Episode 3

Rish Chauhan and The Perfect Customer

Rish Chauhan, Head of Sales at The Things Industries, joins us to explore power of LoRaWAN in business. We dive into how companies are leveraging this open source technology to tackle real-world challenges and generate significant ROI. Rish shares insights on what makes an ideal customer for TTI and highlights the most profitable use cases that emerge in various sectors, from retail to agriculture. We also discuss the importance of patience in the IoT journey, as the return on investment isn’t instantaneous but well worth the wait. With a glimpse into innovative applications like environmental monitoring and cattle behavior tracking, this episode is packed with valuable insights for anyone looking to harness the potential of LoRaWAN in their business.

Takeaways:

  • The ideal customer for LoRaWAN solutions is one who has a clear problem to solve and is open to innovative business models.
  • Patience is key when adopting IoT technologies, as measurable results typically take time to manifest.
  • Real-world applications of LoRaWAN range from environmental monitoring to smart agriculture, showcasing its versatility.
  • Companies can add multiple use cases at a minimal additional cost once the initial infrastructure is in place, maximizing ROI.
  • Understanding the strategic points for gateway installation is crucial for efficient monitoring across distribution lines.

Links referenced in this episode:

Companies mentioned in this episode:

  • The Things Industries
  • Things network
  • IoT Working Group
  • Helium Foundation
  • Meteoscientific

đź’˛Support the show: https://support.metsci.show

Transcript
Speaker:

Welcome to the business of LoRaWAN,

where we dive into this long

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range, low power, wide area network

and its impact on your bottom line.

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The latest sensors and proven real world

solutions.

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I'm your host, Nik Hawks.

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Since 2020,

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when I stumbled into LoRaWAN via helium

while hunting for a lost paraglider,

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I've helped thousands

understand how it works

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and how to use it,

and I'm psyched to do the same for you.

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I've installed everything

from soil sensors

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to weather stations to retail foot

traffic counters.

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Coming to the conclusion

that LoRaWAN is rad,

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so I built the only show on the internet

fully dedicated to unlocking its potential

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for your business. Let's dig in.

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Today I'm joined by Rish Chauhan,

head of sales and business development

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over at the Things Industries, a company

well known throughout the LoRaWAN world

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and at the forefront of LoRaWAN

innovation.

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Rish has played a pivotal role in scaling

LoRaWAN adoption worldwide, first

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as the global community manager

for the Things Network, where he helped

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grow a global IoT ecosystem,

and now by leading business development

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efforts to helping enterprise

unlock the value of LoRaWAN.

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In this episode,

we'll explore how businesses

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are leveraging LoRaWAN to solve real world

problems.

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What makes for an ideal customer

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and the most profitable use cases

that generate measurable ROI?

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We'll also dive into

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how companies can think about business

models, scaling IoT deployments,

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and uncovering new opportunities

through lower end solutions.

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Let's get into it.

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Vish, thanks so much for coming on

and making the time

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to explain LoRaWAN for us.

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From the T perspective.

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I'm happy to be here.

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Yeah I'm psyched.

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So the first question

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for folks who are watching this, it's

really aimed at the kind of IoT for CFOs.

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So people who are interested in LoRaWAN,

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they've heard about it,

but they're not sure what it is.

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Let's start with something

useful for them.

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Like what is the perfect

customer look like for T?

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What are you guys looking for?

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If you were to sit down on a plane

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next to someone and you're like,

oh, yes, this is awesome.

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Yes. I think the perfect customer for us

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can be ideal.

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Customer,

let's say, would be someone who has about,

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first of all, a problem to solve.

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And, I mean, what are we doing with IoT

and a lot of money

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trying to solve the problem and again,

getting into the more specifics.

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The first thing is

someone who has a problem

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which that needs to be solved

with IoT and more.

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Getting into that,

it would be a little bit of knowledge of

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of IoT of hardware, devices, software,

how does it work?

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And someone who is also open

to trying new business models

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and also just seeing how everything works,

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because I think in the beginning

it can all be a bit daunting, challenging.

