The First Customer - In The Eye of An Innovator with Princeton Identity Founder Bobby Varma

[00:00:27] Jay: Hi everyone. Welcome to The First Customer podcast. My name is Jay Aigner today. I am lucky enough to be joined by Bobby Varma. She is the CEO and founder of Princeton Identity. We met at the PACT conference last week. Maybe one of the first guests that I've had on the show after meeting him at a conference, usually I get people online or LinkedIn.

So Bobby, it's great to put a face with the name or a name with the face first, and then have you on the show. I saw you up on stage pitching Princeton Identity. thanks for being on.

[00:00:55] Bobby: No, thank you, Jay, for giving me the opportunity, you know, to be here with you. And, very excited to, you know, be here and talk a bit about my journey. So, thank you for having me.

[00:01:06] Jay: Yes,I think, we should start by just where did you come from, where'd you grow up and did you have, did that have any impact on you being an entrepreneur later in life?

[00:01:16] Bobby: I would say yes. so,my father, so I grew up, You know, until the age of I would say three. I was born in India, was there until the age of three. And then, my father loved to travel. Jay. So he pretty much traveled all my life. I traveled all my life. He took us from one country to another. We went to, I would say, six or seven countries from ages three to ages 12.

And then ended up being in United States, at age 12 and I've been here since then. So, you know, my adult life, I've grown up here, but it did have an impact, because again, you kind of are thrown, you know, in a different country, speaking a different language, have to deal with how to survive and just, you know, you know, Take advantage of your surroundings and, you know, be somewhat of an entrepreneur in that case, right?

You know, be able to resolve issues, not learning the language. So, and become, you know, and acclimated to your surrounding. And that's a big part of being an entrepreneur.

[00:02:17] Jay: I've never heard those two things directly connected, but I think you're, it's a great point. It's an interesting point. was your dad an entrepreneur or did he just travel for work? Like how did you get to travel to all these different places?

[00:02:29] Bobby: Yeah. So firstly, when he was in India, he started his own company. So he loved, you know, having his own company, but, And then he started working for United Nations. So he loved to kind of be creative. And his background was being an architecture, architect and as well as civil engineer. So he loved building buildings, right, and bridges and so forth.

So his creative side came, but he predominantly, he just loved to travel. He loved to kind of experience any of you could. You know, he would have been, he would have opened his own company in every country, but that didn't happen. So, but I think he did definitely did have the entrepreneurial spirit and the creativity.

but he also loved to travel in his over, you know, his travel overtook rest of his other life.

[00:03:10] Jay: I love to travel too. I you just saying the word travel and hearing that just makes me wanna go somewhere new and different and exciting. so where did you go after that? I mean, you were 12, you moved to Princeton. Was it Princeton? You moved to? Is that where you came to originally or,

[00:03:23] Bobby: No, actually we moved to Cherry Hill East, which was like, literally, you know, in New Jersey. So it is in New Jersey, so to speak. Right. but yeah, more South Jersey. That's where I, you know, grew up, went to high school there. so yeah, that's where I grew up and, you know, even went to college in Philadelphia, New Jersey area.

[00:03:42] Jay: Okay. So where did you go after college? what's kinda the InBetween between that and Princeton identity?

[00:03:48] Bobby: So, I went to undergrad, I ended up going to Rutgers, you know, coming from an immigrant family, right? you want to not spend enormous amount of money, you know, going to different colleges, but all about, hey, getting the best of the best of good education and still being able to do it, you know, relatively inexpensively, right?

So, and Rutgers obviously has a great reputation. So I ended up going there and I was the first daughter to go to college. So I wanted to stay close to home. And that was my big thing for my father, right? I was the oldest in my family. And, you know, he's like, well, you can't go too far. so, which was good.

and then I ended up for going for my GAD school. I ended up going to Drexel. I did my master's in biomedical engineering and that's, you know, my love for, Sciences started from there and, and then, you know, ended up going to working for a company called SRI International.

[00:04:40] Jay: And what'd you do there?

[00:04:43] Bobby: So I started there as a research scientist. Never thought of that. Worked in a lab. Can you believe that?

[00:04:48] Jay: That's cool.

