Want to Be on Shark Tank? This is How You Win Even Without a Deal | Ep 220 with Dr. Arjen de Jong Founder of AirTulip

0:00Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Founder Story. Today, we have Dr. Arian de Young, an aerospace engineer a real rocket scientist so we're going to see if you really need to be as smart as a rocket scientist to understand this conversation today but uh arian is the founder of air tulip a company reinventing sleep by using laminar and airflow technology to create a purified breathing zone at night which was just on shark tank yep which is like every entrepreneur's dream go on Shark Tank and then maybe one day exit your company. But Arian, what was the spark for entrepreneurship for you and why this industry?

0:39Great. Yeah, thanks. I actually grew up in an entrepreneurial family. My dad had his own factories making king rooms. So I grew up already like being like three, four, five year old being around the factory. My treehouse was actually blocks of styrofoam that I could like stack up in the corner in the storage space. So it was really fun. But with that came like this feeling like, hey, you can always do something in a different industry. And sometimes people think you need a large team to do something. The smallest team can make the largest impact as long as you come with something unique from a different angle.

1:08So I started with that. I've studied aerospace engineering and specialized in fluid mechanics and all that. But what that does is you can be agnostic to industry. You can improve something by taking something from another industry. And I've done that many times. I was like having some wind tunnel devices with lasers and I use that to improve a semiconductor machine for like a big manufacturer so i was like everybody was like oh you can't measure this thing i was like sure you can here back off the envelope one two yeah that works you know just need a big laser like this one and their way crossbreeding is i think where you can get a lot of entrepreneurship so that sparked for me like i love to unstick things when they're like when somebody says oh you can't this or so difficult anybody is always able to say something like how it can't be done there's not Now, many people can say like, it doesn't work because of X, Y, Z and et cetera.

1:59But it's like asking the question like, well, how can it be done? Or what is the alternate? And then there's less people that are like, well, that can be done. But if we, let's think. So try to get to that corner because it's, you know, you see that with professors and with academia. And I love academia. I got my PhD as well. But it's too easy to just, you know, burn down an idea instead of giving an opposite. So think of that. How do you flip this around? And that's for me this part. that creates stuff. I love that story. I am also like a creative person who wants to invent something, but I have like six failed inventions.

2:35So when you look at the massive amount of problems that we could be solving in life, how do you hone in and say, this is the problem that I want to solve? Right. Well, for me, it came back to like what I can do to help others. So with the Semiconductor is like unsticking something to enabling a lot for the people that I was already working with. But this thing, it was something else. It was, and this comes back to COVID. We couldn't be indoors just around the pandemic because you'd spread COVID much stronger indoors. And I knew why, what would happen. If you have turbulent flow in the air, it mixes everything and it stays in this box.

3:15You can like, somebody coughs and instead of it being blown away with the wind outdoor, it stays around and around. And nobody sees it because it's all transparent. We don't know how air moves. We have no idea. I remember being part of the maintenance crew for those clean rooms. And after we do that, we have these downdraft booths. They're like a force filter and the whole booth has a downflow, meaning that it doesn't mix up. It's just going in one direction. That's called laminar flow in layers. It doesn't create whirls. It's just straight down. And one of the workers lit up a cigarette. Wasn't allowed to, but, you know, and I was just joining the crew.

3:49I was like 16 or something like that. and you know instead of a plume of smoke it was a line straight down and i stood right next to him and i couldn't smell it i didn't cough i was just having completely clean air because my air i was breathing was coming from straight above it wasn't coming from him so i was like when it came in the pandemic i was like wait this is it we can solve the indoor problem we can open up bars and restaurants and we can make sure the coven doesn't spread and we can really block it off so uh fast forward let's make a portable clean room so you know again back of the envelope calculation.

4:20So we made these kind of pillar-like things. They look like extra large tulips, so hence the name. And yeah, we started placing them in bars and restaurants in New York City. I was just hauling them around. I'm still living in the West Village and just trying to see where we can be. And that was like the spark. Like, hey, can we help solve the pandemic? I know about flow. Let's do something. And not only think about it, but do it. So we built it and we started of doing it. Timing is everything, right? You combined all of your experiences, your educational knowledge, the experience you had working within a certain company, doing a certain task.

