Randy Asselin is the founder of Bubandu, a platform that exists in the cloud and allows companies to interact with consumers by sending app-like content from the cloud to their mobile devices. If you are not part of the technology in-crowd, this might sound mysterious and vague. It also might have you wondering how exactly it is people start technology businesses anyway. The following narrates Randy’s path to Bubandu, a path as irreproducible as any, but one with milestones and familiarities punctuating it along the way.
First, start a company. Any company. Despite an extensive background in technology, Randy chose to spend one of nine business lives working in plastics. His product, RockTops, makes anyone who sees it think, “Why didn’t I think of that?” which is a touchstone of a successful product. Essentially, it’s a plastic food tray that snaps to the lid of a soda cup and is anchored in place with the straw. RockTops is the vehicle nachos and Dr. Pepper always dreamed of. As I interviewed Randy, I was quick to point out that RockTops’ straightforward nature lacks a lot of the “sexy” we think of when we think “entrepreneur.” Of course he knows that, but he doesn’t care. He cares about the challenge. He says, “I’m trying to serve somebody, and I want to know how. Solving a problem is the basis of entrepreneurship.”
May this company offer you success… and the succession of problems that comes with it. After RockTops had established a market, customers started asking for customized printing, which Randy knew he couldn’t afford while maintaining competitive pricing. He looked at Augmented Reality, which is the technology Google Glass is based on, where you look at an object through a computer screen that can change the characteristics of that object. He animatedly recalls the evolution of that thought, “What if I could use Augmented Reality for virtual sponsorships instead of printing? And what if in the morning it was a Pepsi tray, and in the afternoon it was brought to you by Frito Lay, and that evening it was brought to you by ABC Company in Albuquerque? That’s it, I’m going to use technology to virtually label my trays!” And so out of necessity, Bubandu was born.
Be curious about this new idea. Follow it. Upon the realization of Bubandu, Randy went to Silicon Valley for the Augmented World Expo Conference. It was about three years ago, and all the players were fairly new. Randy showed up as the president of RockTops; the food guy always gets all the meetings. He spoke to the CEO of the company that boasted the most simultaneous hits
on their Augmented Reality application without it crashing. That number was 927. Randy needed 80,000. Randy needed a stadium. How does one fix the unfixable…?
…He grows up in Albuquerque’s South Valley. Randy moved here when he was four years old. Growing up in the South Valley has defined how Randy does business. “Everybody that I ever knew in the Valley was inventive,” he says. “When you live in an agricultural community, you fix things based on what’s around. You don’t have time to stop to go find a hardware store; you have a situation right now. I was very influenced by that. I never stopped to think about what I don’t have; I think about what I do have and I work with it.”
Returning to Albuquerque after the letdown in Silicon Valley, Randy asked himself what he had to work with: his background in technology, a group of like-minded people who could figure this out, and the knowledge that an app-based platform could perform with 927 simultaneous views. With that, Randy found yet another solution that is primed to change the game for digital advertising. He recalls his zenith moment, “What if we built a platform that was in the cloud that sent apps to your phone? Nobody was sending virtual apps to phones. Everybody was having you download, download, download. What if, depending on who you are, where you are, time of day, and what you’re looking at, we can change the content so the app can be targeted to different people, states, cities, or stores?” It’s a technology that isn’t limited to any one sector; the best companies and ideas shouldn’t be.
As for Albuquerque, there are challenges for Randy here. He says, “I would love to stay here, but as I work more on these technologies, I don’t know if I can. Some of the types of investors we’re interested in aren’t here… but I think as we grow, and this thing gets its legs, Albuquerque is the kind of city looking for a real winner that has game-changing capability, that can employ a lot of people, and that has its roots here.” He says this with almost a sigh, but it only takes talking about the possibilities Bubandu has for municipalities communicating with the public and tackling way-finding and problem solving on a civic level for him to get excited on Albuquerque again. His and Bubandu’s relationship with Albuquerque may very well end up being in business, because at the end of the work day, Randy Asselin is still serving somebody, working with what’s around him, and letting his company dictate its own life.
