Rishi Krishna CEO of Symbionic - On building an assistive tech startup dedicated to building affordable, life-changing prosthetic devices.

Speaker A: I used to travel a lot and in one of my travels to Pondicherry from Chennai, I was going in a bus. Unfortunately, the bus, uh, crashed with another vehicle that was trying to overtake it. And in that, in that impact, my right hand got crushed. Doctors were not, not, uh, able to recover my right hand and they had to amputate it to save my life. And this happened in 2018, uh, of September. This, this year would mark eight years of that incident.

Speaker B: Hello, welcome to the Indian Startup show. I am super thrilled to welcome back Rishi Krishna, the visionary founder and CEO of Symbionic. He came on the show back in November 2021. He's still going. A lot has changed since our last conversation. In this exciting episode, we deep dive into, into the massive pivots the business has undergone and how symbionic is quite literally giving people a second life. Rishi pulls back on the curtain on his experiences pitching on Shark tank India Season 4 and startups Ingham. He offers invaluable advice for early stage founders on navigating the noise, securing finance. He gives us thoughts on AI. And finally, an inspiring story of delivering prosthetic to a user just before her wedding, allowing her to celebrate with confidence and without self consciousness. So please enjoy the show. Thank you.

Speaker C: So, yeah, thanks for coming back on. It's been November, uh, 2021, since last spoke year.

Speaker D: Oh, uh, wow, that's, that's quite a while.

Speaker C: So it's n. It's, it's a long, long time ago. So it's nice to see that you're still going.

Speaker D: Thank you. It's, it's, it's good for me also that we're still going.

Speaker C: Still going. Yeah. So super excited to speak to you today.

Speaker D: No, sir, 2021, it's, it feels like a, uh, lifetime ago. Like, you know, we were in a completely different phase in 2021 when we last spoke.

Speaker B: For those people who didn't listen to

Speaker C: that podcast, please just introduce yourself and what you're building, please.

Speaker D: So, hi, Neil, thank you so much for having me. I am, um, Rishi Krishna. I am the CEO and co founder of Symbionic. Symbionic is an India startup which specializes in designing and manufacturing prosthetic hands and general prosthetics for people with disabilities. We started in 2019 and, um, we're still going and it's been a very fun journey reaching here.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Since we last spoke to you.

Speaker C: Then let's start with any sort of the product itself. How has that changed when we started,

Speaker D: when we started in 2019. The main concern for us was to make a low cost robotic hand for amputees, right. So just tldr, we were able to build it, we were able to raise a lot of angel investments and funding, equity investments and we were able to bring in good talent and uh, build a kickass state of the art bionic arm along with the robotics, the sensors, everything that includes a bionic arm, right. We were able to build it indigenously in India at a fraction of the cost from whatever is available out there. When we did that, uh, when we started uh, doing field trials with actual people, right including myself, but then also a lot of other people, we uh, understood that certain limitations which is inherent to a bionic arm which is like there is a level of weight which makes uh, it very inaccessible to a lot of people to use it consistently throughout the day. There is also a naturalness to a real hand that drinking water, I can just do this instead of taking the robotic arm and then placing it and then opening my hand, closing it and then drinking in a simple UI UX term, the number of steps adding adds a lot of friction to using the limb for any daily activity which, which kind of demotivates our users to use the prosthetic hand, you know, on a regular basis. As such, they kind of abandon it. We, we discussed this with our advisors, with our technical staff and we kind of understood that the abandonment rate of prosthetic has not gone down in the last few decades. People would buy a prosthetic hand and then they just abandon it. They just don't use it. When we asked why, they said most of most of the reasons is that they don't find it useful. And India additionally we also saw that they were also finding it heavy and uncomfortable like sort of hindrance to their daily life, not even useful. And also for personally I was not, I was not using the bionic arm. So the bionic arm is called the Titan um, arm. So we understood that there is more research and more work that has to be put in. But the users that we had wanted a solution. Today as in we met with a person with two hand amputation. His, both his hands were lost and uh, his biggest challenge was eating, eating in public. And uh, like you know he had set of prosthetics that was given to him through, you know he, he got it through some organization and it was kind of robotic. It was, it had its function and all of that stuff. But then he, it was kind of lying in some shelf and he was not using it. It was like you know, collecting dust somewhere. And this is the case with like majority of people that I see here. So uh, when I, when I asked him what he does to eat today, so he will just, he would take a bottle, uh, a uh, Pepsi bottle and just cut it in half, a plastic bottle and cut it in half. He'll just insert that half on his stump and put one bend a spoon and just makeshift uh, sort of a spoon socket thingy and then you use that to eat. But he wouldn't do that in public. He would always eat at home. This is the kind of indigenous ingenious solutions that we need to think of rather than try to build a tech and kind of push it on people that badly use them. That's basically how our current line of product, the Crea Adaptive. The Crea Adaptive is basically a set of product, uh, set of attachment based uh, ecosystem of prosthetic hand. So this is the Kriya adapter. I'm just showing it.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker D: So basically the idea is that the user has to have the freedom to choose what activity they do. Right. So you, you have this cosmetic hand which is basically for my public appearance, going in public, going to meet someone, friends, going on a date, anything like that. Right. So you have a cosmetic arm that basically makes it easy for you to go out in public without getting stared at. And uh, we lot of people do feel the self conscious feelings about like people staring, looking, asking questions or like you know, showing sympathy. Those kind of things are not necessary. So just to generally avoid that having a cosmetic hand works. But then that is not the only solution people are looking for, people were looking to do other things also. So we have, we had, we designed this thing called ride assist. Ride assist basically allows somebody to driver and it's kind of, you know, you could just take it and that's it. A lot of people wanted because see if, if you have a demographic study, a majority of the amputee population in India would come under the maybe middle class, over middle class population. And uh, their primary mode of transportation would be two figures. And, and also not just for generally transportation but also livelihood depends on being able to travel and you know, go to places. If that is kind of hindered, their livelihood itself is hindered. And we thought okay, one of the best ways to create independence amongst this population would be to be able help them independently travel. Then we, we saw more and more things that came into need. So this is a um, gym assist. It helps somebody to do workouts, exercise, um, strength training, those kind of Things because I mean you, you do require some level of aspiration, some level of strength to maintain good health. And we also had a request to design something for swimming.

