Artificial Intelligence ML Startup Preview | Sramana Mitra

Udemy has over six million students who are learning Machine Learning on the platform. Many of these students are aspiring entrepreneurs.

Here is a list of Udemy entrepreneurship courses based on the 1Mby1M methodology that would help them put one foot before the other to get a startup strategy figured out.

I believe, strongly, that entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial capitalism can be democratized, and wealth can be created in the middle of the pyramid using capitalistic principles. In the next 2-3 decades, the potential for distributed capitalism is very high and the outcome should be extremely positive around the world. That is the mission upon which my current work with One Million by One Million is based.

Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and Machine Learning are going to be at the forefront of this immense burst of energy.

Let’s talk about the field of medicine. If you think about what a doctor needs to do to diagnose an illness, she needs to consider all the symptoms, take into account all the test results, consider all the treatment options, factor in all the side-effects of various medications and their interplay with other medications the patient is already taking.

This is, effectively, a multivariate optimization problem that a doctor has to do in her head. And, she needs to keep up with all the new research and advances in medical science, and factor those in as well. The field of medicine is full of incorrect diagnosis and mistreatment of illnesses. Now, if you replace this whole process with software, which IBM is trying to do with their Watson supercomputer, medical diagnosis becomes a truly scientific, deterministic process.

I can tell you, if I have the option of being diagnosed by software versus a human doctor, I would always prefer software. It would be far more accurate.

In the One Million by One Million online curriculum, a long time ago, I decided to put in a line as a joke: “We’re working on a chip that can be implanted in your brain and it will transfer ALL the entrepreneurial knowledge from my brain to yours. However, this chip is not quite ready yet. So, in the meantime, please study the curriculum and learn the methodology of entrepreneurship that we have designed.”

Well, little did I know that this would cease to be a joke!

In fact, in the next decade or two, perhaps, this sort of implant will become the future of education.

Today, if you want to become a Computer Scientist, you go to university and get trained in Algorithms, Data Structures, Computer Architecture, Artificial Intelligence, etc. You learn a set of programming languages. You learn how to debug your code. You learn how to architect a system. So on and so forth.

Or, you can also take those courses from a MOOC like Udemy, EdX or Coursera, and take advantage of the possibilities offered by online learning.

To become a doctor, you go to Medical School.

To learn business, you go to Business School.

But in the world that we are resolutely marching towards, this may very well cease to be how education is imparted. Education may become a surgical implant, rather than something acquired through many years of rigorous toil.

Education, thus, may neutralize the advantages enjoyed today by high IQ individuals, and make it possible for everyone to be extraordinarily knowledgeable in his or her chosen field or fields.

With one custom, highly personalized implant, you could be speaking five languages, have mastery over the entire field of medicine (not just specialized disciplines like Endocrinology or Pediatrics), and be able to play concert level violin by the age of eighteen.

Yes, I am talking about a world where Man and Machine fuse to create Superman out of every individual.

That, I think, is where we are headed.

In the meantime, let’s build Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Big Data Startups ?

The field is both wide open and extremely crowded.

Meaning, you’d need to do intense competitive analysis to understand where there is a gap in the market.

Also, domain knowledge is heavily prized in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Big Data Startups.

You could be a technical founder with deep algorithmic knowledge, or you could be a non-technical founder with a deep understanding of the workflow of international container shipping.

Both are valuable.

Let’s get started.

1. Please start with going over the case studies and sector overview in How To Build AI Startups with Sramana Mitra

Among the issues you would have encountered in the above course is the question of how to bootstrap your way to enough validation such that you can attract some funding.

Remember the 1Mby1M mantra: Do not go to VCs as beggars, go as kings.

While investors are keen on AI startups, they’re keen ONLY on startups that show a clear validation strategy, domain knowledge, data strategy, and unfair advantage.

One strategy, for example, to overcome the chicken and egg problem of gaining access to data to build your AI models on is to bootstrap your product startup using services.

So here we go:

2. Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later with Sramana Mitra

3. Bootstrapping a Startup with a Paycheck with Sramana Mitra

4. Bootstrapping a Startup with Services with Sramana Mitra

5. How to Bootstrap Startups by Piggybacking with Sramana Mitra

6. How To Succeed As A Solo Entrepreneur with Sramana Mitra

You should also know how investors think before going to VCs. Don’t go prematurely. Pre-seed funding is very difficult with extremely high rejection rates.

7. How Pre-Seed Investors Think About Startups with Sramana Mitra

8. How Seed Investors Think About Startups with Sramana Mitra

9. Post-Seed and Pre-Series A Investors on Startups with Sramana Mitra

10. How Seed Investors Think About Deep Tech with Sramana Mitra

All the best!

If you need help, come talk to me at a 1Mby1M roundtable.

P.S. We’re looking to partner with community leaders who write blogs, teach and mentor entrepreneurs, and help support startup ecosystems in every corner of the world, no matter how small or how remote. I have written about my own journey building startup ecosystems around the world, and how you can draw from my lessons from the trenches. If you’re interested in partnering with 1Mby1M, please consider joining our ambassador program.

For more information, please see the external resources.

In this case study, you will hear Cognaize Founder Vahe Andonians talk a lot about bootstrapping - bootstrapping to exit, bootstrapping with services, so on. You will also learn a nifty way of building domain knowledge on top of horizontal AI expertise. This is a valuable and extremely interesting way of building AI companies for entrepreneurs to consider.

I have repeatedly said that the best businesses in AI are being built with deep domain knowledge. This case study delves deep into Industrial Reliability.

Deepak Gaddipati, Founder of VirtuSense, has built a capital efficient fall-detection company from Peoria, Illinois with a backend engineering team in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. It’s an impressive entrepreneurial journey with a mission-driven company that is making a real impact in the lives of seniors with fall risk.

This is a terrific PaaS company in the making with substantial predictive capabilities.