[00:00:00 – 00:00:08] Nitin Bajaj

Welcome to the industry show. I’m your host Nitin Bajaj and joining me today is Sohrab Haghighat. Sohrab, welcome on the show.

[00:00:09 – 00:00:10] Sohrab Haghighat

Thank you for having me.

[00:00:10 – 00:00:13] Nitin Bajaj

Great to have you here. Let’s start with who is Sohrab?

[00:00:15 – 00:01:23] Sohrab Haghighat

So where should I begin? Professionally, I am a mechanical aerospace engineer with passion for a few things. I always joke about I have a passion for things that move fast, cars and planes and whatnot. But at the same time I have a passion for reducing the need for doing repetitive and manual work. And that same desire is what took me to cruise to join the mission of autonomous and self driving cars. And the same passion is what is behind Hestus and helping engineers reduce the manual workload that they do when it comes to designing products so they can focus on the creative aspect of the work that they do and less so on the manual mundane tasks that they need to do day in, day out.

[00:01:25 – 00:01:43] Nitin Bajaj

You actually answered another question of mine by defining who you are, nicely integrating your passion into your profession. You could have done many different things and you chose to be an entrepreneur instead. Tell us a little more about the why behind it.

[00:01:44 – 00:06:14] Sohrab Haghighat

So I love building things. As far back as I remember, I think I was 6 or 7 that I watched 20,000 Leagues under the Sea and it was a animation, it was a cartoon that I watched based on the book and that got me fascinated with submarines. That was the first time I learned about the concept of submarines, like a boat that goes underwater. And I remember instantly I wanted to build a submarine and I was trying to recruit people to help me from family members and whatnot. And at the time, this is the joke that my dad says, my mom was pregnant with my little sister at the time it was two of us, so myself, my younger sister and the third one to be born. And I asked her, is it possible for this one to be a boy? And she said why?

I said because I need a doorman for my submarine and I don’t have that in my list of crew that I have gathered so far. And obviously as a seven year old thinking with all the gender biases and whatnot that the doorman should be a man and all that. So there’s so many things wrong with that. But you cannot ask so much or expect so much from a seven year old. But that’s the earliest memory that I have that I always wanted to build things and throughout my years of high school and later on undergrad, I always wanted to build stuff. I remember when I was studying at high school and wanted to go for university. My dream was to become a mechanical engineer and one day start a super car company.

And my cars competing at Formula one or other racing competitions. Obviously that didn’t happen. I studied aerospace engineering and from the moment I started studying aerospace engineering, my mind went into what can I build with this crop duster? Was the first thing that I thought, oh, I should look into building crop dusters. And then at some point, way later in life, this was after I finished my PhD. I looked into similar concept but using drones for this thing called cloud seeding. It’s an approach that allows us to generate rain or produce rain in seasons that you’re getting not enough rain.

So building and starting something has always been a passion. I remember in my undergrad I, in parallel to studying, I ran a very small kiosk or it was not a coffee shop, it was more of a kiosk. And it was just such a big passion of mine. The passion was not serving tea or serving coffee, but the passion was seeing how that was solving a problem. The aerospace department was far from the main cafeteria of the school. So the 15 minute break that we had between two classes was not enough for people to go there, get a drink, get a tea, get a snack and come back. And this was literally a room under the stairs that I had turned into a kiosk that I was selling tea, coffee, I don’t know, cookies, and in summer cold drinks.

And it was in the department building so students didn’t have to go anywhere. And I come from Persian background, so we take our teas, steep and that’s what is expected. So I remember 10 minutes before the class was done, I snuck out of the class to start the tea, basically brewing process and steeping came back in. By the time that classes were done, he was ready. So I would easily sell more than 100 cups of tea during that 15 minute break. So it’s just, I don’t know, building something and going through the problems and solving them and coming out of it victorious. That’s something that I’ve always wanted to do.

[00:06:15 – 00:06:38] Nitin Bajaj

I love that energy and more so that passion. And you started talking about Hestus and a little bit of the why behind it. You’re relatively early in the journey, but give us a sense for where is it today, especially in terms of impact and the types of customers you’re bringing on the geographies you’re working with. So we have a good sense of size and scale.

[00:06:40 – 00:10:39] Sohrab Haghighat

So let me tell you a little bit more about the problem that we are trying to solve. And then I can get into impact and problem. So today there’s about a $400 billion of productivity loss that happens every year when we design products. This my earphone case. Literally everything that we use today, every physical product that we use started as a design on a computer. Then when the design is done, it goes to a manufacturer, and manufacturer comes back with a lot of feedback for the designer. See, the issue is that the designers often don’t know about these manufacturing constraints.

