#71 Nikhil Teja Kolli, Co-Founder of mokSa.ai

Nikhil Teja Kolli built mokSa.ai after witnessing small retail businesses lose 10-15% of their revenue to theft. His solution? Privacy-first AI that catches shoplifters without facial recognition - and small business owners are obsessed with it.

From collecting 20,000+ theft videos to building patent-pending AI technology, Nikhil's journey shows how turning a massive problem into data can create game-changing solutions. His AI watches actions, not faces, works with any camera (even $40 ones from 2014), and sends real-time alerts when theft happens.

But here's the twist: mokSa.ai doesn't just catch thieves. It predicts customer counts, optimizes employee scheduling, and provides heat maps - basically turning any security camera into a business intelligence powerhouse.

🔥 What You'll Learn:

• How to build AI models from real-world data (20,000+ theft videos)
• Why privacy-first AI is dominating the surveillance market
• The camera-agnostic strategy that eliminates hardware costs
• How to solve problems for overlooked small businesses
• Building operational intelligence beyond just security
• Scaling from manual monitoring to 200+ AI-powered locations

⏰ Key Moments:

00:00 - Meet Nikhil Teja Kolli, Founder of mokSa.ai

02:30 - Growing Up in Family Retail Business in Hyderabad

05:45 - The Liquor Store Incidents That Sparked Everything

09:15 - How Small Businesses Lose 10-15% Revenue to Theft

12:00 - Building the 20,000 Video Dataset (The Hard Way)

15:30 - From Aeronautical Engineer to Railroad to AI Entrepreneur

18:45 - Privacy-First AI: Actions vs. Faces

21:20 - Why Any Camera Works (Even 2014 Models)

24:15 - Beyond Security: Customer Forecasting & Heat Maps

27:40 - The Camera-Agnostic Business Strategy

🔗 Connect with Nikhil:

Website: moksa.ai

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilteja-kolli/

About mokSa.ai: Privacy-first AI platform that detects theft, fraud, and provides operational insights for retail businesses using existing camera systems.

#AI #RetailTech #SmallBusiness #Privacy #Surveillance #Entrepreneurship #StartupStory #TechFounder

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