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• Workshop-style sessions by experts from the AI universe
• Insider playbooks by founders who’ve been in the AI trenches and are now winning
• Stories from fast-growing AI startups discussing what worked, what didn’t, and the path ahead

Hands-on workshop-style sessions,
actionable insider playbooks, & stories from fast-growing
AI startups to pave the way for AI Unicorns of tomorrow.

Hands-on workshop-style sessions,
actionable insider playbooks, & stories from fast-growing
AI startups to pave the way for AI Unicorns of tomorrow.

180+ founders and operators came together for a full day of fierce competition and a ton of fun! Here are some details of what went down at the Badminton League 2023!

180+ founders and operators came together for a full day of fierce competition and a ton of fun! Here are some details of what went down at the Badminton League 2023!

*Provided there are enough participants in each category

*Provided there are enough participants in each category

180+ founders and operators came together for a full day of fierce competition and a ton of fun! Here are some details of what went down at the Badminton League 2023!

180+ founders and operators came together for a full day of fierce competition and a ton of fun! Here are some details of what went down at the Badminton League 2023!

*Provided there are enough participants in each category

*Provided there are enough participants in each category

180+ founders and operators came together for a full day of fierce competition and a ton of fun! Here are some details of what went down at the Badminton League 2023!

180+ founders and operators came together for a full day of fierce competition and a ton of fun! Here are some details of what went down at the Badminton League 2023!

*Provided there are enough participants in each category

*Provided there are enough participants in each category

The rising tide lifts all boats. SaaSBoomi founders exemplify that spirit by helping one another scale up. Likewise, our ecosystem partners share the community’s pay-it-forward ethos and fuel our mission to cross $1 trillion market cap from India SaaS. They contribute invaluable resources in knowledge and networks, apart from dollars to accelerate the flywheel. 

The rising tide lifts all boats. SaaSBoomi founders exemplify that spirit by helping one another scale up. Likewise, our ecosystem partners share the community’s pay-it-forward ethos and fuel our mission to cross $1 trillion market cap from India SaaS. They contribute invaluable resources in knowledge and networks, apart from dollars to accelerate the flywheel. 

By joining hands with us and one another, our ecosystem partners epitomize the principle that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. More than sponsoring our activities, they work hand-in-hand with us in building the SaaS ecosystem. In turn, our community of SaaS founders regards them as family.

By joining hands with us and one another, our ecosystem partners epitomize the principle that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. More than sponsoring our activities, they work hand-in-hand with us in building the SaaS ecosystem. In turn, our community of SaaS founders regards them as family.

Our ecosystem partners believe in our mission and fuel it.

Our ecosystem partners believe in our mission and fuel it.

You are in good company! Some of India’s best SaaS talents actively contribute to our community.

You are in good company! Some of India’s best SaaS talents actively contribute to our community.

1500+ founders, 100+ VCs, plus top enterprise CXOs: SaaSBoomi Annual gets bigger and better each year.

1500+ founders, 100+ VCs, plus top enterprise CXOs: SaaSBoomi Annual gets bigger and better each year.

SaaSBoomi Annual 2024 comes at the cusp of a technological revolution which will be as transformative as electricity. The hyper-accelerated growth and adoption of GenAI over the past year is hurtling us into a new age where AI permeates every aspect of business and life. This is not hyperbole, it’s now real.

SaaSBoomi Annual 2024 comes at the cusp of a technological revolution which will be as transformative as electricity. The hyper-accelerated growth and adoption of GenAI over the past year is hurtling us into a new age where AI permeates every aspect of business and life. This is not hyperbole, it’s now real.

To be prepared is half the victory. SaaSBoomi Annual 2024 will bring cutting-edge thinkers to help SaaS founders think about repositioning their startups to take advantage of new opportunities and ward off new disruptions. Growth in the age of AI will be a guiding theme of the event.

To be prepared is half the victory. SaaSBoomi Annual 2024 will bring cutting-edge thinkers to help SaaS founders think about repositioning their startups to take advantage of new opportunities and ward off new disruptions. Growth in the age of AI will be a guiding theme of the event.

At the same time, we will roll up our sleeves and get down to the nitty-gritty of building and scaling SaaS businesses. Our tactical workshops and stage content are free from fluff. ‘For founders, by founders’ is more than a slogan to us; it’s the way we do things. 

At the same time, we will roll up our sleeves and get down to the nitty-gritty of building and scaling SaaS businesses. Our tactical workshops and stage content are free from fluff. ‘For founders, by founders’ is more than a slogan to us; it’s the way we do things. 

Every piece of SaaSBoomi Annual 2024 will be the outcome of four months of discussion and planning by scaled founders. Just like a good Indian thali, there will be a mix of sessions to cater to every stage of SaaS growth, from 0 to 1 and beyond.

Every piece of SaaSBoomi Annual 2024 will be the outcome of four months of discussion and planning by scaled founders. Just like a good Indian thali, there will be a mix of sessions to cater to every stage of SaaS growth, from 0 to 1 and beyond.

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Writing this book has been a truly fulfilling and rewarding experience. But I could never have done this alone.

Writing this book has been a truly fulfilling and rewarding experience. But I could never have done this alone.

I would like to first thank all the founders who are featured in this book. They embody the spirit of Pay It Forward and have generously given their time and shared their valuable experiences and lessons. They are inspiring entrepreneurs, who have worked hard to make their vision a reality. I am grateful for their generosity.

I would like to first thank all the founders who are featured in this book. They embody the spirit of Pay It Forward and have generously given their time and shared their valuable experiences and lessons. They are inspiring entrepreneurs, who have worked hard to make their vision a reality. I am grateful for their generosity.

I am grateful to Avinash Raghava, community builder extraordinaire. He has been a source of immense help and support.

I am grateful to Avinash Raghava, community builder extraordinaire. He has been a source of immense help and support.

I would like to thank the entire SaaSBOOMi community, which is the “Sutradhar”. This community of SaaS founders is among the most welcoming and accepting. I am eternally grateful for the support, feedback and help I have received here.

I would like to thank the entire SaaSBOOMi community, which is the “Sutradhar”. This community of SaaS founders is among the most welcoming and accepting. I am eternally grateful for the support, feedback and help I have received here.

About SaaSBOOMi

About SaaSBOOMi

SaaSBOOMi is a community created by founders for founders to support the growing SaaS ecosystem in India and beyond. With over $2 billion in combined annual recurring revenue, 1000+ companies, including 10 Unicorns and many Soonicorns waiting in the wings, India is becoming a thriving ecosystem for SaaS companies and founders. This book is our latest initiative to support founders, those wishing to start up, and those who have started up, and give them a head start.

SaaSBOOMi is a community created by founders for founders to support the growing SaaS ecosystem in India and beyond. With over $2 billion in combined annual recurring revenue, 1000+ companies, including 10 Unicorns and many Soonicorns waiting in the wings, India is becoming a thriving ecosystem for SaaS companies and founders. This book is our latest initiative to support founders, those wishing to start up, and those who have started up, and give them a head start.

The journey of a startup is fraught with hardships and difficulties. But the COVID-19 pandemic especially made us realize the pitfalls of a national lockdown on the whole economy. To be sure, the SaaS ecosystem like every other sector took a massive beating over 2020. We asked entrepreneurs what they did to cope with this sudden breakdown of the existing order—did they introduce changes in their leadership strategy? And at a more philosophical level—did the pandemic transform their outlook towards life?

The journey of a startup is fraught with hardships and difficulties. But the COVID-19 pandemic especially made us realize the pitfalls of a national lockdown on the whole economy. To be sure, the SaaS ecosystem like every other sector took a massive beating over 2020. We asked entrepreneurs what they did to cope with this sudden breakdown of the existing order—did they introduce changes in their leadership strategy? And at a more philosophical level—did the pandemic transform their outlook towards life?

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

The first important thing is that your employees should be able to work in an environment that is conducive to them. At least in SaaS, all companies have moved to work from home. We are privileged, when I compare my notes with CEOs of other brick-and-mortar companies, that software services can work online from home. All our source code is on GitHub. It is a shared environment to work. We can measure productivity. We can use two collaborative tools like Microsoft Teams or Slack and continue to work efficiently. That I see as the least disruption in our narrative of software services as an industry. Almost all the companies were able to shift to work from home in a pretty seamless fashion. There are minor issues—whether you have all the laptops or not, and specific to India people work from villages—but teams have been very committed, one way or another they find internet connectivity and

The first important thing is that your employees should be able to work in an environment that is conducive to them. At least in SaaS, all companies have moved to work from home. We are privileged, when I compare my notes with CEOs of other brick-and-mortar companies, that software services can work online from home. All our source code is on GitHub. It is a shared environment to work. We can measure productivity. We can use two collaborative tools like Microsoft Teams or Slack and continue to work efficiently. That I see as the least disruption in our narrative of software services as an industry. Almost all the companies were able to shift to work from home in a pretty seamless fashion. There are minor issues—whether you have all the laptops or not, and specific to India people work from villages—but teams have been very committed, one way or another they find internet connectivity and

YOU WILL HAVE TO THINK TWO STEPS AHEAD OF WHAT CAN GO WRONG FROM WHERE WE ARE RIGHT NOW. ALSO, THE BIGGEST ISSUE IS WE SHOULD NOT ADD TO THE STRESS OF PEOPLE.

YOU WILL HAVE TO THINK TWO STEPS AHEAD OF WHAT CAN GO WRONG FROM WHERE WE ARE RIGHT NOW. ALSO, THE BIGGEST ISSUE IS WE SHOULD NOT ADD TO THE STRESS OF PEOPLE.

– MANAV GARG

– MANAV GARG

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then they are online from there. That I would say is the easiest part of managing this crisis. Customer communication and the business continuity plan for customers become the key points in such a crisis. How will their business not get interrupted and at times like this when they need more automation than less? You now need software to do things that you could do manually, sitting in the office before.

then they are online from there. That I would say is the easiest part of managing this crisis. Customer communication and the business continuity plan for customers become the key points in such a crisis. How will their business not get interrupted and at times like this when they need more automation than less? You now need software to do things that you could do manually, sitting in the office before.

A lot will also depend on how much money you have on the balance sheet, but no matter how much money you have on your balance sheet, I think you will have to be very financially prudent in these times to make sure that you live through these crises. The two key parts which actually, in my experience, help the most are: discuss the problems at hand in detail and discuss the solution and the options in detail. You will have to think two steps ahead of what can go wrong from where we are right now. Also, the biggest issue is we should not add to the stress of people. There has to be some conversation that is more open, and which recognizes the problem, where people can talk about the stress that they have.

A lot will also depend on how much money you have on the balance sheet, but no matter how much money you have on your balance sheet, I think you will have to be very financially prudent in these times to make sure that you live through these crises. The two key parts which actually, in my experience, help the most are: discuss the problems at hand in detail and discuss the solution and the options in detail. You will have to think two steps ahead of what can go wrong from where we are right now. Also, the biggest issue is we should not add to the stress of people. There has to be some conversation that is more open, and which recognizes the problem, where people can talk about the stress that they have.

SURESH SAMBANDAN

SURESH SAMBANDAN

The corona environment has not really impacted us, from a productivity perspective. When we started doing 100 percent work from home, we expected a 20 percent to 30 percent dip in productivity. Instead, we see a 30 percent increase in productivity, and that was a pleasant surprise. People know what they are doing, they have a good relationship; they have trust and they have clarity in their objectives. All of that came because of consistent efforts in investing in culture and continuously talking to employees, meeting them every week, everybody knows everybody else so they can talk to anybody, cut across organizational boundaries. No reason to stick within your hierarchy. All of this is helping us a lot in a situation like work from home because if you try to follow the traditional hierarchical model, it will take a long time to get responses, especially in a work-from-home paradigm. You need to figure out how everyone can talk to everybody and get whatever information they need to get their work done. It means that you cannot go through your manager for everything. You should be able to talk to your manager’s peer manager and then get something that you want, which is very important and possible only if you have invested in that kind of culture.

The corona environment has not really impacted us, from a productivity perspective. When we started doing 100 percent work from home, we expected a 20 percent to 30 percent dip in productivity. Instead, we see a 30 percent increase in productivity, and that was a pleasant surprise. People know what they are doing, they have a good relationship; they have trust and they have clarity in their objectives. All of that came because of consistent efforts in investing in culture and continuously talking to employees, meeting them every week, everybody knows everybody else so they can talk to anybody, cut across organizational boundaries. No reason to stick within your hierarchy. All of this is helping us a lot in a situation like work from home because if you try to follow the traditional hierarchical model, it will take a long time to get responses, especially in a work-from-home paradigm. You need to figure out how everyone can talk to everybody and get whatever information they need to get their work done. It means that you cannot go through your manager for everything. You should be able to talk to your manager’s peer manager and then get something that you want, which is very important and possible only if you have invested in that kind of culture.

SRIDHAR VEMBU

SRIDHAR VEMBU

Our happiness is mostly determined by our immediate surroundings—the people we surround ourselves with, those we talk to on a daily basis, our interactions with the rest of the human beings around us, and our physical surroundings. I think those have a lot more influence on our happiness than all those macro issues. For example, right now, I am in a village, I am surrounded by essentially agricultural workers, some of them own some land, maybe an acre or two, some of them don’t own any land, some of them drive an autorickshaw and so on. These people come from very humble economic strata, but they are genuinely happy, they are loving and they are kind people and I am surrounded by them and I actually have learned to understand their world. Compared to them, my own problems look trivial. I mean, you are talking to a guy who actually has maybe one week’s worth of cash and then next week he does not have any idea of how he is going to ever make money because autorickshaws stopped running during the lockdown. So you realize that your problems are nothing compared to his. Then I actually start thinking: how do I help this guy? I am not worried about myself. Then our own problems go away. This is actually what spiritual gurus always tell you—that there may not be any solution to your own problems, but if you think about somebody else’s problems, try to solve them, maybe your problems kind of go away. I’ve known this from personal experience. If I think about some of the landless workers’ problems here, my own problems actually tend to go away. I don’t actually care about them anymore. So, that’s how I keep myself sane.

Our happiness is mostly determined by our immediate surroundings—the people we surround ourselves with, those we talk to on a daily basis, our interactions with the rest of the human beings around us, and our physical surroundings. I think those have a lot more influence on our happiness than all those macro issues. For example, right now, I am in a village, I am surrounded by essentially agricultural workers, some of them own some land, maybe an acre or two, some of them don’t own any land, some of them drive an autorickshaw and so on. These people come from very humble economic strata, but they are genuinely happy, they are loving and they are kind people and I am surrounded by them and I actually have learned to understand their world. Compared to them, my own problems look trivial. I mean, you are talking to a guy who actually has maybe one week’s worth of cash and then next week he does not have any idea of how he is going to ever make money because autorickshaws stopped running during the lockdown. So you realize that your problems are nothing compared to his. Then I actually start thinking: how do I help this guy? I am not worried about myself. Then our own problems go away. This is actually what spiritual gurus always tell you—that there may not be any solution to your own problems, but if you think about somebody else’s problems, try to solve them, maybe your problems kind of go away. I’ve known this from personal experience. If I think about some of the landless workers’ problems here, my own problems actually tend to go away. I don’t actually care about them anymore. So, that’s how I keep myself sane.

ASHWINI ASOKAN

ASHWINI ASOKAN

Culture has always been number one for us, more than anything else. I think it’s what gets us through these hard times, it’s why we are able to suddenly support customers left, right and centre and in whatever form that we need to because everybody is ready. Without that kind of culture of just rolling up your sleeves and getting down to work no matter where you are, from

Culture has always been number one for us, more than anything else. I think it’s what gets us through these hard times, it’s why we are able to suddenly support customers left, right and centre and in whatever form that we need to because everybody is ready. Without that kind of culture of just rolling up your sleeves and getting down to work no matter where you are, from

CULTURE HAS ALWAYS BEEN NUMBER ONE FOR US AND THAT’S WHAT GETS US THROUGH THESE HARD TIMES, IT’S WHY WE ARE ABLE TO SUDDENLY SUPPORT CUSTOMERS LEFT, RIGHT AND CENTRE AND IN WHATEVER FORM THAT WE NEED TO BECAUSE EVERYBODY IS READY.

CULTURE HAS ALWAYS BEEN NUMBER ONE FOR US AND THAT’S WHAT GETS US THROUGH THESE HARD TIMES, IT’S WHY WE ARE ABLE TO SUDDENLY SUPPORT CUSTOMERS LEFT, RIGHT AND CENTRE AND IN WHATEVER FORM THAT WE NEED TO BECAUSE EVERYBODY IS READY.

— ASHWINI ASOKAN

— ASHWINI ASOKAN

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my teams in Redwood City right up to my team in Chennai, people, all over, doesn’t matter where. The team has been absolutely relentless, and I find myself being very, very thankful for that.

my teams in Redwood City right up to my team in Chennai, people, all over, doesn’t matter where. The team has been absolutely relentless, and I find myself being very, very thankful for that.

GIRISH MATRUBOOTHAM

GIRISH MATRUBOOTHAM

Staying sane is a decision, in my opinion. You just have to decide to be positive and be happy all the time. Even in high-growth situations, we have seen founders who are very anxious and stressed. What I have realized after interacting with lots of people is, fundamentally, you are who you are. Times will come and go but you have to learn to look for positivity. I would appeal to all the founders to say, Hey, this too will pass. Just stay positive, learn to appreciate some of the good things that we have in life, and go back and do what you really love doing. Use the time to focus on things you love, doing the things that give you happiness. Spend time with family and look for positivity. The most important thing right now is, how do we take care of so many people who are losing their livelihoods. It’s devastating for them. So, all of us have to help those people in need, in whatever way we can. I will probably say it again: pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

Staying sane is a decision, in my opinion. You just have to decide to be positive and be happy all the time. Even in high-growth situations, we have seen founders who are very anxious and stressed. What I have realized after interacting with lots of people is, fundamentally, you are who you are. Times will come and go but you have to learn to look for positivity. I would appeal to all the founders to say, Hey, this too will pass. Just stay positive, learn to appreciate some of the good things that we have in life, and go back and do what you really love doing. Use the time to focus on things you love, doing the things that give you happiness. Spend time with family and look for positivity. The most important thing right now is, how do we take care of so many people who are losing their livelihoods. It’s devastating for them. So, all of us have to help those people in need, in whatever way we can. I will probably say it again: pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

The conversations will be more uncomfortable in the growth scenario where you are letting go of people because of your own performance. For example, if you are executing badly as a founder or the individual is executing badly as an employee, then those are the uncomfortable conversations. Today, it is a survival of the company and it is uncomfortable, but I don’t know any way to make it easy. The only way is to be truthful, be honest, and explain the situation. There are some companies which are asking employees to work without a salary for a few months and compensating them with Esops, so maybe there are some employees who can go through that, but at the end of the day, you can still be friends with people even after you separate from them. I am still friends with all the people that I have laid off in my life. It’s important to explain to them what is happening, the reason for this decision, and clarify that it’s not personal. It’s the survival of the company and the company is bigger than anybody, right? It’s bigger than the CEO, it’s bigger than the investor. The company is the first

The conversations will be more uncomfortable in the growth scenario where you are letting go of people because of your own performance. For example, if you are executing badly as a founder or the individual is executing badly as an employee, then those are the uncomfortable conversations. Today, it is a survival of the company and it is uncomfortable, but I don’t know any way to make it easy. The only way is to be truthful, be honest, and explain the situation. There are some companies which are asking employees to work without a salary for a few months and compensating them with Esops, so maybe there are some employees who can go through that, but at the end of the day, you can still be friends with people even after you separate from them. I am still friends with all the people that I have laid off in my life. It’s important to explain to them what is happening, the reason for this decision, and clarify that it’s not personal. It’s the survival of the company and the company is bigger than anybody, right? It’s bigger than the CEO, it’s bigger than the investor. The company is the first

“THE HAPPINESS OF PURSUIT.” NOT THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS, JUST THE HAPPINESS IN PURSUING THINGS.

“THE HAPPINESS OF PURSUIT.” NOT THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS, JUST THE HAPPINESS IN PURSUING THINGS.

— ADITYA RAO

— ADITYA RAO

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priority for the founder or the CEO and you have to do whatever it takes to make sure the company survives. The dilemma would be, what happens in three months if the situation improves and you have made a wrong call of letting go of all the people. That’s not the wrong call. You may have to do it in order to survive because what happens if you keep all the employees and then in three months the company dies?

priority for the founder or the CEO and you have to do whatever it takes to make sure the company survives. The dilemma would be, what happens in three months if the situation improves and you have made a wrong call of letting go of all the people. That’s not the wrong call. You may have to do it in order to survive because what happens if you keep all the employees and then in three months the company dies?

ADITYA RAO

ADITYA RAO

This used to be my Twitter bio: “The happiness of pursuit.” Not the pursuit of happiness, just the happiness in pursuing things. What else will one do, 9 to 5, get into a bus, go into campus, write some bad code, sit on a bench and come back. I am not saying there is anything bad with it; I just don’t relate to it. Since I have gone into this journey of building a lifestyle SaaS business of my own, I learned to code, I learned how to play the ukulele, my family life is way better, my health is way better. Especially in these [COVID-19] times, if something happens to you and you are on a hospital bed, you will really be thinking, I have $5 million ARR, and that deal hasn’t closed; I should have probably done these things differently. My wife and I have now completely sold off everything we had in Bengaluru and given away almost everything. We are just living out of two-three bags in Himachal. If the current circumstances allowed, we would have been in a different country, just hoping to earn that $1,000 MRR, keep expenses low and just sustainably grow from there; what else do you need?

This used to be my Twitter bio: “The happiness of pursuit.” Not the pursuit of happiness, just the happiness in pursuing things. What else will one do, 9 to 5, get into a bus, go into campus, write some bad code, sit on a bench and come back. I am not saying there is anything bad with it; I just don’t relate to it. Since I have gone into this journey of building a lifestyle SaaS business of my own, I learned to code, I learned how to play the ukulele, my family life is way better, my health is way better. Especially in these [COVID-19] times, if something happens to you and you are on a hospital bed, you will really be thinking, I have $5 million ARR, and that deal hasn’t closed; I should have probably done these things differently. My wife and I have now completely sold off everything we had in Bengaluru and given away almost everything. We are just living out of two-three bags in Himachal. If the current circumstances allowed, we would have been in a different country, just hoping to earn that $1,000 MRR, keep expenses low and just sustainably grow from there; what else do you need?

*Sridhar Vembu comments are from the Outliers Podcast hosted by Pankaj Mishra ©️SourceCode Media Private Limited

*Sridhar Vembu comments are from the Outliers Podcast hosted by Pankaj Mishra ©️SourceCode Media Private Limited

KEY TAKEAWAYS

KEY TAKEAWAYS

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MONISH DARDA

MONISH DARDA

As long as you recognize that change is inevitable and things will change from day to day and year to year, you are much better prepared for that change. In the last few months, I have been thinking about Taleb’s kind of antifragility [Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder, Random House, 2012]. How do you have a company that is antifragile? Not just resilience in a crisis but how you make the most of the crisis, how do you learn from it, how do you grow in it, and how do you turn a disadvantage into an advantage. I think there has been some incredible learning in the last few months, just introspecting how we can change as a company to become more antifragile.

As long as you recognize that change is inevitable and things will change from day to day and year to year, you are much better prepared for that change. In the last few months, I have been thinking about Taleb’s kind of antifragility [Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder, Random House, 2012]. How do you have a company that is antifragile? Not just resilience in a crisis but how you make the most of the crisis, how do you learn from it, how do you grow in it, and how do you turn a disadvantage into an advantage. I think there has been some incredible learning in the last few months, just introspecting how we can change as a company to become more antifragile.

I come from a pedigree of startups. It is kind of interesting because, you know, half of them failed, and it is always really astounding to think about how much you learn from failure. It has been an interesting journey; you know, most of the time, it has been a startup with software that has been built for the enterprise, and Icertis has also been like that. When you are an entrepreneur for so long, you have to start a company once an acquisition happens, like BladeLogic. It was serendipitous at that time. Samir [Bodas] was coming out of an acquisition by Mindtree. He was the CEO of Aztecsoft, which was a very interesting company at that time. Mindtree acquired Aztecsoft at roughly the same time BladeLogic was acquired by BMC Software. We got talking and said, hey, what next and that is how Icertis happened.

I come from a pedigree of startups. It is kind of interesting because, you know, half of them failed, and it is always really astounding to think about how much you learn from failure. It has been an interesting journey; you know, most of the time, it has been a startup with software that has been built for the enterprise, and Icertis has also been like that. When you are an entrepreneur for so long, you have to start a company once an acquisition happens, like BladeLogic. It was serendipitous at that time. Samir [Bodas] was coming out of an acquisition by Mindtree. He was the CEO of Aztecsoft, which was a very interesting company at that time. Mindtree acquired Aztecsoft at roughly the same time BladeLogic was acquired by BMC Software. We got talking and said, hey, what next and that is how Icertis happened.

OUR CORE PHILOSOPHY IS THEREFORE ABOUT EXERCISING FINANCIAL PRUDENCE AND SOMETIMES THAT IS MISTAKEN AS NOT TAKING ENOUGH RISK, BUT WE BELIEVE THAT WE TAKE CALCULATED RISK RATHER THAN JUST TAKING VERY WILD SWINGS AND HOPING WE GET A HOME RUN.

OUR CORE PHILOSOPHY IS THEREFORE ABOUT EXERCISING FINANCIAL PRUDENCE AND SOMETIMES THAT IS MISTAKEN AS NOT TAKING ENOUGH RISK, BUT WE BELIEVE THAT WE TAKE CALCULATED RISK RATHER THAN JUST TAKING VERY WILD SWINGS AND HOPING WE GET A HOME RUN.

– MONISH DARDA

– MONISH DARDA

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ABHINAV SHASHANK

ABHINAV SHASHANK

I had all these fantastic learning experiences that taught me to figure out new geographies and new markets and have the belief that people will buy from us. Over time, we figured out that if we held on to that belief, it would happen. Remember that this was basically when everyone was doing a consumer startup and creating these billion-dollar companies, and I was struggling to sell this one deal. At times, it made me think that maybe I, too, should have just done consumer tech and created a billion-dollar company because all our friends were doing that. It is incredibly important for an entrepreneur to have the conviction that we will create something that would be a world leader and that we will create that in our own way.

I had all these fantastic learning experiences that taught me to figure out new geographies and new markets and have the belief that people will buy from us. Over time, we figured out that if we held on to that belief, it would happen. Remember that this was basically when everyone was doing a consumer startup and creating these billion-dollar companies, and I was struggling to sell this one deal. At times, it made me think that maybe I, too, should have just done consumer tech and created a billion-dollar company because all our friends were doing that. It is incredibly important for an entrepreneur to have the conviction that we will create something that would be a world leader and that we will create that in our own way.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

You have to tell yourself that ups and downs are going to be a part of your life. Now the down cycle comes much faster and in such unexpected ways; I think it will continue. I am sure more crises will come and hit us in many different ways, going forward. If you tell your mind that crises will come regularly then you will remain far saner. Secondly, 50 percent of your mental stress is linked to your financial position, both personal and of your company; 30 percent is your personal health, and 20 percent is your social life. Are you able to discuss your problems openly with your friends and family, whether it be about your employees, your investors, or your customers? If you are open about your problems, basically you are vulnerable at all points. This will help you stay sane because when you show your vulnerabilities, other people will also talk about their problems and you will realize that everybody is actually in the same boat as you, with some degree of difference of course. That is the simple way of looking at things.

You have to tell yourself that ups and downs are going to be a part of your life. Now the down cycle comes much faster and in such unexpected ways; I think it will continue. I am sure more crises will come and hit us in many different ways, going forward. If you tell your mind that crises will come regularly then you will remain far saner. Secondly, 50 percent of your mental stress is linked to your financial position, both personal and of your company; 30 percent is your personal health, and 20 percent is your social life. Are you able to discuss your problems openly with your friends and family, whether it be about your employees, your investors, or your customers? If you are open about your problems, basically you are vulnerable at all points. This will help you stay sane because when you show your vulnerabilities, other people will also talk about their problems and you will realize that everybody is actually in the same boat as you, with some degree of difference of course. That is the simple way of looking at things.

PARAS CHOPRA

PARAS CHOPRA

We continuously add to building a bigger buffer in the company—for instance, our entire company can go on for several years even if our revenue drops to zero. You can contrast this with a typical growth-at-all-cost style of making a company where you continue to hire and invest even as you are making losses in hopes that someday you will be profitable. But in this case, the world shifts so fast (like what happened now with the coronavirus pandemic) that it can easily derail your plans and then you will have to fire people and so on. Our core philosophy is therefore about exercising financial prudence and sometimes that is mistaken as not taking enough risk, but we believe that we take calculated risk rather than just taking very wild swings and hoping we get a home run.

We continuously add to building a bigger buffer in the company—for instance, our entire company can go on for several years even if our revenue drops to zero. You can contrast this with a typical growth-at-all-cost style of making a company where you continue to hire and invest even as you are making losses in hopes that someday you will be profitable. But in this case, the world shifts so fast (like what happened now with the coronavirus pandemic) that it can easily derail your plans and then you will have to fire people and so on. Our core philosophy is therefore about exercising financial prudence and sometimes that is mistaken as not taking enough risk, but we believe that we take calculated risk rather than just taking very wild swings and hoping we get a home run.

PRUKALPA SANKAR

PRUKALPA SANKAR

Being surrounded by an amazing team helps a lot. In my eight years as an entrepreneur, the only times I have truly been burnt out have been times when the people internally have not given me energy. If you think about a startup, you are fighting everything in the world. You are going out, you are fighting the market, you are fighting the competition, you are fighting to give customers a reason to buy from you and not from the super large incumbent public company. Everything in the outside world is a battle, and that battle is exciting. That’s why many of us do it. That’s why we love the zero to one, the journey, the problem-solving, all of that. I don’t think burnout is really a function of how hard you work—the only times it hits you is when it is emotional. To me, that emotion is really a function of the people you surround yourself with. So for me, the first step of staying sane comes from my relationship with my co-founder, my team, and the people I work with day-to-day; they give me a lot of energy. The other thing that I have realized as a second-time founder is that you can’t solve everything—some problems are a priority, and others are not. The biggest thing that helped me was to just be able to disconnect and say, that’s a problem, I know it needs to be solved, but it is not something I will focus on right now. And so a very actionable hack that we started back then was we would pick just one of those problems a month, outside of standard stuff like growing sales and things like that, and solve it. This has helped a lot in preserving our sanity.

Being surrounded by an amazing team helps a lot. In my eight years as an entrepreneur, the only times I have truly been burnt out have been times when the people internally have not given me energy. If you think about a startup, you are fighting everything in the world. You are going out, you are fighting the market, you are fighting the competition, you are fighting to give customers a reason to buy from you and not from the super large incumbent public company. Everything in the outside world is a battle, and that battle is exciting. That’s why many of us do it. That’s why we love the zero to one, the journey, the problem-solving, all of that. I don’t think burnout is really a function of how hard you work—the only times it hits you is when it is emotional. To me, that emotion is really a function of the people you surround yourself with. So for me, the first step of staying sane comes from my relationship with my co-founder, my team, and the people I work with day-to-day; they give me a lot of energy. The other thing that I have realized as a second-time founder is that you can’t solve everything—some problems are a priority, and others are not. The biggest thing that helped me was to just be able to disconnect and say, that’s a problem, I know it needs to be solved, but it is not something I will focus on right now. And so a very actionable hack that we started back then was we would pick just one of those problems a month, outside of standard stuff like growing sales and things like that, and solve it. This has helped a lot in preserving our sanity.

We would surely run out of fingers if we counted the number of times the word resilience comes up in startup conversations! The SaaS ecosystem is replete with examples of entrepreneurs who had their backs against the wall time and again and devised strategies to pull themselves out from crises. Which is to say, they persisted through their share of failures and disappointments until they turned a corner. And the quality that has helped in making that transition as they would all tell you is, of course, resilience.

We would surely run out of fingers if we counted the number of times the word resilience comes up in startup conversations! The SaaS ecosystem is replete with examples of entrepreneurs who had their backs against the wall time and again and devised strategies to pull themselves out from crises. Which is to say, they persisted through their share of failures and disappointments until they turned a corner. And the quality that has helped in making that transition as they would all tell you is, of course, resilience.

But what exactly makes one resilient in the face of adversities? What does it mean to simply hang in there? How does one equip oneself to meet challenges with good sense, grit, and determination?

But what exactly makes one resilient in the face of adversities? What does it mean to simply hang in there? How does one equip oneself to meet challenges with good sense, grit, and determination?

In this chapter, we will be drawing inspiration from those SaaS founders who turned disadvantages into opportunities and mistakes into valuable life lessons.

In this chapter, we will be drawing inspiration from those SaaS founders who turned disadvantages into opportunities and mistakes into valuable life lessons.

SURESH SAMBANDAM

SURESH SAMBANDAM

I made one mistake which created a ripple effect. My co-founder left in the middle of 2013; we knew each other for 13 years. We had a good relationship— out of the 13 years, I would say that the first 12 years were absolutely phenomenal. During our last year together, he probably started wondering whether I had enough clue in running this company, which was a fair thing to doubt because we had spent eight-nine years, and we were still going through ups and downs. Understandably, he started losing confidence in me. We were having differences of opinion—which was stupid if I have to think about it retrospectively, stupid and immature on both our parts, but mostly on my part. I take that blame more than the other person, but I never thought that it would eventually lead him to leave the company. We had just raised a million dollars from an Angel Network a year ago. I didn’t keep my board updated about our co-founder disagreements because I felt that this is something I can overcome. Not bringing this to my board’s attention was one big mistake I made.

I made one mistake which created a ripple effect. My co-founder left in the middle of 2013; we knew each other for 13 years. We had a good relationship— out of the 13 years, I would say that the first 12 years were absolutely phenomenal. During our last year together, he probably started wondering whether I had enough clue in running this company, which was a fair thing to doubt because we had spent eight-nine years, and we were still going through ups and downs. Understandably, he started losing confidence in me. We were having differences of opinion—which was stupid if I have to think about it retrospectively, stupid and immature on both our parts, but mostly on my part. I take that blame more than the other person, but I never thought that it would eventually lead him to leave the company. We had just raised a million dollars from an Angel Network a year ago. I didn’t keep my board updated about our co-founder disagreements because I felt that this is something I can overcome. Not bringing this to my board’s attention was one big mistake I made.

One fine morning I was sitting in the US, and my cofounder was in Chennai. He sent a “last day” email to a group of people he works with and just left the company. That was totally a shocker, and I was scrambling how to react; I called the board and explained what had happened. The board lost confidence in me since this was a breach of trust. Our investors tried to take over by getting another board seat. I had to fight back and somehow rebuild that confidence that I will build the company back. Luckily, we diluted only 9 per

One fine morning I was sitting in the US, and my cofounder was in Chennai. He sent a “last day” email to a group of people he works with and just left the company. That was totally a shocker, and I was scrambling how to react; I called the board and explained what had happened. The board lost confidence in me since this was a breach of trust. Our investors tried to take over by getting another board seat. I had to fight back and somehow rebuild that confidence that I will build the company back. Luckily, we diluted only 9 per

BE VERY CLEAR AND STRATEGIC ABOUT WHO YOU BRING ON THE BOARD.

BE VERY CLEAR AND STRATEGIC ABOUT WHO YOU BRING ON THE BOARD.

– GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

– GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

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cent of the company at that time, so I still had a lot of control. We worked hard and after six months, the company started growing. It was a very interesting and humbling experience to realize that even after my co-founder left, the original 15 people stayed back as they still trusted me. After a year, the same board came back and told me that it was like a phoenix rising from the ashes. That’s how this whole episode ended. Previously, I had always felt a bit complacent that I had a co-founder. We had this unwritten understanding that I was responsible for sales and marketing, while he was responsible for product and technology. Due to this compartmentalized approach, I had never viewed this whole thing—technology, product, marketing, and sales—as one fully connected system. In hindsight, my co-founder leaving allowed me to have an integrated view, which I truly believe is responsible for the success of Kissflow today. Although there will be a team of co-founders in any startup, the captain of the ship needs to have an integrated view of this whole perspective about a product, sales, marketing, customer success (very important in SaaS), and how it all interconnects and that was the deeper insight I got from this episode.

cent of the company at that time, so I still had a lot of control. We worked hard and after six months, the company started growing. It was a very interesting and humbling experience to realize that even after my co-founder left, the original 15 people stayed back as they still trusted me. After a year, the same board came back and told me that it was like a phoenix rising from the ashes. That’s how this whole episode ended. Previously, I had always felt a bit complacent that I had a co-founder. We had this unwritten understanding that I was responsible for sales and marketing, while he was responsible for product and technology. Due to this compartmentalized approach, I had never viewed this whole thing—technology, product, marketing, and sales—as one fully connected system. In hindsight, my co-founder leaving allowed me to have an integrated view, which I truly believe is responsible for the success of Kissflow today. Although there will be a team of co-founders in any startup, the captain of the ship needs to have an integrated view of this whole perspective about a product, sales, marketing, customer success (very important in SaaS), and how it all interconnects and that was the deeper insight I got from this episode.

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

Be very clear and strategic about who you bring on the board. Do they understand your business? Can they help you run the business? Be very selective about getting your investors on the board—don’t put them on the board just because they put money because they will be sitting there and offering very unhelpful advice. You should also know when to bring an independent board member. Most early-stage startups anyway don’t need outside board members; it is a waste of time.

Be very clear and strategic about who you bring on the board. Do they understand your business? Can they help you run the business? Be very selective about getting your investors on the board—don’t put them on the board just because they put money because they will be sitting there and offering very unhelpful advice. You should also know when to bring an independent board member. Most early-stage startups anyway don’t need outside board members; it is a waste of time.

WHEN ADDING A BOARD MEMBER, THEY SHOULD WRITE UP A JOB REC FOR THE BOARD MEMBER, WHAT ARE THEY LOOKING FOR, WHAT ARE THE SKILLS THEY WANT, WHAT ARE THE YEARS OF EXPERIENCE THAT THEY WANT AND HOW DO THEY GENERALLY THINK ABOUT WHAT THEY ARE LOOKING FOR IN THAT PERSON.

WHEN ADDING A BOARD MEMBER, THEY SHOULD WRITE UP A JOB REC FOR THE BOARD MEMBER, WHAT ARE THEY LOOKING FOR, WHAT ARE THE SKILLS THEY WANT, WHAT ARE THE YEARS OF EXPERIENCE THAT THEY WANT AND HOW DO THEY GENERALLY THINK ABOUT WHAT THEY ARE LOOKING FOR IN THAT PERSON.

– ELAD GIL

– ELAD GIL

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ELAD GIL

ELAD GIL

One thing that people don’t do enough is, just like they write a job recommendation for basically everything else in their company, when adding a board member, they should write up a job rec for the board member, what are they looking for, what are the skills they want, what are the years of experience that they want and how do they generally think about what they are looking for in that person. So, then they have a common view with the other people who are interviewing, and they can have a very targeted discussion around whether this person actually meets the set of things that they are looking for. And there are a few things in particular that I would look for beyond the skill set side. The personal rapport and the interpersonal style matter a lot and also what are the motivations for the person taking the board seat.

One thing that people don’t do enough is, just like they write a job recommendation for basically everything else in their company, when adding a board member, they should write up a job rec for the board member, what are they looking for, what are the skills they want, what are the years of experience that they want and how do they generally think about what they are looking for in that person. So, then they have a common view with the other people who are interviewing, and they can have a very targeted discussion around whether this person actually meets the set of things that they are looking for. And there are a few things in particular that I would look for beyond the skill set side. The personal rapport and the interpersonal style matter a lot and also what are the motivations for the person taking the board seat.

The thing you want to avoid, for example, is the independent board member who wants to join your board because they want to network with the important people who are on your board. Or, you don’t want the person’s stature in their own eyes to be driven by whether they take the board seat or not, because then they may be functioning in weird ways relative to your esteemed board members. You don’t want somebody who is going to talk down to you or be patronizing. Sometimes you see that with the “experienced” board member who will talk down to you as a new founder or who would try and steer you in directions they think the company should go. So, there are a few almost like red-flag warning signs when you interview board members around things you should be aware of.

The thing you want to avoid, for example, is the independent board member who wants to join your board because they want to network with the important people who are on your board. Or, you don’t want the person’s stature in their own eyes to be driven by whether they take the board seat or not, because then they may be functioning in weird ways relative to your esteemed board members. You don’t want somebody who is going to talk down to you or be patronizing. Sometimes you see that with the “experienced” board member who will talk down to you as a new founder or who would try and steer you in directions they think the company should go. So, there are a few almost like red-flag warning signs when you interview board members around things you should be aware of.

ANEESH REDDY

ANEESH REDDY

Board members add value when they are very involved in the business. If people are willing to spend like half a day/month or a day/month, going deep into it, because advice is useful only when you have context. Otherwise, it is useless. Obviously, we have been fairly lucky to have great board members. Very early in the business, we said we need an operating board beyond just investors on the board. Because some of our angels came from enterprise sales–heavy backgrounds, we realized that they added a lot of value. Going deep into the business, knowing exactly what is happening, it is also the founder’s responsibility to keep people involved. If you end up making relationships where the guy just comes for a board meeting, it is never going to be useful.

Board members add value when they are very involved in the business. If people are willing to spend like half a day/month or a day/month, going deep into it, because advice is useful only when you have context. Otherwise, it is useless. Obviously, we have been fairly lucky to have great board members. Very early in the business, we said we need an operating board beyond just investors on the board. Because some of our angels came from enterprise sales–heavy backgrounds, we realized that they added a lot of value. Going deep into the business, knowing exactly what is happening, it is also the founder’s responsibility to keep people involved. If you end up making relationships where the guy just comes for a board meeting, it is never going to be useful.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

The founder’s role in building relationships and trust with the board through open dialogue is extremely important. Having monthly meetings and regular updates helps build that rapport. Giving early warning signals helps build trust. Board members are like sounding boards for the founder in the early days. They help bring clarity around the key decisions. Therefore, having someone with experience of building a company before helps. As many times a decision could go either way in the early days, interpersonal relationships with the board members are key in my experience. However, as the company scales, the founder has many professionals on the team who help him/her think through scale issues. Board members’ role then changes more into governance helping the management team think through blind spots or bringing attention to changing market trends.

The founder’s role in building relationships and trust with the board through open dialogue is extremely important. Having monthly meetings and regular updates helps build that rapport. Giving early warning signals helps build trust. Board members are like sounding boards for the founder in the early days. They help bring clarity around the key decisions. Therefore, having someone with experience of building a company before helps. As many times a decision could go either way in the early days, interpersonal relationships with the board members are key in my experience. However, as the company scales, the founder has many professionals on the team who help him/her think through scale issues. Board members’ role then changes more into governance helping the management team think through blind spots or bringing attention to changing market trends.

ELAD GIL

ELAD GIL

Reid Hoffman has this good saying that, to some extent, an external board member is like a cofounder that you can hire or an executive that you can hire in. Then you can give them a board seat and get them on your team. So, you kind of wants that calibre of a person as your board member. Then you want to identify the areas that you specifically want that person to help with.

Reid Hoffman has this good saying that, to some extent, an external board member is like a cofounder that you can hire or an executive that you can hire in. Then you can give them a board seat and get them on your team. So, you kind of wants that calibre of a person as your board member. Then you want to identify the areas that you specifically want that person to help with.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

My early board was me and my founding shareholder. We discussed and brainstormed almost every week. I made sure all key decisions were informed early on and there was accountability around decisions I took. That helped build a solid foundation. After I raised institutional money, the board had fair representation from the investors. I also added an independent board member. I also made it a practice to bring the management team to the board meeting. Having a separate founder/ board session also helped as I could talk openly about what’s keeping me awake at night, and I could get some really good suggestions/ideas on the challenges I was facing.

My early board was me and my founding shareholder. We discussed and brainstormed almost every week. I made sure all key decisions were informed early on and there was accountability around decisions I took. That helped build a solid foundation. After I raised institutional money, the board had fair representation from the investors. I also added an independent board member. I also made it a practice to bring the management team to the board meeting. Having a separate founder/ board session also helped as I could talk openly about what’s keeping me awake at night, and I could get some really good suggestions/ideas on the challenges I was facing.

ABHINAV ASTHANA

ABHINAV ASTHANA

First of all, we feel it’s important for our team to understand what a great board meeting looks like. And that starts with all parties being well informed so that the board meeting can be as productive as possible.

First of all, we feel it’s important for our team to understand what a great board meeting looks like. And that starts with all parties being well informed so that the board meeting can be as productive as possible.

AS A FOUNDER, YOU SHOULD LOOK AT—AND PROBABLY INSIST ON—EVERY BOARD MEMBER ADDING VALUE TO THE COMPANY.

AS A FOUNDER, YOU SHOULD LOOK AT—AND PROBABLY INSIST ON—EVERY BOARD MEMBER ADDING VALUE TO THE COMPANY.

— ABHINAV ASTHANA

— ABHINAV ASTHANA

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My job, as I see it, is to keep my board members well informed, give them all the data, and present the mental model through which I think so that I can get the best advice from them. I like to give them that information throughout the year rather than just in meetings a few times a year. Here’s why: If the information for board members is new, and you expect them to just whip out a reply on the spot, it typically leads to extra time spent in explaining, understanding, and consensus-building. To prevent that inefficiency, I like giving them information—for example, what my top priorities are and what they can help with—prior to the board meeting so we can get the best outcome.

My job, as I see it, is to keep my board members well informed, give them all the data, and present the mental model through which I think so that I can get the best advice from them. I like to give them that information throughout the year rather than just in meetings a few times a year. Here’s why: If the information for board members is new, and you expect them to just whip out a reply on the spot, it typically leads to extra time spent in explaining, understanding, and consensus-building. To prevent that inefficiency, I like giving them information—for example, what my top priorities are and what they can help with—prior to the board meeting so we can get the best outcome.

Very closely tied to that point is this additional point: As a founder, you should look at—and probably insist on—every board member adding value to the company. That is a fair expectation. Board meetings, for me, are not for a sheer multiplicity of opinions; rather, you want a smaller number of high-value opinions. It is more about learning how you could take the company to the next level, and I have a great relationship with my board in that sense.

Very closely tied to that point is this additional point: As a founder, you should look at—and probably insist on—every board member adding value to the company. That is a fair expectation. Board meetings, for me, are not for a sheer multiplicity of opinions; rather, you want a smaller number of high-value opinions. It is more about learning how you could take the company to the next level, and I have a great relationship with my board in that sense.

I’ve actually seen the opposite in lots of boards, and it can be a real hazard for a company. Sometimes, boards do not work as a cohesive unit. Often, members don’t have proper context, but they have a lot of opinions. This can confuse the CEO, and the moment the CEO is confused, they may start doing things just to address a random opinion and at that point, both parties have failed and the company pays the price.

I’ve actually seen the opposite in lots of boards, and it can be a real hazard for a company. Sometimes, boards do not work as a cohesive unit. Often, members don’t have proper context, but they have a lot of opinions. This can confuse the CEO, and the moment the CEO is confused, they may start doing things just to address a random opinion and at that point, both parties have failed and the company pays the price.

So, overall, board constitutions and relationships are always a challenge, but I think that Postman and our board are in a solid place right now, and I’m proud of that.

So, overall, board constitutions and relationships are always a challenge, but I think that Postman and our board are in a solid place right now, and I’m proud of that.

BHANU CHOPRA

BHANU CHOPRA

The main success then comes down to execution and also on how you manage the board because all acquisitions are not successful. You know you do the acquisition, something goes wrong, sometimes founders want to stay, but they don’t stay for a longer time. So, your board also has to back you up. Not for only one or two acquisitions but as a strategy, they have to back you up. It is not that you do one, and you make a mistake, and then you stop. The board’s role also is very important.

The main success then comes down to execution and also on how you manage the board because all acquisitions are not successful. You know you do the acquisition, something goes wrong, sometimes founders want to stay, but they don’t stay for a longer time. So, your board also has to back you up. Not for only one or two acquisitions but as a strategy, they have to back you up. It is not that you do one, and you make a mistake, and then you stop. The board’s role also is very important.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

KEY TAKEAWAYS

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One of the essential building blocks for a company that lasts, and creates value, is having the right board. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the most underrated and often ignored aspects of building a startup, especially during the early stages. A good board, with the right mix of the founder(s), investors, founding team members, and an external director, can be a sounding board and questioning authority, both at the same time. In this chapter, we will learn from the experiences of SaaS founders about how they went about building a board that matters.

One of the essential building blocks for a company that lasts, and creates value, is having the right board. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the most underrated and often ignored aspects of building a startup, especially during the early stages. A good board, with the right mix of the founder(s), investors, founding team members, and an external director, can be a sounding board and questioning authority, both at the same time. In this chapter, we will learn from the experiences of SaaS founders about how they went about building a board that matters.

PALLAV NADHANI

PALLAV NADHANI

One, keep everything short and crisp and clear, reply to what is asked, and no more, they [the buyers] are not interested in the past or the future or the emotion involved, all that doesn’t concern them. Second, any private equity firm which acquires you will do a quality of earnings analysis. Quality of earnings analysis is an extremely detailed due diligence done from a financial perspective that will rip apart everything for a small company. They will do everything in a massive Excel sheet, and they will pick out faults and ask for explanations, and most of the startups don’t even know this when they give their data. Third, choosing the right legal team is very important. You can’t go for a very big one because they say unless you have a $100 million deal, we can’t do it. You can’t go very small— they don’t have the time and expertise, that becomes an interesting challenge in itself.

One, keep everything short and crisp and clear, reply to what is asked, and no more, they [the buyers] are not interested in the past or the future or the emotion involved, all that doesn’t concern them. Second, any private equity firm which acquires you will do a quality of earnings analysis. Quality of earnings analysis is an extremely detailed due diligence done from a financial perspective that will rip apart everything for a small company. They will do everything in a massive Excel sheet, and they will pick out faults and ask for explanations, and most of the startups don’t even know this when they give their data. Third, choosing the right legal team is very important. You can’t go for a very big one because they say unless you have a $100 million deal, we can’t do it. You can’t go very small— they don’t have the time and expertise, that becomes an interesting challenge in itself.

RITESH ARORA

RITESH ARORA

We have made one acquisition. A few acquihires here and there and one proper product acquisition. One key piece of advice I have is to be very sure about what your go-to-market will look like—is there enough market, the competitive landscape of that product line, business line, and so on. This is because, technically speaking, you are entering a new market. You don’t have to realize all of them after you have made an acquisition. If I am acquiring something, I don’t want a third-grade product in the market because it then becomes my problem to make it into a first-grade product. If it is already a first-grade product, I would rather pay a premium to get it and get the founding team to continue to

We have made one acquisition. A few acquihires here and there and one proper product acquisition. One key piece of advice I have is to be very sure about what your go-to-market will look like—is there enough market, the competitive landscape of that product line, business line, and so on. This is because, technically speaking, you are entering a new market. You don’t have to realize all of them after you have made an acquisition. If I am acquiring something, I don’t want a third-grade product in the market because it then becomes my problem to make it into a first-grade product. If it is already a first-grade product, I would rather pay a premium to get it and get the founding team to continue to

BE VERY SURE ABOUT WHAT YOUR GO-TO-MARKET WILL LOOK LIKE—IS THERE ENOUGH MARKET, THE COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE OF THAT PRODUCT LINE, BUSINESS LINE, AND SO ON.

BE VERY SURE ABOUT WHAT YOUR GO-TO-MARKET WILL LOOK LIKE—IS THERE ENOUGH MARKET, THE COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE OF THAT PRODUCT LINE, BUSINESS LINE, AND SO ON.

— RITESH ARORA

— RITESH ARORA

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ensure that it is a first-grade product. That is my way of thinking.

ensure that it is a first-grade product. That is my way of thinking.

VINOD MUTHUKRISHNAN

VINOD MUTHUKRISHNAN

The initial step [even before M&A] around expectation alignment and guard rail setting is the key. For example, if the acquirer offers a part-equity deal, it might be a no-no for some investors. Do not discover this at the last moment.

The initial step [even before M&A] around expectation alignment and guard rail setting is the key. For example, if the acquirer offers a part-equity deal, it might be a no-no for some investors. Do not discover this at the last moment.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

The entrepreneur always wants to win. The person has done hard work, they have gone through a lot of grinds, so you have to give them a win, and then you have to handle them. Speaking from experience, that’s what we did: handled them like a founder. You have to give them the respect of a founder. The integration is very tough because they come with the founder’s mindset, but your employees treat them differently from any other employee. That bridging is very important— those first 30 to 90 days. How do you sensitize your team so that they give them some respect? Always remember: they are bringing in new knowledge and a new thought process. The takeaway is to understand the emotion of the entrepreneur, give them the win, and make them comfortable in your organization.

The entrepreneur always wants to win. The person has done hard work, they have gone through a lot of grinds, so you have to give them a win, and then you have to handle them. Speaking from experience, that’s what we did: handled them like a founder. You have to give them the respect of a founder. The integration is very tough because they come with the founder’s mindset, but your employees treat them differently from any other employee. That bridging is very important— those first 30 to 90 days. How do you sensitize your team so that they give them some respect? Always remember: they are bringing in new knowledge and a new thought process. The takeaway is to understand the emotion of the entrepreneur, give them the win, and make them comfortable in your organization.

I think to me a hard fact is that your financial discipline is the single most important thing. When I say financial discipline, I mean clean accounting because you know recognition is a massive issue. We can recognize this way or that way. Following the proper International Financial System principle, it has to be very, very clear. I would suggest quarterly audits, not yearly audits. Indian companies are used to doing yearly audits. Your intellectual property auditing has

I think to me a hard fact is that your financial discipline is the single most important thing. When I say financial discipline, I mean clean accounting because you know recognition is a massive issue. We can recognize this way or that way. Following the proper International Financial System principle, it has to be very, very clear. I would suggest quarterly audits, not yearly audits. Indian companies are used to doing yearly audits. Your intellectual property auditing has

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE, WHAT SHOULD NOT CHANGE IS TRANSPARENCY. I THINK, YOU KNOW, YOU ARE BASICALLY IN A SITUATION WHERE YOU ARE GETTING MARRIED. IT IS VERY, VERY IMPORTANT—WHETHER YOU ARE A BUYER OR A SELLER— TO BE VERY, VERY TRANSPARENT WITH YOUR OVERALL STRATEGY, INTENT, AND BEING UPFRONT ON WHAT YOU INTEND TO DO.

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE, WHAT SHOULD NOT CHANGE IS TRANSPARENCY. I THINK, YOU KNOW, YOU ARE BASICALLY IN A SITUATION WHERE YOU ARE GETTING MARRIED. IT IS VERY, VERY IMPORTANT—WHETHER YOU ARE A BUYER OR A SELLER— TO BE VERY, VERY TRANSPARENT WITH YOUR OVERALL STRATEGY, INTENT, AND BEING UPFRONT ON WHAT YOU INTEND TO DO.

– BHANU CHOPRA

– BHANU CHOPRA

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AT THAT TIME, I DIDN’T HAVE THE KNOWLEDGE THAT WE CAN ACQUIRE TOO. THEY WERE A SMALL COMPANY BACK THEN, AND WE SHOULD HAVE ACQUIRED THEN; WE DIDN’T REALIZE THAT IT WOULD CREATE TROUBLE LATER.

AT THAT TIME, I DIDN’T HAVE THE KNOWLEDGE THAT WE CAN ACQUIRE TOO. THEY WERE A SMALL COMPANY BACK THEN, AND WE SHOULD HAVE ACQUIRED THEN; WE DIDN’T REALIZE THAT IT WOULD CREATE TROUBLE LATER.

— PALLAV NADHANI

— PALLAV NADHANI

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to be very clear—where the intellectual property is, is the intellectual property clean, are you using third-party liabilities, are all the open GL licenses properly taken care of, etc.

to be very clear—where the intellectual property is, is the intellectual property clean, are you using third-party liabilities, are all the open GL licenses properly taken care of, etc.

Are the board meetings happening on time, are they following the local laws everywhere and in the headquarters wherever you are? My biggest key learning is that 50 percent is about financial discipline. As they say, truth always shows in accounting. You can’t go away from that. If you run the company as if you want to sell today, you will always be ready to be acquired or to acquire. Financial discipline is really the most important; one single piece that I would say is linked to transparency and everything else.

Are the board meetings happening on time, are they following the local laws everywhere and in the headquarters wherever you are? My biggest key learning is that 50 percent is about financial discipline. As they say, truth always shows in accounting. You can’t go away from that. If you run the company as if you want to sell today, you will always be ready to be acquired or to acquire. Financial discipline is really the most important; one single piece that I would say is linked to transparency and everything else.

BHANU CHOPRA

BHANU CHOPRA

From my perspective, what should not change is transparency. I think, you know, you are basically in a situation where you are getting married. It is very, very important—whether you are a buyer or a seller—to be very, very transparent with your overall strategy, intent, and being upfront on what you intend to do. Of course, whatever disclosures have to occur, you have to be very transparent, honest, and right in assuming that most people take that for granted, but it’s also very important to be clear on your strategic intent wherever you are sitting—on this or that side of the table.

From my perspective, what should not change is transparency. I think, you know, you are basically in a situation where you are getting married. It is very, very important—whether you are a buyer or a seller—to be very, very transparent with your overall strategy, intent, and being upfront on what you intend to do. Of course, whatever disclosures have to occur, you have to be very transparent, honest, and right in assuming that most people take that for granted, but it’s also very important to be clear on your strategic intent wherever you are sitting—on this or that side of the table.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

KEY TAKEAWAYS

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PALLAV NADHANI

PALLAV NADHANI

If you know that you will be acquired, right from day one, whatever is happening in the company should be in one central data store. Every board meeting, every MOM—minute of meeting—every tax return, every single document that goes from the government and comes from the government, everything will be in that store. Second, in terms of data and processes, keep all data centralized—customer contracts, customer orders, and invoices, everything related to bank reconciliations, and other bank documents. This includes all such “useless” information—where the transaction is done, the money has come, and now all of it is history after the tax audit happens and returns are filed. Third, if you are an open-source company, keep your licensing structure very, very clear. When the buyer is looking at purchasing, he will be thinking about how fast can I execute the deal, how fast can I learn, how soon can I pass it to my sales team and add value. If the buyer sees that the internal processes for all the functions are good, especially American companies and we are mostly dealing with American or German companies, that is something they want because they feel at ease that they don’t need to put much thought into it, they can simply buy it, modify it and run it.

If you know that you will be acquired, right from day one, whatever is happening in the company should be in one central data store. Every board meeting, every MOM—minute of meeting—every tax return, every single document that goes from the government and comes from the government, everything will be in that store. Second, in terms of data and processes, keep all data centralized—customer contracts, customer orders, and invoices, everything related to bank reconciliations, and other bank documents. This includes all such “useless” information—where the transaction is done, the money has come, and now all of it is history after the tax audit happens and returns are filed. Third, if you are an open-source company, keep your licensing structure very, very clear. When the buyer is looking at purchasing, he will be thinking about how fast can I execute the deal, how fast can I learn, how soon can I pass it to my sales team and add value. If the buyer sees that the internal processes for all the functions are good, especially American companies and we are mostly dealing with American or German companies, that is something they want because they feel at ease that they don’t need to put much thought into it, they can simply buy it, modify it and run it.

VINOD MUTHUKRISHNAN

VINOD MUTHUKRISHNAN

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CONTINUE TO RUN YOUR BUSINESS AS USUAL. GROW, CLOSE DEALS, AND FOCUS ON CUSTOMER SERVICE. ANY UNEXPECTED BLIPS CAN IMPACT M&A.

CONTINUE TO RUN YOUR BUSINESS AS USUAL. GROW, CLOSE DEALS, AND FOCUS ON CUSTOMER SERVICE. ANY UNEXPECTED BLIPS CAN IMPACT M&A.

— VINOD MUTHUKRISHNAN

— VINOD MUTHUKRISHNAN

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BHANU CHOPRA

BHANU CHOPRA

When I look at a lot of people, and how they acquire, I don’t get it, because it feels like more of an art like you said, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder kind of philosophy, we don’t necessarily follow that. We are very, very scientific and logical about the process. The way we construct what we are willing to pay is we have set up some IRR thresholds that we need to achieve. We look at our payback period, so if you will invest x amount, what is the payback, what does our IRR look like, does it meet our IRR threshold, and to arrive at that, we basically model out, usually like a three-year projection. What does this asset look like in our hands? Are there definitely going to be cost synergies there?

When I look at a lot of people, and how they acquire, I don’t get it, because it feels like more of an art like you said, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder kind of philosophy, we don’t necessarily follow that. We are very, very scientific and logical about the process. The way we construct what we are willing to pay is we have set up some IRR thresholds that we need to achieve. We look at our payback period, so if you will invest x amount, what is the payback, what does our IRR look like, does it meet our IRR threshold, and to arrive at that, we basically model out, usually like a three-year projection. What does this asset look like in our hands? Are there definitely going to be cost synergies there?

WE ARE VERY, VERY SCIENTIFIC AND LOGICAL ABOUT THE PROCESS. THE WAY WE CONSTRUCT WHAT WE ARE WILLING TO PAY IS WE HAVE SET UP SOME IRR THRESHOLDS THAT WE NEED TO ACHIEVE. WE LOOK AT OUR PAYBACK PERIOD, SO IF YOU WILL INVEST X AMOUNT, WHAT IS THE PAYBACK, WHAT DOES OUR IRR LOOK LIKE, DOES IT MEET OUR IRR THRESHOLD, AND TO ARRIVE AT THAT, WE BASICALLY MODEL OUT, USUALLY LIKE A THREE-YEAR PROJECTION. WHAT DOES THIS ASSET LOOK LIKE IN OUR HANDS? ARE THERE DEFINITELY GOING TO BE COST SYNERGIES THERE?

WE ARE VERY, VERY SCIENTIFIC AND LOGICAL ABOUT THE PROCESS. THE WAY WE CONSTRUCT WHAT WE ARE WILLING TO PAY IS WE HAVE SET UP SOME IRR THRESHOLDS THAT WE NEED TO ACHIEVE. WE LOOK AT OUR PAYBACK PERIOD, SO IF YOU WILL INVEST X AMOUNT, WHAT IS THE PAYBACK, WHAT DOES OUR IRR LOOK LIKE, DOES IT MEET OUR IRR THRESHOLD, AND TO ARRIVE AT THAT, WE BASICALLY MODEL OUT, USUALLY LIKE A THREE-YEAR PROJECTION. WHAT DOES THIS ASSET LOOK LIKE IN OUR HANDS? ARE THERE DEFINITELY GOING TO BE COST SYNERGIES THERE?

– BHANU CHOPRA

– BHANU CHOPRA

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PALLAV NADHANI
There are two or three lessons we learned. First, our narrative was not right. We were dealing [with the acquisition] factually and with full transparency. M&As don’t work factually and transparently. You want to tell what the buyer wants to hear. We were engineers, and we went and spoke in the engineering language. The lawyers were looking at the risk mitigations, and our narrative on the risk mitigation wasn’t good enough, so that was one learning. Our second mistake was that while this deal was happening for us, we were never in touch with the business champions. Since we were only dealing with corporate development, we were dealing with the business team, but we did not know how it would actually be implemented. If we would have been sure about who will be using it and how, we could have convinced them, shown them some innovations that we have done, and how our product works well. Another thing we learned is that unless the deal is finalized, internally, nobody should know besides three or four very important people who are a part of the process. Even so, never tell them that this is happening until the money hits the bank account because there are a hundred reasons why a deal fails. There is only one reason for a deal to go through, and that one reason requires all those hundred to be invalidated.

PALLAV NADHANI
There are two or three lessons we learned. First, our narrative was not right. We were dealing [with the acquisition] factually and with full transparency. M&As don’t work factually and transparently. You want to tell what the buyer wants to hear. We were engineers, and we went and spoke in the engineering language. The lawyers were looking at the risk mitigations, and our narrative on the risk mitigation wasn’t good enough, so that was one learning. Our second mistake was that while this deal was happening for us, we were never in touch with the business champions. Since we were only dealing with corporate development, we were dealing with the business team, but we did not know how it would actually be implemented. If we would have been sure about who will be using it and how, we could have convinced them, shown them some innovations that we have done, and how our product works well. Another thing we learned is that unless the deal is finalized, internally, nobody should know besides three or four very important people who are a part of the process. Even so, never tell them that this is happening until the money hits the bank account because there are a hundred reasons why a deal fails. There is only one reason for a deal to go through, and that one reason requires all those hundred to be invalidated.

VINOD MUTHUKRISHNAN

VINOD MUTHUKRISHNAN

Having a single bidder is the biggest mistake that cannot be solved last minute. However, during the process, the big mistakes are as follows:

Having a single bidder is the biggest mistake that cannot be solved last minute. However, during the process, the big mistakes are as follows:

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BHANU CHOPRA

BHANU CHOPRA

M&A is very much like a sales process. You need to have a top of the funnel. You need to have somebody doing lead gen for you, and then once you sort of warm-up, there are two buckets people will fall into. One is, you know, it’s just like a sales process, you continue to knock on doors and see who is interested. Not everyone is going to be interested but you need to stay top of the mind because when they are interested to do something, usually private equity guys have a time horizon after which they need to do something, they need to exit the company that they have entered, so they will usually launch a process. As long as you are talking to them, very quickly you can establish yourself as a strategic acquirer.

M&A is very much like a sales process. You need to have a top of the funnel. You need to have somebody doing lead gen for you, and then once you sort of warm-up, there are two buckets people will fall into. One is, you know, it’s just like a sales process, you continue to knock on doors and see who is interested. Not everyone is going to be interested but you need to stay top of the mind because when they are interested to do something, usually private equity guys have a time horizon after which they need to do something, they need to exit the company that they have entered, so they will usually launch a process. As long as you are talking to them, very quickly you can establish yourself as a strategic acquirer.

I basically reached out to folks, tried to understand what are the usual pitfalls. In terms of the targets in our mind, they were very clear, we sort of had started the conversation, and I was pretty much leading the whole effort. There wasn’t a formal M&A team, but we do have one now, and it is almost a program at RateGain now on M&A. But at that point, it is like with anything, as entrepreneurs, you have got to lead from the front whenever you are trying to do something new. A lot of that heavy lifting I did initially. Once we made the acquisition, I was very concerned about the post-acquisition integration. So we engaged with a few people and consultants to help us with all those postintegration efforts.

I basically reached out to folks, tried to understand what are the usual pitfalls. In terms of the targets in our mind, they were very clear, we sort of had started the conversation, and I was pretty much leading the whole effort. There wasn’t a formal M&A team, but we do have one now, and it is almost a program at RateGain now on M&A. But at that point, it is like with anything, as entrepreneurs, you have got to lead from the front whenever you are trying to do something new. A lot of that heavy lifting I did initially. Once we made the acquisition, I was very concerned about the post-acquisition integration. So we engaged with a few people and consultants to help us with all those postintegration efforts.

I WAS PRETTY MUCH LEADING THE WHOLE EFFORT. THERE WASN’T A FORMAL M&A TEAM, BUT WE DO HAVE ONE NOW, AND IT IS ALMOST A PROGRAMME AT RATEGAIN NOW ON M&A.

I WAS PRETTY MUCH LEADING THE WHOLE EFFORT. THERE WASN’T A FORMAL M&A TEAM, BUT WE DO HAVE ONE NOW, AND IT IS ALMOST A PROGRAMME AT RATEGAIN NOW ON M&A.

— BHANU CHOPRA

— BHANU CHOPRA

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PALLAV NADHANI

PALLAV NADHANI

Earlier, when the iPhone was launched, people were fine with the fact that charts didn’t work on it, but when the iPad was launched in 2010, and it too did not support Flash, our customers started complaining that your charts are not working. So, in 2010 we went to a competitor and said that we want to do an exclusive deal with you, and you will not give it to any other Flash charting players. We offered them a good amount of money and told them that we would use their product as part of our product, wherein wherever Flash won’t work, JavaScript will work. We will also give them the branding that when the JavaScript version is being used, we will mention that XYZ powers it. We created a huge competitor. Ideally, we should have acquired it back then. At that time, I didn’t have the knowledge that we can acquire too. They were a small company back then, and we should have acquired then; we didn’t realize that it would create trouble later.

Earlier, when the iPhone was launched, people were fine with the fact that charts didn’t work on it, but when the iPad was launched in 2010, and it too did not support Flash, our customers started complaining that your charts are not working. So, in 2010 we went to a competitor and said that we want to do an exclusive deal with you, and you will not give it to any other Flash charting players. We offered them a good amount of money and told them that we would use their product as part of our product, wherein wherever Flash won’t work, JavaScript will work. We will also give them the branding that when the JavaScript version is being used, we will mention that XYZ powers it. We created a huge competitor. Ideally, we should have acquired it back then. At that time, I didn’t have the knowledge that we can acquire too. They were a small company back then, and we should have acquired then; we didn’t realize that it would create trouble later.

On the road map side of a sale, you can create a narrative regarding the long-term direction. But it was the process side where we got grilled a lot, especially later. What is your release cycle? How do you get your customers’ feedback? How are sales and support communications conducted? How do you prioritize? What are the different prioritization frameworks used? We were grilled a lot on all these parameters in two or three deals.

On the road map side of a sale, you can create a narrative regarding the long-term direction. But it was the process side where we got grilled a lot, especially later. What is your release cycle? How do you get your customers’ feedback? How are sales and support communications conducted? How do you prioritize? What are the different prioritization frameworks used? We were grilled a lot on all these parameters in two or three deals.

BHANU CHOPRA

BHANU CHOPRA

I have no shame in admitting that as entrepreneurs, founders, you have a role to play to lead the company to a certain level of maturity and post that it needs to get into new hands because it has grown, it is like how you are a parent, you need to let the child learn on its own and grow and mature. It’s the same thing with the company—it reaches a certain stage in life where, for it to grow, you can be the bottleneck. And I somehow recognized that and I have set in motion a really, really good plan. It is now a process of repeatability and someone can take over and make it much, much larger.

I have no shame in admitting that as entrepreneurs, founders, you have a role to play to lead the company to a certain level of maturity and post that it needs to get into new hands because it has grown, it is like how you are a parent, you need to let the child learn on its own and grow and mature. It’s the same thing with the company—it reaches a certain stage in life where, for it to grow, you can be the bottleneck. And I somehow recognized that and I have set in motion a really, really good plan. It is now a process of repeatability and someone can take over and make it much, much larger.

PALLAV NADHANI

PALLAV NADHANI

Always get an investment banker involved in such deals. For a first-time entrepreneur especially, one doesn’t know what the structure will exactly be or what options are available. There are so many nuances that you would always want to get an investment banker involved. They take their fair share, and I feel it’s better to give their fair share rather than have zero percent of nothing

Always get an investment banker involved in such deals. For a first-time entrepreneur especially, one doesn’t know what the structure will exactly be or what options are available. There are so many nuances that you would always want to get an investment banker involved. They take their fair share, and I feel it’s better to give their fair share rather than have zero percent of nothing

VINOD MUTHUKRISHNAN

VINOD MUTHUKRISHNAN

Here is my checklist:

Here is my checklist:

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Unlike successive funding rounds, M&A discussions in the startup ecosystem are mostly secretive, and founders are grappling with the playbooks to follow. For its part, SaaSBOOMi has been organizing focused M&A roundtables for the community. But there’s a lot more to learn. Also, given the nascent ecosystem, exits are few and far between. Acquisitions aren’t just about the startup exits; many companies such as Freshworks have been using M&A as a growth strategy, even for acquiring leaders required across different life stages. In this chapter, we are bringing conversations and insights from a few of the most candid entrepreneurs about how they managed M&A discussions.

Unlike successive funding rounds, M&A discussions in the startup ecosystem are mostly secretive, and founders are grappling with the playbooks to follow. For its part, SaaSBOOMi has been organizing focused M&A roundtables for the community. But there’s a lot more to learn. Also, given the nascent ecosystem, exits are few and far between. Acquisitions aren’t just about the startup exits; many companies such as Freshworks have been using M&A as a growth strategy, even for acquiring leaders required across different life stages. In this chapter, we are bringing conversations and insights from a few of the most candid entrepreneurs about how they managed M&A discussions.

Lessons from Bharat in building Tally Solutions over the past few decades, insights on creating products, culture, and a company that lasts.

Lessons from Bharat in building Tally Solutions over the past few decades, insights on creating products, culture, and a company that lasts.

Bharat Goenka is the vice-chairperson of Tally Solutions and is popularly known as “the father of the Indian software products industry”. Bharat’s journey with Tally offers invaluable lessons in a world teeming with different playbooks on building a product and creating a company that lasts. This is a masterclass—read on. (Some of Bharat’s answers within this interview may have been repeated elsewhere in the book under different topics. We are still sharing them here to ensure the conversational flow remains intact.)

Bharat Goenka is the vice-chairperson of Tally Solutions and is popularly known as “the father of the Indian software products industry”. Bharat’s journey with Tally offers invaluable lessons in a world teeming with different playbooks on building a product and creating a company that lasts. This is a masterclass—read on. (Some of Bharat’s answers within this interview may have been repeated elsewhere in the book under different topics. We are still sharing them here to ensure the conversational flow remains intact.)

PANKAJ MISHRA

PANKAJ MISHRA

So Bharat, you know one of the first questions to start this would be what changes would you make if you were to start up again or look at starting up again? In hindsight, what are the things that you would change and why?

So Bharat, you know one of the first questions to start this would be what changes would you make if you were to start up again or look at starting up again? In hindsight, what are the things that you would change and why?

BHARAT GOENKA

BHARAT GOENKA

I have been called the dinosaur of the IT industry, not the old man of the IT industry. I am genuinely old school, so when I say that I am old school, we start up virtually every time. Right now, we are in startup mode as a company. When I say we are in startup mode as a product company, whenever you throw away your old codebase, you are in startup mode. This is the sixth time that we are starting up in the last 34 years.

I have been called the dinosaur of the IT industry, not the old man of the IT industry. I am genuinely old school, so when I say that I am old school, we start up virtually every time. Right now, we are in startup mode as a company. When I say we are in startup mode as a product company, whenever you throw away your old codebase, you are in startup mode. This is the sixth time that we are starting up in the last 34 years.

About a year or so ago, we scrapped our existing code base, and we are starting completely afresh. We will probably be in the market in another year. There is an existing product in the current code base, and the new code base is being developed, and as soon

About a year or so ago, we scrapped our existing code base, and we are starting completely afresh. We will probably be in the market in another year. There is an existing product in the current code base, and the new code base is being developed, and as soon

WHEN I SAY WE ARE IN STARTUP MODE AS A PRODUCT COMPANY, WHENEVER YOU THROW AWAY YOUR OLD CODEBASE, YOU ARE IN STARTUP MODE. THIS IS THE SIXTH TIME THAT WE ARE STARTING UP IN THE LAST 34 YEARS.

WHEN I SAY WE ARE IN STARTUP MODE AS A PRODUCT COMPANY, WHENEVER YOU THROW AWAY YOUR OLD CODEBASE, YOU ARE IN STARTUP MODE. THIS IS THE SIXTH TIME THAT WE ARE STARTING UP IN THE LAST 34 YEARS.

– BHARAT GOENKA

– BHARAT GOENKA

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as the new code base comes into the market, the old code base will be thrown away. So, effectively, we are a startup.

as the new code base comes into the market, the old code base will be thrown away. So, effectively, we are a startup.

What are we doing differently? Actually, all the six times that we have started up, we have, from a tech perspective, been doing the same things. From a market perspective, yes, you keep doing different things because the customer profiles are different, the market you are trying to address is different, and then there is the plan for growth. Those are the three buckets that we normally look at. I mean, in the sense of the big three buckets, of course, detailing is a different matter. If I take the tech perspective, what we have done consistently for the last four years is perpetually going around the fundamentals. When I say perpetually go around the fundamentals, I mean that we strongly believe that in the product space, tech is the differentiator. In the non-product space, your business model may be the differentiator.

What are we doing differently? Actually, all the six times that we have started up, we have, from a tech perspective, been doing the same things. From a market perspective, yes, you keep doing different things because the customer profiles are different, the market you are trying to address is different, and then there is the plan for growth. Those are the three buckets that we normally look at. I mean, in the sense of the big three buckets, of course, detailing is a different matter. If I take the tech perspective, what we have done consistently for the last four years is perpetually going around the fundamentals. When I say perpetually go around the fundamentals, I mean that we strongly believe that in the product space, tech is the differentiator. In the non-product space, your business model may be the differentiator.

For example, if you want to get into the fintech business, then technology is perhaps a minor differentiator, but your business model is a major differentiator. Suppose you are trying to do T+1 vs T vs T+2, suppose you are trying to do a subscription model vs per transaction model, so various types of business models will differentiate you in the market. A lot of that will depend on how deep your pockets are and how you will sustain that. I’m using the product in the sense that something will run on your systems, whether it’s on your phone or laptop or desktop or your servers. Something that is running in your hands rather than something running in the background, then technology is your primary differentiator. What we keep trying to do is push the edge of what computing can do today. Restarting six times, every time the computing environment has

For example, if you want to get into the fintech business, then technology is perhaps a minor differentiator, but your business model is a major differentiator. Suppose you are trying to do T+1 vs T vs T+2, suppose you are trying to do a subscription model vs per transaction model, so various types of business models will differentiate you in the market. A lot of that will depend on how deep your pockets are and how you will sustain that. I’m using the product in the sense that something will run on your systems, whether it’s on your phone or laptop or desktop or your servers. Something that is running in your hands rather than something running in the background, then technology is your primary differentiator. What we keep trying to do is push the edge of what computing can do today. Restarting six times, every time the computing environment has

RESTARTING SIX TIMES, EVERY TIME THE COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT HAS CHANGED WITH SOME SIGNIFICANCE, IT IS TIME TO THROW AWAY YOUR OLD CODE AND REDISCOVER THE BOUNDARIES OF WHAT IS POSSIBLE. SO THAT IS WHAT WE DO CONSISTENTLY.

RESTARTING SIX TIMES, EVERY TIME THE COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT HAS CHANGED WITH SOME SIGNIFICANCE, IT IS TIME TO THROW AWAY YOUR OLD CODE AND REDISCOVER THE BOUNDARIES OF WHAT IS POSSIBLE. SO THAT IS WHAT WE DO CONSISTENTLY.

– BHARAT GOENKA

– BHARAT GOENKA

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changed with some significance, it is time to throw away your old code and rediscover the boundaries of what is possible. So that is what we do consistently.

changed with some significance, it is time to throw away your old code and rediscover the boundaries of what is possible. So that is what we do consistently.

Then the third point, which is planning for scale. I believe most companies tend to plan for a realistic scenario and not an optimistic scenario. When you invest in a realistic scenario, you choke yourself. When you plan for an optimistic scenario, your spending is higher. When actual reality hits, you might have spent more than you should have or needed to, but ultimately if you plan for success, you have to invest in the optimistic scenario. What I mean by that is particularly in the B2B space and the space that we work in, it is partially a product space and at the same time the post-sale process. There is a pre-sale process which is an engagement-based process, and there is a post-sale process which is the support process for the customer. We invest deeply in the capacity to do both of them, and that is oversizing our capacity by sometimes 3x or 4x and sometimes even 10x. And that is not easy to do because money is scarce, it has always been scarce. But from the beginning, we have always invested ahead of the success rather than trying to scamper to cope with the success because the moment you try to scamper to cope with the success, you start choking yourself. You start doing silly things, either in the quality of engagement you are doing or the quality of service you are giving.

Then the third point, which is planning for scale. I believe most companies tend to plan for a realistic scenario and not an optimistic scenario. When you invest in a realistic scenario, you choke yourself. When you plan for an optimistic scenario, your spending is higher. When actual reality hits, you might have spent more than you should have or needed to, but ultimately if you plan for success, you have to invest in the optimistic scenario. What I mean by that is particularly in the B2B space and the space that we work in, it is partially a product space and at the same time the post-sale process. There is a pre-sale process which is an engagement-based process, and there is a post-sale process which is the support process for the customer. We invest deeply in the capacity to do both of them, and that is oversizing our capacity by sometimes 3x or 4x and sometimes even 10x. And that is not easy to do because money is scarce, it has always been scarce. But from the beginning, we have always invested ahead of the success rather than trying to scamper to cope with the success because the moment you try to scamper to cope with the success, you start choking yourself. You start doing silly things, either in the quality of engagement you are doing or the quality of service you are giving.

Even in the early days when we didn’t have enough money to invest, we still used whatever money we had. We invested in the capacity even though we did not need the capacity, just optimistically believing that we would get a flood of customers coming in and how we’ll cope with them.

Even in the early days when we didn’t have enough money to invest, we still used whatever money we had. We invested in the capacity even though we did not need the capacity, just optimistically believing that we would get a flood of customers coming in and how we’ll cope with them.

These two things I don’t think have changed over time. On the technology side, we continue to do what we’ve been doing for 34 years, and on the capacity side, we continue to do what we’ve been doing for 34 years.

These two things I don’t think have changed over time. On the technology side, we continue to do what we’ve been doing for 34 years, and on the capacity side, we continue to do what we’ve been doing for 34 years.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

Bharat, that’s a great framework. I have a follow-up question. So now, with the cloud coming in—you put it really well in terms of structure, technology, product, and growth—do you see that when you are designing the product, you could include new concepts of distribution of the product? Like free trial or open source? What are your thoughts on that?

Bharat, that’s a great framework. I have a follow-up question. So now, with the cloud coming in—you put it really well in terms of structure, technology, product, and growth—do you see that when you are designing the product, you could include new concepts of distribution of the product? Like free trial or open source? What are your thoughts on that?

BHARAT GOENKA

BHARAT GOENKA

Truly speaking, it’s not just about now that cloud is coming into the picture. From the time the internet became popular, all products, including ours, would offer you a free trial, you can download it and run it, you can take a subscription for x number of months, and these models have been there before what you can call the SaaS model. Yet the thing is that the consumer behaves differently from the B2B space. Peter Thiel put it really nicely in his book Zero to One, and I’ve quoted him frequently because that is what we used to say earlier, but, of course, when someone like Peter Thiel says it, you get even more validation.

Truly speaking, it’s not just about now that cloud is coming into the picture. From the time the internet became popular, all products, including ours, would offer you a free trial, you can download it and run it, you can take a subscription for x number of months, and these models have been there before what you can call the SaaS model. Yet the thing is that the consumer behaves differently from the B2B space. Peter Thiel put it really nicely in his book Zero to One, and I’ve quoted him frequently because that is what we used to say earlier, but, of course, when someone like Peter Thiel says it, you get even more validation.

You can broadly divide the market into three: the consumers, the enterprise, and what you call SMBs. We play in the SMB space, and he used that statement to say that when you are in the consumer space, you throw money at marketing, and consumers self-serve themselves. So, you just make the product available, and you throw money at marketing. When you are in the enterprise space, you throw money at the sales engine. You create a sales engine because an enterprise wants that engagement-based purchase; they don’t just buy off the internet. You still need people to go there to make presentations and all of that. He called SMB the “dead-zone” because SMBs in terms of volume metrics are similar to the consumer, but in terms of behavior, they are similar to the enterprise. No one can run a sales engine of that volume because it’s just not cash efficient. Sales engines are expensive. Enterprise products are expensive because the cost of selling is higher than the cost of the technology. On the consumer side, you can make it as low as possible because you are getting high volumes, and you can make it a low-priced product, but the SMB is the dead zone.

You can broadly divide the market into three: the consumers, the enterprise, and what you call SMBs. We play in the SMB space, and he used that statement to say that when you are in the consumer space, you throw money at marketing, and consumers self-serve themselves. So, you just make the product available, and you throw money at marketing. When you are in the enterprise space, you throw money at the sales engine. You create a sales engine because an enterprise wants that engagement-based purchase; they don’t just buy off the internet. You still need people to go there to make presentations and all of that. He called SMB the “dead-zone” because SMBs in terms of volume metrics are similar to the consumer, but in terms of behavior, they are similar to the enterprise. No one can run a sales engine of that volume because it’s just not cash efficient. Sales engines are expensive. Enterprise products are expensive because the cost of selling is higher than the cost of the technology. On the consumer side, you can make it as low as possible because you are getting high volumes, and you can make it a low-priced product, but the SMB is the dead zone.

I make that point because we are in that space, and different companies are in different spaces; whether you have a SaaS model or a non-SaaS model, the problem is that SMBs expect to engage, just like all enterprises expect to engage. It does not matter if they want to engage to discuss the features or price, or they just want to hand-hold for running the product 

I make that point because we are in that space, and different companies are in different spaces; whether you have a SaaS model or a non-SaaS model, the problem is that SMBs expect to engage, just like all enterprises expect to engage. It does not matter if they want to engage to discuss the features or price, or they just want to hand-hold for running the product 

IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT THE NATURE OF THE SOFTWARE IS— WHETHER IT’S A SAAS PRODUCT OR A DEVICE-ORIENTED SOFTWARE. IT IS THE NATURE OF THE MARKET THAT REQUIRES THAT CAPACITY.

IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT THE NATURE OF THE SOFTWARE IS— WHETHER IT’S A SAAS PRODUCT OR A DEVICE-ORIENTED SOFTWARE. IT IS THE NATURE OF THE MARKET THAT REQUIRES THAT CAPACITY.

– BHARAT GOENKA

– BHARAT GOENKA

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or whether they want a call centre to be available. No one runs a call centre for a consumer business, so, therefore, it’s a problem of capacity. It does not matter what the nature of the software is—whether it’s a SaaS product or device-oriented software. It is the nature of the market that requires that capacity.

or whether they want a call centre to be available. No one runs a call centre for a consumer business, so, therefore, it’s a problem of capacity. It does not matter what the nature of the software is—whether it’s a SaaS product or device-oriented software. It is the nature of the market that requires that capacity.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

Since you mentioned SMBs, that brings me to the second stage. We have been talking about the India B2B opportunity for a long time, and Tally is probably the only example that has cracked it at scale. Do you think the timing is different, and the scale could come at a totally different level in the Indian B2B space?

Since you mentioned SMBs, that brings me to the second stage. We have been talking about the India B2B opportunity for a long time, and Tally is probably the only example that has cracked it at scale. Do you think the timing is different, and the scale could come at a totally different level in the Indian B2B space?

BHARAT GOENKA

BHARAT GOENKA

The scale in India, for example, today we have two million licenses sold, which roughly implies about five-six million businesses whose accounting and inventory are done on Tally. That makes us the third-largest such business software in the world. If you take the next level of the market and how large it is, if you go to the MSME industry, they talk about 60 million small and micro-businesses. But, realistically speaking, that is an artificial number from a technology solution perspective, at least in our space. I’m not saying that other solutions are not applicable to them, but the space that we play in perhaps the addressable market is closer to 15 million, so we have got 3x the size of our current market, which is addressable and we are currently going after.

The scale in India, for example, today we have two million licenses sold, which roughly implies about five-six million businesses whose accounting and inventory are done on Tally. That makes us the third-largest such business software in the world. If you take the next level of the market and how large it is, if you go to the MSME industry, they talk about 60 million small and micro-businesses. But, realistically speaking, that is an artificial number from a technology solution perspective, at least in our space. I’m not saying that other solutions are not applicable to them, but the space that we play in perhaps the addressable market is closer to 15 million, so we have got 3x the size of our current market, which is addressable and we are currently going after.

I DON’T THINK ANYONE IN THE WORLD WHO CAN BUILD A GREAT PRODUCT REQUIRES MORE THAN RS 10–15 LAKH; YOU JUST REQUIRE A FEW GREAT COMPUTERS TO BUILD YOUR SOFTWARE, AND AFTER THAT, THE MONEY COMES FROM THE MARKET, MONEY DOES NOT COME FROM YOUR POCKET. IF YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE NOT WILLING TO PAY YOU FOR WHAT YOU’VE BUILT, SPENDING MONEY IN THE MARKET WILL NOT MAKE THEM WANT IT, AND THE BULK OF THE MONEY THAT PEOPLE ASK FOR IS TO MAKE A MARKETING SPLASH.

I DON’T THINK ANYONE IN THE WORLD WHO CAN BUILD A GREAT PRODUCT REQUIRES MORE THAN RS 10–15 LAKH; YOU JUST REQUIRE A FEW GREAT COMPUTERS TO BUILD YOUR SOFTWARE, AND AFTER THAT, THE MONEY COMES FROM THE MARKET, MONEY DOES NOT COME FROM YOUR POCKET. IF YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE NOT WILLING TO PAY YOU FOR WHAT YOU’VE BUILT, SPENDING MONEY IN THE MARKET WILL NOT MAKE THEM WANT IT, AND THE BULK OF THE MONEY THAT PEOPLE ASK FOR IS TO MAKE A MARKETING SPLASH.

– BHARAT GOENKA

– BHARAT GOENKA

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The scale will emerge mostly because more computing devices are in the hands of the people; the biggest barrier to the rapid growth of software is whether your customer has a device on which they can run this software. If you are running a SaaS model, it’s not like it does not require a device; it still requires a device to access the software. Without an access device, it is not possible for you to get a market, and now access devices have become dominant. Therefore, market acceleration has become greater than in the past.

The scale will emerge mostly because more computing devices are in the hands of the people; the biggest barrier to the rapid growth of software is whether your customer has a device on which they can run this software. If you are running a SaaS model, it’s not like it does not require a device; it still requires a device to access the software. Without an access device, it is not possible for you to get a market, and now access devices have become dominant. Therefore, market acceleration has become greater than in the past.

I’ve continued to remain old school with this.

I’ve continued to remain old school with this.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

Old school is good, Bharat; that’s what we need. Old school sticks around and builds long-lasting companies. So, it’s good to understand the framework because people will struggle, and the range is very wide.

Old school is good, Bharat; that’s what we need. Old school sticks around and builds long-lasting companies. So, it’s good to understand the framework because people will struggle, and the range is very wide.

BHARAT GOENKA

BHARAT GOENKA

I don’t think anyone in the world who can build a great product requires more than Rs 10–15 lakh; you just require a few great computers to build your software, and after that, the money comes from the market, money does not come from your pocket. If your customers are not willing to pay you for what you’ve built, spending money in the market will not make them want it, and the bulk of the money that people ask for is to make a marketing splash. At least in the B2B space, marketing does not work just like it does not work in the enterprise space. The enterprise space is sales-driven; it’s a word-of-mouth space just like the SMB space.

I don’t think anyone in the world who can build a great product requires more than Rs 10–15 lakh; you just require a few great computers to build your software, and after that, the money comes from the market, money does not come from your pocket. If your customers are not willing to pay you for what you’ve built, spending money in the market will not make them want it, and the bulk of the money that people ask for is to make a marketing splash. At least in the B2B space, marketing does not work just like it does not work in the enterprise space. The enterprise space is sales-driven; it’s a word-of-mouth space just like the SMB space.

Sometimes after you earn some money, perhaps for your ego, you may want to do branding. Businesses don’t care about the brand; they care a lot about the product. Consumers care about the brand. Therefore, you have a marketing-oriented way of selling to consumers. But, tell me, for anything you buy or use for your business, do you really care about the brand?

Sometimes after you earn some money, perhaps for your ego, you may want to do branding. Businesses don’t care about the brand; they care a lot about the product. Consumers care about the brand. Therefore, you have a marketing-oriented way of selling to consumers. But, tell me, for anything you buy or use for your business, do you really care about the brand?

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

No, we look at value. Nobody cares about the brand.

No, we look at value. Nobody cares about the brand.

BHARAT GOENKA

BHARAT GOENKA

So, what’s the point of spending all that money if you are in the B2B space? So, yes, people can ask for how many ever millions they want to ask for but, is it a need? The answer is NO.

So, what’s the point of spending all that money if you are in the B2B space? So, yes, people can ask for how many ever millions they want to ask for but, is it a need? The answer is NO.

There are a couple of things here. You go to any business school: 90–95 percent of whatever they teach you about marketing is all consumer marketing. There is hardly any B2B marketing material available because marketing is used in the context of consumers. So, everyone learns only that. Then they will hire a marketing person, that marketing person has learned only that, regardless of whether they are a fresher or a veteran in marketing. The only thing they’ve ever learned is consumer marketing, so everyone wants TV ads, billboards and there is no way to reason that out saying “businesses don’t care” but, they will say, if the brand is not there, why will the business want to talk to me? Businesses will still talk to you even if the brand is not there. It’s consumers that don’t.

There are a couple of things here. You go to any business school: 90–95 percent of whatever they teach you about marketing is all consumer marketing. There is hardly any B2B marketing material available because marketing is used in the context of consumers. So, everyone learns only that. Then they will hire a marketing person, that marketing person has learned only that, regardless of whether they are a fresher or a veteran in marketing. The only thing they’ve ever learned is consumer marketing, so everyone wants TV ads, billboards and there is no way to reason that out saying “businesses don’t care” but, they will say, if the brand is not there, why will the business want to talk to me? Businesses will still talk to you even if the brand is not there. It’s consumers that don’t.

PANKAJ MISHRA

PANKAJ MISHRA

Bharat, one of the other foundational building blocks is also the org structure, founding team, and building blocks overall. Any first principles that you can share from your journey that you believe to pass the test of time and outlive different cycles of disruption? Can you take us through some of those early learnings, and how do they fit now?

Bharat, one of the other foundational building blocks is also the org structure, founding team, and building blocks overall. Any first principles that you can share from your journey that you believe to pass the test of time and outlive different cycles of disruption? Can you take us through some of those early learnings, and how do they fit now?

BHARAT GOENKA

BHARAT GOENKA

We made a lot of mistakes, we have done many good things but, fundamentally for me, it’s not just about the Tally story, it’s about the lessons that we have seen from our partners. Some of them have grown from a two-three people company to a 300–400 people company. We as a company have grown from a one-person company to currently a 1,000-person company. I think the biggest mistake that people tend to make is that they structure themselves too soon.

We made a lot of mistakes, we have done many good things but, fundamentally for me, it’s not just about the Tally story, it’s about the lessons that we have seen from our partners. Some of them have grown from a two-three people company to a 300–400 people company. We as a company have grown from a one-person company to currently a 1,000-person company. I think the biggest mistake that people tend to make is that they structure themselves too soon.

For example, a couple of years ago, a person came to me and wanted to show me the business plan for the next five years. They were a seven-person organization, and he said the first thing that he’s going to do is hire an HR person because he believed that to become a good company you require a good HR person, and that’s the problem. Successful companies—when I say successful, companies which 

For example, a couple of years ago, a person came to me and wanted to show me the business plan for the next five years. They were a seven-person organization, and he said the first thing that he’s going to do is hire an HR person because he believed that to become a good company you require a good HR person, and that’s the problem. Successful companies—when I say successful, companies which 

SUCCESSFUL COMPANIES—WHEN I SAY SUCCESSFUL, COMPANIES WHICH HAVE GROWN IN TERMS OF SIZE AND THEREFORE YOU TREAT THEM AS SUCCESSFUL— AND YOU TRY TO LOOK AT THEIR STRUCTURE AND YOU SOMEHOW FEEL THAT THEIR STRUCTURE HAS BEEN THE CAUSE OF THEIR SUCCESS AND YOU SHOULD ADOPT THEIR STRUCTURE. BUT, IT IS THE REVERSE. BECAUSE THEY GREW, THEY NEEDED THE STRUCTURE—IT’S NOT THE STRUCTURE THAT CAUSED THEIR GROWTH.

SUCCESSFUL COMPANIES—WHEN I SAY SUCCESSFUL, COMPANIES WHICH HAVE GROWN IN TERMS OF SIZE AND THEREFORE YOU TREAT THEM AS SUCCESSFUL— AND YOU TRY TO LOOK AT THEIR STRUCTURE AND YOU SOMEHOW FEEL THAT THEIR STRUCTURE HAS BEEN THE CAUSE OF THEIR SUCCESS AND YOU SHOULD ADOPT THEIR STRUCTURE. BUT, IT IS THE REVERSE. BECAUSE THEY GREW, THEY NEEDED THE STRUCTURE—IT’S NOT THE STRUCTURE THAT CAUSED THEIR GROWTH.

– BHARAT GOENKA

– BHARAT GOENKA

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have grown in terms of size and therefore you treat them as successful—and you try to look at their structure and you somehow feel that their structure has been the cause for their success and you should adopt their structure. But, it is the reverse. Because they grew, they needed the structure—it’s not the structure that caused their growth. So I asked him, assuming you hire an HR person, tell me what he will do for eight hours a day for 365 days, you have seven people, what is his work? 

have grown in terms of size and therefore you treat them as successful—and you try to look at their structure and you somehow feel that their structure has been the cause for their success and you should adopt their structure. But, it is the reverse. Because they grew, they needed the structure—it’s not the structure that caused their growth. So I asked him, assuming you hire an HR person, tell me what he will do for eight hours a day for 365 days, you have seven people, what is his work? 

In terms of the structure and processes for an organization, you should be just a little bit ahead. In fact, barely 6–12 months ahead of your planned capacity of people, you should not build structure and processes for a 50-person organization when you are ten people. You should not make a structure and processes for a 200-person organization when you are a 50-person organization. And the reverse, of course: do not hire 200 people when you don’t have a structure and process for them. That was one of our biggest mistakes. It was both a mistake as well as it benefited us enormously in four months, we moved from 80 people to 800 people. For the next two years, it was chaotic, and we didn’t know whether we were coming or going because we didn’t have any support for that kind of capacity. So, in contrast, going from 1 to 80 was a breeze and once we wrapped our heads around this large explosion, continuing to grow has been a breeze. The point is, you should have just the right amount of structure and processes to support your capacity. You should not overdo or underdo it.

In terms of the structure and processes for an organization, you should be just a little bit ahead. In fact, barely 6–12 months ahead of your planned capacity of people, you should not build structure and processes for a 50-person organization when you are ten people. You should not make a structure and processes for a 200-person organization when you are a 50-person organization. And the reverse, of course: do not hire 200 people when you don’t have a structure and process for them. That was one of our biggest mistakes. It was both a mistake as well as it benefited us enormously in four months, we moved from 80 people to 800 people. For the next two years, it was chaotic, and we didn’t know whether we were coming or going because we didn’t have any support for that kind of capacity. So, in contrast, going from 1 to 80 was a breeze and once we wrapped our heads around this large explosion, continuing to grow has been a breeze. The point is, you should have just the right amount of structure and processes to support your capacity. You should not overdo or underdo it.

PANKAJ MISHRA

PANKAJ MISHRA

Just one thing, Bharat: Manav and I have been having this conversation with many founders. Think of me as an outsider. I’m asking it very bluntly. Manav, you are aware of this; a lot of founders we speak with say they wish they had had an org structure ahead of time but what we hear from Bharat is the opposite. Is there a middle ground? What is the best template?

Just one thing, Bharat: Manav and I have been having this conversation with many founders. Think of me as an outsider. I’m asking it very bluntly. Manav, you are aware of this; a lot of founders we speak with say they wish they had had an org structure ahead of time but what we hear from Bharat is the opposite. Is there a middle ground? What is the best template?

DIFFERENT PEOPLE WILL HAVE DIFFERENT MANAGEMENT STYLES, AND PEOPLE SHOULD MAKE THEIR ORGANIZATION FIT THEIR MANAGEMENT STYLE.

DIFFERENT PEOPLE WILL HAVE DIFFERENT MANAGEMENT STYLES, AND PEOPLE SHOULD MAKE THEIR ORGANIZATION FIT THEIR MANAGEMENT STYLE.

– BHARAT GOENKA

– BHARAT GOENKA

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BHARAT GOENKA

BHARAT GOENKA

There is no question that different people will have different management styles, and people should make their organization fit their management style.

There is no question that different people will have different management styles, and people should make their organization fit their management style.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

Also, Pankaj, the great insight that Bharat gave us is that you need an org structure to manage the growth and not the other way around. The org structure will not lead you to growth. The question is, are the entrepreneur team, management team or the founding team focused enough on the fundamentals of growth rather than the fundamentals of building the organization first? I think the interplay of that is very critical, at what point in time, what comes first, and what comes after. That is my takeaway from this.

Also, Pankaj, the great insight that Bharat gave us is that you need an org structure to manage the growth and not the other way around. The org structure will not lead you to growth. The question is, are the entrepreneur team, management team or the founding team focused enough on the fundamentals of growth rather than the fundamentals of building the organization first? I think the interplay of that is very critical, at what point in time, what comes first, and what comes after. That is my takeaway from this.

BHARAT GOENKA

BHARAT GOENKA

Absolutely. There is no doubt that your structure and processes can choke growth, potentially, but they are not your main cause for growth. I won’t say choke your growth; they can give some friction to growth, but rarely can they cause growth. The cause of growth is going to be the market and your offerings.

Absolutely. There is no doubt that your structure and processes can choke growth, potentially, but they are not your main cause for growth. I won’t say choke your growth; they can give some friction to growth, but rarely can they cause growth. The cause of growth is going to be the market and your offerings.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

Since you made that point on the market, this is one thing, Bharat, I’ve seen many people struggle with. I struggled early on as well as I had just jumped into the business. In India, what happens is that two tech guys get together, they build the code, they pick the market which they have heard about or written about and then they go after it. At Tally Solutions, when you are starting something new like you are getting into the ERP market from accounting software, what is the structure, or what is the learning around how you think about market opportunities/growth? It will be good to understand your thinking on it.

Since you made that point on the market, this is one thing, Bharat, I’ve seen many people struggle with. I struggled early on as well as I had just jumped into the business. In India, what happens is that two tech guys get together, they build the code, they pick the market which they have heard about or written about and then they go after it. At Tally Solutions, when you are starting something new like you are getting into the ERP market from accounting software, what is the structure, or what is the learning around how you think about market opportunities/growth? It will be good to understand your thinking on it.

BHARAT GOENKA

BHARAT GOENKA

Generally, over the last several years, the way we have looked at things is that there are opportunities that are adjacency opportunities, and there are opportunities that are non-adjacent opportunities. When I use the term “adjacency opportunities”, you have got customers in a particular space, can you do something more on your product to accommodate more of their area of utilization and therefore drive greater revenue and perhaps greater adoption? So, that is what I call adjacency. Any product in the world, in theory, you can start, does not matter where you start. Given enough time you can finally have a product that does everything in the world because sooner or later everything becomes adjacent to each other. But, fundamentally, you are starting at some core and from that one core you are picking up adjacent opportunities.

Generally, over the last several years, the way we have looked at things is that there are opportunities that are adjacency opportunities, and there are opportunities that are non-adjacent opportunities. When I use the term “adjacency opportunities”, you have got customers in a particular space, can you do something more on your product to accommodate more of their area of utilization and therefore drive greater revenue and perhaps greater adoption? So, that is what I call adjacency. Any product in the world, in theory, you can start, does not matter where you start. Given enough time you can finally have a product that does everything in the world because sooner or later everything becomes adjacent to each other. But, fundamentally, you are starting at some core and from that one core you are picking up adjacent opportunities.

Second is when I said non-adjacent opportunities, we are back to the old school of thought problem; we have rarely looked at non-adjacent opportunities. A couple of times we tried it, and then we discovered that there is just so much to do in the space that once we are in that we will not do justice to our space or the other opportunity.

Second is when I said non-adjacent opportunities, we are back to the old school of thought problem; we have rarely looked at non-adjacent opportunities. A couple of times we tried it, and then we discovered that there is just so much to do in the space that once we are in that we will not do justice to our space or the other opportunity.

If you look at different people, you will find people having spectacular success in handling multiple business lines and also have spectacular failures handling multiple business lines. Similarly, you can take people who have had spectacular success handling just one business line and having spectacular failure doing the same. All I’m saying is that there is no rulebook. For example, if you have got two million customers and you tell me why don’t you do this also, which is a non-adjacent thing because of the customer base and perhaps if you were in my shoes you would have made a beautiful success out of it. Perhaps I can’t do more because of the management style and capability to run those systems. So, we as a company have rarely successfully pursued non-adjacent opportunities.

If you look at different people, you will find people having spectacular success in handling multiple business lines and also have spectacular failures handling multiple business lines. Similarly, you can take people who have had spectacular success handling just one business line and having spectacular failure doing the same. All I’m saying is that there is no rulebook. For example, if you have got two million customers and you tell me why don’t you do this also, which is a non-adjacent thing because of the customer base and perhaps if you were in my shoes you would have made a beautiful success out of it. Perhaps I can’t do more because of the management style and capability to run those systems. So, we as a company have rarely successfully pursued non-adjacent opportunities.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

So, what are some things that you would advise as Tally Solutions went into ERP as ERP is a massive space with massive competition from big giants like SAP, Oracle, and big brands? What has been your experience in the adjacent space? What are the main things that you would look out for? What is the framework of thinking that you would recommend to entrepreneurs?

So, what are some things that you would advise as Tally Solutions went into ERP as ERP is a massive space with massive competition from big giants like SAP, Oracle, and big brands? What has been your experience in the adjacent space? What are the main things that you would look out for? What is the framework of thinking that you would recommend to entrepreneurs?

WE NEVER EVEN FIGURE OUT WHETHER THERE IS A CUSTOMER PROBLEM THAT REQUIRES TO BE SOLVED. WE ONLY TRY TO SEE THE KIND OF SOFTWARE WE CAN BUILD, WHICH WILL BE DELIGHTFUL FOR YOU TO USE. YOU SHOULD NOT EVEN REQUIRE TO THINK THAT YOU ARE RUNNING SOFTWARE, SO YOU CAN CONTINUE RUNNING YOUR BUSINESS BECAUSE THAT REQUIRES YOUR ATTENTION; THE SOFTWARE DOES NOT REQUIRE YOUR ATTENTION.

WE NEVER EVEN FIGURE OUT WHETHER THERE IS A CUSTOMER PROBLEM THAT REQUIRES TO BE SOLVED. WE ONLY TRY TO SEE THE KIND OF SOFTWARE WE CAN BUILD, WHICH WILL BE DELIGHTFUL FOR YOU TO USE. YOU SHOULD NOT EVEN REQUIRE TO THINK THAT YOU ARE RUNNING SOFTWARE, SO YOU CAN CONTINUE RUNNING YOUR BUSINESS BECAUSE THAT REQUIRES YOUR ATTENTION; THE SOFTWARE DOES NOT REQUIRE YOUR ATTENTION.

– BHARAT GOENKA

– BHARAT GOENKA

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BHARAT GOENKA

BHARAT GOENKA

One of the things I think we do—which I think is very unusual and many people have criticized us for—is that we don’t study the competition. In fact, for 34 years, we have made it a point not to look at the competition, and sometimes you can express it as a very arrogant statement because we don’t treat anyone as competition.

One of the things I think we do—which I think is very unusual and many people have criticized us for—is that we don’t study the competition. In fact, for 34 years, we have made it a point not to look at the competition, and sometimes you can express it as a very arrogant statement because we don’t treat anyone as competition.

The problem is that people tend to study successful companies, they don’t tend to study the customer. They try to assume that the reason why this company is successful is that they have cracked the customers’ problem, and I just need to borrow from what they have cracked and then try to crack it for my customers and therefore, not enough time is spent studying the customer and trying to be the customer. So, what we have perpetually done and continue to do is just spend an enormous amount of time with customers. Just really talking, not even about software, just talk about how things work, how they do things. And we are very clear that we are not there to solve any customers’ problems. It’s a continued and persistent mantra in our company that we don’t solve any customers’ problems. Let’s assume that Manav uses Tally, I really can’t solve his problem. His problem is the market; his problem is finance; his problem is employee attrition. Those are his problems. What problem am I solving? I’m not solving any problems.

The problem is that people tend to study successful companies, they don’t tend to study the customer. They try to assume that the reason why this company is successful is that they have cracked the customers’ problem, and I just need to borrow from what they have cracked and then try to crack it for my customers and therefore, not enough time is spent studying the customer and trying to be the customer. So, what we have perpetually done and continue to do is just spend an enormous amount of time with customers. Just really talking, not even about software, just talk about how things work, how they do things. And we are very clear that we are not there to solve any customers’ problems. It’s a continued and persistent mantra in our company that we don’t solve any customers’ problems. Let’s assume that Manav uses Tally, I really can’t solve his problem. His problem is the market; his problem is finance; his problem is employee attrition. Those are his problems. What problem am I solving? I’m not solving any problems.

We never even figure out whether there is a customer problem that requires to be solved. We only try to see the kind of software we can build, which will be delightful for you to use. You should not even require to think that you are running software, so you can continue running your business because that requires your attention; the software does not require your attention. It doesn’t matter whether we are going into the enterprise space or retail space.

We never even figure out whether there is a customer problem that requires to be solved. We only try to see the kind of software we can build, which will be delightful for you to use. You should not even require to think that you are running software, so you can continue running your business because that requires your attention; the software does not require your attention. It doesn’t matter whether we are going into the enterprise space or retail space.

THE FIRST IS YOUR BELIEF SYSTEM, SO WHEN I USE THAT WORD, I MEAN ARE YOU EVEN BUILDING TO LAST? DO YOU HAVE THE INTENT TO BUILD TO LAST? OR DO YOU THINK IT IS SOMETHING THAT WILL INCIDENTALLY HAPPEN ALONG THE JOURNEY?

THE FIRST IS YOUR BELIEF SYSTEM, SO WHEN I USE THAT WORD, I MEAN ARE YOU EVEN BUILDING TO LAST? DO YOU HAVE THE INTENT TO BUILD TO LAST? OR DO YOU THINK IT IS SOMETHING THAT WILL INCIDENTALLY HAPPEN ALONG THE JOURNEY?

– BHARAT GOENKA

– BHARAT GOENKA

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We have to solve our problem, which is to make delightful software, and there are several problems to solve, that is our problem, that is my problem, that is not the customers’ problem. Shifting the mindset to understanding how a customer works so that your software can disappear into the background and it does not matter what the nature of the customer is. Touchwood, so far, this really unusual way of getting into this space has helped us.

We have to solve our problem, which is to make delightful software, and there are several problems to solve, that is our problem, that is my problem, that is not the customers’ problem. Shifting the mindset to understanding how a customer works so that your software can disappear into the background and it does not matter what the nature of the customer is. Touchwood, so far, this really unusual way of getting into this space has helped us.

PANKAJ MISHRA

PANKAJ MISHRA

Bharat, I have a little institutional question for you. You have built a company that has navigated many crises and perhaps some of them existential, and you have stayed relevant in that sense. If you look today at the SaaS landscape, there are a lot of companies taking birth, and a lot of them have good potential. How do you create a “build to last” enterprise in your experience, because that is when the ecosystem truly benefits for sustainability. So, if you were to define the whole “build to last” from your experience of building and surviving as Tally, what will be some of them?

Bharat, I have a little institutional question for you. You have built a company that has navigated many crises and perhaps some of them existential, and you have stayed relevant in that sense. If you look today at the SaaS landscape, there are a lot of companies taking birth, and a lot of them have good potential. How do you create a “build to last” enterprise in your experience, because that is when the ecosystem truly benefits for sustainability. So, if you were to define the whole “build to last” from your experience of building and surviving as Tally, what will be some of them?

BHARAT GOENKA

BHARAT GOENKA

The first is your belief system, so when I use that word, I mean, are you even building to last? Do you have the intent to “build to last”? Or do you think it is something that will incidentally happen along the journey? Let me take an example. The very first version—I’m talking some 30 years ago—was the very first version of Tally that we sold in the market. It was the first version. But, that first version had been built to plan for its upgrade, so that our customers could self-upgrade because you are building a product where you can’t go to a customer’s place and upgrade for them, so you have to build a product that the customer can upgrade themselves. I’m talking about 30 years ago because you are expecting to last. You are expecting to be around for the next 2, 5, 10, 15 years. Therefore, the way you think even building your products comes from that perspective.

The first is your belief system, so when I use that word, I mean, are you even building to last? Do you have the intent to “build to last”? Or do you think it is something that will incidentally happen along the journey? Let me take an example. The very first version—I’m talking some 30 years ago—was the very first version of Tally that we sold in the market. It was the first version. But, that first version had been built to plan for its upgrade, so that our customers could self-upgrade because you are building a product where you can’t go to a customer’s place and upgrade for them, so you have to build a product that the customer can upgrade themselves. I’m talking about 30 years ago because you are expecting to last. You are expecting to be around for the next 2, 5, 10, 15 years. Therefore, the way you think even building your products comes from that perspective.

Especially since the time the lean model has come in, “build fast, fail fast”, you don’t just build fast and fail fast; you just fail honestly. At least, I have not been able to come up with an example of any successful software which had one or two prior failed attempts in the market. I don’t even know from where this theory comes that you should build fast and fail fast and because you will fail fast, you will succeed. I genuinely don’t have any example. I don’t know if you all have any example where there is a product where versions 1, 2, and 3 failed but version 4 suddenly took off because now they have learned.

Especially since the time the lean model has come in, “build fast, fail fast”, you don’t just build fast and fail fast; you just fail honestly. At least, I have not been able to come up with an example of any successful software which had one or two prior failed attempts in the market. I don’t even know from where this theory comes that you should build fast and fail fast and because you will fail fast, you will succeed. I genuinely don’t have any example. I don’t know if you all have any example where there is a product where versions 1, 2, and 3 failed but version 4 suddenly took off because now they have learned.

So people aren’t even building to last, so how will they last?

So people aren’t even building to last, so how will they last?

PANKAJ MISHRA

PANKAJ MISHRA

Final question from my side, Bharat. The other thing that we have discussed with many founders—and Manav is a big proponent of that—is, how do you recruit and manage your board? A lot of boards today have investor representation and so on, but any particular lessons from the way you perhaps built aboard and what kind of expectation did you set?

Final question from my side, Bharat. The other thing that we have discussed with many founders—and Manav is a big proponent of that—is, how do you recruit and manage your board? A lot of boards today have investor representation and so on, but any particular lessons from the way you perhaps built aboard and what kind of expectation did you set?

BHARAT GOENKA

BHARAT GOENKA

We don’t have a board.

We don’t have a board.

PANKAJ MISHRA

PANKAJ MISHRA

Why is that?

Why is that?

BHARAT GOENKA

BHARAT GOENKA

I don’t really know, honestly. I guess because of the way we were born. We were born as a proprietary company, and we continued running in that mode. So even though we are a private limited company from a regulatory perspective, in theory, there is a board, but because we are a private limited company, even that board is just inside people. But, are we operating as a board-run company? The answer is no.

I don’t really know, honestly. I guess because of the way we were born. We were born as a proprietary company, and we continued running in that mode. So even though we are a private limited company from a regulatory perspective, in theory, there is a board, but because we are a private limited company, even that board is just inside people. But, are we operating as a board-run company? The answer is no.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

Some really deep thoughts and concepts. I took away a lot of things, deep concepts about how you build products and a product company.

Some really deep thoughts and concepts. I took away a lot of things, deep concepts about how you build products and a product company.

WHAT IS IT THAT WE WILL DELIVER SUCH THAT NO ONE WILL WANT TO GO BACK TO THE OLD WAY OF DOING THINGS?

WHAT IS IT THAT WE WILL DELIVER SUCH THAT NO ONE WILL WANT TO GO BACK TO THE OLD WAY OF DOING THINGS?

– BHARAT GOENKA

– BHARAT GOENKA

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BHARAT GOENKA

BHARAT GOENKA

Hardly any of it will be relevant in the modern space because all our thoughts are very old and lonely thoughts.

Hardly any of it will be relevant in the modern space because all our thoughts are very old and lonely thoughts.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

This is a common mistake that most people make, i.e., don’t study the market enough and study the competition more. Pankaj and I are glad that you put it in a very succinct and clear manner. We’ve been asking this market question to everybody, and people say, do this study, go to this competition and do this research. But the two things that get missed are studying customer behavior and then figuring out what would benefit your customers and then studying the market more than the competition. They are great takeaways for us and the ecosystem.

This is a common mistake that most people make, i.e., don’t study the market enough and study the competition more. Pankaj and I are glad that you put it in a very succinct and clear manner. We’ve been asking this market question to everybody, and people say, do this study, go to this competition and do this research. But the two things that get missed are studying customer behavior and then figuring out what would benefit your customers and then studying the market more than the competition. They are great takeaways for us and the ecosystem.

BHARAT GOENKA

BHARAT GOENKA

In fact, we keep asking ourselves whenever we look at the next thing to do, whether it is adding a feature or building a new product like we are building now. The question that we ask is—what is it that we will deliver such that no one will want to go back to the old way of doing things?

In fact, we keep asking ourselves whenever we look at the next thing to do, whether it is adding a feature or building a new product like we are building now. The question that we ask is—what is it that we will deliver such that no one will want to go back to the old way of doing things?

The “dream team” is exactly that—a dreamy illusion. Most organizations spend years trying to build the right team. So next time a founder tells you his team is just the right fit for his organization, remember to ask that person how they got there. As it happens, the road to the “right-fit” organization happens through trial and error and a whole lot of hiring mistakes. We asked founders what counts as a bad hire and what they would do differently if they could do it all over again.

The “dream team” is exactly that—a dreamy illusion. Most organizations spend years trying to build the right team. So next time a founder tells you his team is just the right fit for his organization, remember to ask that person how they got there. As it happens, the road to the “right-fit” organization happens through trial and error and a whole lot of hiring mistakes. We asked founders what counts as a bad hire and what they would do differently if they could do it all over again.

PRUKALPA SANKAR

PRUKALPA SANKAR

At SocialCops, we were first-time founders. We had never really built any of this. We were working in a space we had never worked in. We were 22 when we started hiring people. I think we were about 23 when SocialCops started scaling, and we didn’t know how to handle this. Our entire team was completely homegrown. All of us were sort of the same age, in our first jobs, and we sort of, at that point, started feeling that we need someone with more experience to come in and help us do this. We went and met these hirers, and I think that was probably one of the biggest mistakes that we made. We didn’t trust ourselves to do a lot of what we did, and then we hired based on experience and not based on skills, and I think it is very easy to do that. It is very easy to get sort of enamored by people’s titles and previous accomplishments, and this led us to some pretty bad hiring decisions. The biggest learning I took away from this was that every context is different; every company is different. Just because someone has been able to do something successfully somewhere else doesn’t mean that they can do it in your context. So always judge people by their actions, judge people by their skills, judge people by the conversations they can have with you, and the actual work that you see. Don’t judge anyone by titles, or experience, or any of that.

At SocialCops, we were first-time founders. We had never really built any of this. We were working in a space we had never worked in. We were 22 when we started hiring people. I think we were about 23 when SocialCops started scaling, and we didn’t know how to handle this. Our entire team was completely homegrown. All of us were sort of the same age, in our first jobs, and we sort of, at that point, started feeling that we need someone with more experience to come in and help us do this. We went and met these hirers, and I think that was probably one of the biggest mistakes that we made. We didn’t trust ourselves to do a lot of what we did, and then we hired based on experience and not based on skills, and I think it is very easy to do that. It is very easy to get sort of enamored by people’s titles and previous accomplishments, and this led us to some pretty bad hiring decisions. The biggest learning I took away from this was that every context is different; every company is different. Just because someone has been able to do something successfully somewhere else doesn’t mean that they can do it in your context. So always judge people by their actions, judge people by their skills, judge people by the conversations they can have with you, and the actual work that you see. Don’t judge anyone by titles, or experience, or any of that.

THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL MISTAKE WHICH ALL OF US HAVE MADE OR TEND TO MAKE IS THAT WE HIRE FOR PEOPLE AND NOT FOR THE ROLES.

THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL MISTAKE WHICH ALL OF US HAVE MADE OR TEND TO MAKE IS THAT WE HIRE FOR PEOPLE AND NOT FOR THE ROLES.

– MANAV GARG

– MANAV GARG

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ABHINAV ASTHANA

ABHINAV ASTHANA

We made a lot of mistakes along the way. We had initially assumed that we could fit everyone into our culture and coach them, but some people are not coachable, and that led to many bad experiences. Some people really did not understand the product; in fact, that continues to be a problem today. People get excited about the company’s success, but they don’t really understand the core of the product, so they say things without really meaning them—that was always an issue.

We made a lot of mistakes along the way. We had initially assumed that we could fit everyone into our culture and coach them, but some people are not coachable, and that led to many bad experiences. Some people really did not understand the product; in fact, that continues to be a problem today. People get excited about the company’s success, but they don’t really understand the core of the product, so they say things without really meaning them—that was always an issue.

So, yes, we did hire some people who we had to eventually part ways with, as they didn’t fit with the company. Sometimes we just hired people for an operational fit like in narrow roles; sometimes, though, that role was too specialized, too narrow, and we just learned that it was a bigger pain to fit those people into the pace of how we wanted to iterate; we were really turning the company to fit their weak points rather than harnessing the best talent. In some of those instances we could have (and should have) made faster decisions to part ways, which ultimately is often better for both the company and the employee.

So, yes, we did hire some people who we had to eventually part ways with, as they didn’t fit with the company. Sometimes we just hired people for an operational fit like in narrow roles; sometimes, though, that role was too specialized, too narrow, and we just learned that it was a bigger pain to fit those people into the pace of how we wanted to iterate; we were really turning the company to fit their weak points rather than harnessing the best talent. In some of those instances we could have (and should have) made faster decisions to part ways, which ultimately is often better for both the company and the employee.

SRIDHAR VEMBU

SRIDHAR VEMBU

I will tell you where things fall apart from my observation. When you have a lot of turnover in leadership, then there is no continuity. When you change the team’s head every year, you don’t have much of a team; you are rebuilding a team every year. There isn’t much that is going to come from that. There is a lot of management dogma that comes from the usual business school ideology—of professionalizing everything. To me, the word “professional” is problematic because it communicates that you have a bundle of skills and experience minus the human persona; there is no real person; it’s a résumé. It’s a bundle of skills! And when you manage teams that way, and your manager is that way, well, the spirit leaves that team and that’s when, in the long term, they fall apart.

I will tell you where things fall apart from my observation. When you have a lot of turnover in leadership, then there is no continuity. When you change the team’s head every year, you don’t have much of a team; you are rebuilding a team every year. There isn’t much that is going to come from that. There is a lot of management dogma that comes from the usual business school ideology—of professionalizing everything. To me, the word “professional” is problematic because it communicates that you have a bundle of skills and experience minus the human persona; there is no real person; it’s a résumé. It’s a bundle of skills! And when you manage teams that way, and your manager is that way, well, the spirit leaves that team and that’s when, in the long term, they fall apart.

THAT WORD “PROFESSIONAL” IS PROBLEMATIC BECAUSE IT COMMUNICATES THAT YOU HAVE A BUNDLE OF SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE MINUS THE HUMAN PERSONA.

THAT WORD “PROFESSIONAL” IS PROBLEMATIC BECAUSE IT COMMUNICATES THAT YOU HAVE A BUNDLE OF SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE MINUS THE HUMAN PERSONA.

– SRIDHAR VEMBU

– SRIDHAR VEMBU

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

KEY TAKEAWAYS

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*Sridhar Vembu comments are from the Outliers Podcast hosted by Pankaj Mishra ©️SourceCode Media Private Limited

*Sridhar Vembu comments are from the Outliers Podcast hosted by Pankaj Mishra ©️SourceCode Media Private Limited

ELAD GIL

ELAD GIL

For late-stage companies, a common mistake would be not rolling out an executive team early enough. If you are a first-time founder in particular, or if you have never run a team to scale, your instincts are often to hire very smart individual contributors and you don’t really understand the leverage of having a great executive in place. That’s why often when you see second-time founders start a company and among their first 15 people, they have three or four VPs and a CXO, and often, as a first-time founder, you ask why does this person need all these executives, it’s only a 15-person company, but then after you have been through scaling a team and company rapidly once yourself, you realize the enormous leverage you get by building out an executive team.

For late-stage companies, a common mistake would be not rolling out an executive team early enough. If you are a first-time founder in particular, or if you have never run a team to scale, your instincts are often to hire very smart individual contributors and you don’t really understand the leverage of having a great executive in place. That’s why often when you see second-time founders start a company and among their first 15 people, they have three or four VPs and a CXO, and often, as a first-time founder, you ask why does this person need all these executives, it’s only a 15-person company, but then after you have been through scaling a team and company rapidly once yourself, you realize the enormous leverage you get by building out an executive team.

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

A common mistake that startup founders make is that they overpromise. Your first salesperson is not going to be the VP of sales, the first engineer is not going to be your CTO, the first HR person is not your CPO. This is because the ability of a company to scale is much faster than that of the individual. You have to set expectations very clearly, and this is a problem that founders should know beforehand. You cannot over-promise because that would prevent you from hiring better talent. As your company is more successful, your access to better talent increases. When smarter people look at your company and want to join a promising startup like yours, you have to make sure that you are not setting yourself out for failure.

A common mistake that startup founders make is that they overpromise. Your first salesperson is not going to be the VP of sales, the first engineer is not going to be your CTO, the first HR person is not your CPO. This is because the ability of a company to scale is much faster than that of the individual. You have to set expectations very clearly, and this is a problem that founders should know beforehand. You cannot over-promise because that would prevent you from hiring better talent. As your company is more successful, your access to better talent increases. When smarter people look at your company and want to join a promising startup like yours, you have to make sure that you are not setting yourself out for failure.

YOUR FIRST SALESPERSON IS NOT GOING TO BE THE VP OF SALES, YOUR FIRST ENGINEER IS NOT GOING TO BE YOUR CTO, THE FIRST HR PERSON IS NOT YOUR CPO.

YOUR FIRST SALESPERSON IS NOT GOING TO BE THE VP OF SALES, YOUR FIRST ENGINEER IS NOT GOING TO BE YOUR CTO, THE FIRST HR PERSON IS NOT YOUR CPO.

– GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

– GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

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Organization building happens in stages. For most Indian startups, the founding team is usually a two- or three-member unit, comprising friends and former colleagues. Most founders start making calculated decisions from the time of early hires. They note areas in which the existing team is particularly wanting and hire talent accordingly. Hirings and firings are important, not simply because they solve a particular problem or address a crucial issue, but more generally because they represent the building blocks of a successful organization. Indeed, putting together a well-rounded organizational structure where team members complement each other is one of the key essentials for building a scalable company. We asked founders to identify the stage at which they started putting together a scalable organization structure and share tips with our readers who may be starting out.

Organization building happens in stages. For most Indian startups, the founding team is usually a two- or three-member unit, comprising friends and former colleagues. Most founders start making calculated decisions from the time of early hires. They note areas in which the existing team is particularly wanting and hire talent accordingly. Hirings and firings are important, not simply because they solve a particular problem or address a crucial issue, but more generally because they represent the building blocks of a successful organization. Indeed, putting together a well-rounded organizational structure where team members complement each other is one of the key essentials for building a scalable company. We asked founders to identify the stage at which they started putting together a scalable organization structure and share tips with our readers who may be starting out.

MONISH DARDA

MONISH DARDA

You have to go through the life cycle of a startup where initially everybody is kind of figuring out how to build, then you are trying to figure out how to sell, then you are trying to figure out how to support, then you are trying to figure out how to implement, and then the cycle repeats itself, and there is a lot of stress in the system every time you go through these transitions. You have to be very, very focused. You have to say that this is what I have decided as my mission and vision, and I want to make sure that all the decisions I take are aligned to that, and I am also thinking long term, not short term. This has always forced us to have an org structure that works for us at the stage we are at—and we are not afraid to iterate and learn! The structure that can scale is a structure that can change, and adapt and be resilient!

You have to go through the life cycle of a startup where initially everybody is kind of figuring out how to build, then you are trying to figure out how to sell, then you are trying to figure out how to support, then you are trying to figure out how to implement, and then the cycle repeats itself, and there is a lot of stress in the system every time you go through these transitions. You have to be very, very focused. You have to say that this is what I have decided as my mission and vision, and I want to make sure that all the decisions I take are aligned to that, and I am also thinking long term, not short term. This has always forced us to have an org structure that works for us at the stage we are at—and we are not afraid to iterate and learn! The structure that can scale is a structure that can change, and adapt and be resilient!

AFTER PRODUCT-MARKET FIT, IF YOU ARE NOT SCALING UP, YOU ARE LOSING OUT THE OPPORTUNITY OF EXPANDING.

AFTER PRODUCT-MARKET FIT, IF YOU ARE NOT SCALING UP, YOU ARE LOSING OUT THE OPPORTUNITY OF EXPANDING.

– RITESH ARORA

– RITESH ARORA

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PRUKALPA SANKAR

PRUKALPA SANKAR

My co-founder Varun and I founded a company called SocialCops which was a data-science-for social-good company. We spent five years building up the company to one of the world’s leading data-for good organizations. We did a lot of work with folks like the United Nations, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, several large governments. That is really where I learnt everything that I learnt about building and running data teams. As soon as we started hitting a little bit of scale at SocialCops, somewhere in 2016, we had this spurt of growth. Over a couple of months, we suddenly went from analysing data for about two million people to 500 million people. The scale was immense, and it just led to a lot of chaos. We realized that there was no way we could scale like this, and that is when we started this internal project that we called the assembly line project. The goal with this assembly line project was basically just to make our data team as agile as possible. We brought transparency at every stage of the life cycle, upskilled at different stages, allowed an analyst to do what an engineer would do. Over a couple of years, we had made our team about six times more agile. At scale, SocialCops built India’s national data platform, which all the members of Parliament, including the prime minister, use today. We were a global partner for the United Nations in their sustainable development goals/programmes, and the only reason we were winning these projects is that we could do in a month what another person would take six months to do. Towards the end of 2018, we realized we had inadvertently ended up building something more powerful than we had earlier intended it to be. The teams were becoming more and more ubiquitous in the organizational fabric. So we said that we would build these tools for our own data team. Is there a way that these tools could help other data teams around the world? And it was with that one question that Atlan (Prukalpa’s current company) was born.

My co-founder Varun and I founded a company called SocialCops which was a data-science-for social-good company. We spent five years building up the company to one of the world’s leading data-for good organizations. We did a lot of work with folks like the United Nations, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, several large governments. That is really where I learnt everything that I learnt about building and running data teams. As soon as we started hitting a little bit of scale at SocialCops, somewhere in 2016, we had this spurt of growth. Over a couple of months, we suddenly went from analysing data for about two million people to 500 million people. The scale was immense, and it just led to a lot of chaos. We realized that there was no way we could scale like this, and that is when we started this internal project that we called the assembly line project. The goal with this assembly line project was basically just to make our data team as agile as possible. We brought transparency at every stage of the life cycle, upskilled at different stages, allowed an analyst to do what an engineer would do. Over a couple of years, we had made our team about six times more agile. At scale, SocialCops built India’s national data platform, which all the members of Parliament, including the prime minister, use today. We were a global partner for the United Nations in their sustainable development goals/programmes, and the only reason we were winning these projects is that we could do in a month what another person would take six months to do. Towards the end of 2018, we realized we had inadvertently ended up building something more powerful than we had earlier intended it to be. The teams were becoming more and more ubiquitous in the organizational fabric. So we said that we would build these tools for our own data team. Is there a way that these tools could help other data teams around the world? And it was with that one question that Atlan (Prukalpa’s current company) was born.

THE RIGHT SCALE HAPPENS WHEN YOU WORK BACKWARDS FROM YOUR EVENTUAL GOAL.

THE RIGHT SCALE HAPPENS WHEN YOU WORK BACKWARDS FROM YOUR EVENTUAL GOAL.

– RITESH ARORA

– RITESH ARORA

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ABHINAV ASTHANA

ABHINAV ASTHANA

From the early days, I sought a well-rounded team whose members would be generally complementary to each other. And I think with my two co-founders, we had a very good mix in that regard from the start. Ankit Sobti brought a wide array of capabilities with him when he joined Postman; he was the most experienced of the group and had worked in big companies. Abhijit Kane was really fast with shipping stuff, and, of course, I was doing what I was doing; I was more a generalist, and I could design and build.

From the early days, I sought a well-rounded team whose members would be generally complementary to each other. And I think with my two co-founders, we had a very good mix in that regard from the start. Ankit Sobti brought a wide array of capabilities with him when he joined Postman; he was the most experienced of the group and had worked in big companies. Abhijit Kane was really fast with shipping stuff, and, of course, I was doing what I was doing; I was more a generalist, and I could design and build.

But, soon after that, our first hire on a contract basis was a graphic/visual designer. We chose a designer because we wanted to get a great brand logo and look. I feel like that is the biggest area that people ignore. Especially with today’s design talent, I typically recommend to people to get a first-rate designer very early on. In this way, we tried to bake design excellence into the DNA of the company.

But, soon after that, our first hire on a contract basis was a graphic/visual designer. We chose a designer because we wanted to get a great brand logo and look. I feel like that is the biggest area that people ignore. Especially with today’s design talent, I typically recommend to people to get a first-rate designer very early on. In this way, we tried to bake design excellence into the DNA of the company.

Next, we looked at our engineering talent. We didn’t have great depth in that area, so we got our chief software architect, Shamasis Bhattacharya, who’s been with us for six years now. He was a key addition.

Next, we looked at our engineering talent. We didn’t have great depth in that area, so we got our chief software architect, Shamasis Bhattacharya, who’s been with us for six years now. He was a key addition.

And that’s how we continued scaling. I would look at our entire team and see what is the next thing that we need. I think we were a 30–40-member company when we got a VP of marketing, then after that, we got a VP of customer success. So each unit was evolving, and that’s how we scaled and grew.

And that’s how we continued scaling. I would look at our entire team and see what is the next thing that we need. I think we were a 30–40-member company when we got a VP of marketing, then after that, we got a VP of customer success. So each unit was evolving, and that’s how we scaled and grew.

RITESH ARORA

RITESH ARORA

The question of scale becomes important once you have achieved product-market fit. You want to reduce the time and put in your best effort to get the product-market fit. You shouldn’t have to do this between two people—you want to put together a team of 10 people and do it. After the product-market fit, if you are not scaling up, you are losing the opportunity of expanding. If you are not scaling up your sales, it means that there are potential customers that you are not reaching out to who can use your products. If you are not scaling up your engineering, that means there is an opportunity of adding more features and you are not doing that. The scale thinking allows you to see what all you are losing, which, given a choice, you wouldn’t want to lose. Now in BrowserStack, the way I think is that my universe is made up of 150,000 potential customers. I don’t tell myself that currently, we have 5,000 users, so now we will go to 8,000— that is incremental thinking. The right scale happens when you work backwards from your eventual goal. My eventual goal is 150,000 so we brainstorm to see what we can do to reach the entire 150,000.

The question of scale becomes important once you have achieved product-market fit. You want to reduce the time and put in your best effort to get the product-market fit. You shouldn’t have to do this between two people—you want to put together a team of 10 people and do it. After the product-market fit, if you are not scaling up, you are losing the opportunity of expanding. If you are not scaling up your sales, it means that there are potential customers that you are not reaching out to who can use your products. If you are not scaling up your engineering, that means there is an opportunity of adding more features and you are not doing that. The scale thinking allows you to see what all you are losing, which, given a choice, you wouldn’t want to lose. Now in BrowserStack, the way I think is that my universe is made up of 150,000 potential customers. I don’t tell myself that currently, we have 5,000 users, so now we will go to 8,000— that is incremental thinking. The right scale happens when you work backwards from your eventual goal. My eventual goal is 150,000 so we brainstorm to see what we can do to reach the entire 150,000.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

Scaling has to do with lots of things: Are you focused enough on iterating? Are you taking the features fast to the market? And are you being very, very frugal about what features you are building and taking to the market in the first phase so you can iterate very quickly? If two people can code, your cost will come down dramatically because the cost of building has come down dramatically. I don’t have to build a huge infrastructure to start coding today. There is a low code platform available. I can actually do PMF on a low-code platform. My daughter was trying to do something; I said, let’s take a low-code platform. Let’s do the PMF on a low-code platform itself. So, there are many options available these days.

Scaling has to do with lots of things: Are you focused enough on iterating? Are you taking the features fast to the market? And are you being very, very frugal about what features you are building and taking to the market in the first phase so you can iterate very quickly? If two people can code, your cost will come down dramatically because the cost of building has come down dramatically. I don’t have to build a huge infrastructure to start coding today. There is a low code platform available. I can actually do PMF on a low-code platform. My daughter was trying to do something; I said, let’s take a low-code platform. Let’s do the PMF on a low-code platform itself. So, there are many options available these days.

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

Every founder should constantly look at a pie chart for the team. A lot of times, the early-day founders can make a mistake where they are taking on too much of the load. Each one is a full-time job; for example, doing pre-sales demos or doing sales calls or doing marketing content or doing development or doing design—these are all full-time jobs. There is only so much a founder can take on. So, you have to identify the departments and maybe you take on a double role or a triple role at first, but then, eventually make sure to bring in people to fit the roles.

Every founder should constantly look at a pie chart for the team. A lot of times, the early-day founders can make a mistake where they are taking on too much of the load. Each one is a full-time job; for example, doing pre-sales demos or doing sales calls or doing marketing content or doing development or doing design—these are all full-time jobs. There is only so much a founder can take on. So, you have to identify the departments and maybe you take on a double role or a triple role at first, but then, eventually make sure to bring in people to fit the roles.

The second phase is when you have mid-level managers for most of the departments (support, HR, facilities, sales, product), but you are still calling all the shots. You are still signing all the offer letters, still deciding the discounts for customers if there are any, and you are still handling customer escalations. That phase will last from anywhere between 30 employees and 500 employees. You don’t have a full-fledged leadership team yet and this is where the third phase

The second phase is when you have mid-level managers for most of the departments (support, HR, facilities, sales, product), but you are still calling all the shots. You are still signing all the offer letters, still deciding the discounts for customers if there are any, and you are still handling customer escalations. That phase will last from anywhere between 30 employees and 500 employees. You don’t have a full-fledged leadership team yet and this is where the third phase

ARE YOU BEING VERY, VERY FRUGAL ABOUT WHAT FEATURES YOU ARE BUILDING AND TAKING TO THE MARKET IN THE FIRST PHASE SO YOU CAN ITERATE VERY QUICKLY?

ARE YOU BEING VERY, VERY FRUGAL ABOUT WHAT FEATURES YOU ARE BUILDING AND TAKING TO THE MARKET IN THE FIRST PHASE SO YOU CAN ITERATE VERY QUICKLY?

– MANAV GARG

– MANAV GARG

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comes in, where you realize that you can’t just keep running day-to-day operations. The key question to ask is, am I the only person who is capable of doing this work, or am I doing it because I only have midlevel managers who turn to me for approval? That is when the third phase kicks in, when you start hiring leaders who will work with you for strategy but will go and run the day-to-day. You are no longer needed for the day-to-day; you can just jump in for the firefighting. There are so many fires which exist every day, you just have to go and focus on the fire of the day, but you are not involved in the day-to-day, and you have the leadership team running the company.

comes in, where you realize that you can’t just keep running day-to-day operations. The key question to ask is, am I the only person who is capable of doing this work, or am I doing it because I only have midlevel managers who turn to me for approval? That is when the third phase kicks in, when you start hiring leaders who will work with you for strategy but will go and run the day-to-day. You are no longer needed for the day-to-day; you can just jump in for the firefighting. There are so many fires which exist every day, you just have to go and focus on the fire of the day, but you are not involved in the day-to-day, and you have the leadership team running the company.

AFTER THE PRODUCT-MARKET FIT, IF YOU ARE NOT SCALING UP, YOU ARE LOSING THE OPPORTUNITY OF EXPANDING. IF YOU ARE NOT SCALING UP YOUR SALES, IT MEANS THAT THERE ARE POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS THAT YOU ARE NOT REACHING OUT TO WHO CAN USE YOUR PRODUCTS. IF YOU ARE NOT SCALING UP YOUR ENGINEERING, THAT MEANS THERE IS AN OPPORTUNITY OF ADDING MORE FEATURES AND YOU ARE NOT DOING THAT.

AFTER THE PRODUCT-MARKET FIT, IF YOU ARE NOT SCALING UP, YOU ARE LOSING THE OPPORTUNITY OF EXPANDING. IF YOU ARE NOT SCALING UP YOUR SALES, IT MEANS THAT THERE ARE POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS THAT YOU ARE NOT REACHING OUT TO WHO CAN USE YOUR PRODUCTS. IF YOU ARE NOT SCALING UP YOUR ENGINEERING, THAT MEANS THERE IS AN OPPORTUNITY OF ADDING MORE FEATURES AND YOU ARE NOT DOING THAT.

– RITESH ARORA, BROWSERSTACK

– RITESH ARORA, BROWSERSTACK

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Most Indian SaaS startups grew out of old friendships. Our successful startup co-founders of today were college friends or roommates in another life. But just as amity between founders has cemented organizational foundations, it has also played a crucial role in arbitrating disagreements from time to time. We asked some SaaS founders how they resolve conflicts and arrive at unanimous decisions without compromising the integrity of their organizations.

Most Indian SaaS startups grew out of old friendships. Our successful startup co-founders of today were college friends or roommates in another life. But just as amity between founders has cemented organizational foundations, it has also played a crucial role in arbitrating disagreements from time to time. We asked some SaaS founders how they resolve conflicts and arrive at unanimous decisions without compromising the integrity of their organizations.

RUSHABH MEHTA

RUSHABH MEHTA

We have a concept called sociocracy: when you get a proposal, you ask for objections, and the goal is to reach a consensus, not a compromise. So every plan we propose to the team, everybody gets to object and they can say we don’t agree or we need more time to think about it. So, sociocracy can also be used when I need to buy more time. It also builds the culture in the organization where everybody thinks they have a say. I think it is very important for us as we are growing as a company to create these layers of management. We also believe in this model where we don’t want to create a company of managers but rather a kind of organization where people have a say.

We have a concept called sociocracy: when you get a proposal, you ask for objections, and the goal is to reach a consensus, not a compromise. So every plan we propose to the team, everybody gets to object and they can say we don’t agree or we need more time to think about it. So, sociocracy can also be used when I need to buy more time. It also builds the culture in the organization where everybody thinks they have a say. I think it is very important for us as we are growing as a company to create these layers of management. We also believe in this model where we don’t want to create a company of managers but rather a kind of organization where people have a say.

ARPIT JAIN

ARPIT JAIN

That’s an interesting question and something that I think is unique at SplashLearn. I’ve often heard people discuss the “ideal number of founders” needed for a startup and most say there should be no more than two. We are four founders, and I think that having the luxury of these different points of view has been critical to our success.

That’s an interesting question and something that I think is unique at SplashLearn. I’ve often heard people discuss the “ideal number of founders” needed for a startup and most say there should be no more than two. We are four founders, and I think that having the luxury of these different points of view has been critical to our success.

Conflicts are essential for good ideas to emerge;

Conflicts are essential for good ideas to emerge;

WHEN YOU GET A PROPOSAL, YOU ASK FOR OBJECTIONS, AND THE GOAL IS TO REACH A CONSENSUS, NOT A COMPROMISE.

WHEN YOU GET A PROPOSAL, YOU ASK FOR OBJECTIONS, AND THE GOAL IS TO REACH A CONSENSUS, NOT A COMPROMISE.

— RUSHABH MEHTA

— RUSHABH MEHTA

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what has worked for us is that all four of us bring a unique opinion to the table, but at the core, we share the same values and the same goal. Not only that, since we’ve known each other since college, there is a high level of trust, and all of us believe in each other’s potential.

what has worked for us is that all four of us bring a unique opinion to the table, but at the core, we share the same values and the same goal. Not only that, since we’ve known each other since college, there is a high level of trust, and all of us believe in each other’s potential.

We’ve also evolved since we started the company. All four of us started out coding, and over the years, we’ve moved into our current roles. We’re now responsible and accountable for our individual domains. If there’s a difference of opinion, we defer to the person who has been working with that domain day in and day out.

We’ve also evolved since we started the company. All four of us started out coding, and over the years, we’ve moved into our current roles. We’re now responsible and accountable for our individual domains. If there’s a difference of opinion, we defer to the person who has been working with that domain day in and day out.

UMANG JAIN

UMANG JAIN

We’ve been quite lucky in this regard. Having multiple founders (SplashLearn has four) can add a lot of value if they have the same value system but slightly different skill sets and different points of view. This ensures that every problem is analyzed from different angles. There is a greater chance of getting to an optimal solution.

We’ve been quite lucky in this regard. Having multiple founders (SplashLearn has four) can add a lot of value if they have the same value system but slightly different skill sets and different points of view. This ensures that every problem is analyzed from different angles. There is a greater chance of getting to an optimal solution.

Of course, we have conflicts and differences of opinion, and that to me is a great thing, I would not have it any other way. Each of us realizes that there is no individual glory here. So we focus on working towards the most important thing, which is creating a positive impact through this company. We may have slightly different ways of arriving at the end goal, but that’s okay, that helps us find the most effective way.

Of course, we have conflicts and differences of opinion, and that to me is a great thing, I would not have it any other way. Each of us realizes that there is no individual glory here. So we focus on working towards the most important thing, which is creating a positive impact through this company. We may have slightly different ways of arriving at the end goal, but that’s okay, that helps us find the most effective way.

SAKSHI TULSIAN

SAKSHI TULSIAN

For any startup, for anything to work, the chemistry between whosoever is running the show is very important. I personally feel respect for each other’s work and skills is important for chemistry to work. In our case, we have been successful in identifying the strengths and weaknesses on both sides from day one. I am good with operations and management and a bit more organized than Ashish [Sakshi’s partner and co-founder at POSist], so that is the part which I have been taking up in POSist. Ashish on the other hand has been great with his strategies, his thinking, getting opportunities for the company, thinking ahead of time, and that is something I admire in him. We are constantly

For any startup, for anything to work, the chemistry between whosoever is running the show is very important. I personally feel respect for each other’s work and skills is important for chemistry to work. In our case, we have been successful in identifying the strengths and weaknesses on both sides from day one. I am good with operations and management and a bit more organized than Ashish [Sakshi’s partner and co-founder at POSist], so that is the part which I have been taking up in POSist. Ashish on the other hand has been great with his strategies, his thinking, getting opportunities for the company, thinking ahead of time, and that is something I admire in him. We are constantly

OF COURSE, WE HAVE CONFLICTS AND DIFFERENCES OF OPINION AND THAT TO ME IS A GREAT THING, I WOULD NOT HAVE IT ANY OTHER WAY. EACH OF US REALIZES THAT THERE IS NO INDIVIDUAL GLORY HERE. SO WE FOCUS ON WORKING TOWARDS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING, WHICH IS CREATING A POSITIVE IMPACT THROUGH THIS COMPANY. WE MAY HAVE SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT WAYS OF ARRIVING AT THE END GOAL, BUT THAT’S OKAY, THAT HELPS US FIND THE MOST EFFECTIVE WAY.

OF COURSE, WE HAVE CONFLICTS AND DIFFERENCES OF OPINION AND THAT TO ME IS A GREAT THING, I WOULD NOT HAVE IT ANY OTHER WAY. EACH OF US REALIZES THAT THERE IS NO INDIVIDUAL GLORY HERE. SO WE FOCUS ON WORKING TOWARDS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING, WHICH IS CREATING A POSITIVE IMPACT THROUGH THIS COMPANY. WE MAY HAVE SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT WAYS OF ARRIVING AT THE END GOAL, BUT THAT’S OKAY, THAT HELPS US FIND THE MOST EFFECTIVE WAY.

— UMANG JAIN

— UMANG JAIN

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learning from each other. There are times when we have had a difference of opinion while trying to solve a problem, but I think that at that point in time, the direction can be different, but the goal has to be the same. It is important to keep our egos aside and think about what is best for the company and not for us. If the company will do good, the startup will do good, and I think all of us should do good.

learning from each other. There are times when we have had a difference of opinion while trying to solve a problem, but I think that at that point in time, the direction can be different, but the goal has to be the same. It is important to keep our egos aside and think about what is best for the company and not for us. If the company will do good, the startup will do good, and I think all of us should do good.

PARAS CHOPRA

PARAS CHOPRA

As founders, we have been lucky to share a substantial part of our value system. There are a couple of points which we fundamentally agree very strongly with and that helps us have a lot of disagreements [on other points] but because we share the value system, we know that regardless of the disagreements and discussions we are having, we are moving towards the same end goal. That value system really boils down to belief in great work and the belief that discussions are how you bring the best out of anything. I genuinely believe that I get much better ideas when I talk to Sparsh [Gupta, co-founder]. I actively look forward to Sparsh’s inputs and disagreements to ensure that I am not stuck in some cognitive bias, in my own egoistic thinking that I know everything, and this is how things will have to be. I don’t remember having any discussion where we ended up at opposite ends of the spectrum. We both believe that if two rational people are arguing over data, logic, first principles thinking, ultimately they should be able to come to a common answer and that is what has worked for us.

As founders, we have been lucky to share a substantial part of our value system. There are a couple of points which we fundamentally agree very strongly with and that helps us have a lot of disagreements [on other points] but because we share the value system, we know that regardless of the disagreements and discussions we are having, we are moving towards the same end goal. That value system really boils down to belief in great work and the belief that discussions are how you bring the best out of anything. I genuinely believe that I get much better ideas when I talk to Sparsh [Gupta, co-founder]. I actively look forward to Sparsh’s inputs and disagreements to ensure that I am not stuck in some cognitive bias, in my own egoistic thinking that I know everything, and this is how things will have to be. I don’t remember having any discussion where we ended up at opposite ends of the spectrum. We both believe that if two rational people are arguing over data, logic, first principles thinking, ultimately they should be able to come to a common answer and that is what has worked for us.

SRIDHAR VEMBU

SRIDHAR VEMBU

There are some 100–120 independent teams here at Zoho. Those teams are run by somebody, and that somebody has to have the passion and the commitment that is communicated to the team. It’s not always perfect! People always have their differences, and no two people can ever agree on everything. The execution will vary by team, and that is perfectly fine. Different people operate differently. But we agree on some core things: things like, why are we here? Why are they [team members] here? There is an underlined philosophical agreement on those. But overall, all those variations are very much part of the Zoho experience.

There are some 100–120 independent teams here at Zoho. Those teams are run by somebody, and that somebody has to have the passion and the commitment that is communicated to the team. It’s not always perfect! People always have their differences, and no two people can ever agree on everything. The execution will vary by team, and that is perfectly fine. Different people operate differently. But we agree on some core things: things like, why are we here? Why are they [team members] here? There is an underlined philosophical agreement on those. But overall, all those variations are very much part of the Zoho experience.

IT IS IMPORTANT TO KEEP OUR EGOS ASIDE AND THINK ABOUT WHAT IS BEST FOR THE COMPANY AND NOT FOR US.

IT IS IMPORTANT TO KEEP OUR EGOS ASIDE AND THINK ABOUT WHAT IS BEST FOR THE COMPANY AND NOT FOR US.

— SAKSHI TULSIAN

— SAKSHI TULSIAN

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ELAD GIL

ELAD GIL

The number one reason there are co-founder conflicts is that nobody is actually in charge. One of the pieces of advice commonly given—that I actually think is in some ways bad advice—is that you always need an “equal” co-founder. I think people need to divorce equality in terms of equity from equality and in terms of decision-making. I think to have a company really succeed, you need somebody who is clearly in charge, whether the equity is split equally or not. Clearly in charge could just mean they have a final vote. They could still make a lot of decisions together and everything else but, ultimately, if there is a fork in the road, you need somebody who can make that call in terms of which branch to take. In general, being able to divide up roles and responsibilities early is a good idea for almost any form of human partnership in life.

The number one reason there are co-founder conflicts is that nobody is actually in charge. One of the pieces of advice commonly given—that I actually think is in some ways bad advice—is that you always need an “equal” co-founder. I think people need to divorce equality in terms of equity from equality and in terms of decision-making. I think to have a company really succeed, you need somebody who is clearly in charge, whether the equity is split equally or not. Clearly in charge could just mean they have a final vote. They could still make a lot of decisions together and everything else but, ultimately, if there is a fork in the road, you need somebody who can make that call in terms of which branch to take. In general, being able to divide up roles and responsibilities early is a good idea for almost any form of human partnership in life.

TANMAI GOPAL

TANMAI GOPAL

It depends on the nature of the disagreement. Fundamentally, resolving a conflict or a difference of opinion in a way that keeps everyone happy and energized to keep going can only happen by having the company and product vision in alignment, and by principled decision-making so that there is fairness built-in into the fabric of the company.

It depends on the nature of the disagreement. Fundamentally, resolving a conflict or a difference of opinion in a way that keeps everyone happy and energized to keep going can only happen by having the company and product vision in alignment, and by principled decision-making so that there is fairness built-in into the fabric of the company.

This is essentially a better way of saying, let’s everyone try to be on the same page. In the early days, this is very hard to do, because things are so chaotic, and things move so quickly. So the vision of what the team wants and why they’re doing it becomes really important, and the nature of decision-making becomes very important. What has helped us then and what continues to help us evolve rapidly is alignment on the why we’re doing what we’re doing and having extreme amounts of empathy for each other.

This is essentially a better way of saying, let’s everyone try to be on the same page. In the early days, this is very hard to do, because things are so chaotic, and things move so quickly. So the vision of what the team wants and why they’re doing it becomes really important, and the nature of decision-making becomes very important. What has helped us then and what continues to help us evolve rapidly is alignment on the why we’re doing what we’re doing and having extreme amounts of empathy for each other.

We have reached a size now where formally codifying our principles is becoming important. This allows decision-making to be federated to all functions and at all levels across the company which is a necessary element for creating a culture of ownership and accountability.

We have reached a size now where formally codifying our principles is becoming important. This allows decision-making to be federated to all functions and at all levels across the company which is a necessary element for creating a culture of ownership and accountability.

*Sridhar Vembu comments are from the Outliers Podcast hosted by Pankaj Mishra ©️SourceCode Media Private Limited

*Sridhar Vembu comments are from the Outliers Podcast hosted by Pankaj Mishra ©️SourceCode Media Private Limited

I THINK PEOPLE NEED TO DIVORCE EQUALITY IN TERMS OF EQUITY FROM EQUALITY AND IN TERMS OF DECISION-MAKING.

I THINK PEOPLE NEED TO DIVORCE EQUALITY IN TERMS OF EQUITY FROM EQUALITY AND IN TERMS OF DECISION-MAKING.

– ELAD GILL

– ELAD GILL

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The culture of an organization is its most unique feature. The founders may have a set of expectations going in about how to build their company, but for the most part, the company’s culture develops organically. The following excerpts offer a glimpse into how founders identified their company’s core values and the practices that help them observe these principles every day.

The culture of an organization is its most unique feature. The founders may have a set of expectations going in about how to build their company, but for the most part, the company’s culture develops organically. The following excerpts offer a glimpse into how founders identified their company’s core values and the practices that help them observe these principles every day.

RUSHABH MEHTA

RUSHABH MEHTA

I realized everyone stumbles at 30. So, once you hit 30 people, some people get left out of conversations; for whatever logistical reasons, it changes everything. This last year was just about building the company; it was less about building the product or making money and more about ensuring everybody in the organization is part of the conversation. We try to ensure that people don’t feel decisions are arbitrary; they feel they have a say in how things are run.

I realized everyone stumbles at 30. So, once you hit 30 people, some people get left out of conversations; for whatever logistical reasons, it changes everything. This last year was just about building the company; it was less about building the product or making money and more about ensuring everybody in the organization is part of the conversation. We try to ensure that people don’t feel decisions are arbitrary; they feel they have a say in how things are run.

MONISH DARDA

MONISH DARDA

One of the first things we did in Icertis was to set up our framework of values. We called it FORTE —Fairness, Openness, Respect, Teamwork, and Execution. But what was more important was our learning from previous experiences. Rather than picking up these values and putting them up on the wall, we asked ourselves, “Where do we fail while implementing these values in business?” It became a great exercise. Every time we have our biannual planning sessions, we do this with the whole team to see where we failed in the last six months; it is always an eye-opening experience.

One of the first things we did in Icertis was to set up our framework of values. We called it FORTE —Fairness, Openness, Respect, Teamwork, and Execution. But what was more important was our learning from previous experiences. Rather than picking up these values and putting them up on the wall, we asked ourselves, “Where do we fail while implementing these values in business?” It became a great exercise. Every time we have our biannual planning sessions, we do this with the whole team to see where we failed in the last six months; it is always an eye-opening experience.

Values define culture—if the values are strong,

Values define culture—if the values are strong,

ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS WE DID IN ICERTIS WAS TO SET UP OUR FRAMEWORK OF VALUES. WE CALLED IT FORTE—FAIRNESS, OPENNESS, RESPECT, TEAMWORK, AND EXECUTION.

ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS WE DID IN ICERTIS WAS TO SET UP OUR FRAMEWORK OF VALUES. WE CALLED IT FORTE—FAIRNESS, OPENNESS, RESPECT, TEAMWORK, AND EXECUTION.

— MONISH DARDA

— MONISH DARDA

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and your hiring, onboarding, and career progression emphasizes and enhances those values, the company’s culture gets built automatically. We arrived at our values from the synthesis of our experiences as founders—but defining the culture in the Icertis way—it needs the whole village!

and your hiring, onboarding, and career progression emphasizes and enhances those values, the company’s culture gets built automatically. We arrived at our values from the synthesis of our experiences as founders—but defining the culture in the Icertis way—it needs the whole village!

ARPIT JAIN

ARPIT JAIN

The word that defines the culture at SplashLearn is openness. It sounds deceptively simple, but it takes time and effort to achieve it. In the first couple of years, we used to be wary about sharing certain details with the larger team. Over time, we realized a startup journey is like a roller-coaster ride, and your team is your seat belt. On this ride, you need to ensure that your seat belt is tight and steady, and the only way that can happen is with trust.

The word that defines the culture at SplashLearn is openness. It sounds deceptively simple, but it takes time and effort to achieve it. In the first couple of years, we used to be wary about sharing certain details with the larger team. Over time, we realized a startup journey is like a roller-coaster ride, and your team is your seat belt. On this ride, you need to ensure that your seat belt is tight and steady, and the only way that can happen is with trust.

Now, we try to be open about where we are going as a company, our numbers, and even our challenges. Once you’re willing to be open and vulnerable, you’ll notice a definite boost in the level of trust within the team.

Now, we try to be open about where we are going as a company, our numbers, and even our challenges. Once you’re willing to be open and vulnerable, you’ll notice a definite boost in the level of trust within the team.

So we lay a lot of emphasis on ensuring there’s a high level of transparency and everyone knows the big picture because team alignment is one of the most crucial ingredients needed for the success of any company. If the team doesn’t trust you, you’ll find it hard to grow as a company.

So we lay a lot of emphasis on ensuring there’s a high level of transparency and everyone knows the big picture because team alignment is one of the most crucial ingredients needed for the success of any company. If the team doesn’t trust you, you’ll find it hard to grow as a company.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

Whatever your personality, that tends to be the culture of the organization in the early days. If you come to the office every day at 11 a.m., you will see everyone coming at 11 a.m. If you are not very disciplined about your work, and you are a more creative person, then you will see that everyone will start following that. Entrepreneurs will need to understand that they inaugurate the organization’s culture when they start. People look up to them. The day you start the company, you are already on a pedestal. Everybody who is joining you is backing 

Whatever your personality, that tends to be the culture of the organization in the early days. If you come to the office every day at 11 a.m., you will see everyone coming at 11 a.m. If you are not very disciplined about your work, and you are a more creative person, then you will see that everyone will start following that. Entrepreneurs will need to understand that they inaugurate the organization’s culture when they start. People look up to them. The day you start the company, you are already on a pedestal. Everybody who is joining you is backing 

TEAM ALIGNMENT IS ONE OF THE MOST CRUCIAL INGREDIENTS NEEDED FOR THE SUCCESS OF ANY COMPANY.

TEAM ALIGNMENT IS ONE OF THE MOST CRUCIAL INGREDIENTS NEEDED FOR THE SUCCESS OF ANY COMPANY.

– ARPIT JAIN

– ARPIT JAIN

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your dream and taking a disproportionate amount of risk alongside you. So, whatever you do, people will follow you, and that defines the culture of the organization, which becomes very difficult to change later on. Obviously, you can change a lot of things as you scale with money and everything else, but the beginning trend gets deeply ingrained in the organization’s culture.

your dream and taking a disproportionate amount of risk alongside you. So, whatever you do, people will follow you, and that defines the culture of the organization, which becomes very difficult to change later on. Obviously, you can change a lot of things as you scale with money and everything else, but the beginning trend gets deeply ingrained in the organization’s culture.

ABHINAV SHASHANK

ABHINAV SHASHANK

We have just collected at all points people around us who are so much better than us, period. If you get that, you are always learning. As an entrepreneur, people basically start thinking that you are somehow more important and better at doing everything than everyone else because you created the company. The day you start feeling that, you are basically on a downhill. If you are not aligning yourself in having people around you who you know are better than you in everything that you do, you are not going to build a great business—and that has been a very core belief. Hopefully, we have been successful in doing that over a period of time. We have put so much time and effort and energy into getting this world-class team around us that even if we become a $10 billion revenue company, they will be great. Just be genuine. People underestimate the power of genuine intent and belief. If you really believe in the fact that you can change the world, you truly can.

We have just collected at all points people around us who are so much better than us, period. If you get that, you are always learning. As an entrepreneur, people basically start thinking that you are somehow more important and better at doing everything than everyone else because you created the company. The day you start feeling that, you are basically on a downhill. If you are not aligning yourself in having people around you who you know are better than you in everything that you do, you are not going to build a great business—and that has been a very core belief. Hopefully, we have been successful in doing that over a period of time. We have put so much time and effort and energy into getting this world-class team around us that even if we become a $10 billion revenue company, they will be great. Just be genuine. People underestimate the power of genuine intent and belief. If you really believe in the fact that you can change the world, you truly can.

SURESH SAMBANDAN

SURESH SAMBANDAN

If you ask me about culture, I cannot avoid mentioning two important things. One is Hewlett Packard (HP), my first company. HP taught me how to treat employees and how to build a great culture. Let me quote an example. HP used to have a personal loan for employees and my limit was Rs 5 lakh. This was in 1997; at the time, 5 lakh was a lot of money—I guess 5 lakh is a lot of money even in 2021!. I emailed my manager, Mathiazhagan, at 11 a.m. and he approved and cc’d HR and Finance. At 3.05 or 3.10 p.m., the money was sitting in my bank account. No paperwork, no signature needed anywhere, nothing, just one email. They truly trusted their employees, and it was a fantastic experience. Ayee Goundan, who was my boss in the next company and a godfather-like figure to me, once said something similar to the effect of, “Trust is not about honesty or just being truthful; trust is like a double-sided coin. You need to have competence and character.” These kinds of core concepts I understood very deeply and internalized through the time I spent in HP and Selectica.

If you ask me about culture, I cannot avoid mentioning two important things. One is Hewlett Packard (HP), my first company. HP taught me how to treat employees and how to build a great culture. Let me quote an example. HP used to have a personal loan for employees and my limit was Rs 5 lakh. This was in 1997; at the time, 5 lakh was a lot of money—I guess 5 lakh is a lot of money even in 2021!. I emailed my manager, Mathiazhagan, at 11 a.m. and he approved and cc’d HR and Finance. At 3.05 or 3.10 p.m., the money was sitting in my bank account. No paperwork, no signature needed anywhere, nothing, just one email. They truly trusted their employees, and it was a fantastic experience. Ayee Goundan, who was my boss in the next company and a godfather-like figure to me, once said something similar to the effect of, “Trust is not about honesty or just being truthful; trust is like a double-sided coin. You need to have competence and character.” These kinds of core concepts I understood very deeply and internalized through the time I spent in HP and Selectica.

Now, every week at Kissflow, we have an all-hands meeting and we call that program G2G: Good to Great. We meet every single Friday from 5.30–6.30, even during these corona times, we do it using Google Meet. All employees share their experience in G2G. At Kissflow, we also built a continuous learning program for the core group of 50 middle managers. We called this program OrangeScape Leadership Program, OLP for short. Every month we meet for half a day in a five- or four-star hotel, start at 4 p.m., go through the leadership topics, spend time together, finish at eight in the evening, have drinks and dinner and then go home. And then twice a year we do an all-company outing, bonding and building relationships with the rest of the company . . . and recently we ran a program called 5 Seeds of Power which is about how internally employees can unleash their personality and how you can combine people’s personalities together and then have a great working environment.

Now, every week at Kissflow, we have an all-hands meeting and we call that program G2G: Good to Great. We meet every single Friday from 5.30–6.30, even during these corona times, we do it using Google Meet. All employees share their experience in G2G. At Kissflow, we also built a continuous learning program for the core group of 50 middle managers. We called this program OrangeScape Leadership Program, OLP for short. Every month we meet for half a day in a five- or four-star hotel, start at 4 p.m., go through the leadership topics, spend time together, finish at eight in the evening, have drinks and dinner and then go home. And then twice a year we do an all-company outing, bonding and building relationships with the rest of the company . . . and recently we ran a program called 5 Seeds of Power which is about how internally employees can unleash their personality and how you can combine people’s personalities together and then have a great working environment.

We invest a lot in culture, in fact, we have a dedicated person with the title ‘Culture Shepherd’. He finished his Ph.D. in organizational behavior from IIT Madras. He came on board . . . and he’s been with us for the last three or four years now, and he primarily focuses on Kissflow’s culture. That is his full-time job. We take culture pretty seriously, and we have invested money, effort, and energy heavily in building the company’s culture.

We invest a lot in culture, in fact, we have a dedicated person with the title ‘Culture Shepherd’. He finished his Ph.D. in organizational behavior from IIT Madras. He came on board . . . and he’s been with us for the last three or four years now, and he primarily focuses on Kissflow’s culture. That is his full-time job. We take culture pretty seriously, and we have invested money, effort, and energy heavily in building the company’s culture.

SRIDHAR VEMBU

SRIDHAR VEMBU

Unless we can create world-class products and world-class companies here in India, we will never have world-class incomes or healthcare, or any of that. At the microeconomic level, we don’t have enough skilled workforce. This is because we keep exporting skilled people and cannot deepen the skill set; we don’t have enough people who train in those skills. Simply saying “we have colleges” is not enough because you cannot teach a person how to build an MRI machine in a college; you have to learn by doing it. There are some

Unless we can create world-class products and world-class companies here in India, we will never have world-class incomes or healthcare, or any of that. At the microeconomic level, we don’t have enough skilled workforce. This is because we keep exporting skilled people and cannot deepen the skill set; we don’t have enough people who train in those skills. Simply saying “we have colleges” is not enough because you cannot teach a person how to build an MRI machine in a college; you have to learn by doing it. There are some

THE VISION FOR ZOHO HAS ALWAYS BEEN TO FIND OUT WAYS TO TAKE THE TALENT POOL AND DO SOMETHING WORTHWHILE WITH IT.

THE VISION FOR ZOHO HAS ALWAYS BEEN TO FIND OUT WAYS TO TAKE THE TALENT POOL AND DO SOMETHING WORTHWHILE WITH IT.

— SRIDHAR VEMBU

— SRIDHAR VEMBU

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core concepts, but ultimately, it has to come from the deeper process of doing it. We cannot just consume without producing anything, and we have not created enough such companies here.

core concepts, but ultimately, it has to come from the deeper process of doing it. We cannot just consume without producing anything, and we have not created enough such companies here.

We want Zoho to be that company in software and technology. The vision for Zoho has always been to find out ways to take the talent pool and do something worthwhile with it. That is why Zoho exists. If you see our product portfolio, you will see that we don’t feel bound by a particular market or a product. Rather, we ask ourselves: given our resources and financial and managerial skills, what can we do with the talent pool? If we feel that there is an opportunity in a market where we can employ our talent well and have the financial resources to compete, we do that.

We want Zoho to be that company in software and technology. The vision for Zoho has always been to find out ways to take the talent pool and do something worthwhile with it. That is why Zoho exists. If you see our product portfolio, you will see that we don’t feel bound by a particular market or a product. Rather, we ask ourselves: given our resources and financial and managerial skills, what can we do with the talent pool? If we feel that there is an opportunity in a market where we can employ our talent well and have the financial resources to compete, we do that.

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

The crisis is a great time for a company in terms of building culture, for it brings people together. The whole idea is to connect with folks, to actually explain to them what I am thinking right now and ask them what they are seeing in their function, in their region, in their roles and try to focus on the positivity. The only mistake founders can make is not having a survival plan and assuming that the good times will come back soon. If they come, we are all happy, but if they don’t, you have to be ready. Make sure that you have a survival plan and then focus on how you can emerge stronger when the crisis is over. Focus on leading with positivity, focus on finding those opportunities, and also talking to customers, talking to employees. It’s a great time to connect. I would say as a CEO I spent more time with my employees in two to three weeks in March (during the 2020 lockdown) than I probably did in all of 2019. So, I think it’s a great opportunity to connect. These tough times actually bring people together. There are so many employees who actually offered to me saying, we will take a pay cut, we know what you are going through and so we want to also do that. I told them, it’s not come to that yet but thank you for the offer. If we need it, I’ll come and ask you but right now we don’t have to do that. So, I think it was very gratifying to hear that from employees, and you know how people are feeling connected to the company. It’s a great opportunity to bond with people in times of crisis also.

The crisis is a great time for a company in terms of building culture, for it brings people together. The whole idea is to connect with folks, to actually explain to them what I am thinking right now and ask them what they are seeing in their function, in their region, in their roles and try to focus on the positivity. The only mistake founders can make is not having a survival plan and assuming that the good times will come back soon. If they come, we are all happy, but if they don’t, you have to be ready. Make sure that you have a survival plan and then focus on how you can emerge stronger when the crisis is over. Focus on leading with positivity, focus on finding those opportunities, and also talking to customers, talking to employees. It’s a great time to connect. I would say as a CEO I spent more time with my employees in two to three weeks in March (during the 2020 lockdown) than I probably did in all of 2019. So, I think it’s a great opportunity to connect. These tough times actually bring people together. There are so many employees who actually offered to me saying, we will take a pay cut, we know what you are going through and so we want to also do that. I told them, it’s not come to that yet but thank you for the offer. If we need it, I’ll come and ask you but right now we don’t have to do that. So, I think it was very gratifying to hear that from employees, and you know how people are feeling connected to the company. It’s a great opportunity to bond with people in times of crisis also.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

KEY TAKEAWAYS

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*Sridhar Vembu comments are from the Outliers Podcast hosted by Pankaj Mishra ©️SourceCode Media Private Limited

*Sridhar Vembu comments are from the Outliers Podcast hosted by Pankaj Mishra ©️SourceCode Media Private Limited

The early days of the startup are a difficult time when you feel like you are being pulled in all directions. This could either be the most exciting time in your career or perhaps the most doomed one. A lot of it actually depends on whom you pick as your early hires. Most successful SaaS startups in India started out with four or five members who donned several hats in the formative years of the company. Rumour has it that on any given day, these “Jacks-of-all-trades” could pull off product, design, finance and sales responsibilities with equal elan! We asked founders what they looked for in their early recruits, so you may have some idea when you hire yours!

The early days of the startup are a difficult time when you feel like you are being pulled in all directions. This could either be the most exciting time in your career or perhaps the most doomed one. A lot of it actually depends on whom you pick as your early hires. Most successful SaaS startups in India started out with four or five members who donned several hats in the formative years of the company. Rumour has it that on any given day, these “Jacks-of-all-trades” could pull off product, design, finance and sales responsibilities with equal elan! We asked founders what they looked for in their early recruits, so you may have some idea when you hire yours!

RUSHABH MEHTA

RUSHABH MEHTA

We were a very small team for a very long time. We were probably 15 people two years ago. So, we were kind of in that phase of building the company where we only hired as many as we could fund ourselves and then we hired freshers. I think it is amazing that we try to hire freshers and build them up rather than hiring and throwing money at lateral hires. Since we are not funded, we have very limited options, and they work for us somehow.

We were a very small team for a very long time. We were probably 15 people two years ago. So, we were kind of in that phase of building the company where we only hired as many as we could fund ourselves and then we hired freshers. I think it is amazing that we try to hire freshers and build them up rather than hiring and throwing money at lateral hires. Since we are not funded, we have very limited options, and they work for us somehow.

We have decided we will never be a company with sales targets and sales incentives because that kind of corrupts the model and becomes entirely outcomedriven. So, we hire and give out salaries based on

We have decided we will never be a company with sales targets and sales incentives because that kind of corrupts the model and becomes entirely outcomedriven. So, we hire and give out salaries based on

WE TRY TO HIRE FRESHERS AND BUILD THEM UP RATHER THAN HIRING AND THROWING MONEY AT LATERAL HIRES.

WE TRY TO HIRE FRESHERS AND BUILD THEM UP RATHER THAN HIRING AND THROWING MONEY AT LATERAL HIRES.

– RUSHABH MEHTA

– RUSHABH MEHTA

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how we perform, rather than working the other way around where you target something and then aspire for that.

how we perform, rather than working the other way around where you target something and then aspire for that.

MONISH DARDA

MONISH DARDA

We have always been about building a team top-down as opposed to bottom-up. Bottom-up is also good at some point, but at the beginning, you think about building a team top-down. That actually makes it very interesting because you end up hiring the right leaders and then you can scale much faster because you are delegating a lot of that stuff that you need to focus on when you are smaller, and of course, you have to have the revenue to back it up because leaders come expensive. Senior people are expensive, but with the right kind of options and a mix and a network to go with it and the right values and the right value proposition for the company, you can hope to build it, and that’s what we did.

We have always been about building a team top-down as opposed to bottom-up. Bottom-up is also good at some point, but at the beginning, you think about building a team top-down. That actually makes it very interesting because you end up hiring the right leaders and then you can scale much faster because you are delegating a lot of that stuff that you need to focus on when you are smaller, and of course, you have to have the revenue to back it up because leaders come expensive. Senior people are expensive, but with the right kind of options and a mix and a network to go with it and the right values and the right value proposition for the company, you can hope to build it, and that’s what we did.

Startups have their own life cycle (not just contracts), and it needs to be managed. For us, when we started, the business needed:

Startups have their own life cycle (not just contracts), and it needs to be managed. For us, when we started, the business needed:

(a) Good business analysts—people who could work with a customer to create a solution

(a) Good business analysts—people who could work with a customer to create a solution

(b) Good UX leads that could help build a great user experience, one of our differentiators

(b) Good UX leads that could help build a great user experience, one of our differentiators

(c) Deep engineering expertise because we were building on a technology that was bleeding edge—Azure didn’t even have its name then!

(c) Deep engineering expertise because we were building on a technology that was bleeding edge—Azure didn’t even have its name then!

The keyword here is “the business needed”, not what the founders needed! Our decisions were based on what our customers were looking for, and we hired for them, not for us! So that is where we started!

The keyword here is “the business needed”, not what the founders needed! Our decisions were based on what our customers were looking for, and we hired for them, not for us! So that is where we started!

PRUKALPA SANKAR

PRUKALPA SANKAR

My co-founder Varun and I actually started out at the age of 21 as entrepreneurs. We, at that point, founded a company called SocialCops which was a data-science-for-social-good company. This was in our final year at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore. Our mission was to solve world problems through data science. We said that there are problems like national-level healthcare and poverty alleviation programs. They don’t seem to be using data the way they should, and if they use data, the world is most likely going to be a better place. That is how we started the company.

My co-founder Varun and I actually started out at the age of 21 as entrepreneurs. We, at that point, founded a company called SocialCops which was a data-science-for-social-good company. This was in our final year at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore. Our mission was to solve world problems through data science. We said that there are problems like national-level healthcare and poverty alleviation programs. They don’t seem to be using data the way they should, and if they use data, the world is most likely going to be a better place. That is how we started the company.

ABHINAV ASTHANA

ABHINAV ASTHANA

When it comes to org building in general, here’s a top concern for me: I think companies don’t spend enough on training managers. I feel that getting well-trained, creative management is a huge issue. Companies need to get results while also exercising the creativity of people, and it can be really difficult for an org to get there.

When it comes to org building in general, here’s a top concern for me: I think companies don’t spend enough on training managers. I feel that getting well-trained, creative management is a huge issue. Companies need to get results while also exercising the creativity of people, and it can be really difficult for an org to get there.

If you are building a global SaaS company, you want to prevent the talent from going out. That is one big area which needs change. I would like to see people coming out of top colleges in India saying, “I want to start a company here in India or work for a company here in India.” That would be a key marker. If that’s not happening, then the talent is flowing elsewhere, or someone else is taking the value of that talent.

If you are building a global SaaS company, you want to prevent the talent from going out. That is one big area which needs change. I would like to see people coming out of top colleges in India saying, “I want to start a company here in India or work for a company here in India.” That would be a key marker. If that’s not happening, then the talent is flowing elsewhere, or someone else is taking the value of that talent.

IN TERMS OF THE STRUCTURE AND PROCESSES OF AN ORGANIZATION, YOU SHOULD BE JUST A LITTLE BIT AHEAD.

IN TERMS OF THE STRUCTURE AND PROCESSES OF AN ORGANIZATION, YOU SHOULD BE JUST A LITTLE BIT AHEAD.

– BHARAT GOENKA

– BHARAT GOENKA

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BHARAT GOENKA

BHARAT GOENKA

I think the biggest mistake people tend to make is that they structure themselves too soon. You look at “successful” companies and you somehow feel that their structure has been the cause of their success, and you should adopt their structure. But it is actually the reverse. These companies built their structure as they grew; the structure was not the cause of their growth. In terms of the structure and processes of an organization, you should be just a little bit ahead. In fact, barely 6–12 months ahead of your planned capacity of people, you should not build structure and processes for a 50-person organization when you are ten people.

I think the biggest mistake people tend to make is that they structure themselves too soon. You look at “successful” companies and you somehow feel that their structure has been the cause of their success, and you should adopt their structure. But it is actually the reverse. These companies built their structure as they grew; the structure was not the cause of their growth. In terms of the structure and processes of an organization, you should be just a little bit ahead. In fact, barely 6–12 months ahead of your planned capacity of people, you should not build structure and processes for a 50-person organization when you are ten people.

TANMAI GOPAL

TANMAI GOPAL

Getting into the org building mindset and the company building mindset, from an early-stage product and engineering mindset, requires a little bit of a phase shift. The only way to go through that phase shift is to do it. So doing that sooner than later is always helpful, but without compromising on the product and engineering mindset that is necessary in the early days to build “the world’s best product”. So, we would have tried to maybe accelerate that a little bit I think. That would have really helped. As a first-time founder, it’s hard to get the timing right. It’s also hard because you might not have the prior experience or skills that are required for the next phase of the company, so continuously making yourself a little uncomfortable, being ruthlessly objective about what is best for the users/customers and best for the company helps in getting a sense of that timing.

Getting into the org building mindset and the company building mindset, from an early-stage product and engineering mindset, requires a little bit of a phase shift. The only way to go through that phase shift is to do it. So doing that sooner than later is always helpful, but without compromising on the product and engineering mindset that is necessary in the early days to build “the world’s best product”. So, we would have tried to maybe accelerate that a little bit I think. That would have really helped. As a first-time founder, it’s hard to get the timing right. It’s also hard because you might not have the prior experience or skills that are required for the next phase of the company, so continuously making yourself a little uncomfortable, being ruthlessly objective about what is best for the users/customers and best for the company helps in getting a sense of that timing.

Enforcing structure and processes too early can cause friction to the process of growth so making it align with (and ideally amplify) the growth you’re naturally getting from your market and your customers are critical. So I like to think of this as building the world’s best product, establishing the earliest of GTM motions to validate that you have indeed built the world’s best product, and then starting org building once you know that the market is ready for you to start accelerating.

Enforcing structure and processes too early can cause friction to the process of growth so making it align with (and ideally amplify) the growth you’re naturally getting from your market and your customers are critical. So I like to think of this as building the world’s best product, establishing the earliest of GTM motions to validate that you have indeed built the world’s best product, and then starting org building once you know that the market is ready for you to start accelerating.

I LIKE TO THINK OF THIS AS BUILD THE WORLD’S BEST PRODUCT, ESTABLISH THE EARLIEST OF GTM MOTIONS TO VALIDATE THAT YOU HAVE INDEED BUILT THE WORLD’S BEST PRODUCT, AND THEN START ORG BUILDING ONCE YOU KNOW THAT THE MARKET IS READY FOR YOU TO START ACCELERATING.

I LIKE TO THINK OF THIS AS BUILD THE WORLD’S BEST PRODUCT, ESTABLISH THE EARLIEST OF GTM MOTIONS TO VALIDATE THAT YOU HAVE INDEED BUILT THE WORLD’S BEST PRODUCT, AND THEN START ORG BUILDING ONCE YOU KNOW THAT THE MARKET IS READY FOR YOU TO START ACCELERATING.

— TANMAI GOPAL

— TANMAI GOPAL

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What is your org structure? If the answer to the above question is “it depends”, then you are either a fast-growing rocket ship startup or you are genuinely clueless about organization building. Either way, you need help. The truth is, if you are a rocket ship, then you have a brand new organization every year or two. The nature of product building, pivoting and the overall product-market fit is such that it becomes really difficult to stay sane and stable operationally. Organization building is a long, painful, and at times slow process. But more than that, it can be really chaotic. And it involves balancing two kinds of talent—mercenary and missionary. In this chapter, we are going to be spending time with leaders shaping everything from organization building blocks to culture and talent management at some of the Indian SaaS companies.

What is your org structure? If the answer to the above question is “it depends”, then you are either a fast-growing rocket ship startup or you are genuinely clueless about organization building. Either way, you need help. The truth is, if you are a rocket ship, then you have a brand new organization every year or two. The nature of product building, pivoting and the overall product-market fit is such that it becomes really difficult to stay sane and stable operationally. Organization building is a long, painful, and at times slow process. But more than that, it can be really chaotic. And it involves balancing two kinds of talent—mercenary and missionary. In this chapter, we are going to be spending time with leaders shaping everything from organization building blocks to culture and talent management at some of the Indian SaaS companies.

A company does not simply run on brilliant ideas—it also needs to monetize those ideas to turn itself into a sustainable, if not a profitable, organization. But should you be looking to monetize your product from day one itself? Or should you rather gain the confidence of your users early on and then demonstrate confidence in pricing so you can actually scale at your estimated rate? We asked founders to share their thoughts on how to build a successful revenue engine.

A company does not simply run on brilliant ideas—it also needs to monetize those ideas to turn itself into a sustainable, if not a profitable, organization. But should you be looking to monetize your product from day one itself? Or should you rather gain the confidence of your users early on and then demonstrate confidence in pricing so you can actually scale at your estimated rate? We asked founders to share their thoughts on how to build a successful revenue engine.

ADITYA RAO

ADITYA RAO

Ninety percent of my customers today are with me on WhatsApp. I nicely ask them to connect to places where I know they will be more comfortable chatting and offering feedback whenever they can. My advice would be to get their phone numbers and call them. In the initial days, don’t send out fancy, automatic emails. The first 50 customers all got manual emails from us. A huge personalized email by me, going through their Twitter and LinkedIn profiles. Some of these things really helped with our trial-to-paid conversion. If you don’t have one feature that’s your hook, that’s the core of it, and you

Ninety percent of my customers today are with me on WhatsApp. I nicely ask them to connect to places where I know they will be more comfortable chatting and offering feedback whenever they can. My advice would be to get their phone numbers and call them. In the initial days, don’t send out fancy, automatic emails. The first 50 customers all got manual emails from us. A huge personalized email by me, going through their Twitter and LinkedIn profiles. Some of these things really helped with our trial-to-paid conversion. If you don’t have one feature that’s your hook, that’s the core of it, and you

WHAT IS THE STATE OF THE MARKET NOW? WHO ARE THE PLAYERS IN IT, AND CAN WE MAKE A DIFFERENCE HERE? WHAT IS OUR ANGLE HERE? CAN WE BUILD THE PRODUCT IN A REASONABLE TIME OR WITHIN A REASONABLE BUDGET? CAN WE PRICE IT ATTRACTIVELY? CAN WE BRING IN CUSTOMERS? WHAT IS THE MARKETING CHALLENGE?

WHAT IS THE STATE OF THE MARKET NOW? WHO ARE THE PLAYERS IN IT, AND CAN WE MAKE A DIFFERENCE HERE? WHAT IS OUR ANGLE HERE? CAN WE BUILD THE PRODUCT IN A REASONABLE TIME OR WITHIN A REASONABLE BUDGET? CAN WE PRICE IT ATTRACTIVELY? CAN WE BRING IN CUSTOMERS? WHAT IS THE MARKETING CHALLENGE?

– SRIDHAR VEMBU

– SRIDHAR VEMBU

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have too many features going on, I don’t think it’ll go anywhere.

have too many features going on, I don’t think it’ll go anywhere.

ABHINAV SHASHANK

ABHINAV SHASHANK

One thing that is very different in our approach in general. In any area that we want to play in, we want to basically be the market leader, the number one player in that space. That was incredibly clear when we started—we are not going to build an India version or a global version. None of that; we are going to be world number one in what we do. So, when we picked this healthcare data thematic that we are going to create this ubiquitous healthcare data platform, we knew from the get-go that we have just one customer today who pays us whatever, but we are going to create like a global market leader in this space, and over the last three and a half to four years we have gone from 0 to $50 million in ARR. We are probably the fastest-growing digital health company by a stretch. Like in all rankings, whether Gartner or Class, like things that actually rate enterprise software, we are by far the market leader in what we do. I think we are set up for a really good growth structure; we are growing north of 100 percent year over year at this point. If we execute well, we should basically be in the 100 million ARR mark closer to somewhere next year and, hopefully, be by far the leader in this space.

One thing that is very different in our approach in general. In any area that we want to play in, we want to basically be the market leader, the number one player in that space. That was incredibly clear when we started—we are not going to build an India version or a global version. None of that; we are going to be world number one in what we do. So, when we picked this healthcare data thematic that we are going to create this ubiquitous healthcare data platform, we knew from the get-go that we have just one customer today who pays us whatever, but we are going to create like a global market leader in this space, and over the last three and a half to four years we have gone from 0 to $50 million in ARR. We are probably the fastest-growing digital health company by a stretch. Like in all rankings, whether Gartner or Class, like things that actually rate enterprise software, we are by far the market leader in what we do. I think we are set up for a really good growth structure; we are growing north of 100 percent year over year at this point. If we execute well, we should basically be in the 100 million ARR mark closer to somewhere next year and, hopefully, be by far the leader in this space.

SRIDHAR VEMBU

SRIDHAR VEMBU

We have over a hundred products now; some make more money than others. All my philosophies are worth nothing if we don’t actually make money as a company. If you look at our products, they are a mixture of things. Some are easier to market; others are harder. We persist with the harder ones. In the early days, we tried to find opportunities to sell over the internet because we didn’t have a field, a sales force, or even a brand. Any of those that could be sold over the internet, that’s how we specialized. We now have the resources, and we built our sales force. We are moving up the chain. Of course, a lot of it is still on the internet, but we have complemented it with our sales force. That is how we make money. And the key for us is to figure out what people want and then make it. But how do you figure that out? It’s not as if there is any secret formula or recipe for it. It always begins

We have over a hundred products now; some make more money than others. All my philosophies are worth nothing if we don’t actually make money as a company. If you look at our products, they are a mixture of things. Some are easier to market; others are harder. We persist with the harder ones. In the early days, we tried to find opportunities to sell over the internet because we didn’t have a field, a sales force, or even a brand. Any of those that could be sold over the internet, that’s how we specialized. We now have the resources, and we built our sales force. We are moving up the chain. Of course, a lot of it is still on the internet, but we have complemented it with our sales force. That is how we make money. And the key for us is to figure out what people want and then make it. But how do you figure that out? It’s not as if there is any secret formula or recipe for it. It always begins

WE ARE GOING TO BE WORLD NUMBER ONE IN WHAT WE DO.

WE ARE GOING TO BE WORLD NUMBER ONE IN WHAT WE DO.

— ABHINAV SHASHANK

— ABHINAV SHASHANK

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with looking for an opportunity. You ask yourself, “What is the state of the market now? Who are the players in it, and can we make a difference here? What is our angle here? Can we build the product in a reasonable time or within a reasonable budget? Can we price it attractively? Can we bring in customers? What is the marketing challenge?” We generally try to be patient. Whenever we launch, we don’t expect instant results. The luxury of that patience comes from operating our finances conservatively.

with looking for an opportunity. You ask yourself, “What is the state of the market now? Who are the players in it, and can we make a difference here? What is our angle here? Can we build the product in a reasonable time or within a reasonable budget? Can we price it attractively? Can we bring in customers? What is the marketing challenge?” We generally try to be patient. Whenever we launch, we don’t expect instant results. The luxury of that patience comes from operating our finances conservatively.

RITESH ARORA

RITESH ARORA

We avoid making money in the first go. For the first six months, unless the entire hypothesis has been proven, we will not think of making any money. Because monetization suddenly becomes big friction for adoption. Instead, for those first six months, go to your early users or maybe a broader market to understand the nature of an active problem. Let them adopt the product. Let them give feedback. This continuous loop of feedback needs to happen, the more feedback you get, the more actively you can fix the product. The moment you put monetization in the earlier stages, you will get very little feedback. It immediately becomes a sales problem even though it is not really a sales problem.

We avoid making money in the first go. For the first six months, unless the entire hypothesis has been proven, we will not think of making any money. Because monetization suddenly becomes big friction for adoption. Instead, for those first six months, go to your early users or maybe a broader market to understand the nature of an active problem. Let them adopt the product. Let them give feedback. This continuous loop of feedback needs to happen, the more feedback you get, the more actively you can fix the product. The moment you put monetization in the earlier stages, you will get very little feedback. It immediately becomes a sales problem even though it is not really a sales problem.

ASHISH TULSIAN

ASHISH TULSIAN

[Here Ashish shares an anecdote from his learning experience] The elderly gentleman said, “If everybody is your customer, you basically are lazy and you have not figured out who your customer is and if you don’t know who your customer is, forget scaling. You will never be able to scale. You will do business but you will not be able to scale. You will make money, but that is all. You should definitely know who is not your customer, you should know who is your customer, you should know the attributes that define your

[Here Ashish shares an anecdote from his learning experience] The elderly gentleman said, “If everybody is your customer, you basically are lazy and you have not figured out who your customer is and if you don’t know who your customer is, forget scaling. You will never be able to scale. You will do business but you will not be able to scale. You will make money, but that is all. You should definitely know who is not your customer, you should know who is your customer, you should know the attributes that define your

THE MOMENT YOU PUT MONETIZATION IN THE EARLIER STAGES, YOU WILL GET VERY LITTLE FEEDBACK. IT IMMEDIATELY BECOMES A SALES PROBLEM EVEN THOUGH IT IS NOT REALLY A SALES PROBLEM.

THE MOMENT YOU PUT MONETIZATION IN THE EARLIER STAGES, YOU WILL GET VERY LITTLE FEEDBACK. IT IMMEDIATELY BECOMES A SALES PROBLEM EVEN THOUGH IT IS NOT REALLY A SALES PROBLEM.

– RITESH ARORA

– RITESH ARORA

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customer. And 80 percent of the work should only be for the segment you define very, very clearly.”

customer. And 80 percent of the work should only be for the segment you define very, very clearly.”

When I came back, in the next three months we actually discovered our customer. That was also in the middle of this journey of changing our pricing. I think we could actually solidify our pricing, we could actually solidify what we do, and scale to whatever little extent we have been able to, just because of that.

When I came back, in the next three months we actually discovered our customer. That was also in the middle of this journey of changing our pricing. I think we could actually solidify our pricing, we could actually solidify what we do, and scale to whatever little extent we have been able to, just because of that.

UMANG JAIN

UMANG JAIN

Building a sustainable business model has been our priority since day one. That’s why we’ve always focused our energies on growing our organic channels, rather than the paid ones. We cracked the App Store search pretty early in the game. Around that time ASO (App Store Search Optimization) itself was a new concept. Then we moved on to doing the same with other organic platforms and channels.

Building a sustainable business model has been our priority since day one. That’s why we’ve always focused our energies on growing our organic channels, rather than the paid ones. We cracked the App Store search pretty early in the game. Around that time ASO (App Store Search Optimization) itself was a new concept. Then we moved on to doing the same with other organic platforms and channels.

We’ve been quite agile when it comes to pricing. I would say that the switch from a lifetime pricing model to a SaaS model has been a game-changer— both for the company and the product. Now we have users who choose to pay for the product every month, and we ensure that they continue to find value for their time and money every time.

We’ve been quite agile when it comes to pricing. I would say that the switch from a lifetime pricing model to a SaaS model has been a game-changer— both for the company and the product. Now we have users who choose to pay for the product every month, and we ensure that they continue to find value for their time and money every time.

Recently, we’ve also launched an online tutoring product to scale the revenue from the loyal user base we already have worldwide. We’re always looking for the next big thing that can fit under our existing umbrella of offerings to continue scaling.

Recently, we’ve also launched an online tutoring product to scale the revenue from the loyal user base we already have worldwide. We’re always looking for the next big thing that can fit under our existing umbrella of offerings to continue scaling.

RUSHABH MEHTA

RUSHABH MEHTA

We have less than $1 million in revenue this year. We might touch $1 million, I don’t know. That’s nothing, right, for a 10-year SaaS company. VC will say, like, get lost. In 10 years you have just made $1 million, your revenue is $1 million. I am transparent about this, because of the first principles. So, we see there is a significant revenue opportunity out there, this could become a billion-dollar company. We are clear about that and we will get there and we will do it very transparently. Like, we will tell enterprises that we are going to work if you give us $1 million. We will see if they give us work. So, as I said, we see the opportunity but I don’t know how fast. Will it take five years, will it take ten years? I have no idea. But, we will definitely go in that direction because we want to build more products at some level, so we want to keep funding this and growing this movement as we call it.

We have less than $1 million in revenue this year. We might touch $1 million, I don’t know. That’s nothing, right, for a 10-year SaaS company. VC will say, like, get lost. In 10 years you have just made $1 million, your revenue is $1 million. I am transparent about this, because of the first principles. So, we see there is a significant revenue opportunity out there, this could become a billion-dollar company. We are clear about that and we will get there and we will do it very transparently. Like, we will tell enterprises that we are going to work if you give us $1 million. We will see if they give us work. So, as I said, we see the opportunity but I don’t know how fast. Will it take five years, will it take ten years? I have no idea. But, we will definitely go in that direction because we want to build more products at some level, so we want to keep funding this and growing this movement as we call it.

PRUKALPA SANKAR

PRUKALPA SANKAR

When the user matrix started growing, and we started saying we are getting there from a product solution fit perspective, we started our second phase of going to market. This is when we said now we need to start figuring out how we want to really scale the product and scale sales and some of those engines. There we started another customer-discovery process again, this was the bio focus customer discovery process and here we were much more specific. That really helped us to sort of define product positioning and understand whether we were there and how do we think of product positioning in some of those cases and I think that gave us enough confidence to say we are sort of at that phase where we can start scaling and that is really where we started scaling and go to market and we are still continuing to do that, I wouldn’t say we are past that, we are still very much in that zero to one phase where we are constantly trying to learn from the market because the ecosystem we operate in is changing very rapidly.

When the user matrix started growing, and we started saying we are getting there from a product solution fit perspective, we started our second phase of going to market. This is when we said now we need to start figuring out how we want to really scale the product and scale sales and some of those engines. There we started another customer-discovery process again, this was the bio focus customer discovery process and here we were much more specific. That really helped us to sort of define product positioning and understand whether we were there and how do we think of product positioning in some of those cases and I think that gave us enough confidence to say we are sort of at that phase where we can start scaling and that is really where we started scaling and go to market and we are still continuing to do that, I wouldn’t say we are past that, we are still very much in that zero to one phase where we are constantly trying to learn from the market because the ecosystem we operate in is changing very rapidly.

BHARAT GOENKA

BHARAT GOENKA

Personally, I believe most companies tend to plan for a realistic scenario and not an optimistic scenario. When you invest in a realistic scenario, you choke yourself. When you plan for an optimistic scenario, your spending is higher; when actual reality hits, you might have spent more than you should have or needed to. Ultimately, if you plan for success, you have to invest in the optimistic scenario. What I mean by that is particularly in the B2B space and the space that we work in, it is partially a product space and at the same time the post-sale process. There is a presale process which is an engagement-based process, and there is a post-sale process which is the support process for the customer. We invest deeply in the capacity to do both of them, and that is oversizing our capacity by sometimes 3x, 4x, and sometimes even 10x, and that is not easy to do because money is scarce, it has always been scarce, but from the beginning, we have always invested ahead of the success rather than

Personally, I believe most companies tend to plan for a realistic scenario and not an optimistic scenario. When you invest in a realistic scenario, you choke yourself. When you plan for an optimistic scenario, your spending is higher; when actual reality hits, you might have spent more than you should have or needed to. Ultimately, if you plan for success, you have to invest in the optimistic scenario. What I mean by that is particularly in the B2B space and the space that we work in, it is partially a product space and at the same time the post-sale process. There is a presale process which is an engagement-based process, and there is a post-sale process which is the support process for the customer. We invest deeply in the capacity to do both of them, and that is oversizing our capacity by sometimes 3x, 4x, and sometimes even 10x, and that is not easy to do because money is scarce, it has always been scarce, but from the beginning, we have always invested ahead of the success rather than

WE ARE STILL VERY MUCH IN THAT ZERO TO ONE PHASE WHERE WE ARE CONSTANTLY TRYING TO LEARN FROM THE MARKET BECAUSE THE ECOSYSTEM WE OPERATE IN IS CHANGING VERY RAPIDLY.

WE ARE STILL VERY MUCH IN THAT ZERO TO ONE PHASE WHERE WE ARE CONSTANTLY TRYING TO LEARN FROM THE MARKET BECAUSE THE ECOSYSTEM WE OPERATE IN IS CHANGING VERY RAPIDLY.

— PRUKALPA SANKAR

— PRUKALPA SANKAR

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trying to scamper to cope with the success because the moment you try to scamper to cope with the success you start choking yourself. You start doing silly things, either in the quality of engagement that you are doing or in the quality of service that you are giving.

trying to scamper to cope with the success because the moment you try to scamper to cope with the success you start choking yourself. You start doing silly things, either in the quality of engagement that you are doing or in the quality of service that you are giving.

Even in the early days when we didn’t have enough money to invest, we still invested whatever money we had in the capacity even though we did not need the capacity, just optimistically believing that we are going to get a flood of customers coming in and how we’ll cope with them.

Even in the early days when we didn’t have enough money to invest, we still invested whatever money we had in the capacity even though we did not need the capacity, just optimistically believing that we are going to get a flood of customers coming in and how we’ll cope with them.

*Sridhar Vembu comments are from the Outliers Podcast hosted by Pankaj Mishra ©️SourceCode Media Private Limited

*Sridhar Vembu comments are from the Outliers Podcast hosted by Pankaj Mishra ©️SourceCode Media Private Limited

KEY TAKEAWAYS

KEY TAKEAWAYS

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Optimizing product pricing depends on multiple factors. You have to scope out your market, research your competition, identify your user, and intimately know their needs and preferences. A product hits the right price bracket when it ticks off all these boxes. We asked the SaaS founders how they arrived at the sweet spot of pricing and how they determined the fundamental value of their product.

Optimizing product pricing depends on multiple factors. You have to scope out your market, research your competition, identify your user, and intimately know their needs and preferences. A product hits the right price bracket when it ticks off all these boxes. We asked the SaaS founders how they arrived at the sweet spot of pricing and how they determined the fundamental value of their product.

ARPIT JAIN

ARPIT JAIN

Pricing the product is a balancing act and something that you need to constantly revisit. Initially, we offered our app at a lifetime pricing model. At $10 per grade, even though it was one of the more pricey programs on iOS, it was nowhere close to what parents usually spent on books. We were limited by the platform and the perception that “apps are supposed to be free or $0.99”.

Pricing the product is a balancing act and something that you need to constantly revisit. Initially, we offered our app at a lifetime pricing model. At $10 per grade, even though it was one of the more pricey programs on iOS, it was nowhere close to what parents usually spent on books. We were limited by the platform and the perception that “apps are supposed to be free or $0.99”.

We knew our app contained ten times as much content as a book, and after looking at the price versus the value we offer, we decided not to restrict ourselves despite the common perception. This was a huge step, but we knew our users loved our products, and our engagement and retention levels were high. So we tested our hypothesis and we moved to a $10 per month pricing model.

We knew our app contained ten times as much content as a book, and after looking at the price versus the value we offer, we decided not to restrict ourselves despite the common perception. This was a huge step, but we knew our users loved our products, and our engagement and retention levels were high. So we tested our hypothesis and we moved to a $10 per month pricing model.

After that switch, we’ve seen significant growth in the last three years. We converted to a SaaS model three years ago and it helps us focus on constantly improving the product. If our users are paying us every month, we have to ensure that they continue to use the product. So, it builds a good product as well as a good business.

After that switch, we’ve seen significant growth in the last three years. We converted to a SaaS model three years ago and it helps us focus on constantly improving the product. If our users are paying us every month, we have to ensure that they continue to use the product. So, it builds a good product as well as a good business.

ADITYA RAO

ADITYA RAO

We don’t want to do enterprise deals that take three months and are just not fun. The sweet spot for a good lifestyle, a bootstrapped business that doesn’t want to become very large, is around $28 per month, maybe $30 for us. With a few more features, we can perhaps increase the price—that actually translates to $40–$45. If you can get to those paying customers, you have actually built a solid business on top of it. If you can keep your churn low, you would have found that proverbial product-market fit. You would have had a few paying customers who like you; you might be going through word of mouth, maybe some organic channel, social media. You haven’t forced the growth, so you know it’s sustainable, and that’s the plan.

We don’t want to do enterprise deals that take three months and are just not fun. The sweet spot for a good lifestyle, a bootstrapped business that doesn’t want to become very large, is around $28 per month, maybe $30 for us. With a few more features, we can perhaps increase the price—that actually translates to $40–$45. If you can get to those paying customers, you have actually built a solid business on top of it. If you can keep your churn low, you would have found that proverbial product-market fit. You would have had a few paying customers who like you; you might be going through word of mouth, maybe some organic channel, social media. You haven’t forced the growth, so you know it’s sustainable, and that’s the plan.

PRUKALPA SANKAR

PRUKALPA SANKAR

In your early days, from 0 to 100, it’s less about testing the value, the exact number. It doesn’t matter if you are charging $100 per user or $300 or $10. That is really a function of the value the customer sees in the product. What is more important in the first stage is the framework: what are you going to price on? There are many different core frameworks that you can price through and getting that framework right is critical. In the early stage, I would not spend too much time overoptimizing on any of these things. Start with the framework and test it out in the market; if it is not working, go back and reiterate. Your customer will have a budget, and you are going to have a product, and it is a function of matching that. Some customers are going to move you forward and some will take you back. If you are building a customer-centric culture, you have to watch out for customers who will take way more out of you than they give back to you. This could be customers calling you at odd hours of the day about a bug that isn’t really your big priority; it could be n number of things or expectations; those could really kill you because you lose a lot of time, focus, and energy. So, I think just being able to believe

In your early days, from 0 to 100, it’s less about testing the value, the exact number. It doesn’t matter if you are charging $100 per user or $300 or $10. That is really a function of the value the customer sees in the product. What is more important in the first stage is the framework: what are you going to price on? There are many different core frameworks that you can price through and getting that framework right is critical. In the early stage, I would not spend too much time overoptimizing on any of these things. Start with the framework and test it out in the market; if it is not working, go back and reiterate. Your customer will have a budget, and you are going to have a product, and it is a function of matching that. Some customers are going to move you forward and some will take you back. If you are building a customer-centric culture, you have to watch out for customers who will take way more out of you than they give back to you. This could be customers calling you at odd hours of the day about a bug that isn’t really your big priority; it could be n number of things or expectations; those could really kill you because you lose a lot of time, focus, and energy. So, I think just being able to believe

BELIEVE THAT YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE AS PRIVILEGED TO BE WORKING WITH YOU AS YOU ARE TO BE WORKING WITH THEM.

BELIEVE THAT YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE AS PRIVILEGED TO BE WORKING WITH YOU AS YOU ARE TO BE WORKING WITH THEM.

– PRUKALPA SANKAR

– PRUKALPA SANKAR

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that your customers are as privileged to be working with you as you are to be working with them and to make it a symbiotic relationship you must pick and partner with the right people in the journey.

that your customers are as privileged to be working with you as you are to be working with them and to make it a symbiotic relationship you must pick and partner with the right people in the journey.

PARAS CHOPRA

PARAS CHOPRA

Not all SaaS business models are created equal. You cannot just price a product $500k and sell it from India. Similarly, you cannot price a product $10 in a niche market and expect to become a large company. Pricing usually begins with identifying your business model. Are you selling to small businesses, or are you selling to mid-market, or are you selling to enterprises? Having that internal clarity puts you into the right range of what pricing your product should have, but even beyond that, pricing is always driven by some sense of competitive positioning. If you are not the leader, it is incredibly hard for you to price more than the competitors. Given that, in software, there is no such thing as cost-based pricing or even value-based pricing, the only way you can look at things is by having clarity on the position you are in (in the market), which ultimately drives a lot of these pricing decisions.

Not all SaaS business models are created equal. You cannot just price a product $500k and sell it from India. Similarly, you cannot price a product $10 in a niche market and expect to become a large company. Pricing usually begins with identifying your business model. Are you selling to small businesses, or are you selling to mid-market, or are you selling to enterprises? Having that internal clarity puts you into the right range of what pricing your product should have, but even beyond that, pricing is always driven by some sense of competitive positioning. If you are not the leader, it is incredibly hard for you to price more than the competitors. Given that, in software, there is no such thing as cost-based pricing or even value-based pricing, the only way you can look at things is by having clarity on the position you are in (in the market), which ultimately drives a lot of these pricing decisions.

ABHINAV ASTHANA

ABHINAV ASTHANA

Here’s one thing we feel strongly about: You should demonstrate confidence in pricing. It’s very appealing to price the product low, and it’s definitely safer to build a cheaper version of a product. That shows a lack of confidence, and it also makes it that much harder to set yourself up for a challenge and build for the premium segment.

Here’s one thing we feel strongly about: You should demonstrate confidence in pricing. It’s very appealing to price the product low, and it’s definitely safer to build a cheaper version of a product. That shows a lack of confidence, and it also makes it that much harder to set yourself up for a challenge and build for the premium segment.

the premium segment. I would not like to see “Indian SaaS” being a moniker for products sold to you at a 50 percent discount. I would like it to be just SaaS—something that gets the job done in the best way. That’s how we wanted to position Postman. I think that could be a pitfall, but overall, I just want us to create category-defining products with real value that people are willing to pay for.

the premium segment. I would not like to see “Indian SaaS” being a moniker for products sold to you at a 50 percent discount. I would like it to be just SaaS—something that gets the job done in the best way. That’s how we wanted to position Postman. I think that could be a pitfall, but overall, I just want us to create category-defining products with real value that people are willing to pay for.

KRISH SUBRAMANIAN

KRISH SUBRAMANIAN

After 100–300 customers, we had to determine who we wanted as our next 500–1,000 customers. When you appoint a framework, there is probably only one-third of these customers that you would want as your next 1,000 customers. By the time we were getting to half a million, we had tightened it and increased our prices. We also made a premium version but deliberately priced it in a way that was attractive to only one segment—the other segments realized it was not good for them. By then, the revenue was dipping a little bit because of the premium. This happened because of the high-quality cohort that was being built. We were using the head features, and that took us from half a million to 1 million. And once we narrowed our qualification process, suddenly we went from 1 million to 5 million in five quarters. The leap from 5 million to 10 million happened in four quarters, and so on. This beautiful journey could not have happened if we hadn’t got the Ideal Customer Profile right, some of the product usage matrix right, and not focused on which of our customers was making the best use of our product for its intended purpose.

After 100–300 customers, we had to determine who we wanted as our next 500–1,000 customers. When you appoint a framework, there is probably only one-third of these customers that you would want as your next 1,000 customers. By the time we were getting to half a million, we had tightened it and increased our prices. We also made a premium version but deliberately priced it in a way that was attractive to only one segment—the other segments realized it was not good for them. By then, the revenue was dipping a little bit because of the premium. This happened because of the high-quality cohort that was being built. We were using the head features, and that took us from half a million to 1 million. And once we narrowed our qualification process, suddenly we went from 1 million to 5 million in five quarters. The leap from 5 million to 10 million happened in four quarters, and so on. This beautiful journey could not have happened if we hadn’t got the Ideal Customer Profile right, some of the product usage matrix right, and not focused on which of our customers was making the best use of our product for its intended purpose.

ASHISH TULSIAN

ASHISH TULSIAN

We literally rewrote our entire product in 2015. We relaunched that product in January 2016 with new pricing. This time we took our pricing up by 10– 20x actually because in this period when we were churning all these numbers and making all these presentations we could clearly see one common thing, that every time VC wanted to get a very big outcome out of this, they had to multiply it by a very large number of restaurants and that was because our pricing was low. I said, “Okay, one thing is very clear from this experiment, that our pricing is low and it is so low that you multiply it by any number and the outcome will remain small.” We probably need to work on the segment or the pricing or the product. I think we worked on all three and that remains one of the major milestones in our journey wherein in 2016 we literally flipped. When we look at the phases of the journey, 2012–16 is one part and 2016–20 is an altogether different part, they are not alike.

We literally rewrote our entire product in 2015. We relaunched that product in January 2016 with new pricing. This time we took our pricing up by 10– 20x actually because in this period when we were churning all these numbers and making all these presentations we could clearly see one common thing, that every time VC wanted to get a very big outcome out of this, they had to multiply it by a very large number of restaurants and that was because our pricing was low. I said, “Okay, one thing is very clear from this experiment, that our pricing is low and it is so low that you multiply it by any number and the outcome will remain small.” We probably need to work on the segment or the pricing or the product. I think we worked on all three and that remains one of the major milestones in our journey wherein in 2016 we literally flipped. When we look at the phases of the journey, 2012–16 is one part and 2016–20 is an altogether different part, they are not alike.

PRICING USUALLY BEGINS WITH IDENTIFYING YOUR BUSINESS MODEL.

PRICING USUALLY BEGINS WITH IDENTIFYING YOUR BUSINESS MODEL.

— PARAS CHOPRA

— PARAS CHOPRA

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PARAS CHOPRA

PARAS CHOPRA

Our one mistake was to underestimate the importance of go-to-market like hiring salespeople, building customer success, account management, and even simple things like investing in paid advertising. Both Sparsh (Gupta, co-founder) and I, being engineers, we’re knee-deep into building great products and thinking that the product will do everything by itself. But over time we realized that we are in the business of delivering value to humans, and the product is one way of delivering that value, but humans like to get on a phone call and talk to people; interfaces and screens can only go that far in doing that. We hired our first salesperson very reluctantly, and that is when we realized there is a ton of value we can create if we focus there.

Our one mistake was to underestimate the importance of go-to-market like hiring salespeople, building customer success, account management, and even simple things like investing in paid advertising. Both Sparsh (Gupta, co-founder) and I, being engineers, we’re knee-deep into building great products and thinking that the product will do everything by itself. But over time we realized that we are in the business of delivering value to humans, and the product is one way of delivering that value, but humans like to get on a phone call and talk to people; interfaces and screens can only go that far in doing that. We hired our first salesperson very reluctantly, and that is when we realized there is a ton of value we can create if we focus there.

ANAND JAIN

ANAND JAIN

You can’t hire salespeople because you think I have some basic stuff, let me start selling this now. You can’t sell half a car. If you are trying to build a car, don’t try to say, see, half the car is built, the other half will get built too. If you are building a cycle you can

You can’t hire salespeople because you think I have some basic stuff, let me start selling this now. You can’t sell half a car. If you are trying to build a car, don’t try to say, see, half the car is built, the other half will get built too. If you are building a cycle you can

WE ARE IN THE BUSINESS OF DELIVERING VALUE TO HUMANS, AND THE PRODUCT IS ONE WAY OF DELIVERING THAT VALUE, BUT HUMANS LIKE TO GET ON A PHONE CALL AND TALK TO PEOPLE.

WE ARE IN THE BUSINESS OF DELIVERING VALUE TO HUMANS, AND THE PRODUCT IS ONE WAY OF DELIVERING THAT VALUE, BUT HUMANS LIKE TO GET ON A PHONE CALL AND TALK TO PEOPLE.

– PARAS CHOPRA

– PARAS CHOPRA

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do that, you can sell a two-wheel cycle. But if you are building a car, you have to in your head know what your minimum viable product is, what your product looks like. You have to solve a certain problem, and until that is achieved, don’t hire salespeople, don’t try to extract value from the customer, and all that. You will have enough time to do that once your startup survives. You will have a lot of time to do that. What you will not get is the opportunity to interact one on one with your customers, to learn from them.

do that, you can sell a two-wheel cycle. But if you are building a car, you have to in your head know what your minimum viable product is, what your product looks like. You have to solve a certain problem, and until that is achieved, don’t hire salespeople, don’t try to extract value from the customer, and all that. You will have enough time to do that once your startup survives. You will have a lot of time to do that. What you will not get is the opportunity to interact one on one with your customers, to learn from them.

That is what happens—everyone is in a rush to grow. A lot of startups do that. They are like, well, we have collected money, let’s grow, let’s hire this leader, COO, etc. I want to say, wait a while, what is the hurry. What happens is, if you are very successful and you grow rapidly, like we were growing 3x and we did not have our head of HR, we did not have ahead of marketing, we did not have ahead of sales. We had a lot of vacant C-level positions because we said if we hire someone at $1 million ARR, and if we tell them you are at C-level, their mindset is going to be very different than, say, when we are at $25 million, and that is when some C-level is thinking of the $100 million journeys. The C-level at $1 million ARR is thinking of the journey to $5 million.

That is what happens—everyone is in a rush to grow. A lot of startups do that. They are like, well, we have collected money, let’s grow, let’s hire this leader, COO, etc. I want to say, wait a while, what is the hurry. What happens is, if you are very successful and you grow rapidly, like we were growing 3x and we did not have our head of HR, we did not have ahead of marketing, we did not have ahead of sales. We had a lot of vacant C-level positions because we said if we hire someone at $1 million ARR, and if we tell them you are at C-level, their mindset is going to be very different than, say, when we are at $25 million, and that is when some C-level is thinking of the $100 million journeys. The C-level at $1 million ARR is thinking of the journey to $5 million.

Don’t be in a rush, take your time. It is all right to go slow to go fast.

Don’t be in a rush, take your time. It is all right to go slow to go fast.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

Understanding the value proposition and key differentiator, and why you are winning is the key to building a core for your sales organization. A lot of times when sales do not work out we tend to think the sales leader is wrong. Most often you have got the market wrong or value proposition is not clear or some part of the product does not have a good experience. GTM needs investment. Having a proper budget outlay is equally important. Indian companies tend to underinvest in GTM.

Understanding the value proposition and key differentiator, and why you are winning is the key to building a core for your sales organization. A lot of times when sales do not work out we tend to think the sales leader is wrong. Most often you have got the market wrong or value proposition is not clear or some part of the product does not have a good experience. GTM needs investment. Having a proper budget outlay is equally important. Indian companies tend to underinvest in GTM.

ELAD GIL

ELAD GIL

Many companies that actually aren’t credited with thinking about sales and distribution early did so. Google is a great example where Omid Kordestani (who was with Netscape before that) got hired into Google as a senior sales and BD (Business development) executive very early in the company’s life. Back when it was primarily a consumer site, and they hadn’t really thought about how to monetize it.

Many companies that actually aren’t credited with thinking about sales and distribution early did so. Google is a great example where Omid Kordestani (who was with Netscape before that) got hired into Google as a senior sales and BD (Business development) executive very early in the company’s life. Back when it was primarily a consumer site, and they hadn’t really thought about how to monetize it.

Many of the companies that we think of as really impressive, era-defining companies are the ones that focused on sales and marketing early. Then there are other examples where people went into the enterprise a bit too late in their life and never built the sales team. Now, some of these companies have done amazingly well, but it’s possible they could have done better—like GitHub before it was acquired by Microsoft, did an amazing job of organic market traction. But they hadn’t really focused on enterprise sales very effectively. I think that created an opening for GitLab, for example, to really emerge as an enterprise-sales-centric product company. I think at the time it was an opportunity to lose and they lost many years of execution by not focusing on it.

Many of the companies that we think of as really impressive, era-defining companies are the ones that focused on sales and marketing early. Then there are other examples where people went into the enterprise a bit too late in their life and never built the sales team. Now, some of these companies have done amazingly well, but it’s possible they could have done better—like GitHub before it was acquired by Microsoft, did an amazing job of organic market traction. But they hadn’t really focused on enterprise sales very effectively. I think that created an opening for GitLab, for example, to really emerge as an enterprise-sales-centric product company. I think at the time it was an opportunity to lose and they lost many years of execution by not focusing on it.

SUDHEER KONERU

SUDHEER KONERU

The founders need to become obsessed and personally go drive sales. Often, founders come and ask me what kind of VP of sales they should hire in the US, who is going to help them and my view is that you

The founders need to become obsessed and personally go drive sales. Often, founders come and ask me what kind of VP of sales they should hire in the US, who is going to help them and my view is that you

should approach it like, I am just going and starting my company all over again. If you approach it like a market that you are trying to hire a sales leader for, it won’t work. But you have to say whatever company I built was the wrong company, so let me go start it again, that kind of stuff.

should approach it like, I am just going and starting my company all over again. If you approach it like a market that you are trying to hire a sales leader for, it won’t work. But you have to say whatever company I built was the wrong company, so let me go start it again, that kind of stuff.

Hiring a VP of sales comes later. I feel it’s better to hire a consulting firm. There are some of these sales consulting firms, actually, there are some decent quality sales consulting firms that can help you understand how you are pitching, what you are doing, and help you refine that for the market. They are more useful than hiring a VP of sales I feel. In fact the first two people I hired in sales, both never worked out. I thought they were from the industry and it would work out but it was totally useless. I had to do the initial things. Then a little later we hired somebody in sales.

Hiring a VP of sales comes later. I feel it’s better to hire a consulting firm. There are some of these sales consulting firms, actually, there are some decent quality sales consulting firms that can help you understand how you are pitching, what you are doing, and help you refine that for the market. They are more useful than hiring a VP of sales I feel. In fact the first two people I hired in sales, both never worked out. I thought they were from the industry and it would work out but it was totally useless. I had to do the initial things. Then a little later we hired somebody in sales.

MANY OF THE COMPANIES THAT WE THINK OF AS REALLY IMPRESSIVE, ERA-DEFINING COMPANIES ARE THE ONES THAT FOCUSED ON SALES AND MARKETING EARLY.

MANY OF THE COMPANIES THAT WE THINK OF AS REALLY IMPRESSIVE, ERA-DEFINING COMPANIES ARE THE ONES THAT FOCUSED ON SALES AND MARKETING EARLY.

– ELAD GIL

– ELAD GIL

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ELAD GIL

ELAD GIL

Many founders today, particularly technical or product founders, end up adding sales and a VP sales much too late in the life of the company, and they often wait until not only are there clear signs of product-market fit but they will bring on two SDRs (sales development representatives), they will test them out for six months. They will do all these things when in reality the second there is a sign of product-market fit it should be viewed as ‘Go’ time and it’s time to hire a VP sales along with other executives and really start going after the market aggressively.

Many founders today, particularly technical or product founders, end up adding sales and a VP sales much too late in the life of the company, and they often wait until not only are there clear signs of product-market fit but they will bring on two SDRs (sales development representatives), they will test them out for six months. They will do all these things when in reality the second there is a sign of product-market fit it should be viewed as ‘Go’ time and it’s time to hire a VP sales along with other executives and really start going after the market aggressively.

So, there are a lot of different reasons why you want to hire a VP of sales early, and a lot of technical or product-centric founders tend to push back on that if they haven’t really seen great sales before. They worry about an early sales hire ruining their culture, or they worry about “Are we really ready for this? Do we really need somebody of that caliber driving our business?” Or they may worry that it’s too early for the company to adopt, or worry about the cost. So, there are many founder reasons to not do it, but I think most of those are wrong, and their product is actually getting a strong pull from the market.

So, there are a lot of different reasons why you want to hire a VP of sales early, and a lot of technical or product-centric founders tend to push back on that if they haven’t really seen great sales before. They worry about an early sales hire ruining their culture, or they worry about “Are we really ready for this? Do we really need somebody of that caliber driving our business?” Or they may worry that it’s too early for the company to adopt, or worry about the cost. So, there are many founder reasons to not do it, but I think most of those are wrong, and their product is actually getting a strong pull from the market.

The mind of an Indian startup founder is typically (and sometimes even exclusively) attuned to creating a great product. But very few understand the power of sales and marketing in making that product available before a wide range of users. Engineers may not necessarily be the coding nerds from every sci-fi movie you have ever watched, but they are certainly not the face of a business organization. It may seem ironic, but even at the height of automation and software innovation, we still need the sales team to do the market research, make those phone calls, and be the smiling face of customer representation. In this chapter, we turn to entrepreneurs who adopted a sales framework early on in their startup career—and even those who didn’t—to understand the importance of sales and marketing in a SaaS organization.

The mind of an Indian startup founder is typically (and sometimes even exclusively) attuned to creating a great product. But very few understand the power of sales and marketing in making that product available before a wide range of users. Engineers may not necessarily be the coding nerds from every sci-fi movie you have ever watched, but they are certainly not the face of a business organization. It may seem ironic, but even at the height of automation and software innovation, we still need the sales team to do the market research, make those phone calls, and be the smiling face of customer representation. In this chapter, we turn to entrepreneurs who adopted a sales framework early on in their startup career—and even those who didn’t—to understand the importance of sales and marketing in a SaaS organization.

Developing a great product takes time and a lot of patience. Much like Rome, the product that you absolutely love, too, wasn’t built in a day. It takes months (sometimes years) for product developers to arrive at an idea that innovates on technology, solves user problems, and is just the thing the market had been waiting for. We asked founders to take us through their journey on product iterations to understand how they pushed through failures to create our favorite software.

Developing a great product takes time and a lot of patience. Much like Rome, the product that you absolutely love, too, wasn’t built in a day. It takes months (sometimes years) for product developers to arrive at an idea that innovates on technology, solves user problems, and is just the thing the market had been waiting for. We asked founders to take us through their journey on product iterations to understand how they pushed through failures to create our favorite software.

SURESH SAMBANDAN

SURESH SAMBANDAN

Alan Kay (the famous American computer scientist) has this famous quote, and it is written on our office walls, that is our core guiding principle on UX, which says, “Simple things should be simple and complex things should be possible.” When you are building a product, you should remember that when somebody starts using your product, it should look very simple. They should just get hooked on to it, but as they dig deeper, they should be able to do a lot more complex and sophisticated things. It’s like peeling an onion, and as you go deeper, layers of features start coming out of the product but on the face of it, it is not intimidating. This is the core design principle and the core product philosophy around KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). The KISS philosophy is deeply rooted in this approach of keeping things very simple, but they have the possibility of achieving complex things. This way people don’t abandon our product after some time because they keep discovering more and more ways to use it. That’s the core tenet on which Kissflow is built and represented by our “Power of Simple” brand value.

Alan Kay (the famous American computer scientist) has this famous quote, and it is written on our office walls, that is our core guiding principle on UX, which says, “Simple things should be simple and complex things should be possible.” When you are building a product, you should remember that when somebody starts using your product, it should look very simple. They should just get hooked on to it, but as they dig deeper, they should be able to do a lot more complex and sophisticated things. It’s like peeling an onion, and as you go deeper, layers of features start coming out of the product but on the face of it, it is not intimidating. This is the core design principle and the core product philosophy around KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). The KISS philosophy is deeply rooted in this approach of keeping things very simple, but they have the possibility of achieving complex things. This way people don’t abandon our product after some time because they keep discovering more and more ways to use it. That’s the core tenet on which Kissflow is built and represented by our “Power of Simple” brand value.

PRUKALPA SANKAR

PRUKALPA SANKAR

We have a natural intuition around product capabilities because at the end of the day we are the users of the product, we can see and feel those challenges and I think we have that advantage which I know many founders and teams out there don’t have. That helps a lot from an intuition perspective to say that this makes sense, we need this now, we need this three months later, we don’t need this at all, and that depth helps there to be where we were sometimes able to push the customer and say that what is the real problem you are trying to solve. We have a company value that we call “problem first, solution second”. What that means is we don’t take feature requests from customers or users, we take problem requests instead. In fact, we never go to our product team with a feature request, we only go to them with a problem. So that puts the onus on us as a go-to-market team to make sure that we go really deep into the problem. Then we take those problems to the product team because we are a very product- and engineering-focused company. This way, you can think of the ideal way of solving the problem and not of something an individual user or customer has asked you to. That has helped. As a B2B company, we focus on three things: pipeline, requests, and prioritization. We use a lot of data internally and try to group requests, map it by pipeline stage map, map it by road map and compare value versus time. Honestly, it is still more of intuition than a clearly defined way. I don’t think there is a clear framework, but we try and bring all of this data together before making any decision.

We have a natural intuition around product capabilities because at the end of the day we are the users of the product, we can see and feel those challenges and I think we have that advantage which I know many founders and teams out there don’t have. That helps a lot from an intuition perspective to say that this makes sense, we need this now, we need this three months later, we don’t need this at all, and that depth helps there to be where we were sometimes able to push the customer and say that what is the real problem you are trying to solve. We have a company value that we call “problem first, solution second”. What that means is we don’t take feature requests from customers or users, we take problem requests instead. In fact, we never go to our product team with a feature request, we only go to them with a problem. So that puts the onus on us as a go-to-market team to make sure that we go really deep into the problem. Then we take those problems to the product team because we are a very product- and engineering-focused company. This way, you can think of the ideal way of solving the problem and not of something an individual user or customer has asked you to. That has helped. As a B2B company, we focus on three things: pipeline, requests, and prioritization. We use a lot of data internally and try to group requests, map it by pipeline stage map, map it by road map and compare value versus time. Honestly, it is still more of intuition than a clearly defined way. I don’t think there is a clear framework, but we try and bring all of this data together before making any decision.

PARAS CHOPRA

PARAS CHOPRA

When you have seven to ten years under your belt doing one thing, it is easy to get distracted and to start exploring areas that have nothing to do with your core product. In the Pune office, we tried to build new products which had nothing to do with our core product, and pretty soon we realized that it was not the right approach for two reasons. One, because there is so much opportunity in our core product that focusing there allows for much better use of bandwidth rather than just doing something completely new. Two, if you are indeed doing something completely new, you become on par with everyone else where you are essentially not taking advantage of the capability, skills, knowledge and brand that you have built over the last 10 years. So, since we came to this realization, in the last two years or so we have become super focused on perfecting what we already have rather than getting distracted in doing something else.

When you have seven to ten years under your belt doing one thing, it is easy to get distracted and to start exploring areas that have nothing to do with your core product. In the Pune office, we tried to build new products which had nothing to do with our core product, and pretty soon we realized that it was not the right approach for two reasons. One, because there is so much opportunity in our core product that focusing there allows for much better use of bandwidth rather than just doing something completely new. Two, if you are indeed doing something completely new, you become on par with everyone else where you are essentially not taking advantage of the capability, skills, knowledge and brand that you have built over the last 10 years. So, since we came to this realization, in the last two years or so we have become super focused on perfecting what we already have rather than getting distracted in doing something else.

ASHISH TULSIAN

ASHISH TULSIAN

We ended up building a product for our own restaurant. Early on, this was definitely not a business idea. We were genuinely trying to solve our own problem. Given that we had invested in the restaurant, we decided not to shut it down, but to see it through and learn from it instead. That was the pursuit, that was the idea. But then, the universe conspired. I ended up exiting my telecom company. Sakshi was also kind of done with services. We both were talking about cracking one thing together and in this period we also gathered a few excellent, outstanding individuals who were working for our respective companies, who we felt could crack something bigger and greater if we all could come together. And there was POSist, because we could clearly see that we were solving a problem at restaurants which other restaurateurs were talking about. We gathered our first ten customers when we did not even have a company name.

We ended up building a product for our own restaurant. Early on, this was definitely not a business idea. We were genuinely trying to solve our own problem. Given that we had invested in the restaurant, we decided not to shut it down, but to see it through and learn from it instead. That was the pursuit, that was the idea. But then, the universe conspired. I ended up exiting my telecom company. Sakshi was also kind of done with services. We both were talking about cracking one thing together and in this period we also gathered a few excellent, outstanding individuals who were working for our respective companies, who we felt could crack something bigger and greater if we all could come together. And there was POSist, because we could clearly see that we were solving a problem at restaurants which other restaurateurs were talking about. We gathered our first ten customers when we did not even have a company name.

KRISH SUBRAMANIAN

KRISH SUBRAMANIAN

The gap in our team was the product management experience. Being a software engineer by training, having previously worked with Fortune 500 customers for close to nine years, and having worked as developers throughout, we understood code, but none of us had project management experience. And we did not appreciate the importance of product management as a discipline—for one person to wear that hat and make decisions around the product. It was very important to have a product counterpart for the go-to-market person designing things for GTM. Instead, as engineers, everybody doubled down on building the product, assuming that we knew the product.

The gap in our team was the product management experience. Being a software engineer by training, having previously worked with Fortune 500 customers for close to nine years, and having worked as developers throughout, we understood code, but none of us had project management experience. And we did not appreciate the importance of product management as a discipline—for one person to wear that hat and make decisions around the product. It was very important to have a product counterpart for the go-to-market person designing things for GTM. Instead, as engineers, everybody doubled down on building the product, assuming that we knew the product.

If you think about Freshworks, the product manager has so much go-to-market savviness that the product already rakes in many things. This gap was, in fact, one of the main reasons why we took longer to establish a product market. It is very important that amongst the founding team somebody wears the hat of product manager. That person should take the call to guide everybody else. Otherwise, the engineer takes over the execution. We think we can solve everything through code, and we keep on building more features, which is what happened with our team.

If you think about Freshworks, the product manager has so much go-to-market savviness that the product already rakes in many things. This gap was, in fact, one of the main reasons why we took longer to establish a product market. It is very important that amongst the founding team somebody wears the hat of product manager. That person should take the call to guide everybody else. Otherwise, the engineer takes over the execution. We think we can solve everything through code, and we keep on building more features, which is what happened with our team.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

KEY TAKEAWAYS

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The term “product-market fit” appears frequently in the SaaS playbook. But what exactly does it mean? A successful founder is not only a visionary when it comes to product development, he/she is also someone who has their finger steadily on the pulse of the market. This dynamic combination (knowledge of the product and market intuition) allows them to identify user needs and develop products that are compatible with current market conditions. We asked founders to share stories of what factors helped them to arrive at a final product that was fit for the market.

The term “product-market fit” appears frequently in the SaaS playbook. But what exactly does it mean? A successful founder is not only a visionary when it comes to product development, he/she is also someone who has their finger steadily on the pulse of the market. This dynamic combination (knowledge of the product and market intuition) allows them to identify user needs and develop products that are compatible with current market conditions. We asked founders to share stories of what factors helped them to arrive at a final product that was fit for the market.

ELAD GIL

ELAD GIL

A lot of it just comes down to the degree to which you are exposed to being in the flow to discover what customers really need and then build it and address it for them to scale. The hard part is often figuring out what somebody needs. If you do the right analysis, you can discover other things that very large enterprises and companies need. You can start with mid-market and large I should say because you often want to start in mid-market and then you can really address something that has a global impact.

A lot of it just comes down to the degree to which you are exposed to being in the flow to discover what customers really need and then build it and address it for them to scale. The hard part is often figuring out what somebody needs. If you do the right analysis, you can discover other things that very large enterprises and companies need. You can start with mid-market and large I should say because you often want to start in mid-market and then you can really address something that has a global impact.

A lot of bad advice can be summed up as post-product-market fit advice being given to pre-product-market fit companies and vice versa. In some cases, some people are six months into their own startup; they have never run anything before. In some cases, people are giving advice without having lived through the situation or really understanding it, and not understanding that they should refer to that founder to talk to somebody that has seen it directly. I think a lot of advice that you can get in a 

A lot of bad advice can be summed up as post-product-market fit advice being given to pre-product-market fit companies and vice versa. In some cases, some people are six months into their own startup; they have never run anything before. In some cases, people are giving advice without having lived through the situation or really understanding it, and not understanding that they should refer to that founder to talk to somebody that has seen it directly. I think a lot of advice that you can get in a 

OUR BIGGEST LEARNING WAS THAT YOU SHOULD DO EXTENSIVE MARKET RESEARCH AND USER RESEARCH BEFORE EVEN THINKING ABOUT MAKING A PRODUCT. BEFORE STARTING SPLASHLEARN, WE MADE SURE THE PRODUCT WE WERE GOING TO CREATE WOULD BE A PERFECT FIT AND SATISFY A REAL NEED.

OUR BIGGEST LEARNING WAS THAT YOU SHOULD DO EXTENSIVE MARKET RESEARCH AND USER RESEARCH BEFORE EVEN THINKING ABOUT MAKING A PRODUCT. BEFORE STARTING SPLASHLEARN, WE MADE SURE THE PRODUCT WE WERE GOING TO CREATE WOULD BE A PERFECT FIT AND SATISFY A REAL NEED.

– ARPIT JAIN

– ARPIT JAIN

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positive way as an investor, as an angel is being “a route board” to people who really understand things well and suggesting that founders or executives connect with those people who really have that depth of knowledge for the specific area that the founder needs help with.

positive way as an investor, as an angel is being “a route board” to people who really understand things well and suggesting that founders or executives connect with those people who really have that depth of knowledge for the specific area that the founder needs help with.

ARPIT JAIN

ARPIT JAIN

From my experience, product-market fit is the most underrated yet the most crucial thing to have before starting. We learned this lesson through our first startup, Intinno, an ed-tech SaaS company, which offered an LMS (learning management system) platform for schools and colleges in India. It was created to solve a real problem we saw around us but after two to three years, we realized that even though we had a good product, the market was not ready for it yet. That’s why it’s important to ensure you launch at the right place and at the right time.

From my experience, product-market fit is the most underrated yet the most crucial thing to have before starting. We learned this lesson through our first startup, Intinno, an ed-tech SaaS company, which offered an LMS (learning management system) platform for schools and colleges in India. It was created to solve a real problem we saw around us but after two to three years, we realized that even though we had a good product, the market was not ready for it yet. That’s why it’s important to ensure you launch at the right place and at the right time.

Our biggest learning was that you should do extensive market research and user research before even thinking about making a product. Like I mentioned earlier, that is something we did before starting SplashLearn. We made sure the product we were going to create would be a perfect fit and satisfy a real need.

Our biggest learning was that you should do extensive market research and user research before even thinking about making a product. Like I mentioned earlier, that is something we did before starting SplashLearn. We made sure the product we were going to create would be a perfect fit and satisfy a real need.

UMANG JAIN

UMANG JAIN

I would say that it was a long and interesting journey going from being people who could code a product to becoming people who can actually build a product along with the ecosystem around it. The biggest lesson has been the realization that just creating the product isn’t good enough.

I would say that it was a long and interesting journey going from being people who could code a product to becoming people who can actually build a product along with the ecosystem around it. The biggest lesson has been the realization that just creating the product isn’t good enough.

Increasingly, we focused more on talking to our user base, understanding their aspirations and needs, and moulding our offering to deliver the greatest value. We often talk about the value of time for our users. It’s our belief that even if they spend a few minutes on our product, they must always get value out of it, which keeps us honest and always working towards building a product that users want.

Increasingly, we focused more on talking to our user base, understanding their aspirations and needs, and moulding our offering to deliver the greatest value. We often talk about the value of time for our users. It’s our belief that even if they spend a few minutes on our product, they must always get value out of it, which keeps us honest and always working towards building a product that users want.

Since SplashLearn is a learning product, it is important to ensure that actual learning is being delivered through it. We have done different things over time to ensure that we have a solid efficacy

Since SplashLearn is a learning product, it is important to ensure that actual learning is being delivered through it. We have done different things over time to ensure that we have a solid efficacy

portfolio, whether regular testing with users, product instrumentation, or full-blown efficacy studies. Not only does it give us credibility but it also helps us constantly innovate and keep the product relevant for our users.

portfolio, whether regular testing with users, product instrumentation, or full-blown efficacy studies. Not only does it give us credibility but it also helps us constantly innovate and keep the product relevant for our users.

ABHINAV ASTHANA

ABHINAV ASTHANA

First, I had to zero in on the thing that people need from the product. Let’s say you’ve designed the product for five use cases. Your first job is to validate it for those use cases. Of course, people are going to come in and say, “Build five more things.” But watch out, because that can cause you to lose focus. You have to be deliberate and not jump into taking on more to-do items until you have clearly established— whether with data or qualitative insight—that all five of these things are worth building.

First, I had to zero in on the thing that people need from the product. Let’s say you’ve designed the product for five use cases. Your first job is to validate it for those use cases. Of course, people are going to come in and say, “Build five more things.” But watch out, because that can cause you to lose focus. You have to be deliberate and not jump into taking on more to-do items until you have clearly established— whether with data or qualitative insight—that all five of these things are worth building.

Of course, you might soon find out that, say, only one of those five things was useful and the rest were just things you thought were good to have. It’s crucial to know which things fit the market and which things to let go of. At Postman, we had to build that muscle of deleting code, getting rid of code, getting rid of buttons on the interface, and things like that; if anyone would add something, we would say things like, “Get rid of it, do we really need it?”

Of course, you might soon find out that, say, only one of those five things was useful and the rest were just things you thought were good to have. It’s crucial to know which things fit the market and which things to let go of. At Postman, we had to build that muscle of deleting code, getting rid of code, getting rid of buttons on the interface, and things like that; if anyone would add something, we would say things like, “Get rid of it, do we really need it?”

Now that Postman has evolved, we, of course, support a lot more complicated technologies. But in those early days, we didn’t want to support too many of them as we didn’t yet see the reward moving that quickly. It’s kind of this co-evolving of the product with the market where you are constantly choosing your path. Today, our issue tracker for the Postman product is publicly documented on GitHub, and users give us feedback on everything. When it reaches a critical mass, we say, “Now we are ready.” So, that’s how we’ve gone about product-market fit.