[00:04:49] Bobby: You know, I, again, you know, by nature, I'm an introvert, but it was something that I thought would be my passion for the rest of my life, which is, you know, being creative, inventing things. I always love to dabble, and so science was my love, has been my love, and continues to be my love.

And so I ended up doing working in the lab there. you know, then ended up really focusing on writing, rising to the leadership and my, at that point, I had a current boss who wanted to put me in front of customers and said, you know, I think you would do great as a program manager, project manager.

and Jay, you know, I must have resisted him for two to three years. And eventually he gave me an ultimatum. He said, either you do it or, you know, I'm going to put somebody else there and they're going to be your boss. So he really did draw a line in the sand and I ended up becoming project manager, a small project manager.

and I did so well that they ended up giving me, largest programs that were at SRI. And I ended up doing very well with those programs. And then they kind of told me to kind of start doing, you know, Working in front of our customers because I, as a project manager, I had to present, and then pulling me to the dark side to business development.

[00:06:08] Jay: Is dev the ultimate nothing burger

of business? Yeah. It's like, it means everything, but nothing. I'm going to give you an introvert to introvert compliment. you don't seem like an introvert. That's probably the biggest compliment. I think at least me as an introvert, I received from people was like, you're not an introvert.

I'm like, I totally am. Trust me. I don't want to be here. I don't want to talk to anybody. I just want to sit down. You know, by myself and hang out. So, you don't seem like it. You don't, you've, that's it. You were, you're a recovering introvert. How about that? you've

done a great job over the years, probably, honing that skill. so do tell me about Princeton identity. Where did that come from? I mean, this is a very interesting journey through kind of like science and other things. And now, you know, it's, and I guess tell us what. Princeton identity does and what it is. I mean, I know what it is. I saw your pitch on stage,but tell everybody what it is first.

[00:06:56] Bobby: well. So Princeton identity. We are, identity management solution provider using. Iris on the move biometric technology, right? And that's what I, we are a company where you have ability to create security around identity management with without sacrificing convenience.so that's what I say as a, you know, a minute elevator pitch.

how did it come about? And I will go a bit about Princeton Identity a little later, but let me tell you, so. we came out of a company called SRI International. That's where I started my, you know, I was there for literally, and I'm, I don't want to predate myself, but I would say I was there for like literally 19 years.

Yesterday, I started there when I was 15 years old. Okay. 

[00:07:40] Jay: 15. Wow. Yeah. That's the, that's a long career. That's a long career. Right. 

[00:07:50] Bobby: I was part of, I would say, so SRI is a very interesting company to work for. It's like a playground of, innovation. You can literally, it's like having multiple companies in one single place and developing cutting edge, bleeding edge technologies.

And if you have a great idea, you can pitch it to anyone. And as long as you get money, you can start that idea and build a silo for company within that organization. So when I was there, you know, we pitched a number of ideas and I was part of, I would say, four different startups, as a co founder for four different startups, loved the technology, never really thought about actually starting a company and going with the company, right?

so what ended up happening at SRI was, it was a great company where in the sense of you started an idea. If it had good market product fit, what you could do was go get funding from outside and then spin that company out of that place. And, you know, I mean, if you do well, it can go public or you could.

get acquired. And that happened to a number of companies, as a matter of fact. so, for example, nuance was there. Siri was there. Mouse HDTV. All those technologies were developed there, and few of the companies actually did very well, either by acquisition Or going IPO. so I never went with those companies because again, it was something that I loved the technology.

I always thought, well, I can stay here and play with different technologies and continue to evolve my ideas. And then, you know, but with. Princeton identity. This was my passion because I ended up working on iris and the move technology right from the beginning. I worked with some really great scientists at S.

R. I. and when the opportunity came when we actually had the Samsung come to us and said, Hey, we love this technology. We would love to put this technology on our phones. and at that time we decided to spin the company out as well. So the company was spun out and they always ask the founders. Who are the founders of the technology.

They wanted to go with the company and build a company. And I did raise my hand at that point, Jay, because this was something that I knew in. You know, when you have that feeling as an entrepreneur in your stomach that this could really take off. This is has such a great potential, not sure, but it could really help so many people.

That's the type of feeling I had in my stomach. And I said, this is something that's going to do so well. so. Ended up going with the company and, starting this company called Princeton Identity. we ended up doing that in 2016 with a couple of other co founders. since then they left and I'm the only one who's still remaining here.

