For the company formerly known as APX Labs, rebranding was always on the horizon.
Now called Upskill, the wearable software company is making a bet on one of its core tenets: "upskilling," or retraining, manufacturing workers.
Upskill CEO and founder Brian Ballard joined the DC Inno team on the latest The Beat Podcast to talk about the transition from APX Labs to Upskill and where he sees the future of smart wearable devices heading (hint: not to consumers).
Ballard said he and the team had the idea to rebrand a couple of years ago, but the startup had just started gaining traction with clients and they had only been around long enough to raise its Series A round. So the idea was put on hold—until mid-January.
"We're going to put what we do front and center in our name," he said. "Then it became a question of what we need to do to make that change. The naming choice took a couple days to nail down, but then what goes into the rest of it, that was where the real work began."
Upskill has a pretty clear idea of what works for its clients and what doesn't. The wearable device company develops software for products like Google Glass aimed at making assembly line workers' lives easier. Instead of running back and forth to look at an instruction manual, a video will appear in the periphery of your wearable glasses.
"Every conversation is about the skills gap—How can we keep the work forces competitive? The emphasis of manufacturing in the U.S. It's one of those things where we know what the problem is: people aren't given the information and the technology and the skills to stay competitive through a very fast-changing environment," Ballard said.
"The only way to do it is to reskill yourself, or upskill yourself. I think we nailed it on the head on that one."
Ballard said that while Upskill is a technology company, it's also uniquely positioned to help the U.S. manufacturing sector stay afloat in its changing environment. "We're in the software industry. If you look at how AI is changing software, that's the software industry's idea of automation. Yet Silicon Valley isn't freaking out about their jobs," Ballard said.
"Fundamentally, if you have familiarity with something, you're not as fearful of it. We have an industry that has been largely ignored by technology, and I think the biggest opportunity we have is to showcase how technology can help you and not replace you."
It's this mentality that has helped Upskill land clients such as GE, Boeing and Johnson & Johnson. In the coming year, Upskill is looking to double its headcount in the D.C. metro area, from 30 employees to 60.
"We also have sales presence all over the country, our customers are all over the country. So making sure that we're close to them and in the same time zone is definitely something that is important to us," Ballard said.
Listen to the whole episode and be sure to subscribe to The Beat Podcast to get new episodes as they are released.