Now that Postman has evolved, we, of course, support a lot more complicated technologies. But in those early days, we didn’t want to support too many of them as we didn’t yet see the reward moving that quickly. It’s kind of this co-evolving of the product with the market where you are constantly choosing your path. Today, our issue tracker for the Postman product is publicly documented on GitHub, and users give us feedback on everything. When it reaches a critical mass, we say, “Now we are ready.” So, that’s how we’ve gone about product-market fit.

SURESH SAMBANDAM

SURESH SAMBANDAM

The bulb moment happened for us when we sold our platform to a large enterprise company for close to

The bulb moment happened for us when we sold our platform to a large enterprise company for close to

WE HAVE BUILT THESE TOOLS FOR OURSELVES, CAN THESE TOOLS BE HELPFUL FOR DATA TEAMS AROUND THE WORLD?

WE HAVE BUILT THESE TOOLS FOR OURSELVES, CAN THESE TOOLS BE HELPFUL FOR DATA TEAMS AROUND THE WORLD?

– PRUKALPA SANKAR

– PRUKALPA SANKAR

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$70,000. This was before Kissflow. We were a small company then, and the customer is a UK-based biscuit manufacturing company called Unibic. I had to go to the UK and meet with the CIO. We discussed the roll-out when the CIO opened his laptop and showed me a beautiful, sleek UI he had made that had to be slapped on top of our platform that they were going to use to completely automate their internal workflows. At that time, we had the full platform but not the specialized workflow platform, so naturally, we were very excited to see that the customer had gone ahead and done this himself. I asked him how much they had spent on all this, expecting he would say something to the tune of $5000–$10,000. He said $100,000! Some European design agencies had come in and developed the UI/UX. When I heard they had spent $100K for the UI/UX it was actually a rude shock. We are selling a whole platform for $70,000, and here was someone who was spending $100K for just the UX and UI! That really made us take a deep look and think about what this is. This whole thing revolves around minimum functionalities and a tremendous user experience. This was the turning point for us when the product became the product, which is now Kissflow. Although the customer was doing a custom implementation on top of our platform, it inspired us to simplify our platform to create Kissflow.

$70,000. This was before Kissflow. We were a small company then, and the customer is a UK-based biscuit manufacturing company called Unibic. I had to go to the UK and meet with the CIO. We discussed the roll-out when the CIO opened his laptop and showed me a beautiful, sleek UI he had made that had to be slapped on top of our platform that they were going to use to completely automate their internal workflows. At that time, we had the full platform but not the specialized workflow platform, so naturally, we were very excited to see that the customer had gone ahead and done this himself. I asked him how much they had spent on all this, expecting he would say something to the tune of $5000–$10,000. He said $100,000! Some European design agencies had come in and developed the UI/UX. When I heard they had spent $100K for the UI/UX it was actually a rude shock. We are selling a whole platform for $70,000, and here was someone who was spending $100K for just the UX and UI! That really made us take a deep look and think about what this is. This whole thing revolves around minimum functionalities and a tremendous user experience. This was the turning point for us when the product became the product, which is now Kissflow. Although the customer was doing a custom implementation on top of our platform, it inspired us to simplify our platform to create Kissflow.

PRUKALPA SANKAR

PRUKALPA SANKAR

Back in 2018, we had this question, which was: We have built these tools for ourselves, can these tools be helpful for data teams around the world? We spent about three months in a phase where we said, let’s first understand if these are top-of-the-line problems for data teams around the world and are these even problems people care about solving. We had about 200 open-ended conversations before we even built the first line of code on the product. We spoke to some of the best data teams worldwide to understand their top three challenges and the things they spent the most time on. We got about 12 chief data officers on a phone call to validate these assumptions about the problems we were solving. We interviewed them to quantify the value of the problems and to understand if they had tried solving these problems before. That really helped us define product positioning and it also gave us enough confidence to start scaling and go to market. We are still very much in that zero-to-one phase. We are constantly trying to learn from the market because the ecosystem we operate in is changing very rapidly.

Back in 2018, we had this question, which was: We have built these tools for ourselves, can these tools be helpful for data teams around the world? We spent about three months in a phase where we said, let’s first understand if these are top-of-the-line problems for data teams around the world and are these even problems people care about solving. We had about 200 open-ended conversations before we even built the first line of code on the product. We spoke to some of the best data teams worldwide to understand their top three challenges and the things they spent the most time on. We got about 12 chief data officers on a phone call to validate these assumptions about the problems we were solving. We interviewed them to quantify the value of the problems and to understand if they had tried solving these problems before. That really helped us define product positioning and it also gave us enough confidence to start scaling and go to market. We are still very much in that zero-to-one phase. We are constantly trying to learn from the market because the ecosystem we operate in is changing very rapidly.

GIVEN THAT WE HAD INVESTED IN THE RESTAURANT, WE DECIDED NOT TO SHUT IT DOWN, SEE IT THROUGH AND LEARN FROM IT INSTEAD. THAT WAS THE PURSUIT, THAT WAS THE IDEA. BUT THEN, THE UNIVERSE CONSPIRED. AND THERE WAS POSIST, BECAUSE WE COULD CLEARLY SEE THAT WE WERE SOLVING A PROBLEM AT RESTAURANTS WHICH OTHER RESTAURATEURS WERE TALKING ABOUT. WE GATHERED OUR FIRST TEN CUSTOMERS WHEN WE DID NOT EVEN HAVE A COMPANY NAME.

GIVEN THAT WE HAD INVESTED IN THE RESTAURANT, WE DECIDED NOT TO SHUT IT DOWN, SEE IT THROUGH AND LEARN FROM IT INSTEAD. THAT WAS THE PURSUIT, THAT WAS THE IDEA. BUT THEN, THE UNIVERSE CONSPIRED. AND THERE WAS POSIST, BECAUSE WE COULD CLEARLY SEE THAT WE WERE SOLVING A PROBLEM AT RESTAURANTS WHICH OTHER RESTAURATEURS WERE TALKING ABOUT. WE GATHERED OUR FIRST TEN CUSTOMERS WHEN WE DID NOT EVEN HAVE A COMPANY NAME.

— ASHISH TULSIAN

— ASHISH TULSIAN

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SaaS founders in India predominantly belong to engineering or design backgrounds. But if there is a third essential pillar that holds the organization together and helps the product to scale, it is the product manager. We asked founders about the value product managers have brought to their organizations and the right time to hire one.

SaaS founders in India predominantly belong to engineering or design backgrounds. But if there is a third essential pillar that holds the organization together and helps the product to scale, it is the product manager. We asked founders about the value product managers have brought to their organizations and the right time to hire one.

KRISH SUBRAMANIAN

KRISH SUBRAMANIAN

The role of the product manager is that of a customer expert, someone who knows the customer’s problem extremely well. And that person has to have a say in the product and its design thereof. They don’t have to know all the solutions, but they should represent the customer problem accurately by talking to these people, and I think that part plays a huge role in influencing what gets prioritized. It is very important to understand what resonates in the selling process, what excites the customer, and to pay attention to that while building your product.

The role of the product manager is that of a customer expert, someone who knows the customer’s problem extremely well. And that person has to have a say in the product and its design thereof. They don’t have to know all the solutions, but they should represent the customer problem accurately by talking to these people, and I think that part plays a huge role in influencing what gets prioritized. It is very important to understand what resonates in the selling process, what excites the customer, and to pay attention to that while building your product.

If I were to start all over again, I would get the product manager to write down customer feedback, just to crystallize it, so that what we said and what we heard are all on the same page. We all hear what we like to hear in the excitement. You confirm your own bias through whatever you hear, and you ignore the rest. The problem is that none of us is actually on the same page, even while starting to build the product.

If I were to start all over again, I would get the product manager to write down customer feedback, just to crystallize it, so that what we said and what we heard are all on the same page. We all hear what we like to hear in the excitement. You confirm your own bias through whatever you hear, and you ignore the rest. The problem is that none of us is actually on the same page, even while starting to build the product.

And this is one mistake I would definitely like to rectify; I would try to be the chief note-taker and then make sure we are all on the same page because that would capture and clarify a lot of thoughts in the long run and will ensure accountability too. So the first steps of product management needn’t be anything fancy. Just take diligent notes.

And this is one mistake I would definitely like to rectify; I would try to be the chief note-taker and then make sure we are all on the same page because that would capture and clarify a lot of thoughts in the long run and will ensure accountability too. So the first steps of product management needn’t be anything fancy. Just take diligent notes.

MONISH DARDA

MONISH DARDA

We have had several of our customers come back and say that they want to work with us. We have had several of our partners come back and say we want to work with you. From a values perspective, making sure that works out well for both parties is very important, but how do you see and get the right people? How do you make sure that they are referring to more and more people? Because if you wake up in the morning and you want to go to the office and work, and you love being part of Icertis, you will refer it to 10–15 other people. The referral thing has worked out very well. In my mind, it all boils down to getting your values right, executing them, and making sure that people know what is important in a given situation.

We have had several of our customers come back and say that they want to work with us. We have had several of our partners come back and say we want to work with you. From a values perspective, making sure that works out well for both parties is very important, but how do you see and get the right people? How do you make sure that they are referring to more and more people? Because if you wake up in the morning and you want to go to the office and work, and you love being part of Icertis, you will refer it to 10–15 other people. The referral thing has worked out very well. In my mind, it all boils down to getting your values right, executing them, and making sure that people know what is important in a given situation.

With Icertis, we got lucky! We had an enterprise customer before we built the product vested in our success. So these early users shaped the product— and we haven’t forgotten that today. Icertis users continue to give feedback. We continue to listen carefully and act on it. The biggest lesson, though, was not listening to your users—how do you look beyond what they are asking and see how it can be incorporated to benefit the whole community, not just that one user. This has been absolutely critical! I think that is why I absolutely love product management. It is like a painter creating a work of art from paint and canvas—it is quite incredible when the right paint and canvas in the hands of an artist becomes a great work of art!

With Icertis, we got lucky! We had an enterprise customer before we built the product vested in our success. So these early users shaped the product— and we haven’t forgotten that today. Icertis users continue to give feedback. We continue to listen carefully and act on it. The biggest lesson, though, was not listening to your users—how do you look beyond what they are asking and see how it can be incorporated to benefit the whole community, not just that one user. This has been absolutely critical! I think that is why I absolutely love product management. It is like a painter creating a work of art from paint and canvas—it is quite incredible when the right paint and canvas in the hands of an artist becomes a great work of art!

ARPIT JAIN

ARPIT JAIN

We started working with parents and teachers very closely from day one, even before building our product. User research is one key thing we focus a lot on. We have a few teachers who’ve been helping build our products since the beginning of our journey. That’s over 10 years ago! This user feedback process is ingrained in our team’s culture, and this ensures we’re in constant communication with users.

We started working with parents and teachers very closely from day one, even before building our product. User research is one key thing we focus a lot on. We have a few teachers who’ve been helping build our products since the beginning of our journey. That’s over 10 years ago! This user feedback process is ingrained in our team’s culture, and this ensures we’re in constant communication with users.

Listening to your users, whether it’s through your support channels, through app store reviews, social media, or anywhere else is crucial. What our users tell us goes hand in hand with the data we analyze because we’re able to validate the problems that the numbers are telling us immediately. We always assume that if one user has reported an issue, then it’s likely there are at least 10x users who are facing that problem. We then ensure that we’re constantly innovating and solving these problems as quickly as possible.

Listening to your users, whether it’s through your support channels, through app store reviews, social media, or anywhere else is crucial. What our users tell us goes hand in hand with the data we analyze because we’re able to validate the problems that the numbers are telling us immediately. We always assume that if one user has reported an issue, then it’s likely there are at least 10x users who are facing that problem. We then ensure that we’re constantly innovating and solving these problems as quickly as possible.

I think it’s difficult but important to break away from the engineering mindset where you have a set idea of a product in mind because it appeals to you. At the end of the day, you have to remember that after the release, the product belongs to the users as much as to you—you co-own it with them.

I think it’s difficult but important to break away from the engineering mindset where you have a set idea of a product in mind because it appeals to you. At the end of the day, you have to remember that after the release, the product belongs to the users as much as to you—you co-own it with them.

ABHINAV SHASHANK

ABHINAV SHASHANK

One of the things that differentiate us, in general, is just the level of customer obsession that we have. I’m not kidding you when I say that for months and months we just lived in customer offices, asking what your problems are, how do we solve them. Everyone started from our developers to designers to product people, everyone did that. At some point, it gets ingrained into your DNA. We are a very customer backward company today. We have customer advisory boards, we have a ton of our customers meeting almost every two weeks to give us feedback. Every release that we do is first done to our customers, and unless the customer advisory board ticks it off, we don’t release it. There is that level of customer obsession that is there.

One of the things that differentiate us, in general, is just the level of customer obsession that we have. I’m not kidding you when I say that for months and months we just lived in customer offices, asking what your problems are, how do we solve them. Everyone started from our developers to designers to product people, everyone did that. At some point, it gets ingrained into your DNA. We are a very customer backward company today. We have customer advisory boards, we have a ton of our customers meeting almost every two weeks to give us feedback. Every release that we do is first done to our customers, and unless the customer advisory board ticks it off, we don’t release it. There is that level of customer obsession that is there.

IT’S DIFFICULT BUT IMPORTANT TO BREAK AWAY FROM THE ENGINEERING MINDSET WHERE YOU HAVE A SET IDEA OF A PRODUCT IN MIND BECAUSE IT APPEALS TO YOU. AT THE END OF THE DAY, YOU HAVE TO REMEMBER THAT AFTER THE RELEASE, THE PRODUCT BELONGS TO THE USERS AS MUCH AS TO YOU—YOU CO-OWN IT WITH THEM.

IT’S DIFFICULT BUT IMPORTANT TO BREAK AWAY FROM THE ENGINEERING MINDSET WHERE YOU HAVE A SET IDEA OF A PRODUCT IN MIND BECAUSE IT APPEALS TO YOU. AT THE END OF THE DAY, YOU HAVE TO REMEMBER THAT AFTER THE RELEASE, THE PRODUCT BELONGS TO THE USERS AS MUCH AS TO YOU—YOU CO-OWN IT WITH THEM.

— ARPIT JAIN

— ARPIT JAIN

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PRUKALPA SANKAR

PRUKALPA SANKAR

We spent almost a year in stealth, working closely with customers and seeing how we could get their experience right, how we could create those wow moments for the user, and we could really rethink. If you think about the core problems we are trying to solve, they revolve around data quality and data management. These are problems that have existed since the 1990s but have never been solved. We started to rethink these problems, to build a completely new way for people. Remember, our users are all very different people—like an analyst’s workflow is very different from an engineer’s workflow, which is again very different from a business user’s workflow. How do you get all of them to naturally adopt the product? That has been a very, very core part of the DNA and everything else is built and centered around the product.

We spent almost a year in stealth, working closely with customers and seeing how we could get their experience right, how we could create those wow moments for the user, and we could really rethink. If you think about the core problems we are trying to solve, they revolve around data quality and data management. These are problems that have existed since the 1990s but have never been solved. We started to rethink these problems, to build a completely new way for people. Remember, our users are all very different people—like an analyst’s workflow is very different from an engineer’s workflow, which is again very different from a business user’s workflow. How do you get all of them to naturally adopt the product? That has been a very, very core part of the DNA and everything else is built and centered around the product.

SPARSH GUPTA

SPARSH GUPTA

We made the initial prototypes internally, expecting everyone to love them and buy the product immediately. We were wrong but also incredibly lucky that this was an alpha release. We quickly pivoted and built a beta product entirely in sync with our customer’s needs. For a couple of quarters, many people had free access to our tool in exchange for feedback. Looking back, it was one of the most impactful decisions we made early on. I remember once Paras (Chopra, co-founder) and I joined a customer call to have a five-minute conversation. The customer shared his experience and requested a feature. I put myself on mute, and by the end of what became a 40-minute call, I unmuted myself and said, “By the way, the feature you asked about is now live.”

We made the initial prototypes internally, expecting everyone to love them and buy the product immediately. We were wrong but also incredibly lucky that this was an alpha release. We quickly pivoted and built a beta product entirely in sync with our customer’s needs. For a couple of quarters, many people had free access to our tool in exchange for feedback. Looking back, it was one of the most impactful decisions we made early on. I remember once Paras (Chopra, co-founder) and I joined a customer call to have a five-minute conversation. The customer shared his experience and requested a feature. I put myself on mute, and by the end of what became a 40-minute call, I unmuted myself and said, “By the way, the feature you asked about is now live.”

WE SPENT ALMOST A YEAR IN STEALTH, WORKING CLOSELY WITH CUSTOMERS AND SEEING HOW WE COULD GET THEIR EXPERIENCE RIGHT, HOW WE COULD CREATE THOSE WOW MOMENTS FOR THE USER, AND WE COULD REALLY RETHINK. WE STARTED TO RETHINK THESE PROBLEMS, TO BUILD A COMPLETELY NEW WAY FOR PEOPLE.

WE SPENT ALMOST A YEAR IN STEALTH, WORKING CLOSELY WITH CUSTOMERS AND SEEING HOW WE COULD GET THEIR EXPERIENCE RIGHT, HOW WE COULD CREATE THOSE WOW MOMENTS FOR THE USER, AND WE COULD REALLY RETHINK. WE STARTED TO RETHINK THESE PROBLEMS, TO BUILD A COMPLETELY NEW WAY FOR PEOPLE.

– PRUKALPA SANKAR

– PRUKALPA SANKAR

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Having said this, in the last ten years, we have also innovated on things that no customer has asked. If we had limited ourselves to just responding to what the customer was asking for, we would not have been the product we are today. That is to say, just building the feature that the customer is asking for will not cut it. You have to understand the real pain behind customer requests by going multiple levels deeper. You might uncover an excellent opportunity that even the customer doesn’t realize.

Having said this, in the last ten years, we have also innovated on things that no customer has asked. If we had limited ourselves to just responding to what the customer was asking for, we would not have been the product we are today. That is to say, just building the feature that the customer is asking for will not cut it. You have to understand the real pain behind customer requests by going multiple levels deeper. You might uncover an excellent opportunity that even the customer doesn’t realize.

ABHINAV ASTHANA

ABHINAV ASTHANA

What I learned from my first company—and this was right before Postman—was that no matter how good or how hard you work on the technology, how good you think you are at design, it really doesn’t matter unless you have a good knack for understanding real customer needs and wants. And it turned out, we were just ignoring that a lot in the first company.

What I learned from my first company—and this was right before Postman—was that no matter how good or how hard you work on the technology, how good you think you are at design, it really doesn’t matter unless you have a good knack for understanding real customer needs and wants. And it turned out, we were just ignoring that a lot in the first company.

Specifically, I’ve found that knowing why users are not continuing to use your product is a very important thing. Seek out people who are more likely to reject than accept you. In the first startup, we were like, “We built something awesome, and even my mom has the app installed,” but that sort of validation is not useful.

Specifically, I’ve found that knowing why users are not continuing to use your product is a very important thing. Seek out people who are more likely to reject than accept you. In the first startup, we were like, “We built something awesome, and even my mom has the app installed,” but that sort of validation is not useful.

In Postman’s case, we would seek out hardcore developers, people who really don’t like most things; they’re very tough customers. You cannot be scared of going and asking for their feedback because you may get punched in the face with that feedback. So we kind of built that muscle to be able to withstand that sort of thing. We went out to seek ugly feedback where people were saying: “Postman doesn’t work, it’s sh*t, it can’t do this one simple thing that I need it do”; that is the kind of feedback we like because it makes our product better.

In Postman’s case, we would seek out hardcore developers, people who really don’t like most things; they’re very tough customers. You cannot be scared of going and asking for their feedback because you may get punched in the face with that feedback. So we kind of built that muscle to be able to withstand that sort of thing. We went out to seek ugly feedback where people were saying: “Postman doesn’t work, it’s sh*t, it can’t do this one simple thing that I need it do”; that is the kind of feedback we like because it makes our product better.

However, many companies don’t do that. CEOs often pitch their product as if everything is great and all metrics are up, and the product has no weaknesses. I’ve always been very skeptical of such views.

However, many companies don’t do that. CEOs often pitch their product as if everything is great and all metrics are up, and the product has no weaknesses. I’ve always been very skeptical of such views.

RITESH ARORA

RITESH ARORA

Don’t immediately start building for an idea. Instead, identify users who have been facing an active problem. You need to ensure there is a genuine need in the market; figure out the depth of the problem and what they are currently using to solve the problem. That is something we did very differently with BrowserStack. Being developers, we have the tendency to jump on to writing the code straight away. But this time, we were very clear that we will not write the code; in fact, we will not write anything for the first month. Instead, we did a search on the internet. Nowadays, people write and share their experiences—you think about any problem, and you will find people sharing experiences about that problem, whether it’s a high-end enterprise problem or buying shoes. So, it’s all over the internet. We just need to find the one where people are sharing their thoughts. Those are your users; they will help you build the business. You also need to identify how you would reach those users. You get your go-to-market from there. We identified some 76 users across different internet mediums, including Twitter, who clearly identified their problems with testing. We could get a sense of how big the market would be and how active the problem is. I would recommend that as the number one thing that first-time founders should do. If you are from a sales and marketing background, it will come to you naturally. But if you are a developer or an engineer by training, do not skip this part.

Don’t immediately start building for an idea. Instead, identify users who have been facing an active problem. You need to ensure there is a genuine need in the market; figure out the depth of the problem and what they are currently using to solve the problem. That is something we did very differently with BrowserStack. Being developers, we have the tendency to jump on to writing the code straight away. But this time, we were very clear that we will not write the code; in fact, we will not write anything for the first month. Instead, we did a search on the internet. Nowadays, people write and share their experiences—you think about any problem, and you will find people sharing experiences about that problem, whether it’s a high-end enterprise problem or buying shoes. So, it’s all over the internet. We just need to find the one where people are sharing their thoughts. Those are your users; they will help you build the business. You also need to identify how you would reach those users. You get your go-to-market from there. We identified some 76 users across different internet mediums, including Twitter, who clearly identified their problems with testing. We could get a sense of how big the market would be and how active the problem is. I would recommend that as the number one thing that first-time founders should do. If you are from a sales and marketing background, it will come to you naturally. But if you are a developer or an engineer by training, do not skip this part.

YOU THINK ABOUT ANY PROBLEM, AND YOU WILL FIND PEOPLE SHARING EXPERIENCES ABOUT THAT PROBLEM, WHETHER IT’S A HIGH-END ENTERPRISE PROBLEM OR BUYING SHOES. SO, IT’S ALL OVER THE INTERNET. WE JUST NEED TO FIND THE ONE WHERE PEOPLE ARE SHARING THEIR THOUGHTS. THOSE ARE YOUR USERS; THEY WILL HELP YOU BUILD THE BUSINESS. YOU ALSO NEED TO IDENTIFY HOW YOU WOULD REACH THOSE USERS. YOU GET YOUR GO-TO-MARKET FROM THERE.

YOU THINK ABOUT ANY PROBLEM, AND YOU WILL FIND PEOPLE SHARING EXPERIENCES ABOUT THAT PROBLEM, WHETHER IT’S A HIGH-END ENTERPRISE PROBLEM OR BUYING SHOES. SO, IT’S ALL OVER THE INTERNET. WE JUST NEED TO FIND THE ONE WHERE PEOPLE ARE SHARING THEIR THOUGHTS. THOSE ARE YOUR USERS; THEY WILL HELP YOU BUILD THE BUSINESS. YOU ALSO NEED TO IDENTIFY HOW YOU WOULD REACH THOSE USERS. YOU GET YOUR GO-TO-MARKET FROM THERE.

– RITESH ARORA

– RITESH ARORA

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Rarely does the idea for a good product arise independently from the mind of a brilliant entrepreneur. A perceptive entrepreneur is also a rigorous researcher who knows exactly what frustrates the user and then works towards improving the existing product for better results. In many ways, therefore, the successful SaaS products of today are manifestations of carefully curated user feedback that addresses complexities and constantly innovates to enhance the overall product experience. 

Rarely does the idea for a good product arise independently from the mind of a brilliant entrepreneur. A perceptive entrepreneur is also a rigorous researcher who knows exactly what frustrates the user and then works towards improving the existing product for better results. In many ways, therefore, the successful SaaS products of today are manifestations of carefully curated user feedback that addresses complexities and constantly innovates to enhance the overall product experience. 

One of the most significant shifts in how software products are sold and consumed is how users (and not just buyers) are shaping the future. In this conversation, Girish Mathrubootham and Manav Garg discuss critical learnings from PLG for India SaaS. The edited excerpts are from a SaaSBOOMi session on the topic.

One of the most significant shifts in how software products are sold and consumed is how users (and not just buyers) are shaping the future. In this conversation, Girish Mathrubootham and Manav Garg discuss critical learnings from PLG for India SaaS. The edited excerpts are from a SaaSBOOMi session on the topic.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

How do you define PLG?

How do you define PLG?

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

In very simple terms, PLG is all about business; it is not about the product. It’s a product-based everything. If you take a typical business, you want to get leads or acquire users, as you call it. You want to get people to come in as leads; you want them to try your product, you want to convert them as customers, you want them to adopt, you want to onboard them successfully, you want to expand to other teams or other modules, and then you want to retain them. In the traditional world, we used to do it through people; PLG, in the simplest terms, is how you use products for all of this.

In very simple terms, PLG is all about business; it is not about the product. It’s a product-based everything. If you take a typical business, you want to get leads or acquire users, as you call it. You want to get people to come in as leads; you want them to try your product, you want to convert them as customers, you want them to adopt, you want to onboard them successfully, you want to expand to other teams or other modules, and then you want to retain them. In the traditional world, we used to do it through people; PLG, in the simplest terms, is how you use products for all of this.

Like, for example, freemium could be a way in which you acquire users. Most of the time, if you see the previous SaaSBOOMi sessions, we used to do product tear-down; we did not know this fancy term of product-led growth. The correction that we should convey to all the earlier SaaSBOOMi sessions is that the product tear-down that we used to do, we were looking at it from a PLG lens. We saw how your website is designed. Can somebody come in and

Like, for example, freemium could be a way in which you acquire users. Most of the time, if you see the previous SaaSBOOMi sessions, we used to do product tear-down; we did not know this fancy term of product-led growth. The correction that we should convey to all the earlier SaaSBOOMi sessions is that the product tear-down that we used to do, we were looking at it from a PLG lens. We saw how your website is designed. Can somebody come in and

THE EASIEST DEFINITION IS, HOW DO YOU USE THE PRODUCT TO ACQUIRE CUSTOMERS, TO ENSURE ADOPTION, TO ENSURE CONVERSION FROM TRIAL TO PAYING CUSTOMER, AND TO EVEN RETAIN, TO EXPAND, PRODUCT-BASED EVERYTHING. USING THE PRODUCT AS THE VEHICLE TO DRIVE EVERYTHING, THAT’S PLG.

THE EASIEST DEFINITION IS, HOW DO YOU USE THE PRODUCT TO ACQUIRE CUSTOMERS, TO ENSURE ADOPTION, TO ENSURE CONVERSION FROM TRIAL TO PAYING CUSTOMER, AND TO EVEN RETAIN, TO EXPAND, PRODUCT-BASED EVERYTHING. USING THE PRODUCT AS THE VEHICLE TO DRIVE EVERYTHING, THAT’S PLG.

– GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

– GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

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quickly understand what you have? Can they sign up and start using it?

quickly understand what you have? Can they sign up and start using it?

The easiest definition is, how do you use the product to acquire customers, to ensure adoption, to ensure conversion from trial to paying customer, and to even retain, to expand, product-based everything. Using the product as the vehicle to drive everything, that’s PLG.

The easiest definition is, how do you use the product to acquire customers, to ensure adoption, to ensure conversion from trial to paying customer, and to even retain, to expand, product-based everything. Using the product as the vehicle to drive everything, that’s PLG.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

Why do you think that PLG has suddenly become so important?

Why do you think that PLG has suddenly become so important?

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

If you look at the last 12–13 years, it’s not that PLG has not been there. It has been there but in pockets. For example, they used to be small tools. There are a few catalysts that emerged, like Google itself. The ability to find a product online by Google changed that. If you were selling software in 2002–03, most people did not know Google AdWords at that time, so you had to send your sales guys to go and look at customers. What that means is that if you are starting a company in the US, you will start with the top customers that you can get. Even if a company starts with SMB customers, they will go upmarket because only the larger customers could do this. We had this established model of sales-led growth. We had these pockets, let’s take some simple project management tools, where we would go and seek out, but none of these tools became big.

If you look at the last 12–13 years, it’s not that PLG has not been there. It has been there but in pockets. For example, they used to be small tools. There are a few catalysts that emerged, like Google itself. The ability to find a product online by Google changed that. If you were selling software in 2002–03, most people did not know Google AdWords at that time, so you had to send your sales guys to go and look at customers. What that means is that if you are starting a company in the US, you will start with the top customers that you can get. Even if a company starts with SMB customers, they will go upmarket because only the larger customers could do this. We had this established model of sales-led growth. We had these pockets, let’s take some simple project management tools, where we would go and seek out, but none of these tools became big.

The other important thing which happened was that it became easier to start a startup, like with Amazon Web Services, availability of venture capital and adoption of SaaS, and also the digital transformation of all businesses. Earlier, only the big companies would be able to afford software; now with 37signals, you can put a credit card and pay $50,

The other important thing which happened was that it became easier to start a startup, like with Amazon Web Services, availability of venture capital and adoption of SaaS, and also the digital transformation of all businesses. Earlier, only the big companies would be able to afford software; now with 37signals, you can put a credit card and pay $50,

WE HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THAT SCALING AS AN ENTERPRISE GROWTH STARTUP IS ACTUALLY HARDER, BUT SCALING WITH PRODUCT-LED GROWTH IS ANOTHER ALTERNATIVE WHERE WE CAN GO FAST BECAUSE THE MARKET IS BIG.

WE HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THAT SCALING AS AN ENTERPRISE GROWTH STARTUP IS ACTUALLY HARDER, BUT SCALING WITH PRODUCT-LED GROWTH IS ANOTHER ALTERNATIVE WHERE WE CAN GO FAST BECAUSE THE MARKET IS BIG.

– GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

– GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

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$100 and start using the software. Now starting up is easy but scaling up is very, very hard. If every startup had to hire enterprise sales reps and go after the large enterprises in the conventional model, nobody would win because the large enterprises don’t actually buy this.

$100 and start using the software. Now starting up is easy but scaling up is very, very hard. If every startup had to hire enterprise sales reps and go after the large enterprises in the conventional model, nobody would win because the large enterprises don’t actually buy this.

So, product-led growth emerged as a combination of all these factors where now I have a global market and if I can identify a nice feature and put it in a nice category and I can get some word of mouth, I can get the product, like the best example to understand this is Slack or Zoom. In Zoom’s case, it was an existing old category but a superior product, and when I used it or something like DropBox, I cannot use it alone, I have to invite others, and the more people I invite, the more people want to use it. It became a nice model of scaling. It’s a new model of scaling fast and very efficiently.

So, product-led growth emerged as a combination of all these factors where now I have a global market and if I can identify a nice feature and put it in a nice category and I can get some word of mouth, I can get the product, like the best example to understand this is Slack or Zoom. In Zoom’s case, it was an existing old category but a superior product, and when I used it or something like DropBox, I cannot use it alone, I have to invite others, and the more people I invite, the more people want to use it. It became a nice model of scaling. It’s a new model of scaling fast and very efficiently.

We have to understand that scaling as an enterprise growth startup is actually harder, but scaling with product-led growth is another alternative where we can go fast because the market is big, if the opportunity is unique, if you can generate some word of mouth or use freemium to bring people in, if product execution is superior, we will talk about all of that, that is why it has become popular.

We have to understand that scaling as an enterprise growth startup is actually harder, but scaling with product-led growth is another alternative where we can go fast because the market is big, if the opportunity is unique, if you can generate some word of mouth or use freemium to bring people in, if product execution is superior, we will talk about all of that, that is why it has become popular.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

What are the top three things that you would do differently if you are starting a company today when you have PLG on your mind? What are the top three things that you would advise people to keep in mind when they are designing the product on the very first day in a startup?

What are the top three things that you would do differently if you are starting a company today when you have PLG on your mind? What are the top three things that you would advise people to keep in mind when they are designing the product on the very first day in a startup?

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

You have to look at product-led everything. Break out all the functions, let’s take product management, take design, take marketing, take sales, each one of these is different. For example, if you start at product management, you started there right. If I am going to sell an SAP, or an Oracle, or an Eka software, I have to build the value prop in the product. The features which I will build are for the CEO, the VP, the CIO. If I am going for PLG, I have to build for the end-user, because the VP and the CEO are not going online and searching for a product, or signing up for a trial.

You have to look at product-led everything. Break out all the functions, let’s take product management, take design, take marketing, take sales, each one of these is different. For example, if you start at product management, you started there right. If I am going to sell an SAP, or an Oracle, or an Eka software, I have to build the value prop in the product. The features which I will build are for the CEO, the VP, the CIO. If I am going for PLG, I have to build for the end-user, because the VP and the CEO are not going online and searching for a product, or signing up for a trial.

Like, if an end-user is doing the same task a hundred times, one of my features could be, I can use canned responses, I can do bulk updates, in helpdesk for example. Those are the features that people like in their world. Like in Freshdesk, I will give you an example, we actually had features where we can say that if a conversation is going back and forth between the customer and support agent so many times, we can automatically escalate to the supervisor. That resonates so much with the users because they are living through that. So, you focus on those kinds of things in product management.

Like, if an end-user is doing the same task a hundred times, one of my features could be, I can use canned responses, I can do bulk updates, in helpdesk for example. Those are the features that people like in their world. Like in Freshdesk, I will give you an example, we actually had features where we can say that if a conversation is going back and forth between the customer and support agent so many times, we can automatically escalate to the supervisor. That resonates so much with the users because they are living through that. So, you focus on those kinds of things in product management.

In design, you must make the product aesthetically beautiful and make it easy and intuitive to use because if you are building an Oracle app or a Salesforce, you will design the product assuming that a certified consultant is going to implement it. In PLG, you have to design assuming that someone is coming via the browser. In the first two or three minutes, they have to like the product. That’s why aesthetically being good is important. They have to see the fit and finish and polish and craftsmanship and feel that this looks like a good product, Otherwise, they will close the browser and go and then if they decide that it is worth the look, then in the next 20–30 minutes, they should feel that it also looks easy enough for me to configure.

In design, you must make the product aesthetically beautiful and make it easy and intuitive to use because if you are building an Oracle app or a Salesforce, you will design the product assuming that a certified consultant is going to implement it. In PLG, you have to design assuming that someone is coming via the browser. In the first two or three minutes, they have to like the product. That’s why aesthetically being good is important. They have to see the fit and finish and polish and craftsmanship and feel that this looks like a good product, Otherwise, they will close the browser and go and then if they decide that it is worth the look, then in the next 20–30 minutes, they should feel that it also looks easy enough for me to configure.

Think about pricing on the website. In a sales-led growth model, you will say contact sales. In a PLG, you want to put a pricing page, you want to show what is pricing because a lot of times if you see the customer journey, they go from the home page, you may have a big sign-up button on the home page but they will go to the pricing page, they want to see the price and then they make their call to sign up. That is on pricing.

Think about pricing on the website. In a sales-led growth model, you will say contact sales. In a PLG, you want to put a pricing page, you want to show what is pricing because a lot of times if you see the customer journey, they go from the home page, you may have a big sign-up button on the home page but they will go to the pricing page, they want to see the price and then they make their call to sign up. That is on pricing.

If you think about product marketing, in a sales-led growth model you would send white papers, you will write white papers, you are not showing the product. Imagine how Slack or Zoom came into our companies. The product (Zoom) just grew inside the company and finally, we did one enterprise conference chat, so there was no salesperson coming in. Imagine being an enterprise salesperson in Slack. You don’t have to go and knock on doors. You just have to look at all the freemium users, which big companies are using it, how many users are using it—Oh! 30 different teams are using it in Freshworks, so let me call the

If you think about product marketing, in a sales-led growth model you would send white papers, you will write white papers, you are not showing the product. Imagine how Slack or Zoom came into our companies. The product (Zoom) just grew inside the company and finally, we did one enterprise conference chat, so there was no salesperson coming in. Imagine being an enterprise salesperson in Slack. You don’t have to go and knock on doors. You just have to look at all the freemium users, which big companies are using it, how many users are using it—Oh! 30 different teams are using it in Freshworks, so let me call the

EVERYTHING, FUNCTION BY FUNCTION, PLG HAS TO BE DIFFERENTLY DONE. BY THE WAY, I AM NOT SAYING THAT PLG IS BETTER THAN SALESLED GROWTH OR SALES-LED GROWTH IS BETTER THAN PLG. I AM JUST SAYING THAT YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND AND DESIGN ACCORDINGLY.

EVERYTHING, FUNCTION BY FUNCTION, PLG HAS TO BE DIFFERENTLY DONE. BY THE WAY, I AM NOT SAYING THAT PLG IS BETTER THAN SALESLED GROWTH OR SALES-LED GROWTH IS BETTER THAN PLG. I AM JUST SAYING THAT YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND AND DESIGN ACCORDINGLY.

– GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

– GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

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Freshworks CIO and say that 30 different teams are using it, do you want to focus on your information flow? Okay, then let’s consolidate, here is the bill.

Freshworks CIO and say that 30 different teams are using it, do you want to focus on your information flow? Okay, then let’s consolidate, here is the bill.

Everything, function by function . . . PLG has to be differently done. By the way, I am not saying that PLG is better than sales-led growth or sales-led growth is better than PLG. I am just saying that you have to understand and design accordingly.

Everything, function by function . . . PLG has to be differently done. By the way, I am not saying that PLG is better than sales-led growth or sales-led growth is better than PLG. I am just saying that you have to understand and design accordingly.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

Coming back to the key point, the basics of PLG are that if you are starting the company today or if you are pivoting your company to a PLG, then you have to think through every single function. So, it is the business design more than just the product design.

Coming back to the key point, the basics of PLG are that if you are starting the company today or if you are pivoting your company to a PLG, then you have to think through every single function. So, it is the business design more than just the product design.

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

Very, very critical is, first to bring the people to the product. Second is during the trial, how can the product help, for example, there is no point in putting all the videos on to the website because once somebody has signed up, they have moved from your website to the product. In PLG, product marketing has to work inside the product, not on the website. You have to work on the website also, but the bulk of the work has to be done inside the product. Everything moves inside the product. Think about LinkedIn for example, how it nudges you to add your education, move your profile completion to 90 percent, add another work experience, make it 95 percent, endorse some of your friends, your profile will go to 98 percent, it is all product-based nudges, upgrade to premium. MANAV GARG Are there any products or business models that are more suited to PLG than others?

Very, very critical is, first to bring the people to the product. Second is during the trial, how can the product help, for example, there is no point in putting all the videos on to the website because once somebody has signed up, they have moved from your website to the product. In PLG, product marketing has to work inside the product, not on the website. You have to work on the website also, but the bulk of the work has to be done inside the product. Everything moves inside the product. Think about LinkedIn for example, how it nudges you to add your education, move your profile completion to 90 percent, add another work experience, make it 95 percent, endorse some of your friends, your profile will go to 98 percent, it is all product-based nudges, upgrade to premium. MANAV GARG Are there any products or business models that are more suited to PLG than others?

IN PLG, PRODUCT MARKETING HAS TO WORK INSIDE THE PRODUCT, NOT ON THE WEBSITE. YOU HAVE TO WORK ON THE WEBSITE ALSO, BUT THE BULK OF THE WORK HAS TO BE DONE INSIDE THE PRODUCT. EVERYTHING MOVES INSIDE THE PRODUCT.

IN PLG, PRODUCT MARKETING HAS TO WORK INSIDE THE PRODUCT, NOT ON THE WEBSITE. YOU HAVE TO WORK ON THE WEBSITE ALSO, BUT THE BULK OF THE WORK HAS TO BE DONE INSIDE THE PRODUCT. EVERYTHING MOVES INSIDE THE PRODUCT.

– GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

– GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

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GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

The main thing is that you must make your software or product valuable for a team. Any software where a team can buy on their own is the best fit for PLG. For example, I cannot use Zoom by myself. I have to use it with at least one more person. Or if I am using project management software. There is corporate software and then there is team software. Jira is a good example. An engineering team can buy Jira and use it amongst them. A lot of times I see startups have this big, broad vision where they want to go and build everything, but what they have to understand is that there is so much friction in a large enterprise, that you can’t actually go in and replace everything.

The main thing is that you must make your software or product valuable for a team. Any software where a team can buy on their own is the best fit for PLG. For example, I cannot use Zoom by myself. I have to use it with at least one more person. Or if I am using project management software. There is corporate software and then there is team software. Jira is a good example. An engineering team can buy Jira and use it amongst them. A lot of times I see startups have this big, broad vision where they want to go and build everything, but what they have to understand is that there is so much friction in a large enterprise, that you can’t actually go in and replace everything.

You need a wedge, you need a spear, which means you have to find one team within that enterprise . . . what could they use potentially? Then build that like a product and then make that as a PLG wedge. Maybe eventually you can land a lot more than your vision. The key I would say is to make sure you can build something that a team can use.

You need a wedge, you need a spear, which means you have to find one team within that enterprise . . . what could they use potentially? Then build that like a product and then make that as a PLG wedge. Maybe eventually you can land a lot more than your vision. The key I would say is to make sure you can build something that a team can use.

Think about InVision, think about Canva. If a team can buy on their own without carpet approval, that is brilliant and if the category is well established, then you can do freemium or Google AdWords and get traffic and if the category is new, then you need a lot of word of mouth and virality.

Think about InVision, think about Canva. If a team can buy on their own without carpet approval, that is brilliant and if the category is well established, then you can do freemium or Google AdWords and get traffic and if the category is new, then you need a lot of word of mouth and virality.

Zoom, Dropbox, Slack are great examples. I cannot use Slack on my own. So, for every person who wants to use Slack, add 10 more people. If one team is using it and the other team sees it and they think that these guys are having fun, they are collaborating nicely, so we should also come in. That kind of virality helps. The moot point is how do you build your product to bring superior value for one team to do their job better. CRM is more of a corporate buy-in for many companies. It is very hard to have PLG in CRM. In SMB it is probably easier, the sales team will look for CRM, but in many large companies, CRM is a corporate buy. But helpdesk, like a support team, sometimes is a corporate buy but in many cases, teams will just use the helpdesk for ticketing. They may even have something else for their customer support, but ticketing is a smaller, well-defined problem. You have to understand and find that value for the teams.

Zoom, Dropbox, Slack are great examples. I cannot use Slack on my own. So, for every person who wants to use Slack, add 10 more people. If one team is using it and the other team sees it and they think that these guys are having fun, they are collaborating nicely, so we should also come in. That kind of virality helps. The moot point is how do you build your product to bring superior value for one team to do their job better. CRM is more of a corporate buy-in for many companies. It is very hard to have PLG in CRM. In SMB it is probably easier, the sales team will look for CRM, but in many large companies, CRM is a corporate buy. But helpdesk, like a support team, sometimes is a corporate buy but in many cases, teams will just use the helpdesk for ticketing. They may even have something else for their customer support, but ticketing is a smaller, well-defined problem. You have to understand and find that value for the teams.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

Is there an upper limit of annual contract value when you think about PLG, is there any range that is more suitable? In sales-led growth, it can grow from 75k to a million dollars and above, it doesn’t matter but from your experience, is there any upper limit or is there a range that is more suitable for PLG?

Is there an upper limit of annual contract value when you think about PLG, is there any range that is more suitable? In sales-led growth, it can grow from 75k to a million dollars and above, it doesn’t matter but from your experience, is there any upper limit or is there a range that is more suitable for PLG?

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

The most important thing in PLG that you must understand is that the buyer has changed. In sales-led growth or in the traditional world, it’s the CIO, CEO, and the VP who are buying. They have bigger budgets. They can do million-dollar deals. Then we had an era where even before PLG happened you had software for teams that managers were buying. A good example is a helpdesk, or IT service desk, or HRMS, like functional siloed buying. Now we have marketing automation, so marketing teams are buying. When the buyer is the HOD or the manager, then that brings a price point that is suitable for, like maybe say 50k or whatever. They may still have to get some approval, but they will have some budget to operate.

The most important thing in PLG that you must understand is that the buyer has changed. In sales-led growth or in the traditional world, it’s the CIO, CEO, and the VP who are buying. They have bigger budgets. They can do million-dollar deals. Then we had an era where even before PLG happened you had software for teams that managers were buying. A good example is a helpdesk, or IT service desk, or HRMS, like functional siloed buying. Now we have marketing automation, so marketing teams are buying. When the buyer is the HOD or the manager, then that brings a price point that is suitable for, like maybe say 50k or whatever. They may still have to get some approval, but they will have some budget to operate.

In PLG, you want to make sure it is easy enough to start, so it should be usually per-user pricing because if I am a team of 10 people and I am buying InVision or Slack for 10 people, ideally, I should start for free and then I should be able to add on users, so the real power unlocks when the entire company uses. PLG in an HR or a collaboration world has a lot more land and expand potential like for example Freshdesk or Freshsales because it can only expand within one function. The annual contract value should be designed around the buyer.

In PLG, you want to make sure it is easy enough to start, so it should be usually per-user pricing because if I am a team of 10 people and I am buying InVision or Slack for 10 people, ideally, I should start for free and then I should be able to add on users, so the real power unlocks when the entire company uses. PLG in an HR or a collaboration world has a lot more land and expand potential like for example Freshdesk or Freshsales because it can only expand within one function. The annual contract value should be designed around the buyer.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

We have been hearing a lot of advantages of PLG, but do you see any disadvantages of PLG?

We have been hearing a lot of advantages of PLG, but do you see any disadvantages of PLG?

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

Yes, of course. Everything comes as a package. PLG, when you say easy in, it is also easy out. You must understand that. For any of us, how easy it is to cancel a Zoom or Slack account or Trello or Asana account. You have to understand that churn is a big problem in PLG because of a combination of 

Yes, of course. Everything comes as a package. PLG, when you say easy in, it is also easy out. You must understand that. For any of us, how easy it is to cancel a Zoom or Slack account or Trello or Asana account. You have to understand that churn is a big problem in PLG because of a combination of 

THE MAIN THING IS THAT YOU MUST MAKE YOUR SOFTWARE OR PRODUCT VALUABLE FOR A TEAM. MANY TIMES STARTUPS HAVE THIS BIG VISION WHERE THEY WANT TO BUILD EVERYTHING, BUT THEY HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THAT LARGE ENTERPRISES HAVE FRICTION AND YOU CAN’T GO IN AND REPLACE EVERYTHING. YOU NEED A WEDGE, YOU NEED A SPEAR. FIND ONE TEAM WITHIN THAT ENTERPRISE, WHAT COULD THEY USE POTENTIALLY? THEN BUILD THAT LIKE A PRODUCT AND THEN MAKE THAT AS A PLG WEDGE.

THE MAIN THING IS THAT YOU MUST MAKE YOUR SOFTWARE OR PRODUCT VALUABLE FOR A TEAM. MANY TIMES STARTUPS HAVE THIS BIG VISION WHERE THEY WANT TO BUILD EVERYTHING, BUT THEY HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THAT LARGE ENTERPRISES HAVE FRICTION AND YOU CAN’T GO IN AND REPLACE EVERYTHING. YOU NEED A WEDGE, YOU NEED A SPEAR. FIND ONE TEAM WITHIN THAT ENTERPRISE, WHAT COULD THEY USE POTENTIALLY? THEN BUILD THAT LIKE A PRODUCT AND THEN MAKE THAT AS A PLG WEDGE.

– GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

– GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

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factors. When you make it super easy for everybody to come in, a lot of folks will come in, serious users will come in, very small startups will come in, free users will come in, they will come in, they will pay for one or two months and then they will go, but you will be spending marketing dollars to acquire them, so churn is a big problem. If growth is super good, then you don’t worry about churn but if your growth slows down then your churn becomes one big issue. That is one aspect.

factors. When you make it super easy for everybody to come in, a lot of folks will come in, serious users will come in, very small startups will come in, free users will come in, they will come in, they will pay for one or two months and then they will go, but you will be spending marketing dollars to acquire them, so churn is a big problem. If growth is super good, then you don’t worry about churn but if your growth slows down then your churn becomes one big issue. That is one aspect.

The other aspect is that your product execution must be stellar otherwise everybody will come in and then it is a leaky bucket, everybody will go out quickly. You may have a brilliant category, you may have a lot of word of mouth, people searching for the category and coming and checking you out but if the experience isn’t great, or people cannot easily figure it out then they will quickly leave.

The other aspect is that your product execution must be stellar otherwise everybody will come in and then it is a leaky bucket, everybody will go out quickly. You may have a brilliant category, you may have a lot of word of mouth, people searching for the category and coming and checking you out but if the experience isn’t great, or people cannot easily figure it out then they will quickly leave.

In sales-led growth, you probably have exec level relationships, you have annual contracts, so if something happens, like if the user is frustrated, you have a year to fix the problem, you can send your customer success team and talk to them, and so on, whereas in PLG you don’t have any exec-level relationship, you don’t have any annual contracts, everything is month to month. Somebody is frustrated, they can go and push the nuclear button and say cancel and many times people do it out of anger also. Even there we do product-led retention, we remove that nuclear button and cancel and say talk to a retention person. At that point, we introduce friction, because you want product-led retention, not product-led cancellation.

In sales-led growth, you probably have exec level relationships, you have annual contracts, so if something happens, like if the user is frustrated, you have a year to fix the problem, you can send your customer success team and talk to them, and so on, whereas in PLG you don’t have any exec-level relationship, you don’t have any annual contracts, everything is month to month. Somebody is frustrated, they can go and push the nuclear button and say cancel and many times people do it out of anger also. Even there we do product-led retention, we remove that nuclear button and cancel and say talk to a retention person. At that point, we introduce friction, because you want product-led retention, not product-led cancellation.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

That is a great point. More than a disadvantage, I feel the churn becomes really important. You have to look at your churn like your cash flow. You need to look at your churn daily, and understand why it is happening, how you can mitigate the churn using the product.

That is a great point. More than a disadvantage, I feel the churn becomes really important. You have to look at your churn like your cash flow. You need to look at your churn daily, and understand why it is happening, how you can mitigate the churn using the product.

That also brings me to another dimension of this disadvantage, what do you think about the capital required for a PLG versus an older or sales-led model? Do you have to invest more upfront and then wait longer for the flywheel to kick in?

That also brings me to another dimension of this disadvantage, what do you think about the capital required for a PLG versus an older or sales-led model? Do you have to invest more upfront and then wait longer for the flywheel to kick in?

MORE THAN A DISADVANTAGE, I FEEL THE CHURN BECOMES REALLY IMPORTANT. YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT YOUR CHURN LIKE YOUR CASH FLOW. YOU NEED TO LOOK AT YOUR CHURN DAILY, AND UNDERSTAND WHY IT IS HAPPENING, HOW YOU CAN MITIGATE THE CHURN USING THE PRODUCT.

MORE THAN A DISADVANTAGE, I FEEL THE CHURN BECOMES REALLY IMPORTANT. YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT YOUR CHURN LIKE YOUR CASH FLOW. YOU NEED TO LOOK AT YOUR CHURN DAILY, AND UNDERSTAND WHY IT IS HAPPENING, HOW YOU CAN MITIGATE THE CHURN USING THE PRODUCT.

— MANAV GARG

— MANAV GARG

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GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

It depends on the company, the competitive dynamics, the location. In one sense you can say that PLG is very capital efficient. In PLG it is relatively easier to go from 0 to 100 million, but much harder to go from 100 million to a billion. In sales-led growth, especially in the enterprise, it is much, much harder to go from 0 to 100 but once you are at 100, it is relatively easier to go from 100 million to a billion.

It depends on the company, the competitive dynamics, the location. In one sense you can say that PLG is very capital efficient. In PLG it is relatively easier to go from 0 to 100 million, but much harder to go from 100 million to a billion. In sales-led growth, especially in the enterprise, it is much, much harder to go from 0 to 100 but once you are at 100, it is relatively easier to go from 100 million to a billion.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

While we are talking about PLG and sales models, we know it is not one over the other, so how does the hybrid model work? You just said that PLG is really good for 0 to 100 million, and then from 100 million to a billion, the sales-led model really scales because the playbook is done, the brand is established, there are larger deal sizes, you are into larger companies, the scale comes relatively easier. At what point would you advise people to switch, how do you run the hybrid model?

While we are talking about PLG and sales models, we know it is not one over the other, so how does the hybrid model work? You just said that PLG is really good for 0 to 100 million, and then from 100 million to a billion, the sales-led model really scales because the playbook is done, the brand is established, there are larger deal sizes, you are into larger companies, the scale comes relatively easier. At what point would you advise people to switch, how do you run the hybrid model?

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

It is a question of growth, for example, if you can grow to a billion dollars with PLG, with churn being great and growth being like 200 percent –300 percent, I would actually not go for sales-led growth at all because having two strategies creates a lot of friction. Having one strategy makes it very simple but unfortunately churn is a real problem, not having exec relationships, bigger companies will come and growth can also slow down in PLG because in PLG you are getting smaller deals, everybody starts small. Unless you have a really quick expansion pathway like Slack or Zoom, you may not actually be growing so fast because churn is taking away at one end, your deals are like, say, $500, $1000, $200 MRR, or monthly recurring revenue. It is like a treadmill, you can go from 0 to 1 million to 5 million to 10 million relatively

It is a question of growth, for example, if you can grow to a billion dollars with PLG, with churn being great and growth being like 200 percent –300 percent, I would actually not go for sales-led growth at all because having two strategies creates a lot of friction. Having one strategy makes it very simple but unfortunately churn is a real problem, not having exec relationships, bigger companies will come and growth can also slow down in PLG because in PLG you are getting smaller deals, everybody starts small. Unless you have a really quick expansion pathway like Slack or Zoom, you may not actually be growing so fast because churn is taking away at one end, your deals are like, say, $500, $1000, $200 MRR, or monthly recurring revenue. It is like a treadmill, you can go from 0 to 1 million to 5 million to 10 million relatively

MY SIMPLE RULE IS, IF YOU ARE NOT WORRIED ABOUT GROWTH—I AM TALKING ABOUT GROWTH AFTER 50–100 MILLION—YOU CAN ACTUALLY START GOING TOWARDS SALES-LED GROWTH IF PLG IS WORKING FOR YOU.

MY SIMPLE RULE IS, IF YOU ARE NOT WORRIED ABOUT GROWTH—I AM TALKING ABOUT GROWTH AFTER 50–100 MILLION—YOU CAN ACTUALLY START GOING TOWARDS SALES-LED GROWTH IF PLG IS WORKING FOR YOU.

– GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

– GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

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easily, but just continuing to grow with PLG, at some point you will find that it is about product-market fit. I have the products, they are working in larger companies also, but people are coming in and buying in a department and that’s growing, why can’t I go and land these larger accounts. Like, for Zoom or Slack, they can just go and consolidate the accounts.

easily, but just continuing to grow with PLG, at some point you will find that it is about product-market fit. I have the products, they are working in larger companies also, but people are coming in and buying in a department and that’s growing, why can’t I go and land these larger accounts. Like, for Zoom or Slack, they can just go and consolidate the accounts.

My simple rule is, if you are not worried about growth—I am talking about growth after 50–100 million—you can actually start going towards sales-led growth if PLG is working for you.

My simple rule is, if you are not worried about growth—I am talking about growth after 50–100 million—you can actually start going towards sales-led growth if PLG is working for you.

For a very early-stage startup, you have to first make a decision on whether it is PLG or sales-led growth. And at a very early stage, hiring a VP of sales in the US, when the CEO is in India and the team is also in India, is also hard. PLG, on a relative grade, if you can adjust your product, as we talked about finding the fit for the team, and scales via PLG it gets you the logos.

For a very early-stage startup, you have to first make a decision on whether it is PLG or sales-led growth. And at a very early stage, hiring a VP of sales in the US, when the CEO is in India and the team is also in India, is also hard. PLG, on a relative grade, if you can adjust your product, as we talked about finding the fit for the team, and scales via PLG it gets you the logos.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

What is your experience with Freshworks? Is it part of the product team? The essential debate is, is it part of product or marketing? How do you look at that?

What is your experience with Freshworks? Is it part of the product team? The essential debate is, is it part of product or marketing? How do you look at that?

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

There has to be a lot of collaboration with the product team. You cannot get a perfect org structure in a startup. You optimize for the person and their skills but having said that product marketing for us is actually part of product, it reports into product because there is a lot of work, as I had mentioned earlier, the website work also has to talk about product features, it is an important point which we did not talk about.

There has to be a lot of collaboration with the product team. You cannot get a perfect org structure in a startup. You optimize for the person and their skills but having said that product marketing for us is actually part of product, it reports into product because there is a lot of work, as I had mentioned earlier, the website work also has to talk about product features, it is an important point which we did not talk about.

On the website, in PLG, we don’t talk too much about business value drivers and so on because you know the end-user is coming, they don’t care about the business value driver. They care about their features, so they want to know how it makes their life better. A lot of features and then inside the-product marketing. For Freshworks, if you see, we have a product switcher where you can discover other products. That is an easy way to bring more leads, if I have freemium products, I have Freshdesk users, it’s like a Google product switcher kind of icon where they can actually click and discover what other products are there and quickly click and sign up. We are already spending so much marketing dollars to acquire customers, once you have them, how do you introduce new products. Thus, a lot of collaboration has to happen with products.

On the website, in PLG, we don’t talk too much about business value drivers and so on because you know the end-user is coming, they don’t care about the business value driver. They care about their features, so they want to know how it makes their life better. A lot of features and then inside the-product marketing. For Freshworks, if you see, we have a product switcher where you can discover other products. That is an easy way to bring more leads, if I have freemium products, I have Freshdesk users, it’s like a Google product switcher kind of icon where they can actually click and discover what other products are there and quickly click and sign up. We are already spending so much marketing dollars to acquire customers, once you have them, how do you introduce new products. Thus, a lot of collaboration has to happen with products.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

I understand at an early stage obviously you do what you have to do, hustle and get things going, but what I am trying to get for the audiences is that, especially for the companies in the US, director/VP of growth is coming into being, so what is that about?

I understand at an early stage obviously you do what you have to do, hustle and get things going, but what I am trying to get for the audiences is that, especially for the companies in the US, director/VP of growth is coming into being, so what is that about?

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

In the early stage, as a growth hacker in a PLG company, you should be working on the product to optimize sign-up, for example. How can I accelerate growth? For example, do I have a sign-up form on the website with five fields? Can I actually give a one-click sign-up with LinkedIn or Google? Is it increasing my sign-ups? Or like ChargeBee used to have one feature which they have removed now, there is no sign-up. You can jump right into the product, they actually have a few throwaway versions of the trial. They remove the friction. No sign-up, no email needed. You just go into the product, you will see one of the trial versions of the product, and then you will click something inside the product which will say, claim this, make this your own, payment thing. That’s one way to do that.

In the early stage, as a growth hacker in a PLG company, you should be working on the product to optimize sign-up, for example. How can I accelerate growth? For example, do I have a sign-up form on the website with five fields? Can I actually give a one-click sign-up with LinkedIn or Google? Is it increasing my sign-ups? Or like ChargeBee used to have one feature which they have removed now, there is no sign-up. You can jump right into the product, they actually have a few throwaway versions of the trial. They remove the friction. No sign-up, no email needed. You just go into the product, you will see one of the trial versions of the product, and then you will click something inside the product which will say, claim this, make this your own, payment thing. That’s one way to do that.

Another interesting idea that I was pursuing with our team was that rather than asking the person to fill the form if I can get them into the trial and then ask them who is the helpdesk administrator, who are your team members, at that point when they think they are configuring the product, you can actually create them as a leader in sales for CRM.

Another interesting idea that I was pursuing with our team was that rather than asking the person to fill the form if I can get them into the trial and then ask them who is the helpdesk administrator, who are your team members, at that point when they think they are configuring the product, you can actually create them as a leader in sales for CRM.

This is what growth hackers will think in an early-stage startup and this is something everybody should think about. You have to go and analyze your funnels. If you have a small funnel or whatever kind of funnel, sometimes you may see that you are getting 100–200 sign-ups per day but only getting two or three customers per month. What is happening in the funnel? Where are people dropping off? Growth hackers would worry about that, like for example, are you sending an email for them to confirm their email

This is what growth hackers will think in an early-stage startup and this is something everybody should think about. You have to go and analyze your funnels. If you have a small funnel or whatever kind of funnel, sometimes you may see that you are getting 100–200 sign-ups per day but only getting two or three customers per month. What is happening in the funnel? Where are people dropping off? Growth hackers would worry about that, like for example, are you sending an email for them to confirm their email

YOU HAVE TO HAVE THIS EXCITEMENT IN THE MARKET WHERE EVERYBODY WANTS IT, THAT IS THE FIRST CRITERION. THE SECOND THING IS SUPERIOR PRODUCT EXECUTION LIKE YOU NEED TO HAVE FOUNDERS WHO REALLY UNDERSTAND PLG AS CRAFTSMANSHIP IN TERMS OF DELIVERING VALUE TO USERS, SUPERIOR DESIGN, GREAT PRODUCT EXPERIENCE, BRILLIANT PRODUCT EXECUTION. I FEEL THAT EITHER MASSIVE WORD OF MOUTH OR NATURAL VIRALITY IN THE PRODUCT, THAT HAS TO BE DESIGNED.

YOU HAVE TO HAVE THIS EXCITEMENT IN THE MARKET WHERE EVERYBODY WANTS IT, THAT IS THE FIRST CRITERION. THE SECOND THING IS SUPERIOR PRODUCT EXECUTION LIKE YOU NEED TO HAVE FOUNDERS WHO REALLY UNDERSTAND PLG AS CRAFTSMANSHIP IN TERMS OF DELIVERING VALUE TO USERS, SUPERIOR DESIGN, GREAT PRODUCT EXPERIENCE, BRILLIANT PRODUCT EXECUTION. I FEEL THAT EITHER MASSIVE WORD OF MOUTH OR NATURAL VIRALITY IN THE PRODUCT, THAT HAS TO BE DESIGNED.

– GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

– GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

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address but then most people are not conforming to it, what happens there. A growth hacker’s job in an early-stage startup would be to look at all the stages of the funnel, to see where the drop-offs are happening, how can I make sure more people are coming in, more people are trying, more people are adopting the features, more people are inviting, so at every stage of the funnel, you check for leaks and you block the leaks.

address but then most people are not conforming to it, what happens there. A growth hacker’s job in an early-stage startup would be to look at all the stages of the funnel, to see where the drop-offs are happening, how can I make sure more people are coming in, more people are trying, more people are adopting the features, more people are inviting, so at every stage of the funnel, you check for leaks and you block the leaks.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

What are the top three things that have worked for Freshworks in the context of PLG?

What are the top three things that have worked for Freshworks in the context of PLG?

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

One, our understanding of our user, our customer was really strong and we were able to align all the activities. The second thing that we did right was that we used freemium also; freemium was a game-changer for us and then we actually replicated that with multiple products. We did not stick with Freshdesk, we went to Freshservice, Freshsales, we followed our customers. That is the second thing that we did right, we replicated our model and built multiple products.

One, our understanding of our user, our customer was really strong and we were able to align all the activities. The second thing that we did right was that we used freemium also; freemium was a game-changer for us and then we actually replicated that with multiple products. We did not stick with Freshdesk, we went to Freshservice, Freshsales, we followed our customers. That is the second thing that we did right, we replicated our model and built multiple products.

What we are doing now is we are using the PLG advantage for our sales-led growth. Many times, our larger customers actually like the product because it is intuitive and easy to use. PLG is helping us win larger customers now and what we are doing is even on the GTM—go to market—side, we are bringing customer success, we are bringing in exec-level relationships, we are bringing in the field enterprise account manager. So, we are using the PLG advantage to land a lot of customers but then we are using the sales-led growth to expand and grow deeper into the larger companies.

What we are doing now is we are using the PLG advantage for our sales-led growth. Many times, our larger customers actually like the product because it is intuitive and easy to use. PLG is helping us win larger customers now and what we are doing is even on the GTM—go to market—side, we are bringing customer success, we are bringing in exec-level relationships, we are bringing in the field enterprise account manager. So, we are using the PLG advantage to land a lot of customers but then we are using the sales-led growth to expand and grow deeper into the larger companies.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

What do you think it will take for India-based startups in SaaS to go to 100 million in three years?

What do you think it will take for India-based startups in SaaS to go to 100 million in three years?

WHAT WE ARE DOING NOW IS WE ARE USING THE PLG ADVANTAGE FOR OUR SALES-LED GROWTH.

WHAT WE ARE DOING NOW IS WE ARE USING THE PLG ADVANTAGE FOR OUR SALES-LED GROWTH.

– GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

– GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

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GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

If you really think about it, a lot of things have to come together. You need to have an exciting new category, for example, the best example would be remote conferencing, in the post-Covid world, like Airmeet. There is excitement around this new opportunity where everybody wants it. It could be an exciting new category like Slack when they came in, the collaboration was an old category but there was excitement around the product, everybody wanted it, because people see that this is new or this is hot, I want in or like Notion and so on. We need excitement around the category and Covid could be a catalyst for education, for remote conferences, like how AI/ML could be an area. You have to have this excitement in the market where everybody wants it, that is the first criterion.

If you really think about it, a lot of things have to come together. You need to have an exciting new category, for example, the best example would be remote conferencing, in the post-Covid world, like Airmeet. There is excitement around this new opportunity where everybody wants it. It could be an exciting new category like Slack when they came in, the collaboration was an old category but there was excitement around the product, everybody wanted it, because people see that this is new or this is hot, I want in or like Notion and so on. We need excitement around the category and Covid could be a catalyst for education, for remote conferences, like how AI/ML could be an area. You have to have this excitement in the market where everybody wants it, that is the first criterion.

The second thing is superior product execution like you need to have founders who really understand PLG as craftsmanship in terms of delivering value to users, superior design, great product experience, brilliant product execution. I feel that either massive word of mouth or natural virality in the product, that has to be designed.

The second thing is superior product execution like you need to have founders who really understand PLG as craftsmanship in terms of delivering value to users, superior design, great product experience, brilliant product execution. I feel that either massive word of mouth or natural virality in the product, that has to be designed.

ABHINAV SHASHANK

ABHINAV SHASHANK

At some point, Marc Andreessen basically said that “Software is eating the world�?, and I think it was true for a really long time. I think at this point platforms are growing hungrier. A lot of the companies that you would see succeeding in a big way, whether you think about Atlassian, Snowflake, Viva, Zoom, or Twilio for that matter, most of these companies are becoming inherently platforms. The massive successes in the next few years are going to be platforms. These are going to be large companies on which things are built in some way or frame that you can basically offer to a developer or someone who wants to build on top of your platform as a capability. In our case, it is basically the healthcare context, healthcare data, healthcare intelligence layers, all of these things. We have opened all of that as APIs. We have thousands of people developing on top of our platforms. Some of the internal, some of them at system integration companies, some of them as core developers. The experiences that we can deliver to our customers are so much more varied than what a point solution company would kind of freely go ahead and do. In the next few years, if you are attempting to really build out a company, think about how this looks from a platform-driven viewpoint. Even if you are approaching things like analytics and AI thematic, think of whether that is basically for an industry or for a horizontal or a vertical; think of this as can it be a platform of multiple things existing in some way or form in the future. Because if you really solve that problem in some way or form, you are going to be this massively successful horizontal or verticalized company. But if you are going to be a point solution in some of these things, it will be harder as you scale. You can still get initial traction, but it becomes harder as you scale. If you think of the Freshworks journey, they were Freshdesk, and then suddenly they became Freshworks, and that became a platform.

At some point, Marc Andreessen basically said that “Software is eating the world�?, and I think it was true for a really long time. I think at this point platforms are growing hungrier. A lot of the companies that you would see succeeding in a big way, whether you think about Atlassian, Snowflake, Viva, Zoom, or Twilio for that matter, most of these companies are becoming inherently platforms. The massive successes in the next few years are going to be platforms. These are going to be large companies on which things are built in some way or frame that you can basically offer to a developer or someone who wants to build on top of your platform as a capability. In our case, it is basically the healthcare context, healthcare data, healthcare intelligence layers, all of these things. We have opened all of that as APIs. We have thousands of people developing on top of our platforms. Some of the internal, some of them at system integration companies, some of them as core developers. The experiences that we can deliver to our customers are so much more varied than what a point solution company would kind of freely go ahead and do. In the next few years, if you are attempting to really build out a company, think about how this looks from a platform-driven viewpoint. Even if you are approaching things like analytics and AI thematic, think of whether that is basically for an industry or for a horizontal or a vertical; think of this as can it be a platform of multiple things existing in some way or form in the future. Because if you really solve that problem in some way or form, you are going to be this massively successful horizontal or verticalized company. But if you are going to be a point solution in some of these things, it will be harder as you scale. You can still get initial traction, but it becomes harder as you scale. If you think of the Freshworks journey, they were Freshdesk, and then suddenly they became Freshworks, and that became a platform.

ABHINAV ASTHANA

ABHINAV ASTHANA

I’m very optimistic about the SaaS market in general, and I’m also extremely optimistic about India as a geographic market. At Postman, we have seen SaaS in India change over time. We now close inbound deals from India—in the past, that wasn’t really the case. Today, people just write to us and want a SaaS product and are willing to spend money on it. In India today, people are buying high-quality software, people are building high-quality software, and there is a sense of pride in building software, and all of these are great things.

I’m very optimistic about the SaaS market in general, and I’m also extremely optimistic about India as a geographic market. At Postman, we have seen SaaS in India change over time. We now close inbound deals from India—in the past, that wasn’t really the case. Today, people just write to us and want a SaaS product and are willing to spend money on it. In India today, people are buying high-quality software, people are building high-quality software, and there is a sense of pride in building software, and all of these are great things.

I always caution people that the motivation to build a company in India should not be “I’m going to build a great Indian SaaS company.�? It’s crucial to understand that you are competing in a global market. Being in India does not make you special; you need to leverage the Indian talent pool available and leverage the VC interest that is in India, but you need to think and act as a global company in a global market.

I always caution people that the motivation to build a company in India should not be “I’m going to build a great Indian SaaS company.�? It’s crucial to understand that you are competing in a global market. Being in India does not make you special; you need to leverage the Indian talent pool available and leverage the VC interest that is in India, but you need to think and act as a global company in a global market.

KRISH SUBRAMANIAN

KRISH SUBRAMANIAN

When we started out, we accepted any and every type of subscription business to sign up and process their revenue through Chargebee. We wished to get the likes of BarkBox from the eCommerce space and the likes of Dropbox from SaaS. We catered to customers from these segments. We also had customers from the IoT space who combined SaaS with a one-time hardware component. Magazines subscriptions, telecom memberships, and marketplace businesses. You name it, we had it.

When we started out, we accepted any and every type of subscription business to sign up and process their revenue through Chargebee. We wished to get the likes of BarkBox from the eCommerce space and the likes of Dropbox from SaaS. We catered to customers from these segments. We also had customers from the IoT space who combined SaaS with a one-time hardware component. Magazines subscriptions, telecom memberships, and marketplace businesses. You name it, we had it.

Eventually, it got to a point where we catered to all these businesses, but they did not find the depth in capabilities for their respective industries. So they’d migrate to specialists instead of staying with us. Ours was most suitably designed for SaaS businesses. Well into millions in ARR and product maturity, we went back to the drawing board. We did some customer development, the likes you’d do pre-PMF. We asked ourselves who it was we were selling to. We spoke with customers to draw out the value proposition canvas (where you map the value proposition with the customer profile).

Eventually, it got to a point where we catered to all these businesses, but they did not find the depth in capabilities for their respective industries. So they’d migrate to specialists instead of staying with us. Ours was most suitably designed for SaaS businesses. Well into millions in ARR and product maturity, we went back to the drawing board. We did some customer development, the likes you’d do pre-PMF. We asked ourselves who it was we were selling to. We spoke with customers to draw out the value proposition canvas (where you map the value proposition with the customer profile).

And we found that we catered largely to SaaS businesses. Every business that came to us assumed their workflow was unique to them. This exercise gave us a good estimate of repeatable workflows that cropped up in the many conversations we had and who specifically we were selling to.

And we found that we catered largely to SaaS businesses. Every business that came to us assumed their workflow was unique to them. This exercise gave us a good estimate of repeatable workflows that cropped up in the many conversations we had and who specifically we were selling to.

For any business starting up, I’d definitely recommend doing this customer development exercise early on so you can align the product road map in a much more optimized way.

For any business starting up, I’d definitely recommend doing this customer development exercise early on so you can align the product road map in a much more optimized way.

SRIDHAR VEMBU

SRIDHAR VEMBU

We balance the technically hard problems that require long-term investment and problems that are easier to solve and have many people in that market. The question you should ask is: “Can you penetrate that market? What is your differentiation in that market?�? The differentiation is building a product well. The challenge, however, is to build a product as well as find the market because there will be 500 CRMs in the market. So we evaluate and then commit resources. At Zoho, when we commit to something after evaluation, we stick to it. We only exit under the condition that we don’t see any opportunity there. But if we continue to see a market or an opportunity, even if we have not cracked it, we stick to it. That’s something that we are good at doing. It’s evaluated in three years, and if we are not making money, we cancel it.

We balance the technically hard problems that require long-term investment and problems that are easier to solve and have many people in that market. The question you should ask is: “Can you penetrate that market? What is your differentiation in that market?�? The differentiation is building a product well. The challenge, however, is to build a product as well as find the market because there will be 500 CRMs in the market. So we evaluate and then commit resources. At Zoho, when we commit to something after evaluation, we stick to it. We only exit under the condition that we don’t see any opportunity there. But if we continue to see a market or an opportunity, even if we have not cracked it, we stick to it. That’s something that we are good at doing. It’s evaluated in three years, and if we are not making money, we cancel it.

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

[Here, Girish speculates on how differently he would have done things were he to start again today] What will change is definitely making sure that I go into a big market. I did that back then, too, we went into a big market. What I would do now is focus on solving a new problem in a big market and validate that the

[Here, Girish speculates on how differently he would have done things were he to start again today] What will change is definitely making sure that I go into a big market. I did that back then, too, we went into a big market. What I would do now is focus on solving a new problem in a big market and validate that the

problem is real and it exists. If I start tomorrow, I will pick problems that I know are very real for companies, for example, having a unified view of the customer, issues that people are struggling with today at Salesforce, and other places. I did not start like that. I started by playing into my comfort zone by building a helpdesk and it ended up being a big market, but now I understand more the importance of the market.

problem is real and it exists. If I start tomorrow, I will pick problems that I know are very real for companies, for example, having a unified view of the customer, issues that people are struggling with today at Salesforce, and other places. I did not start like that. I started by playing into my comfort zone by building a helpdesk and it ended up being a big market, but now I understand more the importance of the market.

BHARAT GOENKA

BHARAT GOENKA

You can broadly divide the market into three elements: the consumers, the enterprise, and what we call SMB. When you are in the consumer space, you throw money at marketing and consumers serve themselves. When you are in the enterprise space, you throw money at the sales engine because the enterprise wants that engagement-based purchase, they don’t just go and buy off the internet. You still need people to go there to make presentations and all of that. Peter Thiel [Thiel is a German-American entrepreneur and venture capitalist who has founded successful companies, including PayPal] called SMB the “dead-zone�? because SMB’s volume metrics are similar to the consumer but in terms of behavior, they are similar to the enterprise. No one can run a sales engine of that volumetric because it’s just not cash efficient, because sales engines are expensive. This is why enterprise products are expensive— because the cost of selling is higher than the cost of the technology. On the consumer side, you can make it as low as possible because you are getting high volumes, and you can make it a low-priced product, but the SMB is the dead zone. The reason I make that point is because the SMB expects you to engage, just like all enterprises expect engagement. No one runs a call centre for a consumer business; therefore, it becomes a problem of capacity. It does not matter what the nature of the software is, whether it’s a SaaS product or a device-oriented software; it is the nature of the market that requires that capacity.

You can broadly divide the market into three elements: the consumers, the enterprise, and what we call SMB. When you are in the consumer space, you throw money at marketing and consumers serve themselves. When you are in the enterprise space, you throw money at the sales engine because the enterprise wants that engagement-based purchase, they don’t just go and buy off the internet. You still need people to go there to make presentations and all of that. Peter Thiel [Thiel is a German-American entrepreneur and venture capitalist who has founded successful companies, including PayPal] called SMB the “dead-zone�? because SMB’s volume metrics are similar to the consumer but in terms of behavior, they are similar to the enterprise. No one can run a sales engine of that volumetric because it’s just not cash efficient, because sales engines are expensive. This is why enterprise products are expensive— because the cost of selling is higher than the cost of the technology. On the consumer side, you can make it as low as possible because you are getting high volumes, and you can make it a low-priced product, but the SMB is the dead zone. The reason I make that point is because the SMB expects you to engage, just like all enterprises expect engagement. No one runs a call centre for a consumer business; therefore, it becomes a problem of capacity. It does not matter what the nature of the software is, whether it’s a SaaS product or a device-oriented software; it is the nature of the market that requires that capacity.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

KEY TAKEAWAYS

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For any organization to grow, it needs to transform according to the changing tides of the market. We know of many companies that started out strong but failed to evolve and ultimately fizzled into irrelevance. A prescient entrepreneur is one who knows when to make strategic changes to his organization—be it in terms of updating the product or even changing the course of business—to quickly adapt to the evolution of the market. We asked some founders at what point they decided to pivot and what factors influenced the changes they introduced in their organizations.

For any organization to grow, it needs to transform according to the changing tides of the market. We know of many companies that started out strong but failed to evolve and ultimately fizzled into irrelevance. A prescient entrepreneur is one who knows when to make strategic changes to his organization—be it in terms of updating the product or even changing the course of business—to quickly adapt to the evolution of the market. We asked some founders at what point they decided to pivot and what factors influenced the changes they introduced in their organizations.

MONISH DARDA

MONISH DARDA

It’s about being at the right place at the right time, of course, but it’s also about being completely open to change. As a founder, I saw it in companies I have been a part of before; change is always scary. In these cases, we took those bold decisions. We told ourselves, let’s focus on contract management. Let’s forget about everything else. Let’s take that revenue aside, off the table, not even discuss it. Now that also needs a very different frame of mind, a very strong frame of mind, and you have to be doing financially well to make those decisions. Lots of things go in there, but you know, taking that opportunity, grabbing it, and converting it—I think we ended up doing a fairly good job as a team. Contract management really became mainstream—and immodestly, I must say—we helped redefine that category. What is more interesting is that you come to that stage where you say we did some of these things right. Then we look back and say look at how many mistakes we have made, and look ahead in terms of how far we can go

It’s about being at the right place at the right time, of course, but it’s also about being completely open to change. As a founder, I saw it in companies I have been a part of before; change is always scary. In these cases, we took those bold decisions. We told ourselves, let’s focus on contract management. Let’s forget about everything else. Let’s take that revenue aside, off the table, not even discuss it. Now that also needs a very different frame of mind, a very strong frame of mind, and you have to be doing financially well to make those decisions. Lots of things go in there, but you know, taking that opportunity, grabbing it, and converting it—I think we ended up doing a fairly good job as a team. Contract management really became mainstream—and immodestly, I must say—we helped redefine that category. What is more interesting is that you come to that stage where you say we did some of these things right. Then we look back and say look at how many mistakes we have made, and look ahead in terms of how far we can go

because if I can own a category like a contract life cycle management—which is now becoming one of the five pillars of the enterprise—if you come to a system of record, then it is a multi- multibillion-dollar possibility. That keeps you excited, keeps you thinking that this is still as interesting as it was in 2009, and more!

because if I can own a category like a contract life cycle management—which is now becoming one of the five pillars of the enterprise—if you come to a system of record, then it is a multi- multibillion-dollar possibility. That keeps you excited, keeps you thinking that this is still as interesting as it was in 2009, and more!

ABHINAV SHASHANK

ABHINAV SHASHANK

You need a group of people around you to make any pivot, any direction change, and we have had so many of them. With almost every entrepreneur who stays true to the fact that I am just going to listen to one person, who will be the customer, they are going to see pivots happen. And be very comfortable with that happening because you are listening to the right person, your customer. Be comfortable with change because, frankly, your job as a founder is to navigate ambiguity and chaos in some way or form. And if you do that successfully over a period, you bring clarity and hopefully a lot of value creation along with it.

You need a group of people around you to make any pivot, any direction change, and we have had so many of them. With almost every entrepreneur who stays true to the fact that I am just going to listen to one person, who will be the customer, they are going to see pivots happen. And be very comfortable with that happening because you are listening to the right person, your customer. Be comfortable with change because, frankly, your job as a founder is to navigate ambiguity and chaos in some way or form. And if you do that successfully over a period, you bring clarity and hopefully a lot of value creation along with it.

SURESH SAMBANDAM

SURESH SAMBANDAM

We started OrangeScape as a democratizing rule-based computing/application development. But at that time (around 2004), we never realized that this was such an audacious task. We had always felt that it was easy to do. But it took four years for us to first figure out the technology. By the time we figured out the technology, we realized that we didn’t understand what’s a market and what’s a product. We were very close to shutting down the company. We made the first pivot. We got the timing and the category right by positioning ourselves as a platform-as-a-service (PaaS), Visual PaaS. In this avatar, we continued for another three to four years. By this time, we discovered that the category we chose—the platform-as-a-service itself—was premature, as giants like Google, who pioneered PaaS, were struggling. We

We started OrangeScape as a democratizing rule-based computing/application development. But at that time (around 2004), we never realized that this was such an audacious task. We had always felt that it was easy to do. But it took four years for us to first figure out the technology. By the time we figured out the technology, we realized that we didn’t understand what’s a market and what’s a product. We were very close to shutting down the company. We made the first pivot. We got the timing and the category right by positioning ourselves as a platform-as-a-service (PaaS), Visual PaaS. In this avatar, we continued for another three to four years. By this time, we discovered that the category we chose—the platform-as-a-service itself—was premature, as giants like Google, who pioneered PaaS, were struggling. We

BE COMFORTABLE WITH CHANGE BECAUSE, FRANKLY, YOUR JOB AS A FOUNDER IS TO NAVIGATE AMBIGUITY AND CHAOS IN SOME WAY OR FORM.

BE COMFORTABLE WITH CHANGE BECAUSE, FRANKLY, YOUR JOB AS A FOUNDER IS TO NAVIGATE AMBIGUITY AND CHAOS IN SOME WAY OR FORM.

– ABHINAV SHASHANK

– ABHINAV SHASHANK

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got bitten a second time. Then, in 2012, we pivoted again. We isolated 20 percent of what we had built as the Visual PaaS, took just the workflow portion, and launched Kissflow as a Keep It Simple, Stupid, workflow software. This time around, it all took off because we picked a category like a workflow software that SMBs need and then we picked the SaaS model, and SaaS was taking off. The product was simple. We didn’t require a lot of field sales. We priced it affordably. We could use digital marketing and go after the whole world. We finally put all the pieces together, technology, marketing, category, product, minimum viable product, pricing, all the pieces. It took nearly 8 eight years to learn all of this by trial and error—digital marketing, inside sales, all of it—and finally, after eight years of assembling all of this together, we could make Kissflow successful.

got bitten a second time. Then, in 2012, we pivoted again. We isolated 20 percent of what we had built as the Visual PaaS, took just the workflow portion, and launched Kissflow as a Keep It Simple, Stupid, workflow software. This time around, it all took off because we picked a category like a workflow software that SMBs need and then we picked the SaaS model, and SaaS was taking off. The product was simple. We didn’t require a lot of field sales. We priced it affordably. We could use digital marketing and go after the whole world. We finally put all the pieces together, technology, marketing, category, product, minimum viable product, pricing, all the pieces. It took nearly 8 eight years to learn all of this by trial and error—digital marketing, inside sales, all of it—and finally, after eight years of assembling all of this together, we could make Kissflow successful.

Just don’t give up. At the end of the day, you figure out how to pivot and somehow get to the destination that you want. You start out to go and reach somewhere. There will be a lot of detours but remember that you have to somehow reach the summit. And that differentiates good entrepreneurs from the rest.

Just don’t give up. At the end of the day, you figure out how to pivot and somehow get to the destination that you want. You start out to go and reach somewhere. There will be a lot of detours but remember that you have to somehow reach the summit. And that differentiates good entrepreneurs from the rest.

PARAS CHOPRA

PARAS CHOPRA

The first product we built was called Wingify. Wingify didn’t work out because it didn’t have a product-market fit. That first product had a lot of functionality, but it wasn’t focused, its user experience wasn’t great, and when I launched the product on Hacker News, the overwhelming feedback was that it is too confusing and needed to be simplified. The growth and success that came afterward were because of a pivot that we did at that time. I think product-market fit on day one is a myth. We went through multiple sources of feedback from users and accordingly narrowed down rather than focusing on a very big problem all at once, which Wingify was doing earlier. We thought of picking one problem and solving it in a really, really good way. As it turns out, that one problem was AB testing and we solved it using Visual Website Optimizer (VWO), our main product now, and that is how it finally took off.

The first product we built was called Wingify. Wingify didn’t work out because it didn’t have a product-market fit. That first product had a lot of functionality, but it wasn’t focused, its user experience wasn’t great, and when I launched the product on Hacker News, the overwhelming feedback was that it is too confusing and needed to be simplified. The growth and success that came afterward were because of a pivot that we did at that time. I think product-market fit on day one is a myth. We went through multiple sources of feedback from users and accordingly narrowed down rather than focusing on a very big problem all at once, which Wingify was doing earlier. We thought of picking one problem and solving it in a really, really good way. As it turns out, that one problem was AB testing and we solved it using Visual Website Optimizer (VWO), our main product now, and that is how it finally took off.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

In my learning, I find it more productive to focus on the problems. Every single time. Instead of discussing 20 “ideas”, I would rather discuss 20 problems. That is the way I would think about those 20 ideas. I prefer people who do some fundamental level of thinking. Entrepreneurs who take the problem-first approach are, I believe, basically more fundamental thinkers by nature. Because in the lifecycle of a company, things may change at any point in time. One learning I have is that even if you stumble upon an idea—through your work, through your experience, insight, while traveling—it always makes sense to pause for a bit, understand the market size and gauge how basic that need is. You should consider whether the problem that you are solving, does it even make sense as a stand-alone product. Is the customer expecting to buy software for that or to buy a solution for that?

In my learning, I find it more productive to focus on the problems. Every single time. Instead of discussing 20 “ideas”, I would rather discuss 20 problems. That is the way I would think about those 20 ideas. I prefer people who do some fundamental level of thinking. Entrepreneurs who take the problem-first approach are, I believe, basically more fundamental thinkers by nature. Because in the lifecycle of a company, things may change at any point in time. One learning I have is that even if you stumble upon an idea—through your work, through your experience, insight, while traveling—it always makes sense to pause for a bit, understand the market size and gauge how basic that need is. You should consider whether the problem that you are solving, does it even make sense as a stand-alone product. Is the customer expecting to buy software for that or to buy a solution for that?

RUSHABH MEHTA

RUSHABH MEHTA

We are pivoting actually as we speak into an enterprise model. But we are figuring out how to do the sales, the B2B sales. We are figuring out all of that, what is the pricing, and we are also going to innovate from the first principles there. We are going to go with fixed pricing, we are not going to negotiate with the enterprise and we are going to tell the enterprise this is our price, you work with us directly and we will do it for you the way we think. So, we think of ourselves as artists. When you go to an artist you don’t tell him, “Boss, aisi painting do” (Give me a painting like this); you commission a piece of art. We want to do that. If you work with Frappe you are commissioning us, you don’t dictate how we behave and this is what we are going to try. I don’t know whether it will fit or not but you know we come from rock bottom and we are not funded and we are not answerable to any investors.

We are pivoting actually as we speak into an enterprise model. But we are figuring out how to do the sales, the B2B sales. We are figuring out all of that, what is the pricing, and we are also going to innovate from the first principles there. We are going to go with fixed pricing, we are not going to negotiate with the enterprise and we are going to tell the enterprise this is our price, you work with us directly and we will do it for you the way we think. So, we think of ourselves as artists. When you go to an artist you don’t tell him, “Boss, aisi painting do” (Give me a painting like this); you commission a piece of art. We want to do that. If you work with Frappe you are commissioning us, you don’t dictate how we behave and this is what we are going to try. I don’t know whether it will fit or not but you know we come from rock bottom and we are not funded and we are not answerable to any investors.

IN THE LIFE CYCLE OF A COMPANY, THINGS MAY CHANGE AT ANY POINT IN TIME. ONE LEARNING I HAVE IS THAT EVEN IF YOU STUMBLE UPON AN IDEA, IT ALWAYS MAKES SENSE TO PAUSE FOR A BIT, UNDERSTAND THE MARKET SIZE AND GAUGE HOW BASIC THAT NEED IS. YOU SHOULD CONSIDER WHETHER THE PROBLEM THAT YOU ARE SOLVING, DOES IT EVEN MAKE SENSE AS A STAND-ALONE PRODUCT. IS THE CUSTOMER EXPECTING TO BUY SOFTWARE FOR THAT OR TO BUY A SOLUTION FOR THAT?

IN THE LIFE CYCLE OF A COMPANY, THINGS MAY CHANGE AT ANY POINT IN TIME. ONE LEARNING I HAVE IS THAT EVEN IF YOU STUMBLE UPON AN IDEA, IT ALWAYS MAKES SENSE TO PAUSE FOR A BIT, UNDERSTAND THE MARKET SIZE AND GAUGE HOW BASIC THAT NEED IS. YOU SHOULD CONSIDER WHETHER THE PROBLEM THAT YOU ARE SOLVING, DOES IT EVEN MAKE SENSE AS A STAND-ALONE PRODUCT. IS THE CUSTOMER EXPECTING TO BUY SOFTWARE FOR THAT OR TO BUY A SOLUTION FOR THAT?

– MANAV GARG

– MANAV GARG

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Behind any successful organization is a visionary who can sense a future demand for a product from a distance. A product that is indispensable to you today was, in all likelihood, a completely unfamiliar experience a year or two back. And then, there came along someone who sniffed out an opportunity and created something that you obviously needed but didn’t know you did! We talked to some entrepreneurs to find out how they discovered a market for their products. We asked them how they gauged the market, its potential, its prospects before deciding to capture it.

Behind any successful organization is a visionary who can sense a future demand for a product from a distance. A product that is indispensable to you today was, in all likelihood, a completely unfamiliar experience a year or two back. And then, there came along someone who sniffed out an opportunity and created something that you obviously needed but didn’t know you did! We talked to some entrepreneurs to find out how they discovered a market for their products. We asked them how they gauged the market, its potential, its prospects before deciding to capture it.

ABHINAV SHASHANK

ABHINAV SHASHANK

You have to basically pick up themes as an entrepreneur. Our theme was basically that we are going to create something in the data platform space. At that point we had a conviction that there is going to be an explosion of information, there is going to be a lot of data that enterprises are going to generate, but they will have no idea how to really manage it. Which has probably turned out to be as true as possible. When you see the Snowflake IPO, you realize that the size and scale of that phenomenon are just massive today, and that is what we had as a strong belief. We started building out this data platform.

You have to basically pick up themes as an entrepreneur. Our theme was basically that we are going to create something in the data platform space. At that point we had a conviction that there is going to be an explosion of information, there is going to be a lot of data that enterprises are going to generate, but they will have no idea how to really manage it. Which has probably turned out to be as true as possible. When you see the Snowflake IPO, you realize that the size and scale of that phenomenon are just massive today, and that is what we had as a strong belief. We started building out this data platform.

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

I did nothing like that. I did not look at the market opportunity, I did not do market sizing, I did not think about product-market fit. But all of that is because I entered a red ocean market. Like customer support software, everybody knows that the market size is big. Every company needs customer support. There are multiple companies Oracle has acquired right now, so multiple companies with hundreds

I did nothing like that. I did not look at the market opportunity, I did not do market sizing, I did not think about product-market fit. But all of that is because I entered a red ocean market. Like customer support software, everybody knows that the market size is big. Every company needs customer support. There are multiple companies Oracle has acquired right now, so multiple companies with hundreds

of millions of dollars of revenue, the TAM (target addressable market) is big, Gartner has published the market size, I didn’t just know how much is that.

of millions of dollars of revenue, the TAM (target addressable market) is big, Gartner has published the market size, I didn’t just know how much is that.

When I started, I started like really, let me go and build a fresh helpdesk. It is all about features and how we are going to be different and so on. It is easier to sell a better washing machine than to explain to people the need for washing clothes. And you also know, Pankaj, in my life, when it comes to teaching Java, riding the wave is my DNA. Rather than creating a category, I like to pick a category that is already in full swing and just ride the wave, like a rising tide lifts all boats. This means my strength has to be my execution, not my innovation.

When I started, I started like really, let me go and build a fresh helpdesk. It is all about features and how we are going to be different and so on. It is easier to sell a better washing machine than to explain to people the need for washing clothes. And you also know, Pankaj, in my life, when it comes to teaching Java, riding the wave is my DNA. Rather than creating a category, I like to pick a category that is already in full swing and just ride the wave, like a rising tide lifts all boats. This means my strength has to be my execution, not my innovation.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

I agree with you. That is a very theoretical discussion that some entrepreneurs have that we will sit together and discuss 20 ideas. It always will have to start from a customer problem.

I agree with you. That is a very theoretical discussion that some entrepreneurs have that we will sit together and discuss 20 ideas. It always will have to start from a customer problem.

The SaaS wave will accelerate going forward. Of course, not the industries that are deeply impacted. By and large, after every crisis, the automation increases because you want to have self-reliant systems which reduce costs because you won’t have so much money to spend. Cloud waves will accelerate, and you will see many more businesses doing automation, which is where the SaaS will come into place. The future of the work paradigm is going to shift radically, which was a big topic even before this crisis. It will become an even bigger paradigm.

The SaaS wave will accelerate going forward. Of course, not the industries that are deeply impacted. By and large, after every crisis, the automation increases because you want to have self-reliant systems which reduce costs because you won’t have so much money to spend. Cloud waves will accelerate, and you will see many more businesses doing automation, which is where the SaaS will come into place. The future of the work paradigm is going to shift radically, which was a big topic even before this crisis. It will become an even bigger paradigm.

In your online healthcare, if you look at the option of online consultation, that sector is totally going to change. Your entire education [sector] is going to go through massive change. The world over, people are

In your online healthcare, if you look at the option of online consultation, that sector is totally going to change. Your entire education [sector] is going to go through massive change. The world over, people are

RATHER THAN CREATING A CATEGORY, I LIKE TO PICK A CATEGORY THAT IS ALREADY IN FULL SWING AND JUST RIDE THE WAVE, LIKE A RISING TIDE LIFTS ALL BOATS. IT IS EASIER TO SELL A BETTER WASHING MACHINE THAN TO EXPLAIN TO PEOPLE THE NEED FOR WASHING CLOTHES. THIS MEANS MY STRENGTH HAS TO BE MY EXECUTION, NOT MY INNOVATION.

RATHER THAN CREATING A CATEGORY, I LIKE TO PICK A CATEGORY THAT IS ALREADY IN FULL SWING AND JUST RIDE THE WAVE, LIKE A RISING TIDE LIFTS ALL BOATS. IT IS EASIER TO SELL A BETTER WASHING MACHINE THAN TO EXPLAIN TO PEOPLE THE NEED FOR WASHING CLOTHES. THIS MEANS MY STRENGTH HAS TO BE MY EXECUTION, NOT MY INNOVATION.

– GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

– GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

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talking about how the supply chain risk has become paramount now. Whether you have a local supply chain or distributor supply chain across the globe, companies will adopt more supply chain software to automate their supply chain even faster, so they can respond to a crisis faster. There are many more fields, but I think SaaS adoption will definitely continue to grow. How the company manages risk factors will have to be considered along with it.

talking about how the supply chain risk has become paramount now. Whether you have a local supply chain or distributor supply chain across the globe, companies will adopt more supply chain software to automate their supply chain even faster, so they can respond to a crisis faster. There are many more fields, but I think SaaS adoption will definitely continue to grow. How the company manages risk factors will have to be considered along with it.

SURESH SAMBANDAM

SURESH SAMBANDAM

We were always wondering why rule-engine technology that is supposed to be for non-technical business users, who don’t know how to code but can write business rules, hasn’t fulfilled its original promise. Rule engines are supposed to make rules-based app development simple for them, but, in reality, none of the non-technical users could come near a rule engine because it is so complex that it requires very sophisticated programmers to actually configure it. We said you know what, this is mad, and we saw an opportunity to simplify that. We started a company around democratizing rule-based computing, application development and taking it to the market and that’s really how we founded OrangeScape.

We were always wondering why rule-engine technology that is supposed to be for non-technical business users, who don’t know how to code but can write business rules, hasn’t fulfilled its original promise. Rule engines are supposed to make rules-based app development simple for them, but, in reality, none of the non-technical users could come near a rule engine because it is so complex that it requires very sophisticated programmers to actually configure it. We said you know what, this is mad, and we saw an opportunity to simplify that. We started a company around democratizing rule-based computing, application development and taking it to the market and that’s really how we founded OrangeScape.

ABHINAV ASTHANA

ABHINAV ASTHANA

First, there was a vision of what we wanted to create for ourselves. In those very first days of the Postman tool, we were essentially our own market. Postman was simply built to solve problems that I and some of my colleagues faced as developers.

First, there was a vision of what we wanted to create for ourselves. In those very first days of the Postman tool, we were essentially our own market. Postman was simply built to solve problems that I and some of my colleagues faced as developers.

Then, as more and more people and organizations started using Postman, we were getting all these data points from different companies. It was very data-driven, and we could start thinking about how to monetize this market. We ran some beta tests early on, where part of the product was free, and part of it was paid. Then we started thinking of the highest price point that we would like people to pay—it was not about what people are willing to give us but rather what we would want as payment. We eventually landed somewhere in the middle. So, that was the second part of our journey in terms of defining our market.

Then, as more and more people and organizations started using Postman, we were getting all these data points from different companies. It was very data-driven, and we could start thinking about how to monetize this market. We ran some beta tests early on, where part of the product was free, and part of it was paid. Then we started thinking of the highest price point that we would like people to pay—it was not about what people are willing to give us but rather what we would want as payment. We eventually landed somewhere in the middle. So, that was the second part of our journey in terms of defining our market.

Then, as Postman continued to grow, we went to the next level of defining our market. We started comparing the magnitude of the problem we were solving with the alternative ways people solve that problem and how much they spend there. We learned that our “competitor” is typically homegrown API solutions cobbled together in many different ways. Companies pay millions of dollars to developers and for infrastructure to keep those homegrown solutions up. So that was our real market competition—and it wasn’t even another company.

Then, as Postman continued to grow, we went to the next level of defining our market. We started comparing the magnitude of the problem we were solving with the alternative ways people solve that problem and how much they spend there. We learned that our “competitor” is typically homegrown API solutions cobbled together in many different ways. Companies pay millions of dollars to developers and for infrastructure to keep those homegrown solutions up. So that was our real market competition—and it wasn’t even another company.

For us, then, it was apparent that we were creating a new market. And we started to closely observe how that new market was growing over time and looking for trends and opportunities. For example, the macro factors benefiting us in this market, things like the growth of API usage, the growth of microservices, or the growth of cloud technologies? If you can index your company onto a macro change that is happening in the world, then you can be reasonably sure that— even if you are sizing up your market relatively low today—the market will grow over time.

For us, then, it was apparent that we were creating a new market. And we started to closely observe how that new market was growing over time and looking for trends and opportunities. For example, the macro factors benefiting us in this market, things like the growth of API usage, the growth of microservices, or the growth of cloud technologies? If you can index your company onto a macro change that is happening in the world, then you can be reasonably sure that— even if you are sizing up your market relatively low today—the market will grow over time.

SRIDHAR VEMBU

SRIDHAR VEMBU

There wasn’t a product like Zoho Creator when we launched it in November 2006. Now, there are some products that came after us. So, we actually ended up pioneering that market where you create online business apps on the web. Similarly, look at Zoho One, which is an “operating system for business”. No one—not even Microsoft, Google, or Salesforce— offers the breadth and depth that we offer, and we are putting all this together. The key questions for us today are: How do you integrate all the data in your organization? How do you enable people to collaborate seamlessly? How do you bring the collaboration part and the data part (like CRM—customer relationship management) together? Today, if you see our product portfolio, we have solved some of it by collaborating with other business tools. In that sense, there is quite a bit of innovation going on here at Zoho. Our goal is to revolutionize the way software is built.

There wasn’t a product like Zoho Creator when we launched it in November 2006. Now, there are some products that came after us. So, we actually ended up pioneering that market where you create online business apps on the web. Similarly, look at Zoho One, which is an “operating system for business”. No one—not even Microsoft, Google, or Salesforce— offers the breadth and depth that we offer, and we are putting all this together. The key questions for us today are: How do you integrate all the data in your organization? How do you enable people to collaborate seamlessly? How do you bring the collaboration part and the data part (like CRM—customer relationship management) together? Today, if you see our product portfolio, we have solved some of it by collaborating with other business tools. In that sense, there is quite a bit of innovation going on here at Zoho. Our goal is to revolutionize the way software is built.

RUSHABH MEHTA

RUSHABH MEHTA

When I started the company, we did the sales part, and India is like a terrible place to sell software. You

When I started the company, we did the sales part, and India is like a terrible place to sell software. You

WE SAID YOU KNOW WHAT, THIS IS MAD, AND WE SAW AN OPPORTUNITY TO SIMPLIFY THAT. WE STARTED A COMPANY AROUND DEMOCRATIZING RULE-BASED COMPUTING, APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT AND TAKING IT TO THE MARKET AND THAT’S REALLY HOW WE FOUNDED ORANGESCAPE.

WE SAID YOU KNOW WHAT, THIS IS MAD, AND WE SAW AN OPPORTUNITY TO SIMPLIFY THAT. WE STARTED A COMPANY AROUND DEMOCRATIZING RULE-BASED COMPUTING, APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT AND TAKING IT TO THE MARKET AND THAT’S REALLY HOW WE FOUNDED ORANGESCAPE.

— SURESH SAMBANDAM

— SURESH SAMBANDAM

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have heard this over and over again. At one point, a customer had called me for a discussion, and I waited outside the office for two hours. And I decided this is the last salesman thing I am ever going to do. So from now on, I am going to build what is now called SaaS. It will be a 30-day trial: if they want it, they try it, and they take it. There will be no negotiation; I am not going to talk to anybody. It’s ten years of us being a SaaS company. This SaaS was driven thanks to Indian customers being so painful.

have heard this over and over again. At one point, a customer had called me for a discussion, and I waited outside the office for two hours. And I decided this is the last salesman thing I am ever going to do. So from now on, I am going to build what is now called SaaS. It will be a 30-day trial: if they want it, they try it, and they take it. There will be no negotiation; I am not going to talk to anybody. It’s ten years of us being a SaaS company. This SaaS was driven thanks to Indian customers being so painful.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

If you focus on a problem and you focus on the market, you will be able to pick the simplest workflow to which people can adapt faster. You will also determine the basic market needs, and you can start building for that. That is the fastest way to achieve a market fit, in my experience. For example, when I started, I only knew about coffee trading, so I picked a coffee trading use case and made that into a workflow. But soon, we realized that coffee is the same as agriculture, same as metals, same as energy. So then, slowly and adjacently, we expanded the use case into many more markets. To get to product-market fit, you should identify the single biggest workflow which will solve the single biggest problem for the end-user. One single workflow or a software piece—whatever you are building—can focus on one single problem and cut across many more users. That is how you can get to the PMF the fastest.

If you focus on a problem and you focus on the market, you will be able to pick the simplest workflow to which people can adapt faster. You will also determine the basic market needs, and you can start building for that. That is the fastest way to achieve a market fit, in my experience. For example, when I started, I only knew about coffee trading, so I picked a coffee trading use case and made that into a workflow. But soon, we realized that coffee is the same as agriculture, same as metals, same as energy. So then, slowly and adjacently, we expanded the use case into many more markets. To get to product-market fit, you should identify the single biggest workflow which will solve the single biggest problem for the end-user. One single workflow or a software piece—whatever you are building—can focus on one single problem and cut across many more users. That is how you can get to the PMF the fastest.

But not every founder “creates” their market.

But not every founder “creates” their market.

ARPIT JAIN

ARPIT JAIN

We’ve always kept a close eye on tech trends. When the iPad was launched in 2010, we thought it had immense potential to transform education. We came up with the idea of developing a science program

We’ve always kept a close eye on tech trends. When the iPad was launched in 2010, we thought it had immense potential to transform education. We came up with the idea of developing a science program

IF YOU CAN INDEX YOUR COMPANY ONTO A MACRO CHANGE THAT IS HAPPENING IN THE WORLD, THEN YOU CAN BE REASONABLY SURE THAT EVEN IF YOU ARE SIZING UP YOUR MARKET RELATIVELY LOW TODAY, THE MARKET WILL GROW OVER TIME.

IF YOU CAN INDEX YOUR COMPANY ONTO A MACRO CHANGE THAT IS HAPPENING IN THE WORLD, THEN YOU CAN BE REASONABLY SURE THAT EVEN IF YOU ARE SIZING UP YOUR MARKET RELATIVELY LOW TODAY, THE MARKET WILL GROW OVER TIME.

– ABHINAV ASTHANA

– ABHINAV ASTHANA

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for kids. This time though, we shifted our target market to the US because India had proved to be a tough market for our first edtech startup. We had already seen how difficult it was to overcome bureaucratic hurdles involved in making even small decisions within the education system. The US was a new market for us; we knew we had to answer a few questions before we got started—need, market size, and potential of disruption.

for kids. This time though, we shifted our target market to the US because India had proved to be a tough market for our first edtech startup. We had already seen how difficult it was to overcome bureaucratic hurdles involved in making even small decisions within the education system. The US was a new market for us; we knew we had to answer a few questions before we got started—need, market size, and potential of disruption.

We believe that the paucity of market research in our first edtech startup was the reason we couldn’t grow fast enough. So, this time, we spent a lot of time doing market research, understanding potential users. We even traveled to the US several times to directly talk to them. We took hundreds of parents and teachers through the mockup of our science app. This process was long and intense but turned out to be super insightful. We realized that, contrary to our assumption, parents were more concerned about their child’s math and reading skills than science. Hence, we decided to build what the users wanted— and pivoted to a math program.

We believe that the paucity of market research in our first edtech startup was the reason we couldn’t grow fast enough. So, this time, we spent a lot of time doing market research, understanding potential users. We even traveled to the US several times to directly talk to them. We took hundreds of parents and teachers through the mockup of our science app. This process was long and intense but turned out to be super insightful. We realized that, contrary to our assumption, parents were more concerned about their child’s math and reading skills than science. Hence, we decided to build what the users wanted— and pivoted to a math program.

During this time, we also tested parents’ willingness to pay for a digital learning program and their challenges with offline books and tutoring programs. This further enhanced our confidence in the need for the product.

During this time, we also tested parents’ willingness to pay for a digital learning program and their challenges with offline books and tutoring programs. This further enhanced our confidence in the need for the product.

*Sridhar Vembu comments are from the Outliers Podcast hosted by Pankaj Mishra ©️SourceCode Media Private Limited

*Sridhar Vembu comments are from the Outliers Podcast hosted by Pankaj Mishra ©️SourceCode Media Private Limited

The SaaS ecosystem in India today boasts of a staggering range of products that are as dynamic as they are diverse. But if there is one common element that binds these varied startups together, it is their founders’ innate ability to sniff out hidden opportunities and build products to cater to growing market demands. Most successful founders hit upon their billion-dollar startup idea not through any divine providence but because they discover untapped potential in nascent markets before anyone else. But how do they accomplish this? In this chapter, we turn to some key SaaS founders who possess a keen sense of product–market fit and recognize wonderful opportunities that lurk behind frustrating user experiences. We are going to be spending time with some select entrepreneurs to understand what they consider as key market drivers and how much they rely on intuition before going after a market.

The SaaS ecosystem in India today boasts of a staggering range of products that are as dynamic as they are diverse. But if there is one common element that binds these varied startups together, it is their founders’ innate ability to sniff out hidden opportunities and build products to cater to growing market demands. Most successful founders hit upon their billion-dollar startup idea not through any divine providence but because they discover untapped potential in nascent markets before anyone else. But how do they accomplish this? In this chapter, we turn to some key SaaS founders who possess a keen sense of product–market fit and recognize wonderful opportunities that lurk behind frustrating user experiences. We are going to be spending time with some select entrepreneurs to understand what they consider as key market drivers and how much they rely on intuition before going after a market.

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

Educate yourself on the value of dilution. The costliest round is the early round. Entrepreneur has to understand that they cannot get carried away by the artificial valuation game. This is the most important lesson that founders should understand because VC math is all about having a model. I think dilution is the most important lesson at this juncture. Know that your company is not really worth what it is being valued at. So the only thing that you can do is find yourself an investor who can raise at a much lower dilution and if you are confident about your ability to run the company, then go with that investor or optimize.

Educate yourself on the value of dilution. The costliest round is the early round. Entrepreneur has to understand that they cannot get carried away by the artificial valuation game. This is the most important lesson that founders should understand because VC math is all about having a model. I think dilution is the most important lesson at this juncture. Know that your company is not really worth what it is being valued at. So the only thing that you can do is find yourself an investor who can raise at a much lower dilution and if you are confident about your ability to run the company, then go with that investor or optimize.

EDUCATE YOURSELF ON THE VALUE OF DILUTION. THE COSTLIEST ROUND IS THE EARLY ROUND. THE ENTREPRENEUR HAS TO UNDERSTAND THAT THEY CANNOT GET CARRIED AWAY BY THE ARTIFICIAL VALUATION GAME. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSON THAT FOUNDERS SHOULD UNDERSTAND BECAUSE VC MATH IS ALL ABOUT HAVING A MODEL. I THINK DILUTION IS THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSON AT THIS JUNCTURE. KNOW THAT YOUR COMPANY IS NOT REALLY WORTH WHAT IT IS BEING VALUED AT.

EDUCATE YOURSELF ON THE VALUE OF DILUTION. THE COSTLIEST ROUND IS THE EARLY ROUND. THE ENTREPRENEUR HAS TO UNDERSTAND THAT THEY CANNOT GET CARRIED AWAY BY THE ARTIFICIAL VALUATION GAME. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSON THAT FOUNDERS SHOULD UNDERSTAND BECAUSE VC MATH IS ALL ABOUT HAVING A MODEL. I THINK DILUTION IS THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSON AT THIS JUNCTURE. KNOW THAT YOUR COMPANY IS NOT REALLY WORTH WHAT IT IS BEING VALUED AT.

-GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

-GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

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ANAND JAIN

ANAND JAIN

You need to have what you think is meaningful. In the end, if you think 10 percent is meaningful for you, or whatever the number is. If you continue to be motivated by that number, you don’t say that it’s a Monday morning: all the days of the week, all times of the day are just harmonious. They just fly by when you are having a lot of fun. It should be good and aim for something much, much bigger because the bigger it gets, your insignificant percentage also becomes a big number. An absolute big number. That is what my advice would be. Work on increasing the overall pie, not just your share of the pie.

You need to have what you think is meaningful. In the end, if you think 10 percent is meaningful for you, or whatever the number is. If you continue to be motivated by that number, you don’t say that it’s a Monday morning: all the days of the week, all times of the day are just harmonious. They just fly by when you are having a lot of fun. It should be good and aim for something much, much bigger because the bigger it gets, your insignificant percentage also becomes a big number. An absolute big number. That is what my advice would be. Work on increasing the overall pie, not just your share of the pie.

During a random conversation, someone told me, no matter how much you raise, the first investor will take away 20 percent. Because there is no valuation, what do you have, and you also don’t know, and it is okay because it is your first time. He said even the second one will take 20 percent away. Then after that, you can become more discerning, you can show some graph of ARR or something, so then you can be a little bit more, and that is in the ballpark and then you start settling in on, well, okay, we got into some serious three-digit millions of dollars of valuation and things kind of started becoming better after Series B and C and all that.

During a random conversation, someone told me, no matter how much you raise, the first investor will take away 20 percent. Because there is no valuation, what do you have, and you also don’t know, and it is okay because it is your first time. He said even the second one will take 20 percent away. Then after that, you can become more discerning, you can show some graph of ARR or something, so then you can be a little bit more, and that is in the ballpark and then you start settling in on, well, okay, we got into some serious three-digit millions of dollars of valuation and things kind of started becoming better after Series B and C and all that.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

KEY TAKEAWAYS

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ABHINAV ASTHANA

ABHINAV ASTHANA

The fundraising process often seems like it’s a feast or famine. Sometimes, it looks like you won’t be able to raise money at all, but at other times, you can end up with too much capital. Both of these scenarios can set you up for failure (or cultural issues) down the road.

The fundraising process often seems like it’s a feast or famine. Sometimes, it looks like you won’t be able to raise money at all, but at other times, you can end up with too much capital. Both of these scenarios can set you up for failure (or cultural issues) down the road.

This is why we’ve always looked at the capital for the long term. Since our vision was always to build a company for the long term, we wanted our funding partner to think about the long term as well. So the way we raised capital, in the beginning, was by asking ourselves fundamental questions about the funding based on our long-term vision. For example: “This is what the next three years of our journey will look like; is this round going to be enough to get us there?” We didn’t want to dilute unnecessarily; we just wanted to get the right level of funding to accomplish what we needed to accomplish.

This is why we’ve always looked at the capital for the long term. Since our vision was always to build a company for the long term, we wanted our funding partner to think about the long term as well. So the way we raised capital, in the beginning, was by asking ourselves fundamental questions about the funding based on our long-term vision. For example: “This is what the next three years of our journey will look like; is this round going to be enough to get us there?” We didn’t want to dilute unnecessarily; we just wanted to get the right level of funding to accomplish what we needed to accomplish.

So we had really clear milestones for what each round of financing would help us achieve. Based on that, we picked a partner who would be supportive in that stage of the journey, who had relevant domain experience, and who had sufficient depth and breadth for that stage and beyond. We didn’t want to have too many investors; we weren’t chasing capital that much. We just wanted a group of people who would align with us for the long term and be a good match for Postman overall.

So we had really clear milestones for what each round of financing would help us achieve. Based on that, we picked a partner who would be supportive in that stage of the journey, who had relevant domain experience, and who had sufficient depth and breadth for that stage and beyond. We didn’t want to have too many investors; we weren’t chasing capital that much. We just wanted a group of people who would align with us for the long term and be a good match for Postman overall.

RITESH ARORA

RITESH ARORA

It is very popular to raise money now. What most don’t understand is that ultimately they are giving

It is very popular to raise money now. What most don’t understand is that ultimately they are giving

their ownership to someone. For example, I have had many seed and Series A founders who have come to me and said they are raising money. I said, but why are you raising money? Where are you going to deploy the money? They have no answer to that. The common response that most people give is that they are getting a lot of inbounds, which was scarce in the time of Amazon and Facebook. I think the big reason behind this is that there is so much capital available and all the branding that happens from the capital race. It has also become a big factor playing into the founder’s mindset that if I am not raising money, I am really getting left out.

their ownership to someone. For example, I have had many seed and Series A founders who have come to me and said they are raising money. I said, but why are you raising money? Where are you going to deploy the money? They have no answer to that. The common response that most people give is that they are getting a lot of inbounds, which was scarce in the time of Amazon and Facebook. I think the big reason behind this is that there is so much capital available and all the branding that happens from the capital race. It has also become a big factor playing into the founder’s mindset that if I am not raising money, I am really getting left out.

Don’t go for the valuation headlines, don’t complicate and give preferential treatment to investors; keep it as simple as you can; it always works. Go for the best VCs. Think of them as partners; it’s a partnership.

Don’t go for the valuation headlines, don’t complicate and give preferential treatment to investors; keep it as simple as you can; it always works. Go for the best VCs. Think of them as partners; it’s a partnership.

More recently, I have had a realization. So let’s say whatever you are giving to an investor, technically, you are taking a loan, and you have to give it back. If the investor is going to exit, you have to find someone else to make that person exit. So, you look at it from a different perspective where you are taking a loan for seven years. If you think about what you have to do in seven years with the money you are raising right now, you can make more sense out of it rather than thinking now, now.

More recently, I have had a realization. So let’s say whatever you are giving to an investor, technically, you are taking a loan, and you have to give it back. If the investor is going to exit, you have to find someone else to make that person exit. So, you look at it from a different perspective where you are taking a loan for seven years. If you think about what you have to do in seven years with the money you are raising right now, you can make more sense out of it rather than thinking now, now.

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

The thing I always say is that story is your friend, data

The thing I always say is that story is your friend, data

TO SECURE VC FUNDING, YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO SAY THAT IN FIVE–SIX YEARS YOU WILL REALIZE $100 MILLION IN REVENUE. YOU NEED TO CHART THE PATH THROUGH A CREDIBLE STORY OR AN “AUTHENTIC LIE”, AS TED GORDON LIKES TO CALL IT. MANY VCs WILL EVEN PLAY A PART IN THIS. AS LONG AS THE AUTHENTIC LIE WORKS, MORE AND MORE PEOPLE WILL BELIEVE IN IT AND MORE MONEY WILL COME IN. BUT, AT SOME POINT, THE EXECUTION ALSO HAS TO CATCH UP WITH THE PROMISES. THAT IS SOMETHING ENTREPRENEURS SHOULD UNDERSTAND.

TO SECURE VC FUNDING, YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO SAY THAT IN FIVE–SIX YEARS YOU WILL REALIZE $100 MILLION IN REVENUE. YOU NEED TO CHART THE PATH THROUGH A CREDIBLE STORY OR AN “AUTHENTIC LIE”, AS TED GORDON LIKES TO CALL IT. MANY VCs WILL EVEN PLAY A PART IN THIS. AS LONG AS THE AUTHENTIC LIE WORKS, MORE AND MORE PEOPLE WILL BELIEVE IN IT AND MORE MONEY WILL COME IN. BUT, AT SOME POINT, THE EXECUTION ALSO HAS TO CATCH UP WITH THE PROMISES. THAT IS SOMETHING ENTREPRENEURS SHOULD UNDERSTAND.

-GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

-GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM

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is your enemy. Investors may not like to acknowledge this, but, in my experience, very young startups with a good story have raised a lot more money than startups that have struggled for two-three years— mostly bootstrapped with small revenue. The data actually worked against them. By story I mean the kind of story investors want to hear. For example, if people want the next Freshworks, and they pitch something like, “Oh, there is a founder who sold the company to Freshworks, he is coming out again, and he has got a good high-quality team, you know, exFreshworks, ex-Zoho,” you would immediately see investors fighting to fund, even though the pitch had no idea. That is where the story becomes important.

is your enemy. Investors may not like to acknowledge this, but, in my experience, very young startups with a good story have raised a lot more money than startups that have struggled for two-three years— mostly bootstrapped with small revenue. The data actually worked against them. By story I mean the kind of story investors want to hear. For example, if people want the next Freshworks, and they pitch something like, “Oh, there is a founder who sold the company to Freshworks, he is coming out again, and he has got a good high-quality team, you know, exFreshworks, ex-Zoho,” you would immediately see investors fighting to fund, even though the pitch had no idea. That is where the story becomes important.

