The Future of Consumer Research: Smart Labels & Real-Time Usage Data with Adhithi Aji

Join Lenny Murphy in this insightful conversation with Adhithi Aji, CEO and founder of Adrich, a breakthrough technology company revolutionizing consumer research. Adhithi shares her journey from electrical engineer to tech entrepreneur and explains how Adrich's smart label technology is transforming the CPG industry by providing real-time consumption data and closing the "last mile" information gap.

Adhithi's powerful insights on embracing uncertainty and following your passion make this a must-watch for innovators, researchers, and business leaders in the CPG space.

Thanks again to Adhithi Aji for being our guest. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.

Transcript

Leonard Murphy: Hello everybody. It's Lenny Murphy with another edition of the CEO series of interviews. Thank you for taking time out of your day to spend it with myself and my guest. and this has been another interview that we've had to scramble back and forth and reschedule multiple times. So I'm really glad that it's finally happening. today I am joined by Aji CEO of Adrich. Welcome Aditi. How are you?

Adhithi Aji: Good, Lenny. And thanks for being so patient and…thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to chatting with you on this podcast.

Leonard Murphy: I hope that you feel that way when we're done. So it's great to have you and…

Adhithi Aji: Bless you.

Leonard Murphy: Just for the audience had I didn't realize that you had been in India and I had scheduled some ungodly terrible time originally for India. So now you're back in the US. This is a more kind time. So glad that you forgave me for that first round.

Adhithi Aji: I'm productive in the night, so it wasn't too bad. But I'm glad we got this on an early morning. relatively early.

Leonard Murphy: Yeah. Yes.

Adhithi Aji: Speaking of which,…

Leonard Murphy: Yeah.

Adhithi Aji: but yeah, anytime for you, Lenny, it's always absolutely.

Leonard Murphy: Thank you. So for those who don't know why don't you talk a little bit about your background tell us about you and then we can talk about Adrich to kind of set the stage

Adhithi Aji: So a little about me. originally from India came to the states now been over 15 years and a little bit of my background started as a electrical engineer by profession so being in the tech world predominantly and I was part of corporates like Robert Bosch and Alcatalusent in the automotive and telecom space.  So the cruise controls you see in the cars today I was part of the R&D teams building and that's where I saw the power of technology the power of sensors and fast forward I got bored of just being tech and behind computers I wanted to be more with people. So wanted to be on the business forefront of technology. So got my MBA in supply chain management and came to the US to study in Carnegie Melon specializing in innovation management which is how do you take high-end research technologies and bring it to market so it makes technology useful and also helps businesses after which I worked in corporate America again in the tech world as a product manager and I was part of product strategy  in companies like Seammens and cloud computing and honestly there is where I saw a big gap and that's also the genesis of how Adrich started. during my time as a product manager in the tech world I understood that in tech we get access to usage data. We know how our apps are built, where the traffic to a website is coming. And that really helped me personally understand my customers, understand their needs and build better products suited to their needs. But when you come to CPG or consumer products or any physical product for that matter, that last mile of usage data is missing.  There's a lot of data up until the purchase, but once it leaves the store, it's sort of a black box, right? how are consumers using my products and a lot of it is which is where we are like, they might be interacting this way, so let me build this product this way. But if we actually had consumption and usage and actual data on how consumers are using the product that would be powerful for brand managers and the whole ecosystem of CPG because we're closing that holy grail of last mile missing data and getting them one step closer to the consumer.  So the mission for Adrich became as to how to take that data-driven approach from the tech world and provide it to CPG and that's how a bit of my background came together. So we said why not make the products intelligent enough and smart enough to talk and tell the brands and where they're being used. And so bringing my experience from sensors in the tech world to product management from bringing that whole data driven approach from tech to CPG and helping brand managers and other players in the ecosystem with real time usage data and real time interaction with the consumers to build better products to kind of elevate the experience and really close the information gap in the last mile.  So that's really how my background and the genesis of Adrich happened.

Leonard Murphy: You may be the first electrical engineer that I've ever interviewed who came here through that path, but it certainly makes sense, especially considering the Adrich product. And let's talk about that for a minute. So, you kind of hinted at it, but just to be clear, it is a sensor that goes on a product to help measure consumption.

