Thanks for taking 10 minutes out with Gasworld, what have we interrupted in your schedule today?
Sam (S): Talking with our customers. We’ve been seeing very strong sales for our heavy-duty weight-based telemetry solution. We initially built this product to address challenges our customers had with monitoring their cryogenic cylinders and have been happy to hear many customers also use it for other purposes, like monitoring welding wire consumption.
For readers who are unfamiliar with the company, can you tell us more about Pulsa?
Dave (D): Pulsa was founded a few years ago with the goal of providing a simple and affordable way for customers to monitor and manage all of their inventory. We knew that all distributors and end customers wanted real-time visibility of their gas consumption, and the existing solutions were all either too expensive or too difficult to use. We believe we’ve solved that with extremely low-cost software and hardware built on a simple-to-use platform. We now are solving some of the more complex operational challenges that our distributor customers are dealing with.
What are some of Pulsa’s most popular products?
S: We have a high-pressure sensor for high-pressure cylinders, a couple of weight-based sensors for cryogenic cylinders and heavy consumables and will have a differential pressure sensor by the end of November for bulk tanks. All of these work on the same sensor platform that sends ~500 readings a day, works across all mobile carriers, and can be set up within minutes on our web and mobile apps
What’s the best thing about working for Pulsa?
S: Our customer-driven focus. We’ve built a very innovative product that we’re proud of and have been very impressed with how our customers have found unique ways to use our product to solve their challenging problems. We take their feedback and frequently update our solution both with new sensors and updated software to give all of our customers the latest functionality.
If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self, what would it be?
D: Take risks and be willing to learn. We came into this market with some knowledge about industrial gas, and our best teachers have been our customers. We have been lucky to be able to combine our strong knowledge of software and hardware sensors with our customers’ expertise in the industrial gas supply chain.
If you could have one thing for Christmas for your industry, what would it be?
D: I’d love to see distributors continue to invest in technology to optimize their operations. With the industry seeing strong growth, we have been happy to see how distributors have looked at solutions like ours to give themselves an edge in the market, and we’d love to see that accelerate
What do you hope Pulsa will achieve in 2020?
S: We want to get close to automating many aspects of the end-to-customer supply chain. Up to this point, we’ve primarily been helping our distributor customers solve challenges with some of their tougher customers. We’re getting started on integrating our product with distributor operations to allow them to use our technology to better serve their customers and provide better service to their customers at a lower cost