Ravikumar Raghunathan, CEO & Founder, TensorIoT
The world of technology is an ever-changing landscape. The Internet of Things is the newest trend in the whole IT industry and is this century’s next big frontier in technology. IoT is the next step in the evolution of computing which has served as a foundation for the unprecedented growth of connected devices. Ravikumar Raghunathan, founder, and CEO of TensorIoT has played a monumental and crucial role in transforming the IT industry. Ravikumar is a technology leader with an extensive track record of delivering innovative solutions in IoT & AI systems. The ardent entrepreneur has hands-on experience in successfully building and exiting an IoT startup company from the ground up.
Entrepreneurial Journey
Ravikumar has always been impressed by the value that technology can bring to our lives and wanted to take a leadership role in helping bring transformative technology to a rapidly changing market. “While I was working at Amazon Web Services (AWS) I saw a clear business opportunity because so many customers need more direct hands-on support and guidance navigating their IoT and ML journey, which drove me to create a company to bring that development partner to a growing industry.” And with the support of his family, Ravikumar incepted TensorIoT in 2017.
Initially, TensorIoT started off trying to solve a specific type of problem, but today, the company is helping customers through their entire cloud journey, starting from understanding their business needs, determining the best course of action to achieve their goals, working backward and custom building a solution using AWS technology to help them achieve an accelerated business.
Standing Tall in the Market
TensorIoT is an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner delivering complete end-to-end products and solutions in IoT, data engineering, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. At TensorIoT, the company designs best-in-class products and solutions to connect devices and make them intelligent. The company’s mission is to help connect devices and make them smarter as they believe in the transformative potential of smarter devices to enhance the quality of life.
“What TensorIoT does differently is that we don’t try to work with every single cloud service out there, but instead we focus on the technology that’s most valuable to our customers,” says Ravikumar. With this razor-sharp focus, the company goes deeper into a wide variety of AWS technologies with a higher mastery level than other companies in the space.
As a cutting-edge technology company, TensorIoT is trying to solve problems in a way that hasn’t been done before, so there’s no clear process to follow every time, and has to be constantly innovative. And one of the biggest challenges the company was facing was finding the right talent and developing the right talent for its business structure. Ravikumar had to build and maintain good relationships with boot camps and conduct sessions to level up talent. As Machine Learning is still a relatively new field, a lot of developers don’t have ML experience, and working together to learn new technology helps TensorIoT overcome challenges and grow together. TensorIoT is constantly walking into opportunities and situations that have not been solved before. “Since it’s the first time anyone has tried this type of solution, it requires our team to have an open mind to fail and try new things. That’s why I foster a company culture where our team doesn’t get penalized for making mistakes – we recognize mistakes as an opportunity to learn and grow,” explains Ravikumar.
A Decorated Leader
Ravikumar lives by the motto ‘Never say Never.’ He challenges himself and his team to never stop learning, and always be willing to adapt to changes. He believes that it’s important to take a step back, acknowledge your own limitations, and figure out what areas you need to grow. It is also important to keep long-term benefits in mind instead of only focusing on the short term and a balanced approach helps to build a stable business with a prosperous future.
According to Ravikumar, “Entrepreneurship means that you should always do what you love. If you don’t love it, you should stop doing it. The day it’s not a passion and just work, reevaluate. Don’t just focus on doing the next cool thing, but find something that’s personally meaningful and develop a career you can be passionate about.”
A Future Full of Opportunities
Ravikumar values his family the most. He believes that work is just working and at the end of the day, family is important. At TensorIoT, he values having flexibility so that the team members can find a perfect work-life balance that prioritizes family.
“As a business leader, I’m looking forward to seeing more technology advancements in machine learning. We’re on the cusp of seeing the kind of machine learning stories and use cases that were the stuff of science fiction a few decades ago, like self-driving vehicles. I’m looking forward to seeing the next 10 years of evolution in the technology industry and seeing how we can be a part of these advancements,” concludes Ravikumar.