Austin Senseman

Founder and CEO of Conserv

Austin Senseman is a former P3 Adaptive team member who went on to start his own business, Conserv, an internet of things startup company in the conservation space. Conserv does important work to help preserve historical artifacts in museums and private collections by using sensors and analytics. We talk about historical artifacts and the data that is used in preserving them, the infamous P3 Adaptive Interview Of Death, dealing with Investors, business ethics and so much more.

Episode Timeline:

• 1:45 – Meeting Austin, a Talking Heads reference, and Austin nearly reveals his secret password!
• 5:15 – Sports-team allegiance is important, especially in the South
• 7:20 – Austin’s company, Conserv, won a huge pitch competition this week and Austin explains what Conserve does
• 9:00 – Sensors and IoT <Internet of Things> devices that Conserv uses, and how to handle the challenge of networking and collecting the massive amount data from these things
• 14:00 – To buy something or to build something, what’s a better path? The Black Market, and the hilarious story of The Backstroke Of The West
• 18:15 – Dealing with Investors in the startup space
• 20:40 – The analytics of Conserv, and how the physical world enters the equation
• 27:00 – Artifact care standards, how precise conditions must be to preserve these historical treasures, and the data that’s behind it
• 33:00 – Rob mentions the Vasa Museum and a running joke is born!
• 37:10 – The importance of preserving historical artifacts
• 46:00 – Rob asks Austin his least favorite question. What other applications can this tech be used for?
• 51:00 – The grossness of the predatory extraction business model
• 59:10 – The infamous P3 Adaptive Interview Of Death, and how it factors into how P3 Adaptive perfected remote hiring
• 1:12:35 – It’s not personal, it’s just business…is just garbage and the amusing applicant story
• 1:16:30 – How Conserv used Power BI embedded, and the challenges he had to overcome with using it
• 1:29:00 – Celebrating as a business owner, and Custom Emojis in our Slack channel <we even have an Austin Senseman emoji