Now award winning, using the Lattice.site platform makes an entire construction site’s supply chain visible, floor by floor to ensure that projects stay on track.
We’re incredibly proud of Startup Giants’ Sankha Deep whose vision has founded and built the Lattice Build Technology from scratch. Now signing up global customers and winning much deserved recognition for his concept and efforts, he chats to us about where he’s at in his journey so far …
How has your mental state as a Founder developed over the past 12 months?
When we first started, we were a little nervous of what we’re trying to do, until you have a solid product market fit, entrepreneurship is always a little worrying. With time and hard work you build the fit and also your confidence. Speaking to people, on boarding a couple of customers and speaking to so many investors here in Europe has got my confidence now. I know we are there and we are going to make it. The process has strengthened my confidence and mental state for sure.
So pitch practice gets you pitch perfect?
Yes absolutely. We pitched in so many places to so many people. I think one was even a Google event.
Have you managed to break into the marketplaces that you initially wanted to?
When I was in India, I wanted to move the company. India is good, it’s a big market, but the level of innovation or the digitisation is at the first stage and the kind of product we wanted to create was basically step two or three. So the UK was good and whatever you do in the UK can be mirrored in the US market on a larger scale. We are signing up customers, one from the US and one from the UK so I feel tremendously pleased and grateful as those were the two marketplaces I wanted Lattice to move into. I thought it would take more time to get both, both coming together is a blessing.
What have you found out about the procurement process?
One thing with construction is that the sales cycle is much bigger than any other B2B platform. Typically, if you’re in b2b sales, it’s 15 days. For us,15 days doesn’t even give you the first meeting. So for us it’s typically four to six months. To counteract that though, the length of the projects to win are massive. So from a minimum two years or 24 to 48 months, so it’s more than worth it.
How do you sustain yourself as a business in the meantime?
I come from a real estate background as well. So my previous company was into doing occupancy sensing for commercial real estate – to understand how, where people are, what the occupancy is, so I’m still continuing with that. Plus I sold my previous company which is sustaining me and I’m putting it into Lattice.
And now you’re officially award winning …
Winning at the Startup Awards Wales was an amazing moment – I didn’t expect to win at all. I was actually eating when they announced it and the head of BT Digital had to relay it to me. I couldn’t believe it because there were so many other businesses who I thought were much better than us, but the judges loved the story. I didn’t shy away when I went to the stage. I was like, ‘Yeah, I did it!’
I think one of these events just fires you up even more. When entrepreneurship is celebrated, you just get going, because it’s tough, right? This is this is not something that everyone can do, so you have to hold on to these moments.
With all this talk of recession in the UK, how can you future proof Lattice?
One thing I learned from the last recession was that investors or anyone will not expect so much from you because they know the market is difficult. So you are in a much safer space. So if you can do more marketing or if you’re closing more deals, it just gives investors and customers more confidence. You’re doing well. Go harder in a recession and power your way through it.
Do you think social media is as important these days?
Social media is just a way of interacting with your customers or reminding whoever it is that you’re there, doing what you do. I don’t think it will ever die because you need to be a constant presence of who you are and what you do in their mind. If, for example, you do business the traditional way where you go talk to them once and then leave, they’re likely to forget you. If you’re connected through LinkedIn however, or some marketing channels, you can stay at the forefront of their minds. So you know, doing some content, being open about the sector’s issues and then putting your solution across creates a positive memory.
We’ve been trying to do content marketing here and there to make sure that people know who we are and we’re trying to grow our LinkedIn followers as well. However it’s not a numbers game for us, we don’t have thousands of followers, however I think 80% of our people are either VCs or construction people who genuinely want to see what we’re doing with Lattice, so we’re attracting the right ones. We have been lucky enough to get that kind of following.
What keeps you charging forwards?
For me, it’s the hope of what can happen next and it’s, I think for me personally, it’s validation. If I can validate what I’m doing, and if I know it’s going change something, then it just gives me the energy to you know, go and do it the very next day. For example, we had been part of Digital Construction Week. We spoke to so many people and their reaction to Lattice was: ‘OK, this is interesting’. When you see very few people doing what your company does, and you know that people are interested that taste for innovation just motivates me.