Speaker C: Yeah, okay, that's pretty cool.

Speaker D: So this is to swim. And so we have a bunch of things, we have something to eat, something to like, you know, write, use phones. There's a lot of different attachments. And we understood that this modular system actually helps people. The main reason why it helps them is that when you compare a prosthetic leg versus the prosthetic hand, a uh, leg has a very definite purpose. So you walk, you have to walk. And uh, even like you know, the walking prosthetic is not used to run. If you see there is a, there is a specific leg for running. Like if you would have seen the Blade Runner, right?

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker D: There's a specific rim for running and there's a specific rim for walking. But then with the prosthetic hand it is assumed that a one, one, one kind of one type oil solution is working. Like you know, that one robotic arm, you just put it on a person and they will be, they will be normal, which is not true. That's not going to happen anytime soon at least because there's a human behind that technique. There's a human that has to use that technology and that person can come from any background that person can come from, you know, that person can have stump strength or not have enough strength and m may not understand the technology and there's so many other factors that is to be considered and you know, you can't just make one tech and just push it on people without getting their opinion. The Kriya is perfect for everyone, but are open to customize it based on everyone's preferences and needs. That is the first part of the solution that we created.

Speaker C: Wow, you, you've been very busy since Salah spoke to you in 2021. You mentioned dating. I mean you did mention dating. I mean that be pretty cool. Give you something to talk about during the day obviously.

Speaker D: No, no, I mean uh, that has been kind of a primary request from.

Speaker C: What I'm trying to say is what's been the reaction like in public to this?

Speaker D: Um, like when I wear it or when.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, when you wear it. Yeah. And it's a general day to day. Do you still get stared at or obviously you're wearing a sleeve so people probably won't know but when they come, come up to you, speak to you, things like that?

Speaker D: No, no, I mean I think it has been quite positive to be very frank.

Speaker C: That's cool.

Speaker D: It has changed the way they see you, mainly because before when you, you know, when you walk around. So see, I. I am also big proponent of not wearing prosthetics all the time. Yeah, I sometimes just don't wear it. And I go in public with just my amputated hand free. Like, I wear a half shirt at go. I don't cover it up. I don't, you know, because I don't feel it's right of, like, you know, anyone to make me feel uncomfortable. If they feel uncomfortable, it is their problem, not mine.

Speaker C: Yeah, true.

