Interview with Akarsh Vinod, founder of Dio Technologies
Have you ever been listening to a podcast on a speaker at home, but had to wait in the room for a chapter to finish before you could get on with your household tasks? Or are you frustrated at only being able to connect to one playback device as you’re on the move? Perhaps you just want to listen to music around your home, but don’t want to fork out thousands of dollars of a full suit Sonos system. Founder Akarsh Vinod decided he’d had enough of this exact problem whilst an MBA student at UCLA Anderson. An engineer by trade, his immediate though was, can I build something to fix this?

His idea was simple; could he do to the speaker, what happened to the television? TV was invented in the early 20s, but only became popular in the 50s when programming started to include sports, tv shows and news. The same tide of change is happening now in the audio world. People are consuming information and connecting with popular culture via audio; there are already several dedicated podcast platforms and Joe Rogan is one of the most streamed content producers on Spotify. The question is, in the same way people now expect to have a TV in their living room, will they soon expect to have a speaker in each room of their house?

Vinod is betting that the time has already come. After his initial idea he soon acquired an Apple airplay license and set about finding a manufacturer to build the speaker hardware. Enter his MBA instinct. Is there really a market for this product? Can he beat the competition? Is this really a pain point and will people pay for a product that solves it?

Vinod hatched a clever plan to offer the speakers for sale via a website, but then ask potential customers to sign up for their first release later down the line. He found an overwhelming response to the ads with hundreds of customers attempting to buy the speakers online. Almost all signed up to the first release program and Dio Technologies was born.

With a market established, Vinod refined his product, which is built around simplicity and affordability. Users pay only for a speaker that is plugged in, connected to the WiFi and ready to go. Crucially, the speakers don’t have microphones and aren’t sitting in the household listening in on users’ conversations… so privacy and security aren’t an issue here.

Next steps for Dio are to launch a Kickstarter campaign, likely in Q1 next year. Interested customers will be able to help finance Dio’s product but also test out the first model. From there, the plan is to sell direct to the consumer, via an exclusive website and later via e-commerce platforms.

And for anyone looking to learn more and get involved with the project, Dio are currently hiring for a brand management intern. Akarsh is also on the lookout for an experienced CMO who shares in the Dio’s vision. Anyone interested can get in touch at:

Akarsh@dioconnect.com
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['Hardware', 'Startup', 'Sonos']