Another thing is to check whether you have a VCfundable business. VCs rarely care about a 1 million/ 5 million/10 million business that will be profitable. If you want to do that, don’t go to a VC. It is still a good business, just not a VC-fundable business. VCs want companies that can grow to at least $100 million in revenue. To secure VC funding, you should be able to say that in five-six years, you will realize $100 million in revenue. You need to chart the path through a credible story or an “authentic lie”, as Ted Gordon likes to call it. Many VCs will even play a part in this. As long as the authentic lie works, more and more people will believe in it and more money will come in. But, at some point, the execution also has to catch up with the promises. That is something entrepreneurs should understand—this is why we keep talking about the big market, and the need for building a high-quality team so that you can quickly build $100 million revenue in less than five years and keep growing. So, you want a high-growth company at 100 million, which is when the VCs will start making their money.

Another thing is to check whether you have a VCfundable business. VCs rarely care about a 1 million/ 5 million/10 million business that will be profitable. If you want to do that, don’t go to a VC. It is still a good business, just not a VC-fundable business. VCs want companies that can grow to at least $100 million in revenue. To secure VC funding, you should be able to say that in five-six years, you will realize $100 million in revenue. You need to chart the path through a credible story or an “authentic lie”, as Ted Gordon likes to call it. Many VCs will even play a part in this. As long as the authentic lie works, more and more people will believe in it and more money will come in. But, at some point, the execution also has to catch up with the promises. That is something entrepreneurs should understand—this is why we keep talking about the big market, and the need for building a high-quality team so that you can quickly build $100 million revenue in less than five years and keep growing. So, you want a high-growth company at 100 million, which is when the VCs will start making their money.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

Entrepreneurs should be able to value themselves correctly. The day you realize that you are taking a risk with your time, money, health, and relationships is when you will start valuing your equity. Value your equity from day 1, even if you don’t know anything because you are taking a disproportionate amount of risk and a disproportionate amount of trouble in your life. That is the perspective from which you should start the fundraising process. This will help you pave your journey. Position yourself as a creator, a builder. Your dilution and fundraising should happen from that perspective, not by underselling yourself from the start because you came from some random background. That, to me, is the crux of the fundraising process—learning all the marketing techniques of storytelling, hitting the market at the right time, negotiating with the right people, and getting the right partners.

Entrepreneurs should be able to value themselves correctly. The day you realize that you are taking a risk with your time, money, health, and relationships is when you will start valuing your equity. Value your equity from day 1, even if you don’t know anything because you are taking a disproportionate amount of risk and a disproportionate amount of trouble in your life. That is the perspective from which you should start the fundraising process. This will help you pave your journey. Position yourself as a creator, a builder. Your dilution and fundraising should happen from that perspective, not by underselling yourself from the start because you came from some random background. That, to me, is the crux of the fundraising process—learning all the marketing techniques of storytelling, hitting the market at the right time, negotiating with the right people, and getting the right partners.

BHARAT GOENKA

BHARAT GOENKA

I don’t think anyone in the world who can build a great product requires more than Rs 10–15 lakh. You just require a few great computers to build your software and after that, the money comes from the market. It does not come from your pocket. If your customers are not willing to pay you for what you’ve built, spending money in the market will not make them want it and the bulk of the money that people ask for is so that they can make a marketing splash. At least in the B2B space, marketing does not work just like it does not work in the enterprise space. The enterprise space is a sales-driven space, it’s a word-of-mouth space just like the SMB space. Sometimes after you earn some money, you may want to do branding. Let me tell you something— businesses don’t care about the brand, they care a lot about the product. Consumers care about the brand, therefore, you have a marketing-oriented way of selling to consumers. So, what’s the point of spending all that money if you are in the B2B space? So, people can ask for millions of dollars in funding, but is there a need? The answer is NO.

I don’t think anyone in the world who can build a great product requires more than Rs 10–15 lakh. You just require a few great computers to build your software and after that, the money comes from the market. It does not come from your pocket. If your customers are not willing to pay you for what you’ve built, spending money in the market will not make them want it and the bulk of the money that people ask for is so that they can make a marketing splash. At least in the B2B space, marketing does not work just like it does not work in the enterprise space. The enterprise space is a sales-driven space, it’s a word-of-mouth space just like the SMB space. Sometimes after you earn some money, you may want to do branding. Let me tell you something— businesses don’t care about the brand, they care a lot about the product. Consumers care about the brand, therefore, you have a marketing-oriented way of selling to consumers. So, what’s the point of spending all that money if you are in the B2B space? So, people can ask for millions of dollars in funding, but is there a need? The answer is NO.

ELAD GIL

ELAD GIL

I would ultimately view your angel investors or your early investors to some extent as a diverse team of people. By that I mean you want different skills and different outlooks, common perspectives from people. So, for example, I have a very old blog post talking about the different types of angel investors you may want and bringing people who are very good at the nuts and bolts of the startup—hiring, firing, and product building, and things like that. There may be people very good at life-cycle events for the

I would ultimately view your angel investors or your early investors to some extent as a diverse team of people. By that I mean you want different skills and different outlooks, common perspectives from people. So, for example, I have a very old blog post talking about the different types of angel investors you may want and bringing people who are very good at the nuts and bolts of the startup—hiring, firing, and product building, and things like that. There may be people very good at life-cycle events for the

I WOULD ULTIMATELY VIEW YOUR ANGEL INVESTORS OR YOUR EARLY INVESTORS TO SOME EXTENT AS A DIVERSE TEAM OF PEOPLE. I THINK TO SOME EXTENT YOU SHOULD THINK ABOUT IT AS A PORTFOLIO OF SKILLS AND REALLY THINK THROUGH WHAT ARE THE SETS OF SKILLS THAT YOU WANT ON BOARD. VIEW IT AS A BASKET OF PEOPLE AND REALLY THINK THROUGH HOW YOU WANT TO CONSTRUCT THAT GROUP.

I WOULD ULTIMATELY VIEW YOUR ANGEL INVESTORS OR YOUR EARLY INVESTORS TO SOME EXTENT AS A DIVERSE TEAM OF PEOPLE. I THINK TO SOME EXTENT YOU SHOULD THINK ABOUT IT AS A PORTFOLIO OF SKILLS AND REALLY THINK THROUGH WHAT ARE THE SETS OF SKILLS THAT YOU WANT ON BOARD. VIEW IT AS A BASKET OF PEOPLE AND REALLY THINK THROUGH HOW YOU WANT TO CONSTRUCT THAT GROUP.

— ELAD GIL

— ELAD GIL

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company, future fundraises or M&As or people who can introduce you to a dozen customers and help that way. So I think to some extent you should think about it as a portfolio of skills and really think through what are the sets of skills that you want on board. View it as a basket of people and really think through how you want to construct that group.

company, future fundraises or M&As or people who can introduce you to a dozen customers and help that way. So I think to some extent you should think about it as a portfolio of skills and really think through what are the sets of skills that you want on board. View it as a basket of people and really think through how you want to construct that group.

SUDHEER KONERU

SUDHEER KONERU

I would say having a longer-term vision of not just saying that I am going to sell software, I am a SaaS company, I make $50–$100 a month per store or something like that but of the big picture about where are you headed, what is this company about. Laying that vision out and saying that this company, yes, originally used to be about developing software but is moving to be, what is our aspiration, it is about being a gateway to the industry, being a backbone to the industry, and then laying out what that implies and actually taking the time to articulate that clearly helps them to realize that this opportunity is huge.

I would say having a longer-term vision of not just saying that I am going to sell software, I am a SaaS company, I make $50–$100 a month per store or something like that but of the big picture about where are you headed, what is this company about. Laying that vision out and saying that this company, yes, originally used to be about developing software but is moving to be, what is our aspiration, it is about being a gateway to the industry, being a backbone to the industry, and then laying out what that implies and actually taking the time to articulate that clearly helps them to realize that this opportunity is huge.

There is an upside on the table so the willingness to give you a better multiple or valuation moves up. If they did not have that upside, they will be stuck and will say that 400–500 million is the best that they can give you. Also, while fundraising I found people who were good at it, but yes, the domain will come down on people who can invest. Either you pick someone who happens to have spent a lot of time in this industry and is very passionate, saying I want to put in money in this space because I get it, I get the landscape, or you would have to find someone who knows the playbook very well and brings value.

There is an upside on the table so the willingness to give you a better multiple or valuation moves up. If they did not have that upside, they will be stuck and will say that 400–500 million is the best that they can give you. Also, while fundraising I found people who were good at it, but yes, the domain will come down on people who can invest. Either you pick someone who happens to have spent a lot of time in this industry and is very passionate, saying I want to put in money in this space because I get it, I get the landscape, or you would have to find someone who knows the playbook very well and brings value.

ANAND JAIN

ANAND JAIN

The sooner you realize what you are good at, the better it is. We are bad at fundraising, as in we don’t like to do comparison shopping to get a better valuation. The first person who gives us a decent evaluation we are like, okay, you sound good, and let’s make it happen. Because we don’t optimize for valuation. We optimize for annual recurring revenue (ARR), optimize for market share, optimize for building a good product that someone can genuinely use and we believe that is the starting point for everything else that will happen in our company.

The sooner you realize what you are good at, the better it is. We are bad at fundraising, as in we don’t like to do comparison shopping to get a better valuation. The first person who gives us a decent evaluation we are like, okay, you sound good, and let’s make it happen. Because we don’t optimize for valuation. We optimize for annual recurring revenue (ARR), optimize for market share, optimize for building a good product that someone can genuinely use and we believe that is the starting point for everything else that will happen in our company.

ANEESH REDDY

ANEESH REDDY

The more important question is that you must make sure you are disciplined about how much you raise. Otherwise, you will raise way too much and to justify that way too much raise, you will have to do funny stuff—crazy experiments/senseless expansion, which will eventually mean that the numbers won’t stack up. And then, unless you can get everything you were trying to do right, it won’t work. This only time can tell, but at least we haven’t been great at some of our bets, and we could have avoided them if we hadn’t raised all the extra money we raised.

The more important question is that you must make sure you are disciplined about how much you raise. Otherwise, you will raise way too much and to justify that way too much raise, you will have to do funny stuff—crazy experiments/senseless expansion, which will eventually mean that the numbers won’t stack up. And then, unless you can get everything you were trying to do right, it won’t work. This only time can tell, but at least we haven’t been great at some of our bets, and we could have avoided them if we hadn’t raised all the extra money we raised.

SPARSH GUPTA

SPARSH GUPTA

Businesses mainly exist to make money, but for us, the purpose is to be one of India’s most respectable software companies delivering globally admired products. We chose the path of bootstrapping because we don’t think many financial institutions will align with our inevitable long journey where the end goal is not 10x more money. For Wingify, revenue and profitability are enablers but not the final destination. We are building a company that can survive 100 years, and being true to the vision is the ultimate joy. Though this has kept us all motivated, the world often judges a company’s success by the valuation and money they have raised. Since bootstrap businesses don’t compete on this axis, the next-order implications can sometimes come across as challenges.

Businesses mainly exist to make money, but for us, the purpose is to be one of India’s most respectable software companies delivering globally admired products. We chose the path of bootstrapping because we don’t think many financial institutions will align with our inevitable long journey where the end goal is not 10x more money. For Wingify, revenue and profitability are enablers but not the final destination. We are building a company that can survive 100 years, and being true to the vision is the ultimate joy. Though this has kept us all motivated, the world often judges a company’s success by the valuation and money they have raised. Since bootstrap businesses don’t compete on this axis, the next-order implications can sometimes come across as challenges.

SRIDHAR VEMBU

SRIDHAR VEMBU

Even in good times, we had to pave our own way. There was no other external source of money. That often feels like you are losing because other guys who took money are growing faster or even dominating the market. But I was not comfortable with it because I was never going to sell the business. If you are spending more than you are taking in, that will never be a good idea because, in a downturn, you would have to have this difficult conversation with your investors. We, on the other hand, were always making money throughout the recession.

Even in good times, we had to pave our own way. There was no other external source of money. That often feels like you are losing because other guys who took money are growing faster or even dominating the market. But I was not comfortable with it because I was never going to sell the business. If you are spending more than you are taking in, that will never be a good idea because, in a downturn, you would have to have this difficult conversation with your investors. We, on the other hand, were always making money throughout the recession.

RITESH ARORA

RITESH ARORA

Founders keep learning and keep evolving, so my opinion keeps changing on this. Given a choice, I

Founders keep learning and keep evolving, so my opinion keeps changing on this. Given a choice, I

would make a bootstrap no matter what. Your ability to make decisions in the company in whichever direction is like taking risks—you are in control on both good days and bad days. That is unmatched, the ability to do that. But it comes with a downside —you are probably playing on your own. You don’t have someone helping you, pushing you in the right direction.

would make a bootstrap no matter what. Your ability to make decisions in the company in whichever direction is like taking risks—you are in control on both good days and bad days. That is unmatched, the ability to do that. But it comes with a downside —you are probably playing on your own. You don’t have someone helping you, pushing you in the right direction.

Be extremely frugal and take money from your parents and family; it is okay. I used to take money from my father. I might be one of those rare commodities—you do computer science from IIT Bombay, don’t do a job, and still, ask your father for money. You want to keep it like that. That brings in that habit of frugality. The moment you take the path of raising money, you will build up the habit of spending money, not saving money.

Be extremely frugal and take money from your parents and family; it is okay. I used to take money from my father. I might be one of those rare commodities—you do computer science from IIT Bombay, don’t do a job, and still, ask your father for money. You want to keep it like that. That brings in that habit of frugality. The moment you take the path of raising money, you will build up the habit of spending money, not saving money.

ELAD GIL

ELAD GIL

The biggest reason I’ve seen bootstrap young startups fail (outside of the normal modes of startup failure, which are largely either a lack of product-market fit or co-founder conflicts) is that they don’t establish a proper board of directors or some form of true advisory capacity where people are meeting with them repeatedly and forcing a conversation around planning, growth, and direction and then it doesn’t have to be tied to governance. If you think about it, venture capital is a bundled product—a bundle of advice, governance, and money. In reality, people great at allocating capital and making investments may not actually be very good at giving advice on governance. People who are good at giving advice may be bad at choosing companies to work with. There are all sorts of co-founders, but the fundamental point is that, as a startup, you want to have all three,

The biggest reason I’ve seen bootstrap young startups fail (outside of the normal modes of startup failure, which are largely either a lack of product-market fit or co-founder conflicts) is that they don’t establish a proper board of directors or some form of true advisory capacity where people are meeting with them repeatedly and forcing a conversation around planning, growth, and direction and then it doesn’t have to be tied to governance. If you think about it, venture capital is a bundled product—a bundle of advice, governance, and money. In reality, people great at allocating capital and making investments may not actually be very good at giving advice on governance. People who are good at giving advice may be bad at choosing companies to work with. There are all sorts of co-founders, but the fundamental point is that, as a startup, you want to have all three,

I THINK INVESTORS IN INDIA HAVE MODELS, AND THEY TRY TO BUCKET YOU INTO ONE OF THOSE MODELS IMMEDIATELY. AND THEN, IF YOU DON’T FIT INTO ANY ONE OF THE MODELS, THEN THAT’S IT. I DON’T THINK THERE ARE INVESTORS IN INDIA WHO TAKE RISKS, AT LEAST WE HAVEN’T FOUND ANY.

I THINK INVESTORS IN INDIA HAVE MODELS, AND THEY TRY TO BUCKET YOU INTO ONE OF THOSE MODELS IMMEDIATELY. AND THEN, IF YOU DON’T FIT INTO ANY ONE OF THE MODELS, THEN THAT’S IT. I DON’T THINK THERE ARE INVESTORS IN INDIA WHO TAKE RISKS, AT LEAST WE HAVEN’T FOUND ANY.

-RUSHABH MEHTA

-RUSHABH MEHTA

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and the capital could come from bootstrapping but you should figure out advice and governance. That is where I often see bootstrap companies fail in terms of really optimizing what they could be. They fall short because nobody is asking them certain questions that are typically asked. “How can you grow faster?”, “Do you have the right executives in place?”, “Is that incumbent entering the market a real threat or not?”

and the capital could come from bootstrapping but you should figure out advice and governance. That is where I often see bootstrap companies fail in terms of really optimizing what they could be. They fall short because nobody is asking them certain questions that are typically asked. “How can you grow faster?”, “Do you have the right executives in place?”, “Is that incumbent entering the market a real threat or not?”

RUSHABH MEHTA

RUSHABH MEHTA

We have invested around a crore in the business, which is good bootstrap capital, and that has been running. I have talked to almost every investment VC firm and they look at me and say “this guy is not somebody who we can fund” because I don’t think there is patient capital in India. I don’t know my CAC (customer acquisition cost), my LTV (lifetime value), we don’t do sales incentives, we don’t have a sales target either in the company. So, any investor looks at me like this guy is not interested in doing business. I think investors in India have models, and they try to bucket you into one of those models immediately. And then, if you don’t fit into any one of the models, then that’s it. I don’t think there are investors in India who take risks, at least we haven’t found any.

We have invested around a crore in the business, which is good bootstrap capital, and that has been running. I have talked to almost every investment VC firm and they look at me and say “this guy is not somebody who we can fund” because I don’t think there is patient capital in India. I don’t know my CAC (customer acquisition cost), my LTV (lifetime value), we don’t do sales incentives, we don’t have a sales target either in the company. So, any investor looks at me like this guy is not interested in doing business. I think investors in India have models, and they try to bucket you into one of those models immediately. And then, if you don’t fit into any one of the models, then that’s it. I don’t think there are investors in India who take risks, at least we haven’t found any.

*Sridhar Vembu comments are from the Outliers Podcast hosted by Pankaj Mishra ©️SourceCode Media Private Limited

*Sridhar Vembu comments are from the Outliers Podcast hosted by Pankaj Mishra ©️SourceCode Media Private Limited

KEY TAKEAWAYS

KEY TAKEAWAYS

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MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

Many founders may not have that kind of cash cushion because they started very early in their careers. In such instances, it comes down to reducing costs to sustain the business for the next twelve months at least. You will have to live on subsistence compensation. You will have to cut down both your personal and business expenses so you can last longer. In Bengaluru, people have an advantage because many tech founders have started the companies, so they can continue to code or build a product for the next twelve months, and funding will still be available. If you look at it, a lot of funds are sitting on a lot of cash. I am sure they are not investing right now, given the sort of uncertainty we are facing now. But I am sure some form of funding will come back, and that will be a question of whether the business is perceived as valuable or not. The risk profile will definitely change, and so will the valuation.

Many founders may not have that kind of cash cushion because they started very early in their careers. In such instances, it comes down to reducing costs to sustain the business for the next twelve months at least. You will have to live on subsistence compensation. You will have to cut down both your personal and business expenses so you can last longer. In Bengaluru, people have an advantage because many tech founders have started the companies, so they can continue to code or build a product for the next twelve months, and funding will still be available. If you look at it, a lot of funds are sitting on a lot of cash. I am sure they are not investing right now, given the sort of uncertainty we are facing now. But I am sure some form of funding will come back, and that will be a question of whether the business is perceived as valuable or not. The risk profile will definitely change, and so will the valuation.

EITHER YOU PICK SOMEONE WHO HAPPENS TO HAVE SPENT A LOT OF TIME IN THIS INDUSTRY AND IS VERY PASSIONATE, SAYING I WANT TO PUT IN MONEY IN THIS SPACE BECAUSE I GET IT, I GET THE LANDSCAPE, OR YOU WOULD HAVE TO FIND SOMEONE WHO KNOWS THE PLAYBOOK VERY WELL AND BRINGS VALUE.

EITHER YOU PICK SOMEONE WHO HAPPENS TO HAVE SPENT A LOT OF TIME IN THIS INDUSTRY AND IS VERY PASSIONATE, SAYING I WANT TO PUT IN MONEY IN THIS SPACE BECAUSE I GET IT, I GET THE LANDSCAPE, OR YOU WOULD HAVE TO FIND SOMEONE WHO KNOWS THE PLAYBOOK VERY WELL AND BRINGS VALUE.

— SUDHEER KONERU

— SUDHEER KONERU

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Funding is the lifeblood of any business. The source of this funding, at least while starting up, can be anyone from friends and family, to a venture capitalist, an angel investor, or even a customer. While the source of seed funding at the start can be one of these, as these startups grow, they gravitate towards one primary source of funding for their growth. India’s SaaS ecosystem has inspiring lessons in each of these categories. While the majority of them have VCs fuelling their growth, a rare few such as Zoho and Wingify chose to stay funded on their own, bootstrapping their existence and growth. There are also some great examples of companies such as BrowserStack that chose to stay bootstrapped for the first few years and later went for VC funding. It’s difficult to offer a straight answer to the question about which funding route you should take if starting up today.

Funding is the lifeblood of any business. The source of this funding, at least while starting up, can be anyone from friends and family, to a venture capitalist, an angel investor, or even a customer. While the source of seed funding at the start can be one of these, as these startups grow, they gravitate towards one primary source of funding for their growth. India’s SaaS ecosystem has inspiring lessons in each of these categories. While the majority of them have VCs fuelling their growth, a rare few such as Zoho and Wingify chose to stay funded on their own, bootstrapping their existence and growth. There are also some great examples of companies such as BrowserStack that chose to stay bootstrapped for the first few years and later went for VC funding. It’s difficult to offer a straight answer to the question about which funding route you should take if starting up today.

We bring you insights from both—founders of VCfunded companies and bootstrapped startups—in this chapter.

We bring you insights from both—founders of VCfunded companies and bootstrapped startups—in this chapter.

SRIDHAR VEMBU

SRIDHAR VEMBU

In our first five or six years at Zoho, we had considered ourselves a complete failure because we didn’t make any impact on the market. But maybe in the eighth year, things started happening. Think about that from a startup’s perspective: you will fail the first five years, and in the eighth year, things start to pick up. We have that kind of patience here, and that is something that is explicitly communicated during hiring. We tell people that this will probably take ten years to master. If you don’t have that patience, you shouldn’t be in this. If you don’t have the stamina to go through this, the endurance, you shouldn’t be in this.

In our first five or six years at Zoho, we had considered ourselves a complete failure because we didn’t make any impact on the market. But maybe in the eighth year, things started happening. Think about that from a startup’s perspective: you will fail the first five years, and in the eighth year, things start to pick up. We have that kind of patience here, and that is something that is explicitly communicated during hiring. We tell people that this will probably take ten years to master. If you don’t have that patience, you shouldn’t be in this. If you don’t have the stamina to go through this, the endurance, you shouldn’t be in this.

BHARAT GOENKA

BHARAT GOENKA

I have been called the dinosaur of the IT industry, not the old man of the IT industry. I am genuinely old school. So when I say that I am old school, we start up virtually every time. Right now, we are in startup mode as a company. When I say we are in startup mode as a product company, whenever you throw away your old code base, you are in startup mode. This is the sixth time that we are starting up in the last 34 years. About a year or so ago, we scrapped our existing code base, and we are starting completely afresh. We will probably be in the market in another year. There is an existing product in the current code base, and the new code base is being developed, and as soon as the new code base comes into the market, the old code base will be thrown away. So, effectively, we are a startup.

I have been called the dinosaur of the IT industry, not the old man of the IT industry. I am genuinely old school. So when I say that I am old school, we start up virtually every time. Right now, we are in startup mode as a company. When I say we are in startup mode as a product company, whenever you throw away your old code base, you are in startup mode. This is the sixth time that we are starting up in the last 34 years. About a year or so ago, we scrapped our existing code base, and we are starting completely afresh. We will probably be in the market in another year. There is an existing product in the current code base, and the new code base is being developed, and as soon as the new code base comes into the market, the old code base will be thrown away. So, effectively, we are a startup.

AS A PRODUCT COMPANY, WHENEVER YOU THROW YOUR OLD CODE BASE, YOU ARE IN STARTUP MODE. THIS IS OUR SIXTH TIME IN 34 YEARS AND EACH TIME WE DID THE SAME THINGS FROM A TECH PERSPECTIVE. FROM THE MARKET PERSPECTIVE, YOU KEEP DOING DIFFERENT THINGS BECAUSE THE CUSTOMER PROFILES AND THE ADDRESSABLE MARKET ARE DIFFERENT. OF COURSE, THERE IS THE GROWTH PLAN. THOSE ARE THE THREE BUCKETS THAT WE LOOK AT AND THEN DETAILING IS A DIFFERENT MATTER.

AS A PRODUCT COMPANY, WHENEVER YOU THROW YOUR OLD CODE BASE, YOU ARE IN STARTUP MODE. THIS IS OUR SIXTH TIME IN 34 YEARS AND EACH TIME WE DID THE SAME THINGS FROM A TECH PERSPECTIVE. FROM THE MARKET PERSPECTIVE, YOU KEEP DOING DIFFERENT THINGS BECAUSE THE CUSTOMER PROFILES AND THE ADDRESSABLE MARKET ARE DIFFERENT. OF COURSE, THERE IS THE GROWTH PLAN. THOSE ARE THE THREE BUCKETS THAT WE LOOK AT AND THEN DETAILING IS A DIFFERENT MATTER.

— BHARAT GOENKA

— BHARAT GOENKA

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What are we doing differently? Actually, all the six times that we have started up, we have done the same things from a tech perspective. From the market perspective, yes, you keep doing different things because the customer profiles are different, the market you are trying to address is different. Then, of course, there is the growth plan. Those are the three buckets that we normally look at. I mean, in the sense of the big three buckets, of course, detailing is a different matter. If I take the tech perspective, what we have done consistently for the last four years is perpetually go around the fundamentals. When I say perpetually go around the fundamentals I mean that we strongly believe that in the product space tech is the differentiator, and in the non-product space your business model may be the differentiator.

What are we doing differently? Actually, all the six times that we have started up, we have done the same things from a tech perspective. From the market perspective, yes, you keep doing different things because the customer profiles are different, the market you are trying to address is different. Then, of course, there is the growth plan. Those are the three buckets that we normally look at. I mean, in the sense of the big three buckets, of course, detailing is a different matter. If I take the tech perspective, what we have done consistently for the last four years is perpetually go around the fundamentals. When I say perpetually go around the fundamentals I mean that we strongly believe that in the product space tech is the differentiator, and in the non-product space your business model may be the differentiator.

For example, if you want to get into the fintech business, technology is perhaps a minor differentiator, but your business model is a major differentiator. Suppose you are trying to do T+1 vs T vs T+2, suppose you are trying to do a subscription model vs per transaction model, various types of business models will differentiate you in the market. A lot of that will depend on how deep your pockets are and how you will sustain that. I’m using the [term] product in the sense of something that is going to run on your systems, whether it’s on your phone or laptop or desktop or your servers. Something that is running in your hands rather than something running in the background, then technology is your primary differentiator. What we keep trying to do is pushing

For example, if you want to get into the fintech business, technology is perhaps a minor differentiator, but your business model is a major differentiator. Suppose you are trying to do T+1 vs T vs T+2, suppose you are trying to do a subscription model vs per transaction model, various types of business models will differentiate you in the market. A lot of that will depend on how deep your pockets are and how you will sustain that. I’m using the [term] product in the sense of something that is going to run on your systems, whether it’s on your phone or laptop or desktop or your servers. Something that is running in your hands rather than something running in the background, then technology is your primary differentiator. What we keep trying to do is pushing

BUT I THINK RIGHT AT OUR SERIES A, SO LITERALLY SECOND, THIRD YEAR OF YOUR BUSINESS, YOU SHOULD START GETTING SERIOUS ABOUT METRICS TO FIGURE OUT WHAT IS GOING ON VERY OBJECTIVELY. WE WERE CLUELESS. WE WOULD LIKE TO HAVE HAD THESE NUMBERS, WE KNEW WHAT THE NUMBERS WERE, BUT A CONSCIOUS EFFORT TO GROW THE NUMBERS OR MAKE THEM HAPPEN, THAT I THINK CAME PRETTY LATE IN OUR JOURNEY. I WOULD BE NUMBERS-DRIVEN FROM THE VERY EARLY STAGES.

BUT I THINK RIGHT AT OUR SERIES A, SO LITERALLY SECOND, THIRD YEAR OF YOUR BUSINESS, YOU SHOULD START GETTING SERIOUS ABOUT METRICS TO FIGURE OUT WHAT IS GOING ON VERY OBJECTIVELY. WE WERE CLUELESS. WE WOULD LIKE TO HAVE HAD THESE NUMBERS, WE KNEW WHAT THE NUMBERS WERE, BUT A CONSCIOUS EFFORT TO GROW THE NUMBERS OR MAKE THEM HAPPEN, THAT I THINK CAME PRETTY LATE IN OUR JOURNEY. I WOULD BE NUMBERS-DRIVEN FROM THE VERY EARLY STAGES.

— ANAND JAIN

— ANAND JAIN

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the limit of what computing can do today. Restarting six times, every time the computing environment has changed significantly, it is time to throw away your old code and rediscover the boundaries of what is possible. So that is what we do consistently.

the limit of what computing can do today. Restarting six times, every time the computing environment has changed significantly, it is time to throw away your old code and rediscover the boundaries of what is possible. So that is what we do consistently.

ANAND JAIN

ANAND JAIN

I will tell you what we would still do and what we would change. We would still continue to be product focused. We, three founders, are product builders. We come from product engineering backgrounds, having built software for so many years. That focus is very important. We have never really looked at this opportunity as an arbitrage opportunity that you build cheaply in India, sell it to the West kind of a thing. You build a solid product that can be sold or used by anyone in the world. The world is your market, and you build that. I will keep that as the DNA. What we will change is, we will be a lot more metrics-driven from early on. Literally it has been three years since we started looking at SaaS metrics very closely and that you know for good or for bad happened around Series B and C. But I think right at Series A, so literally in the second, third year of your business, you should start getting serious about metrics to figure out what is going on very objectively. We were clueless. We would like we had these numbers, we knew what the numbers were, but a conscious effort to grow the numbers or make them happen, that I think came pretty late in our journey. I would be numbers-driven from the very early stages.

I will tell you what we would still do and what we would change. We would still continue to be product focused. We, three founders, are product builders. We come from product engineering backgrounds, having built software for so many years. That focus is very important. We have never really looked at this opportunity as an arbitrage opportunity that you build cheaply in India, sell it to the West kind of a thing. You build a solid product that can be sold or used by anyone in the world. The world is your market, and you build that. I will keep that as the DNA. What we will change is, we will be a lot more metrics-driven from early on. Literally it has been three years since we started looking at SaaS metrics very closely and that you know for good or for bad happened around Series B and C. But I think right at Series A, so literally in the second, third year of your business, you should start getting serious about metrics to figure out what is going on very objectively. We were clueless. We would like we had these numbers, we knew what the numbers were, but a conscious effort to grow the numbers or make them happen, that I think came pretty late in our journey. I would be numbers-driven from the very early stages.

RITESH ARORA

RITESH ARORA

Before BrowserStack, we tried more than twenty ideas, we spent a significant amount of time. We failed so many times that we actually created our own playbook. There were a lot of learnings across all the years about what not to do. If you just ask me about BrowserStack, one thing that I would definitely do differently if I do it again would be that I would scale much faster. We reached 100 million in our ninth year. We could have reached there in three and a half to four years. That’s a big change that I would have made.

Before BrowserStack, we tried more than twenty ideas, we spent a significant amount of time. We failed so many times that we actually created our own playbook. There were a lot of learnings across all the years about what not to do. If you just ask me about BrowserStack, one thing that I would definitely do differently if I do it again would be that I would scale much faster. We reached 100 million in our ninth year. We could have reached there in three and a half to four years. That’s a big change that I would have made.

The biggest learning that I had was to go after the problem. Identify users who have this as an active problem. Don’t immediately start building for an idea. You want to build a good case that it’s a genuine need in the market. How deep is the problem? What are they currently using to solve the problem? That is something we did very differently with BrowserStack the first month because, being developers, we tend to straight away jump into writing the code. This time for the [first] month, we were very clear that we will not write the code; we will not write anything. We identified some 76 users across different internet mediums who clearly identified their problems with testing. Using that, we could get a sense of how big the market would be, how active the problem was. I would recommend that as the number one thing that first-time founders should do. If you are from sales and marketing, that will come naturally but if you come as a developer, an engineer getting into this, you tend to skip this part.

The biggest learning that I had was to go after the problem. Identify users who have this as an active problem. Don’t immediately start building for an idea. You want to build a good case that it’s a genuine need in the market. How deep is the problem? What are they currently using to solve the problem? That is something we did very differently with BrowserStack the first month because, being developers, we tend to straight away jump into writing the code. This time for the [first] month, we were very clear that we will not write the code; we will not write anything. We identified some 76 users across different internet mediums who clearly identified their problems with testing. Using that, we could get a sense of how big the market would be, how active the problem was. I would recommend that as the number one thing that first-time founders should do. If you are from sales and marketing, that will come naturally but if you come as a developer, an engineer getting into this, you tend to skip this part.

The second one was to make it a time-bound approach. Instead of spending two–three years trying out an idea or trying to solve a problem—because you will misfire as well—make it a time-bound approach. I remember we committed for six months. I was convincing Nakul to do this, and he wasn’t convinced about it. So I told him, let’s do this for six months. If we get it in six months, great, and if not, we will just move on to something else. The time window was such that the first month was research, a maximum of four months to build the product—the first version—and the next one month to get feedback from the market.

The second one was to make it a time-bound approach. Instead of spending two–three years trying out an idea or trying to solve a problem—because you will misfire as well—make it a time-bound approach. I remember we committed for six months. I was convincing Nakul to do this, and he wasn’t convinced about it. So I told him, let’s do this for six months. If we get it in six months, great, and if not, we will just move on to something else. The time window was such that the first month was research, a maximum of four months to build the product—the first version—and the next one month to get feedback from the market.

To build it in four months, we only had like three features. Technologically, it became such a difficult problem to solve that we narrowed it down to one feature. When we launched, it was a very bare minimum version of a product. So that’s my second piece of advice. You probably build fast, fail fast, iterate fast.

To build it in four months, we only had like three features. Technologically, it became such a difficult problem to solve that we narrowed it down to one feature. When we launched, it was a very bare minimum version of a product. So that’s my second piece of advice. You probably build fast, fail fast, iterate fast.

KRISH SUBRAMANIAN

KRISH SUBRAMANIAN

As founders, we wanted to build an organization first, and then we picked the problem.

As founders, we wanted to build an organization first, and then we picked the problem.

We picked subscription billing because SaaS and subscription-based business models had massive

We picked subscription billing because SaaS and subscription-based business models had massive

I WOULD TAKE MORE TIME TO STUDY MARKET READINESS, UNDERSTAND THE COMPETITION, AND FORM A FIRM HYPOTHESIS ABOUT HOW I WANT TO APPROACH THIS PROBLEM RATHER THAN SOLVE EVERYTHING WITH CODE. IT IS MUCH BETTER TO TALK TO MORE CUSTOMERS, ITERATE, UNDERSTAND THE MARKET, DO MARKET STUDIES BEFORE COMMITTING TO SOME PATH. OF COURSE, THERE ARE STILL GOING TO BE LOTS OF THINGS THAT CAN GO WRONG.

I WOULD TAKE MORE TIME TO STUDY MARKET READINESS, UNDERSTAND THE COMPETITION, AND FORM A FIRM HYPOTHESIS ABOUT HOW I WANT TO APPROACH THIS PROBLEM RATHER THAN SOLVE EVERYTHING WITH CODE. IT IS MUCH BETTER TO TALK TO MORE CUSTOMERS, ITERATE, UNDERSTAND THE MARKET, DO MARKET STUDIES BEFORE COMMITTING TO SOME PATH. OF COURSE, THERE ARE STILL GOING TO BE LOTS OF THINGS THAT CAN GO WRONG.

— KRISH SUBRAMANIAN

— KRISH SUBRAMANIAN

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potential in this market and are now even more relevant. It was a hard problem that was also a moat. It took us five years, many ups and downs, and the first $1 million in high-quality revenue to get to the initial product-market fit.

potential in this market and are now even more relevant. It was a hard problem that was also a moat. It took us five years, many ups and downs, and the first $1 million in high-quality revenue to get to the initial product-market fit.

I would take more time to study market readiness, understand the competition, form a firm hypothesis about how I want to approach this problem rather than solve everything with code. It is much better to talk to more customers, iterate, understand the market, do market studies before committing to some path. Of course, there are still going to be lots of things that can go wrong.

I would take more time to study market readiness, understand the competition, form a firm hypothesis about how I want to approach this problem rather than solve everything with code. It is much better to talk to more customers, iterate, understand the market, do market studies before committing to some path. Of course, there are still going to be lots of things that can go wrong.

With Chargebee, we bootstrapped the company for 18–24 months on the assumption that we would have started making money by then. Had we not gotten the right advice and raised money, we would have completely died as a company.

With Chargebee, we bootstrapped the company for 18–24 months on the assumption that we would have started making money by then. Had we not gotten the right advice and raised money, we would have completely died as a company.

ANEESH REDDY

ANEESH REDDY

Our start was amazing, and our first five years were unbelievable. What we got right there was that we spent six to eight months figuring out what we wanted to build. There were a lot of conversations with customers. So it was PPTs and conversations with customers, and that really worked for us. We could zero in on what people really wanted, and that meant being shameless about it. We would actually go store to store in a mall and tell people we are two kids from IIT, tell us what you want. We can build good tech, and we did that for a good three-four–five months till we were sure that enough people wanted that. Once you hit that product-market fit, it makes life very easy. Once you have hit a reasonable product-market fit, then you are home. At least your initial two–three– four million is not a problem. I would definitely do that again.

Our start was amazing, and our first five years were unbelievable. What we got right there was that we spent six to eight months figuring out what we wanted to build. There were a lot of conversations with customers. So it was PPTs and conversations with customers, and that really worked for us. We could zero in on what people really wanted, and that meant being shameless about it. We would actually go store to store in a mall and tell people we are two kids from IIT, tell us what you want. We can build good tech, and we did that for a good three-four–five months till we were sure that enough people wanted that. Once you hit that product-market fit, it makes life very easy. Once you have hit a reasonable product-market fit, then you are home. At least your initial two–three– four million is not a problem. I would definitely do that again.

If you are building a product for this side of the world, the thing that worked for us really well was that pilot piece. We would go to a customer and say try this for three months and [tell us] if you see the value. It was a very unit-linked pilot. If you had 100 stores, we would say try it out in 10 stores. Pricing models that scale nicely as people use more is something I would again say is very useful. As Sarasvathy puts it, “affordable loss”. Make sure that when you are pricing it initially, you are pricing it so that they can try it at an affordable loss, but when they decide to scale, it is a meaningful amount of money that you are making from each other. So, very unit-linked pricing.

If you are building a product for this side of the world, the thing that worked for us really well was that pilot piece. We would go to a customer and say try this for three months and [tell us] if you see the value. It was a very unit-linked pilot. If you had 100 stores, we would say try it out in 10 stores. Pricing models that scale nicely as people use more is something I would again say is very useful. As Sarasvathy puts it, “affordable loss”. Make sure that when you are pricing it initially, you are pricing it so that they can try it at an affordable loss, but when they decide to scale, it is a meaningful amount of money that you are making from each other. So, very unit-linked pricing.

These two things worked really well for us. Third, one of the founders has to be the sales guy. Whether you like selling or not or whether you have done sales in the past or not is a different thing. But having one of the founders focused on selling is a good idea because then you iterate much faster. The feedback is a lot faster, so this tends to work better. All three are enterprise SaaS-focused, large enterprise SaaSfocused observations because we have not done much mid-market or SMB, i.e, small-medium business.

These two things worked really well for us. Third, one of the founders has to be the sales guy. Whether you like selling or not or whether you have done sales in the past or not is a different thing. But having one of the founders focused on selling is a good idea because then you iterate much faster. The feedback is a lot faster, so this tends to work better. All three are enterprise SaaS-focused, large enterprise SaaSfocused observations because we have not done much mid-market or SMB, i.e, small-medium business.

Another thing I would not do is, staying in India, you always have this temptation of throwing people at a problem, given the cost of people is very low. We did that quite a bit between years two and four. We are as many people today as we were when we were a $2.5 million company. At 15 times that scale, we are still the same number of people. Of course, the quality of people has changed, and the type of people has changed. I see that many companies even today have massive customer success teams, massive support teams. You end up solving a problem by throwing people at it rather than throwing tech at it. That’s one of the don’ts. You should give careful consideration to who you hire. It’s easy to find cheap people, but it doesn’t play out in the long term; it just doesn’t.

Another thing I would not do is, staying in India, you always have this temptation of throwing people at a problem, given the cost of people is very low. We did that quite a bit between years two and four. We are as many people today as we were when we were a $2.5 million company. At 15 times that scale, we are still the same number of people. Of course, the quality of people has changed, and the type of people has changed. I see that many companies even today have massive customer success teams, massive support teams. You end up solving a problem by throwing people at it rather than throwing tech at it. That’s one of the don’ts. You should give careful consideration to who you hire. It’s easy to find cheap people, but it doesn’t play out in the long term; it just doesn’t.

What else worked for us was getting a good set of angels, and advisors. That is incredibly powerful. In my investors’ lot, the lot that has been very helpful has been the angel lot. Get people who are known to have good names in the industry, people who understand the space well. If you are especially building vertical SaaS, you need folks who understand the space well, and we did that right. Our initial angel investors were amazing and were very, very solid folks.

What else worked for us was getting a good set of angels, and advisors. That is incredibly powerful. In my investors’ lot, the lot that has been very helpful has been the angel lot. Get people who are known to have good names in the industry, people who understand the space well. If you are especially building vertical SaaS, you need folks who understand the space well, and we did that right. Our initial angel investors were amazing and were very, very solid folks.

In the initial years, we never looked for funding. We just executed, and the money came by itself. When I look at many startups now, they just spend so much time trying to raise money and trying to build what investors like. I feel that is a very bad idea. We tried doing it once, and I regretted it like crazy. It takes the company in a very wrong direction.

In the initial years, we never looked for funding. We just executed, and the money came by itself. When I look at many startups now, they just spend so much time trying to raise money and trying to build what investors like. I feel that is a very bad idea. We tried doing it once, and I regretted it like crazy. It takes the company in a very wrong direction.

Another don’t is don’t speed scale: especially you can’t speed scale teams very fast. What I mean by that is that the first time we did it, we started hiring people like crazy after our Series A. Everyone said go and hire people for the next five years. That was also a very different time in India. There wasn’t enough talent that you could really hire as well. We went and hired the best names that we could find: VPs of engineering from Yahoo to heads of professional services, very senior folks in Cognizant. Very good guys, but it’s very important in a startup to make sure that you are hiring for the next year first. If people are not successful in the next six months or a year, they won’t last. Neither will the team accept them, nor will they last for five years to be successful after that. This is something that Alok Goyal and Shekhar (Kirani) say quite a few times, that four years is a lifetime in a startup—if someone has lasted four years, they have lasted a lifetime. Hiring for forever is a bad idea. You should hire for the next six months to a year and people who had seen exactly that scale when you were scaling. Hiring someone who is an 800-pound Gorilla and came in like 20 years later into a business might not be able to solve the same problems that you have today and hence, will never win the respect of the team. Time and again, this has happened with us over the years.

Another don’t is don’t speed scale: especially you can’t speed scale teams very fast. What I mean by that is that the first time we did it, we started hiring people like crazy after our Series A. Everyone said go and hire people for the next five years. That was also a very different time in India. There wasn’t enough talent that you could really hire as well. We went and hired the best names that we could find: VPs of engineering from Yahoo to heads of professional services, very senior folks in Cognizant. Very good guys, but it’s very important in a startup to make sure that you are hiring for the next year first. If people are not successful in the next six months or a year, they won’t last. Neither will the team accept them, nor will they last for five years to be successful after that. This is something that Alok Goyal and Shekhar (Kirani) say quite a few times, that four years is a lifetime in a startup—if someone has lasted four years, they have lasted a lifetime. Hiring for forever is a bad idea. You should hire for the next six months to a year and people who had seen exactly that scale when you were scaling. Hiring someone who is an 800-pound Gorilla and came in like 20 years later into a business might not be able to solve the same problems that you have today and hence, will never win the respect of the team. Time and again, this has happened with us over the years.

That’s the dos and don’ts again: I would say it is to raise the right amount of money. So I would say raise for 18 months, that is the best. Every time we raised forever, we have only burnt that money in the next 18–24 months. That’s a bad idea; it spoils discipline and takes you into very varied directions.

That’s the dos and don’ts again: I would say it is to raise the right amount of money. So I would say raise for 18 months, that is the best. Every time we raised forever, we have only burnt that money in the next 18–24 months. That’s a bad idea; it spoils discipline and takes you into very varied directions.

SUDHEER KONERU

SUDHEER KONERU

When we started, there was a good focus on the product, building the right product and thinking that through and all that stuff, and then there was concern around sales, how will we win, execution in terms of sales and marketing. If you ask me, one thing that I will change is our focus on implementation, like the go-live process and support process. It was a little bit of an ignored area for a long time in our

When we started, there was a good focus on the product, building the right product and thinking that through and all that stuff, and then there was concern around sales, how will we win, execution in terms of sales and marketing. If you ask me, one thing that I will change is our focus on implementation, like the go-live process and support process. It was a little bit of an ignored area for a long time in our

IN INDIA, THERE IS A TEMPTATION TO THROW PEOPLE AT A PROBLEM, GIVEN THEIR LOW COST. WE DID THAT BETWEEN YEARS TWO AND FOUR. EVEN TODAY COMPANIES HAVE MASSIVE TEAMS. YOU END UP SOLVING PROBLEMS BY THROWING PEOPLE AT THEM RATHER THAN TECH AT THEM. THAT’S ONE OF THE DON’TS. IT’S EASY TO FIND CHEAP PEOPLE, BUT IT DOESN’T PLAY OUT IN THE LONG TERM.

IN INDIA, THERE IS A TEMPTATION TO THROW PEOPLE AT A PROBLEM, GIVEN THEIR LOW COST. WE DID THAT BETWEEN YEARS TWO AND FOUR. EVEN TODAY COMPANIES HAVE MASSIVE TEAMS. YOU END UP SOLVING PROBLEMS BY THROWING PEOPLE AT THEM RATHER THAN TECH AT THEM. THAT’S ONE OF THE DON’TS. IT’S EASY TO FIND CHEAP PEOPLE, BUT IT DOESN’T PLAY OUT IN THE LONG TERM.

— ANEESH REDDY

— ANEESH REDDY

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the company, I feel, and we paid the price for it—it just took us too long to get our implementation process streamlined. The customer buys the product, and then you have to onboard them. That was always an afterthought, and none of the founders spent time thinking about the onboarding process. We just had somebody join, and we said, okay, you will take care of it. We were busy with the next sale and the next product release

the company, I feel, and we paid the price for it—it just took us too long to get our implementation process streamlined. The customer buys the product, and then you have to onboard them. That was always an afterthought, and none of the founders spent time thinking about the onboarding process. We just had somebody join, and we said, okay, you will take care of it. We were busy with the next sale and the next product release

In the early days, we paid a steep price for implementation, not just in terms of cost as in dollars but also in some customers not being happy and experiencing being poor, etc. When you ignore it and scale up your company, it becomes a bigger problem. Fixing it becomes that much harder than if you had done it in the early days.

In the early days, we paid a steep price for implementation, not just in terms of cost as in dollars but also in some customers not being happy and experiencing being poor, etc. When you ignore it and scale up your company, it becomes a bigger problem. Fixing it becomes that much harder than if you had done it in the early days.

The other thing that I would say will be the support aspect, supportability. We did integrate support into our product and all that stuff, but again, we had to scale our support faster than anybody in the founding team had really thought of. We solved the problem around implementation, but we are still solving the support problem in the company [that] is how I would characterize it.

The other thing that I would say will be the support aspect, supportability. We did integrate support into our product and all that stuff, but again, we had to scale our support faster than anybody in the founding team had really thought of. We solved the problem around implementation, but we are still solving the support problem in the company [that] is how I would characterize it.

PARAS CHOPRA

PARAS CHOPRA

I feel we were blessed to be in a situation wherein we were profitable, and our revenue was higher than the salaries of the early team we had. But it also means that we never grew much faster than what we believed our revenue could support. We never invested way more ahead of the curve, wherein we

I feel we were blessed to be in a situation wherein we were profitable, and our revenue was higher than the salaries of the early team we had. But it also means that we never grew much faster than what we believed our revenue could support. We never invested way more ahead of the curve, wherein we

AFTER THE CUSTOMER BUYS THE PRODUCT, YOU HAVE TO ONBOARD THEM. THAT WAS ALWAYS AN AFTERTHOUGHT, AND WE DID NOT SPEND TIME ON IT. WE WERE BUSY WITH THE NEXT SALE AND THE NEXT PRODUCT. IN THE EARLY DAYS, WE PAID A STEEP PRICE FOR IMPLEMENTATION, NOT JUST IN TERMS OF COST BUT ALSO CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE. WHEN YOU IGNORE IT AND SCALE UP, IT BECOMES A BIGGER PROBLEM. FIXING IT BECOMES THAT MUCH HARDER LATER.

AFTER THE CUSTOMER BUYS THE PRODUCT, YOU HAVE TO ONBOARD THEM. THAT WAS ALWAYS AN AFTERTHOUGHT, AND WE DID NOT SPEND TIME ON IT. WE WERE BUSY WITH THE NEXT SALE AND THE NEXT PRODUCT. IN THE EARLY DAYS, WE PAID A STEEP PRICE FOR IMPLEMENTATION, NOT JUST IN TERMS OF COST BUT ALSO CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE. WHEN YOU IGNORE IT AND SCALE UP, IT BECOMES A BIGGER PROBLEM. FIXING IT BECOMES THAT MUCH HARDER LATER.

– SUDHEER KONERU

– SUDHEER KONERU

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could completely take risks that could have been fatal for the company. We are tortoises in that sense; we like to keep moving but keep moving at a pace where accidents are less fatal.

could completely take risks that could have been fatal for the company. We are tortoises in that sense; we like to keep moving but keep moving at a pace where accidents are less fatal.

One of the biggest founder dilemmas is about making course corrections while still in the flight. Among them, spotting an early hire who can be groomed for the next life stage of a startup is a difficult task. Add to that the blunt honesty required to acknowledge that someone you hired for the moon mission needs to be de-planed midway because they lack what it takes to shift the startup orbits.

One of the biggest founder dilemmas is about making course corrections while still in the flight. Among them, spotting an early hire who can be groomed for the next life stage of a startup is a difficult task. Add to that the blunt honesty required to acknowledge that someone you hired for the moon mission needs to be de-planed midway because they lack what it takes to shift the startup orbits.

RITESH ARORA

RITESH ARORA

The first few people you get in, you want them to be more of a generalist—people who are builders, who can roll up their sleeves and figure it out. It’s very chaotic, and they are very flexible. We have changed the organizational structure five times. We have built teams that have failed. You don’t want the traditional sales guys who will raise their hands and complain about things not working. Now, we have reached a size where we can hire more traditional sales guys

The first few people you get in, you want them to be more of a generalist—people who are builders, who can roll up their sleeves and figure it out. It’s very chaotic, and they are very flexible. We have changed the organizational structure five times. We have built teams that have failed. You don’t want the traditional sales guys who will raise their hands and complain about things not working. Now, we have reached a size where we can hire more traditional sales guys

NOT EVERYONE FROM THE CORE TEAM MANAGES TO SCALE AS THE COMPANY SCALES. THE ENTIRE CORE TEAM (AND NOT JUST THE ENTREPRENEUR) HAS TO GROW FASTER THAN THE ORGANIZATION TO REMAIN RELEVANT. IF YOU WANT YOUR FIRST ENGINEER TO BECOME DIRECTOR OF ENGINEERING, VP ENGINEERING, AND THEN CTO, THEY MUST EVOLVE AT THAT PACE. OTHERWISE, THE ORGANIZATION WILL NOT GROW. HOW YOU MANAGE THESE TRANSITIONS WITHOUT CREATING UNNECESSARY ANIMOSITY BECOMES REALLY IMPORTANT.

NOT EVERYONE FROM THE CORE TEAM MANAGES TO SCALE AS THE COMPANY SCALES. THE ENTIRE CORE TEAM (AND NOT JUST THE ENTREPRENEUR) HAS TO GROW FASTER THAN THE ORGANIZATION TO REMAIN RELEVANT. IF YOU WANT YOUR FIRST ENGINEER TO BECOME DIRECTOR OF ENGINEERING, VP ENGINEERING, AND THEN CTO, THEY MUST EVOLVE AT THAT PACE. OTHERWISE, THE ORGANIZATION WILL NOT GROW. HOW YOU MANAGE THESE TRANSITIONS WITHOUT CREATING UNNECESSARY ANIMOSITY BECOMES REALLY IMPORTANT.

-MANAV GARG

-MANAV GARG

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since there is more predictability, but the first few had to be unconventional and flexible. In fact, the best thing I ever did—everyone was shocked when I proposed this internally—I moved my director of product to run sales. He is now director of sales! In the product, he had only two people reporting to him. Now he has an organization of 140 people reporting to him, and he hits and beats his number like no other. His first feedback to me was, “Ritesh, probably one of the best things that have happened to me was to move to sales.” It’s also because of him that I have been able to build a scale-up sales team. If I had hired traditional sales guys, they would have never experimented, never taken risks.

since there is more predictability, but the first few had to be unconventional and flexible. In fact, the best thing I ever did—everyone was shocked when I proposed this internally—I moved my director of product to run sales. He is now director of sales! In the product, he had only two people reporting to him. Now he has an organization of 140 people reporting to him, and he hits and beats his number like no other. His first feedback to me was, “Ritesh, probably one of the best things that have happened to me was to move to sales.” It’s also because of him that I have been able to build a scale-up sales team. If I had hired traditional sales guys, they would have never experimented, never taken risks.

MANAV GARG

MANAV GARG

Not everyone from the core team manages to scale as the company scales. The entire core team (and not just the entrepreneur) has to grow faster than the organization to remain relevant. If you want your first engineer to become director of engineering, VP engineering, and then CTO, they must evolve at that pace. Otherwise, the organization will not grow. How you manage these transitions without creating unnecessary animosity becomes really important. It is deeply ingrained in the journey of a scalable organization because it creates dynamics that people cannot handle otherwise. Sometimes you will be better off paying this person $1,000 and keeping him as an advisor or in some such capacity in the organization; there are many such techniques through which you can handle scaling.

Not everyone from the core team manages to scale as the company scales. The entire core team (and not just the entrepreneur) has to grow faster than the organization to remain relevant. If you want your first engineer to become director of engineering, VP engineering, and then CTO, they must evolve at that pace. Otherwise, the organization will not grow. How you manage these transitions without creating unnecessary animosity becomes really important. It is deeply ingrained in the journey of a scalable organization because it creates dynamics that people cannot handle otherwise. Sometimes you will be better off paying this person $1,000 and keeping him as an advisor or in some such capacity in the organization; there are many such techniques through which you can handle scaling.

Learning from a playbook that doesn’t have your active participation as one of the key actors is clearly a borrowed learning. Absolutely nothing wrong in doing that, except that you must realize the importance of the context and the playground where such learnings are realized. One size doesn’t fit all. Period. In this section, for instance, the timing or the threshold required for onboarding a seasoned executive team is a function of your business, product adoption, and so many of the other signals that define the readiness of your startup in bringing in a chief experience officer (CXO).

Learning from a playbook that doesn’t have your active participation as one of the key actors is clearly a borrowed learning. Absolutely nothing wrong in doing that, except that you must realize the importance of the context and the playground where such learnings are realized. One size doesn’t fit all. Period. In this section, for instance, the timing or the threshold required for onboarding a seasoned executive team is a function of your business, product adoption, and so many of the other signals that define the readiness of your startup in bringing in a chief experience officer (CXO).

ELAD GIL

ELAD GIL

If you are a first-time founder in particular or have never run a team to scale, your instincts are often to hire very smart individual contributors. You often don’t really understand the leverage of having a great executive in place. That’s why sometimes when you see second-time founders start a company, within their first 15 people, they have three or four VPs and a CXO. Often, as a first-time founder, you ask why does this person needs all these executives? It’s only a 50-person company! But then, after you have been through a big company and team scaling experience yourself, you realize the enormous leverage you get by building an executive team.

If you are a first-time founder in particular or have never run a team to scale, your instincts are often to hire very smart individual contributors. You often don’t really understand the leverage of having a great executive in place. That’s why sometimes when you see second-time founders start a company, within their first 15 people, they have three or four VPs and a CXO. Often, as a first-time founder, you ask why does this person needs all these executives? It’s only a 50-person company! But then, after you have been through a big company and team scaling experience yourself, you realize the enormous leverage you get by building an executive team.

SUDHEER KONERU

SUDHEER KONERU

One thing is definitely there in our case, and that should apply in other cases as well. Dheeraj—Dheeraj used to head sales—and I, we both made it our single mission to focus on the US. That means we abandoned everything else. We left it all to somebody else to deal with it, and I will not worry about it. So the founders need to become obsessed and personally go drive sales. Often, founders come and ask me what kind of VP of sales should I hire in the US who will help

One thing is definitely there in our case, and that should apply in other cases as well. Dheeraj—Dheeraj used to head sales—and I, we both made it our single mission to focus on the US. That means we abandoned everything else. We left it all to somebody else to deal with it, and I will not worry about it. So the founders need to become obsessed and personally go drive sales. Often, founders come and ask me what kind of VP of sales should I hire in the US who will help

me. You should approach it, like, I am just going and starting my company all over again. If you approach it like a market you are trying to hire a sales leader for, it won’t work. But you have to say whatever company I built was the wrong company, so let me go start it again kind of stuff. You got to go and sit down in the US and understand your customer all over again, do the market fitment, sell. You may need some help, you may want to hire a local person, one or two people, but the founding team has to truly approach it like a ‘let’s start a new company’ kind of mindset.

me. You should approach it, like, I am just going and starting my company all over again. If you approach it like a market you are trying to hire a sales leader for, it won’t work. But you have to say whatever company I built was the wrong company, so let me go start it again kind of stuff. You got to go and sit down in the US and understand your customer all over again, do the market fitment, sell. You may need some help, you may want to hire a local person, one or two people, but the founding team has to truly approach it like a ‘let’s start a new company’ kind of mindset.

PRUKALPA SANKAR

PRUKALPA SANKAR

The first three leaders that we hired in the company— and I was really proud of these hires, like they were marquee hires for us—they came in, and in three months we realized that they were not performing, and that was really hard for us because when you hire leaders, you bring them in, you bring them in a certain way to the team. The team starts wanting to look up to them, and then they don’t perform, and then you start questioning yourself and saying, is it me? Is it me, or is it them? Are we doing something wrong? We had to let them go, and then we had to rebuild the culture almost from scratch. That was a very hard period for us, in general. But the biggest learning I took away from that was that every context is different, every company is different. Just because someone has been able to do something successfully somewhere else, it doesn’t mean that they can do it

The first three leaders that we hired in the company— and I was really proud of these hires, like they were marquee hires for us—they came in, and in three months we realized that they were not performing, and that was really hard for us because when you hire leaders, you bring them in, you bring them in a certain way to the team. The team starts wanting to look up to them, and then they don’t perform, and then you start questioning yourself and saying, is it me? Is it me, or is it them? Are we doing something wrong? We had to let them go, and then we had to rebuild the culture almost from scratch. That was a very hard period for us, in general. But the biggest learning I took away from that was that every context is different, every company is different. Just because someone has been able to do something successfully somewhere else, it doesn’t mean that they can do it

BUT THE BIGGEST LEARNING I TOOK AWAY FROM THAT WAS THAT EVERY CONTEXT IS DIFFERENT, EVERY COMPANY IS DIFFERENT. JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE HAS BEEN ABLE TO DO SOMETHING SUCCESSFULLY SOMEWHERE ELSE, IT DOESN’T MEAN THAT THEY CAN DO IT IN YOUR CONTEXT TOO. SO, JUDGE PEOPLE BY THEIR ACTIONS, JUDGE PEOPLE BY THEIR SKILLS, JUDGE PEOPLE BY THE CONVERSATIONS THEY CAN HAVE WITH YOU, THE ACTUAL WORK YOU SEE. DON’T JUDGE ANYONE BY, YOU KNOW, TITLES, OR EXPERIENCE, OR ANY OF THAT. THAT IS THE BIGGEST LEARNING THAT I HAVE TAKEN AWAY FROM HIRING FOR THE FUTURE.

BUT THE BIGGEST LEARNING I TOOK AWAY FROM THAT WAS THAT EVERY CONTEXT IS DIFFERENT, EVERY COMPANY IS DIFFERENT. JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE HAS BEEN ABLE TO DO SOMETHING SUCCESSFULLY SOMEWHERE ELSE, IT DOESN’T MEAN THAT THEY CAN DO IT IN YOUR CONTEXT TOO. SO, JUDGE PEOPLE BY THEIR ACTIONS, JUDGE PEOPLE BY THEIR SKILLS, JUDGE PEOPLE BY THE CONVERSATIONS THEY CAN HAVE WITH YOU, THE ACTUAL WORK YOU SEE. DON’T JUDGE ANYONE BY, YOU KNOW, TITLES, OR EXPERIENCE, OR ANY OF THAT. THAT IS THE BIGGEST LEARNING THAT I HAVE TAKEN AWAY FROM HIRING FOR THE FUTURE.

-PRUKALPA SANKAR

-PRUKALPA SANKAR

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in your context too. So, judge people by their actions, judge people by their skills, judge people by the conversations they can have with you, the actual work you see. Don’t judge anyone by, you know, titles, or experience, or any of that. That is the biggest learning that I have taken away from hiring for the future.

in your context too. So, judge people by their actions, judge people by their skills, judge people by the conversations they can have with you, the actual work you see. Don’t judge anyone by, you know, titles, or experience, or any of that. That is the biggest learning that I have taken away from hiring for the future.

ANEESH REDDY

ANEESH REDDY

There is one good guideline, “If something is not broken, don’t fix it.” Thinking that five years later it would be like this or that or maybe two years later it should be like this. If you do not see things break, don’t fix them, especially on the engineering side because India inherently has very good engineering talent. I do think we have very solid engineering talent and none of our guys is someone we have got from other companies. These are all like, you know, straight out of IIT or a good place, so inherently, the talent is very strong, and whenever we have tried to corrupt it by saying “no, no five-year view, people who have run 200-member teams”, it has always flopped. It’s probably a culture thing; engineering is a very culture-heavy part of the business.

There is one good guideline, “If something is not broken, don’t fix it.” Thinking that five years later it would be like this or that or maybe two years later it should be like this. If you do not see things break, don’t fix them, especially on the engineering side because India inherently has very good engineering talent. I do think we have very solid engineering talent and none of our guys is someone we have got from other companies. These are all like, you know, straight out of IIT or a good place, so inherently, the talent is very strong, and whenever we have tried to corrupt it by saying “no, no five-year view, people who have run 200-member teams”, it has always flopped. It’s probably a culture thing; engineering is a very culture-heavy part of the business.

Hiring the proverbial “first VP of sales”

Hiring the proverbial “first VP of sales”

ELAD GIL

ELAD GIL

There are a few different signs, but part of it is also the degree to which you have done customer development before you have shipped the product. Some companies hire a VP of sales really early, simply because they feel they have proven that the market exists. They may hire a VP of sales a few weeks before a launch so that as you actually launch an enterprise or SaaS product, you have somebody who’s really driving the go-tomarket (GTM) motion. Often that happens in cases, for example, where you have built an adjacent product before, and you know there is a real need, or where you build the same thing internally over and over for internal customers, and then you are now selling something externally. PagerDuty was a good example of a company where every engineering team eventually built a PagerDuty-like tool, and then they just built it for everybody. So, there are some moments where it is kind of clear that what you have is going to be needed, and you want to hire somebody even before launch.

There are a few different signs, but part of it is also the degree to which you have done customer development before you have shipped the product. Some companies hire a VP of sales really early, simply because they feel they have proven that the market exists. They may hire a VP of sales a few weeks before a launch so that as you actually launch an enterprise or SaaS product, you have somebody who’s really driving the go-tomarket (GTM) motion. Often that happens in cases, for example, where you have built an adjacent product before, and you know there is a real need, or where you build the same thing internally over and over for internal customers, and then you are now selling something externally. PagerDuty was a good example of a company where every engineering team eventually built a PagerDuty-like tool, and then they just built it for everybody. So, there are some moments where it is kind of clear that what you have is going to be needed, and you want to hire somebody even before launch.

ASHWINI ASOKAN

ASHWINI ASOKAN

We hired our first VP of sales at $2 million in revenues to help build a sales org and to make the shift from founder-driven sales to GTM org-driven sales.

We hired our first VP of sales at $2 million in revenues to help build a sales org and to make the shift from founder-driven sales to GTM org-driven sales.

PARAS CHOPRA

PARAS CHOPRA

One mistake we made was to underestimate the importance of go-to-market. When I say go-tomarket, I mean hiring salespeople, building customer success and account management, and even simple things like actually investing in paid advertising. Both Sparsh and I being engineers, there are pros and cons to everything. The problem was that we were engineers, so we were just very knee-deep into building great products, and we thought that a great product would do everything by itself. The company will grow behind its back and we don’t know why we need sales, why we need marketing, and so on. But, over time, we realized that we are in the business of delivering value to humans, and the product is one way of delivering that value, but humans like to get on a phone call sometimes and talk to people and interfaces and screens can only go that far into doing that. Very reluctantly, we hired our first salesperson, and that is when we realized, wow! There is a ton of value we can create if we focus there!

One mistake we made was to underestimate the importance of go-to-market. When I say go-tomarket, I mean hiring salespeople, building customer success and account management, and even simple things like actually investing in paid advertising. Both Sparsh and I being engineers, there are pros and cons to everything. The problem was that we were engineers, so we were just very knee-deep into building great products, and we thought that a great product would do everything by itself. The company will grow behind its back and we don’t know why we need sales, why we need marketing, and so on. But, over time, we realized that we are in the business of delivering value to humans, and the product is one way of delivering that value, but humans like to get on a phone call sometimes and talk to people and interfaces and screens can only go that far into doing that. Very reluctantly, we hired our first salesperson, and that is when we realized, wow! There is a ton of value we can create if we focus there!

SUDHEER KONERU

SUDHEER KONERU

I feel it’s better to hire a consulting firm. There are some decent quality sales consulting firms that can help you understand how you are pitching, what you are doing and help you refine that for the market. They are more useful than hiring a VP of sales, I feel.

I feel it’s better to hire a consulting firm. There are some decent quality sales consulting firms that can help you understand how you are pitching, what you are doing and help you refine that for the market. They are more useful than hiring a VP of sales, I feel.

ONCE YOU HAVE GOT YOUR, I WOULD SAY, FIRST FIVE TO TEN CUSTOMERS ON THE ENTERPRISE SIDE, AND YOU HAVE A REPEATABLE PLAYBOOK, THAT’S THE RIGHT TIME TO GO AND HIRE BECAUSE WHAT A VP OF SALES CAN’T DO FOR YOU IS CREATE THAT INITIAL PLAYBOOK WHICH A CUSTOMER WANTS TO BUY FROM YOU. BUT WHAT I HAVE SEEN GOOD SALES LEADERS DO IS THAT ONCE YOU HAVE A PLAYBOOK, THEY SELL THAT TO MORE PEOPLE, THAT THEY DO WELL.

ONCE YOU HAVE GOT YOUR, I WOULD SAY, FIRST FIVE TO TEN CUSTOMERS ON THE ENTERPRISE SIDE, AND YOU HAVE A REPEATABLE PLAYBOOK, THAT’S THE RIGHT TIME TO GO AND HIRE BECAUSE WHAT A VP OF SALES CAN’T DO FOR YOU IS CREATE THAT INITIAL PLAYBOOK WHICH A CUSTOMER WANTS TO BUY FROM YOU. BUT WHAT I HAVE SEEN GOOD SALES LEADERS DO IS THAT ONCE YOU HAVE A PLAYBOOK, THEY SELL THAT TO MORE PEOPLE, THAT THEY DO WELL.

-ANEESH REDDY

-ANEESH REDDY

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OVER TIME, WE REALIZED THAT WE ARE IN THE BUSINESS OF DELIVERING VALUE TO HUMANS, AND THE PRODUCT IS ONE WAY OF DELIVERING THAT VALUE, BUT HUMANS LIKE TO GET ON A PHONE CALL SOMETIMES AND TALK TO PEOPLE AND INTERFACES AND SCREENS CAN ONLY GO THAT FAR INTO DOING THAT. VERY RELUCTANTLY, WE HIRED OUR FIRST SALESPERSON, AND THAT IS WHEN WE REALIZED, WOW! THERE IS A TON OF VALUE WE CAN CREATE IF WE FOCUS THERE!

OVER TIME, WE REALIZED THAT WE ARE IN THE BUSINESS OF DELIVERING VALUE TO HUMANS, AND THE PRODUCT IS ONE WAY OF DELIVERING THAT VALUE, BUT HUMANS LIKE TO GET ON A PHONE CALL SOMETIMES AND TALK TO PEOPLE AND INTERFACES AND SCREENS CAN ONLY GO THAT FAR INTO DOING THAT. VERY RELUCTANTLY, WE HIRED OUR FIRST SALESPERSON, AND THAT IS WHEN WE REALIZED, WOW! THERE IS A TON OF VALUE WE CAN CREATE IF WE FOCUS THERE!

– PARAS CHOPRA

– PARAS CHOPRA

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In fact, the first two people I hired in sales never worked out. I thought they were from the industry, and it would work out, but it was totally useless.

In fact, the first two people I hired in sales never worked out. I thought they were from the industry, and it would work out, but it was totally useless.

ANEESH REDDY

ANEESH REDDY

Once you have got your, I would say, first five to ten customers on the enterprise side, and you have a repeatable playbook, that’s the right time to go and hire because what a VP of sales can’t do for you is create that initial playbook which a customer wants to buy from you. But what I have seen good sales leaders do is that once you have a playbook, they sell that to more people, that they do well. I would not put it as time; I would put it as once you have got ten meaningful customers who are sticky and happy and you know exactly how to sell to the 11th or 12th guy, that’s the time to go and get a good sales leader. We were very late on that. By the time we got sales leaders or salespeople into the company, we had some 40–50 customers. And that time, it was very painful to grow and also hire a team and also ramp them up. So we were definitely quite late on the sales hiring side. Similarly, on engineering and stuff, I wish I had not hired a VP of engineering.

Once you have got your, I would say, first five to ten customers on the enterprise side, and you have a repeatable playbook, that’s the right time to go and hire because what a VP of sales can’t do for you is create that initial playbook which a customer wants to buy from you. But what I have seen good sales leaders do is that once you have a playbook, they sell that to more people, that they do well. I would not put it as time; I would put it as once you have got ten meaningful customers who are sticky and happy and you know exactly how to sell to the 11th or 12th guy, that’s the time to go and get a good sales leader. We were very late on that. By the time we got sales leaders or salespeople into the company, we had some 40–50 customers. And that time, it was very painful to grow and also hire a team and also ramp them up. So we were definitely quite late on the sales hiring side. Similarly, on engineering and stuff, I wish I had not hired a VP of engineering.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

KEY TAKEAWAYS

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MONISH DARDA

MONISH DARDA

Long-term vision helps in hiring very, very well. If you are thinking of the next two years or three years, then you are not really hiring for the job; you are hiring for a job that will be created in the future. That actually makes people more interested in you because they see a bigger picture just like you see that bigger picture right up front in that first conversation. You know, most good people are really excited about that, whether it is a good developer or an engineer or a salesperson or an exec, they are all looking at what will happen to Icertis and me in the next three, four, five, six, ten years and that kind of thinking upfront actually helps quite a bit, massively in fact.

Long-term vision helps in hiring very, very well. If you are thinking of the next two years or three years, then you are not really hiring for the job; you are hiring for a job that will be created in the future. That actually makes people more interested in you because they see a bigger picture just like you see that bigger picture right up front in that first conversation. You know, most good people are really excited about that, whether it is a good developer or an engineer or a salesperson or an exec, they are all looking at what will happen to Icertis and me in the next three, four, five, six, ten years and that kind of thinking upfront actually helps quite a bit, massively in fact.

SPARSH GUPTA

SPARSH GUPTA

I remember talking to the parents of the first few employees to make them understand why their kids should join a startup and not a big company. This was 2011, and what worked for an unknown company in

I remember talking to the parents of the first few employees to make them understand why their kids should join a startup and not a big company. This was 2011, and what worked for an unknown company in

WHAT HELPED, I BELIEVE, WAS OUR HONESTY IN SHARING WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE PLAN TO DO. OVER THE YEARS, SOME OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE WEREN’T THOSE WHO HAD EXTRAORDINARY SKILLS, BUT THOSE WHO GOT ALIGNED WITH OUR VISION AND ACQUIRING SKILLS HAPPENED QUITE ORGANICALLY FOR THEM.

WHAT HELPED, I BELIEVE, WAS OUR HONESTY IN SHARING WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE PLAN TO DO. OVER THE YEARS, SOME OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE WEREN’T THOSE WHO HAD EXTRAORDINARY SKILLS, BUT THOSE WHO GOT ALIGNED WITH OUR VISION AND ACQUIRING SKILLS HAPPENED QUITE ORGANICALLY FOR THEM.

— SPARSH GUPTA

— SPARSH GUPTA

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the era when startups weren’t an acceptable career choice for many was our honesty and transparency. We didn’t sell them anything that we weren’t sure about, but we mainly spoke about what we are trying to do. So we had a dream, an unclear path, and a lot of passion for following and figuring it out. I remember not interviewing anyone for their skills but only judging their passion and will to make it happen. I guess our early colleagues also saw the same things and didn’t care much about the company. What helped, I believe, was our honesty in sharing who we are and what we plan to do. Over the years, some of the most successful people weren’t those who had extraordinary skills, but those who got aligned with our vision and acquiring skills happened quite organically for them.

the era when startups weren’t an acceptable career choice for many was our honesty and transparency. We didn’t sell them anything that we weren’t sure about, but we mainly spoke about what we are trying to do. So we had a dream, an unclear path, and a lot of passion for following and figuring it out. I remember not interviewing anyone for their skills but only judging their passion and will to make it happen. I guess our early colleagues also saw the same things and didn’t care much about the company. What helped, I believe, was our honesty in sharing who we are and what we plan to do. Over the years, some of the most successful people weren’t those who had extraordinary skills, but those who got aligned with our vision and acquiring skills happened quite organically for them.

Making the first few hires is almost like recruiting for a moon mission, except that there’s no spaceship or any guarantee that you will actually land on the moon. As we have seen in many startup journeys, the pivots are unpredictable, and the destinations keep moving as founders keep discovering new market realities and navigating unforeseen crises. The only thing common between a space mission and a startup journey is the number of micro-events and innumerable tiny things that determine the fate of a startup. And early hires are just one of those many pieces of the grand jigsaw. What makes these missions even more complex is that at different life stages of a startup, you need different exit velocities to shift the orbits, meaning a different talent mix for achieving goals across 0 to $1 million, $10 million, $100 million, $1 billion and beyond. So who will you hire first—an engineer, a sales executive, a designer, or a product manager? To answer this question with real examples that offer timeless lessons, we are bringing conversations with the founders and asking them about their first hires and whether they would follow the same playbook if they were to build the startups again.

Making the first few hires is almost like recruiting for a moon mission, except that there’s no spaceship or any guarantee that you will actually land on the moon. As we have seen in many startup journeys, the pivots are unpredictable, and the destinations keep moving as founders keep discovering new market realities and navigating unforeseen crises. The only thing common between a space mission and a startup journey is the number of micro-events and innumerable tiny things that determine the fate of a startup. And early hires are just one of those many pieces of the grand jigsaw. What makes these missions even more complex is that at different life stages of a startup, you need different exit velocities to shift the orbits, meaning a different talent mix for achieving goals across 0 to $1 million, $10 million, $100 million, $1 billion and beyond. So who will you hire first—an engineer, a sales executive, a designer, or a product manager? To answer this question with real examples that offer timeless lessons, we are bringing conversations with the founders and asking them about their first hires and whether they would follow the same playbook if they were to build the startups again.

MONISH DARDA

MONISH DARDA

One of the learnings we took from our personal and our entrepreneurial experience is building a team from top-down instead of bottom-up. Bottom-up is also good at some point, but you think about building a team top-down, especially at the beginning. That actually makes it very interesting because you end up hiring the right leaders. Then you can scale much faster because you are delegating a lot of that stuff that you need to focus on when you are smaller and create more bandwidth. Of course, you have to have the revenue to back it up because leaders are expensive and senior people are expensive, but that separates good founders and great leaders. Finding the right people at the right cost and making sure options are exciting! If you have such a thought process from the beginning, the right kind of network combined

One of the learnings we took from our personal and our entrepreneurial experience is building a team from top-down instead of bottom-up. Bottom-up is also good at some point, but you think about building a team top-down, especially at the beginning. That actually makes it very interesting because you end up hiring the right leaders. Then you can scale much faster because you are delegating a lot of that stuff that you need to focus on when you are smaller and create more bandwidth. Of course, you have to have the revenue to back it up because leaders are expensive and senior people are expensive, but that separates good founders and great leaders. Finding the right people at the right cost and making sure options are exciting! If you have such a thought process from the beginning, the right kind of network combined

with the right option pool and value proposition, it is possible. That’s what we did. I think in the early stages, we did it very well.

with the right option pool and value proposition, it is possible. That’s what we did. I think in the early stages, we did it very well.

RITESH ARORA

RITESH ARORA

The first team we started hiring was engineering because we got so much feedback from the customers that we needed to improve a lot upon the features that we had already built. We went for engineers first. We hired a designer; the early hirings were very flexible people. So, our first hire was an engineer, but he was a full-stack engineer, you could ask him to solve any problem across the engineering stack, and he would do it. The second guy was a designer-cumweb-developer and a content writer. He was very good at English. He used to write the content, he used to design, and also implement it on the front end. The first four/ five hires should be generalists as much as possible. Then, when the workload increases, you transition their roles and start specializing. The next batch of specializations for us were back-end engineers and front-end engineers. Then we wanted to do dedicated design work. That’s how we scaled. We didn’t have support in the beginning. so Nakul and I used to take turns doing support till three or four in the morning every day, since most of our users were in the US, North America. Then we hired the first support guy, the second support guy, the third support guy, etc.

The first team we started hiring was engineering because we got so much feedback from the customers that we needed to improve a lot upon the features that we had already built. We went for engineers first. We hired a designer; the early hirings were very flexible people. So, our first hire was an engineer, but he was a full-stack engineer, you could ask him to solve any problem across the engineering stack, and he would do it. The second guy was a designer-cumweb-developer and a content writer. He was very good at English. He used to write the content, he used to design, and also implement it on the front end. The first four/ five hires should be generalists as much as possible. Then, when the workload increases, you transition their roles and start specializing. The next batch of specializations for us were back-end engineers and front-end engineers. Then we wanted to do dedicated design work. That’s how we scaled. We didn’t have support in the beginning. so Nakul and I used to take turns doing support till three or four in the morning every day, since most of our users were in the US, North America. Then we hired the first support guy, the second support guy, the third support guy, etc.

ANEESH REDDY

ANEESH REDDY

Culturally, I would still go to friends, being an Indian, and I will tell you why—I have seen some of my best friends give me the strongest negative feedback. Culturally as Indians we are not tuned to giving negative feedback to someone; even if it is a colleague

Culturally, I would still go to friends, being an Indian, and I will tell you why—I have seen some of my best friends give me the strongest negative feedback. Culturally as Indians we are not tuned to giving negative feedback to someone; even if it is a colleague

CULTURALLY AS INDIANS WE ARE NOT TUNED TO GIVING NEGATIVE FEEDBACK TO SOMEONE; EVEN IF IT IS A COLLEAGUE OF YOURS. RARELY DO YOU GIVE NEGATIVE FEEDBACK, YOU RARELY FIND PEOPLE WHO DO THAT, AND IF YOU ARE GOOD FRIENDS, THEN THAT BARRIER IS A LITTLE LOWER TO GIVE FEEDBACK.

CULTURALLY AS INDIANS WE ARE NOT TUNED TO GIVING NEGATIVE FEEDBACK TO SOMEONE; EVEN IF IT IS A COLLEAGUE OF YOURS. RARELY DO YOU GIVE NEGATIVE FEEDBACK, YOU RARELY FIND PEOPLE WHO DO THAT, AND IF YOU ARE GOOD FRIENDS, THEN THAT BARRIER IS A LITTLE LOWER TO GIVE FEEDBACK.

— ANEESH REDDY

— ANEESH REDDY

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of yours. Rarely do you give negative feedback, you rarely find people who do that, and if you are good friends, then that barrier is a little lower to give feedback. It is a very Indian thing. When I look at all the startups I have invested in—there are about 45 now—I have seen a very strong correlation between the founders knowing each other earlier and being more successful. Whereas two new people coming together, I have generally not seen those firms do well. It is a very Indian thing I guess. Although you form an old boys’ school in the company, as Indians, we are not good at giving feedback to someone we don’t know.

of yours. Rarely do you give negative feedback, you rarely find people who do that, and if you are good friends, then that barrier is a little lower to give feedback. It is a very Indian thing. When I look at all the startups I have invested in—there are about 45 now—I have seen a very strong correlation between the founders knowing each other earlier and being more successful. Whereas two new people coming together, I have generally not seen those firms do well. It is a very Indian thing I guess. Although you form an old boys’ school in the company, as Indians, we are not good at giving feedback to someone we don’t know.

MONISH DARDA

MONISH DARDA

In the first few years, you are always hiring in your network. You are just comfortable with that core, and as a founder, you want people you have worked with before, or you know about, or somebody has recommended very strongly, and so on. A lot of your initial hiring is cherry-picking. Once you start hiring people you don’t know personally, your values become critical. We have always had this values conversation upfront and centre. Saying that these are our values, what do you think about them? First of all, does it make sense, and if it makes sense, can you give me examples of how you would react in tough situations? These conversations have allowed us to actually get people who think like us. You could argue that it’s not necessarily a good thing and makes diversity in thinking difficult. But thinking the same way when it matters is so important for growth! So, we would fight and become friends immediately since we were already aligned on what was important. How do I keep politics in a growing organization to a minimum? How do I make it more efficient and more open? You know, some companies have done it really well, but it’s an incredibly hard thing to do. While hiring, when you are establishing this values baseline, that makes a big difference.

In the first few years, you are always hiring in your network. You are just comfortable with that core, and as a founder, you want people you have worked with before, or you know about, or somebody has recommended very strongly, and so on. A lot of your initial hiring is cherry-picking. Once you start hiring people you don’t know personally, your values become critical. We have always had this values conversation upfront and centre. Saying that these are our values, what do you think about them? First of all, does it make sense, and if it makes sense, can you give me examples of how you would react in tough situations? These conversations have allowed us to actually get people who think like us. You could argue that it’s not necessarily a good thing and makes diversity in thinking difficult. But thinking the same way when it matters is so important for growth! So, we would fight and become friends immediately since we were already aligned on what was important. How do I keep politics in a growing organization to a minimum? How do I make it more efficient and more open? You know, some companies have done it really well, but it’s an incredibly hard thing to do. While hiring, when you are establishing this values baseline, that makes a big difference.

ONCE YOU START HIRING PEOPLE YOU DON’T KNOW PERSONALLY, YOUR VALUES BECOME CRITICAL. WE HAVE ALWAYS HAD THIS VALUES CONVERSATION UPFRONT AND CENTRE. SAYING THAT THESE ARE OUR VALUES, WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THEM? THESE CONVERSATIONS HAVE ALLOWED US TO ACTUALLY GET PEOPLE WHO THINK LIKE US. YOU COULD ARGUE THAT IT’S NOT NECESSARILY A GOOD THING AND MAKES DIVERSITY IN THINKING DIFFICULT. BUT THINKING THE SAME WAY WHEN IT MATTERS IS SO IMPORTANT FOR GROWTH!

ONCE YOU START HIRING PEOPLE YOU DON’T KNOW PERSONALLY, YOUR VALUES BECOME CRITICAL. WE HAVE ALWAYS HAD THIS VALUES CONVERSATION UPFRONT AND CENTRE. SAYING THAT THESE ARE OUR VALUES, WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THEM? THESE CONVERSATIONS HAVE ALLOWED US TO ACTUALLY GET PEOPLE WHO THINK LIKE US. YOU COULD ARGUE THAT IT’S NOT NECESSARILY A GOOD THING AND MAKES DIVERSITY IN THINKING DIFFICULT. BUT THINKING THE SAME WAY WHEN IT MATTERS IS SO IMPORTANT FOR GROWTH!

— MONISH DARDA

— MONISH DARDA

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UMANG JAIN

UMANG JAIN

Leaving my 9-to-5 job and joining a startup founded by my friends was probably the most significant decision I made in my career and the most impulsive one (Umang took a 90 per cent pay cut and joined Arpit Jain and team on their startup journey). This certainly doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in my decision-making abilities (laughs). But it wasn’t about joining the company or the product; it was about joining a bunch of people I had immense faith in, in terms of their capability and my unshakeable trust in who they were as people. If you are fresh out of college and get an opportunity to work with friends, why wouldn’t you grab that chance? Also, as I saw it, it was a unique opportunity, a crack at doing something that would be out of the ordinary.

Leaving my 9-to-5 job and joining a startup founded by my friends was probably the most significant decision I made in my career and the most impulsive one (Umang took a 90 per cent pay cut and joined Arpit Jain and team on their startup journey). This certainly doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in my decision-making abilities (laughs). But it wasn’t about joining the company or the product; it was about joining a bunch of people I had immense faith in, in terms of their capability and my unshakeable trust in who they were as people. If you are fresh out of college and get an opportunity to work with friends, why wouldn’t you grab that chance? Also, as I saw it, it was a unique opportunity, a crack at doing something that would be out of the ordinary.

ANAND JAIN

ANAND JAIN

The three of us didn’t have a written word when we started out. A lot of it was, let’s find the starting point, and a lot of conversation around that time, on what is your personal time horizon, what are your personal objectives and goals, how are we going to fight. Sunil and I fight all the time, but it is not taken at a personal level. He is not trying to abuse me, and I am not trying to abuse him. We are both passionate about CleverTap and want to make an impact via our product and work. Our fights are like: if you were to wander into our Zoom call you would be like what the hell is going on? This company is done. It is all going to break up tomorrow morning. But if you are aligned, and when I say aligned, it means if your time horizon is aligned, like maybe Sunil was looking for

The three of us didn’t have a written word when we started out. A lot of it was, let’s find the starting point, and a lot of conversation around that time, on what is your personal time horizon, what are your personal objectives and goals, how are we going to fight. Sunil and I fight all the time, but it is not taken at a personal level. He is not trying to abuse me, and I am not trying to abuse him. We are both passionate about CleverTap and want to make an impact via our product and work. Our fights are like: if you were to wander into our Zoom call you would be like what the hell is going on? This company is done. It is all going to break up tomorrow morning. But if you are aligned, and when I say aligned, it means if your time horizon is aligned, like maybe Sunil was looking for

THE THREE OF US DIDN’T HAVE A WRITTEN WORD WHEN WE STARTED OUT. A LOT OF IT WAS, LET’S FIND THE STARTING POINT, AND A LOT OF CONVERSATION AROUND THAT TIME, ON WHAT IS YOUR PERSONAL TIME HORIZON, WHAT ARE YOUR PERSONAL OBJECTIVES AND GOALS, HOW ARE WE GOING TO FIGHT.

THE THREE OF US DIDN’T HAVE A WRITTEN WORD WHEN WE STARTED OUT. A LOT OF IT WAS, LET’S FIND THE STARTING POINT, AND A LOT OF CONVERSATION AROUND THAT TIME, ON WHAT IS YOUR PERSONAL TIME HORIZON, WHAT ARE YOUR PERSONAL OBJECTIVES AND GOALS, HOW ARE WE GOING TO FIGHT.

— ANAND JAIN

— ANAND JAIN

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a quick exit in three years, build it, flip it, and I was like, we will build a company that will [have an] IPO, then there is a mismatch. I have seen, I speak to many founders; it is not about what you are going to build. It is about the timeline and where you are in your personal stage of life.

a quick exit in three years, build it, flip it, and I was like, we will build a company that will [have an] IPO, then there is a mismatch. I have seen, I speak to many founders; it is not about what you are going to build. It is about the timeline and where you are in your personal stage of life.

If I had a 20-year-old co-founder and the other founder was in a different stage of life, now that also plays out very, very differently. That has to be harmonious. It is like getting married. You have to align shared objectives, and regarding the written word, I have seen some bad cases. Burrp was a terrible case, not with Deap, but we had three other founders. We started with five founders, and a lesson learned in my previous startup, that whether you have the written word or not, it is, like, you would never take your customer to court. By the time that happens, it is bad. It is not about can I recover my money; it is like this relationship, you have burnt the bridge, they will never come back, and we will never go back to them. Things should not come to that.

If I had a 20-year-old co-founder and the other founder was in a different stage of life, now that also plays out very, very differently. That has to be harmonious. It is like getting married. You have to align shared objectives, and regarding the written word, I have seen some bad cases. Burrp was a terrible case, not with Deap, but we had three other founders. We started with five founders, and a lesson learned in my previous startup, that whether you have the written word or not, it is, like, you would never take your customer to court. By the time that happens, it is bad. It is not about can I recover my money; it is like this relationship, you have burnt the bridge, they will never come back, and we will never go back to them. Things should not come to that.

PARAS CHOPRA

PARAS CHOPRA

I genuinely believe that I get much better ideas when I talk to Sparsh. I actively look forward to Sparsh’s inputs and Sparsh’s disagreements—rather than just agreement—to ensure that I am not stuck in some cognitive bias. I don’t remember having any discussion where we ended up at opposite ends of the spectrum. We both believe that two rational people—if they are discussing data, logic, and first-principle thinking— should be able to agree to a common answer. That is what worked for us.

I genuinely believe that I get much better ideas when I talk to Sparsh. I actively look forward to Sparsh’s inputs and Sparsh’s disagreements—rather than just agreement—to ensure that I am not stuck in some cognitive bias. I don’t remember having any discussion where we ended up at opposite ends of the spectrum. We both believe that two rational people—if they are discussing data, logic, and first-principle thinking— should be able to agree to a common answer. That is what worked for us.

SPARSH GUPTA

SPARSH GUPTA

In my experience, friendship and mutual respect are

In my experience, friendship and mutual respect are

I DON’T REMEMBER HAVING ANY DISCUSSION WHERE WE ENDED UP AT OPPOSITE ENDS OF THE SPECTRUM. WE BOTH BELIEVE THAT TWO RATIONAL PEOPLE—IF THEY ARE DISCUSSING DATA, LOGIC, AND FIRST-PRINCIPLE THINKING— SHOULD BE ABLE TO AGREE TO A COMMON ANSWER. THAT IS WHAT WORKED FOR US.

I DON’T REMEMBER HAVING ANY DISCUSSION WHERE WE ENDED UP AT OPPOSITE ENDS OF THE SPECTRUM. WE BOTH BELIEVE THAT TWO RATIONAL PEOPLE—IF THEY ARE DISCUSSING DATA, LOGIC, AND FIRST-PRINCIPLE THINKING— SHOULD BE ABLE TO AGREE TO A COMMON ANSWER. THAT IS WHAT WORKED FOR US.

— PARAS CHOPRA

— PARAS CHOPRA

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the most critical aspects as they enable openness between the co-founders. Paras [Chopra, co-founder] and I have had countless disagreements in the last eleven years, but our mutual respect made us listen to each other and have an open debate. I can confidently say that after every discussion, we both truly believed that our ideas got groomed and what we arrived at eventually was something much better than what individually one of us could have thought. Having done that repeatedly over the years—we were friends six years before Wingify started, which also helped—it just reinforced that some of these disagreements and discussions really help you to grow the business and evolve as an individual. We both continue to discuss all our ideas, however small/stupid they might be. The absence of any ego—because of the friendship we share— and trust in each other’s expertise ensures we keep advancing always.

the most critical aspects as they enable openness between the co-founders. Paras [Chopra, co-founder] and I have had countless disagreements in the last eleven years, but our mutual respect made us listen to each other and have an open debate. I can confidently say that after every discussion, we both truly believed that our ideas got groomed and what we arrived at eventually was something much better than what individually one of us could have thought. Having done that repeatedly over the years—we were friends six years before Wingify started, which also helped—it just reinforced that some of these disagreements and discussions really help you to grow the business and evolve as an individual. We both continue to discuss all our ideas, however small/stupid they might be. The absence of any ego—because of the friendship we share— and trust in each other’s expertise ensures we keep advancing always.

I CAN CONFIDENTLY SAY THAT AFTER EVERY DISCUSSION, WE BOTH TRULY BELIEVED THAT OUR IDEAS GOT GROOMED AND WHAT WE ARRIVED AT EVENTUALLY WAS SOMETHING MUCH BETTER THAN WHAT INDIVIDUALLY ONE OF US COULD HAVE THOUGHT.

I CAN CONFIDENTLY SAY THAT AFTER EVERY DISCUSSION, WE BOTH TRULY BELIEVED THAT OUR IDEAS GOT GROOMED AND WHAT WE ARRIVED AT EVENTUALLY WAS SOMETHING MUCH BETTER THAN WHAT INDIVIDUALLY ONE OF US COULD HAVE THOUGHT.

— SPARSH GUPTA

— SPARSH GUPTA

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Entrepreneurial journeys can be lonely, so finding a co-founder right at the start is perhaps the first foundational block for building a startup. It’s not that a solo founder isn’t any good. But having a founding partner who brings complementary skills and can be an honest sounding board helps keep the journey bluntly real and weed out all the early confirmation biases.

Entrepreneurial journeys can be lonely, so finding a co-founder right at the start is perhaps the first foundational block for building a startup. It’s not that a solo founder isn’t any good. But having a founding partner who brings complementary skills and can be an honest sounding board helps keep the journey bluntly real and weed out all the early confirmation biases.

To be sure, having a co-founder doesn’t guarantee a startup’s success. The number one reason cited by many researchers for startup failures is co-founder conflicts. And there are enough examples in the Indian SaaS – software as a service – ecosystem where co-founders part ways after the first few years. The separation is painful primarily, and it can mean an existential crisis for a startup if the founder agreements and transition plans aren’t in place.

To be sure, having a co-founder doesn’t guarantee a startup’s success. The number one reason cited by many researchers for startup failures is co-founder conflicts. And there are enough examples in the Indian SaaS – software as a service – ecosystem where co-founders part ways after the first few years. The separation is painful primarily, and it can mean an existential crisis for a startup if the founder agreements and transition plans aren’t in place.

Most startups result from former or existing colleagues and batchmates coming together as co-founders. So, there’s already a sense of trust and camaraderie that binds them together. We rarely find a lonely founder looking for a co-founding partner like a chief technology officer (CTO) or chief product officer (CPO). And in such cases, having co-founder agreements becomes even more critical.

Most startups result from former or existing colleagues and batchmates coming together as co-founders. So, there’s already a sense of trust and camaraderie that binds them together. We rarely find a lonely founder looking for a co-founding partner like a chief technology officer (CTO) or chief product officer (CPO). And in such cases, having co-founder agreements becomes even more critical.

In this chapter, we will bring deep conversations with SaaS founders who have lessons to share in putting together a foundational team, starting with the quest for their co-founders and going as far as hiring their first vice president of sales and beyond.

In this chapter, we will bring deep conversations with SaaS founders who have lessons to share in putting together a foundational team, starting with the quest for their co-founders and going as far as hiring their first vice president of sales and beyond.

A clear, albeit challenging, path to
SaaS Leadership

A clear, albeit challenging, path to
SaaS Leadership

“SaaS is eating software.”
While the transformative potential of SaaS was clear even before the pandemic, the global shift to distributed work caused interest in SaaS products to skyrocket as enterprises worldwide embraced digital and remote work processes. This phenomenon is global, but India has a unique opportunity to leverage its intrinsic advantages to win SaaS markets worldwide.
Entrepreneurs in India have founded 1000 funded SaaS companies in the past few years, creating ten new unicorns just over the course of the pandemic. A wake of brave young Indian startups are following exemplars like Freshworks, Zoho, and Eka to break new ground in terms of funding and market reach. Together, these Indian SaaS companies generate up to $3 billion in revenue and represent 1 percent of the global market. Impressive as this is, it is just Day One. By 2030, the Indian SaaS industry is projected
to generate revenue of up to $70 billion and win 4 to

“SaaS is eating software.”
While the transformative potential of SaaS was clear even before the pandemic, the global shift to distributed work caused interest in SaaS products to skyrocket as enterprises worldwide embraced digital and remote work processes. This phenomenon is global, but India has a unique opportunity to leverage its intrinsic advantages to win SaaS markets worldwide.
Entrepreneurs in India have founded 1000 funded SaaS companies in the past few years, creating ten new unicorns just over the course of the pandemic. A wake of brave young Indian startups are following exemplars like Freshworks, Zoho, and Eka to break new ground in terms of funding and market reach. Together, these Indian SaaS companies generate up to $3 billion in revenue and represent 1 percent of the global market. Impressive as this is, it is just Day One. By 2030, the Indian SaaS industry is projected
to generate revenue of up to $70 billion and win 4 to

ENTREPRENEURS IN INDIA HAVE FOUNDED 1000
FUNDED SAAS COMPANIES IN THE PAST FEW
YEARS, CREATING TEN NEW UNICORNS JUST OVER
THE COURSE OF THE PANDEMIC.

ENTREPRENEURS IN INDIA HAVE FOUNDED 1000
FUNDED SAAS COMPANIES IN THE PAST FEW
YEARS, CREATING TEN NEW UNICORNS JUST OVER
THE COURSE OF THE PANDEMIC.

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6 percent of the global market, creating $1 trillion in value, according to a report by SaaSBOOMi and McKinsey.

6 percent of the global market, creating $1 trillion in value, according to a report by SaaSBOOMi and McKinsey.

A CLEAR PATH TO SAAS LEADERSHIP
There are some key growth drivers powering Indian SaaS’ “trillion-dollar tryst with destiny” by 2030.

A CLEAR PATH TO SAAS LEADERSHIP
There are some key growth drivers powering Indian SaaS’ “trillion-dollar tryst with destiny” by 2030.

THE GLOBAL PIVOT TO DIGITAL GO-TO-MARKET
In the post-pandemic world, enterprises are comfortable making decisions via Zoom. This
embrace of digital go-to-market fundamentally levels the playing field for Indian companies in terms of access to customers and markets globally.
In the years ahead, instead of being hampered by a lack of field presence in key locales, Indian companies can drive digitally enabled marketing and sales with tailored vectors for target customer segments. We could now see as much as 80 percent of sales functions having a remote component. This will require a strong focus on digital marketing and product-led models, aspects that Indian SaaS companies excel in.

THE GLOBAL PIVOT TO DIGITAL GO-TO-MARKET
In the post-pandemic world, enterprises are comfortable making decisions via Zoom. This
embrace of digital go-to-market fundamentally levels the playing field for Indian companies in terms of access to customers and markets globally.
In the years ahead, instead of being hampered by a lack of field presence in key locales, Indian companies can drive digitally enabled marketing and sales with tailored vectors for target customer segments. We could now see as much as 80 percent of sales functions having a remote component. This will require a strong focus on digital marketing and product-led models, aspects that Indian SaaS companies excel in.

SUPERIOR BASE OF DEVELOPERS TO BUILD DEEP TECH OFFERINGS
With 3 million developers, India is home to the largest concentration of developers in the world. This privileged access to key market segments uniquely positions Indian SaaS companies to understand the needs of customers and build better products that can win the developer tools market, which could be worth as much as $160 billion by 2025 as per IDC.

SUPERIOR BASE OF DEVELOPERS TO BUILD DEEP TECH OFFERINGS
With 3 million developers, India is home to the largest concentration of developers in the world. This privileged access to key market segments uniquely positions Indian SaaS companies to understand the needs of customers and build better products that can win the developer tools market, which could be worth as much as $160 billion by 2025 as per IDC.

CUSTOMER SUCCESS: INHERENT ADVANTAGE IN SERVING ENTERPRISES POST-SALE
Post-sales customer experience is the key to sustained revenue growth. Research shows that net retention rates of 120 to 130 per cent are critical to driving high growth. A study by the Temkin Group revealed companies can expect to net an additional 70 to 100 per cent of revenue on average within three years of investing in customer experience. Thanks to India’s legacy strengths in IT services and aided by a lower cost structure, Indian SaaS
companies are in an advantageous competitive position to offer customers a winning combination of superior products and white-glove professional services.

CUSTOMER SUCCESS: INHERENT ADVANTAGE IN SERVING ENTERPRISES POST-SALE
Post-sales customer experience is the key to sustained revenue growth. Research shows that net retention rates of 120 to 130 per cent are critical to driving high growth. A study by the Temkin Group revealed companies can expect to net an additional 70 to 100 per cent of revenue on average within three years of investing in customer experience. Thanks to India’s legacy strengths in IT services and aided by a lower cost structure, Indian SaaS
companies are in an advantageous competitive position to offer customers a winning combination of superior products and white-glove professional services.

CHALLENGES TO OVERCOME
The opportunity before the Indian SaaS community is real but realizing this potential requires overcoming some key challenges.

CHALLENGES TO OVERCOME
The opportunity before the Indian SaaS community is real but realizing this potential requires overcoming some key challenges.

RAMPING UP THE TALENT POOL
Seventy-seven percent of Indian SaaS leaders say their biggest challenge is talent. Indian companies need to invest more in product management, R&D, sales, marketing, and services/support talent pools. To keep pace with global competitors, Indian firms must increase the size of these pools by three to six times. To match global SaaS organizations where product managers serve as “mini-CEOs”, Indian firms need to implement mentorship initiatives, industry-specific courses, and more inclusive recruiting strategies.

RAMPING UP THE TALENT POOL
Seventy-seven percent of Indian SaaS leaders say their biggest challenge is talent. Indian companies need to invest more in product management, R&D, sales, marketing, and services/support talent pools. To keep pace with global competitors, Indian firms must increase the size of these pools by three to six times. To match global SaaS organizations where product managers serve as “mini-CEOs”, Indian firms need to implement mentorship initiatives, industry-specific courses, and more inclusive recruiting strategies.

PURSUING GTM-CENTRIC GROWTH STRATEGIES
Indian SaaS companies with annual revenues of under $5 million are growing at a rate of 50 percent on average, compared to 150 to 200 percent for their global peers. Global SaaS leaders spend 90 percent more on customer success than Indian SaaS firms. To fix this underinvestment in a key GTM component, Indian SaaS firms must implement feature-rich analytics systems including sophisticated demand-generation engines to track ROI and identify high-risk customers. The future of India SaaS is bright, and while nothing is guaranteed, it is likely that India will take an even bigger place in that limelight. With the right approach, it won’t be long before the Indian SaaS community becomes a large-scale employer of talent, a significant contributor to India’s GDP, and a creator of unmatched products.

PURSUING GTM-CENTRIC GROWTH STRATEGIES
Indian SaaS companies with annual revenues of under $5 million are growing at a rate of 50 percent on average, compared to 150 to 200 percent for their global peers. Global SaaS leaders spend 90 percent more on customer success than Indian SaaS firms. To fix this underinvestment in a key GTM component, Indian SaaS firms must implement feature-rich analytics systems including sophisticated demand-generation engines to track ROI and identify high-risk customers. The future of India SaaS is bright, and while nothing is guaranteed, it is likely that India will take an even bigger place in that limelight. With the right approach, it won’t be long before the Indian SaaS community becomes a large-scale employer of talent, a significant contributor to India’s GDP, and a creator of unmatched products.

In the dynamic landscape of the SaaS ecosystem, success stories often emerge from the most unexpected transitions. One such compelling narrative is that of Shruti Kapoor, an entrepreneur who journeyed from the corridors of investment banking to the ever-evolving world of SaaS. 

In the dynamic landscape of the SaaS ecosystem, success stories often emerge from the most unexpected transitions. One such compelling narrative is that of Shruti Kapoor, an entrepreneur who journeyed from the corridors of investment banking to the ever-evolving world of SaaS. 

With an MBA and a decade-long tenure in investment banking, Shruti ventured into uncharted territory to start her SaaS company, Wingman. Here’s what Shruti has to say about being In Her Shoes.

With an MBA and a decade-long tenure in investment banking, Shruti ventured into uncharted territory to start her SaaS company, Wingman. Here’s what Shruti has to say about being In Her Shoes.

Q: How much would you say your previous experiences helped and influenced you as a founder?

Q: How much would you say your previous experiences helped and influenced you as a founder?

I think nothing really prepares you for being a founder, but there are a few things that a career helps you with. For starters, you’ll hopefully have a financial buffer so that you can support yourself while you test out a concept. 

I think nothing really prepares you for being a founder, but there are a few things that a career helps you with. For starters, you’ll hopefully have a financial buffer so that you can support yourself while you test out a concept. 

The one thing that it does prepare you for is understanding better what an employee mindset is, versus an employer mindset.

The one thing that it does prepare you for is understanding better what an employee mindset is, versus an employer mindset.

I see a lot of people who are founders straight out of college. They often assume that everybody else in the organization will work the same way that they work, and think the same way that they think. But that’s not true, and never will be! 

I see a lot of people who are founders straight out of college. They often assume that everybody else in the organization will work the same way that they work, and think the same way that they think. But that’s not true, and never will be! 

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It’s useful to know that, so that you’re able to design the principles around your workplace accordingly. It also translates into how you design your work life balance, the incentive schemes, ownership, and visibility.

It’s useful to know that, so that you’re able to design the principles around your workplace accordingly. It also translates into how you design your work life balance, the incentive schemes, ownership, and visibility.

Q: You did not have prior SaaS experience, so how did you build a network for yourself and connect with the right people?

Q: You did not have prior SaaS experience, so how did you build a network for yourself and connect with the right people?

We were fortunate to be introduced to the Indian SaaS founders community through one of our investors, who connected us with experienced individuals in the industry. I also met people through various events and gatherings, where I sought advice and guidance. 

We were fortunate to be introduced to the Indian SaaS founders community through one of our investors, who connected us with experienced individuals in the industry. I also met people through various events and gatherings, where I sought advice and guidance. 

It's valuable to connect with someone who is just a few steps ahead of you because they understand the nuances of today's hiring and funding environment. 

It's valuable to connect with someone who is just a few steps ahead of you because they understand the nuances of today's hiring and funding environment. 

It's essential to break free from the notion that you must seek advice only from well-known figures. You need to develop the skill of identifying the right person to ask for specific questions. You must establish your own filters to determine which advice is relevant to your situation. For instance, someone's advice may have worked for their company selling to a different market or clientele. Therefore, you need to filter advice based on its applicability to your unique situation. This discernment is a crucial skill for any founder.

It's essential to break free from the notion that you must seek advice only from well-known figures. You need to develop the skill of identifying the right person to ask for specific questions. You must establish your own filters to determine which advice is relevant to your situation. For instance, someone's advice may have worked for their company selling to a different market or clientele. Therefore, you need to filter advice based on its applicability to your unique situation. This discernment is a crucial skill for any founder.

Q: What advice would you offer to someone embarking on a SaaS entrepreneurship journey?

Q: What advice would you offer to someone embarking on a SaaS entrepreneurship journey?

Today, many people grapple with a common question: "What should I build?" It's not that they lack ideas, but rather, they may have a specific idea to address a problem, only to discover that there are already about 20 different products attempting to solve the same problem in various ways.

Today, many people grapple with a common question: "What should I build?" It's not that they lack ideas, but rather, they may have a specific idea to address a problem, only to discover that there are already about 20 different products attempting to solve the same problem in various ways.

So, it's crucial to be conscious of how to answer the question: "What is the real unsolved problem?" 

So, it's crucial to be conscious of how to answer the question: "What is the real unsolved problem?" 

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Assess if a significant change in human behavior is occurring or expected in the future, guiding your bets. If a problem has persisted without a solution and technology was available, there must be a reason, unless you're betting on a fundamental shift in human behavior. These questions can help you make informed decisions about what to build today.

Assess if a significant change in human behavior is occurring or expected in the future, guiding your bets. If a problem has persisted without a solution and technology was available, there must be a reason, unless you're betting on a fundamental shift in human behavior. These questions can help you make informed decisions about what to build today.

Q: Wingman got acquired by Clari in 2022, four years after its inception in 2018. Why did you decide to take the acquisition route and how did you go through the process?

Q: Wingman got acquired by Clari in 2022, four years after its inception in 2018. Why did you decide to take the acquisition route and how did you go through the process?

It wasn't a deliberate decision where we said, "Let's try to get acquired." It didn't unfold in that manner. Instead, it transpired as we were contemplating our fundraising efforts.

It wasn't a deliberate decision where we said, "Let's try to get acquired." It didn't unfold in that manner. Instead, it transpired as we were contemplating our fundraising efforts.

As a founder, it's essential to recognize that this decision is emotional and personal. You might contemplate scenarios where you continue running the company for another two or five years, or you grow it to a specific scale to achieve different outcomes. While there are many valid business reasons to sell or not sell a company, personal feelings and biases also play a significant role. It's perfectly acceptable to acknowledge that this decision has a personal dimension, as long as you ensure fairness to all stakeholders and establish negotiation frameworks with the acquirer.

As a founder, it's essential to recognize that this decision is emotional and personal. You might contemplate scenarios where you continue running the company for another two or five years, or you grow it to a specific scale to achieve different outcomes. While there are many valid business reasons to sell or not sell a company, personal feelings and biases also play a significant role. It's perfectly acceptable to acknowledge that this decision has a personal dimension, as long as you ensure fairness to all stakeholders and establish negotiation frameworks with the acquirer.

Q: How do you balance the personal and professional aspects of your life?

Q: How do you balance the personal and professional aspects of your life?

I made a deliberate decision to keep my weekends primarily for personal activities. I might conduct interviews or do some planning work during the weekends, but I tried to stay away from my computer as much as possible. 

I made a deliberate decision to keep my weekends primarily for personal activities. I might conduct interviews or do some planning work during the weekends, but I tried to stay away from my computer as much as possible. 

This approach allowed me to recharge and return to work on Mondays with renewed energy. It also helped me strike a balance and avoid having my entire identity tied solely to the company. As a founder, it's easy for the company's success or failure to become your personal success or failure, given that the buck stops with you, especially as a CEO.

This approach allowed me to recharge and return to work on Mondays with renewed energy. It also helped me strike a balance and avoid having my entire identity tied solely to the company. As a founder, it's easy for the company's success or failure to become your personal success or failure, given that the buck stops with you, especially as a CEO.

Q: How do you think companies can help more women reach leadership positions? What kind of green flags should they focus on to attract more diverse talent?

Q: How do you think companies can help more women reach leadership positions? What kind of green flags should they focus on to attract more diverse talent?

It's crucial for people to understand the candidate's experience during interviews and the hiring process. 

It's crucial for people to understand the candidate's experience during interviews and the hiring process. 

When I, as a woman, come in for an interview and see that the organization has predominantly male employees, it makes me wonder how I would feel working there. I might worry about basic things like my safety, facilities, childcare, etc. These concerns are often never voiced as interview questions. 

When I, as a woman, come in for an interview and see that the organization has predominantly male employees, it makes me wonder how I would feel working there. I might worry about basic things like my safety, facilities, childcare, etc. These concerns are often never voiced as interview questions. 

It's essential for companies to create an inclusive environment that attracts women to the workforce. Waiting to hire women after hiring a significant number of men can create a hostile situation from the perspective of the person walking into that organization. Companies should proactively address these issues and foster a welcoming atmosphere for all candidates, regardless of gender.

It's essential for companies to create an inclusive environment that attracts women to the workforce. Waiting to hire women after hiring a significant number of men can create a hostile situation from the perspective of the person walking into that organization. Companies should proactively address these issues and foster a welcoming atmosphere for all candidates, regardless of gender.

Q: What do you like to do for fun after a stressful day at work? 🙂

Q: What do you like to do for fun after a stressful day at work? 🙂

That’s a very easy answer for me, and anyone who worked at Wingman would know this! I love playing board games. Now, it’s even more fun because my seven-year-old son has started playing board games with me!

That’s a very easy answer for me, and anyone who worked at Wingman would know this! I love playing board games. Now, it’s even more fun because my seven-year-old son has started playing board games with me!

This article first appeared as a LinkedIn post.

This article first appeared as a LinkedIn post.

Founders are on the move. Especially those building software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies. Over the years, we’ve seen several SaaS ideas take root and grow into large, valuable businesses. And we find that the one area all founders want to understand better is their go-to-market strategy. 

Founders are on the move. Especially those building software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies. Over the years, we’ve seen several SaaS ideas take root and grow into large, valuable businesses. And we find that the one area all founders want to understand better is their go-to-market strategy. 

At Lightspeed India’s Enterprise GTM social in Menlo Park, in partnership with SaaSBoomi, we sat down with four senior executives who brought insights and real-life learnings from their GTM journey in the US.  The audience of 75 founders asked some intense questions, provoking a good debate!

At Lightspeed India’s Enterprise GTM social in Menlo Park, in partnership with SaaSBoomi, we sat down with four senior executives who brought insights and real-life learnings from their GTM journey in the US.  The audience of 75 founders asked some intense questions, provoking a good debate!

In a freewheeling chat with Rohit Choudhary, CEO, Acceldata; Mike McQuaid, chief revenue officer, Acceldata; Sandeep Gupta, co-founder and chief operating officer, Innovaccer; and David Nace, chief medical officer at Innovaccer, spoke with me about constructing and scaling a GTM strategy in the US and what traps founders should avoid. 

In a freewheeling chat with Rohit Choudhary, CEO, Acceldata; Mike McQuaid, chief revenue officer, Acceldata; Sandeep Gupta, co-founder and chief operating officer, Innovaccer; and David Nace, chief medical officer at Innovaccer, spoke with me about constructing and scaling a GTM strategy in the US and what traps founders should avoid. 

Here are my ten quick takeaways from the session. (opinions expressed here are from the panelists):

Here are my ten quick takeaways from the session. (opinions expressed here are from the panelists):

1/ Figure out your God particle

1/ Figure out your God particle

As an early-stage company, have you nailed your core proposition? Under what conditions is your company indestructible? Spend time identifying these. Everything else follows — your ideal customer profile, who needs your product and when, and your eventual business model and GTM. 

As an early-stage company, have you nailed your core proposition? Under what conditions is your company indestructible? Spend time identifying these. Everything else follows — your ideal customer profile, who needs your product and when, and your eventual business model and GTM. 

2/ Show up and look sharp

2/ Show up and look sharp

When talking to customers, show up in that suit, and make a great first impression. Look good. Prepare in advance, don’t wing it. Do your research about everyone you will present your idea to. Rehearse who will say what, and to whom. Deliver a 10/10, leaving no room for error. 

When talking to customers, show up in that suit, and make a great first impression. Look good. Prepare in advance, don’t wing it. Do your research about everyone you will present your idea to. Rehearse who will say what, and to whom. Deliver a 10/10, leaving no room for error. 

3/ Reframing

3/ Reframing

Find sales executives who can extract the knowledge of pain from the prospect. Someone who can listen to the customer and understand their problems. And can then align your product or offering as a solution to these issues.

Find sales executives who can extract the knowledge of pain from the prospect. Someone who can listen to the customer and understand their problems. And can then align your product or offering as a solution to these issues.

4/ Access to power

4/ Access to power

Identify the people who have the power to decide in a customer’s management hierarchy. Pitch to them; steer clear of those who are purely execution-oriented who will eat into your time and resources, but are much less likely to deliver results for you (i.e. purchase orders).

Identify the people who have the power to decide in a customer’s management hierarchy. Pitch to them; steer clear of those who are purely execution-oriented who will eat into your time and resources, but are much less likely to deliver results for you (i.e. purchase orders).

5/ Above or below the line

5/ Above or below the line

There are two kinds of customer folks when you talk about access to power:

There are two kinds of customer folks when you talk about access to power:

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6/ Stay away from the IT hamster wheel

6/ Stay away from the IT hamster wheel

The below-the-line people make it look like they mean business, but they have less power to make decisions. They’ll take your calls, ask for a PoC, ask for more features, look at a demo, etc. but less predictably make a purchase decision. They keep you busy, going round and round in circles.

The below-the-line people make it look like they mean business, but they have less power to make decisions. They’ll take your calls, ask for a PoC, ask for more features, look at a demo, etc. but less predictably make a purchase decision. They keep you busy, going round and round in circles.

7/ Avoid “happy ears”

7/ Avoid “happy ears”

Don’t fool yourself into hearing what you want to hear from prospects. Cut through the BS and be clear-eyed about the reality. “Build x more features and we will give you business”. It sounds great to an early-stage founder, but sucks them into cycles of building without resulting in a purchase order. 

Don’t fool yourself into hearing what you want to hear from prospects. Cut through the BS and be clear-eyed about the reality. “Build x more features and we will give you business”. It sounds great to an early-stage founder, but sucks them into cycles of building without resulting in a purchase order. 

8/ Free or paid pilots

8/ Free or paid pilots

The decision around your proof of concept is a strategic one.

The decision around your proof of concept is a strategic one.

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Choose your first customers wisely.

Choose your first customers wisely.

9/ Find the right person at the right stage

9/ Find the right person at the right stage

There is no secret mantra that will help you land the right salesperson in the first go. The skillset you require at each stage of growth will be different. Your early team is important, but it may not be equipped to help you scale. Know when you need different expertise.

There is no secret mantra that will help you land the right salesperson in the first go. The skillset you require at each stage of growth will be different. Your early team is important, but it may not be equipped to help you scale. Know when you need different expertise.

10/ Meet customers

10/ Meet customers

There is no substitute for in-person meetings. Make the effort and set up time. Meet those customers. It accelerates the path to product-market fit and helps you put your funding dollars to the best possible use. 

There is no substitute for in-person meetings. Make the effort and set up time. Meet those customers. It accelerates the path to product-market fit and helps you put your funding dollars to the best possible use. 

There really is no one-size-fits-all solution for building a GTM strategy. However, there are some large strategies that are common across the board. Founders who have moved, or are thinking of moving to the US, may find these points useful as they navigate their way to creating an enduring SaaS company. 

There really is no one-size-fits-all solution for building a GTM strategy. However, there are some large strategies that are common across the board. Founders who have moved, or are thinking of moving to the US, may find these points useful as they navigate their way to creating an enduring SaaS company. 

This article is part of Lightspeed's Limitless project.

This article is part of Lightspeed's Limitless project.

