Bhutan's first AI startup is seven college kids in a dorm(restofworld.org)
restofworld.org
Bhutan's first AI startup is seven college kids in a dorm
https://restofworld.org/2024/bhutan-first-ai-startup/
27 comments
Yes, the money is extremely, extremely low. Even from an Indian subcontinent point-of-view. I didn't expect them to boast hundreds of thousands of USD, but they should have at least made 20k-30k USD.
Yeah, it's a bit more compared to our average monthly salary, but I'm not sure how much you understand our work and sacrifices to save up this $1,799. We've been running our startup without paying ourselves a single penny for 13 months straight, using our own pocket money for traveling and covering expenses the entire time. We've earned extra funds by developing websites for local people, and every bit of money we get from this goes straight into our bank account. That's how we've managed to save this amount. We have our goals, and getting external funds is like finding a unicorn here, so we want to reinvest in ourselves.
Bhutan looks so cosy. Would love to travel there.
Been there.
When you land in Paro airport be sure to look out to the right, this is one of if not the most challenging landings in the world. Check out the approach https://community.infiniteflight.com/t/a-guide-to-the-paro-a...
Be sure you are aware of the tourist fee, aka. sustainable development fee, $100 per day I believe right now. If Barcelona implemented the same I don't think the locals would have to resort to water pistols on the Ramblas.
Do visit the Tiger's Nest, be ready for long walks, if the weather is rainy be very careful about some of the trecks, torrents are dangerous.
Apart from this, if you like spicy food and the feeling that somehow all the other tourists forgot to come, go for it!
When you land in Paro airport be sure to look out to the right, this is one of if not the most challenging landings in the world. Check out the approach https://community.infiniteflight.com/t/a-guide-to-the-paro-a...
Be sure you are aware of the tourist fee, aka. sustainable development fee, $100 per day I believe right now. If Barcelona implemented the same I don't think the locals would have to resort to water pistols on the Ramblas.
Do visit the Tiger's Nest, be ready for long walks, if the weather is rainy be very careful about some of the trecks, torrents are dangerous.
Apart from this, if you like spicy food and the feeling that somehow all the other tourists forgot to come, go for it!
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Alpha signal. Investing asap.
So fascinating, we have 7 college kids "struggling" to build an webapp using AI apis......
Are they using APIs? It's not clear from the article, which mentions that many international cloud services are unavailable in Bhutan (presumably due to those companies not accepting payments from Bhutan residents).
> “One of the main challenges we face is the inability to access international payment platforms such as Stripe and PayPal. Additionally, we do not have access to cloud servers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud to host our AI models, which is crucial for reducing costs and improving the quality of our AI,” said Dendup. Many of these services are not available in Bhutan, “making it impossible for us to even open an account,” he said.
Hard to tell exactly what they are building from this article.
> “One of the main challenges we face is the inability to access international payment platforms such as Stripe and PayPal. Additionally, we do not have access to cloud servers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud to host our AI models, which is crucial for reducing costs and improving the quality of our AI,” said Dendup. Many of these services are not available in Bhutan, “making it impossible for us to even open an account,” he said.
Hard to tell exactly what they are building from this article.
I think this section of their website shows some examples of their work: https://www.nomindbhutan.com/#featuredbot
It seems to be mostly chatbot integrations and development. I think it is difficult to judge for anyone in a western country, what challenges they are facing regarding services not being offered in their country.
It seems to be mostly chatbot integrations and development. I think it is difficult to judge for anyone in a western country, what challenges they are facing regarding services not being offered in their country.
it's probably not unlike what it was like to say "let's build a chatbot company" in the west 20+ years ago. Way less compute power & lego-component services to utilize, higher prices for everything, and much more build evrything yourself.
They have used chatbase api and the funny part is their api key is exposed
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Wow, a response like this from the CEO? Really?
Does it feel good to be on the lookout for "dumb kids" using your clients as bait? Do you even understand the consequences of exposing a token that can be used to change your entire chatbot’s workings? Have you thought about how this could damage your clients' businesses? Is this how you operate? And while we're at it, why are you spreading lies across the media? Be open and honest about the fact that you're just wrapping a chatbot.
You’re misleading people and your clients. If you can’t even secure your API endpoints and tokens, how do you plan to work on AI or anything advanced? Bhutan’s "Best AI R&D Company"? Really? What AI R&D have you done? Just slapping a GPT wrapper on something doesn't make it R&D. And calling yourselves the best while failing to secure a basic route? Even non-CS students can manage that nowadays.
You guys are hyping things that are not groundbreaking—it’s just a simple API call. Maybe one day you’ll actually run your own LLMs, and I genuinely hope you do. But until then, stop mislabeling yourselves. Be honest about what you’re doing. If you ever achieve something real, no one will be able to criticize you. But right now, that label of Bhutan’s Best AI R&D Company is a joke.
