{"id":65,"date":"2021-04-07T17:24:52","date_gmt":"2021-04-07T17:24:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.filio.io\/?p=65"},"modified":"2025-10-12T13:54:42","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T13:54:42","slug":"filios-backstory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.filio.io\/filios-backstory\/","title":{"rendered":"Filio\u2019s Backstory"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n

\ufeffBringing a \u201cVision\u201d To Life: Filio\u2019s Backstory<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happens when engineers are limited in doing their best work? Your hometown or the city you grew up in crumbles to ruins. Architectural wonders like the Golden Gate bridge are nonexistent. The water for your morning cup of coffee is polluted; your car doesn\u2019t get your family safely to work or school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bottom line: When engineers don\u2019t have the tools designed (one could even say, engineered<\/em>) for them, nothing runs as smoothly as it should.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sure, you can get by if your smartphone runs out of storage when capturing the perfect moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you spend a little extra time scrolling through to find your travel photos, no worries. Social media won\u2019t be at a loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But little mishaps like these can mean a failed project for engineers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the most lucrative startups began with an engineer, an innovative mind, and a problem to solve. From Apple to Tesla to Netflix and Amazon, they all started with an idea. But unlike most ideas today, the one behind Filio was actually executed – by two PhD students at Georgia Tech: Mahdi Roozbahani and Fikret Atalay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first idea sparked when Roozbahani was taking a class in Computer Vision. Having a strong interest in image & video, Google Glass piqued his interest. Mahdi began using the smart glasses to conduct investigative side work, but wondered how the techniques could be applied to civil engineering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

` `Soon, he used Google Glass to compare before and after pictures in the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From this, Roozbahani set out to automate the process of image and video management\/documentation. In 2018, he started asking construction companies, \u201cHow do you capture project photos and videos?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turns out, field professionals were simply using their cellphones. They would bring back visual assets to the office, and just download\/upload files.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using cellphones almost feels like companies were saying \u201cwe just ride faster horses,\u201d as one does when they don\u2019t know about the technology of cars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As one could imagine, the limitations of smartphone apps – from Camera, Photos, Notepad, Mail and so on meant critical project data was often lost between the field and the office. Without proper documentation, a company becomes bogged down in project timelines, lost money and wasted hours, and opens the door wide open for legal trouble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the problem became immediately apparent to Roozbahani.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is because Mahdi did what most aspiring entrepreneurs won\u2019t – he validated one small idea with real companies to find out if there was a need for his solution. Roozabahini steered clear of the fatal flaw in most failed startups; he didn\u2019t assume the marketplace wanted his idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CREATE-X, the entrepreneurial program for students and alumni at Georgia Tech, gave Mahdi and Fikret their big start. For those who don\u2019t know, this initiative can put a revolutionary idea in front of the eyes of potential investors. In this case, Filio caught the attention of serial entrepreneur & angel investor Chris Klaus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Yes, that one.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mahdi pitched Filio to him and surprise, surprise – Klaus funded the startup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just one problem. Despite Roozbahani\u2019s background in web and mobile development, this software would require a bigger team (including marketing and programming help) to develop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, the original three founders of Filio – and additional investors – came to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And they soon began demoing the product to get their first five SaaS clients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later, however, one founder would leave to work for Amazon and another to start his own project; Mahdi is the sole founder left in the company today. Now acting as Chief Technical Officer, he confirms predictions from a Georgia Tech article<\/a> true – Filio became Mahdi\u2019s full-time venture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One could say Mahdi had a vision for this startup, considering he was inspired by Google glasses of all things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the main thing Roozbahani could “see” was that time = money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He says, “if Filio can save time, you can spend it somewhere else. “<\/p>\n\n\n\n

True, while “simplifying image and video documentation” doesn’t appear to be the most glamorous startup mission, it is certainly a noble cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, cheers to the future of Filio – the smart visual asset management platform<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\ufeffBringing a \u201cVision\u201d To Life: Filio\u2019s Backstory What happens when engineers are limited in doing their best work? Your hometown or the city you grew up in crumbles to ruins. Architectural wonders like the Golden Gate bridge are nonexistent. The water for your morning cup of coffee is polluted; your car doesn\u2019t get your family […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-filio-general"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.filio.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.filio.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.filio.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.filio.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.filio.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.filio.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.filio.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.filio.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.filio.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.filio.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}