A Self-Driven Entrepreneur Gagandeep Reehal, co-founder and CEO, Minus Zero started AI-based self-driving tech startup Minus Zero in late 2021 with his co-founder, Gursimran Kalra

"Creativity is not inherent. It is built within when you explore and try new things often to develop a broader view. Creativity is not a skill, it's perspective," says Gagandeep Reehal, co-founder and CEO, Minus Zero, explaining how his creative bent of mind led the way to entrepreneurship.

"Creativity is a prerequisite to building a good product. And a really good product is a prerequisite to an impactful business. So, I don't think they can be looked apart. It's part of the process itself," he adds.

Reehal started artificial intelligence (AI) based self-driving tech startup Minus Zero in late 2021 with his co-founder, Gursimran Kalra. Within two years, the Bengaluru-based startup made headlines after it recently unveiled India's first autonomous vehicle.

The startup claims that based on a camera-sensor suite, the fully-electric prototype called zPod can drive in all environmental and geographical constraints and can scale up to Level 5 autonomy capabilities, where the vehicle is completely capable of operating without human intervention in all driving conditions and environments. "Mobility has been highly inefficient as of this date with extensive road accidents and congestion problems. So we were at the right time, at the right pace with the right problem to solve with the right technology," he says.

Reehal's upbringing had a huge role to play in finding the inspiration to do something as innovative and off-beat as an autonomous vehicle. But, unlike many, he was never influenced by one person or one thing. It was nature that inspired him. "A lot of complicated problems that technology is striving to solve, nature already has the elegant way to do the same - whether it was human intelligence to predict social behavior and emotion or something as simple as how all ants coordinate as a swarm even with the sub-optimal neural system," he says.

He feels that often people tend to become too specialized in one domain which sometimes makes them develop a myopic view to approach a problem. "Keep your mind open while exploring. Creativity is often when you are able to use multi-disciplinary influences/inspirations to innovate something in your domains," he says.

"Often one is too fixated on tangible pain points, but it is important to understand the intangible costs involved. The best product are not the ones that are economically more affordable, but the ones that improve the quality of life and increase human efficiency - saves time, makes them happier, less frustrated, etc," he adds.

He also shares with us, three-point advice to people who are creative but can't think scale.

1. Understand how to translate creativity into actionable insights, which can be used by build and even a benchmark to improve more.
2. Creativity is not just thinking out of the box in your domain, it includes having a multi-disciplinary understanding for exploration. You can't be a creative writer, you have to be a creative person.
3. The flow of ideas is crucial for evolution. It's important who you surround yourself with. Converse and brainstorm more. If you are best in the room, you are not in the right room.

FACTSHEET

• Amount of external funding received: Approx $2 million
• Number of people employed: 30
• Turnover: N/A
• Year of Inception: 2021