4:57And now you've created this thing. You said that you went from bar to bar. You were just going there. How did you get your first 20, 30 clients? So that was actually, and this is the whole product market fit thing, right? You start learning a lot about the non-technical stuff. So a lot of the restaurants, it would help them. But how do I explain to them that this would help versus, you know, an air purifier or, you know, just closing or wearing masks? So that was the biggest challenge. Like, wait, how do I in a short time? Right. Because the pandemic was running and running. We went to like restaurants and bars and some people were like, OK, cool, I'll try it and do it and measure it.

5:31But it was hard to get like real traction. And so the eureka moment came when we started switching clients. we started thinking about oh and not only bars and restaurants where do people need to be dentistry's dentist office you had to go to the dentist and the dentists are actually technical people they work with their hands they are very educated and they also work with their mouths open they already have the problem that all this kind of you know saliva is always spitting up so they are very aware of all the problems there were there were so started to talk to dentists and they're like yeah for sure i get that let's place it here and here and here and so that's where you got like a fit, like the product started fitting the market, even though I knew it would help the restaurants and the bars.

6:12At that point, I could do one and two and three, but dentistry was a niche that started to come in. And I was like, okay, let me just do that and then come back to the rest, you know, and then, you know, gain your traction there and then work to the other niches. So that was really finding your, and again, it's the classic thing that you read in the book, but it's more about the people thing. I'm, you know, I can be as smart as I can do with the smartest equipment and the best thing, but you need to convince people. And how do you talk the talk for the people? What's in it for them? So dentist at that point.

6:45Yeah, that's so smart. You many times think it's a certain customer or clientele for your product or service, but then you realize there's somebody who probably needs it more, already understands it. And I'm guessing they have more money to spend because as we knew, a lot of these bars and stuff, not only are their profit margins already low, but they've been shut down. Were the dentists and medical better profit, better margins, more money to spend, also a necessity. So that is super smart. So fast forward to Shark Tank. A lot of people, I'm sure, will be like, I want to get my product on Shark Tank.

7:22So what is the first step of how someone even does that? And then I would love to go into how the experience was. Sounds good. Before we went to Shark Tank, a quick note. The product I was going to Shark Tank with was actually an evolution of that. Post-pandemic, I had to flip. I had to pivot. Again, in the book, you say pivot, and everybody says how to do it. But it was mostly like, all right, the dentist assistants that were all sniffing a lot of allergies had a lot of allergies. They weren't having the allergies anymore because we put these down draft pillars in there. And for the whole day, you were like, incompletely clean air.

7:54So I was like, wait a second. This does something to people post-COVID. So we implemented this in the headboard for a bed. why the larger the areas we need to go for with people the more difficult is to make a machine so where do people not move so when you're sleeping you're like between this and that side of the pillow bingo all right so that's what we did a couple prototypes and then we started like uh going towards uh we had a kickstarter so that helped as well to figure out the fit lot kind of people are resonating with it and now comes shark tank and shark tank everybody thinks like oh yeah immediately go on the show no it's it's got a couple steps and it's quite exciting my friend that actually was on the show in the tank he was uh he's uh also a consultant in aerodynamics and a good friend of mine he named his name is jim and he said aryan you should need to go you need to go on shark tank you know again people would say yes but if it's difficult no i said sure let's do it but how do i get on shark tank how do i get on shark tank now you can do two things you can submit your thing to the website but then you're a part of the pile and they had these open casting days i was like all right that sounds good so you line up at 6 a.m in front of the java center here in new york city between you know everybody some people have like fantastic inventions or you know stuff to make your back better or cookies or ice cream or you know everybody's there it's kind of fun so i was like starting to talk to everybody by the way always be social it's awesome um and yeah i had a couple of phone boards with this kind of flow visual visualization and started talking to people it took a long time so because there's so many people i only got my little pitch at around 2 p.m so you spend this whole day and waiting and cycles and stuff but yeah and then so you start talking to people and they vet somebody for the next round second step is you get assigned like you know some directors and co-directors that start helping you with the process preparing your speech and your pitch um and that really helps of course for tv you have a certain pitch and one thing that people might not know about is first of all there's no redos so you come in you do your thing you do your pitch and then they there's a q a it's about 20 30 minutes no redos and also they don't know about you beforehand which is by design they're like i don't know what this is let's let's see it so it is genuinely this clean new pitch nothing is set up like oh like oh they already know no but that means it's pressure cooker and so you go through a couple cycles with the directors submit another video make sure that everything's good you then go to the next round so just like a couple of rounds before you get actually to the shooting and the show um and then in the show they say like they overshoot so it's not guaranteed you get to air it really depends uh but yeah you do your best and you work with it and uh the directors love the whole airflow visualization again that's the lasers from the wind tunnel with the smoke stuff but now i'm using it to show people how this works that's my biggest challenge as well like how do i show what air does if air is transparent nobody knows that like unless you're you know aerodynamic scientist so yeah super exciting uh and then a couple of weeks before yeah how was the experience like the doors open up and then now you have to go out yeah how was that experience for you because i would think i would be very very nervous Whether you're, you know, obviously you can't see everyone watching you at home and it's recorded, but knowing that you only get one shot, they're right there.

