Interview with Crist Khachikian from Idea9.ai
Hi all,
Continuing our interview series, we had the opportunity to speak with Crist Khachikian from Idea9.ai this week. Crist has been an entrepreneur at Hye Combinator for the past year or so. An engineer by training, Crist now runs a startup that is building an automated recommender engine to discover talent and opportunities. He is based in Los Angeles.
My interview with Crist below…
HC: Thanks for taking the time Crist. Why don’t we start with a brief overview of your background for the audience?
CK: Of course, thanks Nick. I was born in Iran, and like many in my generation, moved about a bunch before settling in the US (I actually did my 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grades on 4 different continents). I’m a Civil Engineer by training, receiving my PhD in 1999. Since then, I’ve worked as a university faculty, a researcher, and a consultant. I also spent six years as the associate vice president for research and graduate dean at a large, comprehensive university. Launched a start-up two years ago and am pretty much on that full time now.
HC: Very interesting, and worldly! Let’s talk about your startup - what problem are you solving?
CK: We are building the most reliable automated recommender engine to discover technical talent and opportunities. The R&D ecosystem is large (over $700B in the US) and very complex (millions of people, hundreds of thousands of projects). Our AI engine mines millions of verified technical documents and data to discover and authenticate talent and opportunities, replacing labor-intensive, chaotic and disorganized legacy processes.
HC: Understood. So who is your target customer?
CK: Our platforms are designed for recruiters, managers, and researchers at corporations, universities, national labs, and nonprofits. We have intimate, working knowledge of the ecosystem and know the value of a tool that can streamline these processes.
HC: Interesting. How do you plan to differentiate vs. others in the market?
CK: On the R&D side, most products use basic keyword matching to find the right projects. On the recruitment side, sites such as LinkedIn rely on user input for the data to make matches. Our system is unique and different. We automatically digest all of the R&D output (both in the public domain and proprietary materials made available to us) and us sophisticated NLP techniques to conduct higher-order and more refined analysis to fuel our recommendations. We also use past performance and output as a key indicator of future success, especially when recruiting for more complex and senior positions.
HC: What is the (or eventual) business model?
CK: We anticipate that our SaaS platform will involve individual subscriptions (short sales cycle), institutional licenses (longer, multi-year sales cycles), as well as “point of sale” use when recruiting for a specific position.
HC: Can you talk about the traction the company is having so far? What are the milestones for the next 12-24 months?
CK: We are still in stealth mode. We have shown a preliminary MVP working model to several professionals and have received very positive feedback. We are actually raising funds to go from MVP to market with a good, solid product so that is our major focus in the next 12-24 months. We want to increase engagement (average # of monthly users), consumption (the intensity of the usage), and to optimize and deliver a unique and outstanding user experience.
HC: That’s great. Looking forward to all your success. When did you know you wanted to be an entrepreneur?
CK: Ever since I can remember, I’ve always had a scheme to make money. From the early days of computing (yes, I’m old enough to have written code using a tape recorder and the 2400 baud modem was revolutionary), I’ve always wanted a side hustle. So, I consulted on my own when I was teaching. With a friend we launched a successful consulting company. And, about 2 years ago, the technology had caught up and we launched this startup to solve a problem I’ve been mulling over for about 10 years.
HC: What motivates you everyday?
CK: This stuff is exciting and fascinating. The problem is large and difficult. The technology is moving fast and is, surprisingly, adept. Where else would I want to be other than trying to solve hard problems that, eventually, can help all of us do better work, with better people to solve major challenges we face.
HC: What has been the biggest surprise for you in your entrepreneurial journey? What have you underestimated?
CK: Some days, self-doubt creeps in. Am I working on the right problem? Do I have the right team? Am I the right person leading this? I wish we could work 10 times as fast and that some of the obstacles we face were trivial. But, then, you realize, if they were trivial, they would have been solved already. So, I underestimated the amount of patience one needs to get a clean, crisp, and solid product.
HC: The lows are low and the highs are high… What do you enjoy most about it?
CK: Our team is awesome and the problem is quite difficult. So it’s exciting to work with them on the solutions!
HC: What advice do you have for others looking to start their own company? What do you wish someone would have told you?
CK: Be very clear about why you are doing this. In some places, in some circumstances, you can make a quick buck and move on. But, most of the time, it’s a tough, uphill climb and you need the right team and the right people supporting the work to make it happen. It’s super easy to quit and the temptation is always there. Surround yourself with hard-working people that are smarter than you and then enable them to do their best work.
HC: Great advice… so how do you define success in your startup? What quantitative or qualitative metrics are you focused on?
CK: So far, it’s been about “can we actually solve this problem”. And, we have emphatically answered that question with a “yes”!! So, now, we are about delivering a solid, stable product, on-boarding customers, and raising funds to grow our team to scale fast.
HC: How did you find Hye Combinator? What have you found most useful? Where can we improve?
CK: I have met some amazing folks through Hye Combinator and the intro was through a very close friend…through a fluke conversation. I find the ecosystem to be quite vibrant and the candid conversations and feedback very useful. I don’t know enough to give ideas to improve. I’m sure as I lean on the group to help us transition to our next phase, I will learn a lot more about it.
HC: If people would like to get in touch with you - invest, partner, etc. - how can they?
CK: In any way possible. Call me (818-645-0830), email me (crist@idea9.ai), or DM on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/cristkhachikian/). I’d be happy to talk to anyone about our technology, about our organization, and about ideas to fundraise. And, to the extent I can, I’m happy to help anyone who things I can be helpful!
HC: Thanks Crist. Really appreciate your time!