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So I think someone who is also open

and has a little bit of experience

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and has a problem to solve

would be an ideal customer.

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Again, you can get into all the

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different segments verticals,

but I think at the core underlying

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this is something I would say

it would be ideal customer.

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Sure.

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What are the best problems to solve?

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I think best problems to solve it with IoT

would be more into,

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I think the some of the more segments

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that BC would be building management

something more in retail.

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I mean, these are

the most, let's say obvious candidates.

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But you also see, some wide applications

and the culture

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a lot environmental monitoring,

conditional monitoring

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and it's still so horizontal and so broad

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that you can apply it

in almost any verticals,

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because there are some

that are sort of going to be a bit better.

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But the use cases here

are just quite massive.

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And you also see the return on investment

or adoption.

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It's not something that that happens

overnight.

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This this takes a lot of time.

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So I think a lot of people

also have this expectation, oh,

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I want to see results tomorrow or I want

to see results in a short span of time.

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And I think in this

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you have to be very honest and

you have to be very practical about that.

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All of these things

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take a bit of time and provided

you have the patience and pays off.

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Okay. And then what kind of timeline?

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Maybe best case, worst case, medium

case would would a customer be looking at.

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So for I think you would you would do it

in of three different phases.

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I think for a lot of them

because everyone thinks

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they also understand

internet of Things, IoT, LoRaWAN.

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But the reality is when you sort of roll

your sleeves, you realize

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that there are a lot of moving pieces.

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So I would take this into like three

phases.

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The first phase is just validation.

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You just want to get the device,

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get some data, put it into a, dashboard

and just see if it all works

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and if it works, which you could also

collect, sort of like the 0 to 1 phase

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where nothing and you just getting it to,

one where you just sort of

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sure seeing that if it works or not, next

phase you could call it is 1 to 10.

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Okay. You've made it work.

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Okay. Ready?

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Or maybe, next in your garage or

maybe next in your report office set up.

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Next thing is to okay,

make it to the second phase

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where you maybe

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want to have a few hundred of devices

and see how it works in practical sense,

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whether there is some savings or whether

it actually has some as an impact.

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That would be, let's say,

your second phase.

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And the third is really production

where things are now.

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It's sort of going

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towards a commodity phase where it becomes

very, very more advanced.

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You have proper DevOps,

you know what, where the data is going.

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So these three phases would be

how you would look at an IoT solution.

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Got it.

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And so I think mostly we're focusing on

the production phase in, in this podcast

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where it's like as much fun

as it is for me to be in the garage

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or on the workshop,

table behind me fiddling with Lora.

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My focus on this is saying,

okay, we've got businesses coming

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in, and ideally we're finding businesses

with a clear use case for LoRaWAN.

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And what I've seen, I think you've said

money can be made on this network

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only by providing valuable services.

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So I'm really trying to focus in on

what are those valuable services.

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And it might be helpful

to give an example of in different cities

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with different energy or water costs,

you might have different solutions

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for a given business.

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So for a 10,000 square foot office

or retail

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space in Houston, Texas,

because energy is cheap, is there?

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It might be a very different payback time

than San Francisco, where energy is

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something like four times

as expensive is as Texas.

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What are the use cases

that you're seeing that kind of save

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or make a business the most money?

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Yeah, I mean, this is also like sort of

I mean, you like

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you give an example similar

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one like you could think of if you're

trying to do a water leak, for instance,

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you know, a water leak in our water scarce

area would be extremely

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just from a money

point of view would be way more impactful.

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Whereas, you know, where water is

sort of more easily available,

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where it might not

have that sort of impact.

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I think what we see in general,

particularly, is that

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it start with the most basic like thing.

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Where is it

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a business positive use case or not,

especially like in buildings or in retail.

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There are so many applications

that you can apply and a lot of time.

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Also the focus is just on one use case.

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Oh, I'm in a building.

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Let me try to prevent water leak.

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And a lot of businesses

I think, are also very surprised

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by the fact that once you have a business

positive use case,

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adding another use

case comes at a zero marginal cost.

