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Spacific Allows You to Measure Objects with AR Glasses
I asked myself what I should do as a next step in my life.Dennis Ahrens, CEO and Founder Spacific
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MOIN! Media Partnership
This podcast is in media partnership with the Hamburg-based startup blog Hamburg Startups (https://www.hamburg-startups.net/). They keep you up to date on the local startup scene in Hamburg, they organize regular events (in normal non corona times) AND they do have a special section on food startups as well. Even if you are not able to speak German, a visit with an auto-translate is worth it, since they also have an extensive directory of local startups on their website.
Many companies have a measurement problem in their customer service.Dennis Ahrens, CEO and Founder Spacific
The Founder
We talk to the Hamburg-based founder Dennis Ahrens, the CEO and Founder of Spacific (https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennisahrens/). Spacific offers a software for augmented reality glasses to measure objects within rooms (https://www.spacific.de). Dennis has been involved in several companies, before starting his startup, one stop including staying for almost 13 years.
Dennis discovered his fascination for augmented reality while working in a project where AR devices have been used to measure stairs to build in stair lifts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stairlift).
When you want to create very small, intelligent 3d models. Then you are going to use our software.Dennis Ahrens, CEO and Founder Spacific
The Startup
Dennis founded his startup Spacific (https://www.spacific.de/) with customer service engineers in mind, who work for B2B companies.
The startup works on possibilities to measure objects inside a room. This would enable service engineers to put on their AR glasses and measure objects (e.g. lifts, forklifts, …).
Spacific is working on a self-service portal, for their business customers. There the Spacific clients can tailor their specific needs and processes with a work-flow-configurator, making their customer service better and fast than their competitors’.
There are many use cases for our software, e.g. in ship building. …Dennis Ahrens, CEO and Founder Spacific
Venture Capital Funding
Currently Spacific is funded by the savings of Dennis and funding from the City of Hamburg. They would be open to talking to external investors.
The Video Interview is set to go live on May 11th, 2021 at 17.00 CET (Frankfurt / Paris / Zürich)
The Audio Interview Podcast
The Audio Podcast will be published at the same time. Please give us a bit to post the Spotify link here. In the meantime, you can subscribe to our podcasts here.
Further Readings / Additional
Resources
Joe refers during the interview to this book: The world is flat (book) (AL): https://amzn.to/3hgWyQH
If you are curious, here is a Hololens (as Affiliated Link AL) on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3y2t7Io
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The Interviewer
This interview was conducted by Jörn “Joe” Menninger, startup scout, founder, and host of Startuprad.io. Reach out to him:LinkedInTwitterEmail
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Transcript below
[0:00] Music.
[0:08] That I owe you were podcast and YouTube blog covering the German.
[0:14] With News interviews and Live Events.
[0:21] Hello and welcome everybody this is Joe from celebrated I owe your startup podcast and you to block from Germanyif you’re watching this or listening to this make sure you hit the like And subscribe button today we have an interview of a specific.With Dennis he would me hey how you doing.
[0:41] Hi I’m fine mine from Hamburg and mine is the appropriate way in Hamburg to either say.Good morning as well as all day hello how are you doing thisthis interview is also brought to you in media partnership with Hamburg startups go down here in the show note and paid them a visit as wellDennis you are here because you are the founder of specific I’m.
[1:15] Can we first go a little bit through what do you get before because as always willing to your LinkedIn profile down here and there’s the company young Hydra Sharky and they you did a lot ofstuff like head of service proof senior project managementhow long have you been there and what have you learned there and why did he leave yeah I’m 30 years old so I am not,leave the a younger founder of a company so I have to have work for another companies before I found it spacific.I’ve been with young Henry for 13 years I think so a long period I said always.It was my youth time in working experience.
[2:09] And when I came out of the time I go to the next company toolkit.What I learned a lot at the Young Henry because that was my stage coming into the point of business process optimization thinking in lean processes.Thinking about how can it support,people having efficient processes and efficient working steps by steps using field application applications using sap Erp.And apis in between and so on so it was my my heart and logical thinking about how people work.Ed work.
[2:59] And in the last year’s I was responsible for the complete realization of these service processes so everything between.Customer recall and customer invoice so dispatching the engineer at the engineer getting his service reports and the disservice,engineer is able to write a service report and out of the hours and spare parts which the engineer used by the customer.
[3:31] Creating invoicing and the complete kpi things also in and that case so it was.
[3:40] Cool time with very great people.But in the end of 2015 I asked myself okay should I work my long life for you Heinrich because it was the beginning of I was.