And as for your cheap shot at me, let me correct you: I don’t work for the government, and what I earn or what I do is none of your business. You have no idea what I work on or what I’m capable of. I don’t go around misleading clients or hyping up my work. So, you don’t know me well enough to question my skills or capabilities. Personal attacks? That’s a weak move. Maybe spend your time better—like securing your service instead of trying to insult someone who pointed out your flaws. And the reason I took so long to reply? I have more important things going on that make a real impact. I had honestly forgotten about this until a colleague pointed it out.
Also, what's this I hear about each of your team members working 9 hours a day? That’s 63 hours a week for all seven of you—how does it take so long to do what little you're doing? Maybe that’s something you should reflect on instead of letting a few good things inflate your ego.
Here’s a tip: Don’t let early success go to your head. Stay humble, be professional, and, above all, be honest. It’s clear from your replies that you’re taking this personally, but that’s what happens when you’re not transparent about what you’re doing and people start calling you out on it.
See you around and Best of Luck!
You’re misleading people and your clients. If you can’t even secure your API endpoints and tokens, how do you plan to work on AI or anything advanced? Bhutan’s "Best AI R&D Company"? Really? What AI R&D have you done? Just slapping a GPT wrapper on something doesn't make it R&D. And calling yourselves the best while failing to secure a basic route? Even non-CS students can manage that nowadays.
You guys are hyping things that are not groundbreaking—it’s just a simple API call. Maybe one day you’ll actually run your own LLMs, and I genuinely hope you do. But until then, stop mislabeling yourselves. Be honest about what you’re doing. If you ever achieve something real, no one will be able to criticize you. But right now, that label of Bhutan’s Best AI R&D Company is a joke.
And as for your cheap shot at me, let me correct you: I don’t work for the government, and what I earn or what I do is none of your business. You have no idea what I work on or what I’m capable of. I don’t go around misleading clients or hyping up my work. So, you don’t know me well enough to question my skills or capabilities. Personal attacks? That’s a weak move. Maybe spend your time better—like securing your service instead of trying to insult someone who pointed out your flaws. And the reason I took so long to reply? I have more important things going on that make a real impact. I had honestly forgotten about this until a colleague pointed it out.
Also, what's this I hear about each of your team members working 9 hours a day? That’s 63 hours a week for all seven of you—how does it take so long to do what little you're doing? Maybe that’s something you should reflect on instead of letting a few good things inflate your ego.
Here’s a tip: Don’t let early success go to your head. Stay humble, be professional, and, above all, be honest. It’s clear from your replies that you’re taking this personally, but that’s what happens when you’re not transparent about what you’re doing and people start calling you out on it.
See you around and Best of Luck!
We are checking for dumb kids like you, because i thought you only know how to eat govement SALERY and know nothing.. thank god that you atleast know how check api..
Yes sir, we are using APIs because we have no other option left. We have a few more products developed and ready to launch once we integrate with a payment gateway. The reason we are focusing on the chatbot is that it is the only sellable product in my country for our sustainability. So, at least from there, we can generate some revenue to run and build our other products. That's why we mostly showcase it on our website. If you are interested and want to know more, please contact me here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ugyentech/. I can give a live demo.
Looking at their website looks like they are building an integrated AI chatbot service - it's inserted via JS using wordpress / other plugin see: https://www.nomindbhutan.com/guide
As a complete aside I enjoyed their about us section: https://www.nomindbhutan.com/#aboutus
As a complete aside I enjoyed their about us section: https://www.nomindbhutan.com/#aboutus
We have a few more products developed and ready to launch once we integrate with a payment gateway. The reason we are focusing on the chatbot is that it is the only sellable product in my country for our sustainability. So, at least from there, we can generate some revenue to run and build our other products. That's why we mostly showcase it on our website. If you are interested and want to know more, please contact me here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ugyentech/. I can give a live demo.
there are lots of different groups of 7 college kids operating at different levels all over the world.
maybe but Let these "different groups of 7 college kids" come to Bhutan and work where they can't even create Stripe or Azure accounts, where you can't pay on AWS or Google Cloud and need to run on free plans, where internet costs are among the highest in the world. I hope they can survive.
By the way, we are not "struggling" to build our web app; we are struggling to get access to cloud services and payment gateways.
Honestly, it doesn’t matter if it’s API or running your own LLMs—users don’t care, bro. What matters most is the user experience and the quality of the output. We wish we could also host our fine-tuned LLMs on the cloud, running all our products like this. Unfortunately, that’s just not possible where we are. So we’re left with using APIs.
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My immediate response was "7? Why does it take so many of them?" but after that it was about all the non-AI challenges they must be tackling.
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For context, google search puts the average monthly Bhutan salary at ~200 USD.