And we have really done well since the beginning of the company.

[00:10:43] Jay: What is iris on the move specifically?

[00:10:47] Bobby: So iris and the move technology is so, so, you know, right now, if you I'm sure you're well aware of biometric technology out there, right? Majority of the people are very focused on. Hey, facial recognition. 

[00:11:00] Jay: Right. 

[00:11:01] Bobby: right? Well, facial recognition is like I go out and get authenticated using my face.

Iris recognition is more about so you think about there are multiple ways that you can get recognized, right? and faces one of them but there are fingerprint, right? Because in the olden times fingerprint always had the negative connotation. Hey, I'm gonna go to the Law enforcement, if you're going to get my fingerprints and you know, I'm going to be authentic, I'm going to be recognized.

Iris is similar that way, which is using your iris, two of your irises, and each iris is very unique to you. So the probability of somebody getting authenticated or recognized as UJ is with one iris because it's so unique to you. It's one out of 1. 4 billion people.

[00:11:50] Jay: So it is extremely accurate. To you and nobody else can have a similar iris as you.

[00:11:58] Bobby: Whereas face and fingerprint, the probability of somebody getting authenticated as you is, you know, I mean, lot less I would say, right? One out of 200, one out of couple thousand, right? With some of the things that with fingerprint devices. But again, with Iris, it's one outta 1.4 billion. It's so unique.

[00:12:20] Jay: Is that, and you do two irises, right? You said, so like, is that even more

[00:12:25] Bobby: yes, it is even more unique more. So you take 1 times 10 to the 4th. To the 8th, right? You basic basically. So, I can't even count it like 1 to 1 times 10 to the 8th. It's like, you know, over a trillion people that might be authenticated as you. So it is so unique to you. So our technology, which is iris on the move technology is all about 1 of the things that is very hard.

There's a hardship when it comes to iris technology. In the past, it's all about you had to get very close in order to kind of authenticated with your iris had to get very close with the devices itself to get authenticated. So we have created technology where you don't have to get close at all. Jay, you can walk normally through your life, and it will authenticate you while you're walking.

[00:13:16] Jay: Really?

[00:13:17] Bobby: don't have to stop,

[00:13:18] Jay: Wow. Yeah, so you think about the like the old spy movies and stuff They'd have to look at the thing and they

would scan their eyeball. So you're wow, that's pretty I mean That seems like the game changer. I was gonna ask you like what is the difference now? is it a is it a competitive industry?

Are there a lot of other Iris biometric authentication companies that you're out there competing with?

[00:13:40] Bobby: no. I mean, I would say majority since COVID, we have seen more facial recognition companies emerge because of ease of use. People are more concerned about convenience, but Iris, no. So there are, I would say maybe two to three companies in the world who, we, who compete with us, right? Maybe two. Maybe two companies out there when I say the ability to do Iris technology, but truly true authentication around Iris technology.

And we are the only one, Jay, the only one who have Iris on the move technology. We actually have patents around that. So, you know, over 37 patents and we're the only one who can actually do this technology.

[00:14:21] Jay: Are you allowed to tell me how you do that technology? That's I'm curious. Is it like, are you zooming in on the eyeball from wherever they're at? Or is it like something that's proprietary? That's like, that's part of your platform.

[00:14:31] Bobby: Yeah. I would say the latter. It's a 

[00:14:39] Jay: now. And it's me. I'm going to go make my own

[00:14:42] Bobby: We didn't make you a

[00:14:43] Jay: from the

information that 

[00:14:44] Bobby: case, I'll hire you, Jane. 

[00:14:45] Jay: Yeah, there you go. All right. I can do your QA for you. so, I love that. So who was your first customer? Who did you get and how did you get them?

[00:14:52] Bobby: Well, so I would say, you know, while first customer we actually had was government customer, and to be honest with you, so they, you know, there's, I think of two sets of customers, government customers, and then we have commercial customers, right? for our first customer who actually implemented this technology was our government customer.

it was actually Navy who took our technology. and I, you know, I actually, Still, I'm friends with the person who I ended up selling this technology to, and proposing this and he was such a big believer. And now it's, it was funny because, I was at a trade show and met him at a trade show. We ended up talking and.

