Today we have an interesting startup with us called NextBitComputing. NextBitComputing develops and provides Intellectual property and solutions which help drive next generation Audio, video and data enabled Consumer Electronic, Broadcast and Handheld devices. I got a chance to interview the CEO and technical director of NextBitCpu, Mr. Vishal Borker.
What follows is a transcript of the interview;
What is Next Bit Computing all about and how are you guys different from your competition?
NetxBiT was founded in July 2005 by Sameer (my younger brother, who had just finished his engineering) and me. We always had a fascination for electronic items as kids – taking apart radio sets and getting punished for it. When it was time to start a company, whats better than put together those kind of devices and make money (so long to the punishments!!). I was already working in the Consumer Electronics domain, and Sameer’s final year project was designing a internet radio player device. With the hunger, we also had the kind of basic technical background one would require. The rest has been pure learning.
We started off doing some basic work for IPTV systems, and Consumer Electronics device User Interfaces – never knowing if we will ever be able to ever make money out of it. But thankfully we were noticed by a friend who happened to be doing some work with British Skyp Broadcasting and we ended up doing some cool IPTV EPG work within 3 months of inception.
Today we are a focussed team working on CE (Consumer Electronic) hardware design, Firmware, Playback engine, CODECS and Multimedia standards for devices like DVD Players, IP STB, Personal Media Players, Blu-Ray, TrickMode TV, PVR and Network PC.
NextBiT presents itself to customers as a one stop design shop : Hardware + software. We help companies cut down design times to new concepts and devices. We bring a strong technology focus and flexible licensing terms to our customers. There have been times where technology domains have so interested our team that we have shared the development costs with our customers – which is a win-win for everyone.
Who coined the word NextBitCpu and whose brain child is it?
NextBiT Computing is a moniker for “Next Big Thing in Computing”. When we started the company we knew that one day we wanted NextBiT to be to India, what Sony and Panasonic is to Japan – though since then our business models have changed in certain aspects.
Sameer designed the logo – which has got an interesting meaning behind it.
The logo looks like an atom with electrons around it. It also looks like a star system, with planet orbits. The Next Big Thing in computing could be something so small that everyone knows it’s around but can’t see it OR it could be something so huge that everyone can see it, but none can fathom the depths of it. Pretty intense huh? 
Who are your team members and what are their roles at Next Bit Computing?
Our Management team includes Sudarshan Borker – Who happened to be at that point in time, the only team member with certain amount of administration skills. We also have Girish Bhardwaj who is our product sales and marketing person. Sudarshan is also my brother who i had to ask to quit job and join us since i could just not handle number crunching during the earlier days. We have a technical and sales team of around 18 people.
Who are your major clients?
Our clients include retail customers for our gCoSign – Digital Signage Solution (see: www.gcosign.com). These could be hotels, restaurant chains, airports, schools, multiplexes, hospitals , banks and more.
Our IP licensing customers are primarily ODM’s from Korea, Singapore. We are looking to sell in the Japanese market very soon – having made some inroads with a certain consumer electronics giant.
How did the idea of being a player in the intellectual property come into being?
I had the good fortune of visiting Japan in the spring of 2003. I was working with this company that has about 14 people including the Directors and Sales folk.
I was amazed to see that this small company was actually behind some stunning designs that were being put out by a major CE giant! In fact our team in India had more management people than the customer’s organisation.
This is when I realised that IP can be best developed by small and lean organisations and CAN be sold to the big wigs – provided you can successfully differentiate yourself. When you have a good product, you do not worry about money. We stuck to small time services contracts primarily ONLY to bootstrap.
How do you build your hardware? Do you import it or fabricate it in-house?
We design our hardware in house. We have a hardware engineering team. We get prototypes done in Bangalore itself. For mass production we have been building relationships with EMS companies in China / Korea / Taiwan.
You have a decent Alexa rank. What steps do you take to make a good online presence or say online branding?
Interesting! To be frank I was not aware of Alexa rank concept. I feel it has got to do with our sales and marketing exchanges with new customers on a day to day basis. Again – We are 100% sure we are not giving our web presence the required attention. Things should hopefully change over the next few months.
What is the revenue model for NextBitCpu? What other revenue models are you planning to consider in the future?
Our revenue models include:
- IP licensing – Royalty basis
- None Recoverable Engineering Services – To help customers customize NextBiT licensed software and build support software around it.
- Sale of Completely Assembled Hardware (CAH) – gCoSign, and its monthly subscriptions.
Do you international orders too? How do you compare other countries vis-a-vis India when it comes to intellectual property and services?
We have been licensing IP to international customers only.
So far we haven’t been selling completely assembled hardware to international markets as we are still learning from the Indian market. We have plans to hit the international market as soon as we are confident of handling all sorts of client requirements and support needs. Moreover we have set an internal target that we need to reach in terms of financial growth for us to even consider a foreign territory for our CAH.
I think India as a market for CE IP is still evolving. We would certainly like to speak to some of the Indian OEM’s – but we have noticed that its quite difficult to keep them interested for a long time without the interest fizzling out. The Koreans and Japanese know it instantaneously when they see something of value. But then again, we ourselves know that we need to do better with selling to the Indian OEM’s. Maybe we haven’t tried the right methods.
I personally think we could do well with the Indian OEM’s with our low cost and flexible licensing options. For example – We have a PVR design with Live TV Pause/Rewind that could possibly retail for less than 4000 INR. All we need is takers.
What are your learning experiences with NextBitCpu?
Numerous. Starting a company, buying the first AC for the office, moving to a good office space, hiring a brilliant team member – each of these events however small of big, give you the same pleasure as receiving your very first pay-check.
Personally we have grown from being hardcore techies to self styled business people.
We have learnt to revel in our accomplishments and learn from our mistakes.
Most importantly entrepreneurship always makes you push yourselves to do better. Doing the best you can is not good enough anymore.
Also – Social life? Kaboom.
What was the most memorable day for you at NetBitCpu?
Nothing can beat the day we received our first Wire transfer from a US based customer. Also memorable was moving to our “swanky” Bangalore office!
Ah – And also appearing in a half page feature on the Economic times!
What do you have to share as a part of agenda-2009?
Its been a busy year so far. We will be completing 4 years this June. I’ll be turning thirty ( I am Hoping i am able to deal with my mid life crisis).
But seriously – The recognition is finally happening and 2009 could mean a big year in NextBiT’s history so far. We hope to keep the news papers busy this year!
What’s the biggest surprise you’ve had in the business recently?
Definitely has to be finding out that we managed to implement the exact same technology that another company managed to do with an investment of 10 Million USD – this actually surprises other folk more than us at NextBiT!
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