How did Kanda start? funded projects, but it requires a lot Back when I was studying civil en- of administration. Today, we typically gineering in university, I wanted to deliver consulting-based work to our take some of the projects we worked clients, which we want to use a step- on and bring them from academia ping stone. When we see something to the real world. We always had a in our consulting work with the client focus on prototyping, engaging with that has a broader commercial poten- the actual users, and testing technol- tial, say as a SaaS platform, we would ogies, which were probably a little work with the customer to develop a bit too early for mass market adop- joint ownership model and then spin tion. The technologies we work with out a new company. We want the now, are mainly game development people who have been working on it in Unity, VR and AR technologies. in Kanda to work in this new venture, We work across industries but with so people in Kanda with an interest a focus on energy, both offshore and in being partners and owners of a onshore. startup will have the opportunity. These spinouts will have a timeline of How did you end up focusing on 3-5 years to be scaled and sold off. those industries? Then if they want to, the former team Through trial and error. We started members can move back into Kanda out in the educational space develop- and maybe start identifying a new ing game-based learning to primary spinout. The challenge in getting schools, then moved on to health this going has been in aligning ex- care, but we didn’t see a strong busi- pectations with corporate partners, ness case in those sectors with the especially around the fact that it can solutions we were offering. Then fail and that there will be iterations slowly, by introduction and being before we nail it. at events, we got introduced to the energy and industrial sector, and Maritime often gets the criticism we finally reached a stage, where that it is very conservative. What we could develop real products and has your experience been? have a sustainable business. We talk with people from different kinds of industries and the first thing How has your business model devel- everyone says is, “We’re a very con- oped since the beginning? servative business. We’re very slow I have never been good at writing moving.” Everyone says that. Most in- business plans and pitching for in- dustries are actually fairly steady in vestment, so we do not have any in- the pace they are moving. However, vestors. Just great customers and a the maritime industry is special, since nice bank. We had some government they have a lot at stake, when they
![Changemakers - Page 5](/cdn-cgi/image/width=600,quality=80,format=webp/https://cdn.relayto.com/images_originals/5c8f79178658d.jpeg)