Richard Boyd is a tech entrepreneur and expert on AI, machine learning, virtual worlds, computer gaming, and human/computer interfaces. He is the co-founder and CEO of AI and machine learning company Tanjo AI, and the co-founder and CEO of Ultisim Inc., a simulation learning company that utilizes gaming technology and AI. Richard and his team work with a wide variety of industries including energy, healthcare, defense, education, and motion pictures.
Richard has been instrumental in creating several pioneering computer gaming companies including Red Storm Entertainment with author Tom Clancy; iRock Entertainment with Ozzy Osbourne; and Timeline Computer Entertainment with author Michael Crichton. Richard used his expertise in 3D simulation and animation to help movie directors James Cameron, Brian dePalma, Peter Weir, and Sydney Pollack.
Before co-founding Tanjo and Ultisim, Richard co-founded 3Dsolve—a VR and simulation company that included investments from LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and MIT Media Lab Director Joichi Ito. A few years later, Lockheed Martin acquired 3Dsolve. At Lockheed Martin, Richard created and led innovative engineers and designers across all mission areas called Virtual World Labs.
Richard co-authored a best-selling industry-leading book on Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) technologies, called The Virtus VRML Toolkit.
What is Tanjo all about?
I left Lockheed Martin to form Tanjo because of the exciting new developments we were seeing in machine learning by 2014. We saw a deep, still largely unrecognized need, for companies and individuals to achieve a new balance between human and machine effort and intelligence. Tanjo helps individuals, companies, organizations and governments strike that balance to optimize outcomes. We really feel that anyone who is not carefully looking through all of their activities to decide what to turn over to machines and what to keep in the human domain will soon not only not be competitive, but will become irrelevant.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company?
I am a serial entrepreneur who has worked in computer gaming, the film industry, aerospace and general computer software development. This diverse background gives my team and I have a unique perspective on problem solving using existing and emerging technologies. Having already sold two companies before, including the last one to Lockheed Martin, I was somewhat “retired in place” at Lockheed in my role as Director of Virtual World Labs. But the new promise of machine learning caused me to once more launch into the rough landscape of startups to raise money and see what we could build around ML to make a big positive impact on the world.
What was the biggest problem you encountered with your business and how did you overcome it?
Better too early than too late
The classic problem I have encountered several times in my career is getting excited about a new or emerging technology and rapidly building a company around it before the market was ready, or even knew what it was. In the first two years of Tanjo we were holding workshops and seminars for large companies like Cisco, Cigna and Lenovo trying to get them to understand this pressing existential need they didn’t know they had yet, to create a machine learning practice in their business to automate processes, harness organizational knowledge and generally amplify the intelligence of their workforce.
Like many technologies, it is already retrospectively obvious that machine learning and AI are critical technologies, or will become so, in every company. After raising the initial money for the company, we had to weather the market education period and survive long enough to be ready when the market finally took off.
What were the top mistakes you made starting your business and what did you learn from it?
Even though this is my fifth startup, I still made the classic errors of starting too early and raising too little capital. In many ways, these too obstacles are related. If you recognize the promise f a new technology, but the investment community and markets don’t yet have it on the radar, it is difficult to convince investors to place their bets. Investors have the same need for education that markets do before they spend money. This can be difficult and costly to any startup. But for me it is also a familiar scenario so I knew to spend time looking for the most likely investors first and focusing attention there.
What is one thing that you do daily to grow as an entrepreneur?
Network.
Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn and sage of Sand Road, taught me early on that networking is critical. He urged us to move our company formation business to Silicon Valley just to ensure our ideas would be heard and to strengthen our networking. Of course, I have ignored that advice and stayed selfishly here in North Carolina, arguing that the Internet compresses space and time (and energy) so it shouldn’t matter where I live or where my company is headquartered. This geographic remove, though, means that I have to spend a little time every day maintaining, strengthening, and adding to my network of very smart people who can help me connect to customers, think through ideas, and fund those ideas.
I spend time on LinkedIn (I am among the first 1,000 users) but really spend more time on the phone and zoom calls and seeking speaking engagements and conferences to network.
What are three books or courses you recommend for new entrepreneurs?
I mentioned Reid Hoffman already. His avatar sort of sits on my shoulder whispering in my ear throughout the day, influencing the majority of the decisions I make. His books The Startup of You and his podcast mastersofscale.com should be required of anyone who hopes to be an entrepreneur.
On my other shoulder is Joichi Ito, who also invested in my last company and was the director of the MIT media lab. His book Whiplash and any of his online talks should be pored over by anyone who wants to survive the faster future of startups.
What is the one thing you wish you knew before starting your business?
At this point in my career, I feel pretty well informed about all of the slings and arrows and obstacles confronting me when I start a new venture. If I could go back to when I formed my first startup alone (3dvillage) in 1999 it would be to better understand how to negotiate investment deals that don’t unnecessarily hamper or dilute the founders and permit future growth. I know now that choosing an investment partner is like marriage. You don’t just engage with the first adoring suitor; you have to be intentional and thoughtful about what the right match is for you. Who will stick with you through thick and thin, for better or worse?
What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business?
I have always employed public relations and public speaking to engage with both markets and investors. Establishing a thought leadership position and evangelizing the message of my venture has proven to be the highest price performance revenue generator for every business I have created. One of my early investments after recruiting lots of people smarter than me to join my venture, is in hiring a PR firm and getting on as many stages and podcasts and conferences as possible to get the word out. A website, advertising, SEO and email campaigns are woefully insufficient.
If you only had $1000 dollars to start a new startup, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
If I only had $1,000, the first thing I would do is spend it testing the relevance and importance of my idea in social media in a way that highly targets the people with whom I would like to engage. The biggest mistake most entrepreneurs make is building something in stealth mode and launching it without that feedback loop from customers and investors who will tell you if you really have a good idea. Or not.
What’s your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?
My advice for any aspiring entrepreneur is to surround yourself with high-quality mentors. Heed their advice, but remember that you are creating your own reality, so you have to follow your passion and the feedback loop with your customers. Also, make sure your family, spouse, etc. are bought in on what you are about to do and understand the difficult road ahead.
What is your favorite quote?
I have two: “The future is already here, it is just unevenly distributed” -William Gibson My career has been seeing that future already created at some nodal point, and building teams to spread it to larger audiences.
The second is “Perspective is worth 80 IQ points” – Alan Kay I always seek diverse opinions and seek to build diverse teams. If you only have one perspective on your team you are missing IQ points – an inexcusable error in the Information Age.
- Slack
- Zoom
- Cloud computing and storage services
How is running a tech company different than what you thought it would be?
The most frustrating thing about creating emerging technology companies is the sheer wall of resistance to innovation that I see in investors and markets. It is painful when you are seeing something so clearly, but decision makers in government, commercial markets, and elsewhere refuse to even look at it because they are so focused on their monthly or quarterly results. I created a whiteboard video describing technology innovation as being like child birth.
How can readers get in touch with you?
I am reasonably active on Twitter (@Metaversial) and LinkedIn. Those tabs are usually open. I also have a site where I give advice to my new-born, (nowgrowing) son at deardylan.com
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