Founder Interviews: The Story of Mate Labs
It’s been a crazy busy at Zeroth HQ since announcing our latest #Z04 accelerator programs in Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Bangalore. We’ve been reading applications non-stop and having back-to-back-to-back meetings getting know some of the most ambitious founders in the world.
One frequent question we got was: what happened with the startups from the previous programs?
So we thought we’d just share with you publicly through the lens of the founders themselves. The first company we wanted to feature is Mate Labs. They built Mateverse. It’s a machine learning platform engineered for business professionals to use without writing a single line of code.
We sat down with Rahul Vishwakarma and Kailash Ahirwar, the founders of Mate Labs, to reflect back on their journey so far. It’s been a pleasure working with this team who have found such a strong use-case bringing machine learning to the masses.
Q) You were part of Z01, before Zeroth became known all across Asia, Europe, and the US as the worlds top AI accelerator. what made you join a relatively unknown accelerator at the time?
A) We met Tak Lo and the passion with which he presented Zeroth was incredible. Through a series of conversations about AI and where the world was headed, we held much admiration and respect for him. Tak saw our vision at an early stage. He brought together a very impactful team of builders together which gave us a lot of confidence in Zeroth.
Q) What happened when you went to Hong Kong? As in what were you able to accomplish?
We got a lot more clarity on the approach to building a minimal viable product. Zeroth helped us think deeply and focus more on core problems that we’re solving. Customer development became a key part of process. Talk to users. Code. Talk to users. Code. Repeat. We have not strayed far from that process today :)
Q) What happened after the program?
We grew to over 10k users. When we joined Zeroth, we had an MVP in alpha stage with around 200 users. Zeroth helped us refine our MVP. Growth in users was a key metric and the process we developed in pushing out code was critical.
Q) What were the benefits of joining Zeroth?
Exposure. That solved a lot of problems on its own. Getting connected with the right people who have done things in the past. Joining Zeroth put us on a platform where the rest of the world could see our vision and support us.
Q) What were some of your favorite parts of the program?
We loved the format. In particular, they did not require us to be in Hong Kong for 3 months straight. We came for 2 weeks at the beginning and 2 weeks at the end. The rest of the time they allowed us to be where it was most impactful for the business. That could be close to potential customers or close to the rest of the team.
Q) You are based in India but attended a HK program. Was the geography change a problem while developing your product and user base?
Nope. Answer is simple :)
Q) What did you think of HK? What HK tips do you have?
HK is great. Stay in hostel. You’ll save lots of money.
Q) What’s next for you guys? Whats the plan?
Building a repeatable sales cycle. Identify unique use cases and double down on that.
Q) If a company was considering joining Zeroth, what feedback would you give them?
If you are genuinely an AI company, just join.
Q) Do you still keep in touch with other members of your cohort? Has the community support been useful?
Of course. Other startups and founders in the cohort became like family. We help each other through tough challenges and introduce each other to key partners. The community has been very helpful.
When we ran into the challenge of rising costs of AI training, we partnered with two other Z01 founders to build a network of compute nodes for deep learning training. That community project is called Raven Protocol. Some of the top leaders in the AI industry came to support us after that. This all started with how tight the Zeroth community is.
Q) Any last things you think people should know about the Zeroth community or the Program?
The Zeroth community is filled with hardcore passionate people. If you are lacking in that area, you probably shouldn’t join because you’ll have a tough time to keep up with the load.
If you’re an ambitious founder looking to take your startup to the next level, you should apply to Zeroth: www.zeroth.ai/apply-now
Here’s our request for startups. This is not an exhaustive list. We’d love to fund the best founders in the world working on frontier technologies.