[3:57] It’s the beginning of 30s.And yeah the question was should should I take other blood instead of the yellow blood in my mind and.Then I’m asking myself OK what what should I do in the next time and,with this comfort zone discussion I thought okay The Next Step should be a commercial after sales manager because I’m coming out of the after sales business processes,and yes I know I know how after-sales business works that I can use this knowledge to do.Added to Heaven a job role like an office sales manager but after a few weeks I realized no that is not what I want to and that was the decision and the answer of that.That I switch to the company tool Co which is an individual.Software and Hardware provider because there I got the.Opportunity to work for more than one company in real and very cool new technology projects and.
[5:10] Can have a look into more than one company and in a very short time period,oh that sounds pretty much like it was also a little bit of Consulting as well but sounds pretty interesting and of coursewhat I understand you then went on from sucher to,actually start a company what was the trigger what triggered you there why did you decide oh I have now a whatever 15 years in corporate experience and now I want to start a start-up,the reason was they acknowledged augmented reality stuff I learned by toolkit because when I switched from Young Hannah to comb the hololens came up in Germany,and Microsoft was searching foreign first.Certified development partner in the year German region and they asked to occur to go for it and.In that case I came in touch with the hololens and augmented reality in yeah business things.
[6:21] Keeping in mind what I learned by Johann Drake by after sales process that they are field service Engineers which can.
[6:30] Yeah I have guided workflows when they are working in the field or in training scenarios or whatever.I realized the business potential of augmented reality.And with the first project we made by Tool Co we got this certified stem by Microsoft,that was beginning of 2017.And with this stem we got the responsibility to take over the complete a our business for touka and.To build up this Market portfolio to get new customers to just give them as in consultant the possibility how.
[7:16] Can augmented reality have an impact of their turnover of their efficiency of their cost level,so there I got so many discussions with a lot of customers.That I keep in mind okay there is a real potential for that,and then we made an in real huge project together with the customer to Saint-Tropez.And in that case there was one special thing measurement stairs and that the case brings me to a brought me to the point okay.Measurement with augmented reality devices.
[8:05] And then we get in the 3D model out of it that’s very cool and a lot of companies have a measurement problem let’s say in their business processes and that was the reason to say okay.Let’s take and out step out of to co-found a new company and put in their measurement with augmented reality devices to get 3D models out of it.
[8:28] Basically the idea is if I understood it correctly so basically you have.
[8:35] Like two three maybe even more people walking around like around the specific object in a certain building they are wearing some type of augmented reality devices in yourcase for example Microsoft hololens and then actually you can take all the dataand measure everything that they’ve seen put together all the data and you end up with a pretty precise,model of what they’ve seen is that is that correct.
[9:06] That is our vision okay I seethe problem is that there are today there are no automatically scanning algorithm to take thelogic what kind of object it is what you are a c and scan and to get in.Accurate 3D model out of it so when I look at the use case of Tourism shop there we have uncompleted elevation of this sales process for stairlifts.So and the measurement is just one part.So the salesman goes to the customer scans the stairs and then he has a product configurator on the tablet,and then he can visualize the configuration of this stair lift.On the customer stairs so and they are you have or in this this is scanning process use you measure.The step-by-step and Wall by a wall and handrail by handrail and so-and-so object per object.And the logic what kind of the intelligence what kind of object you are measure is.
[10:26] Is coming from the the workflow because in the workflow the sales guys a now I measure a stair now I measure the handrail.And the outcome of it is an intelligent 3D model because this data are the that the sales guy said this is the handrail is saved by In This 3D model.So and when I compare this logic and way how to measure with.Current existing measurement processes and ways how guys in the field our measuring there are today two possibilities.On the one hand you have measure menu let it say yeah and you would you make the documentation on paper that’s the worst case scenario so a complete non digitization process.
[11:20] Like you still have still a physical wooden measure and you measure around.For example could be an easy solution for for small companies for example could be a easy solution to have an overview for for example,painting scenario whatever yeah so to calculate how many colors you need or make sure you need.
[11:48] But proven method since middle ages yes yeah of course.But if you need a 3D model for example to make a planning in let’s compare it also with the stair lift scenario yes you can make an.Overall measurement and it’s a okay this this kind of chairlift will be possible on this stairs,but the exactly scenario you need and current measurement scenario and then you have another possibility The Other Extreme signature your let’s say is you put in there and Laser,yeah I’m you can you have a laser 360-degree you put it into the room and he’s scanning anything what what is in this room.Including all stairs tables and whatever and afterwards you have in real big.Point clot.This point cloud is completely let’s say not not intelligence or non no deck because there is no data in yeah it’s just points.The intelligence can by reducing this point Cloud by.People sitting in front of computer like we doing right now so.
