Andrew: Before we get started, I want to tell you about my three sponsors. The first is Richwp.com. And I’ll tell you more about them in weeks to come. For now, I just want you to know that for WordPress themes, they’ve got robust options that will let you adjust and to customize them in ways that you couldn’t imagine if you’re in WordPress. You haven’t seen anything like this before. I’ll tell you more about them later. Next, I want to tell you a little bit about Grasshopper. And a little bit, because you probably, if you’re an entrepreneur, know about Grasshopper. All entrepreneurs, I think, need to know about Grasshopper. And most do. That’s where you go to get a robust phone system that’s going to make you look like a Fortune 500 Company, a Fortune 10 Company. That’s the kind of professionalism that you’re going to get for your company if you work with Grasshopper. And finally, Shopify.com. You’ve heard so many interviews here on Mixergy with entrepreneurs who created stores that were profitable. And they used those profits to fund a bigger and bigger business. You don’t need venture capital if you can build a successful store. And Shopify.com helps you do that. And by the way, as you know Timothy Farris announced that there’s a $100,000 contest for the best store. I’m going to link you over to his blog post, so you get to see how the contest works. But, whether you’re doing it for the 100,000 or not, doesn’t matter to me. I just want you to go out there and create a store. Because even if you don’t win $100,000, you’re going to learn. You’re going to bring in revenue. You’re going to get an understanding of how to build a store online. And that’s what’s most important to me. That you build a business, successful business online so you can leave your mark on the world. OK. There it is. Here’s my interview.Andrew: Hey, everyone. It’s Andrew Warner. I’m the founder of Mixergy.com, Home of the Ambitious Upstart. And you guys know, I’m fascinated by business. I’m fascinated by what brings two businesses together. I’m fascinated why they, why partnerships break apart. I want to learn as much as possible. And I got a guy here behind one of the most interesting stories in business right now. Chandra, if I’m mispronouncing your name, like I told you before, jump in and help me clarify it. It’s Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan. True?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: That’s pretty cool. Yeah. You did pretty good.
Andrew: Can you pronounce it? Let’s hear how you say it.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: It’s Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan.
Andrew: Ah, all right. I’m going to go by Chandra. He is the man behind what’s called the Joo-joo. And what used to be, for the longest time, known as the CrunchPad. Michael Arrington, awhile back, had an idea for a tablet computer that he can sit on the couch and watch, and watch TV, I guess. And look on the internet. And he partnered up with you to create the CrunchPad, right? Actually, why don’t you tell me? How you first connect with TechCrunch?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Ah, Fusion Garage was founded in 2008, February 2008, with the express intention of creating a web browser operating system, a browser operating system. And in June of that year, Michael Arrington wrote an article suggesting that the world is going to be filled with browser operating systems. And he wanted to build a cheap tablet that would, that would enable that vision to come true. So we, and it looked to me that we had a shared vision, so I decided we’d talk to him during TechCrunch 15, September of 2008, where I met him for the first time. Ah, he expressed a lot of interest in what we were doing, and met him again in December, where he suggested that he wanted a quieter company, and worked with us in relation to getting this to market.
Andrew: So you were, you were going to create a pad anyway, before you ever met up with Michael Arrington?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: That’s right.
Andrew: OK. What was your business before, before Fusion Garage? What were you up to?
Chandrasekar-Rathakrishnan: Well, I had another start-up that I started out to fund in 2001, which was called Radix. And it focused on mobile operating systems that could get the power of the PC on hand-held devices. I had a [10 in 1] operating systems [rushed] and US, and [venture] funding, grew a two man foundation to a 35-man team, commercial, mobile operating, and device manufacturers. And one of the speaking highlights was getting into all things digital was is meant by [xx Harris Fisher] in 2004. Then it was Radix.
Andrew: When I heard about the vision behind Radix was that you wanted to get PC desktop level apps on mobile devices.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: You done your homework. Yes, yes, it was the express invention. I mean, we had an operating system that could give the power of PC on hand-held devices. So, what that meant was we had a client-installed operating system that could allow you to run a full Windows application, Java, Linux application on hand-held devices without any [reprogramming] required. So, you can have Microsoft Word on your hand-helds without any difference in performance nor having to rewrite a line of code.
Andrew: But I wouldn’t have to actually install it on my mobile device. I would only just access it off your servers.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yes, that’s right.
Andrew: OK. By the way. All right. That makes sense. What I was going to ask you is, you don’t seem nervous at all that TechCrunch’s lawyers might be watching you right now. That they’re all eyeing you like hawks.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: When you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to be afraid of. We own the IPs
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: We own all the designs and There’s nothing for us to fear,when we know that we own all of that, so, it doesnt concern me
Andrew: What happened with Radix
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: So Radix from its way is a dozen millionaire finding convista is the provider of operator device manufacturer,we never had revenues, because we never had our revenues, we never had fundings, we had to basically sell the technology and move ahead with other plans
Andrew: So the thing just didnt work out.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: yes
Andrew: you pretty much lost the money, like a lot of entrepreneurs, you had to pickup the pieces and start over.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yes, thats right,i mean, the good news is we had a technology, so we could sell the technology when the business was doing bad and we ran out of money, yes and the investors who invested in Radix, most of them came on board with Fusion Garage as well.