11:26You see how they are on TV. Obviously, you're getting some insights internally of what, you know, some help from people within the organization. But what's going through your mind? And then how was the exact experience when you walked out there and you started? yeah of course you're like super you know what you say like it's like it's super exciting but it's also like you can be a little anxious i was like having this like dry mouth and stuff like all right let's do it at a certain point you need to just like all right that's it uh it's not gonna be perfect but never is you've prepped your speech to that level and then you just need to go so you walk through that corridor there's a spot on the floor we need to stand for the cameras and stuff to make sure and then it's just one two three and go um what i noticed is and this really depends on the persona to the persona some people have more difficult with it i love to improvise i'm like okay let's go and i'm actually more anxious beforehand but the moment i'm on the stage i'm like all right let's do it i i did a lot of like you know theater and improv and stuff before and i kind of i get my energy from it like okay i'm here i'm making the most out of what i have energy wise um as long as you don't make it too you know oh no it doesn't uh don't don't make it too stiff and it's harder for some people than for others but you know try to give it you know with a smile and a pinch of salt it's already amazing that you're there you see the studio um if people are going to be on the chart thing there there is a walkthrough to show the set already so that you get a little bit acquainted that's uh either the day off or day before you come in and so it's not like oh my god i don't know where the door is and you know what's happening but yeah it's just about going and you know often entrepreneurship in general is about making that step and being uncomfortable and then see what happens i won't make it perfect you know i you know but i've given my best shot for what i have at the moment so yeah i've heard a lot of people talk about improv is very good for business and even theaters i did a little bit of theater very very small um maybe it's the comedy side i i enjoy that too so i can see personally how that's helped me when it comes to connecting with other people.