Speaker D: It is something that they have to deal with. Uh, but I also sometimes just want to kind of go to a movie or go in public. But then when I wear the prosthetic, it kind of changes the demeanor of people. They're like, they look at it, but they look at it in, like, curiosity. They, hey, what is this? And a lot of people, actually, when, uh, I'm driving to Veer, especially a lot of people in the signal, they stop and they ask me, hey, what's that? It's pretty cool. And then they take photos. They treat me like a celebrity at some point. So that's, that's been cool.

Speaker C: How big's the team now?

Speaker D: We 10 now. We kind of got a little higher than we kind of reduced. So we, we have a bunch of designers and engineers, and then we also have. Operationally, we've hired a few people for, um, content and, uh, outreach, especially outreach, because. So that's a, That's a separate kind of problems that we're trying to solve now.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, from a CEO point of view, your role must have changed then. Are, uh, you more hands off now? You got a team of 10 people now, or you still hands on, as it were? Because obviously you're the product, as it were. So

Speaker D: I think I'm always getting hands on, literally. Especially like, you know, when, uh, when we talk about product. I really love being involved in the process of, uh, coming up with the ideas and designing, giving my inputs in the design, even if it is electronics or tech. I really want to be in the process at all points, but then I understand my limits and I kind of work with the team to ensure that the best possible, like, you know, solution is given.

Speaker A: Now.

Speaker D: I think in the last few months, or like, you know, at least, you know, around six to eight months, I have been mostly involved in the, um, the other side of the problem of this, like, not the product, but the distribution. So I'm, I'm trying to solve for distribution, solve for revenue. Uh, which is. Which is inherently like completely different game. Like, it's not the product. Games are much fun. I feel like. I feel like I'm inherently. I enjoy building, but I'm also kind of okay at selling because, um, I'm not actually selling. I just talk to the people and say that, see, I'm using it. If you want, you can get it and we'll see how it works. So I don't really sell. I'm just talking to them. But then it has worked quite well for me to sell this product.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker C: Cool. And how are sales coming along? Have you set yourself a target this year? Um, yeah, I was last year doing. Compared to this year or.

Speaker D: Yes, the last year, for the most part, it was the decision to pivot from Bionic to Kriya. That was our main. The entirety of last year was transition from the bionic arm to Korea hand. Because, uh, it was not an easy decision to make because we kind of. We had to convince our investors, we had to convince our, um, um, stakeholders, even ourselves for that matter, that, hey, this really seems like a good idea. Let us try to do that. Um, so the kind of nail in the coffin was last year we were invited to be on the Shark tank India Season 4. Uh, and in that we had to show a working, fully working good product that had potential. Right. So we decided to go with the Korea. Although we did show the bionic arm as well. Uh, we mainly focused on Kriya. Kind of a lot of inquiries came for it afterwards. So then we realized that, hey, you know what, this makes sense. Why don't we transition and continue Korea, Continue the Bionic R and D, um, on the back end. And until we are satisfied, let's not ship the bionic. Uh, so now we are shipping the Korea. We've been shipping it for the past eight months, six to eight months, and slowly moving, like, say from one to two a month to now like 10 to 15amonth. Um, we have about 50, uh, people who are our users right now for Korea. Like, you know, it's slowly increasing every month. So our target for this year is 350, 350 people. And the next year we're targeting like 500 users. So totally we have a target of thousand next week. By 2027, we want to target like, thousand amputees in India. Um, so yeah, there are some challenges, uh, like, you know, in the market that we're trying to address while we, like, you know, it's not just that Once we have a product, uh, we. That's what I thought. Once we make a kickass product and people are just going to swarm in and just buy that. That did not happen. Let's talk.

Speaker C: Talk about Shark Tank. I mean, that's absolutely huge around the world. What was it like when you got the email saying that you. You're going on the show?

