Summary:
On this episode of Startup Junkies, hosts Jeff Amerine, Caleb Talley, and Davis McEntire talked with Rishi Mittal, an entrepreneur who founded Mycelium Networks in Northwest Arkansas which deploys and operates decentralized wireless networks. After teaming up with a friend to mine Bitcoin in 2011, Rishi and his friend had to stop a few months after they started due to the amount of power they were using. Though his time with this project was short, Rishi learned a lot about how to start and run a venture, and he found a passion for blockchain, cryptocurrency, and the whole decentralized world. Throughout the show, Jeff, Caleb, Davis, and Rishi discussed Rishi’s history and interest in blockchain and how his company, Mycelium, is setting up its own IoT network all over Northwest Arkansas, applying it to the blockchain, and creating a new type of internet architecture.
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Show Notes:
(1:27) Origin Story
(8:30) More about Mycelium
(12:47) Applications Running on It
(15:50) Onboarding Others
(19:52) The Game of Growing
(23:30) Paying the Bills and the Team
(26:15) The Future of Mycelium
(27:28) Advice to Younger Self and Closing Remarks
Links:
Quotes:
“…All of a sudden there was this network of computers decentralized all over the globe that managed and maintained the system as opposed to having a central authority or, you know, a meeting behind closed doors to do that.” Rishi Mittal, (4:06)
“The best way to look at IoT is we’re really trying to build an information super sidewalk…where we don’t need that high bandwidth, those real-time streaming applications…but we do need to send reliable information over long distances. And for that, you can use something kind of like a dedicated sidewalk for smaller bandwidth items.” Rishi Mittal, (11:11)
“The mission of Mycelium networks is to accelerate the world’s adoption of decentralized networks. And we started with Helium, we’re starting in Northwest Arkansas, and we’re just going to take it from there.” Rishi Mittal, (12:35)
“You’re literally running over a low band sidewalk. Your batteries last longer, you can get those sensors really, really tiny and really, really cheap. So you could essentially deck out whatever you want with tracking or humidity sensors, or temperature sensors, whether it’s setting up a deer camp or tracking your dog or testing the heat of your soil for your rose garden…just really anything you can think of. And a lot of these solutions can be implemented for under $20.” Rishi Mittal, (13:43)
”We just want to build. You know, we just want to bring more networks to Northwest Arkansas and open up the space here.” Rishi Mittal, (23:15)
MyCelium Changing the NWA Network
On this episode of Startup Junkies, hosts Jeff Amerine, Caleb Talley, and Davis McEntire talked with Rishi Mittal, an entrepreneur who founded Mycelium Networks in Northwest Arkansas which deploys and operates decentralized wireless networks. After teaming up with a friend to mine Bitcoin in 2011, Rishi and his friend had to stop a few months after they started due to the amount of power they were using. Though his time with this project was short, Rishi learned a lot about how to start and run a venture, and he found a passion for blockchain, cryptocurrency, and the whole decentralized world. Throughout the show, Jeff, Caleb, Davis, and Rishi discussed Rishi’s history and interest in blockchain and how his company, Mycelium, is setting up its own IoT network all over Northwest Arkansas, applying it to the blockchain, and creating a new type of internet architecture.
The Origin Story
About 10 years ago, Rishi Mittal graduated with a double major in finance and accounting and began working for Price Waterhouse Coopers for a few years doing audit work. One day, his brother’s friend, Scott, contacted him and wanted to run a concept by him to see if it checked out economically. The concept Rishi and Scott researched was Bitcoin. This excited Rishi because his interests were always in economics and investing. The duo bought basic computer equipment and built a machine to mine Bitcoin, but after two months, they had to shut it off because it was using too much power at Scott’s house. Though Rishi’s experience with mining Bitcoin was brief, it opened his eyes to the process of how to start and run a venture. Because of his interest in the area, Rishi is still doing things on blockchain to this day.
All about Mycelium
“The mission of Mycelium networks is to accelerate the world’s adoption of decentralized networks. And we started with Helium, we’re starting in Northwest Arkansas, and we’re just going to take it from there.” Rishi Mittal, (12:35)
During the summer of 2020, Rishi began researching Helium, a decentralized protocol based on blockchain. Learning more about this gave Rishi the same exciting feeling he had when he began mining Bitcoin nearly 10 years earlier, so this was an energizing moment for him because Helium was to information what Bitcoin was to money. Rishi and his team began purchasing units and deploying them all over the Northwest Arkansas area and setting up their own IoT network. Though IoT is not a new type of technology, applying it to the blockchain through radio frequency transmission is a new way of approaching it. Mycelium is the first platform to bring Helium to the Northwest Arkansas area, and they have 15-20 nodes with more than 250 hosts using their hardware and supporting their network.
In five years, Mycelium hopes to be looking at other types of internet to deploy through the Helium ecosystem. They are focused on other blockchains and bringing new networks to the area, and are excited about the opportunity because of the community, energy, and open-mindedness found in Northwest Arkansas. Ultimately, Mycelium hopes to be the leading force in blockchain in the future.
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