The VOICE podcast delves into the minds of UK tech trailblazers – narrowing in on one industry per series. The theme for our inaugural series is sextech. In the third episode, host Graham Hussey speaks to Sachin Raoul, cofounder of Blueheart.
We had a few more questions, so spoke to Sachin about why tech needs a dose of humanity – and why he reckons most tech innovation starts with pornography.
[Maddyness] On the podcast, you talk about your humanities background. Do the worlds of business and tech have things to learn from the humanities? What kind of skills can, say, history graduates bring to the table?
[Sachin] When there’s a big prize, there’s going to be a lot of players to compete against. Becoming a professional footballer is a lot more competitive than becoming a professional handball player. In today’s world, tech is probably the most competitive market out there. It’s why developers are paid so much and why ‘tech’ and ‘billionaire’ often enter the party side by side. That means your ideas need to be off the charts original and coming up with a hyper-growth idea is no easy task because all the obvious ones are taken.
This means the most crucial skill for great entrepreneurs is their ability to see ideas that nobody else can. This is where the humanities comes in.
To be a great student of history, you have to look at the same body of evidence thousands of others have seen before you and piece together a novel picture. You’re taught to think critically and tear down the arguments of revered historians that came before you and who spent their lives on the topic.
To achieve success, both history students and entrepreneurs have to ask the same question, “What is everyone else missing?”.
Your task is to see what others are not, because they fail to look there in the first place. Or cannot, because they lack the imagination. Students of humanities are forced to look where others aren’t, and that gets you half the way there. The rest is up to your imagination.
Could you talk through any research on sex therapy and digital therapy that backs up what you’re doing with Blueheart?
What we’re doing is so novel that we have to look at the research behind sex therapy and digital therapy separately.