Speaker D: No. So this was our second time applying. First time we got to the like, you know, in person interview and studio testing. And then I think they didn't select us to go to the next round. But then this time somehow everything went smoothly and, uh, they asked us to be on the show. And, um, it was really last minute. Like we had like less than two weeks to prepare everything. So we had to like, um, arrange a bunch of stuff, print a bunch of stuff, and even get our old employees into help us with certain work. And all of this while we were shifting our offices. Like a crazy time, really crazy time. And the shoot was in Mumbai. I'm in Chennai. So we had, I took. We had to take our entire team to Mumbai and kind of. We got them like, you know, settled there in a, uh, hostel so that they could keep working and keep being there to support if anything was needed. But yeah, the show was, uh, really good. Show went really well. Uh, we got a grant from Adani Foundation. So we met Jeet Adani, who's the, like, you know, now the spokesperson for Adani Foundation. And he, he actually like, you know, agreed to support us with a, uh, one crore rupee grant distributed 2,000 people, thousand amputees. And uh, so we, we got the first tranche and we started. Now we've used that to start distributing to a lot of people, which has been amazing. And we also kind of on the show, we won, uh, a check from Nami Tha Thapar. Uh, that was for 40 racks. And uh, but that didn't pan out afterwards. After a lot of back and forth, I think we with technologies walked away. Both of us have walked away. So, uh, we're not going ahead with that investment. M. Uh, luckily, like, you know, after that, uh, just this year in March, uh, February, March, we had another event called Startup Singham. I don't know if you heard about Startup Single. So it's a Tamil version of Shark Tank India. So Startup Singham is basically same, same format, CIT modified and all of that, but it's specifically in Tamil. And, uh, we went on that and we won, uh, investment of two crores.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker D: From about six, seven investors.

Speaker C: Okay. That's Pretty cool. Just uh, going back to Shark Tank. Then what was it like? You know, five minutes before that you were gonna go on air. You must have been really nervous, excited the chance to pitch your idea in front of millions of people around the world.

Speaker D: So I was actually nervous. I will be honest, I am not very good at uh, stage and stuff. So it was a little nerve wracking. Definitely something that uh, I was just scared where I will mess up because I know that I might mess up when I'm nervous. Um, Niranjan on the other hand was super calm. For some reason both of us hadn't slept for like three days. So I don't know, uh, maybe that helped. Just getting, just before the going in, my throat started itching like crazy and I was feeling like, oh no, I'm done. We are uh, somehow uh, we powered through and the initial, that two minute pitch is the most important right where you, when you get in you have to do this 2 minute continuous presenting and then only they'll start ask questions. So that two minutes they prepare you really well. Like how, okay, present not like prepare but like they tell you how to, what to say, what to not say and kind of where to keep your hands and those kind of things which is just general camera sense. So I kept that in mind. I was just like very slightly robot, uh, just robotically. I just did everything that was in my brain and that went really well. But then I started uh, having this dry throat and then I kept drinking water and it was like during the shoot I felt that I was just a mess. But then when it came out it, it kind of came out well. I don't think there was um, some things that I didn't want like you know, I felt like was not necessary questions, uh, during the shoot. You know, they didn't actually put it so those were kind of good.

Speaker C: As someone who's now the expert in pitching then what advice would you give our uh, startup, our uh, listeners then, ah, who, who are in the process of pitching to like an investor or customers even based on your experience in,

Speaker D: in the Shark Tank, I think um, I think investors really want to invest in people who know their stuff like, who really understand the market and the product. Not just one aspect of it but like holistically. And they also want to learn. I think a lot of good, very good investors want to learn, um, a lot. Like when and when you go there with this idea that you know, let us, we are going to have a good discussion about the product, about the market, about this Industry and not just to like, you know, seek money. You know, I think this sense of desperation that I need money, uh, kind of devalues the pitch itself because, like, you know, like this five minute pitch and two minute pitch, all of these things kind of devalue the conversation because end of the day, it is a conversation. It's like what we are having right now, Neil. Like, I think end of this podcast, if you are an investor, I would want you to understand this kind of business and what we do really well. So I would try to explain to you my perspective of how I see things and also try to understand how you see it, because that's also equally important. As an investor. If I don't understand or if I refuse to see how you see and if I refuse to, uh, take your criticism, uh, accept your criticism, I think those are some big red flags. I have learned to do that now. I have learned to ask a lot of questions to the investors as well and not just take in all the questions and also kind of stay strong where I feel strong and also kind of present where I think that they are right. Those kind of balance is really helpful, has been really helpful, uh, for me to grow as a founder. Because a lot of investors are not out there to get you. It's not a zero sum. It's not that they want to destroy you or hurt you or anything. They are just people who want to invest and get a return but also be part of something cool. You are building something cool. So if it's a good match, it's a good match. And if you go with that mindset, I think a lot of nervousness and kind of eases up, like you're just going there for a talk. It's not, uh, it's not a, uh, viva in your college that it's not,

Speaker B: it's not an interrogation.

Speaker D: Yeah, I think most of the first time founders treat investment pitches as interrogation or viva, rather than a, uh, friendly discussion with some, with peers. And that kind of affects the way they get perceived, I think. And also breaks the uh, tone in how you converse with people. I think that is a big, big problem.

