Hongwei Liu is the CEO & Co-Founder of MappedIn, a company focused on indoor mapping. I know a lot about what it takes to map the outdoor world, but little about what’s required to map indoors. That’s what this conversation is about.

Episode Sponsor: SkyFi

Get high resolution imagery easily, with prices up front on SkyFi.com

About Hongwei

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Shownotes

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• MappedIn
• Maker, their free new iOS app
• My conversation with James Killick
• 3D Gaussian Splatting Github repository
• Hongwei’s blog
  • How I got into startups
• My video on how satellite images work
• Book & podcast recommendation:
  • Hardcore History
  • The Catcher in the Rye (Amazon Affiliate)

Timestamps

(00:00) - Introduction

(01:03) - Sponsor: SkyFi

(02:13) - Hongwei Describes Himself

(04:45) - "Accidentally" Starting a company

(08:15) - Solving a technological vs a people problem

(10:21) - Starting a business as students

(13:45) - Sales is about convincing people

(17:50) - Continuing to experiment

(21:42) - What does it actually take to map the indoors?

(26:32) - Maps vs Models

(28:01) - Why do we even need good indoor maps?

(34:58) - An indoor approach to Tesla's mapping

(41:04) - All Privacy aside, what would it take to automate indoor mapping?

(45:39) - Making a free mapping app

(48:25) - Product vs Sales lead companies

(01:02:12) - "Only the paranoid survive"

(01:06:15) - AR/VR

(01:09:35) - Hongwei's hard work ethic

(01:11:05) - Unconventional path

(01:16:42) - Difficulty of finding your own lane

(01:21:38) - Grinding for the people that coming after

(01:25:21) - Faith

(01:28:45) - Visiting China

(01:34:50) - Misunderstandings through language

(01:40:22) - Leveraging the internet

(01:43:16) - Book & Podcast Recommendations

(01:45:29) - Consider supporting me on Patreon

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- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work