Andrew: OK, Which investors have come on board with Fusion Garage ?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: I am not naming names, but investors who were involved in Radix have co invested in Fusion Garage as well
Andrew: But you can’t name the names of investors you have
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yes, i am not the person
Andrew: Can you say how much money you raised for Fusion Garage?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: 3 million USD has been raised for Fusion Garage and we ofcourse have another funding that we’ll anounce very short.
Andrew: Wow!! Can you say from what kind of company you are gonna raise the money ?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Well yeah,we have…i am not going into the details, but we have a corporate that is involved in the entire value chain of manufacturings, supply chain, distribution, what’s come on board from investors etc etc..
Andrew: So, you decided that you are going to launch Fusion Garage, you got back with your old investors, you cannot say who they are and the idea was you were going to launch a tablet PC. What got you to want a tablet.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: The idea was not a tablet PC, idea was to build a browser operating system, that could go on with N number of devices, tablets being one of them
Andrew: I see, okay where did the idea come from ?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Well , i mean my background is operating system, my first company was a mobile operating system company, while working on that mobile operating system company, there were certain intrigutions i was guided by, one of which is, what Morgan Regan said during his netscape days, where he said, if netscape could be on its own without the need for windows, then the world that we might be seeing right now could be different, i think that thought stuck in my head and when Radix went away we got stuck and i got studded and i asked myself what i wanted to work on. Browser operating system was something exciting and something very contextual, relevant and i think timing was perfect, because most people todays spend most of the time on web doing “n” number of things. So that was the inspiration and thats how it got started from there. The problem of Radix was, we were 5 years ahead of time, the good thing with Fusion garage is,i think timing is providing infrastructure being in place and people are understanding that we do lot of things on the web
Andrew: Okay, Were you looking to build a hardware too or just a software originally?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yeah, that was part of the plans
Andrew: You were not going to actually manufacture yourself, but to partner up with other companies
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: That was the original intention, so the Plan A was to license the OS, then we had a Plan B which is basically to build a hardware and get the OS in it and have an integrated product out on the market. So we had two plans and we were pursuing both the kinds at the same time.
Andrew: Okay, and how far long were you, when Michael harrington wrote that blog posting said so, “We are going to create tablet on our own ” ?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: We were far enough from being interested in wanting acquirers, which mean we had a working prototype.
Andrew: You had a working prototype, when he had the blog post out.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: yeah, thats true.
Andrew: Wow!! and what do the working prototype look like ?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: We basically had an operating system, that basically does, or which had the foundations of what you see today. What ever you see, the foundations of that in a very raw form was available, if i can remember by September 2008
Andrew: Daryl told me that, the PR person told me that you would have the joo joo web what we were talking about in front of video, Do you have it with you?
Interviewee: Yes
Andrew: So We are looking at here, or what we are about to look at, this is essentially what you had, when Michael harrington, not with the same design necessarily, but this essentially you had when Michael harrington wrote the blog post saying that “We are going to create tablet on our own ”
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: No, Well, we had the OS software previously, while Michael Harrington wrote, we hadn’t made the hardware.
Andrew: Okay, so what did the OS do at the time, How robust was it ?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: As i said, it was robust enough to show all the use cases that you see is played in a raw form.
Andrew: So you could youtube videos, you could browse the web, you could do video skype chat
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: and all of that, yes
Andrew: and all of that it was already there
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: How did you and Michael harrington hook up?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: We went to Tech Crunch 50 in September 2008 which is a conference organized by him where start ups launch. We were there. We showed him what we had and he was excited by it. We had a couple of conversations after that and then we met again in December where he offered to acquire the company.
Andrew: So you actually went there…you went there to meet him or you went there because you just to be there because everyone needs to be at Tech Crunch 50?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Well I don’t think everyone needs to be at Tech Crunch 50. I think it’s a great forum if you want to get introduced to different people. I think we had two intentions. One was to meet as many people as we can, both from a general consumer perspective, people in the industry, VC’s. Just to get feedback on what we were doing and see if we were on the right track. Kind of like get feedback on where we were and use that to improvise what we were doing. That was one intention. The second intention was to meet up with Michael.
Andrew: Okay. And did you say that you walked in there with the device to show people?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yes. We walked in there with a net book kind of device that basically ran our OS.
Andrew: Who manufactured the net book device?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: It was an off-the-shelf device that we used to show the power of what we could do with OS.
Andrew: Do you remember the brand, the make of it?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yeah, I do but I don’t think it’s worth going into those details right now.
Andrew: Okay. All right. Guys –
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Let me just put it this way. We had several net books that we were working on at that point in time that we show to Amazon. The usual suspects.
Andrew: Okay. And what was his original reaction to it?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: As I said, I think I had him at “hallo”. I mean the most important thing was he was excited by what he saw and he wanted to…he offered to buy the company for what we had created and wanted to use –
Andrew: You’re talking about the day he met you, he got so excited that he wanted to acquire the company?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: The day he met me he mentioned that already, yes.
Andrew: Wow. Wow. Okay. And what did you think at the time?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Oh, I thought it was exciting. I thought it was exciting. I thought he could…I had a previous start up called so I had gone through the experience of raising money and gone through the experience of building a company from two man foundership to a 35 man team. So I knew how to get that done. It’s not something that was alien to me. But being able to partner someone like Michael obviously brought his own set of patronages and excitement. And I think that was something that we were definitely interested to explore. And that’s exactly why we did what we did.