Speaker C: I watched the, um, startup, Startup Singham on YouTube. Uh, the judge said, I quote, you gave people a second life. What an amazing thing to say and what an amazing thing to do. I mean, how does that make you feel?

Speaker D: Amazing, actually. Um, one of the judges in Startup Singham was an investor in our company already. Uh, he had funded us like two years before the Startup Singham episode aired. And so I kind of and the fact that he came back and reinvested shows the kind of trust in the vision that we have. I think, I think that was. That was by far more. More meaningful to us than anything else. Like, you know, the fact that he chose to reinvest because, you know, that kind of shows other investors also that, you know, these guys are in the right direction. I. I feel like the startups in episode was more relaxed maybe because we already experienced Shark Tank. We felt like, you know, we felt like, oh, we have some experience this during this. But also the questions and the discussions were really, really natural. Like very. It's very organic and naturally flowed. And um, we were also kind of more mature in that one year, like when we went into the market, when we tried to sell the product. So a lot of experience we had gained. So I think that helped us, uh, really, uh, well, we could have done a few things better. Like I think the. We are always not very good at negotiating equities and valuations, so we could have done that better. We could have had those conversations in a more mature manner. But then I think rest of the things went quite well.

Speaker C: One of the duties was worried about scaling.

Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, I think, uh, the bigger challenge was, I think her, her point of view came from Aparna ma'. Am. She. She came from this perspective, which makes sense that uh, you've been. So we've been alive since 2019 and we have. Back then during, during the shoot we had like less than 2025 active users Number was not making sense to her. Like she was worried how are we going to take this 20 to 20,000 or whatever number that we target. Right. So that was one question in our mind. The, the answer for that was that the, as I already told you, like last year is when we started transitioning from the Bionicom to Korea and then now is the when we are trying to actually actively uh, bring this product out. So that transition took some time and now we are understanding the market better and we are able to deploy on a weekly basis. So the numbers are going to progressionally increase.

Speaker B: Talk about the market, how's that changed

Speaker C: since we last spoke?

Speaker D: I would say the main thing that has changed is our understanding of it rather than the market itself. Um, because when we started a lot of our data had been through secondary research, like available data online, uh, case studies, or maybe even there were some surveys done by the government itself. Uh, census survey. Right. We understood that this data was not to be trusted. So we had to just extrapolate from it based on our own assumptions. The problem was that there was no consolidated um, data of upper limb amputees anywhere. Like how many amputees are there type of amputation do they have like, you know, are they using prosthetics? None of this data is available. Nobody's collecting it and even if they do, I don't think they're sharing it. So there is no proper mechanism to have disability based census data in India right now. And which is a big challenge if you want to do any, you know, large scale implementation of policies in disability, any, any disability based policies. If you want to implement without this data, you can't do that. So imagine like a startup, startup like ours when we go raise money that how do you tell what is your market size? Uh, next to impossible. Right. So this was one problem. The second set of problem is that a lot of users or a lot of entities don't know we exist. And they're all distributed. They're also very unaware about what exists out there, uh, about the kind of policies that are there for them. So there's a lot of issues that that was, that is, that exists in this domain. Right. Very few people you can reach through online marketing. The majority of this, you wouldn't find them online. There are like these set of challenges that we were facing when we started deploying. Right. How do you find people? That is the crux of the problem. Like how do you find them? Um, one way obviously has been always helped is through social media. Like you know when Shark Tank released, when startup Singham released, when some of our users put off videos, we get a lot of inbound, um, outreaches. Like people just start reaching out to us. So that has helped quite a lot. So we are focusing on that where we do like this B2C space of outreaching and reaching, connecting with people and deploying them. But that that number is not very consistent. So we wanted some way to make this into a process where we can scale this to a lot of people. Um, so one way that we did is um, we work with community coordinators mostly. This would be part of nonprofits or NGOs that are working in this different regions in the disability sector. So we partner with these NGOs, we ask them to organize like a sort uh, of an assessment camps in rural villages. Uh, we've done like some 10 camps till date, 15 camps till date where we uh, invite the people with amputation to our, to a single, you know, common space and we kind of talk to them, we assess their needs, we scan their Stumps and do all the. We are building our own database basically and then um, so a part of them buy from us directly. A part of them, they. We are raising CSR corporate CSR funds supported our. So the idea is that once they get this kit they are able to regain their livelihood and they can go back to work and they can kind of start earning. And um, also kind of if they want more attachments or they want in the future, they can buy it themselves. So that is the general plan. Yeah.

