My name is Jerry.
I am the founder and CEO of Rocketbots.
Rocketbots is an artificial intelligence chatbot
solution for enterprises.
Today we are going to be talking with Ray.
Ray, what do you do?
What don’t I do?
So I’m Ray.
I’m CEO of Emotics.
We are a regulation technology based here
in Hong Kong.
What we do is we analyse user engagement with
online content.
So in the FinTech space certainly.
So, Ray, I haven’t seen you a couple months, man…
It's been a while…
Since I lost against you in a competition.
Since I kicked your ass.
You kicked my ass!
When I heard about your product, I think this
guy... just, they just hit jackpot here.
Companies really have tremendous budget for
compliance and nowhere to put it.
There's some massive companies out there,
the biggest companies in the world, that have
a lot of problems that needs to be solved -
that have, as you said, have budgets.
Compliance, particularly the major banks, a lot
of them have tripled their compliance staffing
over the last five years to the point where
compliance has become the largest department in
a lot of these banks.
So anything you can do to help them out and start
to reduce some of those costs, you know they're
definitely gonna be interested.
I think we got started at the right time,
rather than kicking into it now.
'Cause I think people are really starting to
fully appreciate the market potential.
How are you finding things in chatbot land?
I guess when you started off this was, you
know, fresh territory - but you know
chatbot chatbot chatbot!
At the time, you're right, the question was
what is a chatbot rather than we want a chatbot
for our company.
But what happened then is that it really
became such a buzzword and the expectations
were too high.
And I loved it because people really expected
that you can just put a chatbot to any company
and it’s a magic bot and, you know, all the
answers about your company
and it can do it perfectly.
So there's the hype curve thing.
The hype curve!
It was actually - this was a very strong curve.
In the AI field we see it but for chatbots
everyone thought it was gonna change the world.
And after three, four months in, you just realize
that's not the case.
To this day, there’s a very few chatbots
that actually are doing the job that they
originally promised.
So the industry went down and it is kind of
like the bubble burst and that was actually
very good for us.
Because back then is the moment where we
had the most competitors.
Everyone was trying to get into chatbot space.
Then those companies actually died out because
they were not able
to capture the market quick enough.
And now what we have left is actually the
curve after the bubble, which is the actual
value generation - and we’re lucky to have
raised funds at the right time and have captured
the correct place at the right time.
So what brings you to this wonderful city?
Was there a girl?
No… Probably. No!
Likely!
I was just kind of throwing out applications
for jobs in Hong Kong
and Tokyo and Seoul, Singapore.
And the first one I landed I took.
How do you start a company?
It came off the back of the company I had
been working with.
And the guys running it did a hard pivot away
from enterprise, which is not my zone.
I’m hardcore enterprise software guy.
So off the back of that we decided, you know
what, let's give this a try.
Got a prototype together, got AIA, a major
insurer here, to do a proof-of-concept,
and we just kind of went from there 
- and here we are,
a year-ish later.
Four people in now…
Keeps our burden low.
We discussed this a little earlier…
I’m actually quite jealous.
We have almost 20 people on payroll.
- Wow!
- Yeah!
20 people!
It is a responsibility on our side.
Are they…
I assume they're not all here.
They’re not all here.
No.
Can you imagine 20 Hong Kong salaries?
God!
God no.
We would have run out of capital.
My story’s quite different.
Let's do you.
I come from El Salvador.
I got a scholarship to go to Germany and I
started working at IBM Germany.
So that's the first time I actually started
touching artificial intelligence.
You know the whole [IBM] Watson wave coming in.
The approach we're talking about back then.
Left IBM to move to Google, left Google to
join a startup.
Startup got acquired.
The startups are getting kind of corporate
so I was looking for something new to do.
And back then the Chinese University of Hong
Kong sends me a message saying: Hey you have
a background in entrepreneurship.
We would love to give you a scholarship to
come over here.
So I finish my MBA and started working with
this large group called NDN Group.
So it’s a digital conglomerate here, and
they do like very advanced projects for companies.
And one of the projects that we were working
back then was a chatbot actually,
for a very large bank.
That’s convenient.
That was convenient, right?
So I was actually working in the chatbot space
and things were... at the same time without,
like, knowing… everyone releases their APIs
and out of nowhere you have the option to
actually connect the chatbot which was natural
language processing intelligence, to the largest
social media around the world, 1.2 billion
people.
And then the whole industry just went crazy
and went after each other.
That’s what started the chatbot bubble.
So we were back then I remember going back
to my boss and told him, “Hey I love what
I’m doing here.
