"In Entrepreneurship, It’s Difficult to Fail, but It’s Extremely Easy to Give Up." - Smit Sharma

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1. Tell us more about your company and your journey. 

I am the CEO of Infivolve. I am a former national record holder in Swimming and during my career, I was frustrated by 2 things: not enough personal attention from my coaches and all the injuries caused due to it. 

I always wanted to have a system that could tell me what I’m doing wrong and help me improve so I can train smarter, not just harder. At Infivolve, we use AI to automatically correct your exercise and sports technique for you. 

In more detail, we use our AI and a camera to automatically analyze your movements during exercise or sports to give you instant, real-time analysis, and feedback on how you can improve your technique to prevent injuries and enhance your performance.

For helping people stay fit during this COVID pandemic, wherein most of the people are stuck at home, we have built an AI-based personal training app, infiGro, that gives you full workout guidance, real-time feedback on your exercise form and rep count, and personalized workout programs for you so that everyone can stay fit even by exercising at home. 

It’s literally a personal trainer in your pocket. You can download it here: https://cutt.ly/infigro

2. How did you come up with this idea and go about executing it? 

Due to my experience in sports and fitness, I have always been intrigued by solutions that can allow me to train smarter. I always knew that there is no solution in the world that is both accessible and affordable, it’s usually just one of the above. 

And so when my best friend (since 12+ years), Vidhey Oza, shared with me some recent developments in AI and Computer Vision technologies that could potentially revolutionize sports and fitness training, we quickly teamed up to cofound Infivolve and execute the idea. 

3. What has been your biggest challenge that you faced and how did you overcome that? 

So far, the biggest challenge we faced has been the COVID-19 pandemic. While we were building a world-class solution for Tennis, wherein we analyze everything from the player’s shots to the player’s technique, and we had almost built the solution, due to COVID-19 there was a nationwide lockdown. 

So we had to quickly come up with something that people can use during the pandemic using our technology. This gave birth to our AI-personal fitness training app, infiGro. Once, the situation becomes normal, we will also begin piloting our Tennis product at some of the best academies in the world. 

4. What do you think are the most important qualities of a successful entrepreneur? 

I always say, “In entrepreneurship, it’s difficult to fail, but it’s extremely easy to give up”. So, I think the most important qualities of an entrepreneur are persistence, hunger, a sense of purpose, patience, and most importantly, a constant habit to learn. 

5. What are some of the most important factors for running a successful business? 

From a strictly business standpoint, it is listening to your customers. It’s funny how so many people don’t do it, but this is the single greatest thing that generates enormous revenue, traction, and ultimately, success. 

The founders, their visions, and their drivers are also amongst the irreplaceable things that are crucial for running a successful business. 

6. What are your tips for the first time and aspiring entrepreneurs? 

Fail fast, learn faster, but don’t give up. As a first time founder, you will have so many hurdles that you’ll have to cross, the biggest of which is your own bad habits. 

It’s very important to understand that if you want to become a great first-time founder, you’re gonna have to learn from and imitate other great founders really quickly, that’s the fastest way to overcome the lack of knowledge and experience. Wisdom will come over time. 

7. How can one overcome a hurdle of lack of funds when starting up?

Today, there are so many funding opportunities available. But, that being said, your business shouldn’t ever need funding. You should always want to fund, that is, to grow faster. If your business isn't gonna take off or is gonna die without funding, then you have bigger problems to solve, such as zero demand for your product. 

No amount of funding will ever solve that problem. So everyone has to stay very scrappy and insanely resourceful in the beginning. Focus on what your customers want/need and when you hit the jackpot, you’ll get traction, and when you get traction, you’ll get access to funds. 

This way, you will prioritize what is important early on and overcome the fake glamor of receiving funding early on that you would have a higher probability of just throwing away and wasting.

- Smit Sharma

  Co-founder and CEO at Infivolve | Linkedin

-Interviewed by: Soumya Jain