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I mean, you are not really going to spend

or set up an entire infrastructure

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because if you are in a building,

you're doing water leak sensor,

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adding

air quality sensors in the building.

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It's just buying the sensors

and putting those up.

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So this sort of is where like we see

like a lot of magic happening

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where people start with one use case

which they've identified,

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they've done their research

and they know that,

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okay, this is what I'm going to go with

in my other example of retail.

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Like even think of it

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as like if you have monitoring

temperatures across different fridges,

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suddenly putting up,

people coming in in restaurants

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or fast food and a lot more data points.

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And it also

then makes the decision for people,

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the management, to make a bit more,

better decisions with that.

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And then from there

on, you can only add more,

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you know, like it only goes from there.

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So I think it's the first hurdle

and sort of like the biggest one.

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And then once you cross that, adding

other use cases becomes yeah, quite easy.

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And also has a very high ROI as well.

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Yeah. Yeah.

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So I think of that as the kind of pilot

project, model of, of bringing in like,

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hey, if we just get a gateway

on the building, that's the biggest lift.

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And then once that's there,

your imagination is, is really the limit.

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Or you said something about new business

models.

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Can you walk me through that

when you're talking to a new customer?

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How would you explain that to them

in a useful way?

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Yeah.

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So business model,

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I mean, a lot of a lot of times

you are looking at as a service, option.

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So a lot of companies

nowadays, for instance, are offering

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when they come into a building

and say they offer environment like,

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CO2 monitoring, for instance,

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I think during the Covid test,

this became quite, quite a big thing.

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And most of the companies

tend to sort of offer it

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as a service where, you know, they come in

and it's, sort of per, dollars per

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month or euros per month that they want

to give a lot of other models.

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I think these are sort of models

which you can experiment

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once you are further down

in the state of the project.

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But in most cases,

I think at the beginning it's

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it's also so fragmented

that people just want to do anything

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and everything to sort of

get the foot in the door.

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Here in the beginning, it's really

not so much about the business model.

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I'm sure everyone wants to,

build like a fancy SaaS company,

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but I think that the state of the,

matter right now is,

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is that anything and everything

sort of works in the beginning phase.

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But I think this is also a very good point

to that.

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You highlighted that because it's

so fragmented, you need to be very clear,

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as in when you scale and progress,

what is going to be the business model.

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Because this in IoT,

you're combining software and hardware.

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I'm sure a lot of people have experience

with one or the other,

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but then when you combine them, a lot of

different risk factors are also there.

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I mean, think about inventory.

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For instance,

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if you are starting a business

where, okay, you went to the first phase

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and now you suddenly get an order

from a customer for:

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where they even first buy them,

whether you want to store them.

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And you know, there are a lot of different

concepts that people have to look at.

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So I think in the beginning,

like I said, it's just very fragmented.

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But it's also good to sort of

know what which direction you are going

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and be prepared for it, because things

also move very quickly, like if your

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product or your service gets validated,

you would want to move quick.

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So just having an understanding

of what is going to work in your landscape

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a bit, better is

when it will be very useful.

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Yeah,

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yeah, I've

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got another guest coming on the show

and his his model,

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he's a provider

is to get a gateway in one device in.

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And typically it's just. What is it?

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It's something with like soil moisture.

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Like something pretty,

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easy to make sure that the grounds

are getting watered and maintaining.

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And then once that's in, then he can talk

to everybody else in the company

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about everything else that's going on

that they could could be doing.

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What are.

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Yeah, some of the most interesting

applications of LoRaWAN that you've seen.

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You know,

we've all heard of like okay, leak

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detection and people

counting and soil moisture.

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What's out there.

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You're like, man,

I didn't know that these were people

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or whatever, counting elephants or,

you know, weighing carrots or whatever.

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It was

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mostly around like nature conservation.

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And this particular there were

these people hunting rhinos in Africa.

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And I think one of our community members,

they built a tracker,

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which is sort of put in the 3D

printed horn of a rhinoceros.

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So if the hunters, they take the,

the horn,

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you could track the location, with that

and which was quite innovative

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in that time, a lot of people,

also use it for actually.