But I want to do it for myself.”
So I started Rocketbots.
And during that time, I actually had someone
working the technology with me from a large
project from Pakistan.
We’re hiring people here and we have a serious
issue because developing chatbots is a very
sensitive technology.
It’s incredibly time-sensitive.
If you send a message to a chatbot and you’re
not getting the response in half a second,
you either leave or you think it's broken
and everything.
So we need to hire people who had a very very
high level of expertise in Low JS or
upcoming technologies.
So we interviewed about 
100 people in Hong Kong.
We have this test that they have to finish.
From those hundred people, 10 were
able to finish it.
And these ten people were asking salaries -
and us as a starting company, I just really
couldn't afford.
They were looking
for starting salaries of, what,
thirty, forty thousand Hong Kong dollars a month.
[💰US$3,800 to $5,100 💸]
And we needed to hire five.
So there you go.
That’s really not that bad.
You think so?
I wouldn’t pay it.
Don’t get me wrong.
My co-founder from Pakistan went back home
and he calls me and says,
“Jerry, I found the guys.”
I say, what do you mean.
We interviewed a hundred people here.
How is it possible that you've been there
for one week and you already have the guys.
And he said, yeah, a couple of friends of mine.
Did they pass the test?
Yeah, they passed the test.
I say, yeah that's impressive. And he said, "Jerry,
I haven't told you the best thing."
What is the best thing?
"You can hire five master graduates here for
the price of one person in Hong Kong."
And then we realized actually that the quality
of content - of code - we’re creating in Pakistan
was actually higher than in Hong Kong.
So in this situation it was a no-brainer.
High quality, lower price.
We were lucky enough to raise some capital
and it’s lasting us much longer than we
anticipated, specifically because of this.
Yeah but we’re going to have to 
raise some soon.
And we’re scared about that.
In Hong Kong, if you’re familiar with the
market...
Yeah!
There are gaps that nobody's filling.
So if you don't have certain amount of traction
and you know you're not, like, this huge company,
you’re not making a lot of revenue, it’s
actually quite hard to raise funds.
I think we both are going to roll into that
problem soon.
Oh totally, yeah.
Could I raise 10 grand in Hong Kong?
Maybe?
Maybe not.
Could I in London? Yeah.
By 11 o’ clock in the morning.
Now here’s the funny thing.
Can you raise 20 million in Hong Kong?
Yeah, totally.
It’s actually easier.
We’re actually meeting investors here.
There are actually people who told us, "Jerry,
the amount you're asking for is too little.
I cannot help you.
If you were asking for three times that... maybe.
10 times that, for sure."
So I was like, so just raise more?
- No, but then there’s the valuation.
- Then the valuation problem and you’re giving
away half of the company, right.
No. No.
Let’s not do that.
It’s kind of challenging.
That was one of the main problems we had starting
a company here.
It’s real tough.
The risk appetite - it’s not quite there.
How do you guys raise funds?
You don’t have to drink for that.
It’s a camaraderie thing!
No man left behind.
Our fundings have been through the 
accelerator that we did.
At Zeroth.ai.
Great guys!
They were really helpful.
They’re a new accelerator.
They’re a startup as well.
Tak [Lo; managing partner at Zeroth] said something the last time
we were here that has 
really stuck with me.
He says, what we’re doing is giving these
guys time.
And that’s what they did.
They gave us time.
If we didn’t have Zeroth, we would’ve
folded the company
Already got it.
We would be dead ☠️
We would be completely and utterly dead.
And they gave us that lifeline.
And so much more.
The introductions are genuinely some of the
best people on the planet in tech.
Would you recommend new startups 
to go for an accelerator?
Yeah.
Yeah?
That’s interesting because I would go the
opposite spectrum here.
I would say no.
I would never suggest a startup to go for
an accelerator.
It’s just very specific cases that an 
accelerator can be helpful.
I always see accelerators as if you’re doing
alright, all they're going to do is really take
away equity at a lower valuation.
That is really what they aim to do.
It’s what they do.
In certain situations, and I’ve seen when
a company is under distress.
You know they have a product they’re not
selling, but they have a team and they already
have an idea.
They already have all the resources that takes
years to get to.
And then suddenly their option is either
go accelerator or die.
Then those cases, I completely recommend 
an accelerator.
Because what an accelerator can do is look
at your company with fresh eyes,
and [say] where to go next and giving you direction.
The other situation which you go to accelerators
is like opposite.
When you’re super early.
When you’re very, very early stage and you
haven’t raised funds, your product's not
even ready, and you need one client to make
your prototype, or something like that.
