Govtech + Drones Crash Course, Lessons From 2 Exits | Rahul Sidhu

The Peel with Turner Novak

Rahul Sidhu is the co-founder of SPIDRTech and Aerodome, two companies in the public safety space.

He’s sold both of them, and our conversation unpacks all the lessons he learned, what he did differently with his second company Aerodome, and why he sold only 17 months after starting it.

If you tuned into last week’s episode, Paul told us to never talk to the cops. Rahul gives us the other side of the story, sharing his playbook for selling to police, the government, how he met Nikita Bier in high school, and why he’s still bullish on drones, robotics, and AI in the physical world.

Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(04:07) What its like testifying to Congress
(08:06) Why 90% of what he knew about police was wrong
(13:15) How to sell to police departments
(15:24) His first business selling WoW accounts
(19:00) Meeting Nikita Bier in high school
(21:29) Starting SPIDRTech to improve police + community relationships
(27:45) Two biggest mistakes building SPIDR
(31:47) How startups break down when scaling
(34:19) Selling SPIDR instead of raising a Series B
(40:12) Why Aerodome was so much easier to start
(42:55) Why Rahul loves unsexy markets with founder market fit
(46:03) Starting Aerodome, drones as first responders
(53:39) Building a capital efficient hardware startup
(56:46) How regulatory changes made an opening for Aerodome
(01:00:13) Inside Aerodome’s Series A
(01:03:57) Selling Aerodome to Flock Safety within 17 months
(01:09:31) Saying “would I work for this team?” when getting acquired
(01:14:35) Seeing a homeless guy in an Aerodome shirt
(01:17:02) The massive Robotics + AI opportunity this decade
(01:21:42) What’s really happening with drones in New Jersey

Referenced:
SPIDRTech: https://www.spidrtech.com
Aerodome: https://www.aerodome.com/
Nikita Bier’s Ted Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9QTVII_lkg

Follow Rahul:
Twitter: https://x.com/rahoolsidoo
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahulsidhu/

Follow Turner:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak

Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/