You know, we actually, at that point, just had a prototype that we were showcasing and weren't sure how we were going to work with that. And I remember him coming up to me at the trade show and saying, you know, what is this? And he was a scientist by nature. So, as a scientist to a scientist, we ended up talking for hours.

but. ended up really liking the technology and said, how can we build this use case that we could take it to, you know, his, well, Navy Navier and seeing if we could actually implement it in the real world application. and we ended up doing that together for, we started with prototype and then kind of understood the requirements and then built the technology around, you know, what.

He was thinking and what we were together thinking came up with a platform. it took us almost two years to kind of get it out there, but after two years we had it and it was one of the best technologies. I mean, we went through shoot out with other big competitors out there and hands down, we, every time we won the prize.

the project because it was just such a great technology and robust and so accurate that, you know, we ended up winning the customer and he ended up giving us quite a bit of money to, you know, to build it.

[00:16:50] Jay: He says something interesting there. You said, he really liked the technology, which is why they move forward. I think you're not giving yourself enough credit there. Cause he really liked you. Right. Cause I think any good business owner knows that like people buy from people they like. Like if they don't like you, even in a B2B, you know, government to whatever. Situation like you guys had a connection, which probably helped, you know, establish a business relationship, right? I mean, how important has that continued to be for you as a business owner to make those connections with potential clients and to, you know, kind of be a, a likable person that people want to do business with.

How do you kind of, how do you promote that image? Not that it's an image. I mean, it's you, but how do you keep, how do you keep that at the forefront?

[00:17:36] Bobby: You know, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head when it comes to that kind of, you know, it is true. relationships, Are the ones that sell, right? If somebody likes you, they trust you, right? They tend to wanna work with you. and I think having that trust where you are conveying to them their, for, you know, you are doing this for their betterment versus for your sake, I think that has to come across right.

and that was really important. That has always been very important to me, right? it's not about. Me or the company or the technology, it's all about providing value to the end customer. Because again, you know, you don't want somebody to buy your solution and have it and then sit on the shelf, right?

Because it's not useful to them. You want to build something relationship and a solution and technology. They can use it not for a short period of time, year after year, and it has a longevity with them, right? and that's something that I have always promoted, which is not just about the technology itself, but also the value provides to them.

And as Princeton Identity, how can we continue to provide the value for our customers? So that way, you know, then we have, you know, Great retention, great relationships, and we become their technology arm for future implementations as well.

[00:18:58] Jay: No, I love that. Yeah. how has that, how has your customer definition changed from back when you were at that booth trying to figure out what it is you guys are even making to today, like how, what is the customer percentage you guys are going after today and how are you going after them?

[00:19:17] Bobby: So, you know, it has changed quite a bit. I mean, again, in that case, we actually, you know, we were in the process of building. a solution. We were trying to understand what the customer wanted. And I think foundation is still the same, but how we go around and get our customers is different. it's all about, you know, for us now we have a very robust technology that we have built, right?

In that in the first case, we were trying to build a robust technology and get getting out there. So now we have built that foundation. We have built a robust technology. we tend to kind of now find customers who have that specific need. So build up now we understand the need. So we tend to go after customers who are very security conscious, right?

I think, you know, especially in biometrics, right? Facial recognition, or I would say majority of the modalities are very focused on convenience aspect of it. And I think they lose the sight of. security. And that is still very pivotal to us and as a company and to our customers, right? so what? It's great to use.

But then if you lose the concept of security, you just defeated this technology. And now you're You know, you're you stopped creating that value. You may be easy to get in, but then anybody can get it right. so again, for us, it's been always and that's something J. I've never sacked, you know, sacrifice.

I always tell to our customers and we've gone to customers. We have said no, this is not a useful technology. Let me give you a competitor's technology because I think it will be more useful to you if you're not thinking about security. Right. If you're thinking about just user interface, I mean, ease of use.

So, I always want to do best what's best for the customers and always focused on that, then worrying about what can we do, what can we make as a company, right.

[00:21:06] Jay: right. How are you going after those customers today? Or do you guys, I mean, obviously you're at conferences and doing, you know, the kind of business, the biz dev stuff that, is not a real thing, but, do you guys have a sales team? Do you do email marketing? Do you do social stuff? Like, how are you guys bringing in your big ticket customers today?