13:38But the fact that, you know, you are talking about using and leveraging things in your background, I think I'm inspired. I'm going to go do some, some, I think, stand up, do some improv. Like those are the things I would, I'd imagine like, you've got to really be on your feet when you're pitching something and you have to be prepared, but not frozen. So let's say what, so the other thing I think most people want to know is what happens after shark tank yeah so after shark tank um of course you've done your pitch depending on how the outcome is it's like a huge sigh of you know relief and i was like you know civil gym in los angeles it was in the studios in la and uh yeah it was super exciting um i didn't take the offer i got an offer i didn't take the offer i know from other people that then there's of course the whole thing about finalizing and putting in writing that offer so you'll work with the shark and with the team um for me i didn't have that but what we did have was an unknown on when we were gonna air um so we were shooting in september it was the season was starting around october the problem is the season has got like 16 to 20 episodes and they're only going to tell you three weeks ahead if and when you're going to be in the episode so then the first episode you're like okay so where is it happening this episode's had the guest sharks and stuff like that i had all the classic sharks i already knew i'm not in that episode not in that episode but after a couple of episodes like eight nine ten you're like okay that's cool but when are we gonna be airing like what's going on um so it was a huge sigh of relief and i actually saw that oh we're gonna be airing in episode 16 and you know um season 16 episode 16 uh it was super um and then from there on it was also scrambling together with the team we have like how do you prepare for that how would you prepare for you know traffic on the website what we're saying marketing like it's all hands on deck so it's it's not only you go shark tank and that's it and you make the money in yay no it's it's about it's also about showcasing to the world what you're doing and why you're doing it and that's also a big part of it like for me it was showcasing that we can actually manipulate air and create a local bubble in the open people might not think that's possible so that was also a big part for me to do it and then i want to piggyback on that to kind of you know to help people because you know we had a lot of people with asthma with allergies that had a huge benefit but how do i reach the people and convince them like this actually is working how do i work with that and that's something different from engineering and that's i think the biggest challenge for especially a technical founder i can make the most beautiful device in the world nobody would you know give a damn about it because you need to convince somebody that it would help them or what it is so that's the biggest mismatch and that's yeah that's the challenge and that's post shark tank really what you know i personally focused on yeah when i feel like when there's any educational sale it just adds to a little bit more complexities and this product sounds i mean it sounds incredible you know i've i've never seen or heard of a similar product out there in the marketplace um but you know most of us will probably need something you know my wife and i I always suffer from allergies and other things.

16:47And, you know, being in the city, there's smog and pollutants, like all the things that you already know about. So how did you or how are you finding now people are responding to the education that you're putting out there and just the product in general? You know, what also helps me, even if people don't go for the project, for the product that I have, I already noticed that people are grateful. hey, I didn't know that this was the case. And now I look at the air quality or I close the windows or wash the curtains. And it's really helping me. And that's already something that that's for me a win.

17:19You know, like I'm helping people with transferring some knowledge about what is there in the air. So, yeah, that that's the first. And the second thing is it's a continuous journey. And as we're growing and as we're showcasing more, there's also a, you know, build up of trust. And this is also how it goes for any entrepreneur. Like, how do you make sure that people see you not just once, but also twice and you know five times and stuff that's not only for yourself but it's also what you try to educate so for me it's a dual thing like i love it that people actually respond to the way i you know try and work on explaining what's there and what it does for them and then again it also helps getting the product to market and that's one thing that i think is always a challenge is there's such a big difference between b2b and direct-to-consumer sales i had a an ear plucks company before that was like direct to consumer i didn't know about that because a lot of the previous stuff i've done is in the kind of b2b sphere large machinery expensive equipment you know changing things that are you know very like a couple companies can do it and there's these large contracts with it and this is a whole different game so how do you reach people and mass and how do you create a community around that community is everything right i think when you're reaching people, maybe even the future of B2B is also having some sort of community, just maybe it looks different.

18:40So I know you've had a very fascinating journey. I mean, from aerospace engineer to creating different products, inventing things, seeing success, getting this investors or crowdfunding. And then you have Shark Tank. And now you're here, You've gone from B to B, B to C. What was a challenge, a personal challenge or something or a challenge that you had to go through that maybe personally was not easy? And how did you overcome it? I think the biggest challenge that I've seen and it's a weakness for me is like I noticed that I like working with people. but when you are getting other people to get on board with your business and you start working with them i noticed that i too often in the past was oh i like somebody as a person therefore i want to work with this person not looking at their merit or their backstory or what's happening and so for me it was really like how do i learn to not try to be just working with friends because that's not working i need to get a diverse team where everybody you know is really at level chips in what it is and that's for me the biggest challenge like how do i switch my mindset my own natural tendency to gravitate towards a certain persona that i like personally just to be you know playing pool with or you know like hanging out with that's not necessarily and it's good to have a team where you're like you you know you like each other and work with it but how do you make sure that it's also based on merit and also based on you know expectations so that's my biggest challenge and i keep cycling you know with that like okay who you know who do i work with in what capacity and at what level and that's not only for team internal there's also like suppliers and contractors and you know collaborations and all that stuff that's the continuing journey and i'm improving on that but it's it's difficult i'm very strong at what i do on the inventing stuff side but then if people are enthusiastic like are they the right people to join the team and Because in the end, and that's one of the things that I find difficult, is to be more clear on.