Speaker C: That's pretty cool. Last time we spoke to you, there's no such thing as AI or I don't think AI existed back then. Um, what, what are your thoughts on AI? Um, how, how are you using it?

Speaker D: Everything. Everything. I think everything. I think my huge.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker D: Yes. My days have like ah, 60% of M. My day. I, My work day would be spent like you know using Claude amplifies the amount of work I can do in a day. Yeah, yeah, that's, that's what I have seen. And um, I, you know it's not just like my work but I'm also able to kind of improve the efficiency of the team itself like to maybe from content creation to uh, organizing operations and even like things like generating invoices. You don't need an individual, you don't need to hire somebody to do that anymore. You don't need to hire an individual to manage your finances. So these are things that in AI can do now. So we're trying to kind of optimize on those things because it's definitely wonderful tool for a startup. I also saw that in between I was getting over Reliant and I stopped thinking which was not good.

Speaker C: Stop using your brain.

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, I stopped using my brain. Yeah, that's the main part of Switch works well so I didn't want to do that. And uh, so I'm trying to build a balance and uh, see where exactly is it needed. Um, and uh, one of the things that we are building internally is also to use AI to automatically qualify, disqualify inbounds or like you know, scan. So once we have a scan data to auto design a CAD model for the socket which could be like used as the first draft which would reduce the number of hours that an engineer has to take to design the final. So if it takes in three hours it could be done in maybe 15 to 20 minutes. Like you know, some small minor changes that they can do on the uh, AI generated model. So this is something that is an internal experiment that we are running and it's pretty possible today because of how advanced the AI has become. Some of the other things that we saw was we used to feel like a lot of tech was inaccessible. What I mean is like doing hardware and electronics, uh, felt very inaccessible to me, who's not in from that domain. And, and I think that that barrier to entry has been kind of like, you know, removed.

Speaker B: Another hot day in Chennai.

Speaker D: Yes. Super hot.

Speaker B: Super hot.

Speaker D: Oh God.

Speaker B: Uh, I'll have to visit, I'll have to come and visit you guys, you know, sometimes.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: In the middle of winter. In the middle of the UK winter.

Speaker A: I mean. Yeah, I mean even then it would be hot here for you.

Speaker B: You've had a great entrepreneurial journey so far. Uh, any advice for our first time founders then? What should they be focusing on, you think?

Speaker A: I think for the first time founders, uh, in today's entrepreneurial world, everything seems to be very easy to do with AI and QR and everything. Right. You can just build anything you want. But then that is also a problem because, you know, life without constraints is endless, like, you know, feedback, endless loop of doing whatever. Figuring out what to do would be much more efficient than trying and doing everything. And I think that is, that is one of the few things that we have also learned is instead of putting our energies on, um, doing a lot of things inadequately, getting one thing really, really right has made a lot of impact for us.

Speaker B: I thought it's persistence, Persistence as well. That's important as well for any.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker B: You've done that, haven't you've gone through the high, the highs and lows as it were. So.

Speaker A: I know, absolutely. I mean we, I have seen, I have seen people shift from one thing to another so quick. Like if just because of like, you know, very, very scarce signals of like, you know, not working out, they just jump to another idea. Another, like, you know, they just pivot so easy. Uh, I am not against pivoting. We pivoted from bionic to Korea. But then that was a lot of thinking before behind that, like, you know. Yeah, I mean, I think you need to be very persistent.

Speaker C: M. Persistence is the key.

Speaker B: Definitely. Talk about your co founder. Who is he? How do you guys meet?

Speaker A: Niranjan and I, we met in ninth grade. So like both of us, uh, like, you know, kind of traveled across uh, like, you know, because of our parents being transferred everywhere. So.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker A: But yeah, then somehow we both settled in Chennai in 9th grade and then we were just in the same school ever since. And uh, like we're just Cool friends. And he was doing his engineering, uh, masters in Italy when this happened to me. And he was out back here in Chennai for vacations like we were actually. We've had a lot of. In fact, he's the one who also introduced me to a lot of these entrepreneurs and Elon Musk and this and that. You know, he used to talk a lot about wanting to build something. Timbuyanik became that thing that we built together, um, just as a sort of an accident.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: We all first ever impressions of him then.

