Time flies. That’s the general feeling I have about life right now. Building a startup is an all-consuming affair and before you know it you are eating into months.
That’s the excuse I am going to begin this blog with. Because it’s been over 4 months. Four full months since my last blog. Which was aptly titled “A deep dive into the past 2 months at Amygda…”.
I guess my delays are exponentially growing. At this rate, the next blog will be 16 months from now.
So let’s get the mandatory apologies out of the way, for delays, not writing, etc etc.
Now to the fun part.
Firstly, last week was huge for us. Amygda has joined a few other startups to be part of the Boeing-led Aerospace Xelerated programme. it also includes GKN Aerospace and the UK Ministry of Defence.
To be in a Boeing PR mentioning Amygda was fun. Won’t lie, it felt amazing.
Which is crazy, starting an ML startup in search of AI in maintenance, things that make us happy go from one extreme of deep-tech to the other extreme of non-tech – a Press Release.
You can find out more about the programme and see the other startups here.
Anyhow, we started, and we’ve just gone through the first week, termed the Boeing week.
The Boeing week at Aerospace Xelerated.
I am going to skip over explaining who Boeing are. There are few companies in the world you can namedrop and not have to explain.
Boeing is one of them.
The Boeing week at Aerospace Xelerated was crazy. Super open, very engaging, and lots of helpful chats.
It was an intense week and some sessions went late into the evening (for us UK startups). There is a startup based out of Australia, and how they turn up looking fresh each session I don’t know.
The way the week was structured was cool. A combination of commercial and technical sessions. With a mixture of 1:1s and group sessions.
1:1s were pretty technical. Knowing you are speaking to someone deeply technical on a subject matter on the other side can never be boring.
And as an early-stage startup, that’s what benefits Amygda.
In one week we made in-roads in speaking to some technical folks, understanding the various streams, and finding where our capability could fit in.
Not just with Boeing, but within the aerospace industry, including airlines, suppliers, and new platforms.
We heard anecdotes and examples that reconfirmed what we had found in our discovery calls with various aerospace stakeholders. And also had a small validation of our roadmap.
Obviously, there were challenges to some aspects of what we are thinking, and how we are going about it.
But in all but one case, the challenge was, that the problem is bigger. Or more specifically, the problem is in 2 parts. And whilst we are answering part A, there is part B of the question that the industry is also struggling with.
That was refreshing. Because in the startup ecosystem, with the discussions that I have, it’s always about the next 3-6 months. Very rarely does anyone care about problems at 3-6 year horizon?
So to get pulled out of the here and now, there’s a larger problem that’s brewing and could be solved. Was refreshing.
I say refreshing, it is going to be hard work. But that’s what we went after. Solving the hard problems.
Knowing that the problem we are trying to solve, is a problem in the first place – is part of validation that is super helpful. Otherwise, I would hate to spend my best time on a problem that only exists in our heads.
There were some other fun strategies and commercial discussions. All in all super useful.
We were able to schedule follow-ups and off-shoots of conversations with other teams. Which just creates more opportunities for startups.
Overall, a great first week with Aerospace Xelerated and the Boeing team.
Next week (I promise!) I will share more about the GKN week. Super keen on them, as a major supplier in aerospace, obviously, we are keen to hear from them too.
So what’s next?
The journey of building Amygda continues. We are a small team, here’s our Linkedin to follow us and keep a track of the jobs we are hiring for.
P.S. you can love me or hate me on LinkedIn, whatever you decide let me know by reaching out.