After the spurt in cloud-driven SaaS from 2015, the software industry is undergoing another seismic shift with the capabilities of Generative AI (GenAI), fueled by billions of dollars invested in creating Large Language Models (LLMs). While companies like OpenAI building the infrastructure layer made AI the buzz this year, vast opportunities for innovators of all sizes lie in the application layer on top. 

After the spurt in cloud-driven SaaS from 2015, the software industry is undergoing another seismic shift with the capabilities of Generative AI (GenAI), fueled by billions of dollars invested in creating Large Language Models (LLMs). While companies like OpenAI building the infrastructure layer made AI the buzz this year, vast opportunities for innovators of all sizes lie in the application layer on top. 

“AI is the new electricity. Electricity revolutionized all industries and changed our way of life, and AI is doing the same… The advance of AI creates opportunities for everyone in all corners of the economy to explore whether or how it applies to their area,” writes Andrew Ng, founder of DeepLearning.AI, in MIT Technology Review.

“AI is the new electricity. Electricity revolutionized all industries and changed our way of life, and AI is doing the same… The advance of AI creates opportunities for everyone in all corners of the economy to explore whether or how it applies to their area,” writes Andrew Ng, founder of DeepLearning.AI, in MIT Technology Review.

What does it mean for SaaS? We’re seeing a shift to SaaS.ai with the emergence of a long tail of AI-first SaaS companies, says a study by SaaSBoomi with knowledge partner McKinsey.

What does it mean for SaaS? We’re seeing a shift to SaaS.ai with the emergence of a long tail of AI-first SaaS companies, says a study by SaaSBoomi with knowledge partner McKinsey.

India has a thriving SaaS industry with over $7 billion in annual revenues. GenAI creates possibilities to spin that flywheel faster as founders pivot to SaaS.ai. Over 60 GenAI hotspots have caught the attention of Indian SaaS companies, says the SaaSBoomi study. 

India has a thriving SaaS industry with over $7 billion in annual revenues. GenAI creates possibilities to spin that flywheel faster as founders pivot to SaaS.ai. Over 60 GenAI hotspots have caught the attention of Indian SaaS companies, says the SaaSBoomi study. 

As the technology is new, its application to many domains is yet to be explored. That creates new opportunities for agile innovators.

As the technology is new, its application to many domains is yet to be explored. That creates new opportunities for agile innovators.

“SaaS companies from India are hungry for AI technologies. Their founders absorb and use AI tech at a place similar to that in the Bay Area. We are excited about how fast AI is moving into SaaS startups and gaining momentum,” says Shekhar Kirani, Partner, Accel.

“SaaS companies from India are hungry for AI technologies. Their founders absorb and use AI tech at a place similar to that in the Bay Area. We are excited about how fast AI is moving into SaaS startups and gaining momentum,” says Shekhar Kirani, Partner, Accel.

For example, Blend makes AI-native design editing software for ecommerce sellers to create professional product photos quickly without relying on agencies. The founders began playing around with Stable Diffusion (GenAI foundational model for image editing) after its release last year. Then they added more GenAI tools, scalability, and speed to rise to #1 on Product Hunt six months back.

For example, Blend makes AI-native design editing software for ecommerce sellers to create professional product photos quickly without relying on agencies. The founders began playing around with Stable Diffusion (GenAI foundational model for image editing) after its release last year. Then they added more GenAI tools, scalability, and speed to rise to #1 on Product Hunt six months back.

“We embrace a full-stack AI research approach, from R&D to crafting user experiences,” says Vishwanath Kollapudi, founder & CEO of Blend. “This approach gives us visibility and control over every aspect that requires adaptation, whether it's at the model level, infrastructure, or product development.”

“We embrace a full-stack AI research approach, from R&D to crafting user experiences,” says Vishwanath Kollapudi, founder & CEO of Blend. “This approach gives us visibility and control over every aspect that requires adaptation, whether it's at the model level, infrastructure, or product development.”

Every SaaS founder worth her salt is busy hacking a path to the GenAI bandwagon. Most of the early movers are in horizontal SaaS categories for text, speech, video, and productivity tools. But there are also vertical SaaS players emerging with GenAI-powered tools in healthcare, gaming, and other verticals.

Every SaaS founder worth her salt is busy hacking a path to the GenAI bandwagon. Most of the early movers are in horizontal SaaS categories for text, speech, video, and productivity tools. But there are also vertical SaaS players emerging with GenAI-powered tools in healthcare, gaming, and other verticals.

Not surprisingly, a number of companies are focusing on GenAI power for dev tools and MLOps (machine-learning operations), an area of strength for SaaS from India. Data is another hot spot of activity.

Not surprisingly, a number of companies are focusing on GenAI power for dev tools and MLOps (machine-learning operations), an area of strength for SaaS from India. Data is another hot spot of activity.

The SaaSBoomi study expects vernacular Large Language Models (LLMs) to emerge in the region to target a large population. Although the cost of building foundational models appears prohibitive, India’s frugal innovation will come into play.

The SaaSBoomi study expects vernacular Large Language Models (LLMs) to emerge in the region to target a large population. Although the cost of building foundational models appears prohibitive, India’s frugal innovation will come into play.

“India will have to innovate at lower cost than in the US, as it did with UPI (Unified Payments Interface) and many other things,” says Manav Garg, founder and CEO, Eka Software Solutions.

“India will have to innovate at lower cost than in the US, as it did with UPI (Unified Payments Interface) and many other things,” says Manav Garg, founder and CEO, Eka Software Solutions.

The massive adoption of UPI transactions over the past five years has created a huge amount of fintech data. Collaboration with the government and banks could lead to India-specific foundational models for use cases like lending, points out Garg.

The massive adoption of UPI transactions over the past five years has created a huge amount of fintech data. Collaboration with the government and banks could lead to India-specific foundational models for use cases like lending, points out Garg.

“AI models keep developing for various languages in the world, but there has been a significant lag in the state-of-the-art models reaching Indian languages. To service India-specific needs across ecommerce, fintech, edtech, and more, building India-specific models is going to be critical,” says Hemant Mohapatra, Partner at Lightspeed India. 

“AI models keep developing for various languages in the world, but there has been a significant lag in the state-of-the-art models reaching Indian languages. To service India-specific needs across ecommerce, fintech, edtech, and more, building India-specific models is going to be critical,” says Hemant Mohapatra, Partner at Lightspeed India. 

“AI deployments in India have to be conscious of the unit costs. We need small, use-case-focused models that are optimized on hardware. The use-case focus requires us to work with companies in India to specialize the models for their needs. A majority of LLMs today focus on text, but Indian use cases need a deep understanding of voice as well as text,” adds Mohapatra. “These challenges are as much technical as cultural and will require an India-based team committing their lives to build this for the long term, with a strong focus on R&D in the beginning, but balancing it with a customer-backward approach to solve problems that both local and global enterprises will adopt to service their audiences in India.”

“AI deployments in India have to be conscious of the unit costs. We need small, use-case-focused models that are optimized on hardware. The use-case focus requires us to work with companies in India to specialize the models for their needs. A majority of LLMs today focus on text, but Indian use cases need a deep understanding of voice as well as text,” adds Mohapatra. “These challenges are as much technical as cultural and will require an India-based team committing their lives to build this for the long term, with a strong focus on R&D in the beginning, but balancing it with a customer-backward approach to solve problems that both local and global enterprises will adopt to service their audiences in India.”

Naganand Doraswamy, founder and managing partner, Ideaspring Capital, feels the layer above the foundational model is where India’s engineering talent can make a difference. “I’m talking about the middle layer, such as tools that will extract the relevant data to train the model or induce the right prompts. The application layer on top is chaotic right now and the foundational layer is very expensive to build. So the middle layer is where we’re looking at companies now.”

Naganand Doraswamy, founder and managing partner, Ideaspring Capital, feels the layer above the foundational model is where India’s engineering talent can make a difference. “I’m talking about the middle layer, such as tools that will extract the relevant data to train the model or induce the right prompts. The application layer on top is chaotic right now and the foundational layer is very expensive to build. So the middle layer is where we’re looking at companies now.”

And, as they say, you ain’t seen nothing yet. AI thought leader Mustafa Suleyman, founder of DeepMind (acquired by Alphabet) and Inflection AI, says GenAI is just an intermediate phase. What’s coming is bigger. 

And, as they say, you ain’t seen nothing yet. AI thought leader Mustafa Suleyman, founder of DeepMind (acquired by Alphabet) and Inflection AI, says GenAI is just an intermediate phase. What’s coming is bigger. 

“Five years from now, models will be over 1000 times larger than what you see today in GPT-4. Instead of just generating new data, the models will be able to generate sequences of actions. We’re going to see AI that doesn’t just say things but AI that can do things,” says Suleyman in an interview with the Economist. “It will be able to talk to humans and other AIs and use APIs to decide, for example, the right sequence in a supply chain. You can imagine that being applied to many different parts of our economy. The world is your oyster.”

“Five years from now, models will be over 1000 times larger than what you see today in GPT-4. Instead of just generating new data, the models will be able to generate sequences of actions. We’re going to see AI that doesn’t just say things but AI that can do things,” says Suleyman in an interview with the Economist. “It will be able to talk to humans and other AIs and use APIs to decide, for example, the right sequence in a supply chain. You can imagine that being applied to many different parts of our economy. The world is your oyster.”

Every Rose has Thorns

Every Rose has Thorns

The shift in the technological landscape presents both an opportunity and a threat to SaaS companies. So even as founders are eager to seize new opportunities, they’re keeping an eye out for AI’s disruption of their products, markets, and business models. Investors too are galvanized by the urgency to spot disruptors of business models looming on the horizon.

The shift in the technological landscape presents both an opportunity and a threat to SaaS companies. So even as founders are eager to seize new opportunities, they’re keeping an eye out for AI’s disruption of their products, markets, and business models. Investors too are galvanized by the urgency to spot disruptors of business models looming on the horizon.

“SaaS companies will have to change and align with the new business models. There is no other option,” says Kirani. “If teams can't include AI aggressively and take advantage of cost savings and business models, they will be left behind.”

“SaaS companies will have to change and align with the new business models. There is no other option,” says Kirani. “If teams can't include AI aggressively and take advantage of cost savings and business models, they will be left behind.”

As CMS (content management solutions), chatbots, code and design tools, and workflow automation evolve with the integration of GenAI, SaaS founders need to understand the extent to which their business will be disrupted.

As CMS (content management solutions), chatbots, code and design tools, and workflow automation evolve with the integration of GenAI, SaaS founders need to understand the extent to which their business will be disrupted.

“Step one is to see whether your core workflow is getting disrupted. Once you understand that and if you have to now pivot, do you have the data and skillset to get to the new way of working? And if you have that, you will have to see if you have the capital to do that,” explains Garg. “Typically, companies below $5 million in ARR (annual recurring revenue) are constrained by their skillset, data, and capital. So they are the most vulnerable to GenAI disruption.”

“Step one is to see whether your core workflow is getting disrupted. Once you understand that and if you have to now pivot, do you have the data and skillset to get to the new way of working? And if you have that, you will have to see if you have the capital to do that,” explains Garg. “Typically, companies below $5 million in ARR (annual recurring revenue) are constrained by their skillset, data, and capital. So they are the most vulnerable to GenAI disruption.”

The SaaSBoomi report has a GenAI disruption index to help SaaS founders evaluate their response based on their scale and the level of disruption they face. They need to assess shifts in their competitive landscape and reimagine defensible moats.

The SaaSBoomi report has a GenAI disruption index to help SaaS founders evaluate their response based on their scale and the level of disruption they face. They need to assess shifts in their competitive landscape and reimagine defensible moats.

Competitive shifts can take different forms. GenAI could enable radical cost cuts in providing a service or product. It could reduce the costs of customers switching to a different product. Or it could change how services and products are accessed with a conversational AI front-end, such as with ChatGPT plugins.

Competitive shifts can take different forms. GenAI could enable radical cost cuts in providing a service or product. It could reduce the costs of customers switching to a different product. Or it could change how services and products are accessed with a conversational AI front-end, such as with ChatGPT plugins.

These assessments will influence founders in deciding their GenAI adoption strategy. Their scale and business metrics will also come into consideration. 

These assessments will influence founders in deciding their GenAI adoption strategy. Their scale and business metrics will also come into consideration. 

For example, those who adopt a complete business model pivot for aggressive growth in ARR (annual recurring revenue) should be prepared for declines in profit and free cash flow because of higher development time and costs. Others may choose to get started by using GenAI to enhance internal productivity for a modest rise in ARR, while abiding by the Rule of 40 (a SaaS benchmark where revenue growth rate and profitability margin are both 40% or above).

For example, those who adopt a complete business model pivot for aggressive growth in ARR (annual recurring revenue) should be prepared for declines in profit and free cash flow because of higher development time and costs. Others may choose to get started by using GenAI to enhance internal productivity for a modest rise in ARR, while abiding by the Rule of 40 (a SaaS benchmark where revenue growth rate and profitability margin are both 40% or above).

The business and funding environment will be key determinants in these choices. What it boils down to is that a founder has to take a number of factors into account in formulating a GenAI strategy that finds a middle way between opportunity and threat.

The business and funding environment will be key determinants in these choices. What it boils down to is that a founder has to take a number of factors into account in formulating a GenAI strategy that finds a middle way between opportunity and threat.

But, as Andrew Ng urges innovators, the time to act is now. “Learning about AI creates disproportionately more opportunities to do something that no one else has ever done before… Moreover, many of the opportunities are within reach of broadly tech-savvy people, not just people already in AI.”

But, as Andrew Ng urges innovators, the time to act is now. “Learning about AI creates disproportionately more opportunities to do something that no one else has ever done before… Moreover, many of the opportunities are within reach of broadly tech-savvy people, not just people already in AI.”

I recently found myself in a room full of SaaS founders discussing the risks that generative AI (GenAI) poses for their companies. I couldn't help but wonder how, as an industry, we've spent so much time talking about how AI is going to replace humans, how GenAI is going to throw people off their jobs and destroy entire job groups. As a community, we've spent very little time discussing how SaaS-first companies with AI features get disrupted by AI-first SaaS companies that have started on their journey many years after. 

I recently found myself in a room full of SaaS founders discussing the risks that generative AI (GenAI) poses for their companies. I couldn't help but wonder how, as an industry, we've spent so much time talking about how AI is going to replace humans, how GenAI is going to throw people off their jobs and destroy entire job groups. As a community, we've spent very little time discussing how SaaS-first companies with AI features get disrupted by AI-first SaaS companies that have started on their journey many years after. 

AI-first companies that have put GenAI at the forefront of their products have changed expectations from the customer entirely. Just like with SaaS products, when you could open a UI and key in data, with AI-first tools you can create a workflow, generate insights or transfer data with a simple query or instruction to the system. With AI-first tools, we're creating a generation of companies that are rewiring the customer's expectations of what software does. "I ask and I get" vs. "I open a tool, do a lot of things, press a lot of buttons, enter a lot of data, then create rules for that data to be plotted a certain way and get graphs which I then have to interpret". 

AI-first companies that have put GenAI at the forefront of their products have changed expectations from the customer entirely. Just like with SaaS products, when you could open a UI and key in data, with AI-first tools you can create a workflow, generate insights or transfer data with a simple query or instruction to the system. With AI-first tools, we're creating a generation of companies that are rewiring the customer's expectations of what software does. "I ask and I get" vs. "I open a tool, do a lot of things, press a lot of buttons, enter a lot of data, then create rules for that data to be plotted a certain way and get graphs which I then have to interpret". 

Customers are rapidly understanding that they can do the same job an order of magnitude quicker, with more information, more decoded data at their fingertips than ever before. With AI, 'the hunt for instant everything' and 'more everything' is now shifting from the content and social consumer industry to the enterprise industry. 

Customers are rapidly understanding that they can do the same job an order of magnitude quicker, with more information, more decoded data at their fingertips than ever before. With AI, 'the hunt for instant everything' and 'more everything' is now shifting from the content and social consumer industry to the enterprise industry. 

As a country, we're just making the shift from services to SaaS. Incredible work by communities over the last decade or two has helped us reach 3500 funded SaaS companies in the country with a 2% representation of the overall global SaaS industry and a growth from 2.6 to 7B in revenues in the last 2 years. However, we've always been thrown in the bucket of operational advantage - read cheap. The race to win the 'cheap' game is a race to the bottom of the barrel in every market. Sooner or later everyone has the same advantages of server optimization, talent and more as the labor markets and compute costs even out with growth in the markets. With the AI-first rush globally, the problem has shifted significantly. 

As a country, we're just making the shift from services to SaaS. Incredible work by communities over the last decade or two has helped us reach 3500 funded SaaS companies in the country with a 2% representation of the overall global SaaS industry and a growth from 2.6 to 7B in revenues in the last 2 years. However, we've always been thrown in the bucket of operational advantage - read cheap. The race to win the 'cheap' game is a race to the bottom of the barrel in every market. Sooner or later everyone has the same advantages of server optimization, talent and more as the labor markets and compute costs even out with growth in the markets. With the AI-first rush globally, the problem has shifted significantly. 

The greatest danger for Indian SaaS today lies in staying SaaS-first and not rapidly shifting their software to an AI-first, automation-first approach to creating workflows and enabling outcomes of jobs. The SaaSBoomi India SaaS report reveals that approximately 60% of CIOs expect to cut new spending on software, and 80% of CIOs in large enterprises plan at least 15% reduction in discretionary software spend. More than 50% of CIOs say they are likely to consolidate vendors in the next three years, favoring bundled product suites from a single provider. 

The greatest danger for Indian SaaS today lies in staying SaaS-first and not rapidly shifting their software to an AI-first, automation-first approach to creating workflows and enabling outcomes of jobs. The SaaSBoomi India SaaS report reveals that approximately 60% of CIOs expect to cut new spending on software, and 80% of CIOs in large enterprises plan at least 15% reduction in discretionary software spend. More than 50% of CIOs say they are likely to consolidate vendors in the next three years, favoring bundled product suites from a single provider. 

On one hand, the world of AI tools and software will get commoditized faster than we can imagine. On the other hand, the aging world of enterprise software that is not AI ready will continue to shrink. As a first strategy, it is the perfect time for young India SaaS to sit up and re-tool, re-imagine their products and their business models without the dangers of huge pivots. 

On one hand, the world of AI tools and software will get commoditized faster than we can imagine. On the other hand, the aging world of enterprise software that is not AI ready will continue to shrink. As a first strategy, it is the perfect time for young India SaaS to sit up and re-tool, re-imagine their products and their business models without the dangers of huge pivots. 

Secondly, it is the perfect time for Indian founding talent to go down the route of infra-first, vertical-first, data-first, and security-first companies in SaaS. With a strong AI-led product motion, these are foundational categories that allow enterprises to build on top of them or integrate with their deeply connected workflows. 

Secondly, it is the perfect time for Indian founding talent to go down the route of infra-first, vertical-first, data-first, and security-first companies in SaaS. With a strong AI-led product motion, these are foundational categories that allow enterprises to build on top of them or integrate with their deeply connected workflows. 

We’ve wrapped up this year’s Annual and it's been a blast! Follow us on X and LinkedIn to be the first to know when we open up early bird registrations next year.

1100+ founders and 80+ top VCs came together for two full days and a night of super-tactical knowledge-sharing and bonding. Here are some details of what went down at the Annual ‘23!’

1100+ founders and 80+ top VCs came together for two full days and a night of super-tactical knowledge-sharing and bonding. Here are some details of what went down at the Annual ‘23!’

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It's an indescribable feeling to connect with like-minded individuals and share our learnings with each other. The support and camaraderie in this community is simply heartwarming, and feel grateful to be a part of it." 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Whether it be meeting the OGS of the industry or networking with hundreds of others trying to make a mark. There is so much to learn- knowledge, execution, the art and beauty of being humble, the eagerness to share-teach- spread. You see the fire and energy around and it's just unmatchable." 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Selling in the US: Why Market Discovery Matters

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This article was originally published on Limitless. 

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This article was originally published on Limitless. 

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Before a founder starts the journey to achieve product-market fit, they need to build conviction in the market. The best way to achieve this is through constant interaction with stakeholders and fine-tuning the ideal customer profile.

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Before a founder starts the journey to achieve product-market fit, they need to build conviction in the market. The best way to achieve this is through constant interaction with stakeholders and fine-tuning the ideal customer profile.

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Simply put, market discovery is a way to find out whether or not the product you are trying to build has true demand in the market. It is a laborious task, but worth the effort. Think long interviews, questions and follow-ups, listening and identifying the most important bits for your product, and then using all this to sprinkle fairy dust into your final product. It is time-consuming, no doubt, but the purpose of this piece is to tell you why that investment of time is important.

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Simply put, market discovery is a way to find out whether or not the product you are trying to build has true demand in the market. It is a laborious task, but worth the effort. Think long interviews, questions and follow-ups, listening and identifying the most important bits for your product, and then using all this to sprinkle fairy dust into your final product. It is time-consuming, no doubt, but the purpose of this piece is to tell you why that investment of time is important.

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To understand how it works, we spoke to Srikrishnan Ganesan, the co-founder and CEO of Rocketlane, a leading customer onboarding and professional services automation platform, about the role of market discovery in building his very popular client project delivery and onboarding software.

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To understand how it works, we spoke to Srikrishnan Ganesan, the co-founder and CEO of Rocketlane, a leading customer onboarding and professional services automation platform, about the role of market discovery in building his very popular client project delivery and onboarding software.

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Sri is well known in the founder community for doing things differently. He was clear from the beginning that their market validation exercise would focus on the US market and approach potential customers through their network to validate their product idea. He talks about what works and what doesn’t, as founders set out to find the right market for their products.

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Sri is well known in the founder community for doing things differently. He was clear from the beginning that their market validation exercise would focus on the US market and approach potential customers through their network to validate their product idea. He talks about what works and what doesn’t, as founders set out to find the right market for their products.

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Where do you begin?

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Where do you begin?

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Rocketlane is Sri’s second entrepreneurial outing, and the biggest realization from his previous startup journey was how important it is to get the market right. In the beginning, the intent was to get answers to the following: 

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Rocketlane is Sri’s second entrepreneurial outing, and the biggest realization from his previous startup journey was how important it is to get the market right. In the beginning, the intent was to get answers to the following: 

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How do we validate the importance of the problem we are trying to solve? 

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How do we validate the importance of the problem we are trying to solve? 

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Will there be a budget at the customer’s end for it?

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Will there be a budget at the customer’s end for it?

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Is it a new budget? 

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Is it a new budget? 

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Is it the existing budget that will get repurposed? 

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Is it the existing budget that will get repurposed? 

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What size of company is going to want this more?

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What size of company is going to want this more?

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The questions, you will notice, are trying to address the very basic reasons for building a product. Founders are often so passionate about their idea that they forget to ask the very important question of whether a customer would be willing to pay for the solution they are offering. This is where market discovery begins. Not with the idea of finding an ideal customer profile (ICP), but also validating if your product solves a lasting need for different stakeholders in a customer’s organisation. 

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The questions, you will notice, are trying to address the very basic reasons for building a product. Founders are often so passionate about their idea that they forget to ask the very important question of whether a customer would be willing to pay for the solution they are offering. This is where market discovery begins. Not with the idea of finding an ideal customer profile (ICP), but also validating if your product solves a lasting need for different stakeholders in a customer’s organisation. 

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“We did a lot of market discovery around not just identifying an ICP and a persona and their pain points, but also how others in the organisation perceive the problem,”

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“We did a lot of market discovery around not just identifying an ICP and a persona and their pain points, but also how others in the organisation perceive the problem,”

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- Srikrishnan Ganesan

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" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(49) " - Srikrishnan Ganesan

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So in these conversations, the focus was on how different stakeholders look at the problem. This includes the CEO, the investor(s), the board, executives and functional leaders. For Rocketlane, the leadership, managers and vice presidents on the customer success and delivery teams matter most. If your idea is something these stakeholders are looking at, then they will, at some stage of the company, view it as an important problem to solve. That intent at the customer’s end is an important piece of the equation. 

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So in these conversations, the focus was on how different stakeholders look at the problem. This includes the CEO, the investor(s), the board, executives and functional leaders. For Rocketlane, the leadership, managers and vice presidents on the customer success and delivery teams matter most. If your idea is something these stakeholders are looking at, then they will, at some stage of the company, view it as an important problem to solve. That intent at the customer’s end is an important piece of the equation. 

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The second and crucial piece for market discovery is how to identify these prospective customers? “We used whatever connections we could to hustle and talk to folks in different companies. We did a lot of that research before we wrote the first line of code. For us, it was not like ‘let's build a product for one market, and then explore the next market’. It was more about really, truly validating and feeling comfortable about the size of the opportunity,” says Sri. 

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The second and crucial piece for market discovery is how to identify these prospective customers? “We used whatever connections we could to hustle and talk to folks in different companies. We did a lot of that research before we wrote the first line of code. For us, it was not like ‘let's build a product for one market, and then explore the next market’. It was more about really, truly validating and feeling comfortable about the size of the opportunity,” says Sri. 

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It’s important to remember here that there is no one way to do market outreach. Many companies have successfully built an MVP and then done market discovery. Rocketlane’s approach was to do as much research upfront, even while defining the scope of the problem and how they want to solve it. 

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It’s important to remember here that there is no one way to do market outreach. Many companies have successfully built an MVP and then done market discovery. Rocketlane’s approach was to do as much research upfront, even while defining the scope of the problem and how they want to solve it. 

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Keeping questions open-ended

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Keeping questions open-ended

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As you build on the conversations, there are signals that founders can watch out for to understand and ascertain their total addressable market (TAM). But before we get to that, Sri has a few tips on the right kind of questions to ask. It may seem like a trivial thing, but founders often fall into the trap of confusing validation of their idea as market discovery. 

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As you build on the conversations, there are signals that founders can watch out for to understand and ascertain their total addressable market (TAM). But before we get to that, Sri has a few tips on the right kind of questions to ask. It may seem like a trivial thing, but founders often fall into the trap of confusing validation of their idea as market discovery. 

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For example, asking “Do you think my product solves this problem well?” and getting a “Yes, it certainly looks good” in response, is not discovery. It is a way to validate their idea, which will most likely not result in a paying customer. 

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For example, asking “Do you think my product solves this problem well?” and getting a “Yes, it certainly looks good” in response, is not discovery. It is a way to validate their idea, which will most likely not result in a paying customer. 

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“What you want to look for is whether your product idea is a burning problem or top priority problem for the customer,” says Sri. “Ask open ended questions first, and to different people in different roles.” That gives you a workable hypothesis for building your ICP.

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“What you want to look for is whether your product idea is a burning problem or top priority problem for the customer,” says Sri. “Ask open ended questions first, and to different people in different roles.” That gives you a workable hypothesis for building your ICP.

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After getting on a call with a prospective customer, these are some of the things Sri focused on: 

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After getting on a call with a prospective customer, these are some of the things Sri focused on: 

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Ask the founder their top 10, and the functional executive their top five problems. If your product solves something in the top five, that’s a signal you’re on the right path. For Rocketlane, if implementation timelines or challenges don't feature in these top issues, then they know their product isn't a priority.

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Ask the founder their top 10, and the functional executive their top five problems. If your product solves something in the top five, that’s a signal you’re on the right path. For Rocketlane, if implementation timelines or challenges don't feature in these top issues, then they know their product isn't a priority.

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Currently, how are customers solving the problem? 

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Currently, how are customers solving the problem? 

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Are they trying to build something internally? Are they using hacks to stitch together existing tools and solve the problem? If they are, it shows they are spending effort on the problem.  

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Are they trying to build something internally? Are they using hacks to stitch together existing tools and solve the problem? If they are, it shows they are spending effort on the problem.  

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Talk to an investor. If they're thinking about how some of their portfolio companies can benefit from this, that means you have something going for you.

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Talk to an investor. If they're thinking about how some of their portfolio companies can benefit from this, that means you have something going for you.

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Ask yourself if this is truly a top of mind problem, or it feels like you have to create or justify the existence of the problem.

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Ask yourself if this is truly a top of mind problem, or it feels like you have to create or justify the existence of the problem.

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“Over time, we started using a click-through prototype in the discovery conversations to show the customers what we had in mind. There were quite a few “wow” moments for whoever came on the demo,” remembers Sri.

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“Over time, we started using a click-through prototype in the discovery conversations to show the customers what we had in mind. There were quite a few “wow” moments for whoever came on the demo,” remembers Sri.

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Another signal that you’re finding your TAM is if a founder “very willingly” puts you in touch with their team because they consider your product important. It signals urgency.

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Another signal that you’re finding your TAM is if a founder “very willingly” puts you in touch with their team because they consider your product important. It signals urgency.

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“We would have had probably 80 to 90 conversations with folks through that initial few months of market discovery,” Sri says.

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“We would have had probably 80 to 90 conversations with folks through that initial few months of market discovery,” Sri says.

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His estimate of the minimum number of conversations you need to have to catch the right signals? Three months and 50 conversations, if market discovery is your primary focus. The entire exercise cost Rocketlane about $100,000 and Sri felt it was money well spent. 

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His estimate of the minimum number of conversations you need to have to catch the right signals? Three months and 50 conversations, if market discovery is your primary focus. The entire exercise cost Rocketlane about $100,000 and Sri felt it was money well spent. 

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Why interviews are important

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Why interviews are important

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We live in a world where we’re increasingly getting used to productivity tools. It is natural for founders to look to do things faster in this competitive world, one automation tool at a time. So why should they make the effort to have these in-person or real-time conversations? Why not just gather feedback through surveys or tools? 

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We live in a world where we’re increasingly getting used to productivity tools. It is natural for founders to look to do things faster in this competitive world, one automation tool at a time. So why should they make the effort to have these in-person or real-time conversations? Why not just gather feedback through surveys or tools? 

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Because, to quote a cliche, context is king. When you have conversations where you can ask follow-up questions and understand how the customer truly feels about a problem, the feedback is invaluable. 

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Because, to quote a cliche, context is king. When you have conversations where you can ask follow-up questions and understand how the customer truly feels about a problem, the feedback is invaluable. 

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“We used to create highlight video reels from all of these interviews and share it with our design team and engineering team, so that everyone is building context together. In fact, that became part of my employee onboarding package, where I would send them a playlist of videos to watch in which the market discovery is happening so that people develop empathy for the problem,” Sri says. 

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“We used to create highlight video reels from all of these interviews and share it with our design team and engineering team, so that everyone is building context together. In fact, that became part of my employee onboarding package, where I would send them a playlist of videos to watch in which the market discovery is happening so that people develop empathy for the problem,” Sri says. 

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But there are instances where Rocketlane has used non-interview methods to branch into adjacent markets. But it wasn’t just a plain vanilla “answer these questions” kind of exercise. It engaged a consulting company called JJellyfish about a year after it launched the initial product. 

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But there are instances where Rocketlane has used non-interview methods to branch into adjacent markets. But it wasn’t just a plain vanilla “answer these questions” kind of exercise. It engaged a consulting company called JJellyfish about a year after it launched the initial product. 

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“We used to create highlight video reels from (customer) interviews and share it with our design team and engineering team, so that everyone is building context together.” - Sri

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“We used to create highlight video reels from (customer) interviews and share it with our design team and engineering team, so that everyone is building context together.” - Sri

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“They came up with a questionnaire. We worked on it together with them to validate what the questions should be,” Sri says. “One interesting thing the research firm did was, when they picked a list of profiles we wanted to reach out to, they researched each person. So in the outreach, each of those folks got one reference point about them, which made it seem more personal. Things such as I heard you on a certain podcast, and you talked about something we want to address through this questionnaire. And that got a very good response rate,” he adds. 

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“They came up with a questionnaire. We worked on it together with them to validate what the questions should be,” Sri says. “One interesting thing the research firm did was, when they picked a list of profiles we wanted to reach out to, they researched each person. So in the outreach, each of those folks got one reference point about them, which made it seem more personal. Things such as I heard you on a certain podcast, and you talked about something we want to address through this questionnaire. And that got a very good response rate,” he adds. 

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Difference in market research in India vs the US

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Difference in market research in India vs the US

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Rocketlane has mostly stuck to its plan of focusing its research on the US, but it has always had strong connections and pull from some India-based businesses. Sri says the only difference worth talking about in carrying out a market discovery exercise in the two markets is the approach towards running the business.

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Rocketlane has mostly stuck to its plan of focusing its research on the US, but it has always had strong connections and pull from some India-based businesses. Sri says the only difference worth talking about in carrying out a market discovery exercise in the two markets is the approach towards running the business.

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In India, the general approach to work is not necessarily thinking about scaling or making resources productive faster. Instinctually, Indian companies want to synthesise access to cheap labour into finding a solution, while in the US, the focus is on automation. 

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In India, the general approach to work is not necessarily thinking about scaling or making resources productive faster. Instinctually, Indian companies want to synthesise access to cheap labour into finding a solution, while in the US, the focus is on automation. 

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Another nuance to be aware of, Sri says, is the level of team maturity. It helps you determine if your customer is going to be able to drive adoption, usage and success with your product. “For example, if it's a tool that needs adoption from a team, it's far easier to sell it and have that adoption happen in the US versus in India. In India, people resist new tooling-related changes unless there is a monetary benefit attached to it. Such as say, people in sales are generally open to trying new tools because it will help them hit their numbers,” Sri says. 

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Another nuance to be aware of, Sri says, is the level of team maturity. It helps you determine if your customer is going to be able to drive adoption, usage and success with your product. “For example, if it's a tool that needs adoption from a team, it's far easier to sell it and have that adoption happen in the US versus in India. In India, people resist new tooling-related changes unless there is a monetary benefit attached to it. Such as say, people in sales are generally open to trying new tools because it will help them hit their numbers,” Sri says. 

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It is clear as day that market discovery is not just about sales. It feeds into the product roadmap, engineering design, and eventually the final shape your product takes as you go to market. Besides, it also brings the founder closer to the customer and their pain points, helping guide overall GTM strategy. So invest in those early conversations. The ROI will go far beyond your expectations, as you begin to see customer adoption and engagement from the get go. 

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It is clear as day that market discovery is not just about sales. It feeds into the product roadmap, engineering design, and eventually the final shape your product takes as you go to market. Besides, it also brings the founder closer to the customer and their pain points, helping guide overall GTM strategy. So invest in those early conversations. The ROI will go far beyond your expectations, as you begin to see customer adoption and engagement from the get go. 

" } }

When should you first think about going global

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This article was originally published on Limitless. 

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This article was originally published on Limitless. 

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Indian founders are on global journeys, and that means finding and perfecting product-market fit in different geographies. It is akin to navigating through different roads and cultural structures, physically and metaphorically. But before they begin to think of PMF, a more fundamental question is when to start planning for a new journey. Should it be after perfecting PMF in their home market? Should it be after achieving certain milestones?

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Indian founders are on global journeys, and that means finding and perfecting product-market fit in different geographies. It is akin to navigating through different roads and cultural structures, physically and metaphorically. But before they begin to think of PMF, a more fundamental question is when to start planning for a new journey. Should it be after perfecting PMF in their home market? Should it be after achieving certain milestones?

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There is no one-size-fits-all answer to these questions. The industry and context of what you’re building are what matter the most, and your journey can take a different route from everyone else’s. Companies, such as Darwinbox, have perfected their business models in India, before eyeing overseas markets. Others, such as Rocketlane, built their product for the US.

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There is no one-size-fits-all answer to these questions. The industry and context of what you’re building are what matter the most, and your journey can take a different route from everyone else’s. Companies, such as Darwinbox, have perfected their business models in India, before eyeing overseas markets. Others, such as Rocketlane, built their product for the US.

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For this piece, we spoke to Rohit Choudhary, the co-founder and CEO of Acceldata, which helps customers monitor their large-scale data systems end to end. With a presence in the US, India, Asia and West Asia, Rohit knows a thing or two about building and scaling an international business. 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(423) "

For this piece, we spoke to Rohit Choudhary, the co-founder and CEO of Acceldata, which helps customers monitor their large-scale data systems end to end. With a presence in the US, India, Asia and West Asia, Rohit knows a thing or two about building and scaling an international business. 

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Here he answers some common questions founders have about the process of going international, based on how he navigated his journey, and some learnings from the larger market. 

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Here he answers some common questions founders have about the process of going international, based on how he navigated his journey, and some learnings from the larger market. 

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What is product-market fit?

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What is product-market fit?

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Product-market fit is often a paradox — it is something so abstract you may never know what it is, but when you have PMF, there are quantitative and qualitative ways of measuring it. The right question, Rohit says, is how do you navigate PMF, instead of discovering it. Particularly while navigating international waters for the first time. 

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Product-market fit is often a paradox — it is something so abstract you may never know what it is, but when you have PMF, there are quantitative and qualitative ways of measuring it. The right question, Rohit says, is how do you navigate PMF, instead of discovering it. Particularly while navigating international waters for the first time. 

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First, size up the opportunity. “Begin by understanding if the market for what you’re selling is big enough. If you find that this market exists, the next step is to understand that all software is not bought in the same quantity,” he says. 

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First, size up the opportunity. “Begin by understanding if the market for what you’re selling is big enough. If you find that this market exists, the next step is to understand that all software is not bought in the same quantity,” he says. 

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For example, if you were in India and building for enterprise customers, a few segments such as security, virtualisation, cloud infrastructure, data infrastructure, and data analytics are high TAM (total addressable market). In these segments, it is quite likely that you will have applicability in advanced markets such as North America as well. 

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For example, if you were in India and building for enterprise customers, a few segments such as security, virtualisation, cloud infrastructure, data infrastructure, and data analytics are high TAM (total addressable market). In these segments, it is quite likely that you will have applicability in advanced markets such as North America as well. 

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“Even if you thought you have PMF, you will likely not have it right away because the moment you take the product to the customer, they will tell you a number of things that are missing from the product. You address those, and your PMF evolves over a period of time.” - Rohit

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“Even if you thought you have PMF, you will likely not have it right away because the moment you take the product to the customer, they will tell you a number of things that are missing from the product. You address those, and your PMF evolves over a period of time.” - Rohit

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Then, you begin to validate your hypothesis about the market and demand. “This can happen only when you're close to your customers or early adopters,” in Rohit’s opinion. 

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Then, you begin to validate your hypothesis about the market and demand. “This can happen only when you're close to your customers or early adopters,” in Rohit’s opinion. 

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Then, you begin to validate your hypothesis about the market and demand. “This can happen only when you're close to your customers or early adopters,” in Rohit’s opinion. 

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Then, you begin to validate your hypothesis about the market and demand. “This can happen only when you're close to your customers or early adopters,” in Rohit’s opinion. 

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It is during this process that you begin to think about the holy grail of PMF. “Even if you thought you have PMF, you will likely not have it right away because the moment you take the product to the customer, they will tell you a number of things that are missing from the product. You address those, and your PMF evolves over a period of time,” Rohit says. 

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It is during this process that you begin to think about the holy grail of PMF. “Even if you thought you have PMF, you will likely not have it right away because the moment you take the product to the customer, they will tell you a number of things that are missing from the product. You address those, and your PMF evolves over a period of time,” Rohit says. 

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Will I have to significantly rewire my thinking?

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Will I have to significantly rewire my thinking?

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“It is important to note that the US is an iPhone-first market,” he says. This is an interesting way to think about it. 

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“It is important to note that the US is an iPhone-first market,” he says. This is an interesting way to think about it. 

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The average US customer, and even end-consumer, is used to a seamless, glitch-free software experience. It becomes imperative to provide the same level of experience to your customer when you build for the market. In contrast, a product in India will get used on higher- and lower-end machines and customers will want a lot of hand holding or custom services, which means you have to put greater focus on optimising your product to work under all conditions. 

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The average US customer, and even end-consumer, is used to a seamless, glitch-free software experience. It becomes imperative to provide the same level of experience to your customer when you build for the market. In contrast, a product in India will get used on higher- and lower-end machines and customers will want a lot of hand holding or custom services, which means you have to put greater focus on optimising your product to work under all conditions. 

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With this context, if your product “will solve somebody's problem at a price point that is acceptable, you will have tremendous applicability,” Rohit adds. 

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With this context, if your product “will solve somebody's problem at a price point that is acceptable, you will have tremendous applicability,” Rohit adds. 

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What parameters should I track to know if I am on the right path of product-market fit?

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What parameters should I track to know if I am on the right path of product-market fit?

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The answer to this question depends on industry context and the problem you’re solving. “For Acceldata, the important thing was not the country in which you work. It was how much volume of data do you have. So, anchoring your business on the vector of your long term growth is the only way by which you can actually decipher signals from noise,” Rohit explains. 

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The answer to this question depends on industry context and the problem you’re solving. “For Acceldata, the important thing was not the country in which you work. It was how much volume of data do you have. So, anchoring your business on the vector of your long term growth is the only way by which you can actually decipher signals from noise,” Rohit explains. 

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He further talks about a few false flags you should steer clear of:

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He further talks about a few false flags you should steer clear of:

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Suppose you’re getting good signals from smaller customers in India, but if those customers don't exist in the US or Europe, you won’t be able to replicate that success. Your PMF should be based on long term pricing vectors that work as your order volume expands. If your initial hypothesis about your target market holds, then you will see growth across all geographies. 

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Suppose you’re getting good signals from smaller customers in India, but if those customers don't exist in the US or Europe, you won’t be able to replicate that success. Your PMF should be based on long term pricing vectors that work as your order volume expands. If your initial hypothesis about your target market holds, then you will see growth across all geographies. 

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(11) "

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Pro tip: Early design partnerships are very helpful to test the waters and understand what works.

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Pro tip: Early design partnerships are very helpful to test the waters and understand what works.

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Don’t deviate from your core business vectors, even if it means a 15-20% lesser revenue on some deals. In 2019, Acceldata was signing smaller deals in Asia Pacific, uncommon in the growth stage of international expansion. But Rohit had a reason. “We were not looking at it from a lens of geography. We were looking at it from the lens of how much data volume the customer had,” he explains. Their core business vector was data volume which helped build out the platform and inform better business decisions.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(524) "

Don’t deviate from your core business vectors, even if it means a 15-20% lesser revenue on some deals. In 2019, Acceldata was signing smaller deals in Asia Pacific, uncommon in the growth stage of international expansion. But Rohit had a reason. “We were not looking at it from a lens of geography. We were looking at it from the lens of how much data volume the customer had,” he explains. Their core business vector was data volume which helped build out the platform and inform better business decisions.

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Should my sales strategy change when selling outside India?

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Should my sales strategy change when selling outside India?

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The thing that will help founders figure out sales in any geography is getting to the heart of what customers are paying for. 

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The thing that will help founders figure out sales in any geography is getting to the heart of what customers are paying for. 

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The way to figure this out is through working with your initial design partners and looking for patterns that work. Tracking your annual contract value (ACV) is an indicator Acceldata tracked in the early days, and took the time to understand that a typical sales cycle in their industry could be as long as 200 days. 

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The way to figure this out is through working with your initial design partners and looking for patterns that work. Tracking your annual contract value (ACV) is an indicator Acceldata tracked in the early days, and took the time to understand that a typical sales cycle in their industry could be as long as 200 days. 

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Other than this, the basic sales principles remain the same. “You still have to do founder-led sales for the first few years. Look at your TCV (total contract value), what is the repeatable pattern? You might get a couple of initial sales people who will follow your playbook or your pitch. And then you learn together. Your sales guy will teach you sales mechanisms and processes. And as a founder, if you come from an engineering product background, you teach them your pitch,” he adds. 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(507) "

Other than this, the basic sales principles remain the same. “You still have to do founder-led sales for the first few years. Look at your TCV (total contract value), what is the repeatable pattern? You might get a couple of initial sales people who will follow your playbook or your pitch. And then you learn together. Your sales guy will teach you sales mechanisms and processes. And as a founder, if you come from an engineering product background, you teach them your pitch,” he adds. 

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How about the overall hiring strategy? Should I change it significantly?

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How about the overall hiring strategy? Should I change it significantly?

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Hiring decisions and strategies change as the company grows. 

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Hiring decisions and strategies change as the company grows. 

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“Initially you need people who are jack of all trades, and can get things moving. But as you go along, you have to hire for expertise. And that’s when you look for the best,” Rohit says. 

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“Initially you need people who are jack of all trades, and can get things moving. But as you go along, you have to hire for expertise. And that’s when you look for the best,” Rohit says. 

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“Conduct experiments as quickly as possible, and give yourself time to succeed in the long term. Because as your company starts taking shape and form, every incremental mistake is very expensive.” - Rohit.

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“Conduct experiments as quickly as possible, and give yourself time to succeed in the long term. Because as your company starts taking shape and form, every incremental mistake is very expensive.” - Rohit.

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But these are general good practices. Every founder makes mistakes, and startups are all built on experiments. Some work, and some don’t, and either is fine, because every mistake is an opportunity to learn. The only advice Rohit has for founders is to conduct experiments early on. 

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But these are general good practices. Every founder makes mistakes, and startups are all built on experiments. Some work, and some don’t, and either is fine, because every mistake is an opportunity to learn. The only advice Rohit has for founders is to conduct experiments early on. 

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“Conduct experiments as quickly as possible, and give yourself time to succeed in the long term. Because as your company starts taking shape and form, every incremental mistake is very expensive. For example, when you get into the growth years, skipping a whole year or missing out on a whole year can be a lot more expensive than the early PMF finding days,” he adds. 

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“Conduct experiments as quickly as possible, and give yourself time to succeed in the long term. Because as your company starts taking shape and form, every incremental mistake is very expensive. For example, when you get into the growth years, skipping a whole year or missing out on a whole year can be a lot more expensive than the early PMF finding days,” he adds. 

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At the end of the day, what matters most is building a good product that will stand the test of time, and bring in revenue even as you scale. At the heart of PMF in any geography is your customer and a true pain point you are solving for them. 

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At the end of the day, what matters most is building a good product that will stand the test of time, and bring in revenue even as you scale. At the heart of PMF in any geography is your customer and a true pain point you are solving for them. 

" } }

SGx

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No equity. No fee. Just 100% commitment towards Indian SaaS. SGx is a 16-week, implementation-focused program for SaaS Startups that come through a thorough selection process." 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Company	Description	Post-funding valuation in USD	Funding in USD	Base in India	Year of Founding	Unicorn Club entry	Stage
Amagi	Cloud based CTV ad insertion software	1,400,000,000	359,387,812	Bengaluru	2008	March, 2022	Series F
BrowserStack	Cloud based software testing suite solutions	4,000,000,000	250,000,000	Mumbai	2011	June, 2021	Series B
Chargebee	Cloud-based subscription billing and revenue management solutions for businesses	3,500,000,000	480,000,000	Pune	2011	April, 2021	Series H
CitiusTech	Offers a range of analytical solutions and technology services for healthcare providers	2,200,000,000	1,110,000,000	Mumbai	2005	June, 2019	Acquired
CommerceIQ	Provider of SaaS and AI-based analytics software for e-commerce businesses	1,000,000,000	195,500,000	Bengaluru	2012	March, 2022	Series D
Darwinbox	Tech company offering end-to-end HR operations management solutions	1,000,000,000	135,567,138	Hyderabad	2015	January, 2022	Series D
Druva	Cloud data platform offering data backup and protection solutions	2,000,000,000	475,250,002	Pune	2008	June, 2019	Series H
Eightfold	AI-based talent intelligence solutions for enterprises	2,100,000,000	410,000,000	Noida	2016	October, 2020	Series E
Freshworks	Cloud-based business process management suite solutions	3,500,000,000	483,999,930	Chennai	2010	July, 2018	Public
Gupshup	AI and cloud-based chatbot development platform	957,000,000	385,835,000	Mumbai	2004	April, 2021	Series F
Hasura	Cloud based graghql API development platform	1,000,000,000	136,532,036	Bengaluru	2017	February, 2022	Series C
HighRadius	Cloud-based accounts receivable and treasury management solutions for businesses	3,100,000,000	475000000	Hyderabad	2006	January, 2022	Series C
Icertis	AI powered contract lifecycle management platform	5,000,000,000	520,000,000	Pune	2009	July, 2019	Series F
Innovaccer	Cloud-based data analytics platform for healthcare providers and payers	3,200,000,000	378,600,000	Bengaluru	2014	February, 2021	Series E
LEAD School	Provider of digital learning solutions for schools	1,000,000,000	170,400,000	Mumbai	2012	January, 2022	Series E
LeadSquared	Cloud based sales CRM and marketing automation solutions	1,000,000,000	203,512,768	Bengaluru	2011	June, 2022	Series C
Mindtickle	Cloud based sales enablement software	1,200,000,000	281,286,300	Pune	2011	August, 2021	Series E
Postman	Platform offering API development solutions	5,600,000,000	433,976,914	Bengaluru	2014	June, 2020	Series D
Shiprocket	Provider of logistic solution for eCommerce businesses	1,300,000,000	330,335,448	Gurugram	2012	August, 2022	Series E
Uniphore	AI and cloud-based platform offering conversational service automation solutions	2,500,000,000	657,684,201	Chennai	2008	February, 2022	Series E
Zenoti	Provider of cloud-driven salon business management software	1,500,000,000	331,000,000	Hyderabad	2010	December, 2020	Series D
Zeta	Provider of cloud-based payment and banking solutions for banks and enterprises	1,500,000,000	349,912,922	Bengaluru	2015	May, 2021	Series C
Zoho	AI powered marketing and sales management platform	5,944,566,006		Chennai	1996	April, 2019	Bootstrapped

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Company	Description	Post-funding valuation in USD	Funding in USD	Base in India	Year of Founding	Unicorn Club entry	Stage
Amagi	Cloud based CTV ad insertion software	1,400,000,000	359,387,812	Bengaluru	2008	March, 2022	Series F
BrowserStack	Cloud based software testing suite solutions	4,000,000,000	250,000,000	Mumbai	2011	June, 2021	Series B
Chargebee	Cloud-based subscription billing and revenue management solutions for businesses	3,500,000,000	480,000,000	Pune	2011	April, 2021	Series H
CitiusTech	Offers a range of analytical solutions and technology services for healthcare providers	2,200,000,000	1,110,000,000	Mumbai	2005	June, 2019	Acquired
CommerceIQ	Provider of SaaS and AI-based analytics software for e-commerce businesses	1,000,000,000	195,500,000	Bengaluru	2012	March, 2022	Series D
Darwinbox	Tech company offering end-to-end HR operations management solutions	1,000,000,000	135,567,138	Hyderabad	2015	January, 2022	Series D
Druva	Cloud data platform offering data backup and protection solutions	2,000,000,000	475,250,002	Pune	2008	June, 2019	Series H
Eightfold	AI-based talent intelligence solutions for enterprises	2,100,000,000	410,000,000	Noida	2016	October, 2020	Series E
Freshworks	Cloud-based business process management suite solutions	3,500,000,000	483,999,930	Chennai	2010	July, 2018	Public
Gupshup	AI and cloud-based chatbot development platform	957,000,000	385,835,000	Mumbai	2004	April, 2021	Series F
Hasura	Cloud based graghql API development platform	1,000,000,000	136,532,036	Bengaluru	2017	February, 2022	Series C
HighRadius	Cloud-based accounts receivable and treasury management solutions for businesses	3,100,000,000	475000000	Hyderabad	2006	January, 2022	Series C
Icertis	AI powered contract lifecycle management platform	5,000,000,000	520,000,000	Pune	2009	July, 2019	Series F
Innovaccer	Cloud-based data analytics platform for healthcare providers and payers	3,200,000,000	378,600,000	Bengaluru	2014	February, 2021	Series E
LEAD School	Provider of digital learning solutions for schools	1,000,000,000	170,400,000	Mumbai	2012	January, 2022	Series E
LeadSquared	Cloud based sales CRM and marketing automation solutions	1,000,000,000	203,512,768	Bengaluru	2011	June, 2022	Series C
Mindtickle	Cloud based sales enablement software	1,200,000,000	281,286,300	Pune	2011	August, 2021	Series E
Postman	Platform offering API development solutions	5,600,000,000	433,976,914	Bengaluru	2014	June, 2020	Series D
Shiprocket	Provider of logistic solution for eCommerce businesses	1,300,000,000	330,335,448	Gurugram	2012	August, 2022	Series E
Uniphore	AI and cloud-based platform offering conversational service automation solutions	2,500,000,000	657,684,201	Chennai	2008	February, 2022	Series E
Zenoti	Provider of cloud-driven salon business management software	1,500,000,000	331,000,000	Hyderabad	2010	December, 2020	Series D
Zeta	Provider of cloud-based payment and banking solutions for banks and enterprises	1,500,000,000	349,912,922	Bengaluru	2015	May, 2021	Series C
Zoho	AI powered marketing and sales management platform	5,944,566,006		Chennai	1996	April, 2019	Bootstrapped

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SaaSBoomi: Parallel runway for SaaS entrepreneurs

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This article was originally posted on Maneesh's Substack.

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This article was originally posted on Maneesh's Substack.

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I first learnt the widespread spirit of volunteering among American public in 2001-02 when my business partner Robert Levine (ex-MD Deutsche Bank) warned me before joining me at SENA Systems that he will not be able to travel on Tuesdays unless it’s an emergency.

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I first learnt the widespread spirit of volunteering among American public in 2001-02 when my business partner Robert Levine (ex-MD Deutsche Bank) warned me before joining me at SENA Systems that he will not be able to travel on Tuesdays unless it’s an emergency.

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He was an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) volunteer for his small town Fanwood in the Middlesex county. The fire-station with the emergency vehicle was about 10 minutes drive from our office and whenever he received a pager, he would drop everything, go pick up the vehicle, and drive to attend the patient or take them to the nearest hospital. This was a bit (pleasantly) shocking for me to see that a senior executive is doing regular community work.

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He was an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) volunteer for his small town Fanwood in the Middlesex county. The fire-station with the emergency vehicle was about 10 minutes drive from our office and whenever he received a pager, he would drop everything, go pick up the vehicle, and drive to attend the patient or take them to the nearest hospital. This was a bit (pleasantly) shocking for me to see that a senior executive is doing regular community work.

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SaaSBoomi is a community of SaaS founders with Indian origin, and the Caravan in the bay area from 8-15th Sept 2023 was an exemplary model of adding significant value to founders especially at an early stage by those who have faced similar problems before, failed perhaps a few times but some succeeded to create highly scaled up businesses. The folks behind arranging the Caravan (in the pic above) are the finest souls setting an example of pay it forward movement that has been pushing India’s entrepreneurial ecosystem in the last decade. You can feel Avinash’s vision and dedication of making India a Product Nation throughout this event.

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SaaSBoomi is a community of SaaS founders with Indian origin, and the Caravan in the bay area from 8-15th Sept 2023 was an exemplary model of adding significant value to founders especially at an early stage by those who have faced similar problems before, failed perhaps a few times but some succeeded to create highly scaled up businesses. The folks behind arranging the Caravan (in the pic above) are the finest souls setting an example of pay it forward movement that has been pushing India’s entrepreneurial ecosystem in the last decade. You can feel Avinash’s vision and dedication of making India a Product Nation throughout this event.

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A couple of us were waiting for our cab at SaaStr on the 7th Sept to go back to Draper Univ, when I noticed two planes in the air almost parallel on a descent to SFO for landing. At first, I didn’t believe it but the other two had also not seen anything like this before, but we guessed that this must be parallel landing - I did check the Internet later. Entrepreneurship is a lonely journey, but SaaSBoomi Caravan opened up safe space and opportunities (1st runway) for us to create bonds with the peer group to feel connected, heard and learn from each other. And of course, the actionable sessions and insights (2nd runway) are like wind for the wings to take off.

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A couple of us were waiting for our cab at SaaStr on the 7th Sept to go back to Draper Univ, when I noticed two planes in the air almost parallel on a descent to SFO for landing. At first, I didn’t believe it but the other two had also not seen anything like this before, but we guessed that this must be parallel landing - I did check the Internet later. Entrepreneurship is a lonely journey, but SaaSBoomi Caravan opened up safe space and opportunities (1st runway) for us to create bonds with the peer group to feel connected, heard and learn from each other. And of course, the actionable sessions and insights (2nd runway) are like wind for the wings to take off.

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Anurag Wadehra’s US Product-Market-Fit, Jacco van der Kooij’s Selling in the US, Paul Brown’s Storytelling sessions were the highlights for me. Paul said “every founder must have a bit of Speilberg in them”. These gave us very specific takeaways (we applied the frameworks to find the answers and actions) for our own businesses. The Founder sessions from Girish (Freshworks), Jaspreet (Druva), Jyoti (Nutanix), Nickhil (Genepath) just to name a few were outstanding. M&A workshop, M&A clinics, VC connects, Industry connects added so much value to each one of us to short circuit the outreach and meeting 10s of such people under one roof.

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Anurag Wadehra’s US Product-Market-Fit, Jacco van der Kooij’s Selling in the US, Paul Brown’s Storytelling sessions were the highlights for me. Paul said “every founder must have a bit of Speilberg in them”. These gave us very specific takeaways (we applied the frameworks to find the answers and actions) for our own businesses. The Founder sessions from Girish (Freshworks), Jaspreet (Druva), Jyoti (Nutanix), Nickhil (Genepath) just to name a few were outstanding. M&A workshop, M&A clinics, VC connects, Industry connects added so much value to each one of us to short circuit the outreach and meeting 10s of such people under one roof.

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The surprise sessions from Tim Draper, Ezra Roizen added excitement to already high adrenal audience. To top these, several founders among us conducted informal sessions at the Draper lobby in early mornings or late evenings. Sharing growth hacks, tricks, knowledge, failures were so common almost every day.

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The surprise sessions from Tim Draper, Ezra Roizen added excitement to already high adrenal audience. To top these, several founders among us conducted informal sessions at the Draper lobby in early mornings or late evenings. Sharing growth hacks, tricks, knowledge, failures were so common almost every day.

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I met several founders from Pune who I didn’t know earlier. We have discussed a few sessions to help each other back home and have already planned a holiday trip this December. That’s the camaraderie this Caravan catalyses.

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I met several founders from Pune who I didn’t know earlier. We have discussed a few sessions to help each other back home and have already planned a holiday trip this December. That’s the camaraderie this Caravan catalyses.

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I learnt quite a bit from my (almost half my age) roommate Ajay Brooks - loved the “essentialism” book he was reading, got inspired and started doing meditation twice a day. He was extremely kind, even though the poor guys had to tolerate my snoring all this while. Got more book recommendations from other peers. Ezra (my favorite book on M&A) was kind enough to come to meet me and also share his thoughts with our entire group.

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I learnt quite a bit from my (almost half my age) roommate Ajay Brooks - loved the “essentialism” book he was reading, got inspired and started doing meditation twice a day. He was extremely kind, even though the poor guys had to tolerate my snoring all this while. Got more book recommendations from other peers. Ezra (my favorite book on M&A) was kind enough to come to meet me and also share his thoughts with our entire group.

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Jaspreet (Founder, Druva) shared a very relevant story about Mote uncle - he took his office neighbor “mote” uncle with him for a client meeting in Pune. During the meeting mote uncle did not open his mouth. Post the meeting, Jaspreet asked him why you didn’t say anything and he said, he (the client) neither had Niyat (intent) nor Aukat (decision maker). So true for so many of us wasting time with some prospects. Had a very interesting session by Rocketship VC partners Anand and Sailesh. Anand shared the story of his first venture which was competing with Yahoo. One day they were randomly listening to the song nby Mohammed Rafi “Yahoo, Chahe koi mujhe Junglee kahe” and they named their startup Junglee. He joked saying they got their first VC investment on a good song and chemistry among the founders.

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Jaspreet (Founder, Druva) shared a very relevant story about Mote uncle - he took his office neighbor “mote” uncle with him for a client meeting in Pune. During the meeting mote uncle did not open his mouth. Post the meeting, Jaspreet asked him why you didn’t say anything and he said, he (the client) neither had Niyat (intent) nor Aukat (decision maker). So true for so many of us wasting time with some prospects. Had a very interesting session by Rocketship VC partners Anand and Sailesh. Anand shared the story of his first venture which was competing with Yahoo. One day they were randomly listening to the song nby Mohammed Rafi “Yahoo, Chahe koi mujhe Junglee kahe” and they named their startup Junglee. He joked saying they got their first VC investment on a good song and chemistry among the founders.

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The lead volunteers Vinod and Priya did not let us rest even on a Sunday - with a full day of fun and bonding planned with hike, cricket, golf and BEERyani dinner. Volunteers got coffee, food from their house for the hikers, and we made everyone else around the Pleasanton Ridge Park jealous as we were enjoying the early breakfast on the roadside.

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The lead volunteers Vinod and Priya did not let us rest even on a Sunday - with a full day of fun and bonding planned with hike, cricket, golf and BEERyani dinner. Volunteers got coffee, food from their house for the hikers, and we made everyone else around the Pleasanton Ridge Park jealous as we were enjoying the early breakfast on the roadside.

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From getting rejected for SaaSBoomi, to not only making it in but actually landing with one broken leg, that’s the story of this brave entrepreneur from Mumbai, Geetika. Geetika’s soundbite at the end of the ceremony at Stanford Faculty Club (quoting Girish Mathrubootham, Founder of Freshworks) summed up the founder/startup spirit

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From getting rejected for SaaSBoomi, to not only making it in but actually landing with one broken leg, that’s the story of this brave entrepreneur from Mumbai, Geetika. Geetika’s soundbite at the end of the ceremony at Stanford Faculty Club (quoting Girish Mathrubootham, Founder of Freshworks) summed up the founder/startup spirit

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Avinash summed up the Vote of Thanks by saying: “I had a Dream” - One day SaaSBoomi will have a house like Draper University. Amen!

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Avinash summed up the Vote of Thanks by saying: “I had a Dream” - One day SaaSBoomi will have a house like Draper University. Amen!

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Looking forward to the SaaSBoomi annual in Chennai in March’24. Until then, keep in touch fellow founders!

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Looking forward to the SaaSBoomi annual in Chennai in March’24. Until then, keep in touch fellow founders!

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Pulse

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Promoting Unity, Leadership, and a Stronger Ecosystem through diversity, equity, and inclusion. A deliberate effort to create an inclusive SaaS startup ecosystem where all members feel respected, valued, and empowered to grow and thrive.

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The problem

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The problem

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The tech industry, including the SaaS startup ecosystem, is notoriously poor when it comes to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Women, people of color, individuals with disabilities, and people from the *LGBTQIA+ communities continue to be underrepresented, particularly in leadership and technical roles.

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The tech industry, including the SaaS startup ecosystem, is notoriously poor when it comes to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Women, people of color, individuals with disabilities, and people from the *LGBTQIA+ communities continue to be underrepresented, particularly in leadership and technical roles.

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PULSE: As you are is a structured program to bring underrepresented founders into the fold, involve them in activities, and help them succeed.

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PULSE: As you are is a structured program to bring underrepresented founders into the fold, involve them in activities, and help them succeed.

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Why is diversity, equity, and inclusivity important for the SaaS community?

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Why is diversity, equity, and inclusivity important for the SaaS community?

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The future of SaaS startups is Diverse and Inclusive. In our changing world, organizations embracing diversity and advancing inclusion will be the most successful in building an equitable workplace.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are three closely linked values held by many organizations that are working to be supportive of different groups of individuals, including people of different races, ethnicities, religions, abilities, genders, and sexual orientations.

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The future of SaaS startups is Diverse and Inclusive. In our changing world, organizations embracing diversity and advancing inclusion will be the most successful in building an equitable workplace.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are three closely linked values held by many organizations that are working to be supportive of different groups of individuals, including people of different races, ethnicities, religions, abilities, genders, and sexual orientations.

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Companies that are diverse, equitable, and inclusive are better able to respond to challenges, win top talent, and meet the needs of different customer bases. With DEI in mind, companies are considering how to better support employees. Over the past few years, many organizations have taken strides to build diversity, equity, and inclusion into their policies and hiring practices.

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Companies that are diverse, equitable, and inclusive are better able to respond to challenges, win top talent, and meet the needs of different customer bases. With DEI in mind, companies are considering how to better support employees. Over the past few years, many organizations have taken strides to build diversity, equity, and inclusion into their policies and hiring practices.

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Source: McKinsey Report

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" ["innerContent"]=> array(3) { [0]=> string(30) "

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" ["innerContent"]=> array(7) { [0]=> string(31) "

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" } } [26]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(10) "acf/spacer" ["attrs"]=> array(3) { ["name"]=> string(10) "acf/spacer" ["data"]=> array(6) { ["desktop"]=> string(2) "80" ["_desktop"]=> string(19) "field_6487fd9afda80" ["tablet"]=> string(2) "40" ["_tablet"]=> string(19) "field_6487fdc0fda81" ["mobile"]=> string(2) "40" ["_mobile"]=> string(19) "field_6487fdd1fda82" } ["mode"]=> string(4) "edit" } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(0) "" ["innerContent"]=> array(0) { } } [27]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(24) "acf/common-sponsors-list" ["attrs"]=> array(2) { ["name"]=> string(24) "acf/common-sponsors-list" ["mode"]=> string(7) "preview" } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(0) "" ["innerContent"]=> array(0) { } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(95) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(57) { [0]=> string(34) "

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" } }

Shortlisted Startups for Awards 2023

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" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(197) "

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" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(197) "

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Caravan ’23

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Caravan '23 is now over. Follow us on X and LinkedIn to be the first to know when we open up early bird registrations next year.

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Over the past few years, we have witnessed a meteoric rise in companies adopting SaaS as a business model. Indian SaaS companies are increasingly cementing their position in the global landscape, inspiring more founders to build for the world.

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Over the past few years, we have witnessed a meteoric rise in companies adopting SaaS as a business model. Indian SaaS companies are increasingly cementing their position in the global landscape, inspiring more founders to build for the world.

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Though market valuations are cooling off, we believe that SaaS is a secular trend, and India has the potential to touch $1 trillion inmarket cap by 2030. The Indian SaaS playbook has come of age. Now is the time for us to accelerate our learning from global peers, starting with those in the biggest enterprise software market, the US.

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Though market valuations are cooling off, we believe that SaaS is a secular trend, and India has the potential to touch $1 trillion inmarket cap by 2030. The Indian SaaS playbook has come of age. Now is the time for us to accelerate our learning from global peers, starting with those in the biggest enterprise software market, the US.

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"field_64884a85a2ec0" } ["mode"]=> string(4) "edit" } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(0) "" ["innerContent"]=> array(0) { } } [19]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(10) "acf/spacer" ["attrs"]=> array(3) { ["name"]=> string(10) "acf/spacer" ["data"]=> array(6) { ["desktop"]=> string(2) "32" ["_desktop"]=> string(19) "field_6487fd9afda80" ["tablet"]=> string(2) "16" ["_tablet"]=> string(19) "field_6487fdc0fda81" ["mobile"]=> string(2) "16" ["_mobile"]=> string(19) "field_6487fdd1fda82" } ["mode"]=> string(4) "edit" } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(0) "" ["innerContent"]=> array(0) { } } [20]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/columns" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(3) { [0]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(11) "core/column" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(1) { [0]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(8) "acf/card" ["attrs"]=> array(3) { ["name"]=> string(8) "acf/card" ["data"]=> array(12) { 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Join

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You can apply to be part of SaaSBoomi's online community if you are a founder of a SaaS startup that satisfies any of the following:

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You can apply to be part of SaaSBoomi's online community if you are a founder of a SaaS startup that satisfies any of the following:

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Criteria

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Criteria

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Your company should be a B2B SaaS product startup.

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Your company should be a B2B SaaS product startup.

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The Indian entity holds more than 50% ownership

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The Indian entity holds more than 50% ownership

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More than 50% of employees are in India

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More than 50% of employees are in India

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The company identifies itself as an Indian company on its main corporate website

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The company identifies itself as an Indian company on its main corporate website

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" ["innerContent"]=> array(9) { [0]=> string(21) "

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Playbook

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Each session zooms in on a specific, super-relevant topic, keeping everyone hooked and learning at their best. It's your ticket to not just knowledge, but an engaged, supportive community. Seize your seat at the table!" 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string(0) "" ["_people_list_3_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_3_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_3_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_4_people"]=> int(16104) ["_people_list_4_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_4_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_4_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_4_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_4_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_4_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_4_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_4_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_4_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_4_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_4_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_4_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_4_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_5_people"]=> int(9071) ["_people_list_5_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_5_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_5_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_5_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_5_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_5_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_5_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_5_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_5_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_5_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_5_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_5_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_5_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_6_people"]=> int(7436) ["_people_list_6_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_6_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_6_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_6_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_6_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_6_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_6_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_6_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_6_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_6_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_6_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_6_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_6_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_7_people"]=> int(7434) ["_people_list_7_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_7_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_7_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_7_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_7_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_7_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_7_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_7_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_7_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_7_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_7_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_7_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_7_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_8_people"]=> int(7552) ["_people_list_8_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_8_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_8_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_8_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_8_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_8_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_8_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_8_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_8_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_8_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_8_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_8_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_8_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_9_people"]=> int(8932) ["_people_list_9_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_9_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_9_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_9_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_9_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_9_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_9_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_9_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_9_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_9_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_9_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_9_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_9_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_10_people"]=> int(7438) ["_people_list_10_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_10_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_10_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_10_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_10_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_10_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_10_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_10_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_10_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_10_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_10_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_10_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_10_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_11_people"]=> int(7564) ["_people_list_11_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_11_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_11_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_11_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_11_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_11_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_11_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_11_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_11_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_11_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_11_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_11_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_11_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_12_people"]=> int(8845) ["_people_list_12_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_12_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_12_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_12_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_12_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_12_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_12_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_12_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_12_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_12_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_12_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_12_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_12_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_13_people"]=> int(7460) ["_people_list_13_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_13_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_13_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_13_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_13_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_13_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_13_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_13_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_13_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_13_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_13_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_13_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_13_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_14_people"]=> int(9208) ["_people_list_14_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_14_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_14_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_14_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_14_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_14_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_14_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_14_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_14_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_14_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_14_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_14_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_14_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_15_people"]=> int(7554) ["_people_list_15_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_15_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_15_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_15_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_15_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_15_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_15_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_15_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_15_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_15_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_15_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_15_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_15_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_16_people"]=> int(7442) ["_people_list_16_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_16_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_16_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_16_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_16_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_16_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_16_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_16_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_16_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_16_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_16_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_16_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_16_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_17_people"]=> int(18116) ["_people_list_17_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_17_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_17_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_17_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_17_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_17_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_17_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_17_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_17_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_17_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_17_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_17_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_17_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_18_people"]=> int(18120) ["_people_list_18_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_18_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_18_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_18_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_18_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_18_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_18_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_18_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_18_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_18_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_18_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_18_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_18_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_19_people"]=> int(18127) ["_people_list_19_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_19_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_19_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_19_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_19_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_19_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_19_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_19_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_19_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_19_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_19_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_19_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_19_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_20_people"]=> int(18137) ["_people_list_20_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_20_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_20_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_20_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_20_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_20_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_20_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_20_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_20_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_20_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_20_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_20_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_20_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_21_people"]=> int(18142) ["_people_list_21_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_21_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_21_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_21_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_21_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_21_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_21_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_21_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_21_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_21_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_21_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_21_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_21_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_22_people"]=> int(18147) ["_people_list_22_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_22_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_22_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_22_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_22_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_22_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_22_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_22_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_22_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_22_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_22_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_22_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_22_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_23_people"]=> int(18152) ["_people_list_23_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_23_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_23_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_23_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_23_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_23_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_23_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_23_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_23_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_23_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_23_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_23_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_23_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list"]=> int(24) ["_people_list"]=> string(19) "field_64a809200efb8" ["template_type"]=> string(5) "large" ["_template_type"]=> string(19) "field_64a809520efba" ["remove_bw_color"]=> string(1) "0" ["_remove_bw_color"]=> string(19) "field_65a125bc26aba" } ["mode"]=> string(4) "edit" } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(0) "" ["innerContent"]=> array(0) { } } [15]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(10) "acf/spacer" ["attrs"]=> array(3) { ["name"]=> string(10) "acf/spacer" ["data"]=> array(6) { ["desktop"]=> string(2) "80" ["_desktop"]=> string(19) "field_6487fd9afda80" ["tablet"]=> string(2) "40" ["_tablet"]=> string(19) "field_6487fdc0fda81" ["mobile"]=> string(2) "40" ["_mobile"]=> string(19) "field_6487fdd1fda82" } ["mode"]=> string(7) "preview" } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(0) "" ["innerContent"]=> array(0) { } } [16]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(28) "acf/people-three-column-list" ["attrs"]=> array(3) { ["name"]=> string(28) "acf/people-three-column-list" ["data"]=> array(286) { ["section_header"]=> string(13) "Meet the Team" ["_section_header"]=> string(19) "field_64a809150efb7" ["people_list_0_people"]=> int(7633) ["_people_list_0_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_0_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_0_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_0_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_0_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_0_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_0_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_0_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_0_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_0_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_0_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_0_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_0_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_1_people"]=> int(7474) ["_people_list_1_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_1_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_1_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_1_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_1_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_1_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_1_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_1_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_1_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_1_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_1_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_1_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_1_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_2_people"]=> int(7574) ["_people_list_2_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_2_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_2_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_2_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_2_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_2_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_2_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_2_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_2_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_2_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_2_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_2_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_2_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_3_people"]=> int(7570) ["_people_list_3_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_3_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_3_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_3_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_3_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_3_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_3_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_3_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_3_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_3_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_3_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_3_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_3_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_4_people"]=> int(7327) ["_people_list_4_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_4_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_4_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_4_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_4_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_4_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_4_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_4_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_4_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_4_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_4_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_4_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_4_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_5_people"]=> int(7615) ["_people_list_5_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_5_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_5_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_5_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_5_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_5_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_5_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_5_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_5_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_5_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_5_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_5_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_5_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_6_people"]=> int(7617) ["_people_list_6_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_6_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_6_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_6_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_6_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_6_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_6_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_6_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_6_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_6_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_6_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_6_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_6_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_7_people"]=> int(8924) ["_people_list_7_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_7_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_7_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_7_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_7_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_7_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_7_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_7_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_7_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_7_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_7_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_7_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_7_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_8_people"]=> int(7591) ["_people_list_8_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_8_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_8_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_8_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_8_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_8_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_8_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_8_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_8_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_8_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_8_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_8_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_8_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_9_people"]=> int(7468) ["_people_list_9_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_9_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_9_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_9_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_9_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_9_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_9_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_9_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_9_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_9_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_9_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_9_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_9_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_10_people"]=> int(7512) ["_people_list_10_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_10_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_10_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_10_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_10_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_10_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_10_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_10_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_10_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_10_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_10_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_10_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_10_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_11_people"]=> int(7597) ["_people_list_11_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_11_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_11_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_11_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_11_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_11_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_11_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_11_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_11_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_11_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_11_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_11_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_11_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_12_people"]=> int(8833) ["_people_list_12_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_12_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_12_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_12_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_12_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_12_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_12_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_12_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_12_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_12_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_12_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_12_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_12_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_13_people"]=> int(7627) ["_people_list_13_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_13_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_13_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_13_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_13_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_13_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_13_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_13_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_13_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_13_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_13_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_13_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_13_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_14_people"]=> int(7631) ["_people_list_14_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_14_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_14_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_14_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_14_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_14_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_14_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_14_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_14_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_14_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_14_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_14_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_14_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_15_people"]=> int(7542) ["_people_list_15_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_15_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_15_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_15_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_15_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_15_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_15_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64e72628f01f9" ["people_list_15_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_15_people_custom_data_linkedin"]=> string(19) "field_64e7262ef01fa" ["people_list_15_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_15_people_custom_data_twitter"]=> string(19) "field_64e7263ef01fb" ["people_list_15_people_custom_data"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_15_people_custom_data"]=> string(19) "field_64e725b0f01f6" ["people_list_16_people"]=> int(7635) ["_people_list_16_people"]=> string(19) "field_64a8092c0efb9" ["people_list_16_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_16_people_custom_data_image"]=> string(19) "field_64e72617f01f7" ["people_list_16_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_people_list_16_people_custom_data_name"]=> string(19) "field_64e72622f01f8" ["people_list_16_people_custom_data_designation"]=> string(0) "" 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SaaS Treasure

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Badminton League

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Badminton League 2023 is now over. Follow us on X and LinkedIn to be the first to know when we open up registrations for the tournament next.

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"Winner Jayendran ( Prudent AI) & Srikanth ( Prudent.AI) Runner-up Anurag (Increff) & Rajul (Increff)" ["_events_details_1_events_details_section_1_events_winners_2_content"]=> string(19) "field_64fad95bde63b" ["events_details_1_events_details_section_1_events_winners"]=> int(3) ["_events_details_1_events_details_section_1_events_winners"]=> string(19) "field_64fad949de639" ["events_details_1_events_details_section"]=> int(2) ["_events_details_1_events_details_section"]=> string(19) "field_64facf3ab0479" ["events_details"]=> int(2) ["_events_details"]=> string(19) "field_64facf0db0478" } ["mode"]=> string(4) "edit" ["className"]=> string(8) "header-3" } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(0) "" ["innerContent"]=> array(0) { } } [1]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/columns" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(3) { [0]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(11) "core/column" ["attrs"]=> array(1) { ["width"]=> string(3) "25%" } ["innerBlocks"]=> 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180+ founders and operators came together for a full day of fierce competition and a ton of fun! Here are some details of what went down at the Badminton League 2023!

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180+ founders and operators came together for a full day of fierce competition and a ton of fun! Here are some details of what went down at the Badminton League 2023!

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https://vimeo.com/837816314

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https://vimeo.com/837816314

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As a first time participant, I had absolutely nothing to worry about since the team had covered everything in terms of hospitality and event day experience. Also super glad to see a lot of advanced and professional-level badminton players in all categories across both age groups. Must say it's a lot tougher to win the SBL than to raise funding at this time." 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Thanks to SaasBoomi for organizing this and we look forward to next year!”" ["_block_testimonials_1_testimonial"]=> string(19) "field_64884c79c5937" ["block_testimonials"]=> int(2) ["_block_testimonials"]=> string(19) "field_64884bffc5933" ["testimonial_background_color"]=> string(7) "#b4d3ff" ["_testimonial_background_color"]=> string(19) "field_649d2008e5638" ["template_type"]=> string(10) "template_1" ["_template_type"]=> string(19) "field_64ad0d30f91b2" } ["mode"]=> string(4) "edit" } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(0) "" ["innerContent"]=> array(0) { } } [3]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(10) "acf/spacer" ["attrs"]=> array(3) { ["name"]=> string(10) "acf/spacer" ["data"]=> array(6) { ["desktop"]=> string(2) "80" ["_desktop"]=> string(19) "field_6487fd9afda80" ["tablet"]=> string(2) "40" ["_tablet"]=> string(19) "field_6487fdc0fda81" ["mobile"]=> string(2) "40" ["_mobile"]=> string(19) "field_6487fdd1fda82" } ["mode"]=> string(7) "preview" } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(0) "" ["innerContent"]=> array(0) { } } [4]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(26) "acf/highlight-image-slider" ["attrs"]=> array(3) { ["name"]=> string(26) "acf/highlight-image-slider" ["data"]=> array(12) { ["section_title"]=> string(29) "SaaS leaders ❤️ SaaSBoomi" ["_section_title"]=> string(19) "field_64abfe315ddd5" ["image_gallery"]=> array(7) { [0]=> string(4) "9830" [1]=> string(4) "9829" [2]=> string(4) "9828" [3]=> string(4) "9827" [4]=> string(4) "9826" [5]=> string(4) "9825" [6]=> string(4) "9831" } ["_image_gallery"]=> string(19) "field_64abfe4e5ddd6" ["question_section_0_question"]=> string(36) "Want all your photos from the event?" 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*Provided there are enough participants in each category

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*Provided there are enough participants in each category

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"field_6487fdd1fda82" } ["mode"]=> string(4) "edit" } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(0) "" ["innerContent"]=> array(0) { } } [12]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(24) "acf/common-sponsors-list" ["attrs"]=> array(2) { ["name"]=> string(24) "acf/common-sponsors-list" ["mode"]=> string(7) "preview" } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(0) "" ["innerContent"]=> array(0) { } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(65) "

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Code of Conduct

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Code of Conduct

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Code of Conduct

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Be patient and courteous.

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Be patient and courteous.

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This community is run by volunteers and founders, who are passionate about supporting the SaaS ecosystem in India. Be patient and courteous to them.

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This community is run by volunteers and founders, who are passionate about supporting the SaaS ecosystem in India. Be patient and courteous to them.

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Be inclusive.​

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Be inclusive.​

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We welcome and support people of all backgrounds and identities. This includes, but is not limited to members of any sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, race, ethnicity, culture, national origin, social and economic class, educational level, color, immigration status, sex, age, size, family status, political belief, religion, and mental and physical ability.

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We welcome and support people of all backgrounds and identities. This includes, but is not limited to members of any sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, race, ethnicity, culture, national origin, social and economic class, educational level, color, immigration status, sex, age, size, family status, political belief, religion, and mental and physical ability.

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Be considerate.

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Be considerate.

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​ We all depend on each other to produce the best work we can as a community. Your decisions will impact your peers, and you should take those consequences into account when making decisions.

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​ We all depend on each other to produce the best work we can as a community. Your decisions will impact your peers, and you should take those consequences into account when making decisions.

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Be respectful.

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Be respectful.

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​ We won’t all agree all the time, but disagreement is no excuse for disrespectful behavior. We will all experience frustration from time to time, but we cannot allow that frustration to become personal attacks. An environment where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive or creative one.

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​ We won’t all agree all the time, but disagreement is no excuse for disrespectful behavior. We will all experience frustration from time to time, but we cannot allow that frustration to become personal attacks. An environment where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive or creative one.

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Choose your words carefully.​

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Choose your words carefully.​

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Always conduct yourself professionally, during in-person events and on the digital platforms. Be kind to others. Do not insult or put down others. Harassment and exclusionary behavior aren’t acceptable. This includes, but is not limited to: – Threats of violence. – Discriminatory jokes and language. – Sharing sexually explicit or violent material via electronic devices or other means. – Personal insults, especially those using racist or sexist terms. – Unwelcome sexual attention. – Advocating for, or encouraging, any of the above behavior.

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Always conduct yourself professionally, during in-person events and on the digital platforms. Be kind to others. Do not insult or put down others. Harassment and exclusionary behavior aren’t acceptable. This includes, but is not limited to: – Threats of violence. – Discriminatory jokes and language. – Sharing sexually explicit or violent material via electronic devices or other means. – Personal insults, especially those using racist or sexist terms. – Unwelcome sexual attention. – Advocating for, or encouraging, any of the above behavior.

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Our differences can be our strengths.​

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Our differences can be our strengths.​

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We can find strength in diversity. Different people have different perspectives on issues, and that can be valuable for solving problems or generating new ideas. Being unable to understand why someone holds a viewpoint doesn’t mean that they’re wrong. Don’t forget that we all make mistakes, and blaming each other doesn’t get us anywhere.

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We can find strength in diversity. Different people have different perspectives on issues, and that can be valuable for solving problems or generating new ideas. Being unable to understand why someone holds a viewpoint doesn’t mean that they’re wrong. Don’t forget that we all make mistakes, and blaming each other doesn’t get us anywhere.

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Respect the confidential part of the sessions.

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Respect the confidential part of the sessions.

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Founders open up their playbooks in some sessions. Conversations on the floor of a conference may involve people openly sharing sensitive information about their companies. Please do not share this information on social media.

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Founders open up their playbooks in some sessions. Conversations on the floor of a conference may involve people openly sharing sensitive information about their companies. Please do not share this information on social media.

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Terms and Conditions

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Terms and Conditions

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Terms and Conditions

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Last updated 05 Sep 2023

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Last updated 05 Sep 2023

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Introduction

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Introduction

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Welcome to SaaSBOOMi Foundation (“Community”, “we”, “our”, “us”)!

These Terms of Service (“Terms”, “Terms of Service”) govern your use of our website located at https://saasboomi.org (together or individually “Service”) operated by SaaSBOOMi Foundation.

Our Privacy Policy (link) also governs your use of our Service and explains how we collect, safeguard and disclose information that results from your use of our web pages.

Your agreement with us includes these Terms and our Privacy Policy (“Agreements”). You acknowledge that you have read and understood Agreements, and agree to be bound by them.

If you do not agree with (or cannot comply with) Agreements, then you may not use the Service, but please let us know by emailing at [email protected] so we can try to find a solution. These Terms apply to all visitors, users and others who wish to access or use Service.

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Welcome to SaaSBOOMi Foundation (“Community”, “we”, “our”, “us”)!

These Terms of Service (“Terms”, “Terms of Service”) govern your use of our website located at https://saasboomi.org (together or individually “Service”) operated by SaaSBOOMi Foundation.

Our Privacy Policy (link) also governs your use of our Service and explains how we collect, safeguard and disclose information that results from your use of our web pages.

Your agreement with us includes these Terms and our Privacy Policy (“Agreements”). You acknowledge that you have read and understood Agreements, and agree to be bound by them.

If you do not agree with (or cannot comply with) Agreements, then you may not use the Service, but please let us know by emailing at [email protected] so we can try to find a solution. These Terms apply to all visitors, users and others who wish to access or use Service.

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Communications

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Communications

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By using our Service, you agree to subscribe to newsletters, marketing or promotional materials and other information we may send. However, you may opt out of receiving any, or all, of these communications from us by following the unsubscribe link or by emailing at [email protected].

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By using our Service, you agree to subscribe to newsletters, marketing or promotional materials and other information we may send. However, you may opt out of receiving any, or all, of these communications from us by following the unsubscribe link or by emailing at [email protected].

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Contests, Sweepstakes and Promotions

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Contests, Sweepstakes and Promotions

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Any contests, sweepstakes or other promotions (collectively, “Promotions”) made available through Service may be governed by rules that are separate from these Terms of Service. If you participate in any Promotions, please review the applicable rules as well as our Privacy Policy (link). If the rules for a Promotion conflict with these Terms of Service, Promotion rules will apply.

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Any contests, sweepstakes or other promotions (collectively, “Promotions”) made available through Service may be governed by rules that are separate from these Terms of Service. If you participate in any Promotions, please review the applicable rules as well as our Privacy Policy (link). If the rules for a Promotion conflict with these Terms of Service, Promotion rules will apply.

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Content

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Content

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Content found on or through this Service are the property of SaaSBOOMi Foundation or used with permission. You may not distribute, modify, transmit, reuse, download, repost, copy, or use said Content, whether in whole or in part, for commercial purposes or for personal gain, without express advance written permission from us.

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Content found on or through this Service are the property of SaaSBOOMi Foundation or used with permission. You may not distribute, modify, transmit, reuse, download, repost, copy, or use said Content, whether in whole or in part, for commercial purposes or for personal gain, without express advance written permission from us.

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Changes to Events, Meet-ups, Webinars, Conferences

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Changes to Events, Meet-ups, Webinars, Conferences

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It may be necessary for reasons beyond our reasonable control to alter the advertised content, timing and/or location of the conference or the advertised speakers or cancel the event. We reserve the right to do this at any time. When we alter the time and/or location of the conference, we will provide you with notice of the same and will offer you the choice of either a credit for a future event of your choice (up to the value of money paid by you for the event) or the opportunity to attend the event as varied.

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It may be necessary for reasons beyond our reasonable control to alter the advertised content, timing and/or location of the conference or the advertised speakers or cancel the event. We reserve the right to do this at any time. When we alter the time and/or location of the conference, we will provide you with notice of the same and will offer you the choice of either a credit for a future event of your choice (up to the value of money paid by you for the event) or the opportunity to attend the event as varied.

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No refunds will be given for cancellations or non-attendance.

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No refunds will be given for cancellations or non-attendance.

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We shall not be liable to you for fees, travel, accommodation or other costs and expenses incurred (included wasted costs and expenses) if we are required to cancel or relocate the conference as a result of an event outside our control (including, without limitation, to acts of God, floods, lightning, storm, fire, explosion, war, military operations, acts of terrorism or threats of any such acts, any strike action, lock-outs or other industrial action and a pandemic, epidemic or other widespread illness or force majeure).

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We shall not be liable to you for fees, travel, accommodation or other costs and expenses incurred (included wasted costs and expenses) if we are required to cancel or relocate the conference as a result of an event outside our control (including, without limitation, to acts of God, floods, lightning, storm, fire, explosion, war, military operations, acts of terrorism or threats of any such acts, any strike action, lock-outs or other industrial action and a pandemic, epidemic or other widespread illness or force majeure).

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Prohibited Uses

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Prohibited Uses

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You may use Service only for lawful purposes and in accordance with Terms. You agree not to use Service:

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You may use Service only for lawful purposes and in accordance with Terms. You agree not to use Service:

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In any way that violates any applicable national or international law or regulation. 

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In any way that violates any applicable national or international law or regulation. 

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For the purpose of exploiting, harming, or attempting to exploit or harm minors in any way by exposing them to inappropriate content or otherwise.

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For the purpose of exploiting, harming, or attempting to exploit or harm minors in any way by exposing them to inappropriate content or otherwise.

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To transmit, or procure the sending of, any advertising or promotional material, including any “junk mail”, “chain letter,” “spam,” or any other similar solicitation.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(189) "

To transmit, or procure the sending of, any advertising or promotional material, including any “junk mail”, “chain letter,” “spam,” or any other similar solicitation.

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To impersonate or attempt to impersonate Community, a Community employee, another user, or any other person or entity.

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To impersonate or attempt to impersonate Community, a Community employee, another user, or any other person or entity.

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In any way that infringes upon the rights of others, or in any way is illegal, threatening, fraudulent, or harmful, or in connection with any unlawful, illegal, fraudulent, or harmful purpose or activity.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(215) "

In any way that infringes upon the rights of others, or in any way is illegal, threatening, fraudulent, or harmful, or in connection with any unlawful, illegal, fraudulent, or harmful purpose or activity.

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To engage in any other conduct that restricts or inhibits anyone’s use or enjoyment of Service, or which, as determined by us, may harm or offend Community or users of Service or expose them to liability.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(217) "

To engage in any other conduct that restricts or inhibits anyone’s use or enjoyment of Service, or which, as determined by us, may harm or offend Community or users of Service or expose them to liability.

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(21) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(13) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(2) " " [7]=> NULL [8]=> string(2) " " [9]=> NULL [10]=> string(2) " " [11]=> NULL [12]=> string(6) "

" } } [15]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(48) "

Additionally, you agree not to:

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(48) "

Additionally, you agree not to:

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Use Service in any manner that could disable, overburden, damage, or impair Service or interfere with any other party’s use of Service, including their ability to engage in real time activities through Service.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(223) "

Use Service in any manner that could disable, overburden, damage, or impair Service or interfere with any other party’s use of Service, including their ability to engage in real time activities through Service.

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Use any robot, spider, or other automatic device, process, or means to access Service for any purpose, including monitoring or copying any of the material on Service.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(177) "

Use any robot, spider, or other automatic device, process, or means to access Service for any purpose, including monitoring or copying any of the material on Service.

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Use any manual process to monitor or copy any of the material on Service or for any other unauthorized purpose without our prior written consent.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(156) "

Use any manual process to monitor or copy any of the material on Service or for any other unauthorized purpose without our prior written consent.

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Use any device, software, or routine that interferes with the proper working of Service.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(99) "

Use any device, software, or routine that interferes with the proper working of Service.

" } } [4]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(133) "

Introduce any viruses, trojan horses, worms, logic bombs, or other material which is malicious or technologically harmful.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(133) "

Introduce any viruses, trojan horses, worms, logic bombs, or other material which is malicious or technologically harmful.

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Attempt to gain unauthorized access to, interfere with, damage, or disrupt any parts of Service, the server on which Service is stored, or any server, computer, or database connected to Service.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(205) "

Attempt to gain unauthorized access to, interfere with, damage, or disrupt any parts of Service, the server on which Service is stored, or any server, computer, or database connected to Service.

" } } [6]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(99) "

Attack Service via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of-service attack.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(99) "

Attack Service via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of-service attack.

" } } [7]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(71) "

Take any action that may damage or falsify Community rating.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(71) "

Take any action that may damage or falsify Community rating.

" } } [8]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(77) "

Otherwise attempt to interfere with the proper working of Service.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(77) "

Otherwise attempt to interfere with the proper working of Service.

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(27) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(19) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(2) " " [7]=> NULL [8]=> string(2) " " [9]=> NULL [10]=> string(2) " " [11]=> NULL [12]=> string(2) " " [13]=> NULL [14]=> string(2) " " [15]=> NULL [16]=> string(2) " " [17]=> NULL [18]=> string(6) "

" } } [17]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(45) "

Analytics

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(45) "

Analytics

" } } [18]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(96) "

We may use third-party Service Providers to monitor and analyze the use of our Service.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(96) "

We may use third-party Service Providers to monitor and analyze the use of our Service.

" } } [19]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(52) "

No Use By Minors

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(52) "

No Use By Minors

" } } [20]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(451) "

Service is intended only for access and use by individuals at least eighteen (18) years old. By accessing or using Service, you warrant and represent that you are at least eighteen (18) years of age and with the full authority, right, and capacity to enter into this agreement and abide by all of the terms and conditions of Terms. If you are not at least eighteen (18) years old, you are prohibited from both the access and usage of Service.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(451) "

Service is intended only for access and use by individuals at least eighteen (18) years old. By accessing or using Service, you warrant and represent that you are at least eighteen (18) years of age and with the full authority, right, and capacity to enter into this agreement and abide by all of the terms and conditions of Terms. If you are not at least eighteen (18) years old, you are prohibited from both the access and usage of Service.

" } } [21]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(57) "

Intellectual Property

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(57) "

Intellectual Property

" } } [22]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(412) "

Service and its original content (excluding Content provided by users), features and functionality are and will remain the exclusive property of SaaSBOOMi Foundation and its licensors. Service is protected by copyright, trademark, and other laws of and foreign countries. Our trademarks may not be used in connection with any product or service without the prior written consent of SaaSBOOMi Foundation.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(412) "

Service and its original content (excluding Content provided by users), features and functionality are and will remain the exclusive property of SaaSBOOMi Foundation and its licensors. Service is protected by copyright, trademark, and other laws of and foreign countries. Our trademarks may not be used in connection with any product or service without the prior written consent of SaaSBOOMi Foundation.

" } } [23]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(52) "

Copyright Policy

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(52) "

Copyright Policy

" } } [24]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(967) "

We respect the intellectual property rights of others. It is our policy to respond to any claim that Content posted on Service infringes on the copyright or other intellectual property rights (“Infringement”) of any person or entity.

If you are a copyright owner, or authorized on behalf of one, and you believe that the copyrighted work has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, please submit your claim via email to [email protected], with the subject line: “Copyright Infringement” and include in your claim a detailed description of the alleged Infringement as detailed below, under “DMCA Notice and Procedure for Copyright Infringement Claims”

You may be held accountable for damages (including costs and attorneys’ fees) for misrepresentation or bad-faith claims on the infringement of any Content found on and/or through Service on your copyright.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(967) "

We respect the intellectual property rights of others. It is our policy to respond to any claim that Content posted on Service infringes on the copyright or other intellectual property rights (“Infringement”) of any person or entity.

If you are a copyright owner, or authorized on behalf of one, and you believe that the copyrighted work has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, please submit your claim via email to [email protected], with the subject line: “Copyright Infringement” and include in your claim a detailed description of the alleged Infringement as detailed below, under “DMCA Notice and Procedure for Copyright Infringement Claims”

You may be held accountable for damages (including costs and attorneys’ fees) for misrepresentation or bad-faith claims on the infringement of any Content found on and/or through Service on your copyright.

" } } [25]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(95) "

DMCA Notice and Procedure for Copyright Infringement Claims

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(95) "

DMCA Notice and Procedure for Copyright Infringement Claims

" } } [26]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(1) { ["className"]=> string(3) "mb0" } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(234) "

You may submit a notification pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by providing our Copyright Agent with the following information in writing (see 17 U.S.C 512(c)(3) for further detail):

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(234) "

You may submit a notification pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by providing our Copyright Agent with the following information in writing (see 17 U.S.C 512(c)(3) for further detail):

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An electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright’s interest.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(132) "

An electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright’s interest.

" } } [1]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(217) "

A description of the copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed, including the URL (i.e., web page address) of the location where the copyrighted work exists or a copy of the copyrighted work. 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(217) "

A description of the copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed, including the URL (i.e., web page address) of the location where the copyrighted work exists or a copy of the copyrighted work. 

" } } [2]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(134) "

Identification of the URL or other specific location on Service where the material that you claim is infringing is located.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(134) "

Identification of the URL or other specific location on Service where the material that you claim is infringing is located.

" } } [3]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(61) "

Your address, telephone number, and email address.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(61) "

Your address, telephone number, and email address.

" } } [4]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(156) "

A statement by you that you have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law. 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(156) "

A statement by you that you have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law. 

" } } [5]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(208) "

A statement by you, made under penalty of perjury, that the above information in your notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the copyright owner’s behalf.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(208) "

A statement by you, made under penalty of perjury, that the above information in your notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the copyright owner’s behalf.

" } } [6]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(153) "

You can contact our Copyright Agent via email at [email protected]. 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(153) "

You can contact our Copyright Agent via email at [email protected]. 

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(23) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(15) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(2) " " [7]=> NULL [8]=> string(2) " " [9]=> NULL [10]=> string(2) " " [11]=> NULL [12]=> string(2) " " [13]=> NULL [14]=> string(6) "

" } } [28]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(64) "

Error Reporting and Feedback

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(64) "

Error Reporting and Feedback

" } } [29]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(380) "

You may provide us either directly at [email protected] or via third party sites and tools with information and feedback concerning errors, suggestions for improvements, ideas, problems, complaints, and other matters related to our Service (“Feedback”). You acknowledge and agree that:

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(380) "

You may provide us either directly at [email protected] or via third party sites and tools with information and feedback concerning errors, suggestions for improvements, ideas, problems, complaints, and other matters related to our Service (“Feedback”). You acknowledge and agree that:

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You shall not retain, acquire or assert any intellectual property right or other right, title or interest in or to the Feedback. 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(145) "

You shall not retain, acquire or assert any intellectual property right or other right, title or interest in or to the Feedback. 

" } } [1]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(78) "

Community may have development ideas similar to the Feedback. 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(78) "

Community may have development ideas similar to the Feedback. 

" } } [2]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(123) "

Feedback does not contain confidential information or proprietary information from you or any third party. 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(123) "

Feedback does not contain confidential information or proprietary information from you or any third party. 

" } } [3]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(488) "

Community is not under any obligation of confidentiality with respect to the Feedback. In the event the transfer of the ownership to the Feedback is not possible due to applicable mandatory laws, you grant Community and its affiliates an exclusive, transferable, irrevocable, free-of-charge, sub-licensable, unlimited and perpetual right to use (including copy, modify, create derivative works, publish, distribute and commercialize) Feedback in any manner and for any purpose.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(488) "

Community is not under any obligation of confidentiality with respect to the Feedback. In the event the transfer of the ownership to the Feedback is not possible due to applicable mandatory laws, you grant Community and its affiliates an exclusive, transferable, irrevocable, free-of-charge, sub-licensable, unlimited and perpetual right to use (including copy, modify, create derivative works, publish, distribute and commercialize) Feedback in any manner and for any purpose.

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(17) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(9) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(2) " " [7]=> NULL [8]=> string(6) "

" } } [31]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(60) "

Links To Other Web Sites

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(60) "

Links To Other Web Sites

" } } [32]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(884) "

Our Service may contain links to third party web sites or services that are not owned or controlled by SaaSBOOMi Foundation.

SaaSBOOMi Foundation has no control over, and assumes no responsibility for the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third party web sites or services. We do not warrant the offerings of any of these entities/individuals or their websites.

You acknowledge and agree that Community shall not be responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with use of or reliance on any such content, goods or services available on or through any such third party web sites or services.

We strongly advise you to read the terms of service and privacy policies of any third party web sites or services that you visit.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(884) "

Our Service may contain links to third party web sites or services that are not owned or controlled by SaaSBOOMi Foundation.

SaaSBOOMi Foundation has no control over, and assumes no responsibility for the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third party web sites or services. We do not warrant the offerings of any of these entities/individuals or their websites.

You acknowledge and agree that Community shall not be responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with use of or reliance on any such content, goods or services available on or through any such third party web sites or services.

We strongly advise you to read the terms of service and privacy policies of any third party web sites or services that you visit.

" } } [33]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(58) "

Disclaimer Of Warranty

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(58) "

Disclaimer Of Warranty

" } } [34]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(753) "

These services are provided by Community on an “as is” and “as available” basis. Community makes no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, as to the operation of their services, or the information, content or materials included therein. you expressly agree that your use of these services, their content, and any services or items obtained from us is at your sole risk.

Community hereby disclaims all warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, statutory, or otherwise, including but not limited to any warranties of merchantability, non-infringement, and fitness for particular purpose.

The foregoing does not affect any warranties which cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(753) "

These services are provided by Community on an “as is” and “as available” basis. Community makes no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, as to the operation of their services, or the information, content or materials included therein. you expressly agree that your use of these services, their content, and any services or items obtained from us is at your sole risk.

Community hereby disclaims all warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, statutory, or otherwise, including but not limited to any warranties of merchantability, non-infringement, and fitness for particular purpose.

The foregoing does not affect any warranties which cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law.

" } } [35]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(59) "

Limitation Of Liability

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(59) "

Limitation Of Liability

" } } [36]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(1197) "

Except as prohibited by law, you will hold us and our officers, directors, employees, and agents harmless for any indirect, punitive, special, incidental, or consequential damage, however it arises (including attorneys’ fees and all related costs and expenses of litigation and arbitration, or at trial or on appeal, if any, whether or not litigation or arbitration is instituted), whether in an action of contract, negligence, or other tortious action, or arising out of or in connection with this agreement, including without limitation any claim for personal injury or property damage, arising from this agreement and any violation by you of any federal, state, or local laws, statutes, rules, or regulations, even if Community has been previously advised of the possibility of such damage. except as prohibited by law, if there is liability found on the part of Community, it will be limited to the amount paid for the products and/or services, and under no circumstances will there be consequential or punitive damages. some states do not allow the exclusion or limitation of punitive, incidental or consequential damages, so the prior limitation or exclusion may not apply to you.

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Except as prohibited by law, you will hold us and our officers, directors, employees, and agents harmless for any indirect, punitive, special, incidental, or consequential damage, however it arises (including attorneys’ fees and all related costs and expenses of litigation and arbitration, or at trial or on appeal, if any, whether or not litigation or arbitration is instituted), whether in an action of contract, negligence, or other tortious action, or arising out of or in connection with this agreement, including without limitation any claim for personal injury or property damage, arising from this agreement and any violation by you of any federal, state, or local laws, statutes, rules, or regulations, even if Community has been previously advised of the possibility of such damage. except as prohibited by law, if there is liability found on the part of Community, it will be limited to the amount paid for the products and/or services, and under no circumstances will there be consequential or punitive damages. some states do not allow the exclusion or limitation of punitive, incidental or consequential damages, so the prior limitation or exclusion may not apply to you.

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Termination

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Termination

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We may terminate or suspend your account and bar access to Service immediately, without prior notice or liability, under our sole discretion, for any reason whatsoever and without limitation, including but not limited to a breach of Terms.

If you wish to terminate your account, you may simply discontinue using Service.

All provisions of Terms which by their nature should survive termination shall survive termination, including, without limitation, ownership provisions, warranty disclaimers, indemnity and limitations of liability.

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We may terminate or suspend your account and bar access to Service immediately, without prior notice or liability, under our sole discretion, for any reason whatsoever and without limitation, including but not limited to a breach of Terms.

If you wish to terminate your account, you may simply discontinue using Service.

All provisions of Terms which by their nature should survive termination shall survive termination, including, without limitation, ownership provisions, warranty disclaimers, indemnity and limitations of liability.

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Governing Law

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Governing Law

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These Terms shall be governed and construed in accordance with the laws of India, which governing law applies to agreement without regard to its conflict of law provisions.

Our failure to enforce any right or provision of these Terms will not be considered a waiver of those rights. If any provision of these Terms is held to be invalid or unenforceable by a court, the remaining provisions of these Terms will remain in effect. These Terms constitute the entire agreement between us regarding our Service and supersede and replace any prior agreements we might have had between us regarding Service.

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These Terms shall be governed and construed in accordance with the laws of India, which governing law applies to agreement without regard to its conflict of law provisions.

Our failure to enforce any right or provision of these Terms will not be considered a waiver of those rights. If any provision of these Terms is held to be invalid or unenforceable by a court, the remaining provisions of these Terms will remain in effect. These Terms constitute the entire agreement between us regarding our Service and supersede and replace any prior agreements we might have had between us regarding Service.

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Changes to Service

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Changes to Service

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We reserve the right to withdraw or amend our Service, and any service or material we provide via Service, in our sole discretion without notice. We will not be liable if for any reason all or any part of Service is unavailable at any time or for any period. From time to time, we may restrict access to some parts of Service, or the entire Service, to users, including registered users.

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We reserve the right to withdraw or amend our Service, and any service or material we provide via Service, in our sole discretion without notice. We will not be liable if for any reason all or any part of Service is unavailable at any time or for any period. From time to time, we may restrict access to some parts of Service, or the entire Service, to users, including registered users.

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Amendments To Terms

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Amendments To Terms

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We may amend Terms at any time by posting the amended terms on this site. It is your responsibility to review these Terms periodically.

Your continued use of the Platform following the posting of revised Terms means that you accept and agree to the changes. You are expected to check this page frequently so you are aware of any changes, as they are binding on you.

By continuing to access or use our Service after any revisions become effective, you agree to be bound by the revised terms. If you do not agree to the new terms, you are no longer authorized to use Service

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We may amend Terms at any time by posting the amended terms on this site. It is your responsibility to review these Terms periodically.

Your continued use of the Platform following the posting of revised Terms means that you accept and agree to the changes. You are expected to check this page frequently so you are aware of any changes, as they are binding on you.

By continuing to access or use our Service after any revisions become effective, you agree to be bound by the revised terms. If you do not agree to the new terms, you are no longer authorized to use Service

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Waiver And Severability

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Waiver And Severability

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No waiver by Community of any term or condition set forth in Terms shall be deemed a further or continuing waiver of such term or condition or a waiver of any other term or condition, and any failure of Community to assert a right or provision under Terms shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision.

If any provision of Terms is held by a court or other tribunal of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, illegal or unenforceable for any reason, such provision shall be eliminated or limited to the minimum extent such that the remaining provisions of Terms will continue in full force and effect.

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No waiver by Community of any term or condition set forth in Terms shall be deemed a further or continuing waiver of such term or condition or a waiver of any other term or condition, and any failure of Community to assert a right or provision under Terms shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision.

If any provision of Terms is held by a court or other tribunal of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, illegal or unenforceable for any reason, such provision shall be eliminated or limited to the minimum extent such that the remaining provisions of Terms will continue in full force and effect.

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Acknowledgement

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Acknowledgement

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By using service or other services provided by us, you acknowledge that you have read these terms of service and agree to be bound by them.

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By using service or other services provided by us, you acknowledge that you have read these terms of service and agree to be bound by them.

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Contact Us

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Contact Us

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Please send your feedback, comments, requests for technical support by email: [email protected].

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Please send your feedback, comments, requests for technical support by email: [email protected].

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Our Culture

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Values that SaaSBoomi will live by

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Values that SaaSBoomi will live by

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We are committed to making India’s SaaS ecosystem stronger by supporting Founders, especially those who are in the early stage of their startup journey.

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We are committed to making India’s SaaS ecosystem stronger by supporting Founders, especially those who are in the early stage of their startup journey.

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We are committed to being an organisation run by Founders, for Founders, where every Founder regardless of the stage of their company is equal.

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We are committed to being an organisation run by Founders, for Founders, where every Founder regardless of the stage of their company is equal.

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We are committed to be a safe space for all SaaS entrepreneurs, irrespective of their gender, background, religion, caste, sexual orientation or any other such differences.

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We are committed to be a safe space for all SaaS entrepreneurs, irrespective of their gender, background, religion, caste, sexual orientation or any other such differences.

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We are committed to being zealous in our endeavour to be inclusive and to actively offer a platform for diverse voices.

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We are committed to being zealous in our endeavour to be inclusive and to actively offer a platform for diverse voices.

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We are committed to be an organisation where no single commercial entity, individual or group will wield disproportionate influence.

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We are committed to be an organisation where no single commercial entity, individual or group will wield disproportionate influence.

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We are committed to safeguarding the privacy of our members, including all data and information shared with us confidentially.

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We are committed to safeguarding the privacy of our members, including all data and information shared with us confidentially.

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" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(40) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(5) { [0]=> string(31) "

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Community Founder Ethos

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Community Founder Ethos

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SaaSBoomi’s community of founders, volunteers and others, like event participants, are expected to abide by such basic values like honesty, being respectful, and showing kindness.

The values and behaviours that SaaSBoomi founders, volunteers and others associated with the organisation are expected to personify goes beyond these basic human values.

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SaaSBoomi’s community of founders, volunteers and others, like event participants, are expected to abide by such basic values like honesty, being respectful, and showing kindness.

The values and behaviours that SaaSBoomi founders, volunteers and others associated with the organisation are expected to personify goes beyond these basic human values.

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Gives First

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Gives First

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They share freely and generously their experiences, knowledge, mistakes, lessons and time. They understand that giving is at the heart of the community.

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They share freely and generously their experiences, knowledge, mistakes, lessons and time. They understand that giving is at the heart of the community.

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Creates Space

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Creates Space

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They realise the needs of other Founders may be greater and actively make space for those who need it more.

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They realise the needs of other Founders may be greater and actively make space for those who need it more.

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Observes Radical Transparency

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Observes Radical Transparency

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They proactively disclose any information that can create a conflict of interest when they participate in any activity of the organisation.

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They proactively disclose any information that can create a conflict of interest when they participate in any activity of the organisation.

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Celebrates Diversity

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Celebrates Diversity

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They foster, nurture and support plurality and diversity of opinions, views, experiences, voices and people.

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They foster, nurture and support plurality and diversity of opinions, views, experiences, voices and people.

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Places Cause Ahead of Self

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Places Cause Ahead of Self

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They always keep the big picture in mind and put the community ahead of personal interests.

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They always keep the big picture in mind and put the community ahead of personal interests.

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Moves the Needle

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Moves the Needle

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They provide leadership on finding solutions to challenges that face the Community and usher in innovations that push India’s SaaS ecosystem forward.

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They provide leadership on finding solutions to challenges that face the Community and usher in innovations that push India’s SaaS ecosystem forward.

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Rejects Othering

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Rejects Othering

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They are inclusive and step up to support people of all backgrounds and identities, including but not limited to members of any sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, race, ethnicity, culture, national origin, social and economic class, educational level, color, immigration status, sex, age, size, family status, political belief, religion, and mental and physical ability.

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They are inclusive and step up to support people of all backgrounds and identities, including but not limited to members of any sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, race, ethnicity, culture, national origin, social and economic class, educational level, color, immigration status, sex, age, size, family status, political belief, religion, and mental and physical ability.

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Believes There are No Villains

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Believes There are No Villains

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They work on the assumption that all Founders who are part of the Community come from a place of trust and goodwill and are not here to do harm. They separate the person from the actions and offer feedback on actions. They realise and accept that a different way of doing things might be valuable.

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They work on the assumption that all Founders who are part of the Community come from a place of trust and goodwill and are not here to do harm. They separate the person from the actions and offer feedback on actions. They realise and accept that a different way of doing things might be valuable.

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Ensures Information Integrity

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Ensures Information Integrity

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They respect the confidentiality based on which Playbooks, experiences, data and other such information are shared by other Founders, either during sessions and events or in any other forum.

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They respect the confidentiality based on which Playbooks, experiences, data and other such information are shared by other Founders, either during sessions and events or in any other forum.

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Community Volunteer Ethos

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Community Volunteer Ethos

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SaaSBoomi Volunteers offer invaluable support and service to the community with their time and effort. They also play a unique role, different from the rest of the community in that they have operational responsibilities and duties. To reflect this, we have created specific guidelines for volunteers for better transparency and clarity.

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SaaSBoomi Volunteers offer invaluable support and service to the community with their time and effort. They also play a unique role, different from the rest of the community in that they have operational responsibilities and duties. To reflect this, we have created specific guidelines for volunteers for better transparency and clarity.

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Puts Founder First

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Puts Founder First

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They enable the ‘For the Founders, By the Founders’ motto of the Community and support in amplifying the voices and opinions of Founders who are part of the Community.

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They enable the ‘For the Founders, By the Founders’ motto of the Community and support in amplifying the voices and opinions of Founders who are part of the Community.

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Embraces Differences

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Embraces Differences

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They are respectful of different approaches and opinions and will, in fact, seek them out, so the work helps a larger section of people.

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They are respectful of different approaches and opinions and will, in fact, seek them out, so the work helps a larger section of people.

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Takes Ownership

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Takes Ownership

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They take full responsibility for initiatives that they volunteer for and this includes accountability of outcomes and accepting responsibility for any mistakes.

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They take full responsibility for initiatives that they volunteer for and this includes accountability of outcomes and accepting responsibility for any mistakes.

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Practices Self-regulation

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Practices Self-regulation

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They take decisions that are in the best interest of the Community. If they are unable to give an initiative the attention it deserves, they step aside in time so another Volunteer can get the task done well. They proactively disclose conflict of interest and ensure personal or professional considerations do not impact their Volunteering.

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They take decisions that are in the best interest of the Community. If they are unable to give an initiative the attention it deserves, they step aside in time so another Volunteer can get the task done well. They proactively disclose conflict of interest and ensure personal or professional considerations do not impact their Volunteering.

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A Role Model

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A Role Model

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They understand they are a representative of the Organisation and the Community and that their behaviour within and outside the Community reflects upon the Organisation and so they do not indulge in any behaviour that shows the Organisation or Community in bad light.

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They understand they are a representative of the Organisation and the Community and that their behaviour within and outside the Community reflects upon the Organisation and so they do not indulge in any behaviour that shows the Organisation or Community in bad light.

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An Innovative Problem Solver

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An Innovative Problem Solver

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They work towards innovative and sustainable solutions that help the Organisation work better and can also help the larger SaaS industry.

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They work towards innovative and sustainable solutions that help the Organisation work better and can also help the larger SaaS industry.

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Our Culture & Values source document captures the ethos that bind our diverse group of SaaS-minded individuals together. This is a living document that will be updated as SaaSBoomi grows, scales, and evolves.

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Our Culture & Values source document captures the ethos that bind our diverse group of SaaS-minded individuals together. This is a living document that will be updated as SaaSBoomi grows, scales, and evolves.

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Download Culture & Values document

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Download Culture & Values document

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FAQs

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Frequently Asked Questions

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Frequently Asked Questions

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SaaSBoomi Awards

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For startups below $1M in revenue that have achieved phenomenal traction in their journeys from the start.

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The jury will shortlist five finalists for each category through a transparent process.

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Privacy Policy

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Privacy Policy

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Privacy Policy

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Last updated 05 Sep 2023

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Last updated 05 Sep 2023

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This Privacy Policy describes Our policies and procedures on the collection, use and disclosure of Your information when You use the Service and tells You about Your privacy rights and how the law protects You.

We use Your Personal data to provide and improve the Service. By using the Service, You agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

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This Privacy Policy describes Our policies and procedures on the collection, use and disclosure of Your information when You use the Service and tells You about Your privacy rights and how the law protects You.

We use Your Personal data to provide and improve the Service. By using the Service, You agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

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Introduction

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Introduction

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You means the individual accessing or using the Service, or the Community, or other legal entity on behalf of which such individual is accessing or using the Service, as applicable.

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You means the individual accessing or using the Service, or the Community, or other legal entity on behalf of which such individual is accessing or using the Service, as applicable.

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Community (referred to as either “the Community”, “We”, “Us” or “Our” in this Agreement) refers to SaaSBOOMi Foundation.

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Community (referred to as either “the Community”, “We”, “Us” or “Our” in this Agreement) refers to SaaSBOOMi Foundation.

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Account means a unique account created for You to access our Service or parts of our Service.

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Account means a unique account created for You to access our Service or parts of our Service.

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Website refers to SaaSBOOMi, accessible from https://saasboomi.org/

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(78) "

Website refers to SaaSBOOMi, accessible from https://saasboomi.org/

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Service refers to the Website.

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Service refers to the Website.

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Country refers to: India

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Country refers to: India

" } } [6]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(374) "

Service Provider means any natural or legal person who processes the data on behalf of the Community. It refers to third-party companies or individuals employed by the Community to facilitate the Service, to provide the Service on behalf of the Community, to perform services related to the Service or to assist the Community in analyzing how the Service is used.

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Service Provider means any natural or legal person who processes the data on behalf of the Community. It refers to third-party companies or individuals employed by the Community to facilitate the Service, to provide the Service on behalf of the Community, to perform services related to the Service or to assist the Community in analyzing how the Service is used.

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Third-party Social Media Service refers to any website or any social network website through which a User can log in or create an account to use the Service.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(168) "

Third-party Social Media Service refers to any website or any social network website through which a User can log in or create an account to use the Service.

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Personal Data is any information that relates to an identified or identifiable individual.

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Personal Data is any information that relates to an identified or identifiable individual.

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Cookies are small files that are placed on Your computer, mobile device or any other device by a website, containing the details of Your browsing history on that website among its many uses.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(201) "

Cookies are small files that are placed on Your computer, mobile device or any other device by a website, containing the details of Your browsing history on that website among its many uses.

" } } [10]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(203) "

Usage Data refers to data collected automatically, either generated by the use of the Service or from the Service infrastructure itself (for example, the pages visited, duration on each page).

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(203) "

Usage Data refers to data collected automatically, either generated by the use of the Service or from the Service infrastructure itself (for example, the pages visited, duration on each page).

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(31) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(23) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(2) " " [7]=> NULL [8]=> string(2) " " [9]=> NULL [10]=> string(2) " " [11]=> NULL [12]=> string(2) " " [13]=> NULL [14]=> string(2) " " [15]=> NULL [16]=> string(2) " " [17]=> NULL [18]=> string(2) " " [19]=> NULL [20]=> string(2) " " [21]=> NULL [22]=> string(6) "

" } } [5]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(84) "

Personal, confidential and usage data we collect

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(84) "

Personal, confidential and usage data we collect

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Personal Data

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Personal Data

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While using Our Service, We may ask You to provide Us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact or identify You.

Personally identifiable information may include, but is not limited to:

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While using Our Service, We may ask You to provide Us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact or identify You.

Personally identifiable information may include, but is not limited to:

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Email address

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(24) "

Email address

" } } [1]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(35) "

First name and last name

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(35) "

First name and last name

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Phone number

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(23) "

Phone number

" } } [3]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(58) "

Address, State, Province, ZIP/Postal code, City

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(58) "

Address, State, Province, ZIP/Postal code, City

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(17) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(9) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(2) " " [7]=> NULL [8]=> string(6) "

" } } [9]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(1) { ["level"]=> int(3) } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(53) "

Confidential Data

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Confidential Data

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Data regarding your business

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(39) "

Data regarding your business

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Approx ARR

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(21) "

Approx ARR

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(13) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(5) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(6) "

" } } [11]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(1) { ["level"]=> int(3) } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(46) "

Usage Data

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Usage Data

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Usage Data is collected automatically when using the Service.