They only learn about it at the end of the design based on that feedback. Now they need to redo many things that they have done. That is that $400 billion that I’m talking about. And we want to solve that. We want to be able to get rid of that feed, not the feedback loop, but basically want to bring the feedback loop into the design phase. So as you go through your design, you receive support and guidance in what can work and what may not work can be problematic. So that’s the problem that eventually we want to solve and the way we want to go about it is the first thing that I need to do is build an understanding of what is it that this user is trying to design, trying to build for me to be able to give them recommendation that it is going to help them.

So based on that, we started by helping people at the core of what is Designing physical products, I.e. designing in CAD computer aided design software. And the very first step is always 2D design. So let me help you there in your 2D sketching, that helps you go faster, that helps you make fewer mistakes and have to redo things. But. But at the same time, through doing that, we see how we can be beneficial to you. And from that learning, we can then take it and apply to 3D to building assemblies of product.

Because at the end of the day, this product has multiple parts and they need to go together to build a product. So that’s another problem. And once we solve that, Once we solve 2D 3D assembly, then we can combine that with a whole overarching AI for manufacturing to avoid that whole feedback coming late into the design and eliminating that design redo and eliminating that $400 billion of bottling. So that is the impact that we want to have. And as I said today, we started with the very first step that every engineer starts with when it comes to designing a new product, a new part, 2D sketches. So we help them by finishing their cat faster. We help them by reducing the cognitive load that they need to battle.

There are so many things that they need to do manually, and we help them. Prompting them, showing them, suggesting them those actions that they need to be doing so they don’t have to worry about, oh, shoot, am I forgetting something? Yeah.

[00:10:41 – 00:11:22] Nitin Bajaj

I think one of the bigger pieces of this, at least for me, was the whole aspect of the materials that go into this and how that can also become a very valuable input. And also, you’re talking about the lack of efficiency in the process. I’m also thinking about.

You mentioned cognitive. There’s also the emotional aspect and that excitement that one goes through and only to realize that the manufacturer cannot make that happen. And that in itself has, I would imagine, a big challenge. When it comes to motivation or designers.

[00:11:22 – 00:13:33] Sohrab Haghighat

And engineers, that’s actually one of the key things that you brought up, that the motivation with which you start the design and the sense of deflation that you experience when the feedback comes from the manufacturer. The before Hestus, I had started a rocket company and ran that for six years. A lot of times when I tried to ask engineers, when I tried to push them to move faster, one of the things was that, what good does it make if I submit this job and manufacturer cannot do it in time? Or manufacturer comes back with, okay, no can do, no can do, no can do. And then my answer was, okay, if we get to that point of receiving that answer faster, then everything will happen faster. I still believe I’m right in the sense that, okay, you gotta push yourself to deliver the best that you have. But the human aspect of it, that emotional aspect of it, is something that at the time, I couldn’t grasp what they were dealing with and going through it. And it is 100% correct that if you put in all your heart and soul into designing something and it comes back that, okay, this is too expensive, so company cuts that product, or if this is too difficult to make, so it takes years for it to come to market, then you get deflated.

And that’s another thing that we would love to help. Engineers, designers, who are our users with this product? You asked who is the type of people that we help? And literally every mechanical engineer, every aerospace, robotics, anyone who designs a product in cad, regardless of where they are and what product that they’re working on, can be our customer. And that is another thing that excites me about hest, is that it can have such a wide impact on not just one industry and not limited in one geography.

[00:13:35 – 00:13:47] Nitin Bajaj

Love that. Give us a sense of in this journey today and even maybe going back a little bit in time. What’s the Biggest challenge that’s ahead of you.

[00:13:52 – 00:16:48] Sohrab Haghighat

One of the biggest challenges that I have always dealt with personally is selling my story. Now let me tell you why. I have often been critiqued as someone very technical that tells boring stories. And I want to say that is 90% true. Meaning that I see and look at things from a technical lens and it’s actually that technical aspect that it is appealing to me more than anything else. One of the reasons I joined a self driving car company was the fact that I had an uncle and he had a car accident and he passed away because of that accident. So to me I always felt that if be a boy that would be awesome.

But the second reason I joined it was this is a tough nut to crack and I want to crack it. It was mostly a very difficult problem and I like the joy of solving it. So because I look at things from this lens of technical, I have a hard time relating to people. And for me, the biggest challenge has always been how can I get people to join my journey, to cheer for me and to champion for me when I cannot win them over. And then a few times back at Spaceride and also here at Teslas, there were moments that I speak just purely from art and from passion. And then those are the moments that people can relate to what I say. And I have not found a way to or found a switch to say that, okay, where does the emotional sort of come out as opposed to the technical one?

I wish I had found that switch so I could turn it on when I wanted to go into selling mode. So for me that has always been the challenge. There are other things that an entrepreneur need to have grit or resilience. It doesn’t matter how much pain comes, I can just punch it back. Rocky is the entire series is my most favorite movie because of that underdog a mentality. And just you gotta fight back and you gotta just grasp onto anything that you can do. I have no problem doing that.