Andrew: And there’s stars in this space. In the tech space there are people who are celebrities who to us are just as famous and just as exciting as Paris Hilton must be to some people. So when you first met Michael Arrington did you feel any of those feelings?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Well, I think…well, I do not think I was fazed by the celebrity status. I think I was a reader of his blog and I was excited by his writing and I could see what he could do with Tech Crunch. But I did not…I certainly did not equate him to a celebrity of Paris Hilton’s stature, as an example. I’m not even sure that’s a fair comparison. But I think he obviously…well, I would say that he obviously has a lot of influence with his writing and I think the…we were very clear that the possibilities that we could derive by working with him could be exciting. And I think that’s exactly why we went down the path of wanting to discuss acquisition and all of that.
Andrew: And so you were actually interested in a possible acquisition? You weren’t just looking at a partnership. You thought at some point down the road, Michael Arrington will acquire my company, I’ll have an exit that’s high profile?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Not “some time down the road”. During the meeting itself he suggested he wanted to acquire the company. And then basically the whole foundation of the relationship was based on a potential acquisition happening within a short time frame, which we know didn’t happen. Which we know dragged on for 12 months and where we felt none of the promises given to us was kept. And we did all the work and we gave him an offer that we thought it was exciting for him but wouldn’t have given him the majority control that he wanted. And unfortunately, he turned down that offer in the most disappointing fashion.
Andrew: What kind of – we’ll get to that, the most disappointing fashion. What kind of offer for buyout was he talking about? Was he going to give you cash for your business? Was he going to create a new company and then give you a share of this new company? Was he going to give you a share of the parent company of Tech Crunch?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Well, I’m not going to go into details. I don’t think it’s fair for me to go into details right now. But I would say that the acquisition deal would have been no different from any of the acquisition deals that you’re seeing out in the market. And it could have involved cash or shares or it could just have been shares, as an example. So I’m not going to go into specifics but the acquisition is no different from what you see happening in the industry these days.
Andrew: What most people do is they have a company, they acquire another company, they give shares of the existing company to the people who they’re buying out. Or they give them cash or a combination of both. But it sounds from what I’ve read or seen from your statements that this was going to be a brand new company that you would get shares of.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Crunch Pad.
Andrew: Right. Crunch Pad Inc.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yeah.
Andrew: Okay, and so that’s, that’s what you were moving towards from the very beginning.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yeah, I mean TechCrunch was leading the discussions so, TechCrunch was the one behind all of this.
Andrew: Okay, alright, and so, you guys obviously can’t make the deal happen right away. What did you agree, how did you agree to continue the relationship from there?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: We continued discussing the, the acquisitions throughout the time that we were in discussions. But having said that, we are a corp, we are a company, we’re a startup. We can’t base a company around acquisition, you know what I mean. We had to do what we had to do. We pursued what we thought was required to get us market and we tried until the very last minute to try to make a deal happen. It just didn’t.
Andrew: But the only way that you were going to release the CrunchPad was if they bought you out. It wasn’t as a partnership, two separate companies releasing one product and eventually doing a deal afterwards for an acquisition. You thought, acquire first, sell the, release the product second.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Well, first of all, we own all the IP. So, you know, why would we be releasing it together with someone where we don’t have a business relationship with?
Andrew: I see. Okay, so, the question of what kind of business relationship has come up a lot. Turns out there wasn’t a contract between the two of you. You said at the, at the press event that you did a little while back. But let’s go back to how you started working together on this. You were both moving towards, hopefully, the same direction. How did that, how did that start?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yes, so we started, we started the acquisition discussions and they, they had been working on things, experimenting on things individually themselves. And it was pretty obvious to us that whatever they did at that point in time, was not enough to take it to market and we then realized that if there’s anything going to be done then we had to do it. So we built the hardware, we did the design, we did the software work and, and we showed our work. It was known as prototype C, in April. And as Michael noted in his blog post that he doesn’t quite link to very much these days. He said that, “everything that you see, this, with this prototype is the credit of Fusion Garage. In fact, the entire credit goes to Fusion Garage team and those guys are rock stars.” I mean, this is what he wrote back in April as an example. So, I think that’s, that’s enough to suggest what we have done. And what we’ve continued to do since that point. To bring it to where it is right now.
Andrew: I see. Yes, he’s, there’ve been, okay I see what you mean. That he gave you guys a lot of credit on, on his blog. And you guys, uh-huh.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Not a lot of, he gave us the entire credit.
Andrew: The entire credit.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: As, as he wrote in his blog post in April, 2008, April, 10, 2008.
Andrew: Okay, so, one of his guys, or a couple of guys flew out to see you guys at your office and to help work out with the, help work on this pad, right?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: His guys did come to Singapore. But they did not help with anything that you see right now. I mean, there wasn’t a single line of source, there wasn’t a single line of source code that was contributed by them. None of the design work done by them. Is it, is it very unusual to think that when people want to acquire companies they, they fly people out to do due diligence. It’s like, it’s like someone saying, you know, “Yahoo and Microsoft are in acquisition discussion. But because these discussions fell through, everything that Yahoo owns belongs to Microsoft.” I mean, it’s as ludicrous as that.
Andrew: I see, but, but it was called the CrunchPad. It was his idea at the time. He did send people out there to, to talk to you about it. He was saying, just as your quoting his blog where he gives you guys a lot of credit, we can also find lots of quotes on, on TechCrunch where he talked about his contribution to, to the pad. Where he talked about his design. Where he talked about like it was his baby.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: So, every, I think there are 10 maybe 100s people with the same ideas across the globe. It’s about who does it right.
