Engineer.ai | Human-assisted AI

Ever since the world got introduced to Artificial Intelligence, it has created a storm in the virtual world with its disruptive impact on businesses. With every software developer looking to leverage the technology, the lack of developmental know how, availability of a proper platform to create an end-to-end application and scalable way to develop software products have halted their steps.

In such a situation, Engineer.ai, a human-assisted AI comes in as a savior by making technology accessible to everyone, even those who don’t know how to develop. The startup helps companies build and operate custom-made software by lending an on-demand cloud-based Assembly Line. It recently raised Series A funding of $29.5 million, led by Lakestar and Jungle Ventures.

The funding round also witnessed the participation from DeepCore — Softbank’s AI-focused investment fund. Talking to Entrepreneur India, the Founder and Chief Wizard of Engineer.ai, Sachin Dev Duggal shared, “We are selling products to our customers that they want to create. Our business model consists of three important pillars: Builder, Builder app insurance called BuilderCare and CloudOps.

Read Full Article @ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/324204

Darren Huston : Priceline is in Competition

After beating earnings expectations, Darren Huston discusses how macro factors like oil and terrorism impact the travel environment.

Sachin Dev Duggal, SD Squared: Bring your idea to life

At 33, Sachin Dev Duggal is an innovator exemplar, a multi venture maverick, and a strong advocate of enterprises that create social impact, benefiting the world at large.

With SD Squared, Sachin Duggal leads Product Innovation, Design & Strategy, while overseeing core executive functions & investments. A team of over 150 come around “Sach” with engineers from tier I engineering institutions and fortune 100 companies, over the last 3 years Sachin has steered a very successful venture in SD Squared with over 300 percent year on year growth.

In the last few months, his sharp focus has been in next generation path breaking technologies working on Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Advanced Virtual/Mixed Reality Technologies and can often been seen working with the SD Squared Research & Experience center on the Microsoft HoloLens or HTC Vive.

His long term future thinking helps in the company’s innovation to stay ahead of the race and take both short term bets as well as moonshots.

Among his achievements include being awarded the Youth Leader — NCEC of ASSOCHAM, The MIT TR35 Indian Innovator of the Year, The Price Waterhouse Coopers Leader of Tomorrow, Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist, The BBC Young Asian achiever of the Year, UNEP Global 500 Youth Award among others.

Read Full Article @ https://www.insightssuccess.in/sd-squared-and-shoto-bring-your-idea-to-life/

Darren Huston touts his company’s organic growth versus Expedia Inc.’s

CEO Darren Huston says we’ve now been on a path and are sticking to the principle of properties being instantly bookable and verifiable, and no consumer fees. “Now we’re so far along the path that buying something that doesn’t fit that model just didn’t fit us.

Entrepreneur Sachin Dev Duggal Launched Photosharing App "SHOTO"

The investments of Indian American “The Big Bang Theory” actor Kunal Nayyar and Real Ventures helped launch a new photo-sharing app, “Shoto,” from Indian-origin entrepreneur Sachin Dev Duggal, based in San Francisco, here Sept. 25.
“A trillion pictures were taken on a smartphone in the last one year which goes to show the engagement by users. Users are now more interested in photos which were clicked by others, but curation always has been a problem. ‘Shoto’ makes getting photos clicked by friends on various occasions easier,” Duggal told IANS.

“‘Shoto’ tells you how many photos were taken with friends or family members from times spent together and easily lets users share photos and create private or public albums.
 

“It collects metadata from the phone and asks the user if he or she wants to share the photos, so the privacy issue is also taken care of,” he explained.

Read More @ https://www.indiawest.com/entertainment/global/big-bang-theory-s-kunal-nayyar-invests-in-photo-sharing/article_312df26a-63c7-11e5-b432-6f0b4f14dc46.html

Sachin Dev Duggal of Engineer.ai : Top User Acquisition Growth Hacks for Apps :

Shoto and sd2labs recently co-hosted a webinar with RocketSpace where I outlined some of my favorite strategies and user acquisition hacks for apps. I refer to these strategies as the “magic” — or the glue — that increases adoption and promotes long term engagement.

The 3 keys to creating “magic”

Within 50 seconds of downloading an app, users decide to get started or jump ship. The first thing the user sees — whether it’s copy, colors, a splash screen or permissions — is critical to the first impression your app makes and, potentially, its long-term success.

So how do you make “magic” happen? Appeal to the (1) motivation, (2) ability and (3) triggers in the process of adoption (a.k.a. the first 50 seconds).

Let’s break it down:

Motivation = satisfy a need or emotion — the one thing that will blow users’ minds.

We created the following push notification on Shoto to create this motivation: “Your friend X has 50 photos to share with you.” It creates excitement and triggers the user’s brain to release dopamine. WIRED offers a great explanation of the science behind it.

Ability = ease of use — the action users need to take in order to understand why your app is fun and/or useful.

For example, in Venmo, you can send money in two clicks. Straight away, users can use Venmo’s app to send money quickly and easily, establishing its convenience and use case.

Trigger = reach out at the right time/place — choose an action users will be able to take easily.

An easy example is putting running sneakers next to your bed to trigger a run in the morning.

Essentially, your app or technology needs to make sense to your users at the appropriate time and place.

Read More @ https://www.rocketspace.com/tech-startups/author/sachin-dev-duggal

Darren Huston responded to a bank analyst's question

Priceline Group had a better-than-expected 2014, with gross travel bookings of $50.3 billion, up from almost $40 billion a year ago. Gross profit for the year was $7.6 billion, up by a third from the prior year.

In the fourth quarter of 2014, Priceline had 24% growth in hotel rooms units booked. Most of its revenue came from Booking-com.

Not worried about Expedia

On an earnings call, CEO Darren Huston responded to a bank analyst’s question by saying he wasn’t worried about Expedia’s recent acquisitions of online travel agencies Wotif, Travelocity, and Orbitz.

“Our focus is on organic growth and acquisition. We’re focusing on premium, winning brands that add new business competencies or geographies. It’s all been adjacent growth rather than tripling down on similar brands, like others are doing. I don’t see the Orbitz deal, if it passes, as being a negative to Priceline. The global travel market was maybe $1.3 trillion, and if you add Expedia and Priceline’s businesses all together, they amount to less than 10% of that. 

There’s tremendous potential for us…. Expedia’s average room night rate increase was higher in recent quarters than ours. I give them credit for a great quarter, but we have a different philosophy when it comes to building inventory…. We pride ourselves on our growth rate. Our room night growth is 100% organic, unlike what you’re seeing with Expedia.”

The company’s market capitalization is above $50 billion, roughly four times that of rival Expedia Inc.

Rental properties

Last year, Booking-com inventory rose to more than 600,000 listings, up 41% year-over-year. Much of that was due to a doubling of vacation rental properties, to about 270,000 properties.

That meant that it had more than one million holiday rooms available and instantly confirmable on its platform on any given day. It also meant that vacation rentals are becoming a greater proportion of Booking.com’s overall inventory.

Darren Huston said the homeowner property category was of interest to the company, but it poses challenges because the product is different from hotels.

“Our next move as a company is to address homeowner-managed rather than professionally-managed vacation rentals….There is a lot of interest among our consumers in self-catered products…. We’ve taken steps here. We’ve adjusted our business system. We’ve rolled out a simple extra net. We have a lot of things in our pipeline to address the needs for a single-owner model. Delivering single-owner vacation rentals is ultimately where our destination as a company.”

Read Here :  https://www.phocuswire.com/Priceline-reported-a-solid-2014-on-the-strength-of-mobile-Asia