My biggest problem has always been telling stories that excite people.

[00:16:51 – 00:17:37] Nitin Bajaj

For what it’s worth, I think I’ve only seen the 10% version, or maybe around me the switch flips because you’ve obviously been extremely resilient. We talked about Spaceride and the journey you had there and how you got to get an entire team to work for you, literally for nothing. And that couldn’t have happened unless you emotionally appealed to them and connected with them and got them to be inspired by your passion and get them to come on board. But I believe I’ve been extremely fortunate to See the emotional sort of, because that’s just amazing. But I’m sure as a technical person, you’re even better. So I’m looking forward to seeing that version.

[00:17:39 – 00:18:03] Sohrab Haghighat

That’s nice of you to say that. And I think there’s something about how you talk to people that relaxes them. And it definitely was the first time that we met at Open Atlas Summit in that panel. It was definitely a very emotional situation, talking about my journey, space and so on and so forth.

But yeah, that’s. That’s side of me that usually does not come out.

[00:18:05 – 00:18:14] Nitin Bajaj

Well. Happy to be a conduit for that. And now on the flip side of challenges come opportunities. What is it that excites you the most.

[00:18:17 – 00:20:24] Sohrab Haghighat

About? Particularly about Hestus.

The thing that excites me is there were so many challenges that we had to deal with at space. Right. All those redesign problems that I talked about a lot of time. Redesigning, for example, doesn’t happen because there’s a manufacturing issue. Sometimes there’s a supply chain problem. Okay. You’ve designed your solution based on that specific gear, that specific bearing, that specific component, and all of a sudden it’s not there.

And we had that problem a lot during COVID time that, okay, this product is out of stock and it comes back in six months. And we are a startup. You don’t have six months to wait. So again, you’ve got to go back and change it. And engineers hated that. And I don’t disagree with that. It’s just.

It’s a stupid, menial word. And not because of its menial work. It’s. I’ve already done the job, now I’m just doing it again just because the part is not there, and that sucks. And thinking that one day we would solve that problem. So in real time, the feedback about manufacturing, the feedback about which part is currently in stock, the interference of parts, oh, this part and that part may not go together well. And all that comes at the fingertip of the engineer.

So they signed up for the job for the joy of designing something impressive. No one signed up for redoing and fixing cad. That’s the evil part of it that they have to endure and they have to just go through painfully. So if I can remove that and if they can just. If I can give them only that part, that it is joyful and fun for them, imagine what impact would it have to put this into perspective, okay, Designing cars from scratch is a hard job.

[00:20:24 – 00:20:25] Nitin Bajaj

Yes.

[00:20:26 – 00:21:39] Sohrab Haghighat

Now, Rivian started, if my numbers are correct, back in 2009, and I believe the first delivery came out in 2021. I’m sure they had the best engineers. I’m sure they worked as hard as they could covet happened in the middle and all that stuff. Now imagine same story, but Vivian could have come to market six years earlier, half the time that it took them.

That would be amazing. Yeah, like sure, every year we get an iPhone, but imagine if there was a world that you get an iPhone every year and it’s not super expensive. Today new iPhone is supposed to come out. So that’s why I brought it up. I still have an iPhone 12 and we are waiting for iPhone 17.

Why is that? Because every year it becomes more and more expensive. Maybe if we shrink that design cycle, it does not get expensive. So maybe I can afford to upgrade my iPhone more frequently. So that is what I want to change.

[00:21:42 – 00:22:07] Nitin Bajaj

Love that. Now, as we look forward in the future, I would love to pause and reflect and take us back in time and ask you to share two moments. One where things did not work out as you had expected. There was failure, disappointment, lessons. And another one where things exceeded your expectations and there was success beyond your imagination.

[00:22:13 – 00:23:23] Sohrab Haghighat

I would go back to space. Right. For both, because I think that’s a close chapter so it’s easier to share stories from space. The one that did work. So we started in, if I’m not mistaken, August or September of 2018. And in June of 2019, only nine months after we started, we had a test flight of our entire system. It was a smaller version of the entire balloon rocket system, but in nine months we did that.

Now, to put this into perspective, there are only five people, so it was not hundreds of engineers working on it. And to put this into perspective, you received permit to do that flight in Canada. And at the time, Canada had not issued any permit for rocket launches and rocket testing for 21 years.

[00:23:24 – 00:23:24] Nitin Bajaj

Wow.

[00:23:25 – 00:28:48] Sohrab Haghighat

So there were multiple battles that we had to win racing against the time. We started with literally no money, no investment. So it came the savings that myself and my wife, which happened to be my co founder, put in to start the company and convincing three young engineers who were passionate about space and rocketry to join us. And then we work day and night to pull that off and then to navigate the entire permit process and get the permit when no one actually knew what the process is. That is one of the proudest moment of my life that five people team can do that. Wow. So that’s that.