Speaker A: Oh, uh, no. I mean, in this, in school it was, uh, he was a bully. Yeah, he used to beat up everyone. But then also like, you know, he used like, you know, at least when that was not the case, we used to have a lot of fun talking about what's happening in the world, what's happening in the, like, innovation space. And he always wanted to be an engineer. I guess. So, yeah. I think, uh, he did pursue that as a, like, as a natural course of his education. And now he's, he's leading engineering at Symbionic. And I think, uh, um, a lot of what we discussed do kind of seeps in when he's working.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: So give me some examples then of someone who's used this then. I know you posted something on LinkedIn.

Speaker A: We've come a long way since our previous.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Podcast. Right. Where, uh, it was just sort of a seed of an idea. Yeah. Now there are people actively using it and when I say using it, I'm seeing the product in very important parts of their lives. We deployed our Kriya to, to an individual. She was getting married in a couple of days and uh, she only got to know us like very recently. So we did not have an idea that, oh, yeah, she's getting married and all of that stuff. Uh, but when we got. There was very small time between, you know, her getting the hand. And basically the way it happened is that on the morning of her wedding, we. Early morning at 3 o', clock, 4 o', clock, my team reached her place and delivered the hand.

Speaker C: Wow.

Speaker A: So. And because she wanted to get married with the hand, that is, that was a really important thing for her. And we also understood how important that is. So we, I mean it was. The team worked through the weekend and overnight and somehow made it happen. And uh, I think she was really happy and it really showed how, how happy she was having that like, that feeling of like, uh, okay, I can get married. And this could be just about the wedding and nobody would be talking about anything else. So, so the photos, if you see it's really hard to pinpoint if she's wearing a person.

Speaker B: Yeah, I um, zoom in on it.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think that was the main part here because it was not about the hand itself. It was not about Symbionic or Kriya or anything. It was just her wanting to be at her own wedding and not think about what others are going to say. I think that was the most important part. We were barely even a footnote. That's how we want to exist in everyone's lives.

Speaker B: Those people who didn't listen to last podcast. It was six years ago. Um, how did you lose your arm?

Speaker A: Um, I used to work in the development sector. I used to work for a non profit while trying to build my own startup Tungsten. I used to travel a lot and in one of my travels to Pondicherry from Chennai, I was going in a bus. Unfortunately the bus uh, crashed with another uh, vehicle that was trying to overtake it. And in that, in that impact my right hand got crushed. Doctors were not uh, not uh, able to recover my right hand and they had to amputate it to save my life. And this happened in 2018 uh, of September. This, this year would mark eight years of that incident.

Speaker C: Wow.

Speaker A: Um, yeah. And, and we started Symbionic in 2019 of uh, October. So it was like around a year.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Is anyone you want to thank?

Speaker A: Um, I um, mean so like at this point the list is really really long. I can't actually uh, like you know from the first person uh, who, who kind of like was just like very accidentally he was like somebody I used to work with in for you know my previous startup that was adempting, I used to work with this guy, he had his own company and uh, he uh, in fact he's the one who introduced us to the incubator in Vit. He said hey, why don't you come with us. I just talked to you, introduce you to the Vit incubation. Um, and that's basically how we got the first grant and like you know the Vit incubating incubation team, Bagasar who gave us our initial support and then lots of other people who keep, who've kept us alive during this journey. Because as a uh, company in the assistic domain and as first time founders it was really hard to always be positive and upbeat about what we were doing because every time uh, when we were low on funds or low on energy and even sometimes just go on. People we would think, is this worth moving forward with? And there was always someone who would say yes, please do. And that kind of gave us our second breath. So I think I have to say there's a lot of people who have to thank and I, I'm like whoever is listening, thank you so much for um, you know, bringing us where we are.

Speaker B: Awesome stuff. Last question then. For people who want more information on you and Symbionic, uh, what must they do?

Speaker A: You can find us on www.Symbionic.co and you can just uh, there is a form if you want a product details, uh, or just a demo. Otherwise you can also just email us or just Google Symbionic and you'll find a lot more details about who we are, what we do. There's an episode on Shark Tank India and uh, that you can find on the YouTube so just search for Sapanic Shark Tank and you know exactly what we do and what we are burning.

Speaker B: Awesome stuff.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker B: Rishi, thank you for coming on the show today. Hopefully we'll catch up soon. Appreciate that.

Speaker C: Thank you very much.

Speaker D: Yeah, thanks Neil.