[00:21:25] Bobby: I would say since COVID, things have changed drastically, right? Business development is not what it used to be, where, you know, trade shows are one way. We definitely, I think, for our technology, seeing is believing it. A lot of times when we go out there, we talk about our technology and to your point, right?

People are like, wow, that sounds very futuristic. How do you guys do that? And I think for us, it's always about come and see us, right? And see how it works. Well, it works. And, and I would say 99 percent of our people who see our technology, they always say, wow, that's really cool. Or, wow, that's really fast.

And, can't believe you guys do that. So that's always good to know. Right. so trade shows are one way. we do quite a bit of work the way we have kind of changed it. We do a lot of social outbound marketing. Right. LinkedIn is a great way. podcast is another great way for us to get out there and talk about our technology.

the other way is we work closely with a lot of our partners as well. So what we do is we partner up with not normal, like your security integrators. In some cases we do, but majority of the partners we go after are that they have never thought about this type of technology that can get them in this arena.

So, for example, IT companies, right, who are starting to look at, hey, you know, we do a lot of IT, but we don't think of, which is cybersecurity, but we don't think of physical security. So we want to go after. You know, holistic security. We cover cyber security. You guys cover physical security. Now we can bring a solution that's more holistic and now get to our customers.

So we reach some of the customers who You know, you normally wouldn't think about, right? And suddenly, so we have different sales channels around that. so we kind of try to find more creative ways to go after customer base, different customer base. We look at more instead of going after large enterprise level customers, and we have those as well.

We tend to go after mid to small start with the footprint of that. we do a lot of. proof of concepts. That's another way, right? Because if and we know like if they like, if they see our technology, they use it. And I will tell you, Jay, that's been a great thing because if they use it, they tend to want to use it.

More and more and more.

[00:23:48] Jay: right. No, that makes a lot of sense. so, if. If you could do anything in the world, non business related, and you knew you couldn't fail, what would it be?

[00:24:01] Bobby: Oh, non business related and I knew I could not fail. 

[00:24:04] Jay: Well, if I left it business related, you would probably say what everybody likes to say and say, I would have the best biometric, you know,

[00:24:12] Bobby: in 

[00:24:12] Jay: in the world. But we're not, you know, I'm more curious about Bobby as a person. What is, you know, what's on your list?

[00:24:19] Bobby: I would say, you know, if I could, I am a fitness fanatic. I would say, you know, I am very disciplined. That's one of the things that I would say about me. I love to work out and that's one of the things that I, you know, you talk about any sport, I will play it. Right. I'm a big proponent of that.

And even until this day, I'll get up in the morning, you know, five 30 every day and work out. and the other thing is when I say fitness fanatic, it's physical and then eating healthy. Right. That's another big thing for me. Right. So, and Jay, I'm an avid reader. So anything regarding, you know, Fitness or food related.

I'm on it. I 

[00:24:58] Jay: All right. All right. you would be a fitness fanatic. Full-time, I guess.

is 

[00:25:04] Bobby: I would. I would if I 

[00:25:06] Jay: love it. I lo I agree. I think it's a great, and it all kind of cycles back to the mind anyway, right? Like the more healthy you are in general, the sharper and clearer you are, and the more stuff you can do.

So, as a father of five, who's learned how to not sleep? lots of times in my life. I agree. that, you know, just. Just physical health just

makes life so much better. All right. If people want to find you, Bobby, to ask more questions or learn more things from you, how do they do that?

[00:25:31] Bobby: Okay, well, then you go on our website. But first of all, it's www. princetonidentity. com. That's a way to do it. I'm always posting on LinkedIn. So you can always find me on LinkedIn under you know, Bobby Varma. And, you know, it's and call us anytime you want to see our demo, call us and believe me, there are a number of times I'll tell you, Jay, I pick up the customer calls and I'm I respond to them as well.

[00:25:58] Jay: Beautiful. Well, if you want to talk to Bobby on the phone, give her a call. And, Bobby, you're great. I really appreciate your time. I wish you the best of luck. I'm sure I'll see you around town, maybe in the beautiful Princeton area or back in Philly at some point, but thank you for being on today.

Thank you for your time and, have a great rest of your week. All right.

[00:26:14] Bobby: Thank you. Jay. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Okay. Bye. 

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