AI.

426

:

You know, that makes the category

of the technological concept

427

:

more clear and the hats of the mainstream.

428

:

And that's what we never did in IoT,

429

:

is just making sure people understand

when they're using it.

430

:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

431

:

Whether you're using a weather station

or people calendar or whatever.

432

:

Okay.

433

:

I had a question about, the you had a

helium lens on the IoT creators platform.

434

:

Yeah.

435

:

Was there anything in there

that you found like, oh,

436

:

this is much easier, much harder.

437

:

This was, you know, a problem because of

XYZ or it was easy because of ABC.

438

:

I'd love to hear your thoughts

on using the helium on us.

439

:

It's it's already a year or two ago.

440

:

And it was, if I recall correctly, it was

it was a chip stack setup.

441

:

Yeah.

442

:

I mean, it was easy to set up.

443

:

Very easy.

444

:

We just had to wait

445

:

a couple of months before the helium team

themselves were ready.

446

:

They had to give us these, like, certain

IDs that you need to have a new set up.

447

:

A neural network server. Yes. Yep.

448

:

So there was no complexity.

449

:

It was.

450

:

It's just that that took longer

than expected because of that.

451

:

Yeah.

452

:

And it was also very easy to use

for our customers.

453

:

It's just that it

it didn't really take off

454

:

because I

that had nothing to do with, with helium.

455

:

I know that

helium is also facing challenges

456

:

when it comes to adoption,

but in this case

457

:

it had nothing to do with them.

458

:

It was more digital.

459

:

Com, you know, an organization

that is not really a sense

460

:

of, these other services.

461

:

Right? Okay.

462

:

Yeah.

463

:

No, it's it's always it's

always good to hear feedback from folks.

464

:

I run my own illness and most of the time

people just get on and it works.

465

:

And every so often someone was like,

oh, this is, you know, some, some issue.

466

:

And it's unfortunate,

but every time it's been operator error,

467

:

except for, I think every time

except twice, it's been operator error.

468

:

And that was just like, all right,

these things break occasionally.

469

:

Here's how to fix them.

470

:

Yeah, exactly. But, yeah.

471

:

Yeah.

472

:

It's it's a it's kind of this complicated

but super cool thing.

473

:

So it's still fascinating.

474

:

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean definitely a place to think.

475

:

I think your core thesis

about the integration of the digital in

476

:

the physical is where a ton of value gets

generated over the next 5 to 10 years,

477

:

and, that makes that makes it right

at the very kind of center

478

:

of some of the most valuable

things are going to happen.

479

:

But a lot of people are going to miss out

because they don't know about IoT.

480

:

So thank you for writing the book

and thank you for reading it.

481

:

Super cool dude.

482

:

Well, thanks a ton for coming on.

483

:

I know you're, super busy with all

your various things, as we all are.

484

:

We've all got a million projects.

Appreciate carving out time.

485

:

Thank you for having me.

486

:

Was a great conversation.

Yeah. Thanks. So much, guys.

487

:

That's it for

this episode of The Business of LoRaWAN.

488

:

If you want to go deeper

and actually deploy devices,

489

:

the Médio Scientific

Console is the fastest way to do that.

490

:

And honestly, it's

also the best way to support the show.

491

:

When you use the console,

you're not just listening,

492

:

you're participating

in the same real world LoRaWAN work.

493

:

We talk about here every week.

494

:

You can get started with a free trial

at MeteoScientific.com.

495

:

Huge thanks to the sponsor of the show,

the Helium Foundation,

496

:

for supporting open LoRaWAN

infrastructure worldwide.

497

:

Check them out at Helium.Foundation

and if the show has been

498

:

useful, a quick rating or review

on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.

499

:

This really helps

500

:

people find it and helps the show grow

so we can help more people.

501

:

I'm Nik Hawks with Meteo Scientific.

502

:

I'll catch you on the next episode.

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Nik Hawks

Incurably curious, to stormy nights and the wine-dark sea!