Andrew: But not that many with, with employees at your office and whose, and whose offices your guys go into. So there was, there was more, you’re saying that it wasn’t a collaboration where they contributed code and they contributed design and they contributed hardware. It was them at your office doing what? And I’m not accusing you, I’m, honestly I’m here just to try to learn as much as possible about this deal.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yeah. I, I, I know you’re not accusing me. But, I guess, I can claim to say, I can claim X number of things. The truth is out there and we will deal with this in the courts to show why, why, why we say we own all the IPs and such. I, all I can is, I think in any acquisition discussion it’s normal for people to meet out in the offices and to continue discussion. It doesn’t mean people sit down and work together.
Andrew: So, can you give us just a sense of what it was like to have them in the office? What it was like to, what kind of input they gave you?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: I repeat again. There was no inputs. We did everything. The guys were just there for acquisition discussions and they didn’t spend more than a day in the office. So.
Andrew: Really! So, months they were in Singapore but they didn’t spend more than one day at the office.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yeah.
Andrew: Wow, I, okay, so then do you have a sense of what they, when, did you guys meet with them outside of the office? Would you go to
Andrew: Coffee or dinner and talk about acquisition there?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: We had, we had discussions about acquisitions in several places, including TechCrunch office. But none of which led to contribution of work or led to something tangible. So, our stand remains the same. I mean, we, they have not contributed anything. We have done everything that we did. And, we have the necessary evidence to back that up.
Andrew: Okay, now he’s or others, I should say, have speculated on your motivation. That you just stole the product away from them. The idea, the equivalent of Foxconn stealing the iPhone away form Apple, just before the release of the first iPhone. So people speculated on your motivation. Can you, can you speculate on the motivation of TechCrunch? What they were trying to do? What do you think?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Well, I’m not going to speculate on people’s motivations. I mean, I want to be clear. The example of Foxconn and iPhone, there isn’t any ambiguity there. iPhone owns what it owns. Foxconn is a manufacturing partner and there are contracts to that effect suggests such. Let me repeat that we are not a work for hire company. We have no such contracts with TechCrunch or any other companies. And we are a product company that, that work on our own IP and our own, our own, and on our own feature set. And, it’s very clear that to use an example of that nature is not quite representative of, of what had happened. I’m not gonna go and, I’m, I’m not gonna go on and speculate on what TechCrunch motivation is because it is not our practice to be unprofessional. I think we, we have, we have a set of business ethics that we follow and we’re not gonna make comments on that.
Andrew: Okay. So what, what you’re saying is that you think they came there, they told you that they came there to buy you out. Beyond coming to buy you out and beyond a plan to buy out your business so that they could release your product as the CrunchPad, you don’t know anything about their motivation. Or at least don’t want to speculate on it.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yeah, I’m not, I’m not, I’m not speculating on it.
Andrew: Okay, alright, fair enough. What about the accusation that, that some of your intellectual property is owned by Pagatron? Pegatron?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Well, like I said, anybody can claim anything. It’s funny that the story has only been coming from one site. If there was claims of such IP from Pegatron, we’d be facing a legal suit from Pegatron and not from TechCrunch. And, like I said, I can say X number of things that doesn’t make the truth.
Andrew: I see. How?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: So, let me be clear again. We own all the IPs.
Andrew: You own the whole thing?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yeah, the hardware design and the ID design, the software, all of that. And that’s why we can work with another OEM to get the system out there.
Andrew: Okay. Michael, who’s watching us live, is asking, “Why allow it to be called the CrunchPad for so long if there was no partnership with TechCrunch?”
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Come again?
Andrew: Michael, who’s watching us live, is saying, “Why, why allow it to be called the CrunchPad if there’s been no partnership with TechCrunch?” So?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: We were in discussions for acquisition and-
Andrew: So, why not stop them there and say, “Hey, hey, hey, listen. You guys are, you guys are getting a little too far ahead of this relationship. Let’s call it the CrunchPad after we have something on paper. After you guys acquire us. Until then let’s call it BrandX.”
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yeah, again, as I said, my, I, I think TechCrunch is free to discuss the iids and call the iids the name they want to name it. It doesn’t reflect anything from our perspective.
Andrew: I see. And to some degree it might have helped you either way, that it was called CrunchPad. That the halo of TechCrunch, even if they decide to back out of the deal, might have been helpful for whatever product was released.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Again, I think, there was a lot of awareness that was created in what we were doing by a variety of people. And that, obviously, helps from a marketing standpoint, but that doesn’t reflect IP rights and IP ownership.
Andrew: Okay. What is it like to work with Michael Arrington and the guys at TechCrunch? Or to get to know, what are they like on a daily basis?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: I, I don’t think this is the discussion of what, of what my relationship was with them or how they act.
Andrew: Okay.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: I think that’s irrelevant to the discussion.
Andrew: Okay.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: And I’m not gonna comment on that.
Andrew: Alright, fair enough. Then let’s talk about your people. How many people at the company and, and then?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: There are 13 of us.
Andrew: 13 of you, and what are the roles? How many engineers? How many salespeople?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: 80%, 85% are engineers.
Andrew: Okay, and the other 15?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: We have designers as well as people who work on the business side of things. But, as I said, except for me, on the business side, I think, largely it’s all engineering based.
Andrew: Software engineers or hardware too?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: We have hardware as well.
Andrew: Hardware and software engineers. Okay, and your background, you’re, you’re an engineer too, right?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: By training, yes.