Usage Data may include information such as Your Device’s Internet Protocol address (e.g. IP address), browser type, browser version, the pages of our Service that You visit, the time and date of Your visit, the time spent on those pages, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data.

When You access the Service by or through a mobile device, We may collect certain information automatically, including, but not limited to, the type of mobile device You use, Your mobile device unique ID, the IP address of Your mobile device, Your mobile operating system, the type of mobile Internet browser You use, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data.

We may also collect information that Your browser sends whenever You visit our Service or when You access the Service by or through a mobile device.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(904) "

Usage Data is collected automatically when using the Service.

Usage Data may include information such as Your Device’s Internet Protocol address (e.g. IP address), browser type, browser version, the pages of our Service that You visit, the time and date of Your visit, the time spent on those pages, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data.

When You access the Service by or through a mobile device, We may collect certain information automatically, including, but not limited to, the type of mobile device You use, Your mobile device unique ID, the IP address of Your mobile device, Your mobile operating system, the type of mobile Internet browser You use, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data.

We may also collect information that Your browser sends whenever You visit our Service or when You access the Service by or through a mobile device.

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Tracking technologies and cookies

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Tracking technologies and cookies

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We use Cookies and similar tracking technologies to track the activity on Our Service and store certain information. Tracking technologies used are beacons, tags, and scripts to collect and track information and to improve and analyze Our Service.

You can instruct Your browser to refuse all Cookies or to indicate when a Cookie is being sent. However, if You do not accept Cookies, You may not be able to use some parts of our Service.

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We use Cookies and similar tracking technologies to track the activity on Our Service and store certain information. Tracking technologies used are beacons, tags, and scripts to collect and track information and to improve and analyze Our Service.

You can instruct Your browser to refuse all Cookies or to indicate when a Cookie is being sent. However, if You do not accept Cookies, You may not be able to use some parts of our Service.

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Use of your personal data

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Use of your personal data

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The Community may use Personal Data for the following purposes:

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The Community may use Personal Data for the following purposes:

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To provide and maintain our Service, including to monitor the usage of our Service

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To provide and maintain our Service, including to monitor the usage of our Service

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To draw larger macro-level trends about the SaaS industry

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To draw larger macro-level trends about the SaaS industry

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To manage Your Account: to manage Your registration as a user of theService. The Personal Data You provide can give You access to different functionalities of the Service that are available to You as a registered user

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To manage Your Account: to manage Your registration as a user of theService. The Personal Data You provide can give You access to different functionalities of the Service that are available to You as a registered user

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To contact You: To contact You by email, telephone calls, SMS, or other equivalent forms of electronic communication, such as a mobile application’s push notifications regarding updates or informative communications related to the services

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To contact You: To contact You by email, telephone calls, SMS, or other equivalent forms of electronic communication, such as a mobile application’s push notifications regarding updates or informative communications related to the services

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To provide You with news, special offers and general information about other services and events which we offer unless You have opted not to receive such information.

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To provide You with news, special offers and general information about other services and events which we offer unless You have opted not to receive such information.

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To manage Your requests: To attend and manage Your requests to Us.

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To manage Your requests: To attend and manage Your requests to Us.

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We may share your personal information in the following situations:

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We may share your personal information in the following situations:

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With Service Providers: We may share Your personal information with Service Providers to monitor and analyze the use of our Service, to contact You.

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With Service Providers: We may share Your personal information with Service Providers to monitor and analyze the use of our Service, to contact You.

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With Community partners: We may share Your information with Our business partners to offer You certain products, services or promotion packages.

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With Community partners: We may share Your information with Our business partners to offer You certain products, services or promotion packages.

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With Sponsors: We may share Your information with Our sponsors to network and / or engage with you and offer you their services, products and promotions

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With Sponsors: We may share Your information with Our sponsors to network and / or engage with you and offer you their services, products and promotions

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Third party services

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Third party services

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We use WhatsApp and Telegram to share messages about content and upcoming events. We will not share or sell your contact details with any 3rd parties.

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We use WhatsApp and Telegram to share messages about content and upcoming events. We will not share or sell your contact details with any 3rd parties.

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Retention of your personal data

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Retention of your personal data

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The Community will retain Your Personal Data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. We will retain and use Your Personal Data to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations (for example, if we are required to retain your data to comply with applicable laws), resolve disputes, and enforce our legal agreements and policies.

You can submit a request to delete / update your personal and confidential data from our databases. You can write to us at the Contact us ([email protected]) so that we can process your request. We will also notify our business partners and sponsors for the deletion / updation request.

The Community will also retain Usage Data for internal analysis purposes. Usage Data is generally retained for a shorter period of time, except when this data is used to strengthen the security or to improve the functionality of Our Service, or We are legally obligated to retain this data for longer time periods.

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The Community will retain Your Personal Data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. We will retain and use Your Personal Data to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations (for example, if we are required to retain your data to comply with applicable laws), resolve disputes, and enforce our legal agreements and policies.

You can submit a request to delete / update your personal and confidential data from our databases. You can write to us at the Contact us ([email protected]) so that we can process your request. We will also notify our business partners and sponsors for the deletion / updation request.

The Community will also retain Usage Data for internal analysis purposes. Usage Data is generally retained for a shorter period of time, except when this data is used to strengthen the security or to improve the functionality of Our Service, or We are legally obligated to retain this data for longer time periods.

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Transfer of your personal data

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Transfer of your personal data

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Your information, including Personal Data, is processed at the Community’s operating offices and in any other places where the parties involved in the processing are located. It means that this information may be transferred to — and maintained on — computers located outside of Your state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction where the data protection laws may differ than those from Your jurisdiction.

Your consent to this Privacy Policy followed by Your submission of such information represents Your agreement to that transfer.

The Community will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that Your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy and no transfer of Your Personal Data will take place to an organization or a country unless there are adequate controls in place including the security of Your data and other personal information.

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Your information, including Personal Data, is processed at the Community’s operating offices and in any other places where the parties involved in the processing are located. It means that this information may be transferred to — and maintained on — computers located outside of Your state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction where the data protection laws may differ than those from Your jurisdiction.

Your consent to this Privacy Policy followed by Your submission of such information represents Your agreement to that transfer.

The Community will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that Your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy and no transfer of Your Personal Data will take place to an organization or a country unless there are adequate controls in place including the security of Your data and other personal information.

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Security of your personal data

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Security of your personal data

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The security of Your Personal Data is important to Us but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While We strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect Your Personal Data, We cannot guarantee its absolute security.

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The security of Your Personal Data is important to Us but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While We strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect Your Personal Data, We cannot guarantee its absolute security.

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Changes to this privacy policy

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Changes to this privacy policy

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We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify You of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page.

We will let You know via email and/or a prominent notice on Our Service, prior to the change becoming effective and update the “Last updated” date at the top of this Privacy Policy.

You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.

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We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify You of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page.

We will let You know via email and/or a prominent notice on Our Service, prior to the change becoming effective and update the “Last updated” date at the top of this Privacy Policy.

You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.

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Putting down roots #ScaledFoundersRetreat

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It took me a minute to take my eyes off the banyan tree. There it stood, strong and silent. Its roots were everywhere, snaking deep into the ground and cascading from the branches. What was once a dot-sized seed has turned into this spectacular provider of shade today, so grounded and yet so linked. It put me in mind of the nourishment, interconnectedness, and growth that it takes to live a meaningful life on Earth.

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It took me a minute to take my eyes off the banyan tree. There it stood, strong and silent. Its roots were everywhere, snaking deep into the ground and cascading from the branches. What was once a dot-sized seed has turned into this spectacular provider of shade today, so grounded and yet so linked. It put me in mind of the nourishment, interconnectedness, and growth that it takes to live a meaningful life on Earth.

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A nudge from my friend and SaaSBoomi volunteer, Ashwini Asokan, snapped me out of this spiritual trance the tree had me in. We were at a beautiful resort in Bangalore which is also quite easily accessible from Hyderabad if you were to drive.

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A nudge from my friend and SaaSBoomi volunteer, Ashwini Asokan, snapped me out of this spiritual trance the tree had me in. We were at a beautiful resort in Bangalore which is also quite easily accessible from Hyderabad if you were to drive.

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The green sweep of this resort holds a special place in my heart. Seven years ago, founders had gathered at this exact venue for the exact same event for the exact same reason. Since the time we launched PNGrowth, nothing has changed and everything has changed.

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The green sweep of this resort holds a special place in my heart. Seven years ago, founders had gathered at this exact venue for the exact same event for the exact same reason. Since the time we launched PNGrowth, nothing has changed and everything has changed.

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In 2016, we brought together founders in the same room as young first-time entrepreneurs for the 2nd edition of PNgrowth, 35–40 in all, and encouraged the more successful ones to help the cubs find their way. Everyone split into groups based on their particular expertise and ambitions — those who had successfully pitched to SMBs in Southeast Asia were walking through those who wanted to follow them, others who had broken into the American SMB market were taking questions from a table of founders hoping to do the same.

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In 2016, we brought together founders in the same room as young first-time entrepreneurs for the 2nd edition of PNgrowth, 35–40 in all, and encouraged the more successful ones to help the cubs find their way. Everyone split into groups based on their particular expertise and ambitions — those who had successfully pitched to SMBs in Southeast Asia were walking through those who wanted to follow them, others who had broken into the American SMB market were taking questions from a table of founders hoping to do the same.

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The founders not only opened their playbook but also the decks they had made for investors, their spreadsheets, their board composition, and their captable. Nothing at the time was untouchable. I remember standing at the back of the room amazed at not just the candidness but also the camaraderie. And everyone in the room was paying close attention, asking questions, finding details that I couldn’t even spot.

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The founders not only opened their playbook but also the decks they had made for investors, their spreadsheets, their board composition, and their captable. Nothing at the time was untouchable. I remember standing at the back of the room amazed at not just the candidness but also the camaraderie. And everyone in the room was paying close attention, asking questions, finding details that I couldn’t even spot.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(590) "

It is now seven years later, and the enthusiasm has not changed. This time around I spotted a familiar face across the room. This is a founder whose company was making about $500K-$1 million in ARR when he walked in to get ideas at the first PNGrowth. He is back this time having scaled the business to beyond $50 million, now ready to impart his own insights to the crowd as a mentor to a new set of mentees. It is like looking at the banyan tree again — SaaSBoomi is also defined by nourishment, interconnectedness, and growth. This is what pay-it-forward looks like in action.

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It is now seven years later, and the enthusiasm has not changed. This time around I spotted a familiar face across the room. This is a founder whose company was making about $500K-$1 million in ARR when he walked in to get ideas at the first PNGrowth. He is back this time having scaled the business to beyond $50 million, now ready to impart his own insights to the crowd as a mentor to a new set of mentees. It is like looking at the banyan tree again — SaaSBoomi is also defined by nourishment, interconnectedness, and growth. This is what pay-it-forward looks like in action.

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At SaaSBoomi, our ambition is to encourage people to open their hearts just as much as they opened their playbooks.

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At SaaSBoomi, our ambition is to encourage people to open their hearts just as much as they opened their playbooks.

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It’s about heart

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It’s about heart

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Scaling up can be just as lonely as starting up. So at this retreat, we decided to switch things up and debut a new format. We had scaled founders at a playbook roundtable where they deliberated on common problems that can crop up on the path to growth, and all the potential ways out of them. It is a slightly older group, with an average age of 38–40, rather than 30–32. I realize we think the older the founders, the less help they need but that is not entirely true or fair. The sessions are proof, they stretch over two days and revolve around questions that mid- to late-stage founders have to tackle, and the energy is as cracking as if they were first-timers.

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Scaling up can be just as lonely as starting up. So at this retreat, we decided to switch things up and debut a new format. We had scaled founders at a playbook roundtable where they deliberated on common problems that can crop up on the path to growth, and all the potential ways out of them. It is a slightly older group, with an average age of 38–40, rather than 30–32. I realize we think the older the founders, the less help they need but that is not entirely true or fair. The sessions are proof, they stretch over two days and revolve around questions that mid- to late-stage founders have to tackle, and the energy is as cracking as if they were first-timers.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(10) "core/image" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(134) "

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Founders discussed hard business points as they broke down how to crack enterprise GTM and organizational design, but they equally also discussed soft skills such as managing the board and work-life balance. At times, a single slide inspired 90 minutes of Q&As.

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Founders discussed hard business points as they broke down how to crack enterprise GTM and organizational design, but they equally also discussed soft skills such as managing the board and work-life balance. At times, a single slide inspired 90 minutes of Q&As.

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There was one two-hour session where no one took a break. Not to drink water, stretch their legs, take a call, nothing. They sat there: listening, learning, and contributing. Even when the particularly technical aspects elude me, I find myself still glued to the conversation because something in the air at those roundtables is magnetic.

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There was one two-hour session where no one took a break. Not to drink water, stretch their legs, take a call, nothing. They sat there: listening, learning, and contributing. Even when the particularly technical aspects elude me, I find myself still glued to the conversation because something in the air at those roundtables is magnetic.

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That magnetism, I have figured, comes from the spirit of the community. When you learn that others have gone through or are going through the same troubles, the road looks a lot less intimidating. Founders perk up, their eyes shine with ideas, and they smile more. It is the kind of experience that can bring a sense of kinship even among competitors. When I was planning the event, one of the founders was reluctant about opening their playbook because a rival founder was going to be in the room as well. But the spirit of sharing took over. Not only did the founders of both companies come along and deliver their respective talks, but the next day they put any insecurities behind them and as they bid goodbye they embraced each other.

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That magnetism, I have figured, comes from the spirit of the community. When you learn that others have gone through or are going through the same troubles, the road looks a lot less intimidating. Founders perk up, their eyes shine with ideas, and they smile more. It is the kind of experience that can bring a sense of kinship even among competitors. When I was planning the event, one of the founders was reluctant about opening their playbook because a rival founder was going to be in the room as well. But the spirit of sharing took over. Not only did the founders of both companies come along and deliver their respective talks, but the next day they put any insecurities behind them and as they bid goodbye they embraced each other.

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All SaaSBoomi events are about acceptance. This is important for entrepreneurs who go through big highs and lows in the course of a single day — an investor may agree to back you just a few hours before an employee you groomed selflessly decides to chase another opportunity. Whether or not the money flies in, they have questions flying in from all sides — from customers, investors, family members, even themselves — about the health of the business or the rationale behind their decisions. But in the company of other founders, they can find answers, acknowledgement, and laughs. That can be pretty healing.

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All SaaSBoomi events are about acceptance. This is important for entrepreneurs who go through big highs and lows in the course of a single day — an investor may agree to back you just a few hours before an employee you groomed selflessly decides to chase another opportunity. Whether or not the money flies in, they have questions flying in from all sides — from customers, investors, family members, even themselves — about the health of the business or the rationale behind their decisions. But in the company of other founders, they can find answers, acknowledgement, and laughs. That can be pretty healing.

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When the next retreat comes around in six months, we will be at this very resort and under the same banyan tree again. It is a proud moment to see the roots the community has put down and how strong they are getting.

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When the next retreat comes around in six months, we will be at this very resort and under the same banyan tree again. It is a proud moment to see the roots the community has put down and how strong they are getting.

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Initiatives

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How to think about building GenAI products: Reimagining Problem-Solving

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Watching 100 million users adopt ChatGPT within a few months of launch has put undue pressure on SaaS founders to reinvent the wheel. We need to ask ourselves if what drives our business is the tech stack or the problem being solved. For most products, users don’t care about what tech stack is being used, barring some developer tools where this might matter, but every single one of them cares about how the problem is being solved. The advent of GenAI hasn’t changed this, nor will the next wave of new tech. 

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Watching 100 million users adopt ChatGPT within a few months of launch has put undue pressure on SaaS founders to reinvent the wheel. We need to ask ourselves if what drives our business is the tech stack or the problem being solved. For most products, users don’t care about what tech stack is being used, barring some developer tools where this might matter, but every single one of them cares about how the problem is being solved. The advent of GenAI hasn’t changed this, nor will the next wave of new tech. 

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On July 27th, SaaSBoomi released the India Landscape Report that dove into key insights on what AI opportunities exist for India, and it is looking bright. We are on track to achieve the $50-$70Bn market by 2030, and what we need to focus on is the new challenges AI poses, which this report walks us through in great detail.

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On July 27th, SaaSBoomi released the India Landscape Report that dove into key insights on what AI opportunities exist for India, and it is looking bright. We are on track to achieve the $50-$70Bn market by 2030, and what we need to focus on is the new challenges AI poses, which this report walks us through in great detail.

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Simply shoehorning GenAI into products is not going to help increase adoption. However, about 50-60% of operational problems are similar across all SaaS businesses and GenAI is playing an important role to improve internal efficiencies by 30% Now this is something every founder can focus on – how are each of my internal functions using GenAI to improve productivity? This is also crucial because the current market is forcing everyone to be conservative with spending, especially tech debt.

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Simply shoehorning GenAI into products is not going to help increase adoption. However, about 50-60% of operational problems are similar across all SaaS businesses and GenAI is playing an important role to improve internal efficiencies by 30% Now this is something every founder can focus on – how are each of my internal functions using GenAI to improve productivity? This is also crucial because the current market is forcing everyone to be conservative with spending, especially tech debt.

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The two new niches

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The two new niches

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One of the takeaways for me was how to think about building GenAI products – is there something we can do now with GenAI that could not have been solved before? Basically, reimagining problem-solving. There are new niches forming, and India, with its vast SaaS experience, has an opportunity in two key areas – building applications on top of existing LLMs and building LLMs for the India market, such as vernacular LLMs.

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One of the takeaways for me was how to think about building GenAI products – is there something we can do now with GenAI that could not have been solved before? Basically, reimagining problem-solving. There are new niches forming, and India, with its vast SaaS experience, has an opportunity in two key areas – building applications on top of existing LLMs and building LLMs for the India market, such as vernacular LLMs.

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We were fortunate to hear from Julien Simon, Chief Evangelist of Hugging Face, in a fireside chat with Manav Garg, Founder of Eka. For Hugging Face, the users are the members of the OpenSource community and he pointed out how important it is for them to continue being OpenSource-first.

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We were fortunate to hear from Julien Simon, Chief Evangelist of Hugging Face, in a fireside chat with Manav Garg, Founder of Eka. For Hugging Face, the users are the members of the OpenSource community and he pointed out how important it is for them to continue being OpenSource-first.

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What I took away from this is that while GenAI is the it-thing, focusing on user love as a primary driver for building products has not changed. Another point made by Julien that stood out – one I think the Indian ecosystem can do better at – is about exploring open source, especially for the DevTools market. Developers by nature love tinkering – there’s a massive opportunity for India given we have one of the largest developer ecosystems in the world.

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What I took away from this is that while GenAI is the it-thing, focusing on user love as a primary driver for building products has not changed. Another point made by Julien that stood out – one I think the Indian ecosystem can do better at – is about exploring open source, especially for the DevTools market. Developers by nature love tinkering – there’s a massive opportunity for India given we have one of the largest developer ecosystems in the world.

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Okay, so we understand that building GenAI-first products means identifying problems that could not have been solved a year ago, introducing GenAI requires a user-first focus, but what about funding? The India Landscape report showed that in 2023, there has already been $12Bn investment in GenAI startups! What was most interesting for me to hear was when Hemant Mohapatra, Partner at Lightspeed, pointed out that 95% of founders should not be looking at VC funding because it is the highest-risk asset class and can pull one in directions they may not want to go towards.

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Okay, so we understand that building GenAI-first products means identifying problems that could not have been solved a year ago, introducing GenAI requires a user-first focus, but what about funding? The India Landscape report showed that in 2023, there has already been $12Bn investment in GenAI startups! What was most interesting for me to hear was when Hemant Mohapatra, Partner at Lightspeed, pointed out that 95% of founders should not be looking at VC funding because it is the highest-risk asset class and can pull one in directions they may not want to go towards.

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It spoke to his principles of investing, which I really appreciated. When there are so many companies who ride on the wave of positive marketing from getting funded, I have not heard much dialogue about why being bootstrapped or looking at alternative funding channels can also help build successful businesses.

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It spoke to his principles of investing, which I really appreciated. When there are so many companies who ride on the wave of positive marketing from getting funded, I have not heard much dialogue about why being bootstrapped or looking at alternative funding channels can also help build successful businesses.

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Is there a moat with GenAI?

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Is there a moat with GenAI?

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When Noshir Kaka, Senior Partner at McKinsey, asked Vishwanath Kollapudi, Co-founder at Blend, how he built the product, I learned how important data is for building a successful GenAI product. Vishwanath’s biggest blocker when starting Blend in 2020 was data – he launched a free tool that allowed users to remove backgrounds from their images, and he ended up with 100M data points! This formed a strong and effective foundation to build Blend as we see it today.

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When Noshir Kaka, Senior Partner at McKinsey, asked Vishwanath Kollapudi, Co-founder at Blend, how he built the product, I learned how important data is for building a successful GenAI product. Vishwanath’s biggest blocker when starting Blend in 2020 was data – he launched a free tool that allowed users to remove backgrounds from their images, and he ended up with 100M data points! This formed a strong and effective foundation to build Blend as we see it today.

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Is there a moat with GenAI? From the panel discussion, I learned that there isn’t one purely with GenAI. The moat still seems to be the value delivered to users, and not using the latest, greatest tech. We’ve seen GenAI-like waves happening every few years and Vijay Rayapati, co-founder of Atomicwork, shared his personal experience going down the path of multi-tenancy, data partitioning, APIs etc. during the SaaS wave, where he would have much rather focused on solving the right use-cases in the right way. He also mentioned that if GenAI can make your user’s workflow 10x efficient, use it, but not to fall prey to the FOMO of using shiny new LLMs.

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Is there a moat with GenAI? From the panel discussion, I learned that there isn’t one purely with GenAI. The moat still seems to be the value delivered to users, and not using the latest, greatest tech. We’ve seen GenAI-like waves happening every few years and Vijay Rayapati, co-founder of Atomicwork, shared his personal experience going down the path of multi-tenancy, data partitioning, APIs etc. during the SaaS wave, where he would have much rather focused on solving the right use-cases in the right way. He also mentioned that if GenAI can make your user’s workflow 10x efficient, use it, but not to fall prey to the FOMO of using shiny new LLMs.

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“Solve boring problems,” says Vijay Rayapati, co-founder of Atomicwork.

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“Solve boring problems,” says Vijay Rayapati, co-founder of Atomicwork.

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GenAI is here to stay. As founders, we have the burden of understanding where this fits into our equation, the equation for our end users and our teams. The India Landscape Report is an important first step for Indian founders to identify moats (the jury is still out on whether there is really a moat in GenAI), the industries where GenAI will be most applicable and most importantly, which sectors have better success in building horizontal versus vertical solutions.

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GenAI is here to stay. As founders, we have the burden of understanding where this fits into our equation, the equation for our end users and our teams. The India Landscape Report is an important first step for Indian founders to identify moats (the jury is still out on whether there is really a moat in GenAI), the industries where GenAI will be most applicable and most importantly, which sectors have better success in building horizontal versus vertical solutions.

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Capillary Will Not Give Up

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As Capillary turns 15, I am reminded of a story from my childhood. This story is over 2,000 years old but it resonates with me every day.

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As Capillary turns 15, I am reminded of a story from my childhood. This story is over 2,000 years old but it resonates with me every day.

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When the water in the pond began to diminish, the frogs that lived in it had two choices. Stay in familiar waters and wait for the rain, or go out into the unknown on the hunt for a new home.

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When the water in the pond began to diminish, the frogs that lived in it had two choices. Stay in familiar waters and wait for the rain, or go out into the unknown on the hunt for a new home.

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Only one of them, a wise old frog, decided to take the road less traveled. It landed on the brink of death several times but never once did it stop. It took on unfamiliar terrains, hid nimbly from hawks, staved off snakes, and found its grand prize: A large pond brimming with water. For all the risks that the frog took, it finally got its rewards.

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Only one of them, a wise old frog, decided to take the road less traveled. It landed on the brink of death several times but never once did it stop. It took on unfamiliar terrains, hid nimbly from hawks, staved off snakes, and found its grand prize: A large pond brimming with water. For all the risks that the frog took, it finally got its rewards.

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The lesson here is that sometimes the only way to thrive is to do what is difficult. Capillary has always done exactly that; it embraced the motto: ‘Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional’. The company knows that dry spells don’t just stop, you have to find a way out of them.

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The lesson here is that sometimes the only way to thrive is to do what is difficult. Capillary has always done exactly that; it embraced the motto: ‘Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional’. The company knows that dry spells don’t just stop, you have to find a way out of them.

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And life hasn’t always been easy for this company but it let go of fear, embraced change, and experimented. When going after retail was not enough, it extended its offerings to hospitality and aviation, while its competitors acted as services businesses, it switched to a product view.

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And life hasn’t always been easy for this company but it let go of fear, embraced change, and experimented. When going after retail was not enough, it extended its offerings to hospitality and aviation, while its competitors acted as services businesses, it switched to a product view.

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No hurdle could halt its march from India into Singapore, China, the Middle East, and even the US. By gamifying its software, it has managed to lock in customer loyalty for itself and the companies it works with, making it one of the few companies across the world with high LTV but low CAC.

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No hurdle could halt its march from India into Singapore, China, the Middle East, and even the US. By gamifying its software, it has managed to lock in customer loyalty for itself and the companies it works with, making it one of the few companies across the world with high LTV but low CAC.

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All of this was done with the singular mission of creating value for the customer.

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All of this was done with the singular mission of creating value for the customer.

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Fifteen years is a long time to create value and Capillary has generated an abundance of it for its stakeholders.

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Fifteen years is a long time to create value and Capillary has generated an abundance of it for its stakeholders.

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For VCs, whether they funded Capillary or not, the founders’ willingness to push the envelope has been so exemplary that investors ask new founders to replicate it.

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For VCs, whether they funded Capillary or not, the founders’ willingness to push the envelope has been so exemplary that investors ask new founders to replicate it.

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For its employees, Capillary has been a rock. During COVID, when the company had to make hard decisions, it made sure everyone was treated fairly. In better times, Capillary made sure its employees aren’t just comfortable monetarily but spiritually too. A 10-day vipassana leave is automatically sanctioned.

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For its employees, Capillary has been a rock. During COVID, when the company had to make hard decisions, it made sure everyone was treated fairly. In better times, Capillary made sure its employees aren’t just comfortable monetarily but spiritually too. A 10-day vipassana leave is automatically sanctioned.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(424) "

In its 15th year, this CRM company is not only profitable and cash-positive and this has encouraged investor interest, despite a funding winter, Capillary still manages to tell an engaging story and recently raised another round. It is very rare to find a company(and its founders) to generate so much excitement in the investor circle, be a rock for its employees, and be an inspiration to the ecosystem.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(424) "

In its 15th year, this CRM company is not only profitable and cash-positive and this has encouraged investor interest, despite a funding winter, Capillary still manages to tell an engaging story and recently raised another round. It is very rare to find a company(and its founders) to generate so much excitement in the investor circle, be a rock for its employees, and be an inspiration to the ecosystem.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(246) "

I don’t think Aneesh and the Capillary team are done surprising us yet. There are many more rewards to lay hands on, many more ponds to discover. And I’m sure that they will do so with the utmost grit, clarity, and finesse.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(246) "

I don’t think Aneesh and the Capillary team are done surprising us yet. There are many more rewards to lay hands on, many more ponds to discover. And I’m sure that they will do so with the utmost grit, clarity, and finesse.

" } }

No Exit Wounds – A Primer for SaaS M & A in 2023

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While these immortal lines from Charles Dickens can apply to many things at any age, they seem particularly apt for India SaaS in 2023. We are now at a liminal moment in time – a period of transformative transition.

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While these immortal lines from Charles Dickens can apply to many things at any age, they seem particularly apt for India SaaS in 2023. We are now at a liminal moment in time – a period of transformative transition.

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2021 and the first half of 2022 were the halcyon days for Indian SaaS startups – the “best of times” from every angle – availability of venture capital, high valuations, and pandemic-struck markets that opened up a plethora of new opportunities in a remote-first world.

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2021 and the first half of 2022 were the halcyon days for Indian SaaS startups – the “best of times” from every angle – availability of venture capital, high valuations, and pandemic-struck markets that opened up a plethora of new opportunities in a remote-first world.

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It therefore came as no surprise that Indian SaaS startups raised record amounts of capital at unprecedented valuations to conquer this brave new world. By one estimate, as many as 1,350 SaaS startups have raised external capital hitherto, a number that was in the low hundreds just a couple of years ago.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(314) "

It therefore came as no surprise that Indian SaaS startups raised record amounts of capital at unprecedented valuations to conquer this brave new world. By one estimate, as many as 1,350 SaaS startups have raised external capital hitherto, a number that was in the low hundreds just a couple of years ago.

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However, the party ended far sooner than most people anticipated.

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However, the party ended far sooner than most people anticipated.

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2023 is shaping up to be the “worst of times” – drying up of venture capital, sharply-lowered valuations, recessionary markets, and a post-pandemic world with a markedly lower appetite for trying new SaaS products. A PwC India report recently said the Indian startup ecosystem reported the lowest six-month funding in the last four years in the first half of calendar year 2023 at $3.8 billion.

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2023 is shaping up to be the “worst of times” – drying up of venture capital, sharply-lowered valuations, recessionary markets, and a post-pandemic world with a markedly lower appetite for trying new SaaS products. A PwC India report recently said the Indian startup ecosystem reported the lowest six-month funding in the last four years in the first half of calendar year 2023 at $3.8 billion.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(317) "

Even companies that had raised funding in the last couple of years now have to face the daunting challenge of raising follow-on rounds at valuations at par or higher than what they had raised previously – most companies would need to grow their toplines by 3X to just merit their previous round valuation.

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Even companies that had raised funding in the last couple of years now have to face the daunting challenge of raising follow-on rounds at valuations at par or higher than what they had raised previously – most companies would need to grow their toplines by 3X to just merit their previous round valuation.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(271) "

On top of that, markets no longer value unprofitable companies and mandate that SaaS startups grow meaningfully without sacrificing profitability. This sentiment is shared across the board from early-stage startups all the way to publicly listed companies. 

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On top of that, markets no longer value unprofitable companies and mandate that SaaS startups grow meaningfully without sacrificing profitability. This sentiment is shared across the board from early-stage startups all the way to publicly listed companies. 

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Against this backdrop, it becomes all the more important for companies to wake up to the world of M&A (mergers and acquisitions). While IPO dreams made sense in the previous world, it is increasingly clear that such ambitions might seem grandiose in the current age.

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Against this backdrop, it becomes all the more important for companies to wake up to the world of M&A (mergers and acquisitions). While IPO dreams made sense in the previous world, it is increasingly clear that such ambitions might seem grandiose in the current age.

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Equally, there is common consensus that follow-on funding beyond the Series A round is a brutal market right now with fewer than 1 in 3 companies likely to see success. Given the fact that traditional routes of exits and further funding are seemingly constricted for the foreseeable future, contemplating exiting through acquisition is a natural path to consider.

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Equally, there is common consensus that follow-on funding beyond the Series A round is a brutal market right now with fewer than 1 in 3 companies likely to see success. Given the fact that traditional routes of exits and further funding are seemingly constricted for the foreseeable future, contemplating exiting through acquisition is a natural path to consider.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(95) "

You’ve probably heard the phrase, “Most startups are bought, not sold.”

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You’ve probably heard the phrase, “Most startups are bought, not sold.”

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The dream is that you create a good enough product and the likes of Microsoft or Google will show up one day with a fat check for you.

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The dream is that you create a good enough product and the likes of Microsoft or Google will show up one day with a fat check for you.

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The problem is, it’s just that – a dream. 

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The problem is, it’s just that – a dream. 

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Most startups are sold…and only with diligent planning and great effort.

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Most startups are sold…and only with diligent planning and great effort.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(88) "

So how does a SaaS startup founder think about and plan towards an acquisition?

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So how does a SaaS startup founder think about and plan towards an acquisition?

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Every startup is different and every market is different, so it is over simplistic to attempt to come up with a definitive playbook that can be followed as a prescription to get your company acquired.

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Every startup is different and every market is different, so it is over simplistic to attempt to come up with a definitive playbook that can be followed as a prescription to get your company acquired.

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But while there is no playbook, there is definitely a primer for mergers and acquisitions that SaaS startups in India can learn from and apply to their own context. This primer is synthesized from hard-earned tribal knowledge and experiences from other founders who successfully got their startups acquired.

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But while there is no playbook, there is definitely a primer for mergers and acquisitions that SaaS startups in India can learn from and apply to their own context. This primer is synthesized from hard-earned tribal knowledge and experiences from other founders who successfully got their startups acquired.

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In this post, we will draw out the broad contours of this primer, and in future editions, we will dive deeper into specific aspects of M&A with founders who have played and won the game.

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In this post, we will draw out the broad contours of this primer, and in future editions, we will dive deeper into specific aspects of M&A with founders who have played and won the game.

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Speaking of games, one useful way to frame the M & A challenge is to view it as a contact sport. 

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Speaking of games, one useful way to frame the M & A challenge is to view it as a contact sport. 

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Come up with a process, commit to it, and adapt your play to anticipate your potential acquirer’s plays. Framed this way, getting acquired is simply a matter of closing the gap between your plans and the buyer’s expectations.

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Come up with a process, commit to it, and adapt your play to anticipate your potential acquirer’s plays. Framed this way, getting acquired is simply a matter of closing the gap between your plans and the buyer’s expectations.

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Let’s go through all the steps in this primer framework step by step.

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Let’s go through all the steps in this primer framework step by step.

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Choose your game

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Choose your game

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Startup founders are typically driven by purpose and passion – they attempt to ding the universe by answering a clarion call that is not perceptible to others. But to have a realistic chance of a meaningful exit, this instinct has to be balanced by the cold rationale of market conditions. For your startup acquisition to be worth your time, you need to pick a game worth playing.

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Startup founders are typically driven by purpose and passion – they attempt to ding the universe by answering a clarion call that is not perceptible to others. But to have a realistic chance of a meaningful exit, this instinct has to be balanced by the cold rationale of market conditions. For your startup acquisition to be worth your time, you need to pick a game worth playing.

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Here is a check-list to score your market:

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Here is a check-list to score your market:

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Market Space / TAM – Do you play in a market that is large enough ($1B+)? 

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Market Space / TAM – Do you play in a market that is large enough ($1B+)? 

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" ["innerContent"]=> array(3) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(6) "

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Market Share / Color of Ocean – Is your space relatively unpopulated with competition? Even if there is competition, do you believe that you can carve out a significant market share for yourself?

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Market Share / Color of Ocean – Is your space relatively unpopulated with competition? Even if there is competition, do you believe that you can carve out a significant market share for yourself?

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" ["innerContent"]=> array(3) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(9) "core/list" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(1) { [0]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(155) "

Size of Potential Acquirers – Are there big companies in your market that you can identify as potential acquirers? 

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Size of Potential Acquirers – Are there big companies in your market that you can identify as potential acquirers? 

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(11) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(3) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(9) "core/list" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(1) { [0]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(134) "

Appetite for Acquisitions – Is there M&A activity in the space? Has it been there historically?

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Appetite for Acquisitions – Is there M&A activity in the space? Has it been there historically?

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(11) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(3) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(161) "

If the answer to all these questions is a resounding “yes”, only then do you have a starting point that could result in a significant exit.

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If the answer to all these questions is a resounding “yes”, only then do you have a starting point that could result in a significant exit.

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Pick your (T)eam

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Pick your (T)eam

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Once you have identified the game, the next step is to pick your “T” – basically, identify the lead case for acquisition. Why would anyone acquire you? The answer to this needs to tick at least one of the main “T”s – Team, Traction, or Technology.

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Once you have identified the game, the next step is to pick your “T” – basically, identify the lead case for acquisition. Why would anyone acquire you? The answer to this needs to tick at least one of the main “T”s – Team, Traction, or Technology.

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Experienced hands at M&A will tell you that it is better to pick just one of these three options and lend all your strength to that individual ingredient and be the best at that rather than spread yourself thin by trying to be all things to all people. 

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Experienced hands at M&A will tell you that it is better to pick just one of these three options and lend all your strength to that individual ingredient and be the best at that rather than spread yourself thin by trying to be all things to all people. 

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While it is likely that you need to be good at all three of these key elements to win in the market, excelling in one of them will make you a more palatable target for acquisition.

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While it is likely that you need to be good at all three of these key elements to win in the market, excelling in one of them will make you a more palatable target for acquisition.

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Understand the rules of the game 

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Understand the rules of the game 

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Once you have picked your game and identified your team, you need to apprise yourself of the rules of play. 

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Once you have picked your game and identified your team, you need to apprise yourself of the rules of play. 

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There are three foundational elements to this.

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There are three foundational elements to this.

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Firstly, make sure that you have all the basic hygiene factors right when it comes to corporate governance and structuring. From choosing the right geography to domicile your entity to optimize for taxation to ensure that you document everything – your cap table, investor agreements, employee contracts, agreements, customer lists, patent filings, bank statements – so that you don’t need to scramble for anything in the due diligence phase.

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Firstly, make sure that you have all the basic hygiene factors right when it comes to corporate governance and structuring. From choosing the right geography to domicile your entity to optimize for taxation to ensure that you document everything – your cap table, investor agreements, employee contracts, agreements, customer lists, patent filings, bank statements – so that you don’t need to scramble for anything in the due diligence phase.

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Keep in mind the fact that ensuring good governance and professional structuring is key to many desirable business outcomes even beyond the prism of acquisitions.

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Keep in mind the fact that ensuring good governance and professional structuring is key to many desirable business outcomes even beyond the prism of acquisitions.

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Second, understand buyer motivations. Like you, buyers are people with goals they want to meet, and you’ll attract more offers when you know what motivates them. Every year, a new generation of entrepreneurs enters the acquisition market and you’re competing against them on product and attitude. Be open, honest, and collaborative if you want to stand out from the crowd.

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Second, understand buyer motivations. Like you, buyers are people with goals they want to meet, and you’ll attract more offers when you know what motivates them. Every year, a new generation of entrepreneurs enters the acquisition market and you’re competing against them on product and attitude. Be open, honest, and collaborative if you want to stand out from the crowd.

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Finally, be prepared. All else being equal, your preparedness going into an acquisition could decide whether you get an offer. Buyers shouldn’t have to educate you on the acquisition process – it slows everything down and adds extra work to an already exhaustive itinerary.

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Finally, be prepared. All else being equal, your preparedness going into an acquisition could decide whether you get an offer. Buyers shouldn’t have to educate you on the acquisition process – it slows everything down and adds extra work to an already exhaustive itinerary.

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Instead, understand all facets of the acquisition process, including business development basics, due diligence, deal structures, asset transfer paths, tax implications etc. Even better, prepare an acquisition plan in advance. This might include a breakdown of assets, who owns what, social and email accounts, team directory, and so on – essentially a manual for running your business once it changes hands.

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Instead, understand all facets of the acquisition process, including business development basics, due diligence, deal structures, asset transfer paths, tax implications etc. Even better, prepare an acquisition plan in advance. This might include a breakdown of assets, who owns what, social and email accounts, team directory, and so on – essentially a manual for running your business once it changes hands.

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Try to maintain a trailing P&L statement for at least 24 months so that it is ready to share at the first sign of buyer interest. Bring in professionals as soon as you can afford to in your startup evolution – ensure that you have a great CFO, auditor and legal counsel.

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Try to maintain a trailing P&L statement for at least 24 months so that it is ready to share at the first sign of buyer interest. Bring in professionals as soon as you can afford to in your startup evolution – ensure that you have a great CFO, auditor and legal counsel.

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It is tempting to think of these functions as unproductive overheads but the cost you pay for ticking the checklist on these aspects will easily be recouped and then some. 

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It is tempting to think of these functions as unproductive overheads but the cost you pay for ticking the checklist on these aspects will easily be recouped and then some. 

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Play a smart game

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Play a smart game

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The key to getting a good acquisition is to build a company that has a high “saleability” quotient. Saleability simply refers to an asset that is easy to sell, in our case the acquisition of a startup by a bigger company. Targeting saleability doesn’t imply that you compromise on other aspects of your business. You need to continue to focus on your customers, their needs, and the market. But it is still possible to align these broader imperatives with the one of building a “saleable” business.

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The key to getting a good acquisition is to build a company that has a high “saleability” quotient. Saleability simply refers to an asset that is easy to sell, in our case the acquisition of a startup by a bigger company. Targeting saleability doesn’t imply that you compromise on other aspects of your business. You need to continue to focus on your customers, their needs, and the market. But it is still possible to align these broader imperatives with the one of building a “saleable” business.

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How does one do that?

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How does one do that?

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While there is a broad spectrum of playbooks to get acquired, they broadly converge on their specific plays:

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While there is a broad spectrum of playbooks to get acquired, they broadly converge on their specific plays:

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“Become relevant”

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“Become relevant”

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Look at and examine your company from the perspective of the potential buyer. 

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Look at and examine your company from the perspective of the potential buyer. 

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Figure out if you are relevant from the prism of “timing” – is this something that the buyer is interested in at this point in time, does it see this as a top priority? If not, read the “tea leaves” – understand what the acquirer’s top three priorities are for the next three years and explore the possibility of aligning yourself to one of these in a focused manner. Building your business with an end game in mind can help make it easy for bigger companies to identify and acquire you.

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Figure out if you are relevant from the prism of “timing” – is this something that the buyer is interested in at this point in time, does it see this as a top priority? If not, read the “tea leaves” – understand what the acquirer’s top three priorities are for the next three years and explore the possibility of aligning yourself to one of these in a focused manner. Building your business with an end game in mind can help make it easy for bigger companies to identify and acquire you.

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It’s also important to make sure that you can articulate and communicate your value proposition well. In all your marketing messages, use the same terms and terminology that your potential buyer does in its own positioning and PR. Speaking in the same language as your potential acquirer not only establishes top-of-mind recall, it also helps them understand and slot you better within their own broader portfolio of solutions.

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It’s also important to make sure that you can articulate and communicate your value proposition well. In all your marketing messages, use the same terms and terminology that your potential buyer does in its own positioning and PR. Speaking in the same language as your potential acquirer not only establishes top-of-mind recall, it also helps them understand and slot you better within their own broader portfolio of solutions.

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Use this opportunity to also establish a clear value proposition to set yourself apart from the competition and constantly reiterate on how you are superior, different or unique – make it easier for your potential buyer to rationalize and justify the acquisition.

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Use this opportunity to also establish a clear value proposition to set yourself apart from the competition and constantly reiterate on how you are superior, different or unique – make it easier for your potential buyer to rationalize and justify the acquisition.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(10) "core/quote" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(1) { [0]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(1) { ["align"]=> string(6) "center" } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(92) "

“Familiarity breeds acquisition”

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“Familiarity breeds acquisition”

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The chances of a big company cold-calling you out of the blue and making an acquisition offer is only slightly better than an ice-cube’s chance in hell. To improve your odds, you need to put yourself squarely and strategically in the cross-hairs of your buyer. The key to doing this is to build relationships with your acquirer at multiple points.

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The chances of a big company cold-calling you out of the blue and making an acquisition offer is only slightly better than an ice-cube’s chance in hell. To improve your odds, you need to put yourself squarely and strategically in the cross-hairs of your buyer. The key to doing this is to build relationships with your acquirer at multiple points.

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Keep in mind the fact that companies do not acquire companies  – people do. This means that you need to establish and build relationships with General Managers, Vice Presidents, EVPs, and SVPs who run corporate development for large companies.

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Keep in mind the fact that companies do not acquire companies  – people do. This means that you need to establish and build relationships with General Managers, Vice Presidents, EVPs, and SVPs who run corporate development for large companies.

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If this requires you to move domicile from India to the US or Europe, consider it as a necessary investment worth taking. The founders of many Indian SaaS startups that were successfully acquired have shown us how moving to these key markets and engaging with potential acquirers on a sustained basis has led to great outcomes.

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If this requires you to move domicile from India to the US or Europe, consider it as a necessary investment worth taking. The founders of many Indian SaaS startups that were successfully acquired have shown us how moving to these key markets and engaging with potential acquirers on a sustained basis has led to great outcomes.

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It is important to engage early and build relationships – both top-down and bottom-up – and ideally should be led by the founder herself. Often, the founder is the brand and the first brand ambassador.

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It is important to engage early and build relationships – both top-down and bottom-up – and ideally should be led by the founder herself. Often, the founder is the brand and the first brand ambassador.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(10) "core/quote" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(1) { [0]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(10) "core/quote" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(1) { [0]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(1) { ["align"]=> string(6) "center" } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(101) "

“Be so good that they can’t ignore you”

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“Be so good that they can’t ignore you”

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" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(50) "

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Your potential buyer is both your partner and your competitor – it is a dynamic with a nuanced difference that is easy to gloss over. Consider the risks and benefits of both and act in a balanced manner.

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Your potential buyer is both your partner and your competitor – it is a dynamic with a nuanced difference that is easy to gloss over. Consider the risks and benefits of both and act in a balanced manner.

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Understand how you can partner with your acquirer. Do they have a partnership program or a marketplace where you can list yourself? Do they have an API or platform that you can integrate into? Is there an option to raise funding from a potential acquirer as a strategic investor?

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Understand how you can partner with your acquirer. Do they have a partnership program or a marketplace where you can list yourself? Do they have an API or platform that you can integrate into? Is there an option to raise funding from a potential acquirer as a strategic investor?

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In all these efforts, start with small steps – singles rather than home runs. Over time, build out your offering and integration iteratively in a sustained manner. If possible, explore GTM motions in partnership with your acquirer – figure out if you can demonstrate that their customers see value in a combined offering and will help them with key customer wins.

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In all these efforts, start with small steps – singles rather than home runs. Over time, build out your offering and integration iteratively in a sustained manner. If possible, explore GTM motions in partnership with your acquirer – figure out if you can demonstrate that their customers see value in a combined offering and will help them with key customer wins.

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Alternatively, demonstrate that with you in tow, they can explore larger or adjacent markets that can open up new revenue streams. Can you show that your solution fills a key gap in its functionality or brings significant cost advantages? On the contrary, is there an out-of-the-left-field play where your solution is a point of pain to a large company and they see you as someone whose presence hurts them in some way?

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Alternatively, demonstrate that with you in tow, they can explore larger or adjacent markets that can open up new revenue streams. Can you show that your solution fills a key gap in its functionality or brings significant cost advantages? On the contrary, is there an out-of-the-left-field play where your solution is a point of pain to a large company and they see you as someone whose presence hurts them in some way?

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Establishing your value to an acquirer is a multifaceted endeavor. For one thing, PR and publicity is critical. PR is not just about releasing press statements – it is about customers telling your acquirer about you, it is about the press writing about you editorially, it is about consulting firms praising you. Of course, none of this is easy or inexpensive but as long as you are clear about your objectives, it is possible to make them affordable and valuable.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(475) "

Establishing your value to an acquirer is a multifaceted endeavor. For one thing, PR and publicity is critical. PR is not just about releasing press statements – it is about customers telling your acquirer about you, it is about the press writing about you editorially, it is about consulting firms praising you. Of course, none of this is easy or inexpensive but as long as you are clear about your objectives, it is possible to make them affordable and valuable.

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The end goal of all these efforts is to be so good that they cannot ignore you and have to make you an offer!

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The end goal of all these efforts is to be so good that they cannot ignore you and have to make you an offer!

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Ace the End Game

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Ace the End Game

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The game doesn’t end when you get an acquisition offer, rather it is the start of the end game. All your efforts will come to naught if you don’t ace this part of the game.

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The game doesn’t end when you get an acquisition offer, rather it is the start of the end game. All your efforts will come to naught if you don’t ace this part of the game.

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For starters, be sure whether you want to sell or not – there is no maybe. If you are, do you want to sell now and will you do what it takes to sell? If the answer is yes, your end game has begun.

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For starters, be sure whether you want to sell or not – there is no maybe. If you are, do you want to sell now and will you do what it takes to sell? If the answer is yes, your end game has begun.

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The end game begins with setting the broad price range and terms of the acquisition. Treat these as starting points for figuring out the final contours. Be transparent and honest in your dealings and communicate your expectations openly. Don’t play games – buyers are usually experienced professionals and they probably do this for a living. 

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The end game begins with setting the broad price range and terms of the acquisition. Treat these as starting points for figuring out the final contours. Be transparent and honest in your dealings and communicate your expectations openly. Don’t play games – buyers are usually experienced professionals and they probably do this for a living. 

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Don’t be afraid to assert your acquisition expectations but prepare to negotiate and compromise. Let the buyer know you’re flexible. Neither you nor the buyer will end up with exactly what you want, but once you make peace with that, you are more likely to succeed than fail.

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Don’t be afraid to assert your acquisition expectations but prepare to negotiate and compromise. Let the buyer know you’re flexible. Neither you nor the buyer will end up with exactly what you want, but once you make peace with that, you are more likely to succeed than fail.

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Deal structures are ripe for negotiation. Do you want an all-cash or equity-cash mix? What is the upfront and pay-out ratio? There are countless ways to split the pie. Have a rough idea of minimum thresholds but don’t be religious on specific terms – know the standard terms and fight for the right things.

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Deal structures are ripe for negotiation. Do you want an all-cash or equity-cash mix? What is the upfront and pay-out ratio? There are countless ways to split the pie. Have a rough idea of minimum thresholds but don’t be religious on specific terms – know the standard terms and fight for the right things.

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If possible, bring on board an experienced advisor who can guide you through the process. It might be a worthwhile investment to bring in a banker to shepherd the deal through. These professionals can provide guidance on valuation, deal structuring, negotiations, and due diligence.

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If possible, bring on board an experienced advisor who can guide you through the process. It might be a worthwhile investment to bring in a banker to shepherd the deal through. These professionals can provide guidance on valuation, deal structuring, negotiations, and due diligence.

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Be prepared for due diligence by organizing your legal, financial, and operational documents. Ensure all contracts, agreements, and compliance records are easily accessible. Anticipate potential questions and concerns from acquirers and address any potential red flags proactively. A well-prepared due diligence process demonstrates your professionalism and readiness for acquisition.

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Be prepared for due diligence by organizing your legal, financial, and operational documents. Ensure all contracts, agreements, and compliance records are easily accessible. Anticipate potential questions and concerns from acquirers and address any potential red flags proactively. A well-prepared due diligence process demonstrates your professionalism and readiness for acquisition.

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Finally, deal in good spirit –  if the acquisition goes through, you might work for them for a while and it is good to start that relationship with positivity on both sides.

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Finally, deal in good spirit –  if the acquisition goes through, you might work for them for a while and it is good to start that relationship with positivity on both sides.

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The Epilogue

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The Epilogue

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There is little doubt that we are in a market that is largely bearish – both in general and specifically with respect to funding. But we are already seeing the green shoots of fertile grounds for mergers and acquisitions in the last four to five months.

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There is little doubt that we are in a market that is largely bearish – both in general and specifically with respect to funding. But we are already seeing the green shoots of fertile grounds for mergers and acquisitions in the last four to five months.

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Public tech valuations are on the upswing, companies that had frozen hiring have started doing so again and private equity and venture capital valuations are trending upwards, especially in areas such as generative AI.

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Public tech valuations are on the upswing, companies that had frozen hiring have started doing so again and private equity and venture capital valuations are trending upwards, especially in areas such as generative AI.

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This foreshadows an environment where acquisition options are going to improve for startups and emerge as the primary route for exits. Founders need to be thoughtful and diligent to capture this opportunity and make it the proverbial “best of times”!

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This foreshadows an environment where acquisition options are going to improve for startups and emerge as the primary route for exits. Founders need to be thoughtful and diligent to capture this opportunity and make it the proverbial “best of times”!

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India SaaS hangs tough amidst shocks in global markets

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Macroeconomic shocks have roiled the business environment for SaaS over the past couple of years. Uncertainties altered customer demands and priorities, while fears of recession impacted the investment outlook. SaaS companies all over the world got caught up in this pincer movement.

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Macroeconomic shocks have roiled the business environment for SaaS over the past couple of years. Uncertainties altered customer demands and priorities, while fears of recession impacted the investment outlook. SaaS companies all over the world got caught up in this pincer movement.

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Amidst this turbulence, the Indian SaaS ecosystem has proved even more resilient than its global counterparts. Revenues crossed $7 billion, formation of new SaaS companies expanded three-fold, and India now corners 2% of the global SaaS market, a new study by the SaaS founder community, SaaSBoomi, and knowledge partner McKinsey shows.

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Amidst this turbulence, the Indian SaaS ecosystem has proved even more resilient than its global counterparts. Revenues crossed $7 billion, formation of new SaaS companies expanded three-fold, and India now corners 2% of the global SaaS market, a new study by the SaaS founder community, SaaSBoomi, and knowledge partner McKinsey shows.

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Investors have retained faith in the accelerating growth potential of India SaaS through the difficult times. Capital invested in Indian SaaS companies grew 24% from $5.9 billion in 2021 to $8.4 billion 2022, even as SaaS investments globally got a 20% shaving from $305 billion to $245 billion in the same period.

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Investors have retained faith in the accelerating growth potential of India SaaS through the difficult times. Capital invested in Indian SaaS companies grew 24% from $5.9 billion in 2021 to $8.4 billion 2022, even as SaaS investments globally got a 20% shaving from $305 billion to $245 billion in the same period.

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One explanation is a switch in global fund allocation. “In the last few years, most of the global VCs have come to realize that Indian SaaS founders can build global products. And when US markets started tanking, it gave them even more reason to look at opportunities elsewhere,” says Sathya Nellore Sampat, General Partner at BoldCap. “The public market was crashing in the US but the valuation realizations were not happening in the private market. That led them to look at India as an opportunity.”

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One explanation is a switch in global fund allocation. “In the last few years, most of the global VCs have come to realize that Indian SaaS founders can build global products. And when US markets started tanking, it gave them even more reason to look at opportunities elsewhere,” says Sathya Nellore Sampat, General Partner at BoldCap. “The public market was crashing in the US but the valuation realizations were not happening in the private market. That led them to look at India as an opportunity.”

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India had a record 6.7% share of new global unicorns in 2022, most of which are SaaS companies. “B2B SaaS in India has been a bright spot for investment because revenues kept growing even if valuations dropped due to macroeconomic factors,” says Manav Garg, founder & CEO, Eka Software Solutions.

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India had a record 6.7% share of new global unicorns in 2022, most of which are SaaS companies. “B2B SaaS in India has been a bright spot for investment because revenues kept growing even if valuations dropped due to macroeconomic factors,” says Manav Garg, founder & CEO, Eka Software Solutions.

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The SaaSBoomi report projects $50-70 billion revenues from India SaaS with enterprise value crossing $0.5 trillion by 2030.  

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The SaaSBoomi report projects $50-70 billion revenues from India SaaS with enterprise value crossing $0.5 trillion by 2030.  

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The dry powder for annual tech investments globally grew to nearly $400 billion by the end of 2022. But investments into both global and Indian SaaS will be more challenging going forward, until the macroeconomic climate improves, because of the unwillingness of founders to raise down rounds, the study shows.

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The dry powder for annual tech investments globally grew to nearly $400 billion by the end of 2022. But investments into both global and Indian SaaS will be more challenging going forward, until the macroeconomic climate improves, because of the unwillingness of founders to raise down rounds, the study shows.

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Alongside the piling up of global dry powder, the funds available for investing in India SaaS have burgeoned with a number of new India-focused funds coming up.

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Alongside the piling up of global dry powder, the funds available for investing in India SaaS have burgeoned with a number of new India-focused funds coming up.

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One of the incentives for VCs doubling down on India SaaS is their perception of better prospects for exits. The number of Indian SaaS exits doubled in the last two years as more and more companies learnt the scaling and M&A mantras from their successful peers.

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One of the incentives for VCs doubling down on India SaaS is their perception of better prospects for exits. The number of Indian SaaS exits doubled in the last two years as more and more companies learnt the scaling and M&A mantras from their successful peers.

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While the India SaaS story remains compelling for investors, the weather vane has turned from blitzscaling towards profitability. Efficient growth is the watchword in the current scenario.

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While the India SaaS story remains compelling for investors, the weather vane has turned from blitzscaling towards profitability. Efficient growth is the watchword in the current scenario.

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At the same time, the advent of generative AI foundational models has created a new opportunity for Indian SaaS founders to accelerate growth. 

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At the same time, the advent of generative AI foundational models has created a new opportunity for Indian SaaS founders to accelerate growth. 

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Ravi Rajamony, Vice President, March Capital, believes India has some advantages in building AI-native SaaS. “Even though India joined the SaaS play a bit later, it caught up with the world and tremendous value was created. Lots of that learning can be applied quickly to AI-native SaaS. Founders here are very tech and product aware and AI adoption has been superfast.”

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Ravi Rajamony, Vice President, March Capital, believes India has some advantages in building AI-native SaaS. “Even though India joined the SaaS play a bit later, it caught up with the world and tremendous value was created. Lots of that learning can be applied quickly to AI-native SaaS. Founders here are very tech and product aware and AI adoption has been superfast.”

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The experiences and best practices of India’s SaaS winners can inspire today’s SaaS founders to achieve breakthrough levels of success in an AI world, says the SaaSBoomi report.

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The experiences and best practices of India’s SaaS winners can inspire today’s SaaS founders to achieve breakthrough levels of success in an AI world, says the SaaSBoomi report.

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You can buy and download the full report here.

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You can buy and download the full report here.

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Chapters

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Join the community

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We help them build the future of SaaS with a robust support system, including valuable connections, personalized mentorship, and actionable playbooks from peers." 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SaaSBoomi Online - An exclusive hands-on community for members

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SaaSBoomi Online - An exclusive hands-on community for members

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While our events, initiatives, and resources are open to all, SaaSBoomi Online members have additional 24/7 access to our always-on community of peers and mentors. Ask questions, spark conversations, and actively seek diverse views and opinions from SaaS leaders.

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While our events, initiatives, and resources are open to all, SaaSBoomi Online members have additional 24/7 access to our always-on community of peers and mentors. Ask questions, spark conversations, and actively seek diverse views and opinions from SaaS leaders.

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Your company should be a B2B SaaS product startup.

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Your company should be a B2B SaaS product startup.

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The Indian entity holds more than 50% ownership

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The Indian entity holds more than 50% ownership

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More than 50% of employees are In India

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More than 50% of employees are In India

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The company identifies itself as an Indian company on its main corporate website

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The company identifies itself as an Indian company on its main corporate website

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About Us

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We are, and always will be...

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We are, and always will be...

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...For Founders By Founders

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...For Founders By Founders

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SaaSBoomi is a close-knit community of B2B SaaS founders from India. We are founded by some of the best SaaS founders of the country, and so we know what it’s like to be in the founder’s shoes at every stage. We are stage and funding agnostic: idea stage technology companies to bootstrapped or VC-backed unicorns are all part of our community, which has a full-fledged US Chapter as well.

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SaaSBoomi is a close-knit community of B2B SaaS founders from India. We are founded by some of the best SaaS founders of the country, and so we know what it’s like to be in the founder’s shoes at every stage. We are stage and funding agnostic: idea stage technology companies to bootstrapped or VC-backed unicorns are all part of our community, which has a full-fledged US Chapter as well.

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...About open playbooks

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...About open playbooks

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We exist to help founders and their companies grow and change the world. We help them build the future of SaaS with a robust support system, including valuable connections, personalized mentorship, and actionable playbooks from peers. We have created safe spaces for founders to be open, transparent, and vulnerable. We share and learn from one another’s mistakes, what worked, what didn’t. 

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We exist to help founders and their companies grow and change the world. We help them build the future of SaaS with a robust support system, including valuable connections, personalized mentorship, and actionable playbooks from peers. We have created safe spaces for founders to be open, transparent, and vulnerable. We share and learn from one another’s mistakes, what worked, what didn’t. 

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...Paying-it-forward

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...Paying-it-forward

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Our community events and initiatives are designed entirely around the journey of an Indian SaaS founder. Here, founders build together, avoid costly pitfalls, and help one another connect the dots. Our pay-it-forward ethos is our biggest strength. The culture began in Silicon Valley and grew over a 50-year period. India SaaS adapted to serve an ecosystem that needed to grow 5 times faster. Now it has become self-perpetuating. 

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Our community events and initiatives are designed entirely around the journey of an Indian SaaS founder. Here, founders build together, avoid costly pitfalls, and help one another connect the dots. Our pay-it-forward ethos is our biggest strength. The culture began in Silicon Valley and grew over a 50-year period. India SaaS adapted to serve an ecosystem that needed to grow 5 times faster. Now it has become self-perpetuating. 

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...Powered by volunteers

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...Powered by volunteers

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Founders, volunteers, and fellows find joy in giving their time, energy, and effort to plan, drive, and execute all our initiatives, events, and projects selflessly and, in the process, learn and grow themselves. We deeply empathize with the entrepreneur and are guided by respect for the founder and the startup-building process. And everything we do in the community is driven by founders.

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Founders, volunteers, and fellows find joy in giving their time, energy, and effort to plan, drive, and execute all our initiatives, events, and projects selflessly and, in the process, learn and grow themselves. We deeply empathize with the entrepreneur and are guided by respect for the founder and the startup-building process. And everything we do in the community is driven by founders.

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["_timeline_details_2_image_caption"]=> string(19) "field_64c223847d55f" ["timeline_details_2_year"]=> string(4) "2016" ["_timeline_details_2_year"]=> string(19) "field_64c222a9f4f87" ["timeline_details_2_slide_format"]=> string(5) "color" ["_timeline_details_2_slide_format"]=> string(19) "field_64c222aef4f88" ["timeline_details_3_title"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_3_title"]=> string(19) "field_64c22278f4f84" ["timeline_details_3_content"]=> string(316) "Initially, SaaSx happened every six months in Chennai and it was good to see the tribe grow from 70 to 250 founders in less than 2 years. The format remained the same…half-day session where founders opened their playbooks. Nothing got posted on social media…just some photographs….but no content from sessions." ["_timeline_details_3_content"]=> string(19) "field_64c22291f4f85" ["timeline_details_3_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_3_image"]=> string(19) "field_64c2229bf4f86" ["timeline_details_3_image_caption"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_3_image_caption"]=> string(19) "field_64c223847d55f" ["timeline_details_3_year"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_3_year"]=> string(19) "field_64c222a9f4f87" ["timeline_details_3_slide_format"]=> string(5) "color" ["_timeline_details_3_slide_format"]=> string(19) "field_64c222aef4f88" ["timeline_details_4_title"]=> string(13) "December 2016" ["_timeline_details_4_title"]=> string(19) "field_64c22278f4f84" ["timeline_details_4_content"]=> string(97) "PNGrowth was a 3-day bootcamp for founders who had scaled. It was for only 50 founders at a time." ["_timeline_details_4_content"]=> string(19) "field_64c22291f4f85" ["timeline_details_4_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_4_image"]=> string(19) "field_64c2229bf4f86" ["timeline_details_4_image_caption"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_4_image_caption"]=> string(19) "field_64c223847d55f" ["timeline_details_4_year"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_4_year"]=> string(19) "field_64c222a9f4f87" ["timeline_details_4_slide_format"]=> string(5) "color" ["_timeline_details_4_slide_format"]=> string(19) "field_64c222aef4f88" ["timeline_details_5_title"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_5_title"]=> string(19) "field_64c22278f4f84" ["timeline_details_5_content"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_5_content"]=> string(19) "field_64c22291f4f85" ["timeline_details_5_image"]=> int(14303) ["_timeline_details_5_image"]=> string(19) "field_64c2229bf4f86" ["timeline_details_5_image_caption"]=> string(52) "3-day PNGrowth bootcamp for founders who had scaled." ["_timeline_details_5_image_caption"]=> string(19) "field_64c223847d55f" ["timeline_details_5_year"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_5_year"]=> string(19) "field_64c222a9f4f87" ["timeline_details_5_slide_format"]=> string(5) "color" ["_timeline_details_5_slide_format"]=> string(19) "field_64c222aef4f88" ["timeline_details_6_title"]=> string(10) "March 2017" ["_timeline_details_6_title"]=> string(19) "field_64c22278f4f84" ["timeline_details_6_content"]=> string(165) "The 4th edition of SaaSX saw around 250 founders from all over India. While 250 attended, the ecosystem had 700+ founders from India building SaaS companies by then." ["_timeline_details_6_content"]=> string(19) "field_64c22291f4f85" ["timeline_details_6_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_6_image"]=> string(19) "field_64c2229bf4f86" ["timeline_details_6_image_caption"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_6_image_caption"]=> string(19) "field_64c223847d55f" ["timeline_details_6_year"]=> string(4) "2017" ["_timeline_details_6_year"]=> string(19) "field_64c222a9f4f87" ["timeline_details_6_slide_format"]=> string(5) "color" ["_timeline_details_6_slide_format"]=> string(19) "field_64c222aef4f88" ["timeline_details_7_title"]=> string(12) "August 2018 " ["_timeline_details_7_title"]=> string(19) "field_64c22278f4f84" ["timeline_details_7_content"]=> string(181) "Launched SaaSE, a platform around Enterprise Sales for 50 SaaS startups. Later on this became SaaSBoomi Enterprise. This was focussed on Sales and held in Bangalore for a full day." ["_timeline_details_7_content"]=> string(19) "field_64c22291f4f85" ["timeline_details_7_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_7_image"]=> string(19) "field_64c2229bf4f86" ["timeline_details_7_image_caption"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_7_image_caption"]=> string(19) "field_64c223847d55f" ["timeline_details_7_year"]=> string(4) "2018" ["_timeline_details_7_year"]=> string(19) "field_64c222a9f4f87" ["timeline_details_7_slide_format"]=> string(5) "color" ["_timeline_details_7_slide_format"]=> string(19) "field_64c222aef4f88" ["timeline_details_8_title"]=> string(12) "January 2019" ["_timeline_details_8_title"]=> string(19) "field_64c22278f4f84" ["timeline_details_8_content"]=> string(339) "Launched SaaSBoomi in Chennai, which saw 400+ founders. This one was the first official SaaSBoomi conference and lasted two full days with lots of networking options. VC Connect was introduced and many startups got an opportunity to meet VCs and get feedback. At this time, the ecosystem had close to 1500 founders building SaaS companies." ["_timeline_details_8_content"]=> string(19) "field_64c22291f4f85" ["timeline_details_8_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_8_image"]=> string(19) "field_64c2229bf4f86" ["timeline_details_8_image_caption"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_8_image_caption"]=> string(19) "field_64c223847d55f" ["timeline_details_8_year"]=> string(4) "2019" ["_timeline_details_8_year"]=> string(19) "field_64c222a9f4f87" ["timeline_details_8_slide_format"]=> string(5) "color" ["_timeline_details_8_slide_format"]=> string(19) "field_64c222aef4f88" ["timeline_details_9_title"]=> string(11) "August 2019" ["_timeline_details_9_title"]=> string(19) "field_64c22278f4f84" ["timeline_details_9_content"]=> string(193) "2nd edition of SaaSBoomi Enterprise (formerly called SaaSE) in Bangalore had 50-75 startups. Again, it had deep conversations as founders opened their playbooks to help their early-stage peers." ["_timeline_details_9_content"]=> string(19) "field_64c22291f4f85" ["timeline_details_9_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_9_image"]=> string(19) "field_64c2229bf4f86" ["timeline_details_9_image_caption"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_9_image_caption"]=> string(19) "field_64c223847d55f" ["timeline_details_9_year"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_9_year"]=> string(19) "field_64c222a9f4f87" ["timeline_details_9_slide_format"]=> string(5) "color" ["_timeline_details_9_slide_format"]=> string(19) "field_64c222aef4f88" ["timeline_details_10_title"]=> string(12) "January 2020" ["_timeline_details_10_title"]=> string(19) "field_64c22278f4f84" ["timeline_details_10_content"]=> string(213) "2nd edition of SaaSBoomi Annual in Chennai saw 500+ founders. Content was the highlight and all sessions got an NPS score of above 80. We had close to 1800 startups that were part of the SaaSBoomi network by then." ["_timeline_details_10_content"]=> string(19) "field_64c22291f4f85" ["timeline_details_10_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_10_image"]=> string(19) "field_64c2229bf4f86" ["timeline_details_10_image_caption"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_10_image_caption"]=> string(19) "field_64c223847d55f" ["timeline_details_10_year"]=> string(4) "2020" ["_timeline_details_10_year"]=> string(19) "field_64c222a9f4f87" ["timeline_details_10_slide_format"]=> string(5) "color" ["_timeline_details_10_slide_format"]=> string(19) "field_64c222aef4f88" ["timeline_details_11_title"]=> string(9) "July 2020" ["_timeline_details_11_title"]=> string(19) "field_64c22278f4f84" ["timeline_details_11_content"]=> string(124) "Launched SaaSBoomi Growth with around 125 startup - our first virtual event. We had close to 300 attendees for the session. " ["_timeline_details_11_content"]=> string(19) "field_64c22291f4f85" ["timeline_details_11_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_11_image"]=> string(19) "field_64c2229bf4f86" ["timeline_details_11_image_caption"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_11_image_caption"]=> string(19) "field_64c223847d55f" ["timeline_details_11_year"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_11_year"]=> string(19) "field_64c222a9f4f87" ["timeline_details_11_slide_format"]=> string(5) "color" ["_timeline_details_11_slide_format"]=> string(19) "field_64c222aef4f88" ["timeline_details_12_title"]=> string(13) "November 2020" ["_timeline_details_12_title"]=> string(19) "field_64c22278f4f84" ["timeline_details_12_content"]=> string(247) "Launched 'SaaSBoomi Build' for Product & Tech Excellence for 250 leaders. Again, this resonated with the community as many of the leaders were unable to participate earlier when SaaSBoomi’s focus was more on building the community for founders. " ["_timeline_details_12_content"]=> string(19) "field_64c22291f4f85" ["timeline_details_12_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_12_image"]=> string(19) "field_64c2229bf4f86" ["timeline_details_12_image_caption"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_12_image_caption"]=> string(19) "field_64c223847d55f" ["timeline_details_12_year"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_12_year"]=> string(19) "field_64c222a9f4f87" ["timeline_details_12_slide_format"]=> string(5) "color" ["_timeline_details_12_slide_format"]=> string(19) "field_64c222aef4f88" ["timeline_details_13_title"]=> string(13) "December 2020" ["_timeline_details_13_title"]=> string(19) "field_64c22278f4f84" ["timeline_details_13_content"]=> string(97) "Launched SaaSBoomi Awards. We got around 130 applications for 8 categories of award nominations. " ["_timeline_details_13_content"]=> string(19) "field_64c22291f4f85" ["timeline_details_13_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_13_image"]=> string(19) "field_64c2229bf4f86" ["timeline_details_13_image_caption"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_13_image_caption"]=> string(19) "field_64c223847d55f" ["timeline_details_13_year"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_13_year"]=> string(19) "field_64c222a9f4f87" ["timeline_details_13_slide_format"]=> string(5) "color" ["_timeline_details_13_slide_format"]=> string(19) "field_64c222aef4f88" ["timeline_details_14_title"]=> string(11) "August 2021" ["_timeline_details_14_title"]=> string(19) "field_64c22278f4f84" ["timeline_details_14_content"]=> string(244) "Launched the SaaS Landscape report in partnership with Mckinsey. This was the first of its kind industry report on SaaS with around 1000 companies participating in a survey for it. And the trillion dollar dream became the mission for SaaSBoomi." ["_timeline_details_14_content"]=> string(19) "field_64c22291f4f85" ["timeline_details_14_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_14_image"]=> string(19) "field_64c2229bf4f86" ["timeline_details_14_image_caption"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_14_image_caption"]=> string(19) "field_64c223847d55f" ["timeline_details_14_year"]=> string(4) "2021" ["_timeline_details_14_year"]=> string(19) "field_64c222a9f4f87" ["timeline_details_14_slide_format"]=> string(5) "color" ["_timeline_details_14_slide_format"]=> string(19) "field_64c222aef4f88" ["timeline_details_15_title"]=> string(14) "December 2021 " ["_timeline_details_15_title"]=> string(19) "field_64c22278f4f84" ["timeline_details_15_content"]=> string(224) "India SaaS Story book launched. A book For Founders By Founders. This was an effort to bring out lessons and insights from scale founders. Copies of the book were sent across to the entire community of around 2200 founders. " ["_timeline_details_15_content"]=> string(19) "field_64c22291f4f85" ["timeline_details_15_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_15_image"]=> string(19) "field_64c2229bf4f86" ["timeline_details_15_image_caption"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_15_image_caption"]=> string(19) "field_64c223847d55f" ["timeline_details_15_year"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_15_year"]=> string(19) "field_64c222a9f4f87" ["timeline_details_15_slide_format"]=> string(5) "color" ["_timeline_details_15_slide_format"]=> string(19) "field_64c222aef4f88" ["timeline_details_16_title"]=> string(13) "November 2021" ["_timeline_details_16_title"]=> string(19) "field_64c22278f4f84" ["timeline_details_16_content"]=> string(280) "SGx started as a cohort-based program around growth for founders who had crossed 1Mn in ARR. It’s a 3-month program where founders give their time to help fellow founders. We completed 3 cohorts by the end of 2022, deeply engaged with 18 startups, and moved the needle for them." ["_timeline_details_16_content"]=> string(19) "field_64c22291f4f85" ["timeline_details_16_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_16_image"]=> string(19) "field_64c2229bf4f86" ["timeline_details_16_image_caption"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_16_image_caption"]=> string(19) "field_64c223847d55f" ["timeline_details_16_year"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_16_year"]=> string(19) "field_64c222a9f4f87" ["timeline_details_16_slide_format"]=> string(5) "color" ["_timeline_details_16_slide_format"]=> string(19) "field_64c222aef4f88" ["timeline_details_17_title"]=> string(9) "May 2022 " ["_timeline_details_17_title"]=> string(19) "field_64c22278f4f84" ["timeline_details_17_content"]=> string(267) "First Badminton tournament which had 100+ participants from all over India. We started this initiative to catalyze bonding between founders and create a platform to know each other well. By this time, the SaaSBoomi Community had reached a milestone of 2500+ founders." ["_timeline_details_17_content"]=> string(19) "field_64c22291f4f85" ["timeline_details_17_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_17_image"]=> string(19) "field_64c2229bf4f86" ["timeline_details_17_image_caption"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_17_image_caption"]=> string(19) "field_64c223847d55f" ["timeline_details_17_year"]=> string(4) "2022" ["_timeline_details_17_year"]=> string(19) "field_64c222a9f4f87" ["timeline_details_17_slide_format"]=> string(5) "color" ["_timeline_details_17_slide_format"]=> string(19) "field_64c222aef4f88" ["timeline_details_18_title"]=> string(9) "June 2022" ["_timeline_details_18_title"]=> string(19) "field_64c22278f4f84" ["timeline_details_18_content"]=> string(190) "Launched SaaSBoomi in the US with a 7-day trip. This was an initiative to help companies build their network in the US and also get access to their playbooks. We had 45 startups on the trip." ["_timeline_details_18_content"]=> string(19) "field_64c22291f4f85" ["timeline_details_18_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_18_image"]=> string(19) "field_64c2229bf4f86" ["timeline_details_18_image_caption"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_18_image_caption"]=> string(19) "field_64c223847d55f" ["timeline_details_18_year"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_18_year"]=> string(19) "field_64c222a9f4f87" ["timeline_details_18_slide_format"]=> string(5) "color" ["_timeline_details_18_slide_format"]=> string(19) "field_64c222aef4f88" ["timeline_details_19_title"]=> string(21) "September 14-28 2022 " ["_timeline_details_19_title"]=> string(19) "field_64c22278f4f84" ["timeline_details_19_content"]=> string(265) "Launched the first edition of SaaSBoomi Caravan along with a summit with 150+ founders traveling from India to the US. SaaSBoomi had become a 3000-member community attracting deep interest from Singapore and other emerging markets keen to be part of the community. " ["_timeline_details_19_content"]=> string(19) "field_64c22291f4f85" ["timeline_details_19_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_19_image"]=> string(19) "field_64c2229bf4f86" ["timeline_details_19_image_caption"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_19_image_caption"]=> string(19) "field_64c223847d55f" ["timeline_details_19_year"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_19_year"]=> string(19) "field_64c222a9f4f87" ["timeline_details_19_slide_format"]=> string(5) "color" ["_timeline_details_19_slide_format"]=> string(19) "field_64c222aef4f88" ["timeline_details_20_title"]=> string(17) "November 24, 2022" ["_timeline_details_20_title"]=> string(19) "field_64c22278f4f84" ["timeline_details_20_content"]=> string(156) "On SaaSBoomi’s anniversary, launched a booklet: ‘The Story of SaaSBoomi: People and ideas shaping India’s pay-it-forward community of SaaS founders’" ["_timeline_details_20_content"]=> string(19) "field_64c22291f4f85" ["timeline_details_20_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_20_image"]=> string(19) "field_64c2229bf4f86" ["timeline_details_20_image_caption"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_20_image_caption"]=> string(19) "field_64c223847d55f" ["timeline_details_20_year"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_20_year"]=> string(19) "field_64c222a9f4f87" ["timeline_details_20_slide_format"]=> string(5) "color" ["_timeline_details_20_slide_format"]=> string(19) "field_64c222aef4f88" ["timeline_details_21_title"]=> string(11) "March 2023 " ["_timeline_details_21_title"]=> string(19) "field_64c22278f4f84" ["timeline_details_21_content"]=> string(120) "SaaSBoomi gets a CEO, our founding volunteer Avinash Raghava, and also a governing council of seven for a two-year term." ["_timeline_details_21_content"]=> string(19) "field_64c22291f4f85" ["timeline_details_21_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_21_image"]=> string(19) "field_64c2229bf4f86" ["timeline_details_21_image_caption"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_21_image_caption"]=> string(19) "field_64c223847d55f" ["timeline_details_21_year"]=> string(4) "2023" ["_timeline_details_21_year"]=> string(19) "field_64c222a9f4f87" ["timeline_details_21_slide_format"]=> string(5) "color" ["_timeline_details_21_slide_format"]=> string(19) "field_64c222aef4f88" ["timeline_details_22_title"]=> string(20) "March 17 & 18, 2023 " ["_timeline_details_22_title"]=> string(19) "field_64c22278f4f84" ["timeline_details_22_content"]=> string(244) "Annual ‘23, our largest conference so far with 1,183 attendees in Chennai. We gave away the prestigious SaaSBoomi Startup Awards in 7 categories. Launched our diversity initiative, spearheaded by Ashwini Asokan, founder & CEO of MadStreetDen." ["_timeline_details_22_content"]=> string(19) "field_64c22291f4f85" ["timeline_details_22_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_22_image"]=> string(19) "field_64c2229bf4f86" ["timeline_details_22_image_caption"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_22_image_caption"]=> string(19) "field_64c223847d55f" ["timeline_details_22_year"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_22_year"]=> string(19) "field_64c222a9f4f87" ["timeline_details_22_slide_format"]=> string(5) "color" ["_timeline_details_22_slide_format"]=> string(19) "field_64c222aef4f88" ["timeline_details_23_title"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_23_title"]=> string(19) "field_64c22278f4f84" ["timeline_details_23_content"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_23_content"]=> string(19) "field_64c22291f4f85" ["timeline_details_23_image"]=> int(14568) ["_timeline_details_23_image"]=> string(19) "field_64c2229bf4f86" ["timeline_details_23_image_caption"]=> string(54) "Annual ‘23, our largest conference so far in Chennai" ["_timeline_details_23_image_caption"]=> string(19) "field_64c223847d55f" ["timeline_details_23_year"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_23_year"]=> string(19) "field_64c222a9f4f87" ["timeline_details_23_slide_format"]=> string(5) "color" ["_timeline_details_23_slide_format"]=> string(19) "field_64c222aef4f88" ["timeline_details_24_title"]=> string(13) "May 26, 2023 " ["_timeline_details_24_title"]=> string(19) "field_64c22278f4f84" ["timeline_details_24_content"]=> string(95) "Start of Singapore Chapter. Hosted a roundtable and a Social in Singapore for the first time. " ["_timeline_details_24_content"]=> string(19) "field_64c22291f4f85" ["timeline_details_24_image"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_24_image"]=> string(19) "field_64c2229bf4f86" ["timeline_details_24_image_caption"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_24_image_caption"]=> string(19) "field_64c223847d55f" ["timeline_details_24_year"]=> string(0) "" ["_timeline_details_24_year"]=> string(19) "field_64c222a9f4f87" ["timeline_details_24_slide_format"]=> string(5) "color" ["_timeline_details_24_slide_format"]=> string(19) "field_64c222aef4f88" ["timeline_details_25_title"]=> string(12) "June 2, 2023" ["_timeline_details_25_title"]=> string(19) "field_64c22278f4f84" ["timeline_details_25_content"]=> string(117) "SaaSBoomi Badminton League 2nd edition in Bangalore. More than 180 players from startups all over India participated." 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SNo.	Company Name	Short Description	Funding (USD)	Location	Founded Year	Company Stage
1	LeadSquared	Cloud based sales CRM and marketing automation solutions	203,512,768	Bengaluru	2011	Series C

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SNo.	Company Name	Short Description	Funding (USD)	Location	Founded Year	Company Stage
1	LeadSquared	Cloud based sales CRM and marketing automation solutions	203,512,768	Bengaluru	2011	Series C

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Our Story

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Foreword

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Foreword

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The history of SaaSBoomi is also the history of India’s evolution from a back office of the world to an innovation hub with the potential to be the leader of the world in SaaS. Product Nation was an idea whose time had come after the IT services industry had made India the world’s leading outsourcing destination. But going from IT services to software products is, in a way, even harder than starting from scratch, because it needs a shift in mindset and even a change of DNA.

How did a group of people start that movement? How did it snowball into one of the most progressive founder communities in the world?

SaaSBoomi was born on November 24, 2018, when India’s leading SaaS founders met online to lay out its values, set its agenda, and chart the road ahead. But the roots of SaaSBoomi, the Indian SaaS movement, and its pay-it-forward culture go much deeper. Where did the vision of making India a product nation originate? How did Silicon Valley’s pay-it-forward model get adapted and improved to serve a fast-growing Indian SaaS ecosystem?

Most of all, who are the people and what are the ideas shaping a close-knit community with a sense of belonging, attitude of sharing, and openness to be vulnerable? And how is this culture being passed down to the next generation of Indian SaaS founders to continue and build the pay-it-forward ethos?

As an African proverb puts it: “It takes a village to raise a healthy child.” Likewise, it takes a community to raise a pay-it-forward entrepreneur.

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The history of SaaSBoomi is also the history of India’s evolution from a back office of the world to an innovation hub with the potential to be the leader of the world in SaaS. Product Nation was an idea whose time had come after the IT services industry had made India the world’s leading outsourcing destination. But going from IT services to software products is, in a way, even harder than starting from scratch, because it needs a shift in mindset and even a change of DNA.

How did a group of people start that movement? How did it snowball into one of the most progressive founder communities in the world?

SaaSBoomi was born on November 24, 2018, when India’s leading SaaS founders met online to lay out its values, set its agenda, and chart the road ahead. But the roots of SaaSBoomi, the Indian SaaS movement, and its pay-it-forward culture go much deeper. Where did the vision of making India a product nation originate? How did Silicon Valley’s pay-it-forward model get adapted and improved to serve a fast-growing Indian SaaS ecosystem?

Most of all, who are the people and what are the ideas shaping a close-knit community with a sense of belonging, attitude of sharing, and openness to be vulnerable? And how is this culture being passed down to the next generation of Indian SaaS founders to continue and build the pay-it-forward ethos?

As an African proverb puts it: “It takes a village to raise a healthy child.” Likewise, it takes a community to raise a pay-it-forward entrepreneur.

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The Playbook

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The Playbook

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For Aneesh Reddy, co-founder of Capillary, it was a new experience. One of the early SaaS startups to scale beyond $1 million ARR in India, Capillary began hosting roundtables in its office for others yet to reach a level where they saw a path to climbing higher. This was in 2013 under the aegis of iSPIRT (Indian Software Product Industry RoundTable), which was a breakaway of IT industry body Nasscom and a precursor of SaaSBoomi.

Over the next four years, Aneesh and others like him hosted more than a hundred such roundtables. Young founders of startups like LogiNext, MoEngage, Whatfix, Mindtickle, and Zenoti, which later made a dent in global markets as leading lights of SaaS from India, were among those who attended them.

These sessions were called playbook roundtables because of some unique characteristics that distinguished them from typical startup meetups. It was usually a closed-door session with a curated set of 12-15 founders, where those who had crossed a milestone like $1 million or cracked product-market fit in some market would open up their playbooks on sales, product, customer success, and the like.

Most interesting of all in the evolution of this format and community was that founders felt secure enough to drop their guard, show their vulnerabilities, and openly share mistakes others could avoid. Trust came from the hosts being founders like themselves, everyone simply being at different stages of the Indian SaaS startup journey.

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For Aneesh Reddy, co-founder of Capillary, it was a new experience. One of the early SaaS startups to scale beyond $1 million ARR in India, Capillary began hosting roundtables in its office for others yet to reach a level where they saw a path to climbing higher. This was in 2013 under the aegis of iSPIRT (Indian Software Product Industry RoundTable), which was a breakaway of IT industry body Nasscom and a precursor of SaaSBoomi.

Over the next four years, Aneesh and others like him hosted more than a hundred such roundtables. Young founders of startups like LogiNext, MoEngage, Whatfix, Mindtickle, and Zenoti, which later made a dent in global markets as leading lights of SaaS from India, were among those who attended them.

These sessions were called playbook roundtables because of some unique characteristics that distinguished them from typical startup meetups. It was usually a closed-door session with a curated set of 12-15 founders, where those who had crossed a milestone like $1 million or cracked product-market fit in some market would open up their playbooks on sales, product, customer success, and the like.

Most interesting of all in the evolution of this format and community was that founders felt secure enough to drop their guard, show their vulnerabilities, and openly share mistakes others could avoid. Trust came from the hosts being founders like themselves, everyone simply being at different stages of the Indian SaaS startup journey.

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There were no VCs around to judge them,there were no recordings, and whatever was shared in the room stayed there. It was a safe space where specifics could be shared on what worked or didn’t, unlike the generalized panel discussions in startup events. And, rather than marquee speakers being the attraction, founders went to these roundtables to learn from peers who were just a few steps ahead of them in their startup journeys. That gave them tactics and strategies they could immediately experiment with in their startups to avoid mistakes others had made before them.

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There were no VCs around to judge them,there were no recordings, and whatever was shared in the room stayed there. It was a safe space where specifics could be shared on what worked or didn’t, unlike the generalized panel discussions in startup events. And, rather than marquee speakers being the attraction, founders went to these roundtables to learn from peers who were just a few steps ahead of them in their startup journeys. That gave them tactics and strategies they could immediately experiment with in their startups to avoid mistakes others had made before them.

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Rather than a talk down, the roundtables fostered conversations, where everyone felt comfortable speaking up, asking questions, and expressing their views. Often the more advanced founders hosting the roundtables would pick up nifty hacks from their younger peers.

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Rather than a talk down, the roundtables fostered conversations, where everyone felt comfortable speaking up, asking questions, and expressing their views. Often the more advanced founders hosting the roundtables would pick up nifty hacks from their younger peers.

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Silicon Valley is well-known for its pay-it-forward culture of entrepreneurs passing on their experiences for others to succeed faster. There’s the famous story of Steve Jobs, a young man with a Bohemian lifestyle those days, meeting Intel cofounder Bob Noyce in a coffee shop. The story goes that Steve had simply thumbed through a phone book to find Bob’s number and called him for a coffee. “Sure, let’s do it,” was the answer. That was back in the seventies, and the culture slowly became ubiquitous in the Valley, playing a huge part in its success as a hub for startup innovation.

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Silicon Valley is well-known for its pay-it-forward culture of entrepreneurs passing on their experiences for others to succeed faster. There’s the famous story of Steve Jobs, a young man with a Bohemian lifestyle those days, meeting Intel cofounder Bob Noyce in a coffee shop. The story goes that Steve had simply thumbed through a phone book to find Bob’s number and called him for a coffee. “Sure, let’s do it,” was the answer. That was back in the seventies, and the culture slowly became ubiquitous in the Valley, playing a huge part in its success as a hub for startup innovation.

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The Indian SaaS roundtables were an adaptation of this pay-it-forward culture, and even an improvement. “The core concept is similar but the approach we have taken is a little different,” explains Suresh Sambandam, founder of Kissflow, who conducted a series of 12 roundtables on GTM in the early days, and now anchors a podcast series on SaaSBoomi where he debriefs successful founders.

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The Indian SaaS roundtables were an adaptation of this pay-it-forward culture, and even an improvement. “The core concept is similar but the approach we have taken is a little different,” explains Suresh Sambandam, founder of Kissflow, who conducted a series of 12 roundtables on GTM in the early days, and now anchors a podcast series on SaaSBoomi where he debriefs successful founders.

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“In the Valley, pay-it-forward mostly happened in an unstructured, peer-to-peer way, and it has taken 50 years for the Valley to get to where it is,” says Suresh. “We didn’t have 50 years; we needed to do this in 10 years. So we figured out how to scale this knowledge-sharing for founders by founders. Hence the roundtable format.”

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“In the Valley, pay-it-forward mostly happened in an unstructured, peer-to-peer way, and it has taken 50 years for the Valley to get to where it is,” says Suresh. “We didn’t have 50 years; we needed to do this in 10 years. So we figured out how to scale this knowledge-sharing for founders by founders. Hence the roundtable format.”

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Suresh himself had a touch point with around 300 founders in his roundtables, and there were others like Aneesh and Krish Subramanian, founder of Chargebee, who had started doing them. So the movement snowballed fast.

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Suresh himself had a touch point with around 300 founders in his roundtables, and there were others like Aneesh and Krish Subramanian, founder of Chargebee, who had started doing them. So the movement snowballed fast.

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As the community grew, bonded, and built trust, other formats came up alongside the roundtables, such as teardown sessions. Initially, these happened at boot camps in Pune and Mysore for early-stage startups.

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As the community grew, bonded, and built trust, other formats came up alongside the roundtables, such as teardown sessions. Initially, these happened at boot camps in Pune and Mysore for early-stage startups.

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Founders selected for teardowns would get up on stage in front of a curated audience of their peers. Seasoned founders who anchored the sessions would ask hard questions and give brutally honest feedback. Everything from a problem a startup was trying to solve, it's positioning, addressable market, product discovery, and first hooks for users all the way down the funnel to pricing, signup, and the gratification for a ‘Wow!’ at the end would be scrutinized.

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Founders selected for teardowns would get up on stage in front of a curated audience of their peers. Seasoned founders who anchored the sessions would ask hard questions and give brutally honest feedback. Everything from a problem a startup was trying to solve, it's positioning, addressable market, product discovery, and first hooks for users all the way down the funnel to pricing, signup, and the gratification for a ‘Wow!’ at the end would be scrutinized.

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Krish recalls anchoring one of these bootcamps in Pune in 2016 along with Suresh. Experienced entrepreneurs like them from Chennai - India’s SaaS capital - going to smaller hubs like Pune and Mysore also helped spread the learning. It would otherwise have been hard for startups outside Chennai to get that kind of high-value feedback face-to-face. It also scaled knowledge-sharing because every founder in the audience of 50-100 could pick up kernels of wisdom from the grilling of those brave enough to go on stage.

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Krish recalls anchoring one of these bootcamps in Pune in 2016 along with Suresh. Experienced entrepreneurs like them from Chennai - India’s SaaS capital - going to smaller hubs like Pune and Mysore also helped spread the learning. It would otherwise have been hard for startups outside Chennai to get that kind of high-value feedback face-to-face. It also scaled knowledge-sharing because every founder in the audience of 50-100 could pick up kernels of wisdom from the grilling of those brave enough to go on stage.

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Apart from the teardowns, the bootcamps also had workshop-mode presentations from the more experienced founders who went into the nitty-gritty of specific aspects of their businesses. For example, in Pune, Krish shared the thought behind Chargebee’s decision-making on pricing.

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Apart from the teardowns, the bootcamps also had workshop-mode presentations from the more experienced founders who went into the nitty-gritty of specific aspects of their businesses. For example, in Pune, Krish shared the thought behind Chargebee’s decision-making on pricing.

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“For a product in a new category like ours, which involved a build-vs-buy decision, we had to test pricing a lot. The extent to which we had to do objection-handling from the perception of pricing, while still building inbound sales, was very different for us,” says Krish.

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“For a product in a new category like ours, which involved a build-vs-buy decision, we had to test pricing a lot. The extent to which we had to do objection-handling from the perception of pricing, while still building inbound sales, was very different for us,” says Krish.

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“We didn’t take the playbook of a Zuora and say, ‘OK, now let’s also go to enterprises where there is a need.’ We decided to stick with the SMB to mid-market customers and then figure out a market penetration with inbound sales. So for us, most of our learning came from pricing, which was also unique for the ecosystem.”

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“We didn’t take the playbook of a Zuora and say, ‘OK, now let’s also go to enterprises where there is a need.’ We decided to stick with the SMB to mid-market customers and then figure out a market penetration with inbound sales. So for us, most of our learning came from pricing, which was also unique for the ecosystem.”

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Building a subscription management product, Krish was studying the pricing of a lot of others, apart from figuring it out for his own startup. “It’s one of those decisions we overthink to get pricing right, from the beginning. The truth is nobody gets it right, and you don’t need to. It’s a two-way door. You can always test it and change the pricing. With that mindset, it becomes a much lighter decision.”

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Building a subscription management product, Krish was studying the pricing of a lot of others, apart from figuring it out for his own startup. “It’s one of those decisions we overthink to get pricing right, from the beginning. The truth is nobody gets it right, and you don’t need to. It’s a two-way door. You can always test it and change the pricing. With that mindset, it becomes a much lighter decision.”

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Just how granular the testing was at Chargebee came out in Krish’s presentation at the Pune bootcamp. Around 70 founders were all agog as he went through a series of archival web pages showing how the pricing had evolved, and sharing the context of each tweak.

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Just how granular the testing was at Chargebee came out in Krish’s presentation at the Pune bootcamp. Around 70 founders were all agog as he went through a series of archival web pages showing how the pricing had evolved, and sharing the context of each tweak.

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Thus, every founder who has gone down the rabbit hole of SaaS has some unique learning to bring to the table.

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Thus, every founder who has gone down the rabbit hole of SaaS has some unique learning to bring to the table.

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Avinash Raghava, founding volunteer of SaaSBoomi and a co-founder of iSPIRT before that, is the glue that coalesces everyone’s learning for the community. Just as he had pulled in Aneesh and Suresh for roundtables on sales and GTM, he had reached out to Krish. He is constantly meeting founders, finding out what they need, and connecting the dots.

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Avinash Raghava, founding volunteer of SaaSBoomi and a co-founder of iSPIRT before that, is the glue that coalesces everyone’s learning for the community. Just as he had pulled in Aneesh and Suresh for roundtables on sales and GTM, he had reached out to Krish. He is constantly meeting founders, finding out what they need, and connecting the dots.

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“Avinash came to me and said, ‘Talk about some of your learning around pricing because there are so many founders in the community making mistakes.’ So I went to Pune for a weekend where I met over 70 founders,” recalls Krish.

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“Avinash came to me and said, ‘Talk about some of your learning around pricing because there are so many founders in the community making mistakes.’ So I went to Pune for a weekend where I met over 70 founders,” recalls Krish.

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One of the first he met when he landed in Pune airport was Amit Mishra, founder of iMocha, which was a year-old startup then. “I remember he gave us some bhakarwadi (a spicy-sweet-crispy western Indian snack to rival South India’s murukku). We loved it and asked where we could get some more. He said, ‘We’ll get it at the airport itself.’ And then he vanished,” Krish recounts with a chuckle. “But later, before we left Pune, he got us all packets of bhakarwadi to carry home from one of the best places in Pune. Good friendships were made and there are many who continue to stay in touch.”

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One of the first he met when he landed in Pune airport was Amit Mishra, founder of iMocha, which was a year-old startup then. “I remember he gave us some bhakarwadi (a spicy-sweet-crispy western Indian snack to rival South India’s murukku). We loved it and asked where we could get some more. He said, ‘We’ll get it at the airport itself.’ And then he vanished,” Krish recounts with a chuckle. “But later, before we left Pune, he got us all packets of bhakarwadi to carry home from one of the best places in Pune. Good friendships were made and there are many who continue to stay in touch.”

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So, it isn’t just pricing lessons. Bhakarwadi also binds the community and brings everyone closer even as the Indian SaaS movement grows bigger.

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So, it isn’t just pricing lessons. Bhakarwadi also binds the community and brings everyone closer even as the Indian SaaS movement grows bigger.

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The Genesis

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The Genesis

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The Indian software product community started to come together even before iSPIRT. So the roots of SaaSBoomi go deep into the 2000s.

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The Indian software product community started to come together even before iSPIRT. So the roots of SaaSBoomi go deep into the 2000s.

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When Avinash joined Nasscom, documentation and communication relied too much on paper and the website was static and clunky. As the webmaster, he got after every one to digitize everything. Gradually a semblance of order emerged, processes got automated, and things came online. “Back in 2002 that was a big thing, but after two years, I didn’t want to be sitting behind the computer anymore,” recalls Avinash.

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When Avinash joined Nasscom, documentation and communication relied too much on paper and the website was static and clunky. As the webmaster, he got after every one to digitize everything. Gradually a semblance of order emerged, processes got automated, and things came online. “Back in 2002 that was a big thing, but after two years, I didn’t want to be sitting behind the computer anymore,” recalls Avinash.

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He told Kiran Karnik, who was then the Nasscom president, that he wanted to do something that involved going out and meeting lots of people. As luck would have it, that was just the person Karnik was looking for.

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He told Kiran Karnik, who was then the Nasscom president, that he wanted to do something that involved going out and meeting lots of people. As luck would have it, that was just the person Karnik was looking for.

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“He told me, ‘We have this community no one is focusing on. Around 600 out of our 668 companies are SMEs with less than Rs 50 crore ($10 million) turnover. Why don’t you start helping them?’... These were companies doing IT services and offshoring, with some product development on the side,” Avinash recounts.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(329) "

“He told me, ‘We have this community no one is focusing on. Around 600 out of our 668 companies are SMEs with less than Rs 50 crore ($10 million) turnover. Why don’t you start helping them?’... These were companies doing IT services and offshoring, with some product development on the side,” Avinash recounts.

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He started meeting owners of SME companies that had signed up for Nasscom membership, which was pricey those days. Based in Delhi, he found 20-30 companies there building software products.

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He started meeting owners of SME companies that had signed up for Nasscom membership, which was pricey those days. Based in Delhi, he found 20-30 companies there building software products.

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The problem for them was a Catch-22. “Going global was out of the question at that time (because they didn’t have anything like the capital needed for branding, marketing, and sales abroad). And local software products were not at all respected in India... One of them told me, ‘Nobody gets fired for buying SAP, but if they buy our software and it doesn’t work, the CIO will be fired.’ So then the question for me was, how do we help the CIO community? Because otherwise, nobody will use a software product made in India,” says Avinash.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(558) "

The problem for them was a Catch-22. “Going global was out of the question at that time (because they didn’t have anything like the capital needed for branding, marketing, and sales abroad). And local software products were not at all respected in India... One of them told me, ‘Nobody gets fired for buying SAP, but if they buy our software and it doesn’t work, the CIO will be fired.’ So then the question for me was, how do we help the CIO community? Because otherwise, nobody will use a software product made in India,” says Avinash.

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In later years, Capillary was one of the first to start selling an Indian SaaS product to Indian retail corporations. Aneesh recounts the battles he fought to convince CIOs they would be better off giving up Oracle or SAP to work with Indian startups building cloud software products. ‘Do they even have the money to build the product and sustain their business,’ would be the response.

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In later years, Capillary was one of the first to start selling an Indian SaaS product to Indian retail corporations. Aneesh recounts the battles he fought to convince CIOs they would be better off giving up Oracle or SAP to work with Indian startups building cloud software products. ‘Do they even have the money to build the product and sustain their business,’ would be the response.

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“I remember this CIO telling me, ‘You guys are like viruses. What will happen to my IT systems?’ But after a couple of years of working with us, he started taking more startups into the corporation’s tech ecosystem. So it became easier to say the cloud works and startups can deliver value faster than larger enterprises.”

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“I remember this CIO telling me, ‘You guys are like viruses. What will happen to my IT systems?’ But after a couple of years of working with us, he started taking more startups into the corporation’s tech ecosystem. So it became easier to say the cloud works and startups can deliver value faster than larger enterprises.”

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Similar challenges awaited him abroad in Capillary’s first forays into global markets. “I remember a Retail Week event in London in 2012. I went up to a speaker and told him we do software for retail. I hadn’t even spoken for a minute before he cut in to say, ‘We don’t outsource services to India.’

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Similar challenges awaited him abroad in Capillary’s first forays into global markets. “I remember a Retail Week event in London in 2012. I went up to a speaker and told him we do software for retail. I hadn’t even spoken for a minute before he cut in to say, ‘We don’t outsource services to India.’

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I didn’t even get a chance to say we’re a product company,” says Aneesh.

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I didn’t even get a chance to say we’re a product company,” says Aneesh.

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So that was the other problem - India being seen as an outsourcing destination rather than an innovation hub that could build cool software products on the cloud. But over time, as enterprises around the world engaged with the likes of Zoho, Freshworks, Chargebee, Kissflow, and Capillary, they became a lot more open to using Indian software products. “For a number of global companies operating in India and Asia as well as large Indian enterprises, we were the first SaaS product from India they used. Then they started asking us, ‘are there other good startups we can experiment with?’ We built trust by delivering,” says Aneesh.

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So that was the other problem - India being seen as an outsourcing destination rather than an innovation hub that could build cool software products on the cloud. But over time, as enterprises around the world engaged with the likes of Zoho, Freshworks, Chargebee, Kissflow, and Capillary, they became a lot more open to using Indian software products. “For a number of global companies operating in India and Asia as well as large Indian enterprises, we were the first SaaS product from India they used. Then they started asking us, ‘are there other good startups we can experiment with?’ We built trust by delivering,” says Aneesh.

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But we’re getting ahead of the story.

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But we’re getting ahead of the story.

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Back when Avinash started meeting SMEs, he realized some of them were actually building good software products, such as for telecom billing or hotel management, but they were hardly talked about. It became a calling for him to change that.

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Back when Avinash started meeting SMEs, he realized some of them were actually building good software products, such as for telecom billing or hotel management, but they were hardly talked about. It became a calling for him to change that.

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Before joining Nasscom, he had worked for a company trying to build software for the National Stock Exchange. So he knew how hard it was to build a software product and sell it. He felt an affinity for the unsung software product guys in a milieu where the IT services companies were ruling the roost.

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Before joining Nasscom, he had worked for a company trying to build software for the National Stock Exchange. So he knew how hard it was to build a software product and sell it. He felt an affinity for the unsung software product guys in a milieu where the IT services companies were ruling the roost.

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He saw the fundamental difference between the two. An IT services company

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He saw the fundamental difference between the two. An IT services company

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could start billing a client for a project from day one, after agreeing on how many people would be needed and the per man- hour rate. “There is still some risk of not finding a client, but at least you can be profitable from day one because you will always have a margin. A software product company needs to do research, find really smart people to build the product, and only then take it to market,” points out Avinash.

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could start billing a client for a project from day one, after agreeing on how many people would be needed and the per man- hour rate. “There is still some risk of not finding a client, but at least you can be profitable from day one because you will always have a margin. A software product company needs to do research, find really smart people to build the product, and only then take it to market,” points out Avinash.

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“They were the risk-taking people who were innovative and creative. That’s why I respected them. They were investing their money, time, and resources; then hoping there would be enough customers for the product.”

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“They were the risk-taking people who were innovative and creative. That’s why I respected them. They were investing their money, time, and resources; then hoping there would be enough customers for the product.”

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It’s like designing a generic suit with a set of target customers in mind, and then trying to sell as many units as required to break even and then start making profits. That’s fundamentally different from a tailor stitching a bespoke suit for a rich client according to the client’s specifications, and being paid for the service.

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It’s like designing a generic suit with a set of target customers in mind, and then trying to sell as many units as required to break even and then start making profits. That’s fundamentally different from a tailor stitching a bespoke suit for a rich client according to the client’s specifications, and being paid for the service.

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Avinash felt the product entrepreneur persona itself was different. The IT services people would always appear suited and booted, whereas the software product guys would typically come to a meeting in a T-shirt, with a jacket thrown over it at most, and sometimes even in flip- flops. He connected more with the product guys and started championing their cause in Nasscom. And he’s as tenacious as it gets when he feels a strong impulse to do something.

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Avinash felt the product entrepreneur persona itself was different. The IT services people would always appear suited and booted, whereas the software product guys would typically come to a meeting in a T-shirt, with a jacket thrown over it at most, and sometimes even in flip- flops. He connected more with the product guys and started championing their cause in Nasscom. And he’s as tenacious as it gets when he feels a strong impulse to do something.

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The Nasscom Product Conclave started then, and began to draw the product companies together. The conclave had just 200-300 attendees at the outset, but it drew attention to the powerful idea of changing the perception of India from an outsourcing destination for IT services to an innovation hub that could compete with the best software products in global markets.

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The Nasscom Product Conclave started then, and began to draw the product companies together. The conclave had just 200-300 attendees at the outset, but it drew attention to the powerful idea of changing the perception of India from an outsourcing destination for IT services to an innovation hub that could compete with the best software products in global markets.

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The idea gathered further momentum sometime around 2008 when Sharad Sharma, former Yahoo! India R&D head, became an evangelist for the growing Indian software product tribe. “He was able to scale the product conclave to a different level, with 800-1000 people. He made a brand out of it and product companies became a talking point.”

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The idea gathered further momentum sometime around 2008 when Sharad Sharma, former Yahoo! India R&D head, became an evangelist for the growing Indian software product tribe. “He was able to scale the product conclave to a different level, with 800-1000 people. He made a brand out of it and product companies became a talking point.”

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A product council got formed too in Nasscom, ostensibly to support software product innovation from India as much as IT services. But the product votaries soon ran into a problem.

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A product council got formed too in Nasscom, ostensibly to support software product innovation from India as much as IT services. But the product votaries soon ran into a problem.

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“It was a feel-good thing for Nasscom. They wanted to offer this to the community, but it was on the periphery of their core focus,” recalls Avinash. “After all, back then in 2009-10, 80 to 90 percent of the IT industry’s revenues were still coming from IT services and BPO.”

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“It was a feel-good thing for Nasscom. They wanted to offer this to the community, but it was on the periphery of their core focus,” recalls Avinash. “After all, back then in 2009-10, 80 to 90 percent of the IT industry’s revenues were still coming from IT services and BPO.”

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Finally, around 2012, Avinash, Sharad, and a few others like Bharat Goenka of Tally, Naveen Tewari of InMobi, and Vishnu Dusad of Nucleus Software, decided to move out and form iSPIRT. This was more in the nature of a think-tank specifically purposed to make India a “product nation”. So that guided everything, from being a volunteer-driven organization to the roundtables, teardown sessions, and eventually larger events with a vital difference.

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Finally, around 2012, Avinash, Sharad, and a few others like Bharat Goenka of Tally, Naveen Tewari of InMobi, and Vishnu Dusad of Nucleus Software, decided to move out and form iSPIRT. This was more in the nature of a think-tank specifically purposed to make India a “product nation”. So that guided everything, from being a volunteer-driven organization to the roundtables, teardown sessions, and eventually larger events with a vital difference.

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Unlike the Nasscom product conclave which anybody could attend with a payment, iSPIRT activities were solely for product startup founders. Curation and relevance became the watchwords.

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Unlike the Nasscom product conclave which anybody could attend with a payment, iSPIRT activities were solely for product startup founders. Curation and relevance became the watchwords.

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Crest and Trough

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Crest and Trough

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It was on a trip to Chennai in 2014 to drum up support for roundtables and bootcamps that Avinash had an epiphany. Indian SaaS pioneer Zoho had scaled impressively by then, Freshworks was already sizable, and there were a number of other fast-growing SaaS companies like Chargebee and Kissflow. And they were all based in Chennai. It was the SaaS capital of Asia, not just India, and the perfect setting for an event that would take the product nation mission to another level.

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It was on a trip to Chennai in 2014 to drum up support for roundtables and bootcamps that Avinash had an epiphany. Indian SaaS pioneer Zoho had scaled impressively by then, Freshworks was already sizable, and there were a number of other fast-growing SaaS companies like Chargebee and Kissflow. And they were all based in Chennai. It was the SaaS capital of Asia, not just India, and the perfect setting for an event that would take the product nation mission to another level.

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His first email was to Shekhar Kirani, partner at Accel, to raise money for the event. Shekhar, who had made early bets on Indian SaaS, writing cheques for the likes of Freshworks and BrowserStack, loved the idea of a SaaS event. Avinash then did the rounds in Chennai, calling on Freshworks co-founder Girish Mathrubootham, Krish, and Suresh. “Let’s do it,” was the refrain.

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His first email was to Shekhar Kirani, partner at Accel, to raise money for the event. Shekhar, who had made early bets on Indian SaaS, writing cheques for the likes of Freshworks and BrowserStack, loved the idea of a SaaS event. Avinash then did the rounds in Chennai, calling on Freshworks co-founder Girish Mathrubootham, Krish, and Suresh. “Let’s do it,” was the refrain.

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Somebody made a suggestion that perhaps it should be in India’s Silicon Valley, Bangalore, but that got snuffed out fast. The one demand Girish had, he recalls now, is that it had to be in Chennai, the home of Indian SaaS. “Otherwise I will not attend, I told them,” he says with a grin from Seattle, where he relocated to take Freshworks to a Nasdaq IPO in 2021.

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Somebody made a suggestion that perhaps it should be in India’s Silicon Valley, Bangalore, but that got snuffed out fast. The one demand Girish had, he recalls now, is that it had to be in Chennai, the home of Indian SaaS. “Otherwise I will not attend, I told them,” he says with a grin from Seattle, where he relocated to take Freshworks to a Nasdaq IPO in 2021.

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That settled it, and Chennai became the venue for SaaSx, a term Suresh coined for India’s first conference focused purely on the SaaS industry’s growth. It was an inflection point in bringing the Indian SaaS community closer together to help one another grow, while making it bigger and broader at the same time. A ‘SaaSy’ bus from Bangalore to Chennai, with a load of 40 entrepreneurs to attend SaaSx, added color and started the SaaSy conversations on the bus ride itself.

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That settled it, and Chennai became the venue for SaaSx, a term Suresh coined for India’s first conference focused purely on the SaaS industry’s growth. It was an inflection point in bringing the Indian SaaS community closer together to help one another grow, while making it bigger and broader at the same time. A ‘SaaSy’ bus from Bangalore to Chennai, with a load of 40 entrepreneurs to attend SaaSx, added color and started the SaaSy conversations on the bus ride itself.

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“I sold my product at an 80 percent discount to a customer who took me for granted after that,” lamented a founder on the bus. He learned to communicate the value of his product better.

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“I sold my product at an 80 percent discount to a customer who took me for granted after that,” lamented a founder on the bus. He learned to communicate the value of his product better.

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The one that took the cake was this gem: “An idea is like the superhero of a movie. But what we don’t see is that for the movie to be a superhit, you need a supervillain first. If the villain is weak, your hero is also weak. So the first thing to do is to figure out your villain - that huge problem that needs solving. I had to go through four iterations to figure out the right problem to solve with my product.”

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The one that took the cake was this gem: “An idea is like the superhero of a movie. But what we don’t see is that for the movie to be a superhit, you need a supervillain first. If the villain is weak, your hero is also weak. So the first thing to do is to figure out your villain - that huge problem that needs solving. I had to go through four iterations to figure out the right problem to solve with my product.”

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The star turn at the event itself came from Girish, being a master storyteller. His anecdotes on guerilla marketing were a hit after a founder asked him cheekily how he had “poached” a client from his arch-rival Zendesk. He was in his element with fellow SaaS founders, not just taking questions but asking several himself.

“It was an unconference with an open format where people would ask questions and I, Suresh, Shekhar, or somebody else would answer. It was exciting and also an eye-opener that this community’s got legs,” recalls Girish. “You put a bunch of founders in a room, have good food and music, and you don’t need anything else. The event will shape itself.”

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The star turn at the event itself came from Girish, being a master storyteller. His anecdotes on guerilla marketing were a hit after a founder asked him cheekily how he had “poached” a client from his arch-rival Zendesk. He was in his element with fellow SaaS founders, not just taking questions but asking several himself.

“It was an unconference with an open format where people would ask questions and I, Suresh, Shekhar, or somebody else would answer. It was exciting and also an eye-opener that this community’s got legs,” recalls Girish. “You put a bunch of founders in a room, have good food and music, and you don’t need anything else. The event will shape itself.”

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Of course, a lot of work went behind the scenes to set that up, most importantly in the curation of content, speakers, and attendees. “We put it together in less than two months. Suresh did 80 percent of the content. He would just get on a call, and one by one everything fell into place,” says Avinash.

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Of course, a lot of work went behind the scenes to set that up, most importantly in the curation of content, speakers, and attendees. “We put it together in less than two months. Suresh did 80 percent of the content. He would just get on a call, and one by one everything fell into place,” says Avinash.

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The nature of the content at SaaSx set a foundational stone for the pay-it-forward culture that’s at the crux of the value that SaaSBoomi brings to founders today. Girish had a hand in laying that keystone, in the granularity with which he opened up his playbooks from Freshworks. The crying need for this came from his own experiences of attending conferences.

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The nature of the content at SaaSx set a foundational stone for the pay-it-forward culture that’s at the crux of the value that SaaSBoomi brings to founders today. Girish had a hand in laying that keystone, in the granularity with which he opened up his playbooks from Freshworks. The crying need for this came from his own experiences of attending conferences.

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“I’m a person who wants to learn and I also like to share freely. I don’t like to hide and hold back. But in any conference, when you go and try to ask somebody, ‘Hey, what is your website conversion? How much are you paying your salespeople? Or what is the target that you have set and how many leads are you giving each salesperson?’ - nobody would share such information. They would all hold their cards close to their chests. Even at SaaStr in the US, nobody shares detailed numbers. They just package everything into lessons learned and give gyan. There’ll be panel discussions or PowerPoint keynotes where people come and just tell the audience, you do this, don’t do that, etc. We wanted to change that (in our SaaS community),” says Girish.

“My thought process was that the world is so big and moving so fast. Salesforce etc. had tens of billions of dollars in revenues. And we were such young startups, trying to fight against global competitors. So why are we holding onto information as if it’s some secret sauce?”

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“I’m a person who wants to learn and I also like to share freely. I don’t like to hide and hold back. But in any conference, when you go and try to ask somebody, ‘Hey, what is your website conversion? How much are you paying your salespeople? Or what is the target that you have set and how many leads are you giving each salesperson?’ - nobody would share such information. They would all hold their cards close to their chests. Even at SaaStr in the US, nobody shares detailed numbers. They just package everything into lessons learned and give gyan. There’ll be panel discussions or PowerPoint keynotes where people come and just tell the audience, you do this, don’t do that, etc. We wanted to change that (in our SaaS community),” says Girish.

“My thought process was that the world is so big and moving so fast. Salesforce etc. had tens of billions of dollars in revenues. And we were such young startups, trying to fight against global competitors. So why are we holding onto information as if it’s some secret sauce?”

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Girish decided to set an example by sharing the Freshworks journey from zero to $1 million ARR. And he did it with detailed numbers and thinking at every step of that phase.

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Girish decided to set an example by sharing the Freshworks journey from zero to $1 million ARR. And he did it with detailed numbers and thinking at every step of that phase.

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“I actually started showing the internal spreadsheets, like what was our target, what was our conversion rate, how many salespeople we had, etc. So the zero to one million journey became a superhit because it was practical education,” says Girish. “At a later event, I shared the one to five million journey as well. And this time I brought some of my team members who were part of the journey. They would also come up on stage and talk about how we were thinking through the journey.”

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“I actually started showing the internal spreadsheets, like what was our target, what was our conversion rate, how many salespeople we had, etc. So the zero to one million journey became a superhit because it was practical education,” says Girish. “At a later event, I shared the one to five million journey as well. And this time I brought some of my team members who were part of the journey. They would also come up on stage and talk about how we were thinking through the journey.”

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Apart from the value this provided to upcoming founders, it set a benchmark for the community. “That was the first time we openly shared internal metrics and numbers. So it opened everybody up,” Girish points out. “They felt like, ‘if Freshworks can come and show their numbers, and they’re still successful, we can also share’.”

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Apart from the value this provided to upcoming founders, it set a benchmark for the community. “That was the first time we openly shared internal metrics and numbers. So it opened everybody up,” Girish points out. “They felt like, ‘if Freshworks can come and show their numbers, and they’re still successful, we can also share’.”

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For Ashwini Asokan, who had quit Intel to start AI startup Mad Street Den a couple of years before SaaSx, the vibe at the ‘unconference’ and the sense of belonging she felt in the community thereafter is what stands out. The scarcity of women leaders at tech events used to make her feel awkward, but here she felt immediately at ease.

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For Ashwini Asokan, who had quit Intel to start AI startup Mad Street Den a couple of years before SaaSx, the vibe at the ‘unconference’ and the sense of belonging she felt in the community thereafter is what stands out. The scarcity of women leaders at tech events used to make her feel awkward, but here she felt immediately at ease.

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She had already developed a camaraderie with other SaaS founders after moving from the Bay Area to Chennai to set up the Mad Street Den office. She marvels at how that same sense of camaraderie could be replicated and scaled at a larger gathering like SaaSx, so that those who did not have as much access as others to peers and resources could also get it. “So much of that was down to Girish, Suresh, Avinash, and Krish wanting it a certain way, right? And, of course, Girish’s personality became an anchor to pull everybody in,” says Ashwini. “That is how it started. And now if you see, people are just constantly talking to each other.”

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She had already developed a camaraderie with other SaaS founders after moving from the Bay Area to Chennai to set up the Mad Street Den office. She marvels at how that same sense of camaraderie could be replicated and scaled at a larger gathering like SaaSx, so that those who did not have as much access as others to peers and resources could also get it. “So much of that was down to Girish, Suresh, Avinash, and Krish wanting it a certain way, right? And, of course, Girish’s personality became an anchor to pull everybody in,” says Ashwini. “That is how it started. And now if you see, people are just constantly talking to each other.”

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At most conferences, people come together and then go their separate ways to meet again the following year. One of the first things she noticed about this SaaS community was the “ridiculous amount of time” people spend communicating with each other and helping one another even between events. “The sign of a true community is when you don’t need an event for people to connect. And the SaaSBoomi community is so close; there’s fondness towards each other.”

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At most conferences, people come together and then go their separate ways to meet again the following year. One of the first things she noticed about this SaaS community was the “ridiculous amount of time” people spend communicating with each other and helping one another even between events. “The sign of a true community is when you don’t need an event for people to connect. And the SaaSBoomi community is so close; there’s fondness towards each other.”