[13:10] In both get scenarios manual measurement and Laser scanning you have manual process steps,after the measurement to get this 3D model which you are interested in to make a planning to make a calculation to make whatever you want to.And this is a complete business Process Measurement is a non-digital has process.
[13:36] You see is what you get this is our scenario you just want to measure once there.Do the stairs and a twat not bald you want to measure ground floor of the room and not,the walls in the room you want to measure in a table and not the complete room you know so.
[13:58] What I had in mind when you’re talking about measurement first just realized we may add as,as chairlift like you’re saying it’s basically what you attached to the stairs,when somebody for example cannot walk stairs anymore or has a wheelchair and that’s basically the platform the carries it up and down just for the people listening to this and the other one that he had in mind was what came to mind was when my mothergot her built-in kitchen they came in three times to measure we’re not sure when the when the house was built but it was probably built before the barn and the barn was built16:28 so you don’t haveany right ankle you don’t have em for 10 centimeters a straight wall so basically it goes in it goes out it goes a little bit left a little bit right so basically as they could make it at thisvery moment and that would be like one of the places somebody can get,his or her classes on and she can just measure everything by watching it at that is currently what what you’re looking at right,yeah this is our vision that you just have to watch and then you will get automatically these 3D model out of it with a real high occurrence,and also we know this glasses are very expensive so we are working on Solutions using.
[15:27] Normal smartphones or tablets but they have to have the lighter sensor because of the occurrence effector,yeah that there was something thatI had in mind because if you’re just watching you always have the problem to see how far it is and for example I do have a little laser by well-known home to producer and basically hold it to the wallyou have the laser you should not look into it and it says you down to two the last digit down to the millimeter how far away it is and thatthat was the first thing I had a Mite that he actually attach it to the already expensive Hollow lenses that waslike the first step and now my understanding is you guys are developing in further right.
[16:14] Yeah we do and the next step is that we will have an Self Service portal for our customers,because we know that the measurement process in general is in all companies the same it’s the same as customer service process for example yeah so it.Depends not depends on what kind of subject disservice engineer has to repair the process in is in anything in any steps equal.So first you are calling that you have a problem as a customer then the service engineer has to come to you then the you will repair the thing,wash machine and the forklift or whatever then the object doesn’t matter and afterwards the company will write an invoice,so the measurement process is nearly the same it’s always,you have the order to measure something you will drive to the location where you will measure it and then you will get a 3D model out of it or you want to have it so the process is in any steps,equal so that’s the reason why we developed and Self Service portal where we have a workflow configurator where the,companies can Define the steps what kind of object and how in any in in which.
[17:39] In which period of our yet the companies can Define it from the self you know because I think the process is.As I said nearly the same but the objects are different between the companies and so that we have this.Use P workflow configurator and I think when I look into our development team it’s very.Very extensive developing such kind of configurators but it’s very useful to happen.
[18:16] Proper platform which you can adapt in very easy to your own company applications because I do,don’t want to be their next big platform which has the company to integrate in there,it systems like as IP Microsoft whatever you just adapt to their systems and they and they use us just as a measurement tool.End-to-end solution because we know that if we want to have this data from the field in the back office as in a digital format and not,by sending paperwork papers and noticed by the service Engineers into the back office and then working in the PC and so we are developing a complete end-to-end solution for the customers.Actually paper-based notes really made me are made me smile because we have a built-in kitchen and our fridge broke down shortly before Christmas and then we had somebodycoming in taking the measurements that he wrote it down and then they got it to to the retail store where they should actuallyfind the right fridge ain’t turned out this a representative couldn’t read the handwriting so that is fine let me let me quickly giveyou two questions or two statements basically number one is.
[19:41] You guys are currently working.On doing a Freedman basically what I’m referring to is Friedman The World is Flat basically that’s a book of a very.Interesting person what two-time Pulitzer Prize winners and basically that is a book where he argues to world has led you to certain Technologies but whatbit sticking in my mind from him was that he was complaining about Ryan Air or Southwest Airlines in his case because they made him a ticketing agent because they had to print outticket the night before which is something pretty common right now with many many airlines.
[20:22] Basically what you enable your clients to do the companies that basically theycan with the right app at one point that’s the vision I understood half the customers hold up their cell phones hold up their tablets and they can measure,objects are basically you’re doing the freedmen with them instead of having a lot of people traveling around you have just a handful of people sitting even in the home office and,taking the right measurements there will be statement number one if I stood it and if I understood the right just a side note does it also workFort like humans full clothing shoes stuff like that could be but I don’t believe that if you scan people the shopping experience,and we’ll be there the same as in a normal life I don’t think that augmented reality is a good shopping experience.
[21:26] Foreclosures and so on but for for things like tables stairs and Edge chairs and so on.
[21:35] Therefore yes but not for clothes and.The next one will be so we understood where your vision is you want to freedmen the client.Your clients and basically what I would be interested right now is where are the use cases where canyour client to play it as I said just clothing okay check what you had is like the the lifts,the chair lift on the stairs but I do believe they are like a Sicilianother possibilities especially now thinking along the Rail lines of machines heavy machinery built in stuff stuff like that but I do believe they’re like a lot,other options right yes of course not normally everybody.
[22:27] Things at the the let’s say.Kitchen scenarios as you explain but when you look at B2B processes when you look in industrial areas.In the building and property management and property areas,there are a lot of processes where you are measure for example,when you want to sell let’s say a palette palette and illegal I don’t know the English word for it.Therefore you have to measure the area where you want to build it up because you have to plan it in a,crd system and the next step is for the other example is,ship it ships so okay is not an inventor huge industry in the pandemic situation right now because all ships are more in The Harbours but.
[23:32] When you build a ship you have to measure after each.Workers are in this area they are working for so you have to remember a remeasure is the the.Fue para Paulo my don’t know the English word the every available building space yeah.
[23:54] Available building Space X image is much more easier,and you were referring to the palette in that regard it’s a heavy duty Shelf.Can basically half like whole constructs big packages very happy even approaching us sometimes hundreds of kilograms or charms and you just automatically lift them in there with a forklift with that’s what you have in mind,do people know like a light version of that from the Ikea stores,of course thanks a lot for this explaining very welcome yes and so there are a lot of scenarios where you are measuring industrial environment.And in Germany a lot of companies were like the engineer bureau’s.And Architects are measure for example in planning scenarios.And there’s also this Bim building information modeling where the.Building industry tries to get a 3D model and a longtime 3D model butthey plan in 3D but then they the agencies are the companies building the building.
[25:15] Another way as they plan so that there is a difference between the real building and this redeem model which they are planned and therefore for example our application can also be used.Just measured one one special room and one special place and to update this Originals redeem model there are a lot of use cases.Our solution is not really,useful when you want to scan a complete building like with drones and so on there are other applications where you can scan the complete building and getting,real accurate 3D model when you measure long distance the complete building and so on but when you go into.Very small spaces very small areas small objects then,you and you want to update 3D models you want to create very small intelligent 3D models then you use our application.
[26:18] I see.Now we do have an understanding of what you guys are doing what you guys been doing I was wondering how are you funded right now where does the money for the doing come from.
[26:34] Bootstrapped on the one hand on the other hand we have a funding from the city of Hamburg.The city of Hamburg has startup programs here and we have this program which called inner ramp-up,and that we got the also some money but the other part and the main part is the boot stripped.I see if an investor sees this interview would you be open to talk to them.I won’t say no so I think any company will be open if there in an hour.Early steps of we are right now and it will be open to discuss the question is always how much money for what and I think.
[27:28] Obviously also with this next product we have also in our minds someasurement is the one step but to visualize the next step for example our to visualize the 3D models which we are scanned for example or any 3D model because.My opinion is that a lot of companies has 3D models this German Middle East and for example they have a lot of cut models in their it systems.And there are a lot of companies which are not able to visualize by augmented reality because the the process,to put this existing 3D data into an in-form it which is able to visualize is very expensive and nowadays.But there are cloud services which you can use and we also think about the next product which.When we called X are seen from creating 3D scenes so we are creating just not an.
[28:39] Measurement solution this is yeah or core product let’s say but we are developing other 3D augmented relative products around that,Anand specific solution platform in this complete field I think we have a good opportunity to be one of the augmented reality,players in the market and yes if there will be an investor who will be interested in to give us some money.
[29:10] I think my my contact will be in this nodes wherever you will put this.Notes in the show notes and we put them down here wherever you watching this wherever you listening this there has to be a link at least that you could copy and pasteto our blog posts and there of course is your LinkedIn profile really sorry that we cannot make the links workeverywhere unfortunately we are limited by the platform you consuming this on if you’re bothered by this,you should think about ER looking for us on a different platform Dennis.
[29:52] Was very great talking to you we are running a little bit longer than usual but I do believe it was totally worth it augmented reality virtual reality is a big topic especially if you guysreally applying it we’ve come a long way from like the very bulky 3Dglasses where you had to stand on a platform to make 3D Shooters really work to here weactually can apply it we keep a little bit track of you guys and hope you’re doing great thank you very much for being my guest and Moines,thank you to be here and More in from Hamburg because one morning is enough.One morning is enough awesome closing words thank you bye-bye.Take care if you are a professional looking at the European startup scene Germany is a place you cannot miss.
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