Andrew: By training. How much of the engineering work do you do at your company?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Not right now. I mean, I, I do help from a, well I, I, I’m involved from a design perspective but I don’t do coding.
Andrew: You mean design, as in what color the product should be or design as in?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: The whole works, the UI, the hardware platform, the, the, the software UI. What, what feature set is and stuff like that. But I don’t do hands-on coding. It’s my guys who do that.
Andrew: Okay. And who does? Uh-huh. I’m sorry.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: And they do a great job of that as well.
Andrew:Okay. What kind of user experience do you guys do?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Sorry I do not understand the question.
Andrew: What kind of user experience testing do you guys do? Um, on the software front?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan:Well I mean a lot of it is based on feedback that we get from family and friends and data testers, we allow them to play with devices and we get feedback and we classify them as family, friends and external users who act to us as testers.
Andrew: Family, friends, and what other kind of data testers?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: External people that act as data testers.
Andrew: How formal is your data testing process?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: It’s formal. It’s informal and formal. We have friends and family who give us feedback and formally whold be people who are brought in who basically sit and test a product and give us feedback on it.
Andrew: The reason im asking is because im always fasinated by user experience and I know thats it’s not as easy as it comes across to design and you held up the device for a second I saw it on ingadget and other websites a little bit longer. Its a stunning product. Its absolutly beautiful. Do you want to show people the Ju Ju again? The Ju Ju? Am I pronouncing it right?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yes, you are.Thanks for the compliment, I really appreciate it.
Andrew: Can we see the sides there? Okay, and the only button that i’ve heard on it is the on/off button true?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Just the power button yeah.
Andrew: Okay, and then the inputs are USB, you got what other inputs?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan:We have a USB port yeah.
Andrew: Can you hold it up just a little bit higher so people can see it in the camera?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: And then you have the mic, the audio track, and the USB port.
Andrew: And theres another port in there that I have heard you say might be for 3G in the future?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yeah I mean, its an extra slot that we could use for any number of reasons, 3G being one of them.
Andrew:Okay, alright who is your company has got hardware experience like this before I mean I know you were working with mobile devices in the past but you didnt release a mobile device? This seems like a really hard business to do well in.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: This is an extremly tough business and thats why we work with—- to do the hardware manufaturing and all of that. We have internal expertise where we have hardware engineers who have been invloved with people who have nokia for example, staff who have worked for those companys who are now working with us. I mean we have two of those senior guys who have been working with us since April this year.
Andrew: I see, and can you tell us a little more about thier background? You dont need to use thier names specifically but I just like to get to know whos there.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yeah, They work with people like Lawnchair the chinese mobile company that actually owns probably like 70% of the —- market in China.One of the was the md for that business worked for nokia and qualcom previously, so it brings in a lot of hardware expertise.
Andrew: Designing handsets and hardware for that company?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yes, mobile devices.
Andrew:And the ultimate design for that, that came internally you guys and the company said it needs to be black?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan:We have an id designer that did all of that.
Andrew: Okay, and whats his background? Or her background?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan:Again, hes a designer by profession so he worked with an id company that worked with projection stuff and then he joined us to work exculsivly on this device.
Andrew:I got a question here from somebody who is watching us live,he is asking,what about chromolux. And now its been announced you guyz looking at in using that as you can set priority unless
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: No,we are not,chromolux has set of goals our software has set of goals and we think that doing the indicated over the hardware and software being designed some grounet for the best with our experience is probably be a,is probably be a best we forward so we are not considering the chromolux.
Andrew :At some point, a month ago the relationship between you and Tagront whatever that was broke up.you sent Micheal Arent an email saying that you got a problem and why did you send a email to him that one that kill the partnership.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan:I sent that email to him we oviously had no deal.We had to figure our deal.We gave them offer and we had to decided to move forward.I mean at the end of the day we start up with the traditional responsibility to our stake holders and we have to do,What we have to do?What we thought was right at that time.
Andrew :And if i understan you right you thought that ther is going to be deal for acquisation,they either took too long to make that deal happen or it looks like they are not going to do it all and u said in that case lets move out,lets move on.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Removed and not deleted from the history. [] does exist although it is still very much there.
Andrew: Has it been wiped out… I think the lawsuit against you guys says that you wiped out evidence and that’s…
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: The lawsuit says what it says, we will respond accordingly to that.
Andrew: But you haven’t deleted it, it exists. If it’s just rebranding can we, can we… can I see it? I won’t associate the two brands together. Can I read the whole blog post? Can other people read them?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Again like I said we have removed them from the current website and… Andrew if you make the request and I show it to you every media people want to see it as well and I don’t think that something we want to get ourselves involved in.
Andrew: Okay, alright you can show it to me a lot of people have shown me just their information and don’t show it to anyone else.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Surely, yeah I hope to get that going from a different perspective but this is just… it’s in the hands of the lawyers and we’ll keep it that way.
Andrew: Okay, alright let’s go back to some questions from people who are watching us live. Michael Approve wants to know about your distribution, about how you’re going to get this out to customers. You’re obviously… you’re taking preorders on your website. Do you have any other plans maybe being out in stores?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yes absolutely yes right now and we’ll be announcing something in due course and I repeat again we have raised money from a corporation that is involved in the various areas that I mentioned – distribution, supply management, manufacturing, and we’ll be announcing all of it shortly.