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The events were more of an opportunity to reinforce relationships, forge new ones with those in far-flung places, and build the pay-it-forward culture. SaaSx generated momentum, and similar events took place every six months, growing bigger each time. It was such a smooth ride that very few saw a speed bump.

iSPIRT had another arm by then which focused on India’s public digital infrastructure of India Stack, including Aadhaar for identity, UPI for payments, and so on. This took center-stage.

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The events were more of an opportunity to reinforce relationships, forge new ones with those in far-flung places, and build the pay-it-forward culture. SaaSx generated momentum, and similar events took place every six months, growing bigger each time. It was such a smooth ride that very few saw a speed bump.

iSPIRT had another arm by then which focused on India’s public digital infrastructure of India Stack, including Aadhaar for identity, UPI for payments, and so on. This took center-stage.

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There was a lull in the SaaS movement. It was a time of searching for new directions and institutional frameworks.

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There was a lull in the SaaS movement. It was a time of searching for new directions and institutional frameworks.

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Second Coming

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Second Coming

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It was Aneesh who set the ball rolling again in 2017, when he reached out to Avinash. “A lot of guys keep asking me how we’re doing enterprise sales. So I want to do an event around that and I want your help,” he told Avinash, who had moved to Accel. He needed no second invitation to jump right back in, raising money for the event, thinking about formats, finding the right set of founders - in short, everything he loved to do. Accel was flexible in letting him reconnect with the SaaS community, and a new event was born, called SaaSE (SaaS Enterprise).

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It was Aneesh who set the ball rolling again in 2017, when he reached out to Avinash. “A lot of guys keep asking me how we’re doing enterprise sales. So I want to do an event around that and I want your help,” he told Avinash, who had moved to Accel. He needed no second invitation to jump right back in, raising money for the event, thinking about formats, finding the right set of founders - in short, everything he loved to do. Accel was flexible in letting him reconnect with the SaaS community, and a new event was born, called SaaSE (SaaS Enterprise).

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It was a two-day event in Bangalore and the old magic was back. Manav Garg, founder of Eka Software and one of the core leaders of SaaSBoomi now, did the second SaaSE after that. He loved the pay-it-forward emotion flooding back, where “there’s genuine help given to founders in a transparent, contextual, and storytelling fashion... where you feel the happiness and excitement of seeing a young founder learn to create an even bigger SaaS company than what has been created from India so far.”

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It was a two-day event in Bangalore and the old magic was back. Manav Garg, founder of Eka Software and one of the core leaders of SaaSBoomi now, did the second SaaSE after that. He loved the pay-it-forward emotion flooding back, where “there’s genuine help given to founders in a transparent, contextual, and storytelling fashion... where you feel the happiness and excitement of seeing a young founder learn to create an even bigger SaaS company than what has been created from India so far.”

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Shekhar Kirani describes the total immersion that went into these. “In one of the events, where we had gathered the previous day, the real conversations started at 10 PM in one of the rooms about how one can build massive companies. Then, by 2 AM, the group moved to another room, where another set of founders was discussing what makes a good M&A candidate. By the time I got to Manav, it was 5 AM, where we were creating the deck for the presentation of G2M. We created it in the morning and went straight to the event.”

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Shekhar Kirani describes the total immersion that went into these. “In one of the events, where we had gathered the previous day, the real conversations started at 10 PM in one of the rooms about how one can build massive companies. Then, by 2 AM, the group moved to another room, where another set of founders was discussing what makes a good M&A candidate. By the time I got to Manav, it was 5 AM, where we were creating the deck for the presentation of G2M. We created it in the morning and went straight to the event.”

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Dhruvil Sanghvi is the founder of LogiNext, which won SaaSBoomi’s ‘vertical startup of the year’ award in 2020. He has been recognized for building a global SaaS product by Forbes 30 under 30 and Entrepreneur 35 under 35. And Dhruvil is today a mentor to other young founders in one of SaaSBoomi’s key new initiatives called SGx.

Around five years ago, when LogiNext was just reaching $1 million ARR, he would come to Bangalore from Mumbai to attend events but struggled to find mentors who could help him take his SaaS business to the next level. That’s how he got invited to SaaSE which was meant specifically for founders like him in the $0.5-1 million ARR range, poised to grow big. For him, the presence of the likes of Aneesh, Manav, Girish, and Pallav Nadhani of FusionCharts was a big draw. “These companies had crossed $10 million ARR at that time and my thought was how do you even get to $10 million,” recalls Dhruvil.

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Dhruvil Sanghvi is the founder of LogiNext, which won SaaSBoomi’s ‘vertical startup of the year’ award in 2020. He has been recognized for building a global SaaS product by Forbes 30 under 30 and Entrepreneur 35 under 35. And Dhruvil is today a mentor to other young founders in one of SaaSBoomi’s key new initiatives called SGx.

Around five years ago, when LogiNext was just reaching $1 million ARR, he would come to Bangalore from Mumbai to attend events but struggled to find mentors who could help him take his SaaS business to the next level. That’s how he got invited to SaaSE which was meant specifically for founders like him in the $0.5-1 million ARR range, poised to grow big. For him, the presence of the likes of Aneesh, Manav, Girish, and Pallav Nadhani of FusionCharts was a big draw. “These companies had crossed $10 million ARR at that time and my thought was how do you even get to $10 million,” recalls Dhruvil.

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At the same time, he had a healthy skepticism about the whole thing at the outset. Would a mentor ask for sweat equity or something like that, for passing on their knowledge and experience? “I was curious to know why these SaaS leaders were spending two entire days on this, without even taking other calls. They were so successful, and there was so much to do in their own companies, but they would just be completely immersed in spending time with the 50 companies at the event. So I used to be like, there must be some vested interest,” he says.

Dhruvil kept asking Aneesh and Girish what was really in it for them, refusing to accept the pay-it-forward notion. “They remember this and make fun of it a lot now,” says Dhruvil, chortling. “Their answer to me was, ‘You should start doing it, and that’s the only way to truly understand why we are doing it’. And eventually I did and honestly, it’s only then I understood. Today, I say the same thing to others who ask me the same question, when there appears to be no logical explanation as to why I spend so much time helping other founders.”

His interactions with Aneesh and Pallav continued after the event in a closed-door roundtable format with eight founders. It was called F8, which met every other month, and the founders opened their playbooks on specific SaaS business requirements. Aneesh would sometimes bring his sales VP to go deeper in sharing the experience. The interactions also continued in a WhatsApp group.

Nevertheless, Dhruvil’s puzzlement continued on why the leaders were spending so much time in the group, even on weekends. Over time he concluded there was no ulterior motive, but remained confused. Then, after LogiNext crossed $3 million ARR in 2019, Aneesh asked him if he would now help founders who were at an earlier stage. He started leading roundtables for SaaSBoomi, which had formed by then, and became a flag-bearer for Mumbai and Pune, building a cohort of SaaS founders there to emulate Chennai and Bangalore.

The 2020 pandemic disrupted the face-to-face meetings, but when the air cleared after that, he helped Avinash in his journey across 10 cities to revive the meetups and spread the SaaS movement. He also became a mentor at a deeper 16-week personalized program called SaaSBoomi GrowthX (SGx) for selected startups, where his time commitment was even more than earlier, spending at least 8 hours every week with the startup he was helping. Coming back to the question of why, now finally he understood.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2564) "

At the same time, he had a healthy skepticism about the whole thing at the outset. Would a mentor ask for sweat equity or something like that, for passing on their knowledge and experience? “I was curious to know why these SaaS leaders were spending two entire days on this, without even taking other calls. They were so successful, and there was so much to do in their own companies, but they would just be completely immersed in spending time with the 50 companies at the event. So I used to be like, there must be some vested interest,” he says.

Dhruvil kept asking Aneesh and Girish what was really in it for them, refusing to accept the pay-it-forward notion. “They remember this and make fun of it a lot now,” says Dhruvil, chortling. “Their answer to me was, ‘You should start doing it, and that’s the only way to truly understand why we are doing it’. And eventually I did and honestly, it’s only then I understood. Today, I say the same thing to others who ask me the same question, when there appears to be no logical explanation as to why I spend so much time helping other founders.”

His interactions with Aneesh and Pallav continued after the event in a closed-door roundtable format with eight founders. It was called F8, which met every other month, and the founders opened their playbooks on specific SaaS business requirements. Aneesh would sometimes bring his sales VP to go deeper in sharing the experience. The interactions also continued in a WhatsApp group.

Nevertheless, Dhruvil’s puzzlement continued on why the leaders were spending so much time in the group, even on weekends. Over time he concluded there was no ulterior motive, but remained confused. Then, after LogiNext crossed $3 million ARR in 2019, Aneesh asked him if he would now help founders who were at an earlier stage. He started leading roundtables for SaaSBoomi, which had formed by then, and became a flag-bearer for Mumbai and Pune, building a cohort of SaaS founders there to emulate Chennai and Bangalore.

The 2020 pandemic disrupted the face-to-face meetings, but when the air cleared after that, he helped Avinash in his journey across 10 cities to revive the meetups and spread the SaaS movement. He also became a mentor at a deeper 16-week personalized program called SaaSBoomi GrowthX (SGx) for selected startups, where his time commitment was even more than earlier, spending at least 8 hours every week with the startup he was helping. Coming back to the question of why, now finally he understood.

" } } [85]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(207) "

“SGx has given me even more fulfillment than the roundtables and meetups earlier. So I think the more I can give back, the more companies I see growing, the more I feel fulfilled,” says Dhruvil.

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“SGx has given me even more fulfillment than the roundtables and meetups earlier. So I think the more I can give back, the more companies I see growing, the more I feel fulfilled,” says Dhruvil.

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“More and more founders are not making the mistakes we all used to make. There’s a wave of SaaS companies growing very fast from India in global markets, and a lot more talent is also entering SaaS in India, which is truly on its way to becoming the SaaS capital of the world. I think there are high chances of that happening, because I’ve never seen such an ecosystem evolving so fast, with a pay-it-forward attitude in so many founders. I don’t see that even in the US, where founders are more transactional and caught up with their own startups.”

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“More and more founders are not making the mistakes we all used to make. There’s a wave of SaaS companies growing very fast from India in global markets, and a lot more talent is also entering SaaS in India, which is truly on its way to becoming the SaaS capital of the world. I think there are high chances of that happening, because I’ve never seen such an ecosystem evolving so fast, with a pay-it-forward attitude in so many founders. I don’t see that even in the US, where founders are more transactional and caught up with their own startups.”

" } } [88]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(197) "

But again, we’re getting ahead of the story. How and when did SaaSBoomi itself rise up from the building blocks of Nasscom Product Conclave, iSPIRT, and SaaSE? And what’s new about it?

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But again, we’re getting ahead of the story. How and when did SaaSBoomi itself rise up from the building blocks of Nasscom Product Conclave, iSPIRT, and SaaSE? And what’s new about it?

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New Avatar

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New Avatar

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Shekhar Kirani sums up the spirit of SaaSBoomi. “It is, for me, a sense of belonging with a group of founders, influencers, and thinkers to discuss, learn, and contribute towards the product ecosystem from India for the global market. I have learned so much from so many folks across the globe, and SaaSBoomi is one of the best pay-it-forward networks. I love the commitment and support volunteers have contributed over the last 10+ years.”

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(453) "

Shekhar Kirani sums up the spirit of SaaSBoomi. “It is, for me, a sense of belonging with a group of founders, influencers, and thinkers to discuss, learn, and contribute towards the product ecosystem from India for the global market. I have learned so much from so many folks across the globe, and SaaSBoomi is one of the best pay-it-forward networks. I love the commitment and support volunteers have contributed over the last 10+ years.”

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The revival of that spirit at the SaaSE event got the original set of SaaS community leaders thinking about what next. Was it time to start a new organization? What should be its agenda? How should it be run?

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The revival of that spirit at the SaaSE event got the original set of SaaS community leaders thinking about what next. Was it time to start a new organization? What should be its agenda? How should it be run?

" } } [93]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(419) "

Avinash had got the conversation going, but nothing had firmed up. Then, in late October of 2018 in Bangalore, he went to the annual Nasscom Product Conclave where Girish was a speaker. A new marketing officer of Freshworks kept trying to fob him off, but he managed to catch Girish’s attention and the three of them sat down for lunch. There he told Girish it was time for a new avatar of the SaaS movement.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(419) "

Avinash had got the conversation going, but nothing had firmed up. Then, in late October of 2018 in Bangalore, he went to the annual Nasscom Product Conclave where Girish was a speaker. A new marketing officer of Freshworks kept trying to fob him off, but he managed to catch Girish’s attention and the three of them sat down for lunch. There he told Girish it was time for a new avatar of the SaaS movement.

" } } [94]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(277) "

The Freshworks founder was all for it, and got right down to brass tacks. The first thing was to name the new baby. Some four names were tossed about before Girish came up with SaaSBoomi - which translates to ‘the land of SaaS’ and envisions a boom from that land.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(277) "

The Freshworks founder was all for it, and got right down to brass tacks. The first thing was to name the new baby. Some four names were tossed about before Girish came up with SaaSBoomi - which translates to ‘the land of SaaS’ and envisions a boom from that land.

" } } [95]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(416) "

The name resonated with the other core leaders like Krish, Suresh, Manav, and Aneesh when Avinash called them up to share what transpired at the lunch with Girish. Then, within a month, on November 24, all the core leaders met online for a brainstorming session to chart the road ahead for SaaSBoomi. Less than two months after that, on January 18-19 in Chennai, the first SaaSBoomi Annual event took place.

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The name resonated with the other core leaders like Krish, Suresh, Manav, and Aneesh when Avinash called them up to share what transpired at the lunch with Girish. Then, within a month, on November 24, all the core leaders met online for a brainstorming session to chart the road ahead for SaaSBoomi. Less than two months after that, on January 18-19 in Chennai, the first SaaSBoomi Annual event took place.

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At the November 24 meeting, which marked the start of SaaSBoomi, two key decisions were to retain the best of what had worked in the past, and put structures in place to avoid repeating past mistakes. It was decided that the founders of India’s leading SaaS companies, who had built up the SaaS movement earlier, would be SaaSBoomi’s core leaders. They would have the final word on initiatives and directions. Hence it would truly be a community of SaaS founders, for SaaS founders, by SaaS founders.

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At the November 24 meeting, which marked the start of SaaSBoomi, two key decisions were to retain the best of what had worked in the past, and put structures in place to avoid repeating past mistakes. It was decided that the founders of India’s leading SaaS companies, who had built up the SaaS movement earlier, would be SaaSBoomi’s core leaders. They would have the final word on initiatives and directions. Hence it would truly be a community of SaaS founders, for SaaS founders, by SaaS founders.

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While the fundamental pay-it-forward, volunteer-driven ethos remained at the heart of the community, ‘for founders, by founders’ became a guiding principle and a new mooring.

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While the fundamental pay-it-forward, volunteer-driven ethos remained at the heart of the community, ‘for founders, by founders’ became a guiding principle and a new mooring.

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Avinash felt it was important to prioritize reviving the movement and regaining its momentum after the November 24 meeting. So the SaaSBoomi Annual 2019 was organized even before SaaSBoomi got registered later that year. It would henceforth be a two-day event, with workshops on the first day and the main conference the next day.

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Avinash felt it was important to prioritize reviving the movement and regaining its momentum after the November 24 meeting. So the SaaSBoomi Annual 2019 was organized even before SaaSBoomi got registered later that year. It would henceforth be a two-day event, with workshops on the first day and the main conference the next day.

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Suresh persuaded Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu to deliver the first keynote address in a video call. This came right after Suresh’s introductory remarks on the future of Indian SaaS. Girish went on stage after the address by Sridhar, who stayed on the video call to listen to his former protege at Zoho. The Freshworks founder acknowledged the role Sridhar had played in creating a SaaS culture in Chennai. The opening signaled SaaSBoomi stands for togetherness, because the close-knit nature of the Indian SaaS community is its greatest strength.

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Suresh persuaded Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu to deliver the first keynote address in a video call. This came right after Suresh’s introductory remarks on the future of Indian SaaS. Girish went on stage after the address by Sridhar, who stayed on the video call to listen to his former protege at Zoho. The Freshworks founder acknowledged the role Sridhar had played in creating a SaaS culture in Chennai. The opening signaled SaaSBoomi stands for togetherness, because the close-knit nature of the Indian SaaS community is its greatest strength.

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Then it was business as usual, SaaSBoomi style, sans fluff. Roundtables, teardowns, workshops, and lots and lots of chatting in WhatsApp groups between events came back. The culture of paying it forward, opening up playbooks, sharing mistakes, showing vulnerabilities, and asking for help found a new home and thrived.

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Then it was business as usual, SaaSBoomi style, sans fluff. Roundtables, teardowns, workshops, and lots and lots of chatting in WhatsApp groups between events came back. The culture of paying it forward, opening up playbooks, sharing mistakes, showing vulnerabilities, and asking for help found a new home and thrived.

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Nothing stays static, especially in this community. New initiatives sprang up as new needs were identified. An Indian SaaS Landscape report, in partnership with McKinsey, laid out the current scene and looked at the road ahead. Manav Garg wrote the India SaaS Story book, interviewing fellow founders of leading SaaS companies. Suresh Sambandam started a deep-dive podcast to decode the DNA of upcoming founders; Arvind Parthiban, co-founder, SuperOps.ai, and Varun Shoor, who founded Kayako and sold it, started a BTS podcast to go Behind The Scenes of successful marketing campaigns. AMAs and blogs kept conversations and knowledge- sharing going and a Circle community buzzed 24/7.

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Nothing stays static, especially in this community. New initiatives sprang up as new needs were identified. An Indian SaaS Landscape report, in partnership with McKinsey, laid out the current scene and looked at the road ahead. Manav Garg wrote the India SaaS Story book, interviewing fellow founders of leading SaaS companies. Suresh Sambandam started a deep-dive podcast to decode the DNA of upcoming founders; Arvind Parthiban, co-founder, SuperOps.ai, and Varun Shoor, who founded Kayako and sold it, started a BTS podcast to go Behind The Scenes of successful marketing campaigns. AMAs and blogs kept conversations and knowledge- sharing going and a Circle community buzzed 24/7.

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SGx took mentorship deeper with a 16- week personalized program and brought it closer to the founder’s needs. Startups for each cohort are curated to ensure they are primed to gain from it and grow bigger, and faster. Their mentors are often peers who scaled just a year or two earlier, making them empathize better. It’s like a Class 7 student taking tuition from a Class 10 student.

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SGx took mentorship deeper with a 16- week personalized program and brought it closer to the founder’s needs. Startups for each cohort are curated to ensure they are primed to gain from it and grow bigger, and faster. Their mentors are often peers who scaled just a year or two earlier, making them empathize better. It’s like a Class 7 student taking tuition from a Class 10 student.

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Amit Desai, founder of AssessHub, describes the impact it had on his startup: “It’s a no gyan, only implementation-focused program. We were able to build a new website, sales pitch, sales process, sales enablement, email drips, and content to address each of the funnel stages. It has fundamentally changed the way we operate. Internally, we refer to our journey now as the pre-SGX and post-SGX era. We will be eternally grateful to the mentors and SGX community.”

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Amit Desai, founder of AssessHub, describes the impact it had on his startup: “It’s a no gyan, only implementation-focused program. We were able to build a new website, sales pitch, sales process, sales enablement, email drips, and content to address each of the funnel stages. It has fundamentally changed the way we operate. Internally, we refer to our journey now as the pre-SGX and post-SGX era. We will be eternally grateful to the mentors and SGX community.”

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As with all SaaSBoomi activities, the oxygen for SGx comes from the volunteer who drives it: Matthew John, founder of Typito, based in Kochi.
And again, as with so many other volunteers, Matthew says he was first a beneficiary of the community, then started paying it forward. He attended the SaaSBoomi Annual 2020 and the culture he experienced there was a revelation.

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As with all SaaSBoomi activities, the oxygen for SGx comes from the volunteer who drives it: Matthew John, founder of Typito, based in Kochi.
And again, as with so many other volunteers, Matthew says he was first a beneficiary of the community, then started paying it forward. He attended the SaaSBoomi Annual 2020 and the culture he experienced there was a revelation.

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“In my mostly single founder journey, I had relied heavily on books for learning. Getting lessons from other founders, that too in a vulnerable, judgment-free environment, was a challenge. SaaSBoomi was the closest thing to where I felt I could have candid conversations with founders, and be vulnerable. That motivated me to be a part of its big vision and play a small role in it.”

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“In my mostly single founder journey, I had relied heavily on books for learning. Getting lessons from other founders, that too in a vulnerable, judgment-free environment, was a challenge. SaaSBoomi was the closest thing to where I felt I could have candid conversations with founders, and be vulnerable. That motivated me to be a part of its big vision and play a small role in it.”

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A book he read recently, Why Nations Fail, talks of the importance of institutions that enable virtuous circles of innovation, and he related to it. “In the startup world, an extractive mindset is common. SaaSBoomi is different; it encourages an inclusive mindset. It can groom a generation of entrepreneurs who will be empathetic to the next generation and considerate towards all stake-holders who work with them. All that is possible I believe and SaaSBoomi is the best shot I’ve seen at making India a startup nation of that sort.”

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A book he read recently, Why Nations Fail, talks of the importance of institutions that enable virtuous circles of innovation, and he related to it. “In the startup world, an extractive mindset is common. SaaSBoomi is different; it encourages an inclusive mindset. It can groom a generation of entrepreneurs who will be empathetic to the next generation and considerate towards all stake-holders who work with them. All that is possible I believe and SaaSBoomi is the best shot I’ve seen at making India a startup nation of that sort.”

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On a more individual note, Matthew says he derives a lot of contentment from volunteering with SaaSBoomi, “thanks to a culture that encourages ownership and freedom to execute.”

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On a more individual note, Matthew says he derives a lot of contentment from volunteering with SaaSBoomi, “thanks to a culture that encourages ownership and freedom to execute.”

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For him, specifically, it’s both exciting and educational to help conduct experiments and test different hypotheses for startups in every SGx cohort. “As an entrepreneur, that’s what you do at your own startup too,” he points out. “And as a volunteer, you’re putting yourself in customers’ shoes when you talk to other founders. I learn a lot when I engage so closely with them, and that learning is immense.”

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For him, specifically, it’s both exciting and educational to help conduct experiments and test different hypotheses for startups in every SGx cohort. “As an entrepreneur, that’s what you do at your own startup too,” he points out. “And as a volunteer, you’re putting yourself in customers’ shoes when you talk to other founders. I learn a lot when I engage so closely with them, and that learning is immense.”

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New Horizons

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New Horizons

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Vinod Muthukrishnan, whose startup CloudCherry got acquired by Cisco in 2019 and is now building his “coolest” product in stealth mode at Uniphore in Palo Alto, had his initiation into the Indian SaaS community at a Product Nation bootcamp in Mysore. “That was the first time I fraternized with other SaaS founders. I remember Khadim Bhatti of Whatfix was right next to me, and we’ve both had such incredible journeys since then,” he recollects.

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Vinod Muthukrishnan, whose startup CloudCherry got acquired by Cisco in 2019 and is now building his “coolest” product in stealth mode at Uniphore in Palo Alto, had his initiation into the Indian SaaS community at a Product Nation bootcamp in Mysore. “That was the first time I fraternized with other SaaS founders. I remember Khadim Bhatti of Whatfix was right next to me, and we’ve both had such incredible journeys since then,” he recollects.

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The defining moment came for Vinod when he attended an event in Bangalore, right before moving to California. “I looked around the room and saw almost every scaled SaaS founder in India was there: Girish, Manav, Aneesh, Suresh, Pallav… They took three days off to go deep into SaaS with us,” he recollects. “And as I evolved in my career, I learned something interesting: that you can be a mentor on one track and a learner on a parallel track. When you tell a founder something and they go out and execute what you just said 10x, you suddenly learn there’s a better way of doing it, right? You’ve become enriched. So, you can be the most selfish person in the world and yet find enrichment from paying it forward.”

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The defining moment came for Vinod when he attended an event in Bangalore, right before moving to California. “I looked around the room and saw almost every scaled SaaS founder in India was there: Girish, Manav, Aneesh, Suresh, Pallav… They took three days off to go deep into SaaS with us,” he recollects. “And as I evolved in my career, I learned something interesting: that you can be a mentor on one track and a learner on a parallel track. When you tell a founder something and they go out and execute what you just said 10x, you suddenly learn there’s a better way of doing it, right? You’ve become enriched. So, you can be the most selfish person in the world and yet find enrichment from paying it forward.”

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What made an equally strong impression on him at the Bangalore event were the “super- tactical” workshops. The leader of every track, whether it was sales, marketing, or GTM, did their homework and expected the same from every founder who attended. “They asked you to get data, then sat with you on your numbers and asked, ‘What about this? What about that?’,” says Vinod, who takes the same approach now when he’s paying it forward.

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What made an equally strong impression on him at the Bangalore event were the “super- tactical” workshops. The leader of every track, whether it was sales, marketing, or GTM, did their homework and expected the same from every founder who attended. “They asked you to get data, then sat with you on your numbers and asked, ‘What about this? What about that?’,” says Vinod, who takes the same approach now when he’s paying it forward.

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Another important takeaway for him was that paying it forward need not wait: “You don’t have to achieve everything in life before paying it forward. When someone hits their first million of ARR, they can teach somebody who’s pre-revenue, looking to get their first dollar. Those are invaluable lessons. In fact, lessons on getting your first dollar from a founder who’s gone IPO may be less relevant because they got their first dollar 10 years ago, right? It’s when you hit 10 million ARR that you have relevant lessons for a founder who’s trying to go from one to 10 million.”

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Another important takeaway for him was that paying it forward need not wait: “You don’t have to achieve everything in life before paying it forward. When someone hits their first million of ARR, they can teach somebody who’s pre-revenue, looking to get their first dollar. Those are invaluable lessons. In fact, lessons on getting your first dollar from a founder who’s gone IPO may be less relevant because they got their first dollar 10 years ago, right? It’s when you hit 10 million ARR that you have relevant lessons for a founder who’s trying to go from one to 10 million.”

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“So the lesson I learned is that at every stage of your evolution, you can pay it forward. Even as a struggling entrepreneur, you can pass on lessons to other founders who are in the same boat.”

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“So the lesson I learned is that at every stage of your evolution, you can pay it forward. Even as a struggling entrepreneur, you can pass on lessons to other founders who are in the same boat.”

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Vinod experienced this when he moved to the Bay Area in the winter of 2016. As he wrote in a blog later: “I had landed in the US with a dream, 10 months left on a visa, no credit score, and one customer in Arizona...”

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Vinod experienced this when he moved to the Bay Area in the winter of 2016. As he wrote in a blog later: “I had landed in the US with a dream, 10 months left on a visa, no credit score, and one customer in Arizona...”

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None of the scaled Indian SaaS founders were there. All his mentors were in India. So he had to figure everything out for himself. What’s the story with the visa? What’s the best place to live? What’s a good place to hire? How do you build your network here? “Geez, what’s the playbook to move to America!”

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None of the scaled Indian SaaS founders were there. All his mentors were in India. So he had to figure everything out for himself. What’s the story with the visa? What’s the best place to live? What’s a good place to hire? How do you build your network here? “Geez, what’s the playbook to move to America!”

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And yet, within two months of him taking the plunge, a founder visiting the US from India, who knew he was there, reached out and had a stream of questions. What about this? What about that? “And I was able to offer him very practical advice on a couple of aspects of the move. I realized that within my two months of moving, I had a lesson or two I could pass on to the next guy trying to come here,” says Vinod.

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And yet, within two months of him taking the plunge, a founder visiting the US from India, who knew he was there, reached out and had a stream of questions. What about this? What about that? “And I was able to offer him very practical advice on a couple of aspects of the move. I realized that within my two months of moving, I had a lesson or two I could pass on to the next guy trying to come here,” says Vinod.

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In 2022, six years after moving to the US, he bumped up his pay-it-forward to another level by taking the lead in helping set up the US chapter of SaaSBoomi. It began with Avinash rounding up people for a series of SaaSBoomi-style socials, roundtables, and finally a larger event with 150 SaaS founders in June.

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In 2022, six years after moving to the US, he bumped up his pay-it-forward to another level by taking the lead in helping set up the US chapter of SaaSBoomi. It began with Avinash rounding up people for a series of SaaSBoomi-style socials, roundtables, and finally a larger event with 150 SaaS founders in June.

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He concluded there was clearly a need for a full-fledged initiative, with growing numbers of SaaS founders from India visiting the US every month, and so many of them stationed in the Bay Area at any point of time. So, three months later, a 10- day US Caravan took around 125 founders through a variety of activities to learn, make friends, and refine their India-US playbook.

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He concluded there was clearly a need for a full-fledged initiative, with growing numbers of SaaS founders from India visiting the US every month, and so many of them stationed in the Bay Area at any point of time. So, three months later, a 10- day US Caravan took around 125 founders through a variety of activities to learn, make friends, and refine their India-US playbook.

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“The US can feel like a far away and lonely place during the go-to-market phase. You will never think that again after you meet the awesome people at SaaSBoomi,” said Kuldeep Dhankar, cofounder of Last9.io, one of those who took the US Caravan ride.

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“The US can feel like a far away and lonely place during the go-to-market phase. You will never think that again after you meet the awesome people at SaaSBoomi,” said Kuldeep Dhankar, cofounder of Last9.io, one of those who took the US Caravan ride.

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Several initiatives like a buddy program are on the anvil, picking up from how Vinod has been a buddy to so many visitors from India. “I was hosting a panel discussion one day, and two unicorn founders were there. Both of them said, ‘when we moved to the US or explored the US market, one of the first things we did was to go to Vinod’s house for a drink and dinner’. So there’s a very strong correlation between coming to my house, having a meal, and becoming a unicorn,” he jokes.

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Several initiatives like a buddy program are on the anvil, picking up from how Vinod has been a buddy to so many visitors from India. “I was hosting a panel discussion one day, and two unicorn founders were there. Both of them said, ‘when we moved to the US or explored the US market, one of the first things we did was to go to Vinod’s house for a drink and dinner’. So there’s a very strong correlation between coming to my house, having a meal, and becoming a unicorn,” he jokes.

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It’s not easy to time the move to the US market and costs can quickly get out of hand if you don’t do it right. Even some of the first Indian SaaS companies to open up the Indian market, like Netcore and Capillary, regret leaving it very late, because they settled for less when they could have targeted a much larger addressable market.

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It’s not easy to time the move to the US market and costs can quickly get out of hand if you don’t do it right. Even some of the first Indian SaaS companies to open up the Indian market, like Netcore and Capillary, regret leaving it very late, because they settled for less when they could have targeted a much larger addressable market.

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Capillary did make a US move in its fifth year in 2013-14 but made too many mistakes. Aneesh has shared all this openly in the SaaS community to help upcoming startups avoid his mistakes. The first one was to send his tech co- founder there, instead of going himself, because he led sales at Capillary and the US, unlike Asia, definitely needed a very consultative sales approach to succeed. The second was to hire too many salespeople, who are expensive in the US, before marketing the product for sufficient demand generation. The third was to spread themselves too thin while going global.

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Capillary did make a US move in its fifth year in 2013-14 but made too many mistakes. Aneesh has shared all this openly in the SaaS community to help upcoming startups avoid his mistakes. The first one was to send his tech co- founder there, instead of going himself, because he led sales at Capillary and the US, unlike Asia, definitely needed a very consultative sales approach to succeed. The second was to hire too many salespeople, who are expensive in the US, before marketing the product for sufficient demand generation. The third was to spread themselves too thin while going global.

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“We tried to go from only India in 2011 to like 10 countries by 2013. We opened offices in the US, Europe, UK, Hong Kong, and Australia in 18 months between 2012 and 2014. Then we shut down all those offices in 2014 after blowing up $18m in 12-15 months,” says Aneesh ruefully. “I wish someone had sat me down hard in 2011 and told me to just forget everything else and go and sit in the US.”

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“We tried to go from only India in 2011 to like 10 countries by 2013. We opened offices in the US, Europe, UK, Hong Kong, and Australia in 18 months between 2012 and 2014. Then we shut down all those offices in 2014 after blowing up $18m in 12-15 months,” says Aneesh ruefully. “I wish someone had sat me down hard in 2011 and told me to just forget everything else and go and sit in the US.”

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And yet, in hindsight, the bigger mistake was not to persist in the US market and correct the playbook. He remembers Infosys founder NR Narayanamurthy actually telling him that in 2015. “It was a one-on-one chat on some other topic, but Narayanamurthy told me, ‘Why are you wasting time here? Go back to the US. That’s where the money is.’... And we were a decent size in Asia by then,

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And yet, in hindsight, the bigger mistake was not to persist in the US market and correct the playbook. He remembers Infosys founder NR Narayanamurthy actually telling him that in 2015. “It was a one-on-one chat on some other topic, but Narayanamurthy told me, ‘Why are you wasting time here? Go back to the US. That’s where the money is.’... And we were a decent size in Asia by then,

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10-15 million ARR!”

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10-15 million ARR!”

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He’s happy to see that the next gen of founders cracked the US market and grew big fast. Several of them had attended his roundtables, such as Dhruvil who was also part of the F8 group. And last year, when Capillary made another push into the US, which now accounts for over a quarter of its revenues, Aneesh reached out for advice to his younger peers, who had a good US business by then.

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He’s happy to see that the next gen of founders cracked the US market and grew big fast. Several of them had attended his roundtables, such as Dhruvil who was also part of the F8 group. And last year, when Capillary made another push into the US, which now accounts for over a quarter of its revenues, Aneesh reached out for advice to his younger peers, who had a good US business by then.

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One of them was Dhruvil. “When we were going to the US, I used to keep asking in the F8 group for details on hiring, marketing spend, customer experiences, product changes for integrations and so on to make sure we didn’t make the same mistakes that anybody else had made. And our logistics management business had a close alignment with Capillary who were in the retail industry,” he recalls.

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One of them was Dhruvil. “When we were going to the US, I used to keep asking in the F8 group for details on hiring, marketing spend, customer experiences, product changes for integrations and so on to make sure we didn’t make the same mistakes that anybody else had made. And our logistics management business had a close alignment with Capillary who were in the retail industry,” he recalls.

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“Then in 2020, by which time more than half of our revenues were from the US, Aneesh wanted to learn from our experience of scaling in the US market. I was able to share details of our channel strategy, conversion rates, demand generation tactics at different revenue levels, etc. And in hiring, they had a top-down approach and my suggestion was that it was OK to hire a sales team first, let them hustle to a basic traction, and then get a seasoned leader.”

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“Then in 2020, by which time more than half of our revenues were from the US, Aneesh wanted to learn from our experience of scaling in the US market. I was able to share details of our channel strategy, conversion rates, demand generation tactics at different revenue levels, etc. And in hiring, they had a top-down approach and my suggestion was that it was OK to hire a sales team first, let them hustle to a basic traction, and then get a seasoned leader.”

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It validates the cyclical nature of paying it forward. “That’s the beauty of our ecosystem, right? Where people don’t shy away from asking for help from the same people they used to guide earlier,” says Dhruvil. “And if things change in five years, and we need to double down in emerging markets, Aneesh will be the first person I call, right?”

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It validates the cyclical nature of paying it forward. “That’s the beauty of our ecosystem, right? Where people don’t shy away from asking for help from the same people they used to guide earlier,” says Dhruvil. “And if things change in five years, and we need to double down in emerging markets, Aneesh will be the first person I call, right?”

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SaaSBoomi still has a long way to go, but the North Star will always be its pay-it- forward culture, which in turn derives from the sense of belonging that members of this close-knit community feel. Girish likens a SaaSBoomi event to a Great Indian Wedding where people meet and share what’s going on in their lives, and it’s the same whether it’s in Chennai or California. As Jeff Bezos told Girish during a visit to Bangalore, when the Freshworks founder asked the Amazon founder how he maintains his awesome customer service even as he scales: “Girish, you have to realize that you don’t manage people. You manage culture.”

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SaaSBoomi still has a long way to go, but the North Star will always be its pay-it- forward culture, which in turn derives from the sense of belonging that members of this close-knit community feel. Girish likens a SaaSBoomi event to a Great Indian Wedding where people meet and share what’s going on in their lives, and it’s the same whether it’s in Chennai or California. As Jeff Bezos told Girish during a visit to Bangalore, when the Freshworks founder asked the Amazon founder how he maintains his awesome customer service even as he scales: “Girish, you have to realize that you don’t manage people. You manage culture.”

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For Avinash, the greatest tribute to the community came at the Nasdaq listing of Freshworks in September 2021. SaaSBoomi’s founding volunteer, feeling

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For Avinash, the greatest tribute to the community came at the Nasdaq listing of Freshworks in September 2021. SaaSBoomi’s founding volunteer, feeling

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proud of India’s first SaaS IPO there, had memories of his long association with Girish going through his mind during the photo ops on stage. The Freshworks co- founders and their families, the leadership team, the investors, other supporters - it was a long procession. At the end, the MC asked Girish if he wanted to call somebody special, perhaps an investor or someone from his team. And Girish wanted Avinash to come up on stage.

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proud of India’s first SaaS IPO there, had memories of his long association with Girish going through his mind during the photo ops on stage. The Freshworks co- founders and their families, the leadership team, the investors, other supporters - it was a long procession. At the end, the MC asked Girish if he wanted to call somebody special, perhaps an investor or someone from his team. And Girish wanted Avinash to come up on stage.

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Avinash wasn’t sure he had heard right, because he was there only as an ecosystem builder, but somebody by his side nudged him and said, ‘Girish is calling you on stage’. Then he went up on the Nasdaq stage.

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Avinash wasn’t sure he had heard right, because he was there only as an ecosystem builder, but somebody by his side nudged him and said, ‘Girish is calling you on stage’. Then he went up on the Nasdaq stage.

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That was an acknowledgement of the role an ecosystem builder plays in the success of startups. “He’s the founding father of India’s product nation dream, as I said at our IPO,” says Girish.

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That was an acknowledgement of the role an ecosystem builder plays in the success of startups. “He’s the founding father of India’s product nation dream, as I said at our IPO,” says Girish.

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It’s the people and the culture they build and protect that defines a community. And for a volunteer-powered one like SaaSBoomi, when founders acknowledge the contribution of volunteers in the ecosystem, they just feel good.

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It’s the people and the culture they build and protect that defines a community. And for a volunteer-powered one like SaaSBoomi, when founders acknowledge the contribution of volunteers in the ecosystem, they just feel good.

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By Malavika Velayanikal

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By Malavika Velayanikal

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The story of SaaSBoomi

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The story of SaaSBoomi

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Huge welcome to our new SaaS ecosystem partners

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(5105) "SaaSBoomi began with a dream of a Product Nation, shared by SaaS founders and investors. Our mission was to build up the SaaS ecosystem by helping founders learn from each other’s journeys across different stages. Thanks to tremendous support from like-minded ecosystem partners and a shared belief in catalyzing a pay-it-forward ethos, we have seen this community swell and thrive. The SaaS industry has exceeded growth expectations and our vision for India SaaS to reach a $1 trillion market cap is not so far-fetched any more. With the expansion of the community, along with its events and initiatives, came the realization that we needed to bring more diversity to our partner support. Our longstanding partners have walked hand-in-hand with us every step of the way in scaling the community, not only with financial support but also with their knowledge, networks, and other resources. The deep connections our partners made with the community of SaaS founders have been heart-warming. Each one of our partners believed in the India SaaS story and SaaSBoomi provided a milieu for them to work in concert towards common goals.  Now we are proud to announce the expansion of our roster of partners to include others in the ecosystem who share our values and dedication to the mission. They may be of different sizes with varying strategies but every one of them has been an important contributor to the SaaS ecosystem. SaaSBO will give them greater scope to deepen their involvement and they will in turn help the community of SaaS founders grow with broader support. We added a new Silver category to broaden the ecosystem partner support. We also have some new partners in the existing Platinum and Gold categories. Here’s a huge welcome to our new partners and many thanks to our longstanding ones for sticking by us! Here is the full list of SaaSBoomi Ecosystem Partners for 2023-24: We believe we now have the right number and variety of partners at this stage of our growth. (Read the SaaSBoomi Origin Story). The SaaS ecosystem has been growing by leaps and bounds. India had a record 6.7% share of new global unicorns in 2022, most of which are SaaS companies.  Our community has been growing in equal measure or more. We planned for a doubling of the audience at this year’s SaaSBoomi Annual, for example, but ran out of seats long before the event. We had to reluctantly turn away many of our members even after squeezing in hundreds of extra seats to accommodate nearly 1200 attendees, mostly founders. A majority of them were new attendees swelling the number of regulars. Our year-round activities have also been growing, from workshop-style playbook roundtables in multiple hubs to the high-impact SGx mentorship program and new international chapters in the Bay Area and Singapore. Our week-long US Caravan which we launched last year is ready to roll again this September, larger and more focused on helping founders with their US GTM. (Read Caravan ‘23: Your US GTM Field Trip) To our partners, our assurance is that the super-tactical content at SaaSBoomi events and curated lists of SaaS founders for our various initiatives will give you more visibility and better connectivity than anywhere else. We will fully engage with all our partners in our events and initiatives all year round. And we look forward to co-creating some of these with you to tap into your knowledge, experience, networks, and other resources. We will formally announce the names of continuing and new partners on July 27 in Bangalore at the presentation of the SaaSBoomi-Mckinsey report - India’s SaaS Revolution: Exploring global opportunities in a dynamic market. Register here to join us there." ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(5105) "SaaSBoomi began with a dream of a Product Nation, shared by SaaS founders and investors. Our mission was to build up the SaaS ecosystem by helping founders learn from each other’s journeys across different stages. Thanks to tremendous support from like-minded ecosystem partners and a shared belief in catalyzing a pay-it-forward ethos, we have seen this community swell and thrive. The SaaS industry has exceeded growth expectations and our vision for India SaaS to reach a $1 trillion market cap is not so far-fetched any more. With the expansion of the community, along with its events and initiatives, came the realization that we needed to bring more diversity to our partner support. Our longstanding partners have walked hand-in-hand with us every step of the way in scaling the community, not only with financial support but also with their knowledge, networks, and other resources. The deep connections our partners made with the community of SaaS founders have been heart-warming. Each one of our partners believed in the India SaaS story and SaaSBoomi provided a milieu for them to work in concert towards common goals.  Now we are proud to announce the expansion of our roster of partners to include others in the ecosystem who share our values and dedication to the mission. They may be of different sizes with varying strategies but every one of them has been an important contributor to the SaaS ecosystem. SaaSBO will give them greater scope to deepen their involvement and they will in turn help the community of SaaS founders grow with broader support. We added a new Silver category to broaden the ecosystem partner support. We also have some new partners in the existing Platinum and Gold categories. Here’s a huge welcome to our new partners and many thanks to our longstanding ones for sticking by us! Here is the full list of SaaSBoomi Ecosystem Partners for 2023-24: We believe we now have the right number and variety of partners at this stage of our growth. (Read the SaaSBoomi Origin Story). The SaaS ecosystem has been growing by leaps and bounds. India had a record 6.7% share of new global unicorns in 2022, most of which are SaaS companies.  Our community has been growing in equal measure or more. We planned for a doubling of the audience at this year’s SaaSBoomi Annual, for example, but ran out of seats long before the event. We had to reluctantly turn away many of our members even after squeezing in hundreds of extra seats to accommodate nearly 1200 attendees, mostly founders. A majority of them were new attendees swelling the number of regulars. Our year-round activities have also been growing, from workshop-style playbook roundtables in multiple hubs to the high-impact SGx mentorship program and new international chapters in the Bay Area and Singapore. Our week-long US Caravan which we launched last year is ready to roll again this September, larger and more focused on helping founders with their US GTM. (Read Caravan ‘23: Your US GTM Field Trip) To our partners, our assurance is that the super-tactical content at SaaSBoomi events and curated lists of SaaS founders for our various initiatives will give you more visibility and better connectivity than anywhere else. We will fully engage with all our partners in our events and initiatives all year round. And we look forward to co-creating some of these with you to tap into your knowledge, experience, networks, and other resources. We will formally announce the names of continuing and new partners on July 27 in Bangalore at the presentation of the SaaSBoomi-Mckinsey report - India’s SaaS Revolution: Exploring global opportunities in a dynamic market. Register here to join us there." } }

Reframing Governance As A Lever for Startup Growth and Value Creation

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This article was originally published on YourStory

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This article was originally published on YourStory

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In the fast-paced ever-changing world of startups, it is tempting to see corporate governance as a “necessary evil” - an overhead which impedes progress - but the truth of the matter is that good governance can be a powerful lever for value creation.

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In the fast-paced ever-changing world of startups, it is tempting to see corporate governance as a “necessary evil” - an overhead which impedes progress - but the truth of the matter is that good governance can be a powerful lever for value creation.

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A lesson from Infosys 

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A lesson from Infosys 

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There is a facet of tech services bellwether Infosys that is rarely remembered nowadays. 

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There is a facet of tech services bellwether Infosys that is rarely remembered nowadays. 

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When Infosys went public on the Indian stock market, it was not the largest IT services company in the country. Neither was it the fastest-growing or most profitable firm in its category. 

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When Infosys went public on the Indian stock market, it was not the largest IT services company in the country. Neither was it the fastest-growing or most profitable firm in its category. 

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Yet, its market valuation was higher than most of its peers and comparable to competitors that were much larger. 

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Yet, its market valuation was higher than most of its peers and comparable to competitors that were much larger. 

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This “valuation premium” could be largely attributed to a single quality - excellent corporate governance. The founders and management of Infosys were fastidious about governance in all aspects of running the company. 

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This “valuation premium” could be largely attributed to a single quality - excellent corporate governance. The founders and management of Infosys were fastidious about governance in all aspects of running the company. 

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Given the spate of the recent press around bad corporate governance and poor founder behavior in the Indian tech ecosystem, we might all benefit from taking a leaf from Infosys’ playbook to appreciate the value of good governance. 

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Given the spate of the recent press around bad corporate governance and poor founder behavior in the Indian tech ecosystem, we might all benefit from taking a leaf from Infosys’ playbook to appreciate the value of good governance. 

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Admittedly, Infosys emerged and prospered in a vastly different milieu where founders had to perforce be frugal and diligent. But the lessons from Infosys are valid even today in the fast-paced world of startups with easy access to enormous amounts of capital and little to no oversight from investors or other stakeholders. 

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Admittedly, Infosys emerged and prospered in a vastly different milieu where founders had to perforce be frugal and diligent. But the lessons from Infosys are valid even today in the fast-paced world of startups with easy access to enormous amounts of capital and little to no oversight from investors or other stakeholders. 

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By their very nature, startups operate in a dynamic environment and constantly challenge conventional wisdom and reshape the business landscape. In the pursuit of growth, entrepreneurs may be tempted to view corporate governance as a necessary evil – a set of rules and practices that impose overheads, constrain creativity and hinder accelerated progress. However, this perspective is shortsighted. 

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By their very nature, startups operate in a dynamic environment and constantly challenge conventional wisdom and reshape the business landscape. In the pursuit of growth, entrepreneurs may be tempted to view corporate governance as a necessary evil – a set of rules and practices that impose overheads, constrain creativity and hinder accelerated progress. However, this perspective is shortsighted. 

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There are some who believe that the recent spate of bad corporate governance is a result of excess funding in the system. That VCs not doing enough due diligence and exhorting founders to grow their startups at an unrealistic pace encourages bad behavior. But the fact of the matter is that if a founder is fundamentally honest, they will demonstrate strong ethics, values, and integrity irrespective of any external drivers. On the other hand, a dishonest founder will find his

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There are some who believe that the recent spate of bad corporate governance is a result of excess funding in the system. That VCs not doing enough due diligence and exhorting founders to grow their startups at an unrealistic pace encourages bad behavior. But the fact of the matter is that if a founder is fundamentally honest, they will demonstrate strong ethics, values, and integrity irrespective of any external drivers. On the other hand, a dishonest founder will find his

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way around any sort of regulation or governance measure. If a founder is a bad actor, no amount of corporate governance checks can help - even if the best auditors and most diligent investors are at the table, it is impossible to prevent dishonest practices. Let’s remember that when investments are made at an early stage, there is hardly any business to diligence. Even later-stage investors backing more mature companies can face negative surprises if there is malafide intent and willful fraud on the part of the founder. 

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way around any sort of regulation or governance measure. If a founder is a bad actor, no amount of corporate governance checks can help - even if the best auditors and most diligent investors are at the table, it is impossible to prevent dishonest practices. Let’s remember that when investments are made at an early stage, there is hardly any business to diligence. Even later-stage investors backing more mature companies can face negative surprises if there is malafide intent and willful fraud on the part of the founder. 

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So there is little point in advocating good corporate governance as a panacea for bad behavior. 

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So there is little point in advocating good corporate governance as a panacea for bad behavior. 

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On the other hand, when founders are fundamentally honest and well-meaning, properly-implemented corporate governance can serve as a powerful lever that not only safeguards the long-term health of a startup but also actively contributes to its growth and success. 

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On the other hand, when founders are fundamentally honest and well-meaning, properly-implemented corporate governance can serve as a powerful lever that not only safeguards the long-term health of a startup but also actively contributes to its growth and success. 

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Just as it did for Infosys. 

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Just as it did for Infosys. 

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In this post, we will explore various aspects of governance that are critical for startups and demonstrate how good governance practices can drive growth, stability, and long-term value creation. 

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In this post, we will explore various aspects of governance that are critical for startups and demonstrate how good governance practices can drive growth, stability, and long-term value creation. 

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A First-Principles Ecosystem Approach Towards Good Governance 

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A First-Principles Ecosystem Approach Towards Good Governance 

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At its essence, corporate governance is not just about a bunch of guidelines and regulations, it covers the entire system of rules, practices, and processes by which a company is directed and controlled. 

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At its essence, corporate governance is not just about a bunch of guidelines and regulations, it covers the entire system of rules, practices, and processes by which a company is directed and controlled. 

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For startups, establishing a solid foundation of corporate governance is crucial. Why? 

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For startups, establishing a solid foundation of corporate governance is crucial. Why? 

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Because it sets the tone for how the company will be managed and operated in its formative years and beyond. The foundational blocks that are laid down at inception become the structure around which the entire organization is built block by block over the long term. They set the tone and culture for all decisions and objectives from that point. 

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Because it sets the tone for how the company will be managed and operated in its formative years and beyond. The foundational blocks that are laid down at inception become the structure around which the entire organization is built block by block over the long term. They set the tone and culture for all decisions and objectives from that point. 

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To build a strong governance framework, startups must begin by addressing some fundamental aspects. These aspects need to be driven by first-principles thinking rather than by following a cookie-cutter approach and need to be grounded in the values that the founders would like to run the company by and the broad business and market context in which they operate. 

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To build a strong governance framework, startups must begin by addressing some fundamental aspects. These aspects need to be driven by first-principles thinking rather than by following a cookie-cutter approach and need to be grounded in the values that the founders would like to run the company by and the broad business and market context in which they operate. 

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By applying first principles thinking to corporate governance, startups can create effective and tailor-made governance frameworks that address their unique needs and circumstances. Rather than simply adopting generic best practices or attempting to mimic the governance structures of

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By applying first principles thinking to corporate governance, startups can create effective and tailor-made governance frameworks that address their unique needs and circumstances. Rather than simply adopting generic best practices or attempting to mimic the governance structures of

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established organizations, startups should critically analyze the underlying principles and objectives of good governance. This includes prioritizing transparency, accountability, stakeholder engagement, and continuous improvement while adapting these principles to the specific context of the startup. By doing so, they can develop a governance model that not only aligns with their strategic goals but also drives innovation and sustainable growth. 

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established organizations, startups should critically analyze the underlying principles and objectives of good governance. This includes prioritizing transparency, accountability, stakeholder engagement, and continuous improvement while adapting these principles to the specific context of the startup. By doing so, they can develop a governance model that not only aligns with their strategic goals but also drives innovation and sustainable growth. 

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An effective governance structure is inclusive and adopts an “ecosystem” approach by involving and balancing the interests of all stakeholders - founders, shareholders, employees, customers, partners, financiers, government, and the broad community. It needs to be grounded in transparency and accountability and encourage ethical behavior and integrity which needs to be enshrined as non-negotiable facets of the company. 

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An effective governance structure is inclusive and adopts an “ecosystem” approach by involving and balancing the interests of all stakeholders - founders, shareholders, employees, customers, partners, financiers, government, and the broad community. It needs to be grounded in transparency and accountability and encourage ethical behavior and integrity which needs to be enshrined as non-negotiable facets of the company. 

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These principles set the foundation for corporate governance that drives startup value creation. But how do they translate into practice? Let's explore how startups can create value through effective corporate governance. Rather than being a prescriptive document, I hope to draw from my personal experience as a founder of Eka Software to drive home some key points, some strategic and others tactical. 

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These principles set the foundation for corporate governance that drives startup value creation. But how do they translate into practice? Let's explore how startups can create value through effective corporate governance. Rather than being a prescriptive document, I hope to draw from my personal experience as a founder of Eka Software to drive home some key points, some strategic and others tactical. 

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Fundamental Ingredients of Good Governance 

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Fundamental Ingredients of Good Governance 

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It is essential to ensure that there are certain fundamental principles that are enshrined in the company right from the get-go. 

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It is essential to ensure that there are certain fundamental principles that are enshrined in the company right from the get-go. 

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#1 Draft a Shareholders Agreement 

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#1 Draft a Shareholders Agreement 

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I recall my initial meeting with an early investor. After we agreed on the investment following 24 hours of discussions, he contacted me suggesting that we document our agreement. This was new territory for me. Not wanting to appear uninformed, I consulted with my cousin, a Supreme Court lawyer, who advised drafting a shareholders agreement. 

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I recall my initial meeting with an early investor. After we agreed on the investment following 24 hours of discussions, he contacted me suggesting that we document our agreement. This was new territory for me. Not wanting to appear uninformed, I consulted with my cousin, a Supreme Court lawyer, who advised drafting a shareholders agreement. 

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This agreement proved invaluable in navigating challenging times as we progressed through various stages of building Eka, a vertical software company focused on the global commodities market. Therefore, whether you are a co-founder starting up with bootstrapped resources or with investors, it is best to draft a shareholders agreement. 

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This agreement proved invaluable in navigating challenging times as we progressed through various stages of building Eka, a vertical software company focused on the global commodities market. Therefore, whether you are a co-founder starting up with bootstrapped resources or with investors, it is best to draft a shareholders agreement. 

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A shareholders agreement is a crucial document that outlines the rights and responsibilities of shareholders, as well as the terms and conditions governing their relationship with the company. From the outset, even if a startup is bootstrapped or has just two co-founders, drafting a shareholders agreement can help prevent conflicts and provide a clear roadmap for decision-making during challenging times. In the case of Eka, having a well-drafted shareholders agreement proved invaluable in navigating the complexities of the business. 

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A shareholders agreement is a crucial document that outlines the rights and responsibilities of shareholders, as well as the terms and conditions governing their relationship with the company. From the outset, even if a startup is bootstrapped or has just two co-founders, drafting a shareholders agreement can help prevent conflicts and provide a clear roadmap for decision-making during challenging times. In the case of Eka, having a well-drafted shareholders agreement proved invaluable in navigating the complexities of the business. 

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#2. Hold Regular Board Meetings

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#2. Hold Regular Board Meetings

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While board meetings are a statutory requirement, they should not be treated as mere box-ticking exercises. Instead, startups should view board meetings as valuable opportunities to engage with directors, communicate company strategy and operations, discuss risks, and solicit input. 

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While board meetings are a statutory requirement, they should not be treated as mere box-ticking exercises. Instead, startups should view board meetings as valuable opportunities to engage with directors, communicate company strategy and operations, discuss risks, and solicit input. 

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In the case of Eka, we benefited enormously from our directors who guided us to make many good decisions that gave us long-term gains. 

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In the case of Eka, we benefited enormously from our directors who guided us to make many good decisions that gave us long-term gains. 

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#3. Prioritize Statutory Compliance 

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#3. Prioritize Statutory Compliance 

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Upon relocating to Bangalore to develop the product, I realized my knowledge of company law was quite limited. We established an early framework for a statutory compliance checklist to be circulated to the board every quarter without fail. Hiring a director of finance within the first 15-member team was beneficial. As a founder, I would spend a day every quarter ensuring all compliance requirements were met. 

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Upon relocating to Bangalore to develop the product, I realized my knowledge of company law was quite limited. We established an early framework for a statutory compliance checklist to be circulated to the board every quarter without fail. Hiring a director of finance within the first 15-member team was beneficial. As a founder, I would spend a day every quarter ensuring all compliance requirements were met. 

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Statutory compliance is a critical aspect of good governance, ensuring that startups adhere to the legal and regulatory requirements of their jurisdiction. To this end, it is essential for startups to establish a robust compliance framework, regularly review and update their practices, and involve the board in oversight. For Eka, hiring a director of finance early on and dedicating time to review compliance matters each quarter has been instrumental in maintaining a strong governance foundation. It has helped us avoid committing mistakes related to compliance that could have cost the company heavily at a later stage. 

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Statutory compliance is a critical aspect of good governance, ensuring that startups adhere to the legal and regulatory requirements of their jurisdiction. To this end, it is essential for startups to establish a robust compliance framework, regularly review and update their practices, and involve the board in oversight. For Eka, hiring a director of finance early on and dedicating time to review compliance matters each quarter has been instrumental in maintaining a strong governance foundation. It has helped us avoid committing mistakes related to compliance that could have cost the company heavily at a later stage. 

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#4. Complete Book Closures and Audits Promptly 

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#4. Complete Book Closures and Audits Promptly 

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The best practice is to complete the yearly audit within 30 days of the year's closure and try to maintain the same cadence at a quarterly level to the extent possible as public companies follow. This is more straightforward during the early days but can become more complex and time-consuming as the company grows and includes multiple entities. Nevertheless, it is advisable to strive to complete audits within 30 days. Maintaining this cadence also ensures that the company is unlikely to miss filing returns within the statutory time window. 

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The best practice is to complete the yearly audit within 30 days of the year's closure and try to maintain the same cadence at a quarterly level to the extent possible as public companies follow. This is more straightforward during the early days but can become more complex and time-consuming as the company grows and includes multiple entities. Nevertheless, it is advisable to strive to complete audits within 30 days. Maintaining this cadence also ensures that the company is unlikely to miss filing returns within the statutory time window. 

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#5. Establish Revenue Recognition and Procurement Policies from the Start 

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#5. Establish Revenue Recognition and Procurement Policies from the Start 

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Revenue recognition is often a complex issue. We casually discuss ARR and revenue, but in the books of accounts, they differ significantly. Hiring a director of finance early on is helpful but more importantly, having a clear idea about revenue recognition serves as a totem pole around which the company’s entire financial plan and budget can be set up. This can result in a predictable financial strategy that supports the company's growth and stability. Equally, it ensures that there are no last-minute surprises and ad-hoc decisions around revenue that could lead to major problems at a later date. It is a good practice to treat this as a living document that is reviewed and updated every year as the business matures.

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Revenue recognition is often a complex issue. We casually discuss ARR and revenue, but in the books of accounts, they differ significantly. Hiring a director of finance early on is helpful but more importantly, having a clear idea about revenue recognition serves as a totem pole around which the company’s entire financial plan and budget can be set up. This can result in a predictable financial strategy that supports the company's growth and stability. Equally, it ensures that there are no last-minute surprises and ad-hoc decisions around revenue that could lead to major problems at a later date. It is a good practice to treat this as a living document that is reviewed and updated every year as the business matures.

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Tactical Tips Around Good Governance 

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Tactical Tips Around Good Governance 

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While the points listed above are strategic in nature and need careful thought and consideration, there are a few tactical points around good corporate governance that are relatively easier to implement but can bestow enormous benefits to the organization. 

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While the points listed above are strategic in nature and need careful thought and consideration, there are a few tactical points around good corporate governance that are relatively easier to implement but can bestow enormous benefits to the organization. 

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#1. Seek Professional Advice on Jurisdiction for Company Incorporation 

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#1. Seek Professional Advice on Jurisdiction for Company Incorporation 

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Although I started the company while based in Singapore, we sought legal advice on jurisdiction, prompted by insights from my senior partner and investors' experiences. The expense of this consultation in Singapore was initially daunting, making me question its necessity as my focus should be on building the business. In retrospect, this professional advice was invaluable. 

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Although I started the company while based in Singapore, we sought legal advice on jurisdiction, prompted by insights from my senior partner and investors' experiences. The expense of this consultation in Singapore was initially daunting, making me question its necessity as my focus should be on building the business. In retrospect, this professional advice was invaluable. 

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When building companies for the global market, it is essential to balance local regulations and the country of incorporation. Understanding the short and long-term implications of the chosen structure is crucial, especially as your company scales. 

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When building companies for the global market, it is essential to balance local regulations and the country of incorporation. Understanding the short and long-term implications of the chosen structure is crucial, especially as your company scales. 

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When incorporating a company, it is essential to consider the potential implications of the chosen jurisdiction on business operations, regulatory requirements, and future growth. By consulting with legal professionals and leveraging the insights of experienced partners and investors, startups can make informed decisions that optimize their corporate structure for long-term success. In the case of Eka, seeking professional advice and understanding the short and long-term implications of this decision proved to be a wise investment as it helped us optimize various aspects of compliance. 

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When incorporating a company, it is essential to consider the potential implications of the chosen jurisdiction on business operations, regulatory requirements, and future growth. By consulting with legal professionals and leveraging the insights of experienced partners and investors, startups can make informed decisions that optimize their corporate structure for long-term success. In the case of Eka, seeking professional advice and understanding the short and long-term implications of this decision proved to be a wise investment as it helped us optimize various aspects of compliance. 

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# 2. Send Monthly Updates to Investors 

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# 2. Send Monthly Updates to Investors 

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Regularly sending monthly updates and maintaining consistent communication with board members and other shareholders is a practice that always helps companies along multiple levels.. By maintaining regular communication with board members and providing updates on company performance, startups can foster strong relationships that facilitate strategic and operational guidance in a timely manner rather than waiting for quarterly or annual board meetings to involve the board members and other shareholders. Transparency and timely updates can also help build confidence in the company especially when times are tough. 

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Regularly sending monthly updates and maintaining consistent communication with board members and other shareholders is a practice that always helps companies along multiple levels.. By maintaining regular communication with board members and providing updates on company performance, startups can foster strong relationships that facilitate strategic and operational guidance in a timely manner rather than waiting for quarterly or annual board meetings to involve the board members and other shareholders. Transparency and timely updates can also help build confidence in the company especially when times are tough. 

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#3. Communicate and Implement all Codes, Policies, and Procedures in Word and Spirit 

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#3. Communicate and Implement all Codes, Policies, and Procedures in Word and Spirit 

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Establishing well-defined policies and procedures is key to maintaining accountability and transparency. Thinking through and documenting policies around code of conduct, conflict of interest, disclosures, insider trading, etc might seem like overkill for a young organization but even if many of these documents are merely placeholders to start with, memorializing them even in a relatively crude form sends out a clear message to the entire organization that the company is committed to these values and policies. It prevents ad-hocism and arbitrary

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Establishing well-defined policies and procedures is key to maintaining accountability and transparency. Thinking through and documenting policies around code of conduct, conflict of interest, disclosures, insider trading, etc might seem like overkill for a young organization but even if many of these documents are merely placeholders to start with, memorializing them even in a relatively crude form sends out a clear message to the entire organization that the company is committed to these values and policies. It prevents ad-hocism and arbitrary

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decision-making that can often lead companies into gray areas. As the organization matures, these policies and procedures can be fleshed out and expanded to suit the company’s culture and imperatives. It is also important to have clear disclosures about family members involved in the company and angel investments made by the founders. Many founders are also angel investors, and disclosing investments to the board is essential. Occasionally, during the early days, family members may assist in critical functions, and it is crucial to obtain investor approval in these cases. As a company grows, it is vital to bring professionals into the finance function, and related companies should be disclosed. 

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decision-making that can often lead companies into gray areas. As the organization matures, these policies and procedures can be fleshed out and expanded to suit the company’s culture and imperatives. It is also important to have clear disclosures about family members involved in the company and angel investments made by the founders. Many founders are also angel investors, and disclosing investments to the board is essential. Occasionally, during the early days, family members may assist in critical functions, and it is crucial to obtain investor approval in these cases. As a company grows, it is vital to bring professionals into the finance function, and related companies should be disclosed. 

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#4. Do not Ignore Risk Management 

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#4. Do not Ignore Risk Management 

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Startup life is full of uncertainties. Managing risks and ensuring compliance with relevant laws and regulations play a crucial role in the success of any startup. By incorporating best practices in corporate governance, startups can proactively address potential issues and maintain a strong foundation for growth. 

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Startup life is full of uncertainties. Managing risks and ensuring compliance with relevant laws and regulations play a crucial role in the success of any startup. By incorporating best practices in corporate governance, startups can proactively address potential issues and maintain a strong foundation for growth. 

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Startups need to regularly evaluate potential risks, including operational, financial, strategic, and environmental factors. This process helps prioritize risks based on their likelihood and impact. Once risks are proactively identified, create an actionable plan to mitigate them in a risk management plan. This includes defining roles and responsibilities, setting deadlines, and allocating resources.

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Startups need to regularly evaluate potential risks, including operational, financial, strategic, and environmental factors. This process helps prioritize risks based on their likelihood and impact. Once risks are proactively identified, create an actionable plan to mitigate them in a risk management plan. This includes defining roles and responsibilities, setting deadlines, and allocating resources.

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The risk management plan should also provide for a system of checks and balances that can be progressively introduced as the company matures - this should cover aspects such as independent board members and specialized committees for audit and compensation. Continuously monitor the effectiveness of risk management strategies. Learn from experience and make adjustments as needed to stay on top of emerging risks. 

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The risk management plan should also provide for a system of checks and balances that can be progressively introduced as the company matures - this should cover aspects such as independent board members and specialized committees for audit and compensation. Continuously monitor the effectiveness of risk management strategies. Learn from experience and make adjustments as needed to stay on top of emerging risks. 

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#5. Inform the Board about Your Holidays and Travel Plans 

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#5. Inform the Board about Your Holidays and Travel Plans 

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While this may seem minor, it is good governance to keep the board informed about personal activities and travel plans, especially during the early days when there is critical keyman risk around the founders. Informing the board of your schedule allows members to assist with arranging meetings or introductions that could be slotted in if convenient. 

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While this may seem minor, it is good governance to keep the board informed about personal activities and travel plans, especially during the early days when there is critical keyman risk around the founders. Informing the board of your schedule allows members to assist with arranging meetings or introductions that could be slotted in if convenient. 

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In summary, companies with exceptional corporate governance demonstrate a range of best practices that contribute to their sustained success. By embracing these principles and practices, startups and established organizations alike can leverage corporate governance as a powerful tool for growth, innovation, and long-term value creation. Good corporate governance enhances investor confidence, improves decision-making processes, and helps mitigate risks and conflicts of interest. 

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In summary, companies with exceptional corporate governance demonstrate a range of best practices that contribute to their sustained success. By embracing these principles and practices, startups and established organizations alike can leverage corporate governance as a powerful tool for growth, innovation, and long-term value creation. Good corporate governance enhances investor confidence, improves decision-making processes, and helps mitigate risks and conflicts of interest. 

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As the tech ecosystem continues to evolve, it is crucial for founders and investors to recognize the importance of good governance and actively incorporate it into their strategic planning and decision-making processes.

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As the tech ecosystem continues to evolve, it is crucial for founders and investors to recognize the importance of good governance and actively incorporate it into their strategic planning and decision-making processes.

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Exemplars like Infosys have set the tone around good governance and demonstrated how it has benefited the organization. It is now time for the next generation of tech companies to emulate these best practices and serve as inspirational references for future generations. It is time for startup founders to boldly pick up the baton and work hand-in-hand with investors to establish good corporate governance as a key ingredient of company culture and leverage it to deliver value creation to all stakeholders in the ecosystem.

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Exemplars like Infosys have set the tone around good governance and demonstrated how it has benefited the organization. It is now time for the next generation of tech companies to emulate these best practices and serve as inspirational references for future generations. It is time for startup founders to boldly pick up the baton and work hand-in-hand with investors to establish good corporate governance as a key ingredient of company culture and leverage it to deliver value creation to all stakeholders in the ecosystem.

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Archived

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Events

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People

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Gritstories

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SaaS Handbook

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The India SaaS Story

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The India SaaS Story

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The only Handbook on SaaS in India you’ll need

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The only Handbook on SaaS in India you’ll need

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About

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About

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In The India SaaS Story, Manav Garg engages in deep and focused conversations with key Indian SaaS founders, such as Sridhar Vembu, Girish Mathrubootham, Abhinav Asthana, and Ritesh Arora, to help a new generation of founders with relevant learnings. These range from the best practices about different aspects of building and growing a SaaS startup to actionable insights from the founders. Both practical and illuminating, this is the definitive playbook for India SaaS.

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In The India SaaS Story, Manav Garg engages in deep and focused conversations with key Indian SaaS founders, such as Sridhar Vembu, Girish Mathrubootham, Abhinav Asthana, and Ritesh Arora, to help a new generation of founders with relevant learnings. These range from the best practices about different aspects of building and growing a SaaS startup to actionable insights from the founders. Both practical and illuminating, this is the definitive playbook for India SaaS.

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Buy the Book

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Buy the Book

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Buy on Amazon

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Buy on Amazon

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Buy on Flipkart

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Buy on Flipkart

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Read Online

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The world is waking up to India’s future as a Product Nation, and this book is the definitive how-to for founding, building, and scaling your SaaS business. Manav and team have done a brilliant job bringing together practical insights, interesting stories, and solid advice from people who’ve done it before. 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For entrepreneurs just starting out it is not easy to find practical, real-life entrepreneurial advice from founders who are at the top of their game. In this book, Manav has brought together the hard-earned lessons of not just one but 25 top SaaS start-up founders. Full of insights, lessons, and knowledge that founders can really use, this is a book worth owning and cherishing. Entrepreneurs will find themselves returning to it every time they are faced with challenges or doubts. 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This book is like the end of the beginning of the India SaaS story, as digital sales and marketing take over in B2B this decade, with India-based founders continuing to make a dent in the universe by learning from their B2C counterparts.”" ["_block_testimonials_3_testimonial"]=> string(19) "field_64884c79c5937" ["block_testimonials_4_testimonial_image"]=> int(7549) ["_block_testimonials_4_testimonial_image"]=> string(19) "field_64884c29c5934" ["block_testimonials_4_testimonial_name"]=> string(15) "Shekhar Kirani," ["_block_testimonials_4_testimonial_name"]=> string(19) "field_64884c56c5935" ["block_testimonials_4_testimonial_designation"]=> string(14) "Partner, Accel" ["_block_testimonials_4_testimonial_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64884c61c5936" ["block_testimonials_4_event_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_block_testimonials_4_event_name"]=> string(19) "field_64884d6e64366" ["block_testimonials_4_testimonial"]=> string(584) "“There is a ton of content online to help founders learn and strategize how to build and scale their startups. But nothing comes close to this book, where founders give their most profound learnings and insights on all aspects of the startup journey. As part of SaaSBoomi, Manav has interviewed more than 25 startup founders from the ecosystem and compiled excellent responses to many tough questions that we rarely get access to in one place. A must-book for downloading, and if I were you, I would buy a printed copy, read every page, take notes, and make these insights yours.”" ["_block_testimonials_4_testimonial"]=> string(19) "field_64884c79c5937" ["block_testimonials_5_testimonial_image"]=> int(7590) ["_block_testimonials_5_testimonial_image"]=> string(19) "field_64884c29c5934" ["block_testimonials_5_testimonial_name"]=> string(15) "Mohit Bhatnagar" ["_block_testimonials_5_testimonial_name"]=> string(19) "field_64884c56c5935" ["block_testimonials_5_testimonial_designation"]=> string(24) "Partner, Sequoia Capital" ["_block_testimonials_5_testimonial_designation"]=> string(19) "field_64884c61c5936" ["block_testimonials_5_event_name"]=> string(0) "" ["_block_testimonials_5_event_name"]=> string(19) "field_64884d6e64366" ["block_testimonials_5_testimonial"]=> string(452) "“Think of this book as Tribal Knowledge being passed from one generation of SaaS founders to the next. India’s startup ecosystem has ‘paying it forward’ and ‘giving back’ in its DNA. Think of this book as Tribal Knowledge being passed from one generation of SaaS founders to the next. The next gen needs to learn, adapt, improve, and pass it on again. 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is the co-founder and CTO at ICERTIS. Icertis is a software company that provides contract management software to enterprise businesses.

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is a serial entrepreneur, operating executive, and investor or adviser to private companies including AirBnB, Pinterest, Square, and Stripe. Previously, Elad was the VP of corporate strategy at Twitter, where he also ran various product teams.

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is the co-founder and managing director of Tally Solutions. Tally Solutions Pvt. Ltd is an Indian multinational technology company that provides enterprise resource planning software.

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is the co-founder and CEO of hasura.io. Hasura, founded in 2017, provides data access and data flow tools and services via GraphQL APIs.

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is the co-founder and CEO at Wingify. Wingify makes Visual Website Optimizer (VWO), a market leading tool that helps marketing professionals.

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is the co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at CleverTap. CleverTap is a SaaS-based customer lifecycle management and mobile marketing company. Founded in May 2013, it provides mobile app analytics and user engagement products to more than 10,000 apps.

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is the founder and CEO at SplashLearn. SplashLearn is an EdTech startup company providing game-based maths and reading courses to students in pre-kindergarten to grade five.

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is the co-founder of SplashLearn. SplashLearn is an EdTech startup company providing game-based maths and reading courses to students in pre-kindergarten to grade five.

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is the founder and CEO of the Zenoti. Zenoti provides an all-in-one, cloud-based software solution for the spa, salon, and med spa industry.

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is the founder & CEO of Freshworks. Incorporated in 2011, Freshworks makes it fast and easy for businesses to delight their customers and employees.

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is the founder of Frappe Technologies. Frappe Technologies is an open-source web framework and ERP solutions provider.

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is the co-founder at CloudCherry. CloudCherry is a provider of a customer experience management (CEM) platform for enterprises acquired by Cisco Technologies in 2019.

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is the co-founder of FusionCharts. FusionCharts, part of InfoSoft Global (P) Ltd, is privately held software provider of data visualization products. It was acquired by Idera in 2020.

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is the founder of Kaapi, an employee feedback and engagement platform built for modern teams.

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is the co-founder & Chief Executive Officer at Capillary Technologies. Capillary Technologies is a software product company, which provides cloud-based Omnichannel note on founders featured in the book 27 Customer Engagement, eCommerce platform and related services for retailers and brands.

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is the founder & CEO of Kissflow. Kissflow is the first-ever Unified Digital Workplace Platform that allows you to manage all your work at one place.

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is the co-founder at Atlan. Atlan is a data democratization company that helps teams collaborate frictionlessly on data projects.

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is the CEO and co-founder at Chargebee. Chargebee is a recurring billing and subscription management tool that helps SaaS and SaaS-like businesses streamline Revenue Operations.

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is the co-founder and CEO at POSist. Launched in 2012, POSist is a leading cloud-based restaurant technology platform suited for restaurants of all sizes.

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is the co-founder and CEO at POSist. Launched in 2012, POSist is a leading cloud-based restaurant technology platform suited for restaurants of all sizes.

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is the founder and CEO at Zoho Corporation. Zoho Corporation is an Indian multinational technology company that makes web-based business tools.

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Curated

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How Mason piggybacked on Shopify to scale without breaking the bank

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When retail tech startup Mason started out in 2020, several companies were already helping brands build online stores, seeing the success of Shopify as a D2C (direct-to-consumer) alternative to marketplaces. This brought a tsunami of brands online. So the problem Mason wanted to solve was to help brands stand out and grow faster on their chosen platform or channel.

But where to start?

“Our first question was, ‘Where can we launch so that we get the quickest number of customers without having to spend a lot?” says Kausambi Manjita, co-founder of Mason, based in Bangalore and the Bay Area.

That led to Mason’s key strategic decision to ride on Shopify as a plugin. “It gave us a lot of information, data, and connections from Day One.” Later its product was integrated with other platforms as well.

In an economic environment where burn rates are under scrutiny and sustainable growth is the mantra, Mason’s frugal but effective GTM playbook is worth diving into. 

Less than a year ago, it had a $7.5 million seed round of funding led by Accel and Ideaspring Capital. And today, within three years of inception, it has more than 1000 brands as paying customers. 

The North Star growth metric for Manjita is the GMV (gross merchandise value) that flows through the Mason platform. That figure crossed $1 billion recently. And since Mason takes a cut from the sales it fuels, revenue has also grown in step with GMV. 

Its commission is a tiny fraction of what marketplaces like Amazon charge sellers, but as the platform matures, that percentage can increase to boost revenue along with signing on more merchants. 

“It's been a very exciting period of growth over the last nine months after we started monetizing,” says Manjita. “And the reason we look at GMV is because in the end it's not about the number of merchants, it’s about how much each customer is growing in their sales. Tracking GMV keeps us true to our goal.”

But let’s back up now and go deeper into what got Mason here. 

#1 Finding the right problem to solve

Manjita’s tryst with e-commerce stretches from working with IBM Commerce in Atlanta to product management for Paytm and Myntra in India. It was in Myntra that the startup bug bit her.

The fashion e-commerce marketplace was trying to bring online shopping closer to the offline experience. For example, how do you replicate the hook of window-shopping in browsing? “My charter was to bring those constructs online - kind of like taking retail back to its roots,” says Manjita.

That’s where she met her co-founder Barada Sahu, a hardcore technologist who sold his earlier mobile PaaS startup Native5 to Myntra which got acquired by Flipkart before Walmart took over. They worked closely on Myntra’s storefront architecture. 

Enticed by the call of the zero-to-one product journey, both of them decided to move out of Myntra to take their learnings on selling online to brands. 

By then, a variety of online store builders had popped up. But merchants were struggling to make the best use of them. Even on Shopify, it was hard to navigate through a plethora of features. 

Besides, the merchants just didn’t have the e-commerce savvy to hook customers and retain them, use data to tweak pricing, run campaigns, optimize inventory and delivery, and so on.

“When we entered, the big underlying problem in retail was - ‘I have been able to set up my online store. But I don't know how to get more sales there.’ So we latched on to that need,” says Manjita. “We became a shopping engine for online stores, and that became our fundamental positioning.”

They had built shopping engines for large marketplaces, but now they had to think of products that would not require a bevy of techies to configure because their customers were the sellers. Low-code and self-serve became a buzz during the pandemic year of 2020 which accelerated the adoption of tech, but that design template had already been baked into Mason, even if they did not use the low-code no-code jargon. 

“Why do you always need developers or designers or whoever else to actually use products, right? For me it's always about how do you simplify products to make them accessible to the user,” says Manjita.

#2 Where to fish for customers without burning cash 

More than its positioning and design thinking, GTM (go to market) for Mason’s “shopping copilot” was the worry for the fledgling startup. Brands wanting to sell directly to consumers online spanned a wide range and early adopters were in the US. That’s why the startup decided to launch its product as a plugin on Shopify which had gained traction as an online store builder. 

Other platforms like Wix were also attractive, but Shopify’s sheer number of merchants tipped the scale. “More importantly, Shopify had a large number of growing merchants whose pain of accelerating sales was pertinent to us. Wix had a lot of early-stage merchants who could disappear overnight,” says Manjita.

Over time, it plugged into other platforms and added more products like a content toolbox for online stores, but that first decision to plug into the Shopify ecosystem with its ModeMagic product was a quick starter. Within months, Mason could show customers how much their conversions and sales increased. Typically, the average order value increased by 23% in a month and sell-through by 35% in two months, according to Manjita.

Now ModeMagic integrates with any platform, channel, or marketplace that brands want to use. That was a hard lesson learned at Myntra where a move to shut off its desktop channel to force consumers to its mobile app had backfired badly.

“Be where your customers are” is a lesson Manjita has taken to heart. At the same time, she understood Myntra’s bold move to go app-only, however foolish it appears in hindsight. The mobile app gave more data to understand the customer and provide more personalized experiences.

Similarly, brands can understand their customers better on their own store compared to a marketplace, even if most of their online sales happen on Amazon or some other platform. 

“For us, D2C is just the starting point and we’re solving the online store problem for a reason,” says Manjita. “A typical scale-up brand has less than 30% of their orders coming from the D2C channel. So you have to be omnichannel, wherever your customers are, right? But that 25-30% D2C gives you the best knowledge about your customer. Nowhere else do you have that relationship.

“So we are helping you, as a brand, do what I learned the hard way, which is to understand your customers deeply. And then you can utilize that learning over time. We do want to help you shop better on whichever channel you are, but it has to start with understanding the customers and that's only possible in your own channel.” 

#3 How to listen to customers without bias

While Mason helps brands understand their customers, its own focus too has been on grasping the needs of the brands it serves. Manjita spoke to hundreds of brands in North America to identify the gap that ModeMagic would plug. 

“As technologists, sometimes we have a bias. We ask leading questions to customers in such a way that we get the answer we want. I had to learn how to take out that bias. When we spoke to brands in North America, we didn’t have an agenda. We let the customers tell us their needs and formed a hypothesis around it,” says Manjita, who loves a book on this subject called The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick. 

“The people I spoke to wanted to be independent brands and they wanted better growth. We wanted to solve for this gap but kept it open-ended. We knew the end vision, but the path to that vision, let the customer tell us, right?”

Listening to customers is an ongoing process. For example, as Mason is expanding to new markets now, Manjita met up with some e-commerce agency partners in Singapore recently to learn how brands operate in Southeast Asia. Lazada and Shopee came up a lot in conversations as marketplaces with which Mason would need to integrate. Besides, Shopify was not as prevalent there as in North America; brands were on other D2C platforms.

“The third interesting learning was that many consumers in Southeast Asia buy from TikTok because they are always on TikTok. Shopping is entertainment for a lot of people in Thailand and Indonesia, whereas you don't necessarily think like that in North America or India,” recounts Manjita.

All these takeaways from potential customers go into short-term and long-term roadmaps. Mason has one-click integration with Shopify, for example, so they need to figure out how to make it equally simple to integrate with platforms popular in SEA. And, if brands are using marketplaces even more than D2C in this region, Mason will have to rework its AI models for pricing, recommendations, and sales which work differently on marketplaces compared to the brand’s own online store.

“Whether Southeast Asia becomes a priority at the moment or not, these are discovery conversations to note and understand modules that need to be incorporated at some point in time,” explains Manjita.

A GTM strategy to gain traction fast and establish its value proposition, communicating that value proposition to brands in terms of what they require rather than tech jargon, and an attentive ear for customers to show the road ahead - these are the three cornerstones of Mason’s playbook.

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When retail tech startup Mason started out in 2020, several companies were already helping brands build online stores, seeing the success of Shopify as a D2C (direct-to-consumer) alternative to marketplaces. This brought a tsunami of brands online. So the problem Mason wanted to solve was to help brands stand out and grow faster on their chosen platform or channel.

But where to start?

“Our first question was, ‘Where can we launch so that we get the quickest number of customers without having to spend a lot?” says Kausambi Manjita, co-founder of Mason, based in Bangalore and the Bay Area.

That led to Mason’s key strategic decision to ride on Shopify as a plugin. “It gave us a lot of information, data, and connections from Day One.” Later its product was integrated with other platforms as well.

In an economic environment where burn rates are under scrutiny and sustainable growth is the mantra, Mason’s frugal but effective GTM playbook is worth diving into. 

Less than a year ago, it had a $7.5 million seed round of funding led by Accel and Ideaspring Capital. And today, within three years of inception, it has more than 1000 brands as paying customers. 

The North Star growth metric for Manjita is the GMV (gross merchandise value) that flows through the Mason platform. That figure crossed $1 billion recently. And since Mason takes a cut from the sales it fuels, revenue has also grown in step with GMV. 

Its commission is a tiny fraction of what marketplaces like Amazon charge sellers, but as the platform matures, that percentage can increase to boost revenue along with signing on more merchants. 

“It's been a very exciting period of growth over the last nine months after we started monetizing,” says Manjita. “And the reason we look at GMV is because in the end it's not about the number of merchants, it’s about how much each customer is growing in their sales. Tracking GMV keeps us true to our goal.”

But let’s back up now and go deeper into what got Mason here. 

#1 Finding the right problem to solve

Manjita’s tryst with e-commerce stretches from working with IBM Commerce in Atlanta to product management for Paytm and Myntra in India. It was in Myntra that the startup bug bit her.

The fashion e-commerce marketplace was trying to bring online shopping closer to the offline experience. For example, how do you replicate the hook of window-shopping in browsing? “My charter was to bring those constructs online - kind of like taking retail back to its roots,” says Manjita.

That’s where she met her co-founder Barada Sahu, a hardcore technologist who sold his earlier mobile PaaS startup Native5 to Myntra which got acquired by Flipkart before Walmart took over. They worked closely on Myntra’s storefront architecture. 

Enticed by the call of the zero-to-one product journey, both of them decided to move out of Myntra to take their learnings on selling online to brands. 

By then, a variety of online store builders had popped up. But merchants were struggling to make the best use of them. Even on Shopify, it was hard to navigate through a plethora of features. 

Besides, the merchants just didn’t have the e-commerce savvy to hook customers and retain them, use data to tweak pricing, run campaigns, optimize inventory and delivery, and so on.

“When we entered, the big underlying problem in retail was - ‘I have been able to set up my online store. But I don't know how to get more sales there.’ So we latched on to that need,” says Manjita. “We became a shopping engine for online stores, and that became our fundamental positioning.”

They had built shopping engines for large marketplaces, but now they had to think of products that would not require a bevy of techies to configure because their customers were the sellers. Low-code and self-serve became a buzz during the pandemic year of 2020 which accelerated the adoption of tech, but that design template had already been baked into Mason, even if they did not use the low-code no-code jargon. 

“Why do you always need developers or designers or whoever else to actually use products, right? For me it's always about how do you simplify products to make them accessible to the user,” says Manjita.

#2 Where to fish for customers without burning cash 

More than its positioning and design thinking, GTM (go to market) for Mason’s “shopping copilot” was the worry for the fledgling startup. Brands wanting to sell directly to consumers online spanned a wide range and early adopters were in the US. That’s why the startup decided to launch its product as a plugin on Shopify which had gained traction as an online store builder. 

Other platforms like Wix were also attractive, but Shopify’s sheer number of merchants tipped the scale. “More importantly, Shopify had a large number of growing merchants whose pain of accelerating sales was pertinent to us. Wix had a lot of early-stage merchants who could disappear overnight,” says Manjita.

Over time, it plugged into other platforms and added more products like a content toolbox for online stores, but that first decision to plug into the Shopify ecosystem with its ModeMagic product was a quick starter. Within months, Mason could show customers how much their conversions and sales increased. Typically, the average order value increased by 23% in a month and sell-through by 35% in two months, according to Manjita.

Now ModeMagic integrates with any platform, channel, or marketplace that brands want to use. That was a hard lesson learned at Myntra where a move to shut off its desktop channel to force consumers to its mobile app had backfired badly.

“Be where your customers are” is a lesson Manjita has taken to heart. At the same time, she understood Myntra’s bold move to go app-only, however foolish it appears in hindsight. The mobile app gave more data to understand the customer and provide more personalized experiences.

Similarly, brands can understand their customers better on their own store compared to a marketplace, even if most of their online sales happen on Amazon or some other platform. 

“For us, D2C is just the starting point and we’re solving the online store problem for a reason,” says Manjita. “A typical scale-up brand has less than 30% of their orders coming from the D2C channel. So you have to be omnichannel, wherever your customers are, right? But that 25-30% D2C gives you the best knowledge about your customer. Nowhere else do you have that relationship.

“So we are helping you, as a brand, do what I learned the hard way, which is to understand your customers deeply. And then you can utilize that learning over time. We do want to help you shop better on whichever channel you are, but it has to start with understanding the customers and that's only possible in your own channel.” 

#3 How to listen to customers without bias

While Mason helps brands understand their customers, its own focus too has been on grasping the needs of the brands it serves. Manjita spoke to hundreds of brands in North America to identify the gap that ModeMagic would plug. 

“As technologists, sometimes we have a bias. We ask leading questions to customers in such a way that we get the answer we want. I had to learn how to take out that bias. When we spoke to brands in North America, we didn’t have an agenda. We let the customers tell us their needs and formed a hypothesis around it,” says Manjita, who loves a book on this subject called The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick. 

“The people I spoke to wanted to be independent brands and they wanted better growth. We wanted to solve for this gap but kept it open-ended. We knew the end vision, but the path to that vision, let the customer tell us, right?”

Listening to customers is an ongoing process. For example, as Mason is expanding to new markets now, Manjita met up with some e-commerce agency partners in Singapore recently to learn how brands operate in Southeast Asia. Lazada and Shopee came up a lot in conversations as marketplaces with which Mason would need to integrate. Besides, Shopify was not as prevalent there as in North America; brands were on other D2C platforms.

“The third interesting learning was that many consumers in Southeast Asia buy from TikTok because they are always on TikTok. Shopping is entertainment for a lot of people in Thailand and Indonesia, whereas you don't necessarily think like that in North America or India,” recounts Manjita.

All these takeaways from potential customers go into short-term and long-term roadmaps. Mason has one-click integration with Shopify, for example, so they need to figure out how to make it equally simple to integrate with platforms popular in SEA. And, if brands are using marketplaces even more than D2C in this region, Mason will have to rework its AI models for pricing, recommendations, and sales which work differently on marketplaces compared to the brand’s own online store.

“Whether Southeast Asia becomes a priority at the moment or not, these are discovery conversations to note and understand modules that need to be incorporated at some point in time,” explains Manjita.

A GTM strategy to gain traction fast and establish its value proposition, communicating that value proposition to brands in terms of what they require rather than tech jargon, and an attentive ear for customers to show the road ahead - these are the three cornerstones of Mason’s playbook.

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Podcast

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Zenoti’s secret sauces for expansion and scale

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(10566) "In the first part of this Founder’s Playbook, we looked at some of the hard choices Zenoti made to win in the US market and eventually become a category leader in enterprise SaaS for the wellness industry. One of the hardest calls was to keep its sales and product people focused on a specific vertical, to the extent of initially calling the company ManageMySpa. This required resisting the temptation to go after many a low-hanging fruit in the beauty and wellness space and remaining razor-focused on enterprise-scale spa chains, which were their ideal customers. Armed with its value proposition firmly established in spa chains, and the learnings from comprehensively solving that problem, Zenoti went after every niche in the wellness space one by one. It bucked the investment blues in the Covid year of 2020 to become a unicorn and joined the pantheon of SaaS companies from India that have conquered global markets to cross $100 million ARR.

When Zenoti first expanded from spas to salons, the playbook remained the same at its core: find the ICP (ideal customer profile), understand problems at a granular level, and build an enterprise-scale solution. But that’s easier said than done.

The salon business is different from spas. For example, the price can vary from one stylist to another as well as from customer to customer. A senior stylist could have a dedicated client roster with a separate model of commissions. The time taken for each service differs. The software had to factor in all that. “A plethora of complications come in when you go into such a business,” says Sudheer Koneru, founder and CEO of Zenoti.  This called for a new set of learnings.

#1. Co-building software with an ideal customer

When it was time for Zenoti to expand from spas, it chose to target luxury salon chains. A top salon brand in the US, which had been relying on desktop software until then, became the ICP.  “We decided to pick somebody really good and go talk to them. Anyway, nobody was solving their problems,” recalls Koneru. “They said, ‘OK, you seem to have a good thesis around building enterprise software, but you don’t have the features we need. We’ll work with you if you will address these features.’”

“So it was like co-building the software with the customer and we did that fairly often in every small vertical we went into.”

The customer only had a dozen salons, but each of them employed around 150 people and was doing over a million dollars of business a month. So it was a super-busy salon chain where everything from billing to scheduling and operations was complex. This suited Zenoti’s USP because rivals weren’t offering software to handle that level of complexity. Besides, Zenoti was able to charge thrice as much as the industry standard until then. The generally accepted SaaS wisdom is to avoid developing software for one big customer, to ensure it remains more widely applicable. While Zenoti chose to get its feet wet in each niche with an ideal customer, it did not lose sight of productizing the software. “We don't do custom solutions. We just add features to our platform,” explains Koneru.

#2. Leveraging expertise to accelerate velocity

The playbook was well-set by the time Zenoti went into medical spas, offering laser treatment, botox, and the like, which was a very different kind of service from general spas and salons. A big brand in Seattle, Zenoti’s US base, became the first customer. Again Zenoti co-built the medical spa software with the customer. “These exercises take about six months from signing up the customer to having a viable product that can be rolled out to similar businesses,” says Koneru. “That’s been our constant theme as we expanded. Though we started with a narrow focus, today there’s no niche in the industry that we don’t go after.”  The six months of co-building and subsequent deployment gives Zenoti domain expertise in every niche it covers. “We would have a sales guy who is good with salons, another guy who knows waxing businesses - we became experts in individual niches. So every salesperson then has more velocity because they know their segment well and the product has credibility,” says Koneru. “Once you solve a hard problem, you reap the rewards. But it takes patience and focus."

"Even today we reject 75% of the sales leads we get because we chose to sell only to businesses that have complexity and require richness in their software.”

Zenoti routinely redirects simpler businesses to cheaper software options more suitable to the smaller scale.

#3. Pausing the scale-up to integrate payments

Just as hard as turning down easy sales opportunities was a call to integrate payments into its software. This has become a trend now, but Zenoti was one of the first to enable its customers to process payments seamlessly by integrating with Stripe.  It was a hard call six years ago when Zenoti had just entered a high-growth phase, but Koneru persuaded the board to hit the pause button. “That was a tough choice because we had to go back and invest a lot in the product. It slowed down the company a bit because more than half our resources went into becoming an early adopter of this whole notion of integrated payments.” Navigating through that was a challenge in the early days, and a few customers got upset with the initial payment solutions not working so well. “But it’s good we made that choice at the right time, because today 40% of our revenue comes from payments,” says Koneru. “We would’ve been like 60% our size if we hadn’t taken a pause to build that payment stuff and scale our business.”

“Doing the hard things first relieves you later on in the journey of your company. It’s important for a founder to be conscious of that.”

#4. Knowing when to pull the plug 

Not every choice Zenoti made was a winner. And while the choice to integrate payments, even if it took time and slowed them down, paid off in the long run, the opposite is also true: Koneru had to pull the plug when a thesis proved wrong on the ground. The first significant instance was when marketplaces became the buzz in India and everyone wanted to be an aggregator. Zenoti had focused on large brands, but felt it could build a simpler version of its software to pull in small spas and salons through a marketplace model. It launched a consumer-facing mobile app called Take5 in late 2015 to help spas or salons pull in more clients, while giving consumers more choice.  But it was much harder than anticipated to get traction for a marketplace of spas and salons. “The B2C (business-to-consumer) angle in our industry is challenging. People tend to go to the same stylist or the neighborhood salon. It’s not like picking restaurants and experimenting with food,” says Koneru. Secondly, it was a mismatch with Zenoti’s enterprise DNA.

“We realized it was distracting us from our core growth. We were growing well from a revenue perspective on the B2B SaaS front, and we were jeopardizing that by spending so much on B2C. We felt we couldn’t afford to do both and had to abandon B2C.”

More recently in the US, Zenoti again tried a small business edition of its software, after scaling with the big brands. This time Koneru created a separate business unit with its own budget. But a year and a half later, having burnt $10 million, Koneru pulled the plug because the app just did not do a good enough job with onboarding, getting users started, and other attributes which are vital in a low-end system. “I realized that changing DNA is hard.” 

#5. Learning to think big

In hindsight, Koneru feels he should have taken the company to the US market much earlier instead of remaining in India for nearly five years from inception. The US wellness market was ripe for the kind of enterprise SaaS Zenoti was building. “All the big US brands were on desktop products, whereas in India, every big brand was already using SaaS by 2015.” He attributes the delay in paying attention to the US market to his own mindset. “I didn't start with an intention to build a big outcome. It was more like a love for building software.” It was only after Accel came in as an investor that he started seeing the TAM (total addressable market) he wasn’t addressing. “It was Shekhar Kirani (partner at Accel) who first put it to me, ‘If you're doing software so well, why are you not going and selling it to the US?’ He convinced me that's what I should aspire for.”  He was a bit late to think big, but then Koneru made up for lost time with a playbook for enterprise SaaS in the wellness industry that outflanked his US rivals. He went after the whales while others cast their net wide. Patience and a product-first mindset had the whales eating out of the palm of his hand. Read Part 1: The hard choices Zenoti made to win in the US market" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(10566) "In the first part of this Founder’s Playbook, we looked at some of the hard choices Zenoti made to win in the US market and eventually become a category leader in enterprise SaaS for the wellness industry. One of the hardest calls was to keep its sales and product people focused on a specific vertical, to the extent of initially calling the company ManageMySpa. This required resisting the temptation to go after many a low-hanging fruit in the beauty and wellness space and remaining razor-focused on enterprise-scale spa chains, which were their ideal customers. Armed with its value proposition firmly established in spa chains, and the learnings from comprehensively solving that problem, Zenoti went after every niche in the wellness space one by one. It bucked the investment blues in the Covid year of 2020 to become a unicorn and joined the pantheon of SaaS companies from India that have conquered global markets to cross $100 million ARR.

When Zenoti first expanded from spas to salons, the playbook remained the same at its core: find the ICP (ideal customer profile), understand problems at a granular level, and build an enterprise-scale solution. But that’s easier said than done.

The salon business is different from spas. For example, the price can vary from one stylist to another as well as from customer to customer. A senior stylist could have a dedicated client roster with a separate model of commissions. The time taken for each service differs. The software had to factor in all that. “A plethora of complications come in when you go into such a business,” says Sudheer Koneru, founder and CEO of Zenoti.  This called for a new set of learnings.

#1. Co-building software with an ideal customer

When it was time for Zenoti to expand from spas, it chose to target luxury salon chains. A top salon brand in the US, which had been relying on desktop software until then, became the ICP.  “We decided to pick somebody really good and go talk to them. Anyway, nobody was solving their problems,” recalls Koneru. “They said, ‘OK, you seem to have a good thesis around building enterprise software, but you don’t have the features we need. We’ll work with you if you will address these features.’”

“So it was like co-building the software with the customer and we did that fairly often in every small vertical we went into.”

The customer only had a dozen salons, but each of them employed around 150 people and was doing over a million dollars of business a month. So it was a super-busy salon chain where everything from billing to scheduling and operations was complex. This suited Zenoti’s USP because rivals weren’t offering software to handle that level of complexity. Besides, Zenoti was able to charge thrice as much as the industry standard until then. The generally accepted SaaS wisdom is to avoid developing software for one big customer, to ensure it remains more widely applicable. While Zenoti chose to get its feet wet in each niche with an ideal customer, it did not lose sight of productizing the software. “We don't do custom solutions. We just add features to our platform,” explains Koneru.

#2. Leveraging expertise to accelerate velocity

The playbook was well-set by the time Zenoti went into medical spas, offering laser treatment, botox, and the like, which was a very different kind of service from general spas and salons. A big brand in Seattle, Zenoti’s US base, became the first customer. Again Zenoti co-built the medical spa software with the customer. “These exercises take about six months from signing up the customer to having a viable product that can be rolled out to similar businesses,” says Koneru. “That’s been our constant theme as we expanded. Though we started with a narrow focus, today there’s no niche in the industry that we don’t go after.”  The six months of co-building and subsequent deployment gives Zenoti domain expertise in every niche it covers. “We would have a sales guy who is good with salons, another guy who knows waxing businesses - we became experts in individual niches. So every salesperson then has more velocity because they know their segment well and the product has credibility,” says Koneru. “Once you solve a hard problem, you reap the rewards. But it takes patience and focus."

"Even today we reject 75% of the sales leads we get because we chose to sell only to businesses that have complexity and require richness in their software.”

Zenoti routinely redirects simpler businesses to cheaper software options more suitable to the smaller scale.

#3. Pausing the scale-up to integrate payments

Just as hard as turning down easy sales opportunities was a call to integrate payments into its software. This has become a trend now, but Zenoti was one of the first to enable its customers to process payments seamlessly by integrating with Stripe.  It was a hard call six years ago when Zenoti had just entered a high-growth phase, but Koneru persuaded the board to hit the pause button. “That was a tough choice because we had to go back and invest a lot in the product. It slowed down the company a bit because more than half our resources went into becoming an early adopter of this whole notion of integrated payments.” Navigating through that was a challenge in the early days, and a few customers got upset with the initial payment solutions not working so well. “But it’s good we made that choice at the right time, because today 40% of our revenue comes from payments,” says Koneru. “We would’ve been like 60% our size if we hadn’t taken a pause to build that payment stuff and scale our business.”

“Doing the hard things first relieves you later on in the journey of your company. It’s important for a founder to be conscious of that.”

#4. Knowing when to pull the plug 

Not every choice Zenoti made was a winner. And while the choice to integrate payments, even if it took time and slowed them down, paid off in the long run, the opposite is also true: Koneru had to pull the plug when a thesis proved wrong on the ground. The first significant instance was when marketplaces became the buzz in India and everyone wanted to be an aggregator. Zenoti had focused on large brands, but felt it could build a simpler version of its software to pull in small spas and salons through a marketplace model. It launched a consumer-facing mobile app called Take5 in late 2015 to help spas or salons pull in more clients, while giving consumers more choice.  But it was much harder than anticipated to get traction for a marketplace of spas and salons. “The B2C (business-to-consumer) angle in our industry is challenging. People tend to go to the same stylist or the neighborhood salon. It’s not like picking restaurants and experimenting with food,” says Koneru. Secondly, it was a mismatch with Zenoti’s enterprise DNA.

“We realized it was distracting us from our core growth. We were growing well from a revenue perspective on the B2B SaaS front, and we were jeopardizing that by spending so much on B2C. We felt we couldn’t afford to do both and had to abandon B2C.”

More recently in the US, Zenoti again tried a small business edition of its software, after scaling with the big brands. This time Koneru created a separate business unit with its own budget. But a year and a half later, having burnt $10 million, Koneru pulled the plug because the app just did not do a good enough job with onboarding, getting users started, and other attributes which are vital in a low-end system. “I realized that changing DNA is hard.” 

#5. Learning to think big

In hindsight, Koneru feels he should have taken the company to the US market much earlier instead of remaining in India for nearly five years from inception. The US wellness market was ripe for the kind of enterprise SaaS Zenoti was building. “All the big US brands were on desktop products, whereas in India, every big brand was already using SaaS by 2015.” He attributes the delay in paying attention to the US market to his own mindset. “I didn't start with an intention to build a big outcome. It was more like a love for building software.” It was only after Accel came in as an investor that he started seeing the TAM (total addressable market) he wasn’t addressing. “It was Shekhar Kirani (partner at Accel) who first put it to me, ‘If you're doing software so well, why are you not going and selling it to the US?’ He convinced me that's what I should aspire for.”  He was a bit late to think big, but then Koneru made up for lost time with a playbook for enterprise SaaS in the wellness industry that outflanked his US rivals. He went after the whales while others cast their net wide. Patience and a product-first mindset had the whales eating out of the palm of his hand. Read Part 1: The hard choices Zenoti made to win in the US market" } }

Acceleration, an invisible virtue of entrepreneurship, courtesy SGx

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My personal experience of being a part of the SGx's 4th cohort while working as a product marketer, a part of the growth team at Hivel.ai

Were you ever in a labor room either pushing the baby or encouraging a mother in labor to push? Labor accelerates, contractions accelerate, and then you are in that moment where you see the mother (or yourself as a mother) make a strong exhalation, biting your teeth, yelling at the top of the voice, and in your head you probably think that you are not capable of doing it, but there comes a beautiful creature, a little human in blood and placental fluid that you hold in your hands. It is not in it's cleanliest form, but a marvel of human evolution - a baby. In a hospital room, while pushing, their is an unharmonic chorus hummed by the nurses, the doctors, and the caretaker, calling out "You can do it, keep pushing." That's exactly what an accelerator can do for you.

What exactly does an accelerator do?

Young startups on their 0 to 1 journeys subscribe to "accelerators" and flaunt their success of admission. It's not just a milestone but also the beginning of an unmarried family that brings emotional support and an ecosystem. This is what an accelerator can bring to an entrepreneur, just like the medical paraphernalia in a labor room.

All said and done, behind the flamboyance of entrepreneurship is an extremely lonely, tough, and arduous journey that can bring existentialism to question without any answers. This is exactly when entrepreneurs need a worthy Accelerator (Not any) that can provide mentors and coaches who have been there and done that, who are willing to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty at a ground zero level, and most of all who show up every day for the entrepreneur to make that 1% incremental change happen.

Those few hours of labor of a mother are equivalent to those few weeks with an accelerator. The baby is your startup.

The next part is called SGx.

(If you are a tech co-founder, you will love the business side of it!)

I have had the privilege to be a part of SGx, an accelerator program by SaaSBoomi . I was a part of it representing Hivel.ai with its founder and CEO, Sudheer Bandaru.

Very few founders choose to tag along one of their team members to programs of this nature. But, I have been the lucky one to work alongside Sudheer, the committed mentor Mrigank Tripathi and wingmate Aastha Sharma at SGx who onboarded Hivel into the 4th cohort that was a 16-week program.

For those of you who have never heard of SGx...

SGx is an accelerator program with a coaching element added to it. It lasts for 16 weeks for each cohort. But, I experienced more. I personally experienced that it focuses on shifting levers that catapult the startup on a high growth trajectory. If you are part of a growth team, you will be marching 'chugg, chugg' on a path of consistent execution that helps you repeat success. This is something that many startups struggle to figure out during their early days.

What does that mean?

Apart from figuring out what works best for your startup, an entrepreneur is also subject to decision-making in the middle of a lot of unknowns. And for the startup, it may mean losing time due to many reasons. It could be because of a lack of strongly opinionated people or those early few teammates who cannot lobby the good and great ideas and processes or can't debate as an outsider.

When an entrepreneur goes out to validate his/her decisions, time is lost. Just like how Christopher Nolan depicts in the movie Interstellar, a few minutes on one planet counts like a few hours on the spaceship; entrepreneurs live on a very different planet. It looks like...

• Entrepreneurs have to work with less data or most of the time with no historic data to validate their thought processes.
• Fast experimentation also feels slow in those early days because 'reality' challenges one's perspectives.
• Startups need access to fool-proof and tested ideas from other startups.
• They need relatable and personal experiences of how specific growth problems have been solved.

In the lack of this, growth teams slow down. Execution slows down.

An accelerator fills these gaps. It accelerates. It helps entrepreneurs and growth teams figure out what it takes to expedite this process, eliminating the guessing. It allows them to turn the 'Unknowns' into 'Knowns.'

Acceleration is a known but invisible virtue for entrepreneurs and their growth teams during the 0 to 1 journey.

SGx set us on a path of such acceleration.

Growth teams are hungry for acceleration

Just in case you thought I am going to write an entrepreneur's story, then you may choose not to read further. Because I am going to write about 'How an accelerator such as SGx helps growth and GTM teams?'

(While I can empathize with the pain of the entrepreneur, I am not an entrepreneur at the moment. So, I would rather restrict this piece to the thrill of growth teams.)

Being a part of this cohort helped me learn the operating system of growth for the 0 to 1 startup journey. It means the full cycle of discovering the value proposition up to delivering that derived value proposition into the messaging, to the final identified ideal customer profile.

How does this lead to acceleration?

Though not articulated on paper, I saw that the SGx program had a flywheel in place. It included 'gyaan' sessions, inspirational talks, tear-downs, show and tell sessions. While these are common to all startups who are a part of the program, there were certain aspects customized to every selected startup in the cohort.

1. Personalized OKRs to achieve by the end of the program
2. 1-1 check-ins with mentors and coaches on a weekly basis to solve problems specific to your startup.
3. Coaching sessions across the board with other mentors and wingmates to gain specific insights about challenges unique to me.
4. Support on making a call around critical hires, publishing the right content, and a scientific method on how to crack messaging and attract the right ICP.

If they had it on paper, it may look something like this

Building a product is not enough. You need to be able to tell what exactly you are solving, who are you solving it for, what are you offering, and to whom. There is an entire flywheel that needs to be in place to execute it on a repeated cycle without any errors.

What does the growth team need? What does SGx have to offer?

"If you’re not changing your speed and you’re not changing your direction, then you simply cannot be accelerating—no matter how fast you’re going." - Khan Academy

[caption id="attachment_14280" align="alignnone" width="1004"] Courtesy: Khan Academy[/caption]

So, it's either about your speed or your direction. Acceleration is not the same for everyone, and so it is for startups too. To all those who are choosing a startup accelerator program, you have some things to check off, and if you are part of a growth team of a young startup, here is where you can start with your expectations.

Happy to always chat 1:1 and share more about my experience.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(10535) "

My personal experience of being a part of the SGx's 4th cohort while working as a product marketer, a part of the growth team at Hivel.ai

Were you ever in a labor room either pushing the baby or encouraging a mother in labor to push? Labor accelerates, contractions accelerate, and then you are in that moment where you see the mother (or yourself as a mother) make a strong exhalation, biting your teeth, yelling at the top of the voice, and in your head you probably think that you are not capable of doing it, but there comes a beautiful creature, a little human in blood and placental fluid that you hold in your hands. It is not in it's cleanliest form, but a marvel of human evolution - a baby. In a hospital room, while pushing, their is an unharmonic chorus hummed by the nurses, the doctors, and the caretaker, calling out "You can do it, keep pushing." That's exactly what an accelerator can do for you.

What exactly does an accelerator do?

Young startups on their 0 to 1 journeys subscribe to "accelerators" and flaunt their success of admission. It's not just a milestone but also the beginning of an unmarried family that brings emotional support and an ecosystem. This is what an accelerator can bring to an entrepreneur, just like the medical paraphernalia in a labor room.

All said and done, behind the flamboyance of entrepreneurship is an extremely lonely, tough, and arduous journey that can bring existentialism to question without any answers. This is exactly when entrepreneurs need a worthy Accelerator (Not any) that can provide mentors and coaches who have been there and done that, who are willing to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty at a ground zero level, and most of all who show up every day for the entrepreneur to make that 1% incremental change happen.

Those few hours of labor of a mother are equivalent to those few weeks with an accelerator. The baby is your startup.

The next part is called SGx.

(If you are a tech co-founder, you will love the business side of it!)

I have had the privilege to be a part of SGx, an accelerator program by SaaSBoomi . I was a part of it representing Hivel.ai with its founder and CEO, Sudheer Bandaru.

Very few founders choose to tag along one of their team members to programs of this nature. But, I have been the lucky one to work alongside Sudheer, the committed mentor Mrigank Tripathi and wingmate Aastha Sharma at SGx who onboarded Hivel into the 4th cohort that was a 16-week program.

For those of you who have never heard of SGx...

SGx is an accelerator program with a coaching element added to it. It lasts for 16 weeks for each cohort. But, I experienced more. I personally experienced that it focuses on shifting levers that catapult the startup on a high growth trajectory. If you are part of a growth team, you will be marching 'chugg, chugg' on a path of consistent execution that helps you repeat success. This is something that many startups struggle to figure out during their early days.

What does that mean?

Apart from figuring out what works best for your startup, an entrepreneur is also subject to decision-making in the middle of a lot of unknowns. And for the startup, it may mean losing time due to many reasons. It could be because of a lack of strongly opinionated people or those early few teammates who cannot lobby the good and great ideas and processes or can't debate as an outsider.

When an entrepreneur goes out to validate his/her decisions, time is lost. Just like how Christopher Nolan depicts in the movie Interstellar, a few minutes on one planet counts like a few hours on the spaceship; entrepreneurs live on a very different planet. It looks like...

• Entrepreneurs have to work with less data or most of the time with no historic data to validate their thought processes.
• Fast experimentation also feels slow in those early days because 'reality' challenges one's perspectives.
• Startups need access to fool-proof and tested ideas from other startups.
• They need relatable and personal experiences of how specific growth problems have been solved.

In the lack of this, growth teams slow down. Execution slows down.

An accelerator fills these gaps. It accelerates. It helps entrepreneurs and growth teams figure out what it takes to expedite this process, eliminating the guessing. It allows them to turn the 'Unknowns' into 'Knowns.'

Acceleration is a known but invisible virtue for entrepreneurs and their growth teams during the 0 to 1 journey.

SGx set us on a path of such acceleration.

Growth teams are hungry for acceleration

Just in case you thought I am going to write an entrepreneur's story, then you may choose not to read further. Because I am going to write about 'How an accelerator such as SGx helps growth and GTM teams?'

(While I can empathize with the pain of the entrepreneur, I am not an entrepreneur at the moment. So, I would rather restrict this piece to the thrill of growth teams.)

Being a part of this cohort helped me learn the operating system of growth for the 0 to 1 startup journey. It means the full cycle of discovering the value proposition up to delivering that derived value proposition into the messaging, to the final identified ideal customer profile.

How does this lead to acceleration?

Though not articulated on paper, I saw that the SGx program had a flywheel in place. It included 'gyaan' sessions, inspirational talks, tear-downs, show and tell sessions. While these are common to all startups who are a part of the program, there were certain aspects customized to every selected startup in the cohort.

1. Personalized OKRs to achieve by the end of the program
2. 1-1 check-ins with mentors and coaches on a weekly basis to solve problems specific to your startup.
3. Coaching sessions across the board with other mentors and wingmates to gain specific insights about challenges unique to me.
4. Support on making a call around critical hires, publishing the right content, and a scientific method on how to crack messaging and attract the right ICP.

If they had it on paper, it may look something like this

Building a product is not enough. You need to be able to tell what exactly you are solving, who are you solving it for, what are you offering, and to whom. There is an entire flywheel that needs to be in place to execute it on a repeated cycle without any errors.

What does the growth team need? What does SGx have to offer?

"If you’re not changing your speed and you’re not changing your direction, then you simply cannot be accelerating—no matter how fast you’re going." - Khan Academy

[caption id="attachment_14280" align="alignnone" width="1004"] Courtesy: Khan Academy[/caption]

So, it's either about your speed or your direction. Acceleration is not the same for everyone, and so it is for startups too. To all those who are choosing a startup accelerator program, you have some things to check off, and if you are part of a growth team of a young startup, here is where you can start with your expectations.

Happy to always chat 1:1 and share more about my experience.

" } }

Blog

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Mastering the Art of Outbound Marketing: Effective strategies to break through the noise

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(9277) "Some of us think that Outbound marketing is dead and have given up on it. Many of us still do outbound marketing but are not sure how to make it feel natural and not look like a spammy outreach. Even for me, as an inbound marketer at heart, I believe content is the King. But today, Vengat from Klenty, really woke me up (and many others) to an all new world of Outbound Marketing.  Thanks to SaaSBoomi and yes, I’m going to share those valuable insights from the roundtable event held in Singapore, which showed us the bigger picture of how to unlock the power of outbound marketing. Let’s go!

1/ Find your PMF & have conviction on the ICP before firing your GTM engine 

For any early stage SaaS start-up building from 0 to 1, it’s crucial to first identify your ICP, design the value proposition and prove product market fit. Never make the mistake of building for multiple buyer personas and trying to solve everyone’s problem. It’s tempting to sell to everyone who is your potential prospect (especially if you are a Horizontal SaaS platform), but remember that you have limited resources and you want them to spend their efforts in solving one deep problem rather than many.  While your solution could solve many different user problems in the future, identify what’s the sweet spot today (aka which customers are willing to pay you. Period!). Now, when are you ready to build the GTM engine? Recommended rule of thumb - once you start winning ICP deals consistently at above 15-20%, you are ready to move from founder led sales to founder led GTM.

2/ Identify the segment relevant for Outbound Marketing (PMF -> CMF)

Once you are confident with your unique value proposition (what’s the pitch that will convince my prospects?), you need to identify the most efficient way of delivering this. Here’s a simple framework that can help in identifying your GTM strategy.   Based on the ticket size of your customer, you should identify what’s relevant to your business- either outbound/sales led motion (or) PLG/inbound motion( or) a mix of both. For those looking to improve their outbound/sales led motion, please read on!  First, breakdown your ICP further and choose the segment that’s relevant to Outbound marketing (find the #channelmarketfit). You can slice based on (a) companies using a certain competitor (eg: target all product managers of Zynga), (b) companies who visited your website and are using a platform similar to yours, etc. Next, set up a solid team of SDRs+ Marketing executives who can kick-start the outbound motion by building a target list and qualifying them based on internal criteria.  This team needs to work like an engine, with a very rigorous process built into the strategy and followed through by repeatability. An outbound team is more than just SDRs. One way to make your SDRs more successful is to pair them with data ops for research and marketing resources to help build collateral and assets for each customer segment.

3/ Set measurable goals based on ACV

While the channels used for outbound remain the same (Call, Emails, LinkedIn/ABM), each channel needs to have a different outreach strategy and measurable goals for each SDR. Some tips on how you can set goals (let’s assume revenue target as $1M)

• You need a team of 6-8 SDRs with a goal of x meetings/mo and y opportunities/mo
• Each SDR should have X active accounts that they are pursuing at any point in time 
• Each SDR has to generate a minimum of $500 - $600K pipeline irrespective of the ACV value (for India based SDRs and assuming a typical pipeline to win ratio of ~15-20% based on industry average) - this number may be higher for US based SDRs. 
• Successful outbound delivers pipeline and not meetings. So measure important metrics like prospects contacted -> meetings booked -> Opportunities for each SDR 
• Global benchmarks indicate that on an average, each SDR can have about 2-3 quality conversations per day,(Quality conversation - atleast one piece of qualifying or disqualifying information)
• Phone centric SDRs generate more quality conversations/day
• A typical SDR can perform around 100 activities/day (eg: 40 phone calls, 40 email, 16 LinkedIn, 4 others) 

[Pro-tip: Always use outbound strategies on your higher ACV segments]

4/ I repeat: Right place at the right time 

The way I was taught to do outbound marketing/sales was to generate as many leads as possible by buying a database, sending cold emails (of course personalizing with their first name) or phone calls by asking “are you looking for HR software right now?”. If they said yes, it's a straightforward MQL. If they said no, we remove them from the lead list. This ain’t working anymore! And this is an outdated outbound strategy.  Each segment requires a different playbook as the value proposition, frequency of buying, channels to reach out vary per segment. If you have to create demand (why should someone buy this product?), Email & LinkedIn work beautifully to educate someone on why they need you. If you have to capture demand (why should someone buy you vs others?), where the market is already established, Phone calls & Email go hand-in-hand.  An interesting learning is the timing capture, which is a low hanging fruit. What this means - someone might not need you today as they are already using something else to solve their problem. But if you appear to them at the right time, like 2 months/weeks before their renewal cycle and stand out on how different you are compared to what they are currently using, you have the opportunity to convert it into a deal. So move away from discarding the lead to recycle & perpetuate motion.