But anything outside that spectrum, I 
would say no.
Accelerators are not going to help you.
I would have had the exact same opinion as
you until I actually did one.
And this isn’t my first time at the rodeo.
I think this is the 6th startup that I’ve
either founded or been a co-founder, and none
of the others ever went through an accelerator.
And we’ve done it this time.
I was really reticent going into it. Signing
it was, like... ugh!
This could be a terrible mistake because I
had the exact same attitude you had.
And now I’ve gotten in there and done it,
I don’t regret it.
You’re part of something bigger and it’s
a collegial thing.
You’re part of a family now.
You get to meet all these incredible people
from all around the world.
And they always have your back.
I think Hong Kong attracts a certain kind
of person.
Everybody you meet is at the top of their
game, they’re incredibly smart.
They’re incredibly friendly.
They will help you out every 
single way they can.
OK, that’s not true.
For me it is.
Maybe I’m just friendlier than you!
What I find here is that the currency that
people deal in is how much they can help you.
And then it's always, like... OK, so yeah I know
this guy, this guy, and this guy
who you should talk to.
I’ll introduce you.
Let’s make it happen.
There is one thing about Hong Kong which I have never seen [before].
I have lived in seven countries and never
seen this, is the network you can build here.
It’s truly friendly.
You know every single CEO through three people.
Right?
So if you want to meet the CEO of HSBC, you
can ask 2 to 3 people for an introduction.
That’s it.
If we put this as a task I’m sure we can
both do it by tomorrow.
It is crazy that you can do that in a country.
Side credit to Peter Dingle, the head of innovation
at HSBC, this is his line I’m using:
it’s the only city in the world where
you can go to any bar, sit down, and be sitting
right beside a CEO or an executive at one of
the biggest companies in the world,
and just start chatting to them.
You don’t get that anywhere else.
If you’re in London, if you’re in New York,
all those people are in their ivory towers,
in their private clubs.
You never get near them.
When we started Rocketbots we were very early
for our time.
So as you said, most of the clients' meetings
was explaining what AI even is.
And then 15 to 10% explaining what the chatbot,
our product, really is.
And so, during that time I said I wish I had
all my clients or prospective clients in front
of me, and I only have to explain one time
what AI is.
So that's what I did.
I started calling co-working spaces, this
one called Garage. They said sure, Jerry.
I’m going to lend you the place.
We’re going to throw an event called "AI:
How chatbots are changing businesses forever."
And I was expecting, what... 20, 30 people.
We sold out the event in three days.
140 people signed up, 177 people showed up. 
We were above the legal limit.
I hope that doesn’t go!
We just had too many people - even 
we couldn’t believe it
And we started what we call the Artificial
Intelligence Society in Hong Kong. So later
on I became the chairman of the AI society,
and we do monthly events and out of that event,
3 other conferences called me and said, hey
do you want to be a speaker.
And then from each of them there’s two
more came... Do you want to be a speaker?
So it’s really crazy how fast you can advance
in this ecosystem.
You really get to a point where you could
be rejecting speaker offers.
I’m pushing that point now.
I’ll be speaking at conferences for the
next three weeks.
Exactly.
The biggest deals we ever close is someone
I met either at an event or at a bar.
Like very rarely…
They’re the only deals I do.
You see this tradition...
I don’t even try standard email.
It’s pointless.
For short-term strategy, you’re right - going
out and drinking in Hong Kong is actually
the best way to actually meet these decision makers.
But long term, and sustainable…?
You’re completely correct.
Eventually you want to have a family, you
want to stop going every night to a bar.
I guess.
Mmmmm... I don’t know.
I don’t know about that!
If that were to happen, you wish that the leads
keep flowing in, right?
It’s good to do both of them, I guess.
Every single night, you know, there's at least
three or four events I should be at.
I'll make it to one, maybe two.
It's kind of a function of the constraint
[in] living spaces as well.
Good thing, bad thing.
But it means that you're never going to go
home.
You don't have to go home.
You don’t have to go home.
You only go home when you kind of need to
sleep... a little bit. Maybe.
It doesn't feel like work.
Like, I say this to my friends sometimes.
Like, I'm not sure whether I work all the time
or I don't work at all.
It's one or the other.
Probably both!
Possibly both!
Especially when you're drinking at 2 pm
on a Friday.
Or a 10am on a Monday.
Who’s counting?
This is work, yeah.
I know. This is totally work.
Don’t worry, investors, I’m working.
Cheers, Alex!
I’m having so much fun!