Adhithi Aji: Mhm. Exactly.

Leonard Murphy: And the core use case would be kind of inhome product testing and consumption diaries. That type of use case where you're understanding how many times people are utilizing the coffee creamer that type of thing. So really it's a kind of the internet of things concept, did you originally think about replenishment and supply chain and how connect to a shopping app and would say that you've used these products and then found this other research use case is that yeah

Adhithi Aji: So as with any sort of new idea, we had a couple of applications with the technology,  It's a platform like you said Lenny. It's a smart label that you peel and stick onto any product. It can be postp production and it becomes smart and it tracks consumption data. So to the accuracy of the time of use to the minute of use how much you have used to the granularity of each use.  So that's the level of accuracy we bring in terms of consumption data. and also remove all the false positives. So if you just move around a product it doesn't pick up that data. Our core was to give accurate usage data and also enable in the moment feedback. So to close the recall gap with consumers we are enabling let's say on first use you want to understand the scent of the product or did the consumer have any challenges opening the product. So we have these in the- moment in triggers where you can ask the consumer surveys. It's a quick 30 secondond survey and you close the recall gap.  So both of that the consumption data and in the- moment surveys gives a 360deree view of real consumer behavior where you're able to not only get how they're interacting with the product and what is the data saying but why as well because you're getting qualitative. So in a way to talk of it it's a marriage between iHut in terms of the logistics. So you just send out these labels either consumers can apply it or anyone can apply it and it becomes smart and they download an app and it connects and it's unbiased usage. So it automatically streams consumers use a product as they normally would. But we also bring the depth of ethnography because you're now able to understand core intricate behaviors without having people to go.  So it is the depth of ethnography but call it iHart 2.0 pretty much in that it automates diary entries, it automates journal entries and it also allows in the- moment feedback. so really two value propositions there. One, you're getting the accuracy beyond self-reported data which because it is a sensor, it's technology, it's capturing actual usage and eliminating all false positives. But you're not losing out on qualitative because it's in the moment surveys and it closes the recall gap and you get a full surround picture of what's happening and how consumers are interacting with your product. So that is a market research and consumer research has been one of our biggest use cases of the technology. and that's where predominantly most of our brand customers are using today and we have research partners partnering with us along with their brand partners in market today and we've rolled out about 25,000 units to date and it's a patented technology.

Leonard Murphy: Okay, very cool.  Very cool. And obviously the benefits for kind of pre- AI are obvious. have you seen a uptick in kind of interest or thinking about use cases now that we are in this era of data convergence and synthesis powered by AI? hopefully not fully right.

Adhithi Aji: Absolutely I think AI has taken over the world. It's clear. That said, that's where I was coming, right? AI is as good as the data set feeding into AI is right you have to be careful what you're feeding in because that becomes a foundation and I think average plays a part in that piece where the data doesn't exist today consumption data it exists more in terms of journal entries and a little bit in terms of possibly social media and things  like that where it's not a very structured data set and average comes in to give a structured consumption data set which is accurate and we take a lot of effort in making sure the data that comes with from our sensors is very accurate with our calibrations. From there on now that you have a foundation accurate structured consumption data set imagine…

Leonard Murphy: Yeah.

Adhithi Aji: What can be done because the data is so accurate now you can overlay weather so we have now done research studies where it's longitudinal and seasonality where weather impacts consumption and how it impacts consumption so those are layers on top of consumption data that you can bring in point of sale data and see sales versus consumption. You can see how impact events impact consumption. So you can bring your whole marketing data set on this and really so as you grow this data set in terms of one having a very accurate consumption data set and overlaying it with others it's natural for AI to evolve on this layer of data sets because now you're bringing a lot of structure into it and AI is as good as the data you feed in and so I think a number of other use cases are coming up in terms of how can you change marketing in real time with hyperpersonalized marketing because consumption at individual household level so that's the power of…

Leonard Murphy: What's this?

