From the idea to its realisation, there is only one step … and yet. What triggered your entrepreneurial adventure?

Ahmad Gharanjik. – “I’ve always had the passion to build something that can have real-world impact and solve a real-world problem. My background is Telecommunication engineering. Before doing my PhD, I worked in almost all sectors of telecom industry, including a consulting company, mobile operator, startup company, ICT infrastructure manufacturer as well as academia. It gave me a good understanding of the industry and the business. During my PhD research at University of Luxembourg, I came up with the idea of using satellite signals for rain monitoring. This approach could provide affordable rain monitoring system and could solve a real-world problem in developing countries. That was the main reason I decided to start this adventure. Besides that, I was sure that when I’m older, I’m not going to regret having tried this. 

Do you have any advice to give to those who are still hesitant to get started?

“If you have a startup idea and you believe it is great, don’t hesitate to give it try. But here is my advice: 

- First, start with a team, it makes it much easier. Startup is a team sport.

- Based on the statistics, 90% of startups fail; so most probably your startup will fail. This may not be encouraging. But failure doesn’t matter! What is important is that you have tried it and you won’t regret doing it. You are going to learn a lot; learning curve is steep. I like this quote: ‘Try and fail but don’t fail to try’.

We often hear that it is essential to make mistakes. What do you think about this?

“A mistake is a mistake when we don’t learn from it; if we learn from our mistake, it becomes experience. In startup world, you may make a lot of mistakes because of its nature; you are building something new which didn’t exist before and nobody else has done it before; nobody is expert in doing new things!”