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22:02Indeed.com slash Founders Story. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring indeed is all you need. That is actually helping the business, therefore helping more people. So it feels very double by being a little bit more reserved or think a different way about who you're going to work with. But it will help in the end, the calls you're really focusing on. It's a continued journey, I must say. And I think that's my biggest challenge. There we go. You're able to say that this is an ongoing thing. Some people are like, oh, I solved this problem. I moved on. But what you're saying is this is an ongoing thing.

22:39And I think most of us, that's what we're really dealing with in business is it's something ongoing and it's not probably already solved. But I think not a lot of people are willing to admit to that. But I appreciate that. I am totally with you on board. And I've gone through the same thing. I've had to relook at how I trust people or how I get excited to work with people. It's not just because of their personality, because of who they are, how much fun we have. I am very interested about success, though. So you mentioned success just now. What will success look like? Or at what point are you like, OK, I am satisfied with the success that I've had.

23:22I'm going to move on to something else. I think that comes down to, is this a working machine that really is changing people's lives? So kind of the mission of what we do to help improve people. And it's not by just having X units or something, but really creating momentum and a movement towards a betterment. And I think then I would feel very satisfied to make sure that this continues. so I don't want to cut it off but then to kind of start saying okay this is something I can look at it we built the foundation the building is standing the gears are in there and turning this is the moment where I don't need to be anymore putting the bricks in this is to run by others okay now let's see what this can be and it can be either as part of a larger corporation or on itself get further but I'm definitely not there yet like this has to still grow and it's We got the momentum, we got the traction, we got the interest, we got these orders.

24:20And it's like, it's a running machine. So that's great. And there are so many levels of scale that I still want to go through. And this is maybe, again, the physicist in me speaking, it's logarithmic scale. Meaning it's like the Richter scale for earthquakes. If a mosquito lands on the table, it's minus 14 on that same scale. Minus 14 on the Richters. The Death Star exploding by the laser thing, the Death Star exploding the planet is like 15 on the Richter scale. So a Richter scale is in orders of magnitude. It's like times 10, times 10, times 10, times 10, times 10. So every step you take, you go 10 times more.

24:56So every time you go from 2 to 3, 10 times more. From 3 to 3 or 4, 10 times more, etc. But if you then look back all the way down the alley, you've done a million times. So right now, we are in a certain phase, you know, the phase of the thousands. this can become the phase of the 10 ,000s, the phase of the hundreds of thousands, etc. If you think about units. So for me, every phase has a new challenge. Your company has to be bigger or has to do something different to reach the next milestone in the phase. And I'd like to see a couple more phases and then say, okay, this has, you know, enough momentum and mass.

25:32This is like really, this is now orbiting a planet instead of just doing a hobby. You know what I mean? We're very far from the hobby side, but we're not yet on the, it's a planet that orbits the sun, let's say, side. So I want to get to that. You got to come back when you're orbiting the planet, when you've hit this success, when you got the tens, hundred thousands, billions in revenue or valuation. That'll be very interesting to see. I'd love to learn what are the challenges at that point? What are the learnings at that point? Because I think it's great. It's like you're saying, every step is like a new challenge, a new learning experience, something that's different.

26:10And there you go. Your 10x or 10x success rate at the next phase, come back and share with us how it's gone since then. But this has been, Dr. Arian, this has been great. One day I want to go to Shark Tank. I just want to be on the show but not have to talk on the show. I just need like a prop or something. But I really appreciate your time today. hey, if people want to get in touch with you, they want to find out more about the company, how can they do so? Yeah, so we have the website, airtulip.co.co, so not the com. And yeah, there's a couple of different menus. You can reach out to us by email.

26:47We also have a chat window if you have any questions. And so please reach out to me and to us. My personal email is also arjun at airtulip.co. If anybody wants to reach out personally, my name is here in the description, A-R-J-E-N, it's Dutch, at airtulip.co. Amazing. EricTulip.co. Dr. Arjen, thank you so much for joining us today on Founder's Story. Thank you so much. Thanks, Dan.