Andrew: Okay let’s see what other questions people are asking. Can you give us a sense of the preorder levels right now? How many people are buying?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: It has exceeded our [] expectations but I’m not revealing numbers.
Andrew: Okay Rysin who I guess used to work for another blog… for Mashable why am I not saying that? I don’t know where you are right now but Rysin is saying was there ever a possibility for a two to three hundred dollar price point that Michael Arington kept trumpeting?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: As I said before there’s a difference between hallucinating and reality and it’s not easy to go with the price buying. I don’t think anything worthwhile can reach the market at the price point, not a 12.1 competitive base device.
Andrew: And I think the example that you gave was the iphone – talk about a small screen and if that can’t hit the price point than how can something so big hit the price point. Wow I’m getting so many people who are asking questions here live. Keep asking them I’m going to do my best to get to those questions. Let’s see who else’s question here that’s worth getting to…
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: And you’re right you’re saying Andrew the iphone is a perfect example.
Andrew: What does it cost to manufacture an iphone?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: I do not know the cost of manufacturing iphones.
Andrew: I forget… there was some speculation out there I wish I had it in front of me. Okay, we hear people who are… just as I get a question it bounces off. There’s some fear that people are going to prepay and that you guys won’t be able to deliver on the hardware. What assurances can you give people?
Interviewee: Again I think we are very corporate and we would not be taking preorders if we don’t think we can deliver on our promise so we are more than confident that we will deliver this, and that we will deliver this on time. So, that’s as much as I can tell you right now.
Andrew: When are you guys going to have it in people’s hands if they pay for it right now?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: In 8 to 10 weeks.
Andrew: 8 to 10 weeks? They’ll have what you just showed us.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yeah, the working []. That is what we put in preproduction.
Andrew: Sorry? Preproduction is what you’ve got?
Interviewee: Yeah that’s right.
Andrew: Okay can we take a look at the screen maybe you can show us what it looks like when it boots up.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Sure.
Andrew: It’s totally off right now right?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: It’s on let me just pull the device off.
Andrew: From what I’ve read it takes about 9 seconds to boot up?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Sorry?
Andrew: It takes about 9 seconds to boot up?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yeah, that’s right. It is under 10 seconds. So let me just switch that on. There you have it.
Andrew: And hold it up a lot higher let’s make sure the people can see it up on their screens. Okay so what we’re seeing in the center there is the apps that are available to people. They look like they’re all web apps right? We’re looking at Gmail, we’re looking at Twitter, and then on the left we see a clock. On top we see – what are those category names?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: The different categories connect with facebook, to have fun which is like youtube, and then you have things like get-in-phone which is like your New York Times [] and then you have your productivity apps like [] and [].
Andrew: Okay and can we take a look at maybe a youtube video right now on it?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yeah, I don’t have a connection right now so I need to connect it. Are we running out of time?
Andrew: No we’ve got as much time as it takes to show this thing. I’d love to see it. So you’re going to log in to Wifi?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yeah I’m going to do that right now.
Andrew: Okay, take your time guys keep telling your friends to come over and watch this thing. I want to get as many people watching as possible and asking questions too. One sec here…
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Let me get you connected and then we will have the number.
Andrew: Okay. So what I’ve got here from my notes from what I read here from before was Michael Aarington was… he had a bluechip investor he said… he was trying to lock the investor in, he had retail options available for this, he was trying to lock it all in together so that he can buy you and the two of you can go and manufacture it and it was just taking too long to put that together you think.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: I’m not going to comment on what Mike would say because that’s not my role yet.
Andrew: Was that your expectation that he wanted to… that it was taking too long to get the investment money? And your expectation was that he needed to get it done faster?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan As I said before I think we were losing the discussion. And the discussion didn’t go the way it should. And we decided to follow this. That’s just basically what we said, and that’s what we are continuing to say that I’m not going to comment on what was []
Andrew: Max Kline who is watching us live is saying, “How difficult, easy, or impossible is it to install Windows on this advice, or Mac OSX?”
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: It was never intended for that. I’m going to get the Wifi out just here in a second.
Andrew: Okay. And Michael wants a specific date of when it could be in his hands if he goes and buys it.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: We say it took ten weeks so…
Andrew: Michael are you actually trying to get me to buy this thing, or are you just wanting me to get a firm date because you want a solid number. Let me know just type it out Michael. Ah, let’s see and are we actually on Hacker News right now? Are they linking to me from Hacker News? Love that frickin’ site. Alright while you do that I’m going to have a little of my yerba mate here. It is actually… what time is it? It’s six o’clock on a Friday right now in Buenos Aires. Los Angeles and Pacific Time is one PM. And this is my second interview for the day. Let’s see who else is watching us… Tom Moore, let’s see now the Chromo S okay that’s a question from before. I think what’s happening is the live chatboard can’t keep up with the growth of the conversations that we have here because we were beating off of Twitter. I need to change that chatboard – I keep meaning to do that. Okay, alright we’re back, so…
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Okay, if you can give me a second.
Andrew: Okay. And if you guys are seeing any… sometimes the conversation comes across a little bit weird where I step on your lines or maybe we don’t hear each other. It’s because we’re using Skype. We’re using Skype and we’re recording over Skype. We’re using Skype with large… actually I don’t know why – I’m gonna blame Skype on this. There’s a little bit of a lag in the conversation because of that.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: I’m getting you
Andrew: How’d you come up with the name Juju?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: It’s a… as we said it basically reflects… it’s an African term for miracle and we believe that’s what the products we use so we wanted the name Juju basically it also creates a lot of debate as we expected it to. And it has not disappointed…
Andrew: What kind of debate?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Oh I mean people say they like it and don’t like it, but people keep talking about it which is exactly what we want.
