Interview with Sivam Krish, CEO and Co-Founder of Genometri

Recently, during the GeekOut event in Nexus 2007, Genometri, stood out as an innovative design technology company, developing specialized form and color software. Their roll of honour includes being featured in Core77 Design Blog and recognition as SEEDS Enterprise at Global Entrepolis@Singapore 2006. We managed to get Sivam Krish, the CEO and co-founder of Genometri to sit down and have an interview with us, to tell us more about his company, Genometri, his trials and tribulation as an entrepreneur and also his views on how his industry is moving.

BL: Hi Sivam, thank you for accepting this interview in SG Entrepreneurs. Tell us about your background and why you want to bridge the incompatibilities between design practice in Design and Engineering.
Sivam: Hi Bernard, I have mixed background in design and engineering – they both have different approaches to design, something that is often the cause of conflict. But if you study all the best works of architecture in the past, you will realize that they were the result of the combination of the best engineering and designs skills of their time. Engineering design operates in the realm of reality and Aesthetic design operates in the realm of fantasy and I believe that great design is one that bridges both worlds.

BL: What is the story behind your company Genometri? How did you get it started?
Sivam:The story is simple. I used to teach Product Design at NUS and I noticed my students spending hours after hours in the computer room, tweaking their designs. So I told myself, there got to be a better way. That was the start.

BL: Genometri is a design technology company developing specialized form and color software. What kind of solutions do your products provide for the design industry?
Sivam: The survival of product companies today depends on their ability to match product performance, look and feel with customer aspirations. Globalization has pretty much equalized cost, technology and distribution. We can design families of products, and put them to test ensuring market success.

BL: We understand that Pic2color is an interesting product that sprang out of your company. How did that come about in the process of building your startup?
Sivam: One of my former colleagues at NUS Christiane English is an expert on color. Occasional conversations turn into experimentations and experimentations matured into software and software matured into web services.

BL: As an entrepreneur, what are the major difficulties you face in the process of starting up and moving the company towards self-sustainability?
Sivam: The major difficulty comes from trying to do things that you are not necessarily good at .The blindness caused by the belief in your own ideas – which is required if you are to take the plunge, is also in way a blessing and an obstacle. Rapid learning and correcting the course from that learning while maintaining the high expectations that your investors have in you is quite a challenge.

BL: If a young entrepreneur were to seek your advice, what are the three important lessons that you will preach to him?
Sivam: I will not preach. I will discourage him or her in earnest, as I do to all those who seek employment at Genometri. Entrepreneurship is not for chickens. It takes a combination passion, a bit of madness and phenomenal ability to be a successful entrepreneur.

Three things that I may share with them is that:

• 1. Entrepreneur experience is turbocharged rapidly learning experience.
• 2. Entrepreneur experience will test your limits and push you to the limits.
• 3. You will learn that all that you have learnt in school and university
  is of very little use.

BL: We understand that Genometri is based in both Singapore and US. Why made your company decide to move to US so early?
Sivam: We have some US shareholders now, we are planning to have an office there by end of the year as it is an important market us. We are also finding that it is important for us to be where companies are willing to take the kind of risks that need to be taken to reap the commercial benefits of revolutionary technology.

BL: Given that your company focus on innovation and the competition is intense in the market, hence hiring the right talent is an important priority. How do you motivate and select people to join your team?
Sivam: We are trying to do something extraordinary. We need brilliant people working brilliantly to achieve this. Good people will not do. I am happy to sack perfectly good people.

I do not think that I can hire these people off the street. A and A+’s out of rote learning is totally useless to handle the kind of issues we need to tackle. I try to hire people who are passionate about what they do, because that is an ingredient that is difficult to instill. The last think I look at is grades. In fact I do not even look at CV’s. When someone asked us for the CV’s of key staff – we actually did not have it.

We have been fortunate; one of my best students and my best researcher joined our company. But staffing is one of the difficult areas for startups in Singapore. The “best” want to join the MNC’s. But they are not necessarily the best. They are best at following orders – and they will press you and ask what to do next.

We need different kind of people, that we cannot find but must create. These are the people with hidden talent, with a mind of their own, ready to indulge in their passions – those who will suffocate in structured environments but bloom in total chaos and rich learning experiences that startups have to offer.

BL: What are your thoughts about the future of your company? Are there any interesting trends that you think will happen to the design industry?
Sivam: The future of geometri is looking extremely exciting. Customers are now increasingly participating in design. The future of design is going to be in the hands of the consumer. We have developed some enabling technologies that can help customers design their own products. The more interesting phenomena is the creation of virtual worlds, like second life, entirely designed by its participants. Customer created content is exploding right now.BL: Sivam, thank you for the interview. We wish you and Genometri all the best in your future endeavours.

Editor’s Note: The pictures produced here are copyrighted to Genometri and are used with their permission. If you want to use these pictures, please email them directly for permission.

The address of Genometri is:
Genometri Private Limited
14 Prince George’s Park Road
Singapore 118412
Phone: +65 6778 9456
Fax: +65 6872 4860

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