5/ Enable secret weapons that act as force multipliers for your SDRs

Last but not the least, behind every SDR there is a backend team which is helping them enormously with the right information all the time. So that SDRs only have to think about setting up meetings, converting them into opportunities and closing the deals while the heavy lifting will be done by the avengers sitting within the org. 

• Sales enablement/ marketing - As mentioned earlier, they help in complete sales enablement by creating assets like case studies, newsletters, testimonials, etc. relevant to each active lead
• Data ops team - They help in enriching each lead with every additional piece of information that might be relevant to close the deal or recycle it to a later period of time. This involves research around who is buying, their buying cycle, what is their viable budget, who is the decision maker, what kind of investments have they made recently, etc. This will help in scaling more leads from the buckets that are working 
• Quality Control team - This team looks at the quality meetings and the no. of meetings that get converted into an opportunity. Each new learning is playbooked and is passed on to each SDR to learn from each other 

Rather than winning a $500K deal in one go, outbound works better if you have a good land & expand motion as that will help in building lifetime value of customers.  Outbound marketing could be the best way to have control over your target audience and build traction “if you do it the right way”. So after all, cold calling or emailing is not a bad thing as long as it’s not spammy and there is a lot of strategic thinking behind every outreach. Let’s not spray & pray anymore, AMEN! " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(9277) "Some of us think that Outbound marketing is dead and have given up on it. Many of us still do outbound marketing but are not sure how to make it feel natural and not look like a spammy outreach. Even for me, as an inbound marketer at heart, I believe content is the King. But today, Vengat from Klenty, really woke me up (and many others) to an all new world of Outbound Marketing.  Thanks to SaaSBoomi and yes, I’m going to share those valuable insights from the roundtable event held in Singapore, which showed us the bigger picture of how to unlock the power of outbound marketing. Let’s go!

1/ Find your PMF & have conviction on the ICP before firing your GTM engine 

For any early stage SaaS start-up building from 0 to 1, it’s crucial to first identify your ICP, design the value proposition and prove product market fit. Never make the mistake of building for multiple buyer personas and trying to solve everyone’s problem. It’s tempting to sell to everyone who is your potential prospect (especially if you are a Horizontal SaaS platform), but remember that you have limited resources and you want them to spend their efforts in solving one deep problem rather than many.  While your solution could solve many different user problems in the future, identify what’s the sweet spot today (aka which customers are willing to pay you. Period!). Now, when are you ready to build the GTM engine? Recommended rule of thumb - once you start winning ICP deals consistently at above 15-20%, you are ready to move from founder led sales to founder led GTM.

2/ Identify the segment relevant for Outbound Marketing (PMF -> CMF)

Once you are confident with your unique value proposition (what’s the pitch that will convince my prospects?), you need to identify the most efficient way of delivering this. Here’s a simple framework that can help in identifying your GTM strategy.   Based on the ticket size of your customer, you should identify what’s relevant to your business- either outbound/sales led motion (or) PLG/inbound motion( or) a mix of both. For those looking to improve their outbound/sales led motion, please read on!  First, breakdown your ICP further and choose the segment that’s relevant to Outbound marketing (find the #channelmarketfit). You can slice based on (a) companies using a certain competitor (eg: target all product managers of Zynga), (b) companies who visited your website and are using a platform similar to yours, etc. Next, set up a solid team of SDRs+ Marketing executives who can kick-start the outbound motion by building a target list and qualifying them based on internal criteria.  This team needs to work like an engine, with a very rigorous process built into the strategy and followed through by repeatability. An outbound team is more than just SDRs. One way to make your SDRs more successful is to pair them with data ops for research and marketing resources to help build collateral and assets for each customer segment.

3/ Set measurable goals based on ACV

While the channels used for outbound remain the same (Call, Emails, LinkedIn/ABM), each channel needs to have a different outreach strategy and measurable goals for each SDR. Some tips on how you can set goals (let’s assume revenue target as $1M)

• You need a team of 6-8 SDRs with a goal of x meetings/mo and y opportunities/mo
• Each SDR should have X active accounts that they are pursuing at any point in time 
• Each SDR has to generate a minimum of $500 - $600K pipeline irrespective of the ACV value (for India based SDRs and assuming a typical pipeline to win ratio of ~15-20% based on industry average) - this number may be higher for US based SDRs. 
• Successful outbound delivers pipeline and not meetings. So measure important metrics like prospects contacted -> meetings booked -> Opportunities for each SDR 
• Global benchmarks indicate that on an average, each SDR can have about 2-3 quality conversations per day,(Quality conversation - atleast one piece of qualifying or disqualifying information)
• Phone centric SDRs generate more quality conversations/day
• A typical SDR can perform around 100 activities/day (eg: 40 phone calls, 40 email, 16 LinkedIn, 4 others) 

[Pro-tip: Always use outbound strategies on your higher ACV segments]

4/ I repeat: Right place at the right time 

The way I was taught to do outbound marketing/sales was to generate as many leads as possible by buying a database, sending cold emails (of course personalizing with their first name) or phone calls by asking “are you looking for HR software right now?”. If they said yes, it's a straightforward MQL. If they said no, we remove them from the lead list. This ain’t working anymore! And this is an outdated outbound strategy.  Each segment requires a different playbook as the value proposition, frequency of buying, channels to reach out vary per segment. If you have to create demand (why should someone buy this product?), Email & LinkedIn work beautifully to educate someone on why they need you. If you have to capture demand (why should someone buy you vs others?), where the market is already established, Phone calls & Email go hand-in-hand.  An interesting learning is the timing capture, which is a low hanging fruit. What this means - someone might not need you today as they are already using something else to solve their problem. But if you appear to them at the right time, like 2 months/weeks before their renewal cycle and stand out on how different you are compared to what they are currently using, you have the opportunity to convert it into a deal. So move away from discarding the lead to recycle & perpetuate motion.

5/ Enable secret weapons that act as force multipliers for your SDRs

Last but not the least, behind every SDR there is a backend team which is helping them enormously with the right information all the time. So that SDRs only have to think about setting up meetings, converting them into opportunities and closing the deals while the heavy lifting will be done by the avengers sitting within the org. 

• Sales enablement/ marketing - As mentioned earlier, they help in complete sales enablement by creating assets like case studies, newsletters, testimonials, etc. relevant to each active lead
• Data ops team - They help in enriching each lead with every additional piece of information that might be relevant to close the deal or recycle it to a later period of time. This involves research around who is buying, their buying cycle, what is their viable budget, who is the decision maker, what kind of investments have they made recently, etc. This will help in scaling more leads from the buckets that are working 
• Quality Control team - This team looks at the quality meetings and the no. of meetings that get converted into an opportunity. Each new learning is playbooked and is passed on to each SDR to learn from each other 

Rather than winning a $500K deal in one go, outbound works better if you have a good land & expand motion as that will help in building lifetime value of customers.  Outbound marketing could be the best way to have control over your target audience and build traction “if you do it the right way”. So after all, cold calling or emailing is not a bad thing as long as it’s not spammy and there is a lot of strategic thinking behind every outreach. Let’s not spray & pray anymore, AMEN! " } }

Resources

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Home

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Latest from SaaSBoomi

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Latest from SaaSBoomi

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For founders, by founders

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For founders, by founders

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We are a uniquely volunteer-driven organisation. It’s about founders helping founders, nothing more, nothing less.

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We are a uniquely volunteer-driven organisation. It’s about founders helping founders, nothing more, nothing less.

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Learn more about us

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Learn more about us

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The SaaSBoomi Story — People and ideas shaping India’s pay-it-forward community of SaaS founders

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The SaaSBoomi Story — People and ideas shaping India’s pay-it-forward community of SaaS founders

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Read about how and why SaaSBoomi began

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Read about how and why SaaSBoomi began

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SaaSBoomi Online - An exclusive hands-on community for members

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SaaSBoomi Online - An exclusive hands-on community for members

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Learn more about memberships

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Learn more about memberships

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The hard choices Zenoti made to win in the US market

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(9380) "Zenoti, a SaaS unicorn in the beauty and wellness space, was called ManageMySpa eight years ago. Why manage only spas? Why not salons, fitness centers, et al? The choice of name was deliberate. Founder and CEO Sudheer Koneru wanted employees to be narrow-focused at the outset, instead of chasing every opportunity in the industry.  Then, as it expanded one vertical at a time in SaaS for beauty and wellness, the Hyderabad-and-Seattle-based company was renamed Zenoti. Today it is a category leader with over $100 million ARR. But the thesis has remained the same: pick a specific vertical and within that vertical, be sure who you want to sell to.  “Choose your customers, don’t let them choose you,” Koneru tells his salespeople. Saying ‘no’ to sales leads is as important as following them up. Sales and marketing were directed towards large enterprise scale wellness chains. The product team is similarly focused on solving complex problems for the chosen customers that other software-makers are not tackling. 

The road less traveled is hard to take, because it escalates upfront costs and slows down GTM (go to market) at the outset. But there are pay-offs. One is the competitive edge it gives. 

Secondly, when you have a differentiated product for a particular type of high-value customer, you get traction with other customers similar in design. So the product investments made for the first customers pay off for the next set who buy it. “My biggest learning in the early days was to focus our company on the right set of customers. People from the outside looking in think salons and spas must be all the same. But as we worked through it, we realized that barber shops to high-end spas to luxury salons are very different businesses and their needs are very different,” says Koneru. He was influenced by a book first published in 2014 in the early stages of Zenoti: Crossing the Chasm, by Geoffrey Moore. The marketing model described in that book, to stay focused on the early adopters before crossing the chasm to the mainstream market, has guided many companies over the years. Zenoti was one of the first to apply its principles.

#1 Choosing vertical SaaS

The choice of vertical SaaS for the wellness space was counterintuitive back in 2010 for a founder with a background as a director at Microsoft. That was as much by accident as design. Koneru had founded Intelliprep for the learning industry after leaving Microsoft. It merged with Click2Learn which in turn merged with Docent to become SumTotal Systems, where Koneru was the VP of international sales. He quit after it crossed $100 million in annual revenue to go on a journey of inner discovery through yoga and meditation. Koneru started going to retreats and became passionate about evangelizing the importance of personal well-being while pursuing a busy professional life. He invested in a spa chain and ended up running it. That’s how he became aware of the lack of suitable software to manage these wellness chains. A product person at heart with a problem-solving mindset from his computer science student days at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and the University of Texas at Austin, it wasn’t long before he moved from managing his brick-and-mortar business to launching ManageMySpa. He liked to drill deep into a problem and vertical SaaS suited him. 

#2 Hooking the big fish

The beauty and wellness space is replete with boutique-style establishments that are fashionable and sophisticated, but small. A tough call for Koneru was to resist the temptation to go after those opportunities to scale revenue fast and stay focused on enterprise-scale chains.

“We were very selective. Firstly, the customers had to be the larger enterprises. Then, when we went to the US, we wanted not just the larger enterprises but those who would make faster decisions,” says Koneru. “We found that founder-led businesses make fast decisions and there were enough cases where the original founder was still running the chain.”

The focus got even narrower in choosing the kind of business where the software would make a bigger impact. For example, membership spas have more requirements for efficiency in recurring payments, loyalty programs, sharing benefits with guests or family members, scheduling of appointments, filling liability waiver forms, and so on. The software can also streamline inventory management, marketing, and business operations.

#3 Leveraging India’s enterprise software edge

“I came from enterprise roots. So it was natural for me to build software designed for large enterprises,” says Koneru.  Like many other well-qualified engineers from India, he had worked for a tech giant serving global enterprises in the early years of his career. So, when he looked at the problems to solve for a wellness chain, he knew the complexity involved in digitizing and connecting everything. And that would be the USP of Zenoti. “Ten years ago, building beautiful, elegant software was hard to do from India. Now it’s changing, but back then there was less of a UX paradigm,” recalls Koneru. On the other hand, India had a legacy of IT services and lots of project managers who were used to listening to the broad requirements of large enterprise clients to build software. Thus Zenoti’s choice to do enterprise software for the beauty and wellness space played to India’s strengths. It became the differentiator when Zenoti went to the US market and competed against bigger and better-funded companies. “There were a lot of companies in the US who did software for the wellness industry, but didn't solve the enterprise problem, because it involved a lot of work to do everything digitally. So they would do a piece of the whole problem,” says Koneru. “Being from India, the costs were low enough that we could afford to solve the entire spectrum of problems for those enterprise customers.” For example, a wellness brand could have a chain of franchise stores. A member should be able to go to any of the stores and access her profile and credits. And the franchisee claims a share of the brand’s revenue based on members served and other parameters.

“Both on the backend and consumer side, the experience had to be uniform. And the whole periodic cross-center settlement was automated. Even to this day, we are the only ones who solve that scale of enterprise problem,” says Koneru. Other players do the software store by store and the cross-linking has to be done separately, which is painful.

This applies to every aspect of the business. A marketing campaign can be done with a single click across all the stores, instead of pushing out the data individually to every store which has to then configure it. “One of the first reasons why brands bought Zenoti was because of our claim that we unify the brand across all outlets,” says Koneru.

#4 Cheap is not best

When Zenoti forayed into the US around 2015 with backing from Accel, it went head-on with some big players, including a Nasdaq-listed SaaS provider for the wellness industry with over 50,000 stores on its roster. And yet the Indian upstart had the gumption to charge its customers as much as three times what its main competitor was charging.  The reason it could do that was its value proposition of aggregation which brought down the total cost of ownership for a large enterprise level customer. The rival software was very good for individual stores but lacked the enterprise class of bringing it all together. So, choosing to go after the big fish from the outset made Zenoti the leader in that segment and also the premium, most expensive solution.  This is a far cry from the usual perception that if it’s from India, it must be cheaper. Of course, bucking that perception in the US market wasn’t easy in the early days, especially in an industry that was yet to adopt enterprise scale software. But then, when has Koneru ever chosen the easy path? Part 2: Zenoti’s playbook for expansion" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(9380) "Zenoti, a SaaS unicorn in the beauty and wellness space, was called ManageMySpa eight years ago. Why manage only spas? Why not salons, fitness centers, et al? The choice of name was deliberate. Founder and CEO Sudheer Koneru wanted employees to be narrow-focused at the outset, instead of chasing every opportunity in the industry.  Then, as it expanded one vertical at a time in SaaS for beauty and wellness, the Hyderabad-and-Seattle-based company was renamed Zenoti. Today it is a category leader with over $100 million ARR. But the thesis has remained the same: pick a specific vertical and within that vertical, be sure who you want to sell to.  “Choose your customers, don’t let them choose you,” Koneru tells his salespeople. Saying ‘no’ to sales leads is as important as following them up. Sales and marketing were directed towards large enterprise scale wellness chains. The product team is similarly focused on solving complex problems for the chosen customers that other software-makers are not tackling. 

The road less traveled is hard to take, because it escalates upfront costs and slows down GTM (go to market) at the outset. But there are pay-offs. One is the competitive edge it gives. 

Secondly, when you have a differentiated product for a particular type of high-value customer, you get traction with other customers similar in design. So the product investments made for the first customers pay off for the next set who buy it. “My biggest learning in the early days was to focus our company on the right set of customers. People from the outside looking in think salons and spas must be all the same. But as we worked through it, we realized that barber shops to high-end spas to luxury salons are very different businesses and their needs are very different,” says Koneru. He was influenced by a book first published in 2014 in the early stages of Zenoti: Crossing the Chasm, by Geoffrey Moore. The marketing model described in that book, to stay focused on the early adopters before crossing the chasm to the mainstream market, has guided many companies over the years. Zenoti was one of the first to apply its principles.

#1 Choosing vertical SaaS

The choice of vertical SaaS for the wellness space was counterintuitive back in 2010 for a founder with a background as a director at Microsoft. That was as much by accident as design. Koneru had founded Intelliprep for the learning industry after leaving Microsoft. It merged with Click2Learn which in turn merged with Docent to become SumTotal Systems, where Koneru was the VP of international sales. He quit after it crossed $100 million in annual revenue to go on a journey of inner discovery through yoga and meditation. Koneru started going to retreats and became passionate about evangelizing the importance of personal well-being while pursuing a busy professional life. He invested in a spa chain and ended up running it. That’s how he became aware of the lack of suitable software to manage these wellness chains. A product person at heart with a problem-solving mindset from his computer science student days at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and the University of Texas at Austin, it wasn’t long before he moved from managing his brick-and-mortar business to launching ManageMySpa. He liked to drill deep into a problem and vertical SaaS suited him. 

#2 Hooking the big fish

The beauty and wellness space is replete with boutique-style establishments that are fashionable and sophisticated, but small. A tough call for Koneru was to resist the temptation to go after those opportunities to scale revenue fast and stay focused on enterprise-scale chains.

“We were very selective. Firstly, the customers had to be the larger enterprises. Then, when we went to the US, we wanted not just the larger enterprises but those who would make faster decisions,” says Koneru. “We found that founder-led businesses make fast decisions and there were enough cases where the original founder was still running the chain.”

The focus got even narrower in choosing the kind of business where the software would make a bigger impact. For example, membership spas have more requirements for efficiency in recurring payments, loyalty programs, sharing benefits with guests or family members, scheduling of appointments, filling liability waiver forms, and so on. The software can also streamline inventory management, marketing, and business operations.

#3 Leveraging India’s enterprise software edge

“I came from enterprise roots. So it was natural for me to build software designed for large enterprises,” says Koneru.  Like many other well-qualified engineers from India, he had worked for a tech giant serving global enterprises in the early years of his career. So, when he looked at the problems to solve for a wellness chain, he knew the complexity involved in digitizing and connecting everything. And that would be the USP of Zenoti. “Ten years ago, building beautiful, elegant software was hard to do from India. Now it’s changing, but back then there was less of a UX paradigm,” recalls Koneru. On the other hand, India had a legacy of IT services and lots of project managers who were used to listening to the broad requirements of large enterprise clients to build software. Thus Zenoti’s choice to do enterprise software for the beauty and wellness space played to India’s strengths. It became the differentiator when Zenoti went to the US market and competed against bigger and better-funded companies. “There were a lot of companies in the US who did software for the wellness industry, but didn't solve the enterprise problem, because it involved a lot of work to do everything digitally. So they would do a piece of the whole problem,” says Koneru. “Being from India, the costs were low enough that we could afford to solve the entire spectrum of problems for those enterprise customers.” For example, a wellness brand could have a chain of franchise stores. A member should be able to go to any of the stores and access her profile and credits. And the franchisee claims a share of the brand’s revenue based on members served and other parameters.

“Both on the backend and consumer side, the experience had to be uniform. And the whole periodic cross-center settlement was automated. Even to this day, we are the only ones who solve that scale of enterprise problem,” says Koneru. Other players do the software store by store and the cross-linking has to be done separately, which is painful.

This applies to every aspect of the business. A marketing campaign can be done with a single click across all the stores, instead of pushing out the data individually to every store which has to then configure it. “One of the first reasons why brands bought Zenoti was because of our claim that we unify the brand across all outlets,” says Koneru.

#4 Cheap is not best

When Zenoti forayed into the US around 2015 with backing from Accel, it went head-on with some big players, including a Nasdaq-listed SaaS provider for the wellness industry with over 50,000 stores on its roster. And yet the Indian upstart had the gumption to charge its customers as much as three times what its main competitor was charging.  The reason it could do that was its value proposition of aggregation which brought down the total cost of ownership for a large enterprise level customer. The rival software was very good for individual stores but lacked the enterprise class of bringing it all together. So, choosing to go after the big fish from the outset made Zenoti the leader in that segment and also the premium, most expensive solution.  This is a far cry from the usual perception that if it’s from India, it must be cheaper. Of course, bucking that perception in the US market wasn’t easy in the early days, especially in an industry that was yet to adopt enterprise scale software. But then, when has Koneru ever chosen the easy path? Part 2: Zenoti’s playbook for expansion" } }

Introducing PULSE: As you are – an initiative to make the SaaS ecosystem more inclusive

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(11289) "SaaSBoomi, the world’s largest pay-it-forward SaaS community, today launches a new initiative to specifically address the problem of minority sections of founders feeling isolated and excluded. PULSE (Promoting Unity, Leadership, and a Stronger Ecosystem through diversity, equity, and inclusion) is a structured program to bring underrepresented founders into the fold, involve them in activities, and help them succeed.

The problem we want to solve

The tech industry, including the SaaS startup ecosystem, is notoriously poor when it comes to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Women, people of color, individuals with disabilities, and people from the *LGBTQIA+ communities continue to be underrepresented, particularly in leadership and technical roles. This problem is manifested in the following observations:

• Very low % of women founders in the SaaS industry despite the growing number of women in SaaS companies. 
• Capital investment in women-led SaaS companies is just a fraction of that in male-led ones. A report by PitchBook and All Raise, which analyzed venture capital funding in the US from 2009 to 2018, found that female-founded companies received only 2.2% of the total capital invested during that time period. Another study by McKinsey and Company found that women-led companies received only 2.3% of total venture capital investment in the US in 2020.
• SaaS communities in India are largely represented by men. Women founders are invisible in the system, not represented, seen or even known in most cases. Access to networks, systems, and resources are limited for them as a result. 
• There is an urgent need to create growth paths for women in the SaaS industry to create a pipeline of women founders of tomorrow.

What is the PULSE initiative?

We want to work on changing this environment. That’s why we are kicking off Pulse: As you are -  a deliberate effort to create an inclusive ecosystem where all members feel respected, valued, and empowered to grow and thrive. We are inspired by the words, “As You Are”, referring to individuals in the SaaS community who may not have the same equitable access to opportunities as others.  We are beginning our work on this initiative with women in SaaS. A group of volunteers -  founders and leaders from the SaaS world - will lead PULSE.  This is a huge mission. But it’s a problem we are committed to solving together as a community.  SaaSBoomi commits to helping our members connect, learn and grow in an environment that is supportive of DEI. This, in turn, will enable more founders to build and lead workplaces that embrace DEI in their policies. We believe it will result in a more innovative, competitive, and inclusive tech startup ecosystem.

Why is DEI important for the SaaS community?

The future of SaaS startups is Diverse and Inclusive. In our changing world, organizations embracing diversity and advancing inclusion will be the most successful in building an equitable workplace.  Diversity, equity, and inclusion are three closely linked values held by many organizations that are working to be supportive of different groups of individuals, including people of different races, ethnicities, religions, abilities, genders, and sexual orientations.  Companies that are diverse, equitable, and inclusive are better able to respond to challenges, win top talent, and meet the needs of different customer bases. With DEI in mind, companies are considering how to better support employees. Over the past few years, many organizations have taken strides to build diversity, equity, and inclusion into their policies and hiring practices, according to a McKinsey report. 

How it aligns with the SaaSBoomi mission

There are less than 200 women among SaaS founders in India, despite having thousands of SaaS startups in the country. As a group invested heavily in changing the status quo, we have compiled a list of about 160 women founders. And while we're excited that the number has been growing every year, it’s still a small fraction of the total number of SaaS founders in India. At the SaaSBoomi annual conference in Chennai in March, we observed that women are founding companies that solve important problems, at scale. We are beginning to see what success looks like among women founders: 

• We had with us a woman founder who got an exit this year 
• A second-time woman founder 
• A woman founder running a bootstrapped startup that scaled over the $5 million ARR mark … 

Through Pulse, we would like to gather more stories of struggle and success among women founders. They not only serve as role models but also give us pointers to create the relevant structures and allocate the right resources to enable growth for the long-term.  Women in SaaS - founders, leaders, and others working in SaaS companies - are eager to learn from peers, scale, and thrive. They need workshops, mentors, and support systems to do that. They want to meet more of their kind. These activities would be the starting point of Pulse. This aligns directly with the mission of SaaSBoomi to be an ecosystem builder committed to the rise of India SaaS.

What are the next steps? 

We want to lay the foundation for more women to start SaaS companies and succeed. But this movement, which begins with women, also allows us to open the wider conversation related to the challenges faced by our members from the LGBTQIA+ community. Together, we would like to meet them as they are, welcome more participation in SaaSBoomi, and drive real change in the ecosystem.  We have created a team to lead the drive towards the goals and vision laid out in the Pulse manifesto. 

 The Pulse Manifesto 

1. We want an end to the isolation of minorities within the SaaS startup ecosystem.
2. We will enable women and other gender minorities to come together and foster an inclusive community that supports growth and development for all.
3. We are starting the ‘SaaSBoomi PULSE: As you are’ movement by working with women founders and leaders in SaaS. We believe that by coming together, underrepresented stakeholders in SaaS startups can create a community of founders who support one another and drive real change in the industry.
4. We want to ensure that women and other underrepresented minorities have the support and resources they need to succeed. 
5. We want to get them access to learning and development opportunities, including roundtables, mentorship programs, and workshops. These will cater to all stages of their startup journey.
6. We will strive for increased visibility and representation of women and LGBTQIA+ in SaaS startups. This includes documenting progress through surveys and metrics, creating a database of successful underrepresented founders in the industry, and providing Diversity & Inclusion certification. 
7. We will encourage evangelism and marketing efforts to raise awareness of the contributions of women and underrepresented minorities in SaaS.
8. We recognize that progress must be made slowly and deliberately, iterating on different ideas rather than rushing towards a few intense efforts. 

Here’s how you can help

• If you are a SaaS founder (gender/race/other differences no bar), join our community of founders: Join the community.
• If you are not a founder, but a woman working in the SaaS industry (or belong to any other underrepresented groups), join us here. 
• If you are a male founder and believe in the importance of a diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplace, join us as an ALLY here.
• If you know any women/LGBTQIA+ founder/leader in SaaS, refer them here.

Meet the team

Ashwini Asokan, Disha Bhatia, Kabandi Saikia, Sameera Vanekar, Amrutha Jalihal, Swetha Kannan, Sumithra Gopalakrishnan, Yamini Jain, Sadhana Balaji, & Malavika Velayanikal" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(11289) "SaaSBoomi, the world’s largest pay-it-forward SaaS community, today launches a new initiative to specifically address the problem of minority sections of founders feeling isolated and excluded. PULSE (Promoting Unity, Leadership, and a Stronger Ecosystem through diversity, equity, and inclusion) is a structured program to bring underrepresented founders into the fold, involve them in activities, and help them succeed.

The problem we want to solve

The tech industry, including the SaaS startup ecosystem, is notoriously poor when it comes to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Women, people of color, individuals with disabilities, and people from the *LGBTQIA+ communities continue to be underrepresented, particularly in leadership and technical roles. This problem is manifested in the following observations:

• Very low % of women founders in the SaaS industry despite the growing number of women in SaaS companies. 
• Capital investment in women-led SaaS companies is just a fraction of that in male-led ones. A report by PitchBook and All Raise, which analyzed venture capital funding in the US from 2009 to 2018, found that female-founded companies received only 2.2% of the total capital invested during that time period. Another study by McKinsey and Company found that women-led companies received only 2.3% of total venture capital investment in the US in 2020.
• SaaS communities in India are largely represented by men. Women founders are invisible in the system, not represented, seen or even known in most cases. Access to networks, systems, and resources are limited for them as a result. 
• There is an urgent need to create growth paths for women in the SaaS industry to create a pipeline of women founders of tomorrow.

What is the PULSE initiative?

We want to work on changing this environment. That’s why we are kicking off Pulse: As you are -  a deliberate effort to create an inclusive ecosystem where all members feel respected, valued, and empowered to grow and thrive. We are inspired by the words, “As You Are”, referring to individuals in the SaaS community who may not have the same equitable access to opportunities as others.  We are beginning our work on this initiative with women in SaaS. A group of volunteers -  founders and leaders from the SaaS world - will lead PULSE.  This is a huge mission. But it’s a problem we are committed to solving together as a community.  SaaSBoomi commits to helping our members connect, learn and grow in an environment that is supportive of DEI. This, in turn, will enable more founders to build and lead workplaces that embrace DEI in their policies. We believe it will result in a more innovative, competitive, and inclusive tech startup ecosystem.

Why is DEI important for the SaaS community?

The future of SaaS startups is Diverse and Inclusive. In our changing world, organizations embracing diversity and advancing inclusion will be the most successful in building an equitable workplace.  Diversity, equity, and inclusion are three closely linked values held by many organizations that are working to be supportive of different groups of individuals, including people of different races, ethnicities, religions, abilities, genders, and sexual orientations.  Companies that are diverse, equitable, and inclusive are better able to respond to challenges, win top talent, and meet the needs of different customer bases. With DEI in mind, companies are considering how to better support employees. Over the past few years, many organizations have taken strides to build diversity, equity, and inclusion into their policies and hiring practices, according to a McKinsey report. 

How it aligns with the SaaSBoomi mission

There are less than 200 women among SaaS founders in India, despite having thousands of SaaS startups in the country. As a group invested heavily in changing the status quo, we have compiled a list of about 160 women founders. And while we're excited that the number has been growing every year, it’s still a small fraction of the total number of SaaS founders in India. At the SaaSBoomi annual conference in Chennai in March, we observed that women are founding companies that solve important problems, at scale. We are beginning to see what success looks like among women founders: 

• We had with us a woman founder who got an exit this year 
• A second-time woman founder 
• A woman founder running a bootstrapped startup that scaled over the $5 million ARR mark … 

Through Pulse, we would like to gather more stories of struggle and success among women founders. They not only serve as role models but also give us pointers to create the relevant structures and allocate the right resources to enable growth for the long-term.  Women in SaaS - founders, leaders, and others working in SaaS companies - are eager to learn from peers, scale, and thrive. They need workshops, mentors, and support systems to do that. They want to meet more of their kind. These activities would be the starting point of Pulse. This aligns directly with the mission of SaaSBoomi to be an ecosystem builder committed to the rise of India SaaS.

What are the next steps? 

We want to lay the foundation for more women to start SaaS companies and succeed. But this movement, which begins with women, also allows us to open the wider conversation related to the challenges faced by our members from the LGBTQIA+ community. Together, we would like to meet them as they are, welcome more participation in SaaSBoomi, and drive real change in the ecosystem.  We have created a team to lead the drive towards the goals and vision laid out in the Pulse manifesto. 

 The Pulse Manifesto 

1. We want an end to the isolation of minorities within the SaaS startup ecosystem.
2. We will enable women and other gender minorities to come together and foster an inclusive community that supports growth and development for all.
3. We are starting the ‘SaaSBoomi PULSE: As you are’ movement by working with women founders and leaders in SaaS. We believe that by coming together, underrepresented stakeholders in SaaS startups can create a community of founders who support one another and drive real change in the industry.
4. We want to ensure that women and other underrepresented minorities have the support and resources they need to succeed. 
5. We want to get them access to learning and development opportunities, including roundtables, mentorship programs, and workshops. These will cater to all stages of their startup journey.
6. We will strive for increased visibility and representation of women and LGBTQIA+ in SaaS startups. This includes documenting progress through surveys and metrics, creating a database of successful underrepresented founders in the industry, and providing Diversity & Inclusion certification. 
7. We will encourage evangelism and marketing efforts to raise awareness of the contributions of women and underrepresented minorities in SaaS.
8. We recognize that progress must be made slowly and deliberately, iterating on different ideas rather than rushing towards a few intense efforts. 

Here’s how you can help

• If you are a SaaS founder (gender/race/other differences no bar), join our community of founders: Join the community.
• If you are not a founder, but a woman working in the SaaS industry (or belong to any other underrepresented groups), join us here. 
• If you are a male founder and believe in the importance of a diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplace, join us as an ALLY here.
• If you know any women/LGBTQIA+ founder/leader in SaaS, refer them here.

Meet the team

Ashwini Asokan, Disha Bhatia, Kabandi Saikia, Sameera Vanekar, Amrutha Jalihal, Swetha Kannan, Sumithra Gopalakrishnan, Yamini Jain, Sadhana Balaji, & Malavika Velayanikal" } }

Taking SaaSBoomi to Singapore

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SaaSBoomi’s ambition has always been to curate a community that would be composed of vibrant, diverse voices who will help founders grow, scale, and accomplish their potential. We’ve been traveling across the length and breadth of India. Smaller centers, large cities, big metros, we’ve been to them all.

Over the past few years, I have been getting feelers from founders and operators in Singapore. The B2B SaaS ecosystem in the region had started to bloom and it encouraged us to start making plans.

To be honest, we were truly convinced to extend our community to Singapore during the SaaSBoomi Caravan. We met a large number of founders who were running successful businesses out of Singapore and Southeast Asia. At least 70–80 of them. This was a warm group of people, eager to help grow the community. The founders talked about how deepening their network would help startups arriving in Singapore.

Back in 2015, when SaaSBoomi was still called SaaSX, we had a total of 70 founders in all, of which 30 founders were from Bangalore. Singapore, now, is where our ecosystem was all those years ago. And now there is enough depth in the community to bring it together with the SaaSBOOMi magic.

After planning and trying to match the schedules of over five dozen people, we managed to finally fly to Singapore a few weeks ago.

As my flight was preparing to take off, I started to think about Singapore as a city country, Southeast Asia as a market, and the kind of companies that are coming up in that region. Singapore is becoming an important center in Asia. Many brilliant minds from India go there to study at strong universities like the National University of Singapore, NTU, SMU etc. Many of them stay back to start up. Indian professionals are moving to the country to work at Amazon, Google, and Microsoft as they set up large offices in the country.

Apart from the big American companies, the likes of Grab and GoTo have become behemoths in the region. According to a report by CNBC, $4 billion worth of venture capital (up to Series B) was deployed in Singapore in 2022. That is up 14% in volume year-on-year. Add to that the government in Singapore has been offering entrepreneurs the groundwork for innovation.

The Singapore SaaS ecosystem is still in its growth phase and as India’s position in the continent cements, these centres will become more important to help our ecosystem of founders grow and help each other. I also realized that not only will founders in Singapore benefit from the experiences of India-based founders but will also be able to give back a few nuggets of wisdom from their experience in this very diverse ecosystem.

Landing and learning

My flight touched down at 9 AM. I had not even had a chance to miss India when an hour later I found myself sitting down for a hearty Indian meal at Komala Vilas. My first meeting was with Rahul who hosts the UnderstandingVC podcast. We were dining at the famous Indian restaurant where Singapore PM Lee Hsien Loong had treated PM Narendra Modi to lunch. Over the course of the hour, Rahul filled me in on Singapore and how things work there.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] The Meal at Komala Vilas[/caption]

The activity in Singapore has picked up phenomenally.

After my lunch with Rahul, I realized something. Things just seem to move and work as they should. There is a sense of discipline in the way people in Singapore conduct themselves and carry out tasks. For instance, you cannot light up a cigarette anywhere. There are designated spots for smoking. But the country is built for comfort and I was able to make it from anywhere to anywhere within 30 minutes.

Also, one of the first things I noticed in Singapore is that there are cameras everywhere. It’s hard to ignore the fact that Singapore keeps a serious eye on public behavior. Everyone has their own point of view on privacy vs order but it is a stand the government of Singapore has made and the country seems to have reaped some rewards. And nearly everyone, especially those with young families, seems to enjoy the safety and security the city-country provides.

In contrast, the chaos in India has encouraged jugaad. Yes, as a widespread culture, jugaad is not desirable. But, India’s hustle energy is actually a huge positive when it comes to starting up. That is where Singapore and its founders may need to adapt to drive a startup culture where safety and security may need to give way to jugaad and increased risk appetite. Although founders build and design world-class products from Singapore, I think there may be a need for a more adventurous hustle.

One big factor working in Singapore’s favor is that it is home to major MNCs including Google, Amazon, Stripe, Microsoft, and many others. That clears the path for startups to approach enterprises. The challenge? Hiring is still difficult in Singapore. Talent is not only expensive, it is also really hard to find. This, is despite some of the best talent from India having moved there. And getting visas to import talent, especially for mid-tier roles, is still, I believe, a major challenge.

But there’s one muscle Singapore has, which it should build on — design. It has some of the best design minds in the world. From the way their buildings are constructed to the UI of their apps, they build the best-looking products.

The case for community

Founders and senior operators get together often but the camaraderie seems to still be in its infancy. That collegial atmosphere you want, of everyone agreeing to pay it forward and grow together — the sort of tribal knowledge we routinely share in India is yet to be widespread. There are some very interesting communities that are around such as SEA Founders, which have been doing some great work to help founders scale their companies in the region. But founders still need help with questions like when to build a product, how to start selling, when to sell to Southeast Asia, and when to go to the US. If this were a business-use case, I would say there is space in the market for many such communities, especially high-impact ones such as SaaSBoomi.

In India, we already have the kind of community where founders share their deepest playbook with others. Thanks to founders such as Girish, Freshworks, who are generous about giving their learnings to others, we regularly have roundtable discussions. The last one we did went on for five whole hours. Imagine the value early-stage entrepreneurs get from that — totally unmatched.

For scale, you need to think like a Zoho or a Freshworks. In the early days, these companies had started with the US and not looked at India as a market. That’s an advantage the Indian SaaS companies had.

Another advantage India had was that it was a base for ITES companies which meant we were building early on. That gave India an advantage for talent and building. The presence of MNCs including Yahoo and Adobe really shaped the product management success stories we saw coming out of the country — Flipkart and InMobi, for instance.

Singapore is going through the same growing pains Indian companies did a few years ago. Some companies are trying to craft US GTM strategies from Southeast Asia. Others are trying to sell products that work in Singapore.

To diagnose this better, I asked a few founders what’s missing. And one reason seems to be that companies are still looking at Southeast Asia as one market, their first market. The problem with that is it stops them from considering the US market from the very beginning. Building for Southeast Asia (with its diverse countries, regulations, languages etc.) is very different from building something global from Day 1.

Funding is a challenge there as well. It’s easier to get angel and seed money but early-stage capital is still difficult to procure. And this not just because of the current economic climate, this challenge predates the pandemic too.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Our first Roundtable with Vengat from Klenty at the Kula office[/caption]

But there’s a lot going for Singapore

So far, Singapore has shown it has the DNA for building terrific consumer app companies. You have a success story in Grab, Sea, or PropertyGuru for example (all IPOed). But what Singapore does not (yet) have a track record for is building companies with magnitude in B2B SaaS. There are a few companies with serious scale coming out of the country such as Patsnap, Acronis, and Biofourmis, among others. There is space for many more. And for any ecosystem (and my focus is on SaaS) at the stage that Singapore is in, it really does need that to fuel the next wave of growth.

Singapore is on the precipice of doing something interesting. It has a mix of MNCs, which have sales offices in the region, and the likes of Stripe, which don’t have a product management set-up there. Everyone starts from scratch and figures out how to build on it. Singapore does have companies such as Persistent which have always built products but only for international customers. One of the reasons Singapore is special is because it is a melting pot of people from across the world. There are founders and executives from the US, the UK, Europe, China, India, Australia, you name it, there’s around. This type of diversity in thought, experiences, and ideas has the ability to create world-class products and companies.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] SaaSBoomi Social in Singapore[/caption]

Support from the government

Stepping into BLK71, you can’t help but be in awe of the favorable conditions that the government provides to startups. This is the tech startup hub of Singapore, where more than 500 startups are incubated, with easy access to space and support. There are striking blue building blocks with 100 companies each — IoT, hardware, climate tech, you name it. You have to applaud this sort of infrastructure.

Do you know how India is trying to support manufacturing with PLI? Singapore is trying to do that with startups. Because of the size of the country, the government works like a private organization. Among one of its ecosystem-boosting schemes is the SMEs Go Digital Transformation Programme, where SMEs are encouraged to buy software to get digital-ready.

Lasting impressions

I have had my fair share of global travels, but I have to say I was singularly impressed by the urban planning and upkeep in Singapore. Everything is clean and green. Cables don’t crisscross in the skyline, they are all concealed underground. Plants cover the outside and inside of structures. I spotted century-old heritage trees, and drove past futuristic ‘Supertree Groves’.

My personal favourite moment was at the Tintin store where I got to relive my childhood among all the colourful comics and posters. As I mentioned earlier in this post, you don’t really get a chance to miss India. There are a lot of diaspora Indians and a lot of Tamil migrants who work in construction. There is also Little India, with scores of shops just like the ones in the markets of Chennai or Bangalore. Singapore is also the first country outside India where I have seen so many temples.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] The famous TinTin store in Singapore[/caption]

An ecosystem is brewing, lah!

Everyone I met on this journey was exceptionally warm. We arranged a social meetup where people could come and experience SaaSBoomi and they welcomed it. This was the most heartening learning of the journey. People have been waiting for it to come and add our energy to the ecosystem in Southeast Asia.

It became clear to me on this trip that this is also an ecosystem where we can give back. We are learning from our activities in the US as people share their learnings there. Singapore, and Southeast Asia, is an ecosystem where we can really help shape how founders build and scale SaaS products. It is our responsibility and this will not just be something we do by Indians for Indians. It will be a community for SaaS founders, by SaaS founders — whatever your origins may be. Everyone will be more than welcome.

It has been less than 2 weeks since I returned from Singapore and my inbox is full of requests from across Singapore to build a community. Founders from Indonesia and Vietnam are writing in too. I traveled to a place that is familiar yet distinctive and came back from one that is full of collaborative possibilities. What we want is to build a community for everyone so that everyone can win.

Special thanks to Krish Sridhar & Naveen Asrani for helping me write this and for walking me through the ways Singapore has grown and evolved. 🙏

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(30597) "

SaaSBoomi’s ambition has always been to curate a community that would be composed of vibrant, diverse voices who will help founders grow, scale, and accomplish their potential. We’ve been traveling across the length and breadth of India. Smaller centers, large cities, big metros, we’ve been to them all.

Over the past few years, I have been getting feelers from founders and operators in Singapore. The B2B SaaS ecosystem in the region had started to bloom and it encouraged us to start making plans.

To be honest, we were truly convinced to extend our community to Singapore during the SaaSBoomi Caravan. We met a large number of founders who were running successful businesses out of Singapore and Southeast Asia. At least 70–80 of them. This was a warm group of people, eager to help grow the community. The founders talked about how deepening their network would help startups arriving in Singapore.

Back in 2015, when SaaSBoomi was still called SaaSX, we had a total of 70 founders in all, of which 30 founders were from Bangalore. Singapore, now, is where our ecosystem was all those years ago. And now there is enough depth in the community to bring it together with the SaaSBOOMi magic.

After planning and trying to match the schedules of over five dozen people, we managed to finally fly to Singapore a few weeks ago.

As my flight was preparing to take off, I started to think about Singapore as a city country, Southeast Asia as a market, and the kind of companies that are coming up in that region. Singapore is becoming an important center in Asia. Many brilliant minds from India go there to study at strong universities like the National University of Singapore, NTU, SMU etc. Many of them stay back to start up. Indian professionals are moving to the country to work at Amazon, Google, and Microsoft as they set up large offices in the country.

Apart from the big American companies, the likes of Grab and GoTo have become behemoths in the region. According to a report by CNBC, $4 billion worth of venture capital (up to Series B) was deployed in Singapore in 2022. That is up 14% in volume year-on-year. Add to that the government in Singapore has been offering entrepreneurs the groundwork for innovation.

The Singapore SaaS ecosystem is still in its growth phase and as India’s position in the continent cements, these centres will become more important to help our ecosystem of founders grow and help each other. I also realized that not only will founders in Singapore benefit from the experiences of India-based founders but will also be able to give back a few nuggets of wisdom from their experience in this very diverse ecosystem.

Landing and learning

My flight touched down at 9 AM. I had not even had a chance to miss India when an hour later I found myself sitting down for a hearty Indian meal at Komala Vilas. My first meeting was with Rahul who hosts the UnderstandingVC podcast. We were dining at the famous Indian restaurant where Singapore PM Lee Hsien Loong had treated PM Narendra Modi to lunch. Over the course of the hour, Rahul filled me in on Singapore and how things work there.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] The Meal at Komala Vilas[/caption]

The activity in Singapore has picked up phenomenally.

After my lunch with Rahul, I realized something. Things just seem to move and work as they should. There is a sense of discipline in the way people in Singapore conduct themselves and carry out tasks. For instance, you cannot light up a cigarette anywhere. There are designated spots for smoking. But the country is built for comfort and I was able to make it from anywhere to anywhere within 30 minutes.

Also, one of the first things I noticed in Singapore is that there are cameras everywhere. It’s hard to ignore the fact that Singapore keeps a serious eye on public behavior. Everyone has their own point of view on privacy vs order but it is a stand the government of Singapore has made and the country seems to have reaped some rewards. And nearly everyone, especially those with young families, seems to enjoy the safety and security the city-country provides.

In contrast, the chaos in India has encouraged jugaad. Yes, as a widespread culture, jugaad is not desirable. But, India’s hustle energy is actually a huge positive when it comes to starting up. That is where Singapore and its founders may need to adapt to drive a startup culture where safety and security may need to give way to jugaad and increased risk appetite. Although founders build and design world-class products from Singapore, I think there may be a need for a more adventurous hustle.

One big factor working in Singapore’s favor is that it is home to major MNCs including Google, Amazon, Stripe, Microsoft, and many others. That clears the path for startups to approach enterprises. The challenge? Hiring is still difficult in Singapore. Talent is not only expensive, it is also really hard to find. This, is despite some of the best talent from India having moved there. And getting visas to import talent, especially for mid-tier roles, is still, I believe, a major challenge.

But there’s one muscle Singapore has, which it should build on — design. It has some of the best design minds in the world. From the way their buildings are constructed to the UI of their apps, they build the best-looking products.

The case for community

Founders and senior operators get together often but the camaraderie seems to still be in its infancy. That collegial atmosphere you want, of everyone agreeing to pay it forward and grow together — the sort of tribal knowledge we routinely share in India is yet to be widespread. There are some very interesting communities that are around such as SEA Founders, which have been doing some great work to help founders scale their companies in the region. But founders still need help with questions like when to build a product, how to start selling, when to sell to Southeast Asia, and when to go to the US. If this were a business-use case, I would say there is space in the market for many such communities, especially high-impact ones such as SaaSBoomi.

In India, we already have the kind of community where founders share their deepest playbook with others. Thanks to founders such as Girish, Freshworks, who are generous about giving their learnings to others, we regularly have roundtable discussions. The last one we did went on for five whole hours. Imagine the value early-stage entrepreneurs get from that — totally unmatched.

For scale, you need to think like a Zoho or a Freshworks. In the early days, these companies had started with the US and not looked at India as a market. That’s an advantage the Indian SaaS companies had.

Another advantage India had was that it was a base for ITES companies which meant we were building early on. That gave India an advantage for talent and building. The presence of MNCs including Yahoo and Adobe really shaped the product management success stories we saw coming out of the country — Flipkart and InMobi, for instance.

Singapore is going through the same growing pains Indian companies did a few years ago. Some companies are trying to craft US GTM strategies from Southeast Asia. Others are trying to sell products that work in Singapore.

To diagnose this better, I asked a few founders what’s missing. And one reason seems to be that companies are still looking at Southeast Asia as one market, their first market. The problem with that is it stops them from considering the US market from the very beginning. Building for Southeast Asia (with its diverse countries, regulations, languages etc.) is very different from building something global from Day 1.

Funding is a challenge there as well. It’s easier to get angel and seed money but early-stage capital is still difficult to procure. And this not just because of the current economic climate, this challenge predates the pandemic too.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Our first Roundtable with Vengat from Klenty at the Kula office[/caption]

But there’s a lot going for Singapore

So far, Singapore has shown it has the DNA for building terrific consumer app companies. You have a success story in Grab, Sea, or PropertyGuru for example (all IPOed). But what Singapore does not (yet) have a track record for is building companies with magnitude in B2B SaaS. There are a few companies with serious scale coming out of the country such as Patsnap, Acronis, and Biofourmis, among others. There is space for many more. And for any ecosystem (and my focus is on SaaS) at the stage that Singapore is in, it really does need that to fuel the next wave of growth.

Singapore is on the precipice of doing something interesting. It has a mix of MNCs, which have sales offices in the region, and the likes of Stripe, which don’t have a product management set-up there. Everyone starts from scratch and figures out how to build on it. Singapore does have companies such as Persistent which have always built products but only for international customers. One of the reasons Singapore is special is because it is a melting pot of people from across the world. There are founders and executives from the US, the UK, Europe, China, India, Australia, you name it, there’s around. This type of diversity in thought, experiences, and ideas has the ability to create world-class products and companies.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] SaaSBoomi Social in Singapore[/caption]

Support from the government

Stepping into BLK71, you can’t help but be in awe of the favorable conditions that the government provides to startups. This is the tech startup hub of Singapore, where more than 500 startups are incubated, with easy access to space and support. There are striking blue building blocks with 100 companies each — IoT, hardware, climate tech, you name it. You have to applaud this sort of infrastructure.

Do you know how India is trying to support manufacturing with PLI? Singapore is trying to do that with startups. Because of the size of the country, the government works like a private organization. Among one of its ecosystem-boosting schemes is the SMEs Go Digital Transformation Programme, where SMEs are encouraged to buy software to get digital-ready.

Lasting impressions

I have had my fair share of global travels, but I have to say I was singularly impressed by the urban planning and upkeep in Singapore. Everything is clean and green. Cables don’t crisscross in the skyline, they are all concealed underground. Plants cover the outside and inside of structures. I spotted century-old heritage trees, and drove past futuristic ‘Supertree Groves’.

My personal favourite moment was at the Tintin store where I got to relive my childhood among all the colourful comics and posters. As I mentioned earlier in this post, you don’t really get a chance to miss India. There are a lot of diaspora Indians and a lot of Tamil migrants who work in construction. There is also Little India, with scores of shops just like the ones in the markets of Chennai or Bangalore. Singapore is also the first country outside India where I have seen so many temples.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] The famous TinTin store in Singapore[/caption]

An ecosystem is brewing, lah!

Everyone I met on this journey was exceptionally warm. We arranged a social meetup where people could come and experience SaaSBoomi and they welcomed it. This was the most heartening learning of the journey. People have been waiting for it to come and add our energy to the ecosystem in Southeast Asia.

It became clear to me on this trip that this is also an ecosystem where we can give back. We are learning from our activities in the US as people share their learnings there. Singapore, and Southeast Asia, is an ecosystem where we can really help shape how founders build and scale SaaS products. It is our responsibility and this will not just be something we do by Indians for Indians. It will be a community for SaaS founders, by SaaS founders — whatever your origins may be. Everyone will be more than welcome.

It has been less than 2 weeks since I returned from Singapore and my inbox is full of requests from across Singapore to build a community. Founders from Indonesia and Vietnam are writing in too. I traveled to a place that is familiar yet distinctive and came back from one that is full of collaborative possibilities. What we want is to build a community for everyone so that everyone can win.

Special thanks to Krish Sridhar & Naveen Asrani for helping me write this and for walking me through the ways Singapore has grown and evolved. 🙏

" } }

Caravan 2023: Your US GTM field trip

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(9864) "We’re back in the Bay Area with our second edition, and this time the 7-day trip will be even more tactical. How is ‘tactical’ even an advertisement you may ask; and the answer is simple. The world is full of stories of glory and get-rich hacks. All good ideas go to die in the battlefield of tactics and that is exactly where the Caravan comes in. It's not an event; or a function; it is also not a marketing platform. SaaSBoomi is a community; we share common attributes, passions, and goals. We stand by each other and care for each other. We give each other a helping hand. The US arm of that community brings together the diaspora and the founders from India. Most of the big SaaS companies coming out of India succeed in the US-India corridor. So the idea of the Caravan is to bridge the journey of Indian founders into the US and help establish them in the US market. I penned my own story last year; please do give it a read [Read: Your journey into the US market starts here].  The focus at the Caravan is very different from other startup events. Here we have a very low emphasis on panel discussions, hero speeches, and all of that. We zero in on tactical execution.  People don't want the 10 slides on how to become a unicorn. Because no 10 slides can capture how to become a unicorn. They want to understand the hand-to-hand combat tools and techniques they can get today in order to win at product marketing, sales, partnerships, and raising money; those minute little details that separate the winners from the rest.  It’s a different philosophy, different operating mechanism, and different end goal from ‘events’ per se. 

What’s New

At the risk of repetition, this time it’s going to be even more tactical. We have done away with panels and speeches. The absolute focus now is on brass tack tactics. 

We’ll have five full days of workshops after the first evening’s dinner. Only on the seventh day at the summit, we have about two hours of talks. Some mainstage stories still need to be told we reckon. Everything else is workshop style.

Every session is 2-3 hours long, with homework, worksheets, and hands-on practicality. Stuff like, ‘Let's talk about how to negotiate real-time into a deal.’ This is a lesson from the first edition where we observed what founders appreciated the most were the detailed workshops. The second thing we’re changing is opening up US Caravan 2023 to everybody who is involved with building the SaaS ecosystem.  We’re doing something ambitious called Industry Connect. The name is not yet decided, but the idea is to connect startup founders with enterprise CXOs. So we usually teach you to fish; but in this case, we are actually bringing you to the pond itself. For the first time, we’re putting actual economic buyers in front of the US Caravan founders. It will be a two-sided match like in our VC Connect program. We’re aiming to get 50 enterprise executives from the diaspora. Join us if you want to be part of the movement and can help these startups gain a toehold in the US market.

US GTM Focus

SaaSBoomi does a lot of programs related to company-building. That’s not the focus at SaaSBoomi’s US Caravan. Here we get real US specific - moving to the US, brand-building for the US, connecting with US buyers and partners, connecting with US corp dev, connecting with US investors. In short, all the things you can only do sitting in the US.  We've greatly leveraged Indians who've come here, settled down, and made it in some way. All of them - be it founders, investors, or tech execs - have shown a willingness to come and participate in the community. They’re willing to commit their time and effort. Just the other day I WhatsApped the CTO of a very large US brand, who's Indian, inviting him to be involved in the community. And he said, “I'd love to.” Instantly, no questions asked.  Then I spoke to two people who are not Indian about the community, asking them to join us. And they said they would love to come. For them, it's encouraging entrepreneurship. Everyone relates to the cause.

Everyone believes India's moment has arrived in terms of being a product nation and wants to be a part of it. They’re willing to contribute towards a greater goal without putting a premium on ‘What do I get out of it?’ That's pretty unique.

Flywheel of Connections

SaaSBoomi programs are going on 24/7/365. Roundtable playbooks, socials, SGx… Be it the venture debt initiative, be it the mental health initiative, something's always happening. It’s an always-on engagement for founders, not a once-a-year event.  So if you see the WhatsApp group from the 2022 Caravan, people go from strategic stuff to ‘I received a lawsuit’ to how do you hire, or ‘I'm negotiating the final stages of a deal. What do you think?’ All the people who came together at the US Caravan last year, and spent two weeks here in the Bay Area, are still best friends today. And the first phone call for any founder who has a tactical, strategic, business, or emotional issue, is to a peer and a friend. I realized this from the community’s Product Nation camp near Bangalore, which I attended back in 2016. From then to now, all my best startup founder friends are from that cohort. So there is immense value in that which should not be underestimated.  Take, for example, Rakesh Patel, who came as an attendee to the last Caravan. He was helping someone out with website optimization. Two other people got interested in what he was saying. Before you knew it, 10 people were sitting around listening to him.  More and more people started asking him for help. Six months later, he was a speaker at SaaSBoomi Annual. Close to 40 startups have consulted him formally in the past year. Pay it forward; Saasboomi style.

Fill Your US Calendar

So the greatest session at US Caravan 2022 was the session that never happened, which is all the time people spent together. [Read a diary of SaaSBoomi Caravan in Silicon Valley] Someone asked me on Day One, “Why 11 days? You know how expensive it is to be here.” I mulled over this, for I had been in exactly that position not too long ago and replied, “If you want to build a US business, you have to find ways to fill the 11 days in your US calendar.” Two weeks ago, a founder who attended the last Caravan came into my office when we had a meetup of 20 founders, and he said, “I remember your line from last time. Now I get it. Now my calendar is full. I worked hard at making it happen.” 

If you believe the US is your market and this is where you need to sell and grow, and you're sitting in the US with an empty calendar, there's a problem. There's a go-to-market problem for you. There's a connection problem. There's a network problem. You need to fix it. 

The solution is not for you to go back to India saying, ‘OK, at least there my calendar is full.’ You're not going to build your $100 million US business there, right? (Maybe a certain ‘G’ might disagree ;) )  So even the small things, the bonding in the community, the fact that you're here for a week or more, everything adds up to making that program a success. As we look forward to hosting this year’s Caravan with two of the most incredible partners (may I say co-founders?) in Priya Ramachandran and Avinash Harsh; we are filled with hope and excitement. We look forward to seeing founders, execs, investors and all ecosystem enablers come together to make this Caravan a true watershed moment in India SaaS’s unstoppable march globally.  Want to be at the Caravan '23? Click here to apply." ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(9864) "We’re back in the Bay Area with our second edition, and this time the 7-day trip will be even more tactical. How is ‘tactical’ even an advertisement you may ask; and the answer is simple. The world is full of stories of glory and get-rich hacks. All good ideas go to die in the battlefield of tactics and that is exactly where the Caravan comes in. It's not an event; or a function; it is also not a marketing platform. SaaSBoomi is a community; we share common attributes, passions, and goals. We stand by each other and care for each other. We give each other a helping hand. The US arm of that community brings together the diaspora and the founders from India. Most of the big SaaS companies coming out of India succeed in the US-India corridor. So the idea of the Caravan is to bridge the journey of Indian founders into the US and help establish them in the US market. I penned my own story last year; please do give it a read [Read: Your journey into the US market starts here].  The focus at the Caravan is very different from other startup events. Here we have a very low emphasis on panel discussions, hero speeches, and all of that. We zero in on tactical execution.  People don't want the 10 slides on how to become a unicorn. Because no 10 slides can capture how to become a unicorn. They want to understand the hand-to-hand combat tools and techniques they can get today in order to win at product marketing, sales, partnerships, and raising money; those minute little details that separate the winners from the rest.  It’s a different philosophy, different operating mechanism, and different end goal from ‘events’ per se. 

What’s New

At the risk of repetition, this time it’s going to be even more tactical. We have done away with panels and speeches. The absolute focus now is on brass tack tactics. 

We’ll have five full days of workshops after the first evening’s dinner. Only on the seventh day at the summit, we have about two hours of talks. Some mainstage stories still need to be told we reckon. Everything else is workshop style.

Every session is 2-3 hours long, with homework, worksheets, and hands-on practicality. Stuff like, ‘Let's talk about how to negotiate real-time into a deal.’ This is a lesson from the first edition where we observed what founders appreciated the most were the detailed workshops. The second thing we’re changing is opening up US Caravan 2023 to everybody who is involved with building the SaaS ecosystem.  We’re doing something ambitious called Industry Connect. The name is not yet decided, but the idea is to connect startup founders with enterprise CXOs. So we usually teach you to fish; but in this case, we are actually bringing you to the pond itself. For the first time, we’re putting actual economic buyers in front of the US Caravan founders. It will be a two-sided match like in our VC Connect program. We’re aiming to get 50 enterprise executives from the diaspora. Join us if you want to be part of the movement and can help these startups gain a toehold in the US market.

US GTM Focus

SaaSBoomi does a lot of programs related to company-building. That’s not the focus at SaaSBoomi’s US Caravan. Here we get real US specific - moving to the US, brand-building for the US, connecting with US buyers and partners, connecting with US corp dev, connecting with US investors. In short, all the things you can only do sitting in the US.  We've greatly leveraged Indians who've come here, settled down, and made it in some way. All of them - be it founders, investors, or tech execs - have shown a willingness to come and participate in the community. They’re willing to commit their time and effort. Just the other day I WhatsApped the CTO of a very large US brand, who's Indian, inviting him to be involved in the community. And he said, “I'd love to.” Instantly, no questions asked.  Then I spoke to two people who are not Indian about the community, asking them to join us. And they said they would love to come. For them, it's encouraging entrepreneurship. Everyone relates to the cause.

Everyone believes India's moment has arrived in terms of being a product nation and wants to be a part of it. They’re willing to contribute towards a greater goal without putting a premium on ‘What do I get out of it?’ That's pretty unique.

Flywheel of Connections

SaaSBoomi programs are going on 24/7/365. Roundtable playbooks, socials, SGx… Be it the venture debt initiative, be it the mental health initiative, something's always happening. It’s an always-on engagement for founders, not a once-a-year event.  So if you see the WhatsApp group from the 2022 Caravan, people go from strategic stuff to ‘I received a lawsuit’ to how do you hire, or ‘I'm negotiating the final stages of a deal. What do you think?’ All the people who came together at the US Caravan last year, and spent two weeks here in the Bay Area, are still best friends today. And the first phone call for any founder who has a tactical, strategic, business, or emotional issue, is to a peer and a friend. I realized this from the community’s Product Nation camp near Bangalore, which I attended back in 2016. From then to now, all my best startup founder friends are from that cohort. So there is immense value in that which should not be underestimated.  Take, for example, Rakesh Patel, who came as an attendee to the last Caravan. He was helping someone out with website optimization. Two other people got interested in what he was saying. Before you knew it, 10 people were sitting around listening to him.  More and more people started asking him for help. Six months later, he was a speaker at SaaSBoomi Annual. Close to 40 startups have consulted him formally in the past year. Pay it forward; Saasboomi style.

Fill Your US Calendar

So the greatest session at US Caravan 2022 was the session that never happened, which is all the time people spent together. [Read a diary of SaaSBoomi Caravan in Silicon Valley] Someone asked me on Day One, “Why 11 days? You know how expensive it is to be here.” I mulled over this, for I had been in exactly that position not too long ago and replied, “If you want to build a US business, you have to find ways to fill the 11 days in your US calendar.” Two weeks ago, a founder who attended the last Caravan came into my office when we had a meetup of 20 founders, and he said, “I remember your line from last time. Now I get it. Now my calendar is full. I worked hard at making it happen.” 

If you believe the US is your market and this is where you need to sell and grow, and you're sitting in the US with an empty calendar, there's a problem. There's a go-to-market problem for you. There's a connection problem. There's a network problem. You need to fix it. 

The solution is not for you to go back to India saying, ‘OK, at least there my calendar is full.’ You're not going to build your $100 million US business there, right? (Maybe a certain ‘G’ might disagree ;) )  So even the small things, the bonding in the community, the fact that you're here for a week or more, everything adds up to making that program a success. As we look forward to hosting this year’s Caravan with two of the most incredible partners (may I say co-founders?) in Priya Ramachandran and Avinash Harsh; we are filled with hope and excitement. We look forward to seeing founders, execs, investors and all ecosystem enablers come together to make this Caravan a true watershed moment in India SaaS’s unstoppable march globally.  Want to be at the Caravan '23? Click here to apply." } }

The secret to a good community

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Over the past few years, the world is going through an interesting time. Business models have been challenged, the way we think about growth is changing and that means the way we build our companies has to evolve as well.

Recently, we’ve seen a few interesting community-led companies bloom. Hubspot, Figma, and Duolingo are three examples of startups that have been able to scale in part due to their vibrant community. At SaaSBoomi, we have been curating communities for a few years. This has led to a question that I often get asked by founders: How do I build a community?

The answer to this is volunteers. These are individuals who like Arjun, have eyes on the eye of the fish: the cause. They work tirelessly without need for personal validation or recognition. A good volunteer rarely asks what the community can do for them, and focuses on what they can do for the community.

Still, I think there is at least one thing the community can and must do for its volunteers: Identify and use their skills efficiently.

Finding good volunteers is also about knowing who is not right for your community. I have worked in community building for more than a decade and met every kind of volunteer in that period — the all-rounders, the pinch hitters, the fast learners, and the dark horses. Who is right for your community depends on what motivations a prospective volunteer brings and what contributions the community needs at that moment.

That is all easier said than done. So I am putting down a playbook that has brought us the most success while building a volunteer network.

#1 Read people.

Like all great skills, the ability to read people develops with practice. For anyone building a community, getting a sense of potential volunteers is essential.

Volunteering is very special. I have this feeling when I meet people and if I can feel selflessness, I know they’re the right fit. The purest of pure volunteers work for a cause and not so that their companies or their personal brand benefits. Someone who is the purest of the pure volunteers is Krish of Chargebee. For him, it’s all about impact.

I usually begin by interviewing them at length. Understand what brings someone to your community, what they want to contribute to it, and how they see their involvement progressing. That will help you recognize the most useful distinction there is in prospective volunteers.

#2 Identify motivation.

Is the person you want to bring in a giver or a taker? There are people who are always looking for what others can offer them. These folks will attach strings even before they have actually started working with you. If someone is asking “What’s in it for me?”, it is a sign that they are takers. They may not yet be ready for volunteering yet.

With givers, it is the opposite thought process. They think of what others need from them, they want to contribute. For them, the process is the reward. Unlike takers, who will be hungry for credit, givers are not hung up on having their photo or name splashed across everything they do.

Someone who genuinely cares and doesn’t bring the baggage of expectations gains in the long term in the form of goodwill and social capital. In a networked world, that is everything.

#3 Give volunteers tasks.

Before onboarding people, I like to give them a small assignment. How passionately they do it tells me what kind of volunteer they will be. This also helps prevent any complacency. You don’t want someone to be laid back because they got the volunteer badge without having to earn it.

Let’s call this initiation ritual the balloon test. You know how when you throw a party, your friends pitch in by running tasks? You might ask one of them to bring balloons and decorate the venue with them. It is an uncomplicated assignment but it needs to be done well.

So when you bring in new volunteers, give them little things to do — in other words, let them be a ‘balloon volunteer’ — and assess their enthusiasm. How they do the task also tells you what their core assets are.

#4 Who is good at what?

It is important to know what everyone is good at so that you can leverage each person’s strengths for the community.

I spotted early on, for example, that one of our volunteers was an exceptionally talented writer. So I recruited him to help us with documenting and defining the culture of the space. He went on to write the entire volunteer code of ethics for the community.

Are they passionate about web development, social media, and event management? Having them fill out details of what experience they have and what areas they want to be involved in can also help you match them with particular tasks and test out their abilities.

#5 Take calculated risks

Some people will surprise you. For a community event, I needed to plan a hike. It was last minute and I took a chance on someone I had met during the event activities who had shown interest in getting involved. Sometimes, you just have to go with your intuition.

Even though it was her first time volunteering, she started taking care of things as soon as we added her to the WhatsApp group. Not only did she come up with multiple trails and select one that would work best, but she also planned every other detail, gave thorough directions, and brought snacks. I could not think of anyone who would have done a better job on such short notice.

Not everyone gets it right in the first attempt. Evaluate whether it is worthwhile offering a second chance. I worked with a volunteer once who was eager for results. He got very pushy, calling members of the community out-of-hours without notice. In fact, people told me they would not participate if he was participating. But a year later, he returned to volunteer. Based on past experience, I was not sure but another member of the community vouched for him. I started him off on small tasks, but he quickly learned from feedback and did exceptionally well.

Betting on people makes them feel empowered. These are your diamonds in the rough. Pretty soon, they become dependable volunteers who can execute events end-to-end, with only a simple brief from you.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] From the recent Volunteer Offsite[/caption]

#6 Some bets fail

At times, I have been so sure a volunteer will be a great fit but found that the collaboration just does not work out as I hoped. In general, I think even 7 or 8 successes out of 10 is a good number for a community. One thing you should do is consider why the volunteer is failing. Did they lose steam? If they still have the intent, you can motivate them to act. If they don’t it would be unfair to other volunteers who actually work for impact.

At the end of the day, finding the right volunteer is instinct and process. Both work. A good mix of both will more often get you a high success rate when identifying your next champion.

But as someone curating the community, there’s one thing you’ll have to do. Put aside your ego. If there was one thing you could do, it should be that. Those are the table stakes. I often direct founders, community creators, and VCs who are trying to build a community to my favorite JRD Tata quote.

“If I have any merit, it is getting along with individuals, according to their ways and characteristics. At times it involves suppressing yourself. It is painful, but necessary. To be a leader you have got to lead human beings with affection.”

If you can give them the love and patience to be heard, they will find deeper connections to the cause. The deeper the connection, the more refined the ideas, and the more you have those deep ideas.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(15457) "

Over the past few years, the world is going through an interesting time. Business models have been challenged, the way we think about growth is changing and that means the way we build our companies has to evolve as well.

Recently, we’ve seen a few interesting community-led companies bloom. Hubspot, Figma, and Duolingo are three examples of startups that have been able to scale in part due to their vibrant community. At SaaSBoomi, we have been curating communities for a few years. This has led to a question that I often get asked by founders: How do I build a community?

The answer to this is volunteers. These are individuals who like Arjun, have eyes on the eye of the fish: the cause. They work tirelessly without need for personal validation or recognition. A good volunteer rarely asks what the community can do for them, and focuses on what they can do for the community.

Still, I think there is at least one thing the community can and must do for its volunteers: Identify and use their skills efficiently.

Finding good volunteers is also about knowing who is not right for your community. I have worked in community building for more than a decade and met every kind of volunteer in that period — the all-rounders, the pinch hitters, the fast learners, and the dark horses. Who is right for your community depends on what motivations a prospective volunteer brings and what contributions the community needs at that moment.

That is all easier said than done. So I am putting down a playbook that has brought us the most success while building a volunteer network.

#1 Read people.

Like all great skills, the ability to read people develops with practice. For anyone building a community, getting a sense of potential volunteers is essential.

Volunteering is very special. I have this feeling when I meet people and if I can feel selflessness, I know they’re the right fit. The purest of pure volunteers work for a cause and not so that their companies or their personal brand benefits. Someone who is the purest of the pure volunteers is Krish of Chargebee. For him, it’s all about impact.

I usually begin by interviewing them at length. Understand what brings someone to your community, what they want to contribute to it, and how they see their involvement progressing. That will help you recognize the most useful distinction there is in prospective volunteers.

#2 Identify motivation.

Is the person you want to bring in a giver or a taker? There are people who are always looking for what others can offer them. These folks will attach strings even before they have actually started working with you. If someone is asking “What’s in it for me?”, it is a sign that they are takers. They may not yet be ready for volunteering yet.

With givers, it is the opposite thought process. They think of what others need from them, they want to contribute. For them, the process is the reward. Unlike takers, who will be hungry for credit, givers are not hung up on having their photo or name splashed across everything they do.

Someone who genuinely cares and doesn’t bring the baggage of expectations gains in the long term in the form of goodwill and social capital. In a networked world, that is everything.

#3 Give volunteers tasks.

Before onboarding people, I like to give them a small assignment. How passionately they do it tells me what kind of volunteer they will be. This also helps prevent any complacency. You don’t want someone to be laid back because they got the volunteer badge without having to earn it.

Let’s call this initiation ritual the balloon test. You know how when you throw a party, your friends pitch in by running tasks? You might ask one of them to bring balloons and decorate the venue with them. It is an uncomplicated assignment but it needs to be done well.

So when you bring in new volunteers, give them little things to do — in other words, let them be a ‘balloon volunteer’ — and assess their enthusiasm. How they do the task also tells you what their core assets are.

#4 Who is good at what?

It is important to know what everyone is good at so that you can leverage each person’s strengths for the community.

I spotted early on, for example, that one of our volunteers was an exceptionally talented writer. So I recruited him to help us with documenting and defining the culture of the space. He went on to write the entire volunteer code of ethics for the community.

Are they passionate about web development, social media, and event management? Having them fill out details of what experience they have and what areas they want to be involved in can also help you match them with particular tasks and test out their abilities.

#5 Take calculated risks

Some people will surprise you. For a community event, I needed to plan a hike. It was last minute and I took a chance on someone I had met during the event activities who had shown interest in getting involved. Sometimes, you just have to go with your intuition.

Even though it was her first time volunteering, she started taking care of things as soon as we added her to the WhatsApp group. Not only did she come up with multiple trails and select one that would work best, but she also planned every other detail, gave thorough directions, and brought snacks. I could not think of anyone who would have done a better job on such short notice.

Not everyone gets it right in the first attempt. Evaluate whether it is worthwhile offering a second chance. I worked with a volunteer once who was eager for results. He got very pushy, calling members of the community out-of-hours without notice. In fact, people told me they would not participate if he was participating. But a year later, he returned to volunteer. Based on past experience, I was not sure but another member of the community vouched for him. I started him off on small tasks, but he quickly learned from feedback and did exceptionally well.

Betting on people makes them feel empowered. These are your diamonds in the rough. Pretty soon, they become dependable volunteers who can execute events end-to-end, with only a simple brief from you.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] From the recent Volunteer Offsite[/caption]

#6 Some bets fail

At times, I have been so sure a volunteer will be a great fit but found that the collaboration just does not work out as I hoped. In general, I think even 7 or 8 successes out of 10 is a good number for a community. One thing you should do is consider why the volunteer is failing. Did they lose steam? If they still have the intent, you can motivate them to act. If they don’t it would be unfair to other volunteers who actually work for impact.

At the end of the day, finding the right volunteer is instinct and process. Both work. A good mix of both will more often get you a high success rate when identifying your next champion.

But as someone curating the community, there’s one thing you’ll have to do. Put aside your ego. If there was one thing you could do, it should be that. Those are the table stakes. I often direct founders, community creators, and VCs who are trying to build a community to my favorite JRD Tata quote.

“If I have any merit, it is getting along with individuals, according to their ways and characteristics. At times it involves suppressing yourself. It is painful, but necessary. To be a leader you have got to lead human beings with affection.”

If you can give them the love and patience to be heard, they will find deeper connections to the cause. The deeper the connection, the more refined the ideas, and the more you have those deep ideas.

" } }

Re-thinking enterprise SaaS marketing | BTS E4 – Nivedha Sridhar, Facilio

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Guest Background

Nivedha Sridhar is a Director of Marketing at Facilio, which builds property operations software for large enterprises. They manage 60M sqft across 500 buildings and are headquartered in New York with offices in Dubai, Chennai, UK, Italy, and Australia. Previously Nivedha was a product marketer at Zoho.

Evolution of Facilio org chart

• Facilio was clear about having marketing from day 1. Being a new niche category with no playbook for enterprise SaaS marketing, the type of person they needed was one who could experiment and figure out what works.
• The org chart was driven by the company's objectives, which included 1) demand generation, 2) revenue, and 3) brand and community.
• Hiring a product marketing specialist relatively early was driven by the need for the right positioning and story. Once you have a foot in the door in the enterprise space, you need to build out the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
• They didn't focus on SEO / SEM / organic search since it was a new category with low search volume. Instead, they focused on direct traffic, events, communities, and content.

Category awareness and urgency matrix

• Urgency = opportunity cost of not adopting a solution
• Awareness = of both the pain points and alternatives available
• Low-urgency, Low-awareness: difficult to play in this space
• High-urgency, High-awareness: SEO + SEM
• Facilio was mid-awareness and mid-urgency and needed to increase that. They did that through media, third-party associates, events, and content. They also leveraged the fintech tailwind.

Figuring out ICP in the early days

• They zeroed in on the ideal customer profile (ICP) through customer events, including webinars, events, and video interviews with prospects and customers. A lot of face-to-face interactions. Commercial buildings were the most lucrative segment but team structure varies a lot, so they still had to figure out the different buying personas.
• The company's matrix of "why buy, why buy now, and why buy us" helped them identify the best-fit customers – the ones with shorter sales cycles, more value, and the ability to show a win to their manager.
• The customer events happened after finding PMF; they weren't tied to a particular customer count. They realized that 1) their customers were active on social media, and 2) had a wealth of knowledge but no place to share and learn, so they created a forum/outlet for that, which ended up exceeded their expectations. Each event had about 110-120 customers.

How Facilio got their first few customers

• The average sales cycle is 6-8 months, average ACV is about $100k.
• First customers came through inbound (aggressive media) + channel partnerships targeting the who's who of real estate and getting their attention.
• The focus was on the Middle East due to its proximity, and maturity of infrastructure and customers
• Building and getting feedback went hand in hand, though they had about 80% of the product built when they reached out.
• Took ~1.5 years to find PMF.

Why inbound vs more traditional outbound?

• It's about empathizing with the customer. 1) We had a story to tell during our outreach and we wanted to build grandeur around the story, 2) There was no knowledge forum for customers to share and learn without getting vendor pitches or demo requests.
• Also created an experimental report in 2019, which exceeded expectations. One $60k customer came in through that, which gave them early signs this strategy could work.

• Content was created from interviews with industry participants.
• 3 types of content: 1) Inspirational / thought-leadership, 2) Educational / long-form, 3) Execution-focused (tutorials, best practices etc).
• “Having software that works for people rather than people working around the software” became the central message that we amplified.
• Used different channels / publications in different regions. Built 8k-9k email list from these channels, which saw repeated downloads & engagement from direct reachouts.

Hunting for whales

• Even though incumbents have existing relationships with customers, people know software is the next 10 years, so hardware shops have difficulty getting into this space, and mostly repurpose their existing stuff which doesn’t work well.
• Eng strength is their secret sauce.
• Customers are skeptical, “Can you actually do X?”, so their website shows a lot of screens that put the product in front of people as much as possible.
• It's essential to map the product to actual value for users as well, which would depend on whether you're replacing or complementing incumbents. Everyone wants valuable documents since they want to look good in front of their boss.
• Lots of stakeholders are involved and you have to work with all of them for a successful sale. Executive sponsor, key decision maker, hands-on practitioners, CEO, etc.
• They didn't have a Gartner/Forrester category, so focused on real-estate-focused funds to build credibility.

Watch the whole episode here: https://youtu.be/54pxS2bGeCQ?feature=shared

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Guest Background

Nivedha Sridhar is a Director of Marketing at Facilio, which builds property operations software for large enterprises. They manage 60M sqft across 500 buildings and are headquartered in New York with offices in Dubai, Chennai, UK, Italy, and Australia. Previously Nivedha was a product marketer at Zoho.

Evolution of Facilio org chart

• Facilio was clear about having marketing from day 1. Being a new niche category with no playbook for enterprise SaaS marketing, the type of person they needed was one who could experiment and figure out what works.
• The org chart was driven by the company's objectives, which included 1) demand generation, 2) revenue, and 3) brand and community.
• Hiring a product marketing specialist relatively early was driven by the need for the right positioning and story. Once you have a foot in the door in the enterprise space, you need to build out the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
• They didn't focus on SEO / SEM / organic search since it was a new category with low search volume. Instead, they focused on direct traffic, events, communities, and content.

Category awareness and urgency matrix

• Urgency = opportunity cost of not adopting a solution
• Awareness = of both the pain points and alternatives available
• Low-urgency, Low-awareness: difficult to play in this space
• High-urgency, High-awareness: SEO + SEM
• Facilio was mid-awareness and mid-urgency and needed to increase that. They did that through media, third-party associates, events, and content. They also leveraged the fintech tailwind.

Figuring out ICP in the early days

• They zeroed in on the ideal customer profile (ICP) through customer events, including webinars, events, and video interviews with prospects and customers. A lot of face-to-face interactions. Commercial buildings were the most lucrative segment but team structure varies a lot, so they still had to figure out the different buying personas.
• The company's matrix of "why buy, why buy now, and why buy us" helped them identify the best-fit customers – the ones with shorter sales cycles, more value, and the ability to show a win to their manager.
• The customer events happened after finding PMF; they weren't tied to a particular customer count. They realized that 1) their customers were active on social media, and 2) had a wealth of knowledge but no place to share and learn, so they created a forum/outlet for that, which ended up exceeded their expectations. Each event had about 110-120 customers.

How Facilio got their first few customers

• The average sales cycle is 6-8 months, average ACV is about $100k.
• First customers came through inbound (aggressive media) + channel partnerships targeting the who's who of real estate and getting their attention.
• The focus was on the Middle East due to its proximity, and maturity of infrastructure and customers
• Building and getting feedback went hand in hand, though they had about 80% of the product built when they reached out.
• Took ~1.5 years to find PMF.

Why inbound vs more traditional outbound?

• It's about empathizing with the customer. 1) We had a story to tell during our outreach and we wanted to build grandeur around the story, 2) There was no knowledge forum for customers to share and learn without getting vendor pitches or demo requests.
• Also created an experimental report in 2019, which exceeded expectations. One $60k customer came in through that, which gave them early signs this strategy could work.

• Content was created from interviews with industry participants.
• 3 types of content: 1) Inspirational / thought-leadership, 2) Educational / long-form, 3) Execution-focused (tutorials, best practices etc).
• “Having software that works for people rather than people working around the software” became the central message that we amplified.
• Used different channels / publications in different regions. Built 8k-9k email list from these channels, which saw repeated downloads & engagement from direct reachouts.

Hunting for whales

• Even though incumbents have existing relationships with customers, people know software is the next 10 years, so hardware shops have difficulty getting into this space, and mostly repurpose their existing stuff which doesn’t work well.
• Eng strength is their secret sauce.
• Customers are skeptical, “Can you actually do X?”, so their website shows a lot of screens that put the product in front of people as much as possible.
• It's essential to map the product to actual value for users as well, which would depend on whether you're replacing or complementing incumbents. Everyone wants valuable documents since they want to look good in front of their boss.
• Lots of stakeholders are involved and you have to work with all of them for a successful sale. Executive sponsor, key decision maker, hands-on practitioners, CEO, etc.
• They didn't have a Gartner/Forrester category, so focused on real-estate-focused funds to build credibility.

Watch the whole episode here: https://youtu.be/54pxS2bGeCQ?feature=shared

" } }

SaaSBoomi Annual ’23: A Ground Zero Report

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(8236) "As with everything, SaaSBoomi Annual 2023 preparations started for me around the end of November, with a call from Avinash asking if I'd like to volunteer to steer the logistics of the conference. None of us, including Avi, had the slightest sense that it was going to be a giant conference. From 350-odd participants in 2022, we jumped to ~1100 in 2023. Everyone in SaaS from everywhere was in Madras, all at once. Even MS Dhoni paced the floor at Leela catching a glimpse of the phenomenon. 2023 Annual is one where we experience the 'expand' part of 'land and expand' up close.

[caption id="attachment_5854" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Dhoni at Leela[/caption] Talking of MSD, Ashwini who leads the diversity initiative for SaaSBoomi knocked it out of the stadium. One of the highlights for me was the luncheon with a room full of women founders. The thoughtfully curated luncheon allowed for the program team of SaaSBoomi, volunteers, and women founders to have meaningful interactions and more importantly, follow-throughs. A few women leaders will lead Indian SaaS and that luncheon would have started the movement, looking back.

[caption id="attachment_5856" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Women's Luncheon[/caption]

In Chennai, when it rains, it pours. I am not referring to the rains that moved the dinner indoors, but the sixers that Rakesh Patel knocked out with his SEO session. Until then, standing ovations were reserved for the 'bare-it-all' coaching Girish would give every year to the smitten founders that followed him. Rakesh played it to the gallery and we were all too indulgent and throwing the balls back at him.

[caption id="attachment_5857" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Rakesh on the stage with people throwing stress balls at him - SEO workshop![/caption]

80% of the crowd had come to SaaSBoomi Annual for the first time. That's an 80% new audience acquisition milestone for the late-night show hosted by Vinod and Ashish. Sirs, you have a glorious hit on your hands, should you decide to host such a show even if we count only fans from the SaaS crowd.

I heard Pallav Nadani was there too but I hardly saw him. He probably was in spirited conversations. Pallav, I wake up early. I should join the 4 AM existential conversations. Your winding down energy will still be better than my rested brain, I am told.

See, beyond the sessions, what makes SaaSBoomi tick, is the rubbing of shoulders over a roast session and long conversations that lead to the dawn. Everyone is accessible and willing to have a chat — without judging or condescending. Everyone pays it forward. Everyone is on a play date for those two days.

I thoroughly enjoyed many sessions. The SEO session, the McKinsey report, the PLG playbook, the product marketing deep-dive (ahem!), and the M&A sessions were my favorites. I missed some really good ones though. Talking of the M&A session, a big shout out to Shruti Kapoor for being the first women-founder-led SaaS exit. Also, a whole lot of credit to Nishanth Malhotra, and Shruti Kapoor for anchoring the M&A clinic. The pilot was successful and we will do more of it.

In SaaSBoomi this year, we did several experiments. The M&A clinic was one. We put out networking badges. The registration workflow was meticulously designed. The 'triple-A' team of Ankit Dudhwewala, Abhishek Bhallab, and Anirudh Gopinath had to double up as benevolent bouncers who were later all too keen to take the event to everyone we could physically accommodate. We finally had >1140 people attending. The Adalaj stepwell in Gujarat that Rakesh Bhai and Ankit Bhai took us around to, also set the tone for how we would like to welcome guests to the city. 

So we planned a heritage walk at the unholy hour of 6 AM. Yet, it was embraced better than anyone on the volunteer team could have imagined. So much so that, we did a follow-on walk the next day to another part of the city. We highlighted a few promising, upcoming SaaS companies through the SaaS Pilot. The pilot is ready to move to production mode, thanks to how many meaningful interactions the participants got out of the pilot.

[caption id="attachment_5860" align="aligncenter" width="2560"] Heritage Walk[/caption]

Personally, for me, there were some lessons for how to do it better next time. We need a stadium to accommodate the people. There is a new one in town, are we getting it? I thought the times are tough and we need a lot of motivation. Turns out, the best motivator is people who have been there and done that showing how it is done. Founders are innately positive. As many experienced founders said, if you are under $5M MRR, the market conditions do not matter. The appetite to learn and share was incredible.

We also need to acknowledge that we are maturing as an ecosystem. That means separate all-day-long tracks for different stages of companies. We need to do more 'hands-on' workshops. We need more playbook reveals. I hear the swag, especially, the mug was a hit. I did unfair coercing to get my way around it, with Avinash. So it better be good :).

[caption id="attachment_5861" align="aligncenter" width="900"] SWAG from the conference![/caption]

During the run-up to the event, we had several weekends of prep motions. We huddled to execute all these weeks and have emerged with strong bonds – enough to make the coming year's planning and execution smooth sailing. Did you know Chennai has a vibrant surfing scene? Yet we have not done events in the waters. What say, Avi? It was inspirational to see how many volunteers defied sleep cycles, personal battles, and ego – all because of the common cause of making India, the SaaS nation.

As someone who naturally gravitates towards community-building, what makes SaaSBoomi special is a common purpose (Making India a trillion-dollar SaaS megalith) framed as a selfless movement (Pay it forward), carried forward with religious fervor.

My religion is food. Varun Shoor put this well. The standard of sambar set by Ratna cafe and the podi uthappam from Murugan Idly is set so high that he could never go back to accepting mediocre South Indian fare. Isn’t it the same with SaaSBoomi? Varun set the bar for me when it comes to product marketing. Hopefully, I set the bar for someone who crosses paths with me. As we come together as a community, we elevate each other. SaaSBoomi Annual is where we lose every identity except the dual identity of being a giver or a learner — while feeling safely vulnerable.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(8236) "As with everything, SaaSBoomi Annual 2023 preparations started for me around the end of November, with a call from Avinash asking if I'd like to volunteer to steer the logistics of the conference. None of us, including Avi, had the slightest sense that it was going to be a giant conference. From 350-odd participants in 2022, we jumped to ~1100 in 2023. Everyone in SaaS from everywhere was in Madras, all at once. Even MS Dhoni paced the floor at Leela catching a glimpse of the phenomenon. 2023 Annual is one where we experience the 'expand' part of 'land and expand' up close.

[caption id="attachment_5854" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Dhoni at Leela[/caption] Talking of MSD, Ashwini who leads the diversity initiative for SaaSBoomi knocked it out of the stadium. One of the highlights for me was the luncheon with a room full of women founders. The thoughtfully curated luncheon allowed for the program team of SaaSBoomi, volunteers, and women founders to have meaningful interactions and more importantly, follow-throughs. A few women leaders will lead Indian SaaS and that luncheon would have started the movement, looking back.

[caption id="attachment_5856" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Women's Luncheon[/caption]

In Chennai, when it rains, it pours. I am not referring to the rains that moved the dinner indoors, but the sixers that Rakesh Patel knocked out with his SEO session. Until then, standing ovations were reserved for the 'bare-it-all' coaching Girish would give every year to the smitten founders that followed him. Rakesh played it to the gallery and we were all too indulgent and throwing the balls back at him.

[caption id="attachment_5857" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Rakesh on the stage with people throwing stress balls at him - SEO workshop![/caption]

80% of the crowd had come to SaaSBoomi Annual for the first time. That's an 80% new audience acquisition milestone for the late-night show hosted by Vinod and Ashish. Sirs, you have a glorious hit on your hands, should you decide to host such a show even if we count only fans from the SaaS crowd.

I heard Pallav Nadani was there too but I hardly saw him. He probably was in spirited conversations. Pallav, I wake up early. I should join the 4 AM existential conversations. Your winding down energy will still be better than my rested brain, I am told.

See, beyond the sessions, what makes SaaSBoomi tick, is the rubbing of shoulders over a roast session and long conversations that lead to the dawn. Everyone is accessible and willing to have a chat — without judging or condescending. Everyone pays it forward. Everyone is on a play date for those two days.

I thoroughly enjoyed many sessions. The SEO session, the McKinsey report, the PLG playbook, the product marketing deep-dive (ahem!), and the M&A sessions were my favorites. I missed some really good ones though. Talking of the M&A session, a big shout out to Shruti Kapoor for being the first women-founder-led SaaS exit. Also, a whole lot of credit to Nishanth Malhotra, and Shruti Kapoor for anchoring the M&A clinic. The pilot was successful and we will do more of it.

In SaaSBoomi this year, we did several experiments. The M&A clinic was one. We put out networking badges. The registration workflow was meticulously designed. The 'triple-A' team of Ankit Dudhwewala, Abhishek Bhallab, and Anirudh Gopinath had to double up as benevolent bouncers who were later all too keen to take the event to everyone we could physically accommodate. We finally had >1140 people attending. The Adalaj stepwell in Gujarat that Rakesh Bhai and Ankit Bhai took us around to, also set the tone for how we would like to welcome guests to the city. 

So we planned a heritage walk at the unholy hour of 6 AM. Yet, it was embraced better than anyone on the volunteer team could have imagined. So much so that, we did a follow-on walk the next day to another part of the city. We highlighted a few promising, upcoming SaaS companies through the SaaS Pilot. The pilot is ready to move to production mode, thanks to how many meaningful interactions the participants got out of the pilot.

[caption id="attachment_5860" align="aligncenter" width="2560"] Heritage Walk[/caption]

Personally, for me, there were some lessons for how to do it better next time. We need a stadium to accommodate the people. There is a new one in town, are we getting it? I thought the times are tough and we need a lot of motivation. Turns out, the best motivator is people who have been there and done that showing how it is done. Founders are innately positive. As many experienced founders said, if you are under $5M MRR, the market conditions do not matter. The appetite to learn and share was incredible.

We also need to acknowledge that we are maturing as an ecosystem. That means separate all-day-long tracks for different stages of companies. We need to do more 'hands-on' workshops. We need more playbook reveals. I hear the swag, especially, the mug was a hit. I did unfair coercing to get my way around it, with Avinash. So it better be good :).

[caption id="attachment_5861" align="aligncenter" width="900"] SWAG from the conference![/caption]

During the run-up to the event, we had several weekends of prep motions. We huddled to execute all these weeks and have emerged with strong bonds – enough to make the coming year's planning and execution smooth sailing. Did you know Chennai has a vibrant surfing scene? Yet we have not done events in the waters. What say, Avi? It was inspirational to see how many volunteers defied sleep cycles, personal battles, and ego – all because of the common cause of making India, the SaaS nation.

As someone who naturally gravitates towards community-building, what makes SaaSBoomi special is a common purpose (Making India a trillion-dollar SaaS megalith) framed as a selfless movement (Pay it forward), carried forward with religious fervor.

My religion is food. Varun Shoor put this well. The standard of sambar set by Ratna cafe and the podi uthappam from Murugan Idly is set so high that he could never go back to accepting mediocre South Indian fare. Isn’t it the same with SaaSBoomi? Varun set the bar for me when it comes to product marketing. Hopefully, I set the bar for someone who crosses paths with me. As we come together as a community, we elevate each other. SaaSBoomi Annual is where we lose every identity except the dual identity of being a giver or a learner — while feeling safely vulnerable.

" } }

The ultimate playbook for hiring after $2m ARR

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(12172) "Disprz raised a bridge round of funding in January this year to go to the next level of scaling its AI-powered learning management and upskilling platform for enterprises. This will bring new challenges in hiring and internationalization. But for CEO and co-founder Subramanian Viswanathan, the inflection point for hiring came between 2019 and 2020, when the eight-year-old startup went from around $1.5 million to $2.5m ARR. It has been doubling its revenue since then, buoyed by a $13 million series B funding round in late 2021, to cross $10m ARR last year. It was in the 2019-2020 phase, when the startup crossed $2m ARR, that Viswanathan began to feel an acute need for new functional heads and an organizational structure. A lot of playbooks are written on the early stages of a startup, from fundraising to finding product-market fit (PMF). But the path gets hazier after that. Viswanathan had to find answers to new questions that arose. Now, in our Founder’s Playbook series, he tells SaaSBOOMi what changed beyond $2m ARR for Disprz and how he coped with change by making eight key hires.

1. Head of enterprise implementation avoids clusterfug

As Disprz grew, it began to sign on larger enterprise customers. Some, like Amazon, had 100,000+ employees. And every employee is a user of the learning platform.  The sheer size of these accounts made it imperative to focus on how the platform is deployed, which is different from working with SMBs where you might get by with a one-size-fits-all approach. With a large enterprise customer, taking your eye off implementation can set you up for a clusterfug. “You can build a very repeatable sales engine, but if your implementations fail, it counts for nothing. So I would urge companies to hire a head of enterprise implementation around the $3-4 million mark. And separate implementation from customer success,” says Viswanathan. “As soon as a sale is closed, implementation should take over and then hand it over to customer success.”

2. Head of customer success is a managerial function

Customers being very demanding is a given in enterprise SaaS. They demand attention, customization, new solutions, et al. “Every customer stretches your roadmap in different directions.” Customer success thus becomes critical. From the very outset, enterprise SaaS requires a strong customer success function with clearly defined roles as to how much revenue and how many accounts a customer success manager (CSM) can support. And, as the company scales, coordinating and managing the CSMs requires a suitable leader.  “You can train people to become CSMs, but it's harder to find someone who can manage a team of CSMs. That's a different skillset,” says Viswanathan. “Early on we hired a VP of customer success, but down the road, we realized it was so important that my co-founder actually doubled up to play the role.”

3. Founder’s office director for strategic initiatives

Scaling a product that has got a foothold in the market can become all-consuming. So, in the $2-3m ARR range, Viswanathan decided to set up a “founder’s office” to ensure new strategic initiatives got as much attention as everyday functions.  “Everybody was neck-deep in implementation. The sales team was busy selling. The product team was busy building. So we needed a founder's office to execute strategic projects, be it codifying data across the company, designing and implementing playbooks, or going to new markets,” he recalls.  Viswanathan himself went to the Indian School of Business (ISB) and the people he hired for the founder’s office were from top-tier business schools. He also had to look outside the organization for the founder’s office director. “Our functional heads did not have the expertise, because a lot of the initiatives are cross-functional. Somebody with a business school background who can appreciate different aspects of a business is better equipped for that role.” The founder’s office freed up bandwidth for the founders and also created new functions. For example, the RevOps function in Disprz, to optimize revenue generation by collaborating across teams, began as an initiative in the founder’s office. The person who led that project later became the head of RevOps.

4. You need multiple products and a director

It’s easy to fall in love with a product that hits the market and watch it grow. But, as Marshall Goldsmith famously put it, “What got you here won’t get you there.” So you need to keep innovating and building new products to avoid becoming stale. Disprz now has multiple products and solutions.  Viswanathan himself has been managing the zero to one journey for a new product, which aligns with his passion. Beyond the stage of product innovation, it goes to developers and product managers.  The ideal number varies from one context to another. In the case of Disprz, Viswanathan felt every group of five developers needed a product manager. And once the number of product managers crossed five, he needed a director of products. In the next cycle of growth, with multiple product directors, a VP of products may be needed.  And again, while a product manager may work well with designers, developers, and engineers to spike functionality, Viswanathan feels the director of product managers requires a different skillset, preferably with a business school background.

5. A head in the cloud

A new requirement that’s emerged on the product side is cloud infrastructure management.  “It has become such a complex topic,” says Viswanathan. “Things like application performance monitoring, information security, cloud cost optimization - managing all of this is a full-time job. So I would start separating out architecture functions from the cloud infrastructure function. I would hire someone or get one of the senior engineering leaders to do this. Once you hit a scale of $4-5 million, you need a dedicated head of cloud infrastructure.

6. Crossing the Dunbar number brings HR head

British anthropologist Robert Dunbar studied how big a group could get before it began to splinter, and his magic number was 150. This has proved remarkably consistent in subsequent research applied to modern societies. In the case of a SaaS company, the Dunbar number is the point beyond which you’re no longer a family where everybody knows everybody directly. Disprz started an HR function when it reached an employee count of 50 and hired an HR head at 175. Once the CEO no longer has one-on-one relationships with everyone in the company, they have to be managed professionally to avert discontent and discord.

7. Get someone who loves to do what most people hate

The popular view of startup culture is to break the rules and think of drawing a line afterward. But this got more complicated as technological compliance became a big issue.  “The whole gamut of ISO 27001, SOC 2, GDPR … Compliance has become a topic by itself, but most people hate to do it,” says Viswanathan. “We were lucky to have somebody for whom that was a passion. Thanks to that person, we are now ISO 27001, GDPR, and SOC 2 compliant. And for enterprise SaaS, that has become table stakes.”

8. Keep investors happy with a corp dev VP

Fundraising is something the founders typically do themselves at the early stages of a startup. But once it raises a series B round and scales beyond $6-7m ARR, this gets too hard to manage. “After our series B round, we had one seed institutional investor, one series A institutional investor, and two institutional investors for series B. And the founders could no longer manage board meetings and investor relations well,” says Viswanathan. “So I would strongly urge hiring a VP of corp dev who can manage the current investors - which means creating data for the board meetings and updating them on a periodic basis - as well as prospect for new investors.” “We are actually in the middle of our series C process. The level of data that the investor today demands, and the level of diligence checks we go through, the founders cannot manage. So the corp dev head can actually do that. And again, that frees you up quite a lot as a founder and CEO.”

Step back and empower

Viswanathan’s entrepreneurial journey goes way back to 2004 when he built an ERP product for SMEs. He spurned an admission to Stanford University to bootstrap the SaaS startup with his industrialist father. But it was hard to sell a software product in the Indian market rife with piracy those days. After two years of struggle, he took up studies at ISB. His startup folded but the product still had customers, and he managed to use his business school network to sell it to an IT services company for $1 million. He worked at McKinsey for a few years after ISB before launching his second startup around 2010. It made software to help teachers use tablets in classrooms. Apple had launched the iPad that year and the Indian government promoted an initiative to digitize classroom education for the masses with low-cost tablets. The failure of this project spelled doom for Viswanathan’s startup. “They went for cost innovation too soon instead of letting the premium segment become early adopters. The tablet wave died and schools went back to using physical textbooks. It's the biggest technological miss of the decade, as I see it,” says Viswanathan. Burnt twice, he made a success of his third venture to manage enterprise learning and upskilling, scaling it to $10m+ ARR. But at heart, Viswanathan remains a product guy with a passion for ideation and innovation.  “What I enjoy doing is product,” he acknowledges. “But, at a particular scale, as a CEO, you can’t enjoy doing one thing. You need broad oversight of everything. So I'm at a stage where I'm doing less and less of what I enjoy. I’m learning to manage a team of leaders as opposed to doing anything myself.” Thus the hiring of leaders for various new functions as Disprz scaled up segues with Viswanathan holding up a mirror to his own role. “I just need to let go. Step back and empower. I’m still a work in progress as far as this is concerned, but it’s important,” he says. “If your reportees create something of their own, they have 100% ownership. It's better that they create something that is 70% perfect according to you, but that has 100% ownership, as opposed to creating something that's 100% perfect but has 50% ownership.”" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(12172) "Disprz raised a bridge round of funding in January this year to go to the next level of scaling its AI-powered learning management and upskilling platform for enterprises. This will bring new challenges in hiring and internationalization. But for CEO and co-founder Subramanian Viswanathan, the inflection point for hiring came between 2019 and 2020, when the eight-year-old startup went from around $1.5 million to $2.5m ARR. It has been doubling its revenue since then, buoyed by a $13 million series B funding round in late 2021, to cross $10m ARR last year. It was in the 2019-2020 phase, when the startup crossed $2m ARR, that Viswanathan began to feel an acute need for new functional heads and an organizational structure. A lot of playbooks are written on the early stages of a startup, from fundraising to finding product-market fit (PMF). But the path gets hazier after that. Viswanathan had to find answers to new questions that arose. Now, in our Founder’s Playbook series, he tells SaaSBOOMi what changed beyond $2m ARR for Disprz and how he coped with change by making eight key hires.

1. Head of enterprise implementation avoids clusterfug

As Disprz grew, it began to sign on larger enterprise customers. Some, like Amazon, had 100,000+ employees. And every employee is a user of the learning platform.  The sheer size of these accounts made it imperative to focus on how the platform is deployed, which is different from working with SMBs where you might get by with a one-size-fits-all approach. With a large enterprise customer, taking your eye off implementation can set you up for a clusterfug. “You can build a very repeatable sales engine, but if your implementations fail, it counts for nothing. So I would urge companies to hire a head of enterprise implementation around the $3-4 million mark. And separate implementation from customer success,” says Viswanathan. “As soon as a sale is closed, implementation should take over and then hand it over to customer success.”

2. Head of customer success is a managerial function

Customers being very demanding is a given in enterprise SaaS. They demand attention, customization, new solutions, et al. “Every customer stretches your roadmap in different directions.” Customer success thus becomes critical. From the very outset, enterprise SaaS requires a strong customer success function with clearly defined roles as to how much revenue and how many accounts a customer success manager (CSM) can support. And, as the company scales, coordinating and managing the CSMs requires a suitable leader.  “You can train people to become CSMs, but it's harder to find someone who can manage a team of CSMs. That's a different skillset,” says Viswanathan. “Early on we hired a VP of customer success, but down the road, we realized it was so important that my co-founder actually doubled up to play the role.”

3. Founder’s office director for strategic initiatives

Scaling a product that has got a foothold in the market can become all-consuming. So, in the $2-3m ARR range, Viswanathan decided to set up a “founder’s office” to ensure new strategic initiatives got as much attention as everyday functions.  “Everybody was neck-deep in implementation. The sales team was busy selling. The product team was busy building. So we needed a founder's office to execute strategic projects, be it codifying data across the company, designing and implementing playbooks, or going to new markets,” he recalls.  Viswanathan himself went to the Indian School of Business (ISB) and the people he hired for the founder’s office were from top-tier business schools. He also had to look outside the organization for the founder’s office director. “Our functional heads did not have the expertise, because a lot of the initiatives are cross-functional. Somebody with a business school background who can appreciate different aspects of a business is better equipped for that role.” The founder’s office freed up bandwidth for the founders and also created new functions. For example, the RevOps function in Disprz, to optimize revenue generation by collaborating across teams, began as an initiative in the founder’s office. The person who led that project later became the head of RevOps.

4. You need multiple products and a director

It’s easy to fall in love with a product that hits the market and watch it grow. But, as Marshall Goldsmith famously put it, “What got you here won’t get you there.” So you need to keep innovating and building new products to avoid becoming stale. Disprz now has multiple products and solutions.  Viswanathan himself has been managing the zero to one journey for a new product, which aligns with his passion. Beyond the stage of product innovation, it goes to developers and product managers.  The ideal number varies from one context to another. In the case of Disprz, Viswanathan felt every group of five developers needed a product manager. And once the number of product managers crossed five, he needed a director of products. In the next cycle of growth, with multiple product directors, a VP of products may be needed.  And again, while a product manager may work well with designers, developers, and engineers to spike functionality, Viswanathan feels the director of product managers requires a different skillset, preferably with a business school background.

5. A head in the cloud

A new requirement that’s emerged on the product side is cloud infrastructure management.  “It has become such a complex topic,” says Viswanathan. “Things like application performance monitoring, information security, cloud cost optimization - managing all of this is a full-time job. So I would start separating out architecture functions from the cloud infrastructure function. I would hire someone or get one of the senior engineering leaders to do this. Once you hit a scale of $4-5 million, you need a dedicated head of cloud infrastructure.

6. Crossing the Dunbar number brings HR head

British anthropologist Robert Dunbar studied how big a group could get before it began to splinter, and his magic number was 150. This has proved remarkably consistent in subsequent research applied to modern societies. In the case of a SaaS company, the Dunbar number is the point beyond which you’re no longer a family where everybody knows everybody directly. Disprz started an HR function when it reached an employee count of 50 and hired an HR head at 175. Once the CEO no longer has one-on-one relationships with everyone in the company, they have to be managed professionally to avert discontent and discord.

7. Get someone who loves to do what most people hate

The popular view of startup culture is to break the rules and think of drawing a line afterward. But this got more complicated as technological compliance became a big issue.  “The whole gamut of ISO 27001, SOC 2, GDPR … Compliance has become a topic by itself, but most people hate to do it,” says Viswanathan. “We were lucky to have somebody for whom that was a passion. Thanks to that person, we are now ISO 27001, GDPR, and SOC 2 compliant. And for enterprise SaaS, that has become table stakes.”

8. Keep investors happy with a corp dev VP

Fundraising is something the founders typically do themselves at the early stages of a startup. But once it raises a series B round and scales beyond $6-7m ARR, this gets too hard to manage. “After our series B round, we had one seed institutional investor, one series A institutional investor, and two institutional investors for series B. And the founders could no longer manage board meetings and investor relations well,” says Viswanathan. “So I would strongly urge hiring a VP of corp dev who can manage the current investors - which means creating data for the board meetings and updating them on a periodic basis - as well as prospect for new investors.” “We are actually in the middle of our series C process. The level of data that the investor today demands, and the level of diligence checks we go through, the founders cannot manage. So the corp dev head can actually do that. And again, that frees you up quite a lot as a founder and CEO.”

Step back and empower

Viswanathan’s entrepreneurial journey goes way back to 2004 when he built an ERP product for SMEs. He spurned an admission to Stanford University to bootstrap the SaaS startup with his industrialist father. But it was hard to sell a software product in the Indian market rife with piracy those days. After two years of struggle, he took up studies at ISB. His startup folded but the product still had customers, and he managed to use his business school network to sell it to an IT services company for $1 million. He worked at McKinsey for a few years after ISB before launching his second startup around 2010. It made software to help teachers use tablets in classrooms. Apple had launched the iPad that year and the Indian government promoted an initiative to digitize classroom education for the masses with low-cost tablets. The failure of this project spelled doom for Viswanathan’s startup. “They went for cost innovation too soon instead of letting the premium segment become early adopters. The tablet wave died and schools went back to using physical textbooks. It's the biggest technological miss of the decade, as I see it,” says Viswanathan. Burnt twice, he made a success of his third venture to manage enterprise learning and upskilling, scaling it to $10m+ ARR. But at heart, Viswanathan remains a product guy with a passion for ideation and innovation.  “What I enjoy doing is product,” he acknowledges. “But, at a particular scale, as a CEO, you can’t enjoy doing one thing. You need broad oversight of everything. So I'm at a stage where I'm doing less and less of what I enjoy. I’m learning to manage a team of leaders as opposed to doing anything myself.” Thus the hiring of leaders for various new functions as Disprz scaled up segues with Viswanathan holding up a mirror to his own role. “I just need to let go. Step back and empower. I’m still a work in progress as far as this is concerned, but it’s important,” he says. “If your reportees create something of their own, they have 100% ownership. It's better that they create something that is 70% perfect according to you, but that has 100% ownership, as opposed to creating something that's 100% perfect but has 50% ownership.”" } }

Homecoming — Going back to my roots of building a Community

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It’s time to write a new chapter

They say that you can learn a lot about a person by observing their behavior in a group setting.

Let’s take the example of a group photo snapped at the end of an event.

Some people gravitate right to the center — people who are boisterous, gregarious, and spotlight-friendly.

Others move to the edges — people who are happy to stand in the shade, introverts, shrinking violets.

Where do I stand, you ask?

Can you spot me?

I love standing as one in the crowd, neither in the center nor at the edges, but somewhere in between — seamlessly weaving myself into the fabric of the community bridging the literal and metaphorical gap between the extroverts in the center and the introverts at the edges.

This is probably why I turned out to be a community builder. Where I can immerse myself, bridge personalities, and build relationships between people of various dispositions.

It is against this backdrop that I would like to announce that I am going back to my roots — taking up a full-time role as CEO at SaaSBoomi, to build and support our wonderful SaaS community.

While I am both nervous and excited about the prospect of going back to community building full-time, I would be remiss if I didn’t share my experiences thus far and explain why I took this decision.

The Product Nation Dream

15 years back, I had a ringside view at NASSCOM’s India Leadership Forum, where Dr. Abdul Kalam spoke passionately about the need for India to go beyond software services and build software products, presciently noting that the true value of our nation’s tech talent could only be captured if we moved up the value chain.

At that time, India was at best seen as an outsourcing hub for services for the west and there was no culture or ambition to build products. Dr. Kalam’s impassioned speech sparked a fire in my own heart — the dream to see India as a “Product Nation”. Other early stalwarts such as Mr. Anil Bakht, CEO of Eastern Software Systems & Sharad Sharma, Founder at iSPIRT helped me to channel my energy and work towards converting this dream to reality, through seminal initiatives such as the NASSCOM Product Conclave.

iSPIRT was Chapter Two of this journey. As our tech ecosystem evolved, the number of ambitious startup founders grew in lockstep; a new generation of dreamers who were ready to take on the world with products built in India.

Personally, it was gratifying to get involved in several catalyzing efforts that strove to weave together this loose band of startup founders into a cohesive community. Early leaders selflessly adopted a “pay it forward” philosophy and shared their lessons and experiences openly and transparently in the role of mentors and volunteers.

And eventually, with SaaSBoomi, these efforts coalesced from an as-needed set of serendipitous activities to a regimented and structured community platform. It also seemed to become much easier to get more founders involved in the mission as the sense of “tribe and community” took root. One of the biggest joys of building India as a ProductNation is that I get to work with many smart founders who give their time and energy, pay it forward, and help other founders.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] From the early days of PNGrowth Bootcamp that we used to do as part of iSPIRT. Some of the companies that have become grown or got an exit today were part of the program[/caption]

Over the past decade, our ecosystem of SaaS founders and operators has grown several times — from humble beginnings, we have now become a global force.

And mirroring the Indian SaaS ecosystem, I, too, went through an evolving journey in my own career, replete with transitions.

The Circuitous Path

I moved from a community role to a corporate role and subsequently from a corporate job to venture capital. Each of these moves was an orbital shift — both in terms of the job challenges as well as the impact.

I made the shift from community to VC when I joined Accel as a Community Platform Evangelist. The intent was to replicate and transfer my experiences around building communities.

My time at Accel was rewarding in all kinds of ways.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] An evening of community engagement at Accel[/caption]

It gave me a front-row seat in the venture capital ecosystem. I learned about how VCs operate, and how they manage their time and focus. I also developed a deeper understanding of founders and their ambitions and struggles.

And later when Girish and Manav started Together Fund and invited me to join them, I thought that this would afford me a bigger platform to build a community within and around a VC firm. The fact that I could do this with friends was a nice bonus.

I learned a lot from my time at Together and Accel. The experience also made me greatly appreciate the complex world of VCs.

But I also realized that a partner in a VC firm has limited bandwidth. However well-intentioned, their ambition is always to close the next deal. Even though they spend a lot of time helping portfolio companies, a founder can’t really have a chat with his investor about how to find the right apartment in the US or how to motivate employees during a difficult period. These are minutiae that a VC often doesn’t have time for.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="700"] At the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai, where witnessed a nail-biting IPL match cheering for CSK, along with some of the portfolio companies at Together[/caption]

And even amidst all this, the clearest moments of joy in my professional life were when I met founders and listened to them as they spoke about their dreams and aspirations, shared their stories, and narrated their hard-earned life lessons without fear of being judged.

That is when I was struck by the epiphany of what I needed to do next.

Coming Back to My Purpose

Someone once told me that you can spend your entire life looking for your purpose and the day you find it, even if it is the last day of your life, you’ve done something meaningful.

By that measure, I have been far luckier than I probably deserve.

I might have gone from community to corporate to investor roles but my true calling never moved — my heart always knew that my life’s purpose was to build communities.

That moment reminded me of a song I heard in my youth by Lucky Ali. “Anjani raahon mein tu kya dhoondhta phire, door jisko samjha woh toh paas hai tere.” (What have you been looking for in unknown places, what you desired has always been around).

What I had been looking for was to return home — to return to SaaSBoomi.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] The very beginning of the India SaaS movement which started with a few founders huddled in hall. The crowd is seen deeply focused as Girish Mathrubootham unpacked his startup lessons with the gathering[/caption]

Homecoming

As SaaSBoomi makes an orbital jump to the next phase of evolution, I am delighted and humbled to come home as the CEO and founding volunteer of our tribe. In addition to an excellent team of fellow volunteers, we are fortunate enough to have many of the best SaaS leaders in India as part of the SaaSBoomi board, and several more taking ownership of one or more initiatives in our vast platform.

Here are a few initiatives that are at the top of my list at the moment:

• Create playbooks to help hybrid startups which currently offer services and products, become pure-play product companies.
• Scale our cross-border GTM initiatives for startups
• Build our mentor network
• Build a platform for aspiring founders
• Build communities around dev tools and infrastructure
• Build a membership program that allows more companies to become part of the network
• Go beyond the metros to give flight to hidden and unheralded talent in emerging cities
• Work towards building the bootstrapped ecosystem
• Build a strong network of founders for companies who have crossed $10M ARR and are aiming to join the $100M club
• Build a sister platform called “Jagah” focused on founders’ well-being

I am filled with excitement and optimism as I look at our ecosystem and future plans. This piece captures my emotion perfectly. I am “compelled to make things better, whomever, wherever, however — to make the hard, cage-rattling changes.”

Today is the first day of a new chapter and the start of another joyful stretch of my journey as I look forward to bridging more gaps and building more bonds in our community, working hand-in-hand with my parachute packers :)

It’s just amazing that there are so many founders who have taken the plunge to help other founders and also become part of the SaaSBoomi mission. What started as a small dream is now a nationwide movement — relentless and unstoppable.

At SaaSBoomi, we’ve been trying to inspire founders to innovate by growing their ideas in cohesion, without the boundaries of portfolios or competitors. If we want India to realize its potential as a Product Nation, we’ll have to find ways to work together instead of against each other in a blood sport.

This is what I want to build.

And this is what I want to spend the next decade of my life doing.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] From the verge of being named a boys’ club to a women participation share of ~15%, SaaSBoomi Annual ’23 brought forth the best of the women in SaaS, all huddled under one roof. May this tribe keep growing[/caption]

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(36250) "

It’s time to write a new chapter

They say that you can learn a lot about a person by observing their behavior in a group setting.

Let’s take the example of a group photo snapped at the end of an event.

Some people gravitate right to the center — people who are boisterous, gregarious, and spotlight-friendly.

Others move to the edges — people who are happy to stand in the shade, introverts, shrinking violets.

Where do I stand, you ask?

Can you spot me?

I love standing as one in the crowd, neither in the center nor at the edges, but somewhere in between — seamlessly weaving myself into the fabric of the community bridging the literal and metaphorical gap between the extroverts in the center and the introverts at the edges.

This is probably why I turned out to be a community builder. Where I can immerse myself, bridge personalities, and build relationships between people of various dispositions.

It is against this backdrop that I would like to announce that I am going back to my roots — taking up a full-time role as CEO at SaaSBoomi, to build and support our wonderful SaaS community.

While I am both nervous and excited about the prospect of going back to community building full-time, I would be remiss if I didn’t share my experiences thus far and explain why I took this decision.

The Product Nation Dream

15 years back, I had a ringside view at NASSCOM’s India Leadership Forum, where Dr. Abdul Kalam spoke passionately about the need for India to go beyond software services and build software products, presciently noting that the true value of our nation’s tech talent could only be captured if we moved up the value chain.

At that time, India was at best seen as an outsourcing hub for services for the west and there was no culture or ambition to build products. Dr. Kalam’s impassioned speech sparked a fire in my own heart — the dream to see India as a “Product Nation”. Other early stalwarts such as Mr. Anil Bakht, CEO of Eastern Software Systems & Sharad Sharma, Founder at iSPIRT helped me to channel my energy and work towards converting this dream to reality, through seminal initiatives such as the NASSCOM Product Conclave.

iSPIRT was Chapter Two of this journey. As our tech ecosystem evolved, the number of ambitious startup founders grew in lockstep; a new generation of dreamers who were ready to take on the world with products built in India.

Personally, it was gratifying to get involved in several catalyzing efforts that strove to weave together this loose band of startup founders into a cohesive community. Early leaders selflessly adopted a “pay it forward” philosophy and shared their lessons and experiences openly and transparently in the role of mentors and volunteers.

And eventually, with SaaSBoomi, these efforts coalesced from an as-needed set of serendipitous activities to a regimented and structured community platform. It also seemed to become much easier to get more founders involved in the mission as the sense of “tribe and community” took root. One of the biggest joys of building India as a ProductNation is that I get to work with many smart founders who give their time and energy, pay it forward, and help other founders.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] From the early days of PNGrowth Bootcamp that we used to do as part of iSPIRT. Some of the companies that have become grown or got an exit today were part of the program[/caption]

Over the past decade, our ecosystem of SaaS founders and operators has grown several times — from humble beginnings, we have now become a global force.

And mirroring the Indian SaaS ecosystem, I, too, went through an evolving journey in my own career, replete with transitions.

The Circuitous Path

I moved from a community role to a corporate role and subsequently from a corporate job to venture capital. Each of these moves was an orbital shift — both in terms of the job challenges as well as the impact.

I made the shift from community to VC when I joined Accel as a Community Platform Evangelist. The intent was to replicate and transfer my experiences around building communities.

My time at Accel was rewarding in all kinds of ways.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] An evening of community engagement at Accel[/caption]

It gave me a front-row seat in the venture capital ecosystem. I learned about how VCs operate, and how they manage their time and focus. I also developed a deeper understanding of founders and their ambitions and struggles.

And later when Girish and Manav started Together Fund and invited me to join them, I thought that this would afford me a bigger platform to build a community within and around a VC firm. The fact that I could do this with friends was a nice bonus.

I learned a lot from my time at Together and Accel. The experience also made me greatly appreciate the complex world of VCs.

But I also realized that a partner in a VC firm has limited bandwidth. However well-intentioned, their ambition is always to close the next deal. Even though they spend a lot of time helping portfolio companies, a founder can’t really have a chat with his investor about how to find the right apartment in the US or how to motivate employees during a difficult period. These are minutiae that a VC often doesn’t have time for.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="700"] At the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai, where witnessed a nail-biting IPL match cheering for CSK, along with some of the portfolio companies at Together[/caption]

And even amidst all this, the clearest moments of joy in my professional life were when I met founders and listened to them as they spoke about their dreams and aspirations, shared their stories, and narrated their hard-earned life lessons without fear of being judged.

That is when I was struck by the epiphany of what I needed to do next.

Coming Back to My Purpose

Someone once told me that you can spend your entire life looking for your purpose and the day you find it, even if it