Bruce Lee’s quote, “Be formless, shapeless, like water,” inspired Robert Fu two years ago when naming his startup.
ZW LLC—Fu’s B2B SaaS startup based in Chapel Hill—stands for “zen water,” which he believes symbolizes the startup’s four keys to success: focus, resilience, adaptability and persistence.
ZW’s product is AI and machine learning (ML) software that helps advanced manufacturers reduce costs, optimize energy and oversee quality control.
Fu believes he and his team are the right people for the job because they all have at least 20 years of experience in their respective fields.
The startup’s four founders and three engineers all worked at Corning—a 173-year-old multinational tech company best known for its specialized glass, ceramics and advanced optics—before leaving their full-time jobs and starting ZW LLC. They have decades of experience in fields including research and development, engineering, sales and marketing, IT, AI, machine learning, industrial software and algorithm adaptive optimization.
“We have decades of experience as our current customers, so we understand our customers’ unmet requirements and effective solutions,” said Fu. “We generated more than $1 billion in revenue per year for our former employers, and we have a very synergetic team because we have collaborated and created business value together for more than 25 years.”
It usually takes just two days to train manufacturing engineers and other personnel to master ZW’s AI software because it requires no coding or AI knowledge, according to Fu. Once trained, workers can use the AI software to solve key manufacturing problems such as cost reduction, yield improvement, throughput increases, and quality control automation.
Proven results
The startup has produced significant results for its current clients. One of ZW’s clients wanted to use its software to determine whether its energy consumption was reasonable, as 10 percent of its total costs were attributable to energy consumption.
ZW used the company’s 2022 operating data and historical data to train its machine learning and AI to help answer its client’s question. The software’s answer helped the company save $500,000 on energy in 2023. The subscription to ZW’s software costs $5,000/year per user.
Fu said the company saved its other current client $2.5 million in 2023.
Aside from ZW’s easy-to-use software and relatively low cost, Fu noted that AI and machine learning set the startup’s product apart from competitors that use conventional statistics, modeling and simulation, and operations research.
“In roughly 2014 to 2016, that was the first time I saw that, wow, (AI and machine learning) was much more effective than modeling simulation, than statistics, and so on,” said Fu. “We provide AI solutions, not only focusing on solving the key manufacturer problems, but also eliminating AI adoption barriers for manufacturing companies.”
Now that Fu and ZW believe they’ve proven their value, their primary focus is bringing on new customers. Fu said the startup’s target over the next year is to add between six and 10 customers. He believes that once they reach this goal, they’ll get into a groove of automatic referrals.
ZW is currently engaged in discussions with five potential customers, according to Fu. And Fu says the company plans to attend several conferences before the end of the year, where the startup hopes to meet more potential customers.
Some of the founders of ZW have bootstrapped the startup, and the startup has used its revenue to help fund its operations.
Fu said they believe the company will eventually begin to expand quickly. He noted that the startup is open to outside investors, though he believes they will be cash-flow positive fairly soon.