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Yeah, there was another one

where they were, I think, trying to,

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monitor the movement of turtles,

and there was no gateway over there.

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So they sort of laid out

the devices on the beach.

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So this is where the turtles would come.

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And because there was no gateway,

they flew in a gateway with the drone.

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So you could have, coverage

for these, for these devices.

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I mean, these are more on the nature,

side, but I think some of the more

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like also interesting,

I find, is a company in New Zealand

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that have built

a very sophisticated corner for cattle.

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And you're not just monitoring like,

the temperature or, you're not monitoring

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just the location,

but you are really sort of understanding

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the behavior of cows

or the cattle that you have.

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So I think this also shows that you have

to start like really at the basic.

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And then from there on, there are a lot of

possibilities that you can add.

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And we've only seen the number of

different use cases only grow over time.

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So it's not just confined to what you just

said detail or you know, buildings.

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So these are this is where, you know,

you see a lot of value.

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But there are so many new yeah,

use cases coming up.

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And we've seen also over

the past few years that this

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this segment is only going to grow the way

people use, normal land

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and the way people are coming up

with, new, use cases.

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I also have one more in mind.

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There was another customer

which wanted to monitor.

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So when you have fruits,

which are basically getting to the shelf

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in the supermarket,

it is kind so well that they

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monitor the amount of ethylene

in these containers. Yep.

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So by the time they are found,

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by the time they are on your shelf,

everything is sort of monitored at this.

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Also like like you don't really realize

the banana that you're eating,

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that it has been kept

throughout that temperature

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or that condition from the

from a very far away place.

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And this just shows that, you know, this

this is quite,

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massive in terms of how it is being used.

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Oh, interesting.

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And that's really leveraging

a network's ability to be long range

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because you're not sending

a ton of information,

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you're just sending the volume or whatever

amount of ethylene in the air

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and tracking that.

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But you're doing it over

an enormous distance

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as the banana travels from wherever

it's picked and placed in that storage

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container to when it gets the

supermarket. Oh very cool.

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I think there's also this this whole

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I mean, I wouldn't say like misconception,

but I think a lot of, users have this,

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oh, I would need coverage throughout or,

you know, like

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Europe is relatively, let's say, smaller

in terms of geographically looking at it.

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But for us, for instance, it's just like

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distances are quite long

and people have this, oh,

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it would need coverage in this city,

I would need coverage in this village.

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And from a business point of view,

you also got to think and look

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that you don't need coverage across.

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You need coverage wherever your truck

or your container bus is true.

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So if you have a distribution line

where you're getting it from the farm,

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then it goes to a warehouse.

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It sits in that warehouse

and then it gets dispatched.

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You don't need coverage

in each and every corner.

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You need coverage

whenever it goes through.

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So if you think about this,

a lot of people also get scared.

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Oh, but the infrastructure or the CapEx

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is just so high for setting up

this gateway infrastructure.

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Yes, it would be.

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But again, the

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you don't have to have coverage

everywhere,

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wherever the important strategic points

are that if you have coverage over there,

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you would be able to monitor

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the conditions of your produce

or meat in particular, or fruits.

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Yeah.

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So it's also something that yeah,

this is good to mention.

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Super cool.

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Rish, thanks so much for making the time

coming on.

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Explain a little bit about the

business floor. Went to us

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from the super nice and yeah.

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So that's it for the business of LoRaWAN.

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Thanks for listening.

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If you enjoy the show

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and want to learn more,

the podcast home on the web is Mexico.

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That's met Sky dot show.

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There you'll find calculators to estimate

the impact of IoT usage on your business.

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Be able to make guest suggestions.

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If you know someone who you think

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should come on the show

and easily get in touch with me.

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If you think the show is useful

for LoRaWAN, please leave a review

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wherever you listen to this.

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Ratings

interviews really help podcast grow.

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Finally, an enormous

thanks to our sponsor, the IoT

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working Group at the Helium Foundation,

for supporting the show.

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If you want to try

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That's enough to run a sensor

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If you're sensing once a day. Right

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Nik Hawks

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