Christian Els, CEO of sentin, embarked on his entrepreneurial journey nearly a decade ago as an intrapreneur at Bosch, where he built new businesses grounded in digital technology for traditional industrial sectors.
His early focus on AI and big data laid the foundation for his passion for disruptive technology. Six years ago, along with his co-founders, Christian realized the immense potential of accelerating digital technology in the industry, leading to the birth of sentin. Today, Sentin stands at the forefront of helping traditional industries leverage AI and digital technologies for enhanced efficiency and safety.
In this interview, Christian shares insights from his remarkable journey, discussing the challenges, triumphs, and the key role of mentorship and collaboration in his success.
Here’s an excerpt from the amazing conversation we had with Mr. Christian Els.
Hello Mr. Christian Els. Greetings of the day. Can you share a bit about your journey into the world of entrepreneurship and how you became passionate about bringing disruptive technology to life?
I started my entrepreneurial career as an Intrapreneur at Bosch. This was almost 10 years ago. There my job was to build new businesses based on digital technology in the traditional industrial sectors of Bosch. AI was already back then a big part of it. Big data was one of the big words and companies were seeking for methods to use data for new business ventures and revenue streams. Times have not changed that much since back then but the buzz is much bigger due to the introduction of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools. Six years ago I realized with my co-founders who were my co-workers back then, that digital technology in the industry needs to be accelerated since potentials are beyond promising. We found that the only vehicle that could serve the pace of technological advance was a Startup and that is when we founded sentin. Ever since sentin was meant to help traditional industries to use digital technology and AI.
… building sustainable and competitive business models around technical inventions is quite a niche. What inspired you to focus on this intersection of innovation and business?
It is still a niche but a growing one. We are seeing more and more technical inventions in the transition to innovations. Especially university spin-offs do a great job here. sentins origins were not a technical invention per se it was the wish to help traditional companies and industrial users to utilize digital technology for more efficiency and safety in their operations. Basically the two main drivers for industrial enterprises. Back then the farest advanced AI technology was Computer Vision and the most inefficient processes in the realm of inspection so we thought, there is a niche to go after.
… you started your initial journey as a Salesperson and now you’re the CEO of a well-recognized organization- Sentin. How has the overall journey been for you?
The entrepreneurial journey is a tough one, that is for sure. Especially in long-term thinking industries like the industrial ones. I was blessed to have excellent mentors and partners on the way to help me and our company opening doors and investing in our vision of the future. One of the things that I am very proud of is that we were able to master 2 major crises for us and for our industry, COVID-19 and the energy crises in Germany. Both crises have helped us to sharpen the companies vision and goals as well as making us, the co-founders better in decision making and as leaders.
Mr. Els, you have been actively working for over 10 years, could you give us an example of a particularly challenging project where you successfully implemented a disruptive technology and built a sustainable business model around it?
There are several ones. One of the examples that were groundbreaking for us as a company was the first implementation of a purely AI based inspection system for visual inspection of parts in production. This high volume application runs on a 24/7 basis producing tens of thousands of parts per day. In industrial inspection there is no mercy, errors are not accepted by clients, that is why you need very robust systems that can cope with altering circumstances which naturally occur in industrial applications. When the system was qualified by the client which happens to be one of the biggest companies in the world, I realized how powerful the potential of the technology is. This was 4 years ago, the system is running smoothly and the customer is happy. What a great achievement.
… the advent of AI in NDT / Robotics has been a fascinating one. How does Sentin plan to integrate AI into its products/services?
We started our company based on the hypothesis that industrial companies need AI, also in NDT. This implies that AI is able to do 90% of the job towards more efficient and safe processes. This hypothesis turned out to be not true. Throughout the years we learned that AI is a tool that needs to be implemented into workflows that make it usable. This requires a close look into the shop floors and plants of clients. You need to understand the process to build systems that solve the problem and help clients to achieve their goals. Still our industry is heavily focusing on ADR (automatic defect recognition) when talking about AI. Many times the economic leverage for the client is not there. Thus, the technology looks nice but it does not make business sense to use it in the existing workflows. This implies that AI is not an off the shelve solution but you can build scalable digital workflows with AI in it that make business sense for your customers. For more info I’d like to refer to some of our articles about critical image detection and others.
… can you share a memorable experience where collaboration or mentorship played a significant role in the success of one of your ventures?
Mentorship and collaboration are probably the most underestimated features in the entrepreneurial world, especially for startups. There are a lot of stories in my career where mentorship has helped me making entrepreneurial decisions. The great thing in mentorship is that in best case you get business advice but simultaneously personal advice too. One of the specialties in founding a startup is that your personal well-being is directly tied to your company’s situation. So there is not business advice only. Mentorship always covers both. There is tons of advice I got throughout the years and it is hard to point out a specific experience.