Andrew: I see. Does it help you that people sometimes still refer to it as the crunchpad? I obviously am here I’m saying it’s a product that used to be called the crunchpad.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Oh this is not the crunchpad, this is Juju, so…
Andrew: No, no question about it but does it hurt or help that there’s a connection there?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Oh I mean I’ve… we’ve been very clear that we’ve created a brand called Juju and it should be seen for what it is. I have no comments on what it means when people say it is crunchpad or what you explained it to be.
Andrew: Oh, alright, guys if you’re going to watch it, if you’re going to buy this can you tell me your comments. I would love to hear feedback. Oh okay, so do you have wireless?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: I’m trying to I’m not connecting.
Andrew: Okay. Well I’m just saying yes 170 people are watching us live right now. You’re certainly getting a lot of press out of this. But then again you would have gotten a lot of press anyway for this product.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yeah for sure, I think in a way it’s a first of its kind. So it definitely doesn’t hurt. I’m just not connecting so I’m going to restart again.
Andrew: Okay. Why are you doing this interview with me by the way?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Oh well I think there was a…
Andrew: Okay, take your time guys keep telling your friends to come over and watch this thing. I want to get as many people watching as possible and asking questions too. One sec here…
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Let me get you connected and then we will have the number.
Andrew: Okay. So what I’ve got here from my notes from what I read here from before was Michael Aarington was…he had a bluechip investor he said…he was trying to lock the investor in, he had retail options available for this, he was trying to lock it all in together so that he can buy you and the two of you can go and manufacture it and it was just taking too long to put that together you think.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: I’m not going to comment on what Mike would say because that’s not my role yet.
Andrew: Was that your expectation that he wanted to…that it was taking too long to get the investment money? And your expectation was that he needed to get it done faster?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: As I said before I think we were losing the discussion. And the discussion didn’t go the way it should. And we decided to follow this. That’s just basically what we said, and that’s what we are continuing to say that I’m not going to comment on what was []
Andrew: Max Kline who is watching us live is saying, “How difficult, easy, or impossible is it to install Windows on this advice, or Mac OSX?â€
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: It was never intended for that. I’m going to get the Wifi out just here in a second.
Andrew: Okay. And Michael wants a specific date of when it could be in his hands if he goes and buys it.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: We say it took ten weeks so…
Andrew: Michael are you actually trying to get me to buy this thing, or are you just wanting me to get a firm date because you want a solid number. Let me know just type it out Michael. Ah, let’s see and are we actually on Hacker News right now? Are they linking to me from Hacker News? Love that frickin’ site. Alright while you do that I’m going to have a little of my yerba mate here. It is actually…what time is it? It’s six o’clock on a Friday right now in Buenos Aires. Los Angeles and Pacific Time is one PM. And this is my second interview for the day. Let’s see who else is watching us…Tom Moore, let’s see now the Chromo S okay that’s a question from before. I think what’s happening is the live chatboard can’t keep up with the growth of the conversations that we have here because we were beating off of Twitter. I need to change that chatboard – I keep meaning to do that. Okay, alright we’re back, so…
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Okay, if you can give me a second.
Andrew: Okay. And if you guys are seeing any…sometimes the conversation comes across a little bit weird where I step on your lines or maybe we don’t hear each other. It’s because we’re using Skype. We’re using Skype and we’re recording over Skype. We’re using Skype with large…actually I don’t know why – I’m gonna blame Skype on this. There’s a little bit of a lag in the conversation because of that.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: I’m getting you
Andrew: How’d you come up with the name JooJoo?Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: It’s a…as we said it basically reflects…it’s an African term for miracle and we believe that’s what the products we use so we wanted the name JooJoo basically it also creates a lot of debate as we expected it to. And it has not disappointed…
Andrew: What kind of debate?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Oh I mean people say they like it and don’t like it, but people keep talking about it which is exactly what we want.
Andrew: I see. Does it help you that people sometimes still refer to it as the crunchpad? I obviously am here I’m saying it’s a product that used to be called the crunchpad.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Oh this is not the crunchpad, this is JooJoo, so…
Andrew: No, no question about it but does it hurt or help that there’s a connection there?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Oh I mean I’ve…we’ve been very clear that we’ve created a brand called JooJoo and it should be seen for what it is. I have no comments on what it means when people say it is crunchpad or what you explained it to be.
Andrew: Oh, alright, guys if you’re going to watch it, if you’re going to buy this can you tell me your comments. I would love to hear feedback. Oh okay, so do you have wireless?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: I’m trying to I’m not connecting.
Andrew: Okay. Well I’m just saying yes 170 people are watching us live right now. You’re certainly getting a lot of press out of this. But then again you would have gotten a lot of press anyway for this product.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yeah for sure, I think in a way it’s a first of its kind. So it definitely doesn’t hurt. I’m just not connecting so I’m going to restart again.
Andrew: Okay. Why are you doing this interview with me by the way?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Oh well I think there was a…”
Interviewee: He came in and said hallo, I guess. I’ll try restarting my Wi-Fi again. Just give me a bit.