I think Spaceride Journey had a lot of ups and as any other startup had a lot of Downs One of the saddest days of my life was shutting down spaceride despite being on a success track from customer perspective. We had a pipeline of 177 million launch contracts and the development that we had done up until that point. And to put that into perspective, we did all that work for six years. We grew the company that five people team to more than 45 people. All of which with $10 million of capital. That’s when other space companies had burned through hundreds of millions or even billions without getting to the same point of technical maturity that we have gotten. And we ended up shutting down due to combination of issues.

But that day, it was one of the saddest days of my life. And I remember I was talking to my mother in law and she coded her mother in law saying that this will pass. But like a skewer passes through the meat, when you put it on the barbecue, it’s going to suck, it’s going to feel shitty, you’re going to be down. But life goes on. And looking back at it still, my wife and I look with sadness and what could have been if we were not unfairly treated in so many ways that we were treated that led to the closure of Space Drive. All the issues that we had to deal with, our test facilities and abuse and life threats and everything that we had to deal with just because we were trying to build rockets in part of the world that they were not used to it. Surprisingly, those people, every day they moan and complain about, oh, Internet is slow in this part of Ontario, when is SpaceX going to open up more spectrum for this part of Ontario?

And they never ask themselves how do you think those satellites are launched in the first place? You got to do the work, you got to build a tech for it to work. But anyways, but looking back at that sad point, or I guess the point that we could not push forward and have to give up, I feel like that gave me an opportunity to reinvent myself, to look back and see what are the things that I love doing, what are the things that was hard, what are the things that I did incorrectly or there were mistakes and failures and let’s reinvent myself. And the first thing is now I’m taking care of my body in a way that for six years I just abused the out of it and it was just giving up on me. And now I’m happy that’s not the case because I want to live enough to see the outcome of Hestus or anything else that I’m working on. So the number One thing, take care of your body, take care of your family and then move on to other aspects of building business and from the pain of startups. That space that I’ve worked in the past when I connected with my co founder, which I knew from our time at Cruise, the moment he had that hint of okay, this is some idea that I’ve been thinking about.

I said that I’m in because I felt that pain every day at Space Right. I saw the sadness in the eyes of my engineers. I saw how they worked day and night to get something to production and came back with this part is out of stock, this part cannot be manufactured and all these things. So I want to solve that problem. I mean.

[00:28:51 – 00:28:55] Nitin Bajaj

Love that. Changing gears. What do you do for fun?

[00:28:57 – 00:30:29] Sohrab Haghighat

My wife and I do ballroom dancing. So nice. That’s something that used to do for years before Space Drive and then space right happened. Space Ride started when my son was six months old. So having a six month old and starting a company as a couple was very demanding. So we stopped dancing when we shut down Spaceride. It’s just all of a sudden two of us had nothing to do and we were depressed.

So let’s go back dancing. That’s what my wife said. It got to a point that three days a week we went dancing and the moment that music started playing, I love dancing to Walt’s music. The moment the music started playing I felt that the time stopped. I felt all pain went away. And that’s one of the things that I deeply enjoy doing. It’s just I feel like I can let go and I can imagine. I. I don’t do drugs because I don’t know, hate not having control over my feelings and my emotions and my thoughts and whatnot.

But I feel that’s what people talk about and they say that, oh, I’m high. Yeah, like when I’m on that dance floor, that’s the feeling, that’s the sensation that I get. So bottle dancing.

[00:30:29 – 00:30:40] Nitin Bajaj

Love that. Now on to my favorite part of the show. We call this the one line Life lessons. Sourabh, I would love for you to share a few of your life lessons with us.

[00:30:43 – 00:31:51] Sohrab Haghighat

My biggest lesson is there is always a way out at any situation, regardless of how difficult and dark it is. There are two things you have to learn not to give up and you have to learn asking for help. I’m a Harry Potter fan and I think there’s one of the books that the Lord says to Harry Potter that there’s always help at Hogwarts for people when they ask for something like that. I don’t remember the exact sentence. There are always people out there willing to offer a helping hand. You just have to ask for it. And remember when the tough time passes and when you are fine, there will be others who are experiencing the same situation.

So there are always hands asking for your help. Make sure to pass it on. Pass the good deeds that you have received on to other people.

[00:31:54 – 00:32:15] Nitin Bajaj

Love that sort of. Thank you so much for sharing your journey and your story and your life lessons with us. I’m super excited about your journey with Hestus and congratulations and kudos to you and your team for all that you’ve been able to accomplish in such a short time and I know you’re just getting started.

[00:32:16 – 00:32:25] Sohrab Haghighat

Thank you. Thank you for having me on the show. I really enjoy talking to you every time that you speak and looking forward to hopefully share more in the future.