.. entrepreneurship involves taking a lot of risks. Can you share a story about a time when you took a calculated risk, and how it paid off (or didn't)?
Risk is a big part of entrepreneurship, and it not always is calculated. One of the biggest bets probably was to continue operations when COVID-19 started. I remember the automotive industry cancelling all projects focusing on how to keep operations up while maintaining regulations. Same in aerospace industries. The aircraft sales were rapidly decreasing and there was no perspective when things would go back to normal. One of our co-founders left the company and there was massive uncertainty in the markets. It was pure believe in us and our capabilities to shift the company towards a sustainable business field that kept us going.
… failure is a big part of everyone’s professional journey. I am sure you must have seen a lot of ups and downs. How do you deal with failure?
There is a great quote that says: startups do not go bankrupt, but the founders give up. From my experience I can relate to this quote by 100%. Building a startup is very hard and exhausting and mostly when companies file for bankruptcy it is not due to not existing options to keep going it is because the founders cannot do it anymore. Failure is a continuous part of being a founder. It is not about avoiding failure but how you deal with it.
I am sorry there are a lot of questions about you and your journey. But the audience wants to learn the trade of entrepreneurship and maybe become a better one.
… building a successful startup requires a strong team. What qualities do you look for in team members when assembling your entrepreneurial ventures, and how do you foster a culture of innovation within your teams?
Resilience is the number one attribute when setting up founder teams. Also, focusing on the application not the technology only. It is crucial to understand how users will use a technology for their benefits. This way you can build workflows that actually make sense from a business perspective and get from a great technology “down” to a product level. This approach requires a close relationship with your customers, especially in the early phases of your startup. Build them, they are essential for your survival.
So, how does life look for you outside of work, Mr. Els? How do you unwind yourself?
I have two kids which keep me and my wife busy. Spending time with my family is one of the greatest privileges I have. Aside of that football has always been a big passion for me, both, on the pitch and as a supporter of my hometown club Borussia Dortmund. I am coach of my sons team and try to kick a ball whenever possible. I am also volunteering as a state representative of the German Startup Association trying to improve circumstances for young innovative companies in Germany and the whole startup ecosystem in Germany. I strongly believe, Startups are an important cornerstone of our future society.
… what are some of the best resources (books, blogs, podcasts) that you would recommend to our audience?
There are tons of material out there worth a listen. Some that are currently listening to are Presales unleashed which is a German Podcast focusing on B2B sales. The NDE4.0 Podcast is also becoming more and more popular and I found some episodes really interesting as well. I really enjoyed reading The Challenger Sale: How To Take Control of the Customer Conversation by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson which is a must read for B2B entrepreneurs and sales professionals. For the young entrepreneurs out there I can also recommend Alex Hormozi’s content as highly inspirational and hands-on at the same time.
… how does a normal day look like for Mr. Els? Do you use any tools/software to streamline your day?
Since I am a proud father of two kids my day starts pretty early at 5.30 am and with a typical family morning routine. After that I start working at around 8 am trying to finish most of the work that requires concentration and mental performance before lunch. After this I do most of the meetings, if possible. Most days end at 6 p.m. when I have a little bit of family time again, do sports or go out for dinner and sometimes work-related evening events. Before I had kids I tried all kinds of morning routines but I found that my natural morning routine works best for me. The only tool that manages all my tasks work and private related is Clickup, which I highly recommend. It is simple to use and of great help to organize your day. Also, our own product EXPLORER is of high value to me on a daily basis, because it allows me to work with customer data intensely utilizing AI and further data analysis capabilities.
… here’s one question from all the aspiring entrepreneurs who will be reading this interview, what would be your top piece of advice for them as they embark on their own entrepreneurship journey?
Find a mentor. Entrepreneurship is nothing you learn in university or academia; it is a skillset developed through experience. Finding experienced partners that have genuine interest to help you is the greatest advice I can give. Also, it is not easy. There is a high level of resilience inherent to entrepreneurship. Success comes with time and there is not short cut. Another important recommendation is not to see entrepreneurship as an academic task. It is much about doing not planning. I see this habit a lot of times and saw it in myself when we started.
… and finally, what are your thoughts on OnestopNDT’s focused efforts on bringing the NDT community on one platform?
NDT is a rather small community compared to other markets and industries. A trend that I have observed in the last couple of years is a ecoupling of academic research in the field and the practitioner side. I think a valuable contribution Onestop NDT could undertake is bringing both sides closer together by sharing content, offering platforms for discussions between academia and industry representatives. Additionally, I think the modern design and approach really underlines the dynamics of change we experience in the industry currently towards new technology utilization and new market dynamics. Having a centralized resource for high value content will be also serving the industry very well.