Andrew: Okay. We’ll make it work. Why hardware? Hardware’s a tough business to be in. You’ve got to ship. You’ve got to manufacture. You’ve got to deal with defects. You’ve got to deal with scratches. You’ve got to deal with so many issues that you wouldn’t have to deal with if you just focussed on the software and let others create the hardware.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: You asking me why hardware business?
Andrew: Yeah. Why’d you want to get into the hardware business?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: It is a tough business but if you want to control the end-to-end user experience then hardware and software’s…
Andrew: Oh! Let’s take a look. Look at that! This looks sharp. And you know what? I know how I shot this video. All right, yeah. You can hit pause on that now. I can see that it works. Wow. That looks sharp! And I know that the way that I posted it it wasn’t made to be stretched out on a big screen like that. And it looks good!
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yeah. It does.
Andrew: Looks good. And we could be having a Skype conversation now on that device? On the Crunch – not the Crunch Pad, on the…
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: …this right now because it’s not web enabled. But we’re working on something that would give people the ability to run non-web apps on a web environment like this.
Andrew: Non-web apps on a web environment. I see. So that means…
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Like a Skype.
Andrew: Like a Skype that’s downloaded on the device somehow?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Yeah. That’s right. We’re working on that. It’s not supported at this point in time but it’s something that we’ll be announcing very shortly.
Andrew: Okay. You said that you need to have good people around you. Who do you have around you who’s been acting as a mentor right now?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Well I think the investors have been great. They are people that I’ve known for a couple of years now with my previous company. And I think they’ve been giving good leadership advice and guiding along and navigating the rough waters. But the team that I have, the team that’s immediately on the ground, working on the software and hardware, is an excellent team. I mean, this would not have been possible without the team members. They’ve done a great job.
Andrew: Can you give us a sense of the investors?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Sure. I mean, they are successful entrepreneurs who…
Andrew: Hardware, software, web-based companies?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Well, combination of everything right from even magazines for example. We have a good mix of investors. And the new round has a corporate coming on board as well which I think adds a nice balance to the angel experience that we have with the current veteran advisors.
Andrew: There’s been speculation that the current investors are family members.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: They are not.
Andrew: They’re not? No one’s a family member? Okay. That came…
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: No one who’s an investor is a family member.
Andrew: Okay. All right.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: I mean the name that had been bandied about was Dr. Bruce Lee. I don’t look Chinese by any chance, right?
Andrew: There were a couple of different people, yes. Dr. Bruce Lee is a chiropractor who’s been rumoured to be an investor in your company. He’s not an investor?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: He is an investor. And he was a chiropractitioner who has had several successful businesses. One of which was his chiropractice business.
Andrew: And what was the other business?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: He has done a magazine company. He has done web based technologies as well that have been sold off so he’s a successful entrepreneur. A very, very successful entrepreneur.
Andrew: What’s been the hardest thing of…what’s been the hardest thing about all this? About the controversy that’s gone on?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: It’s just sad. Just sad that we have to have such a public spat but it just couldn’t be avoided, can it?
Andrew: What about the idea that when you create a product you want credit for it? You want the world to know I built this. I put in my time, my heart and soul into it. And then when it’s taken away, how do you feel?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Why are you asking me that question? I mean, I’m launching the product that we created so…
Andrew: It sounds like you were feeling that people were taking credit away from the work that you and your guys did.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: None of that. I think we just…again, that’s an outsider . We were in acquisition discussions that ran south. I don’t think that’s unusual and we as a company decided to and launch a product that we have built. And we’ve just did the best thing that we could for the company. So we’ve just been doing what we should be as rightful employees of Fusion Garage. It’s all Fusion Garage.
Andrew: Okay. All right. I think we need to leave it there. Is there anything that I missed? Is there anything you want people to know about the product?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: No. I think you did a great job in asking the questions you did and I think I had the chance to share some thoughts from our side. So I’m grateful for that. I do appreciate it.
Andrew: Yeah, I’ve got to say, you know what? When this came down I said, “These guys are going to disappear. They took down their blog. They came out with a new name. Forget it. We’re never going to hear from them again.”
Andrew: Forget it. We’re never going to hear from them again. And then I get a call from Derrick, or an email from Derrick, saying we’re going to put together a press event. I said all right. That’s something. Maybe they’ll orchestrate it in a way that’s safe for them. Now you guys allowed people to ask tough questions. Then you sat down with a gadget. Now here you are with me for about an hour, just having a conversation where I can ask anything. It’s pretty open.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: It is.
Andrew: Have you hired lawyers, too, yet?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: We have. We have retained legal counsel in the U.S., and we will be, we will be talking about it shortly.
Andrew: And have they responded yet to TechCrunch?
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: They haven’t. They will be.
Andrew: But they will. All right. Well, I hope this isn’t the last time that I have you here on Mixergy. And maybe next time we’ll talk about things other than TechCrunch, but obviously, this time I was curious. And thanks for being as open as you were.
Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan: Thank you for the opportunity. I do appreciate it, and thank you for spending the time listening to what we had to say as well. I really do appreciate it. Thank you.
Andrew: I appreciate it. I’m looking forward to seeing what the device looks like in person. And thank you guys all for watching. I want to hear your feedback. If you watch us live, right now, let me know what you thought of this interview. Let me know if you thought that, what you think of the Joo-Joo, what you think of the controversy. If you’re listening to us on delay, then just come back to Mixergy.com, and give me your feedback. I’m always curious to see what people are thinking. All right. Thank you, Chandra. Thank you everyone for watching. I’m Andrew. I’ll see you in the comments.
