Spotlight on: Paul Appleby and Ravinder Singh, founders of Graphifi
Introducing Paul Appleby and Ravinder Singh, the founders of Graphifi – a company revolutionising the way in which people create and buy knowledge graphs. Read on to discover their motivations for starting their own business and hear their tips for aspiring entrepreneurs.
1 – Please tell us a bit about who you are and what you do?
Graphifi are a UK based start-up company formed in April 2019, founded by Paul Appleby and Ravinder Singh. Our mission is to make using knowledge graphs, semantics and structured authoring easy and affordable. Graphifi provides products and expertise for managing information using knowledge graphs. Knowledge graphs allow the creation of powerful, flexible information solutions.
Our Graphologi and EasyGraph platforms are designed to give you easy to use, cost effective solutions. Graphologi is a standards based taxonomy and ontology management system. EasyGraph is a knowledge graph management and delivery platform.
Graphifi can also provide consultancy if needed.
2 – How and when did you get started?
We both previously worked at Pearson which is where we met. There we did a lot of work in the area of knowledge graphs. Whilst working at Pearson we faced three main challenges.
● Semantic technology skills availability is certainly improving, but still scarce (and therefore expensive) compared to other areas such as Java or front-end
development using Javascript, JSON, React and Node.
● Enterprise semantic software is not cheap.
● We started from scratch. It took a lot of time to get a platform up and running.
From what we heard and saw it became obvious that these problems were not limited just to us and the work we were doing. So, after leaving Pearson in 2019, we came up with the idea of starting Graphifi to help solve these problems.
3 – What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced so far?
Our biggest challenge is to gain the confidence of big organisations. Even though we are a small company and our products are very cheap in comparison to other options, our products and services are enterprise grade and have the features that enterprise users expect. Another big challenge is to participate in the procurement process of big organisations. It can be very time consuming and costly.
4 – What has been your most satisfying moment so far?
When we did the production release of our products in December 2020. It was after about 18 months of effort that we were at a point where anyone can go to our site and buy a subscription with a click of a button or use our platform to build a knowledge graph.
5 – Would you recommend entrepreneurship to others?
Of course the answer is yes. But be prepared to make some sacrifices as it could take a considerable amount of time before you see success. And the smile on your face when you get your first customer makes it all worthwhile!
6 – What was your motivation to become an entrepreneur?
Working on the challenges we mentioned was the biggest motivation. Believing that we could help build software that will solve these problems, provide a great user experience and provide real business value is both exciting and very satisfying. And being your own boss isn’t too bad either.
7 – What drives you, what motivates you?
We want to make knowledge graphs easy and affordable for everyone. The benefit of graphs and semantics should not be limited to just the biggest companies. We believe that through our products we have helped solve the problem but there is a lot more to be done. We have lots of ideas that we want to implement next so watch this space.
To find out more…
If you are interested in finding out more about Graphifi or it’s founders, Paul Appleby and Ravinder Singh, then head to their website!
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