Adhithi Aji: Where IoT meets AI and addage has seen that evolving we originally started only as IOT there was no AI but as we started seeing the patterns around the data  We use AI to determine volume remaining because we started seeing patterns in the data that could actually help us get to volume remaining without weighing scales without introducing the bias.  So we do use AI there but we are also starting to see patterns when you interlay data sets and AI I think there will be powerful where you can almost predict marketing campaigns and you can also increase ROI on marketing and product development as well to sort of intuitively give ideas on new products and understand what development features are really impacting consumer experience. So those are areas where I think new use cases with AI will develop.

Leonard Murphy: Yeah, that's fascinating, right? And the combination of kind of real world usage that sensor component with the additional data sets to drive more value creation and insight. what an interesting world we live in right now.

Adhithi Aji: For sure. It's been but it's definitely fascinating by the hour our time becomes more precious than technology is trying to automate things to give us our time back.

Leonard Murphy: Yeah. All let's switch gears a little bit. Let's talk about you. Because you are somewhat of a rarity a female tech founder especially something that kind of hard tech the way I think about things like labels. Talk about just your journey as a founder and what's that been like?

Adhithi Aji: Yeah. Thank you, I mean, certainly an acknowledgement. I really appreciate that, especially coming from you. I think, yes, it is a small subset. and I think things are changing though I hope so because I think my journey as a female founder has been quite a journey in that it's not without challenges for sure the stats say only 2% of women raise VC funding venture capital funding and that is a pretty crazy stat given the amount of VC funding that our counterparts get. That said I think at the end of the day as much as we can do our work and the work speaks for itself. That's been my kind of mantra if you will that there is a lot of noise out there. And yes it is a fact that possibly women founders have to work 10 act 10x harder to get the same reward right that our counterparts get…

Leonard Murphy: All right. But it's changing and I was part in India and part of Thai global I was representing women entrepreneurship in India where the global finals were and we had 40 other  women founders on stage pitching and Adrich kind of won an award. So that was exciting. But what was more exciting for me is how women entrepreneurs had come together on stage and how we were a community helping out each other. I think that's powerful. Plus I was amazed to see the amount of support we were getting as other VCs and there are now funds which help women founded companies and I think women in tech also is improving. there is stats out there where a lot of more women are enrolling into STEM programs. and I think while the macro trends are changing I think that'll be in favor for us but I do believe that as long as our work speaks and it'll take a bit of a time but I do feel that will come around and help more women get into STEM or just start companies I think it's a very fulfilling journey to say the least despite all the challenges you are sort of following your passion but that keeps me going the fact that every day I'm help helping one brand or one person or anyone with some amount of usage data whatever we provide to be able to do their job better that keeps me going and our customers validate everything that we do so that also keeps me going. So I really seek validation and appreciation from the market especially because we're changing the status I think innovation at the core of it is about changing status quo and having a disruptive innovation that always drives me.  So those are some facets that keeps me going and talking to people like you who support us along the way really helps  Yes, in some small way but definitely the validation from the market is the best part I would agree any so I think it's shifting as well and that's great as far as the kind of composition of the market lessons that you would pass on to other kind of emerging founders and especially female founders immigrant founders or whatever the case may  be right you cover a lot of different constituencies that's really fantastic. So, wisdom that you would pass on to say, hey, keep this in mind as you progress.

Adhithi Aji: Yeah, I'd say it came out of the graduation speech at U Kanei Melon when I graduated and the one sentence that stays with me to date is embrace uncertaintity, which I think is the foundation of entrepreneurship. Every day you're chaining challenges and you're facing new challenges which at the end of the day is you're able to come up with creative solutions. embracing uncertaintity and taking that first step. I know it's scary but actually taking the first step you don't need to see the full picture.  you just take the baby steps, it'll unravel by itself. And looking back, I think there were a lot of times like getting the first customer, getting the first investor, those were milestones. It did take a lot to reach that but at the end of the day I think just jumping in take that first step and trusting that the rest will unravel by itself is what kind of helped me get started because I was working and taking the plunge into entrepreneurship was a bit of a scary move

Leonard Murphy: Yeah. Right.

Adhithi Aji: But that said having taken that step haven't looked back there are days where I am like wow why am I doing this there are days like that…

Leonard Murphy: Right. Right.

Adhithi Aji: But it comes around because I think the second big point I would say is choose something that you're passionate about and choose something that you have a core competence in because you have a million other variables that you don't  No, but if you choose something that you're really good at as a core for me the tech was the core and I knew I wanted to start so something with your core competence and then you will find people who will fill the gaps which are not your core competence and that's how it becomes a company from a concept. So those are two things I would say. One is embrace uncertaintity and two is choose something in your core competence. So your passion keeps pulling you back when things don't go as planned.

Leonard Murphy: That's great and the wisdom I think in my own life as well that that would apply and especially the embracing uncertainty we live in a strange world and…

Adhithi Aji: Yeah. What?

Leonard Murphy: And sometimes that also means there's unexpected holy crap, what was that? but often turns into, wow, that was really cool, if these circumstances had not manifested, life would be very different. And often I tell my kids "Dad, did you plan on doing what you do for a living?" No. Nope. Nope. Life has taken me in massively different directions than I had ever envisioned and I would have been selling myself short. if the things that I thought originally were going to go that way life would be worse in many ways than it is today. So yeah,…

Adhithi Aji: Right. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, when you connect the dots in retrospective, you kind of know then, okay, this is why things happen the way it happened.  Although at that point in time you would be like why is this happening this way? I had planned another way. So I think it comes back to things happen for a reason and eventually it all works out.

Leonard Murphy: It does. It does. This has been just a wonderful conversation and I knew it was going to be and I'm glad that I was so earlier in the beginning we thought all right are you still going to think it was that you were glad you were doing this? I am glad that we did this. So all right I'm blushing now.

Adhithi Aji: Thank you. That means a lot, Lenny, coming from you especially. So, made my day there.

Leonard Murphy: Is there anything that you wanted to cover that we did not

Adhithi Aji: I guess you touched upon many topics that I think for one entrepreneurship and our offering to the research industry.  I do say that with technology now with things progressing the way it is I do feel that the industry whether it's research or CPG at large or physical products for that matter it can be pharmacy and other healthcare I do think technology can really help augment a lot of things that we're doing and  it is automating certain things. Yes, human judgment is always needed. but I would encourage to try out new things like challenge the status quo. I think that will be something that must be done fairly soon enough be because the trends are showing that not just on the technology side but consumers are changing right consumers are expecting beyond that physical attributes of a product whether it's the taste the scent the packaging it's beyond that now they exper they want an experience around the interaction of products and I think that's a big shift in consumer needs and that's where technology will play a role and specifically starting from understanding what the shift is and understanding the real consumer behavior behind it and I think that's where things like our technology and AI will help u kind of get us to what is really happening cut out the noise and take a very data-driven approach to new innovations whether it's coming up with new products or whites space or even flagship products making sure they are still meeting consumer needs so I would say I think the one thing that I would want to ask is challenge status quo adopt new technologies and really see how you can leverage that to really go beyond a day-to-day today job and understand how you can really meet your consumer needs because those are also changing postcoid but also from general generational patterns and gen z's and the next generations are not the same so there are a lot of changes happening and I think it's a wonderful time to be where the culmination of technology consumer needs changing and for CPG at large, the industry is changing and I'm happy to have worked with a lot of innovators and I would love to see more innovators out there to kind of partner with us and, and go to market together and see the world changing and making a difference out there.

Leonard Murphy: On that note then how can people reach you so you can build this community of innovators and…

Adhithi Aji: Yeah. Yeah.

Leonard Murphy: How can they connect with you?

Adhithi Aji: Absolutely. of course I'm available on approachable. also Our website is www.adrich.io. A dr i. So yeah, those are two easy ways to get hold of me and LinkedIn has been the best way to reach out.

Leonard Murphy: Adi, this has been wonderful.

Adhithi Aji: Absolutely,…

Leonard Murphy: Thank you for taking the time really impressed by all that you've done. and impressed in advance by what you're going to accomplish. if there is any other way that we can be helpful, then just let us know. …

Adhithi Aji: Lenny. And again, thank you for having me and was a pleasure to talk to you as always.

Leonard Murphy: Thank you and you as And that is it for this edition of the CEO series. Thank you to our sponsors, and most of all to our listeners. we'll be back again with another edition real soon. Thanks a lot. Bye-bye.