As a father of 4 Generation Z and Generation Alpha children, Hari Ravichandran knows firsthand how essential it is to protect young people from the addictive and manipulative influence of the Internet. “Everyone grows up with devices,” says Ravichandran. “My oldest, who is 15, crawled to the iPad the first time she crawled. “So that’s all they’ve known all their lives.”
Ravichandran’s first startup, a hosting provider called Endurance International founded in 1997, has grown into a publicly traded company value $3.5 billion. With your newest company Aurawhich was launched in 2017, Ravichandran goals to cover the wide world of web security in one place. While many other offers only include one specific element, customers can manage identity theft and financial fraud protection, parental controls and access VPN, all from the Aura app.
Although he first got here up with the idea for Aura after his own experiences with identity theft, Ravichandran’s sensitivity to the needs of the youngest generation and their parents in navigating digital life has helped the company grow. His own kid’s understanding of the nuances of digital life today helped him develop a nimble set of tools that roughly 40% of Aura’s customers now use to monitor and reward their offspring’s online behavior. Last yr, Aura expanded in-app parental controls, hosted its first Digital Parenthood Summit, and is on track for over 40% growth. Ravichandran’s company is now valued at $1.5 billion, proving the need for what Ravichandran has built. All of this made Ravichandran a finalist on our Entrepreneur 2024 list of 20 revolutionary leaders.
Last yr, Aura launched a variety of additional parental control features. Did you know from the starting of the company that family control could be such an essential element?
This is really interesting. We’ve at all times thought about the intersection of safety, family and security: how does all of it connect? The parental controls part seemed very essential, but it was mostly about moderating content on kids’ devices, setting deadlines, and mainly helping them be really good digital consumers. Like all the things else in excess, [the Internet] can prove to be quite harmful to children, and considering about this a part of the equation has been a gimmick for the past yr.
You have been investing in artificial intelligence and deep learning for several years. How has this helped you develop the features you possibly can offer?
Let me provide you with a easy example. For my child, we set deadlines on her device. He texts and says, “Hey dad, I need more time.” I say, “Well, why? You’re on the phone for about 4 hours. What’s going on?” She says: “I used Apple Music the entire time to do my homework and it shouldn’t have been to my detriment.” So if I took this use case and built the code behind it, it would be a whole cycle of things. There will be hundreds of such cases that need to be traced and identified [the problem]. But if you have a model that does this, train it and tell it, “Here are the types of applications that are okay. Here are the types of apps that are not. Make your judgment when you see the application.” This is a one-time configuration and we don’t need to keep updating it because the models get smarter as they receive more information. So in this aspect, a lot of different paths that would require a lot of effort for us, AI has made them much more accessible.
Last year, Aura was listed on the stock exchange Forbes list of the best startup employers AND Glassdoor’s 50 Best Places to Work. Could you tell me a little about your approach to keeping employees engaged?
This is one of the advantages of being an older entrepreneur. I began my first company at the age of 20 and you learn a lot along the way. One of the most vital things I’ve learned is that it’s really a handshake between me and the team. You expect really smart and talented people to do certain things, but that also comes with accountability to the CEO. It’s like, “Hey, do these things, and here are the things that I think I can provide you with so you can get more runway.” Both sides need to work on the equation. If this finally ends up being one-sided, where the team continues to deliver results but the CEO doesn’t, or vice versa, it can really lead to much less balance. Taking this responsibility very seriously was very helpful.
What were your biggest challenges at Aura?
We began with a few pre-launch acquisitions because we didn’t want to build all the things from scratch. When I used to be 20, time was much more available. But when you begin something later, you are very time-conscious because regardless of who you are, building something meaningful takes time. To shorten this time window, we made several acquisitions and it took a lot of labor to integrate them. It probably took us a yr and a half, two years to get a lot of the different elements integrated and structured in the right way.
The company is currently experiencing over 40% year-on-year growth. What do you think was particularly essential in accelerating the company’s growth this yr?
We tried probably three or 4 go-to-market channels and then we consolidated down to just two and said, “Hey, we’ll focus on those.” It took a lot of trial and error. We have this great product, we have this great team of individuals, we just need to connect it in the best way possible to the end consumer. Once we had the channels established, we had to proceed with a lot of iterative testing. So you continue to get a small 1% of the profits. At some point all of it gets complicated and you think, “Wow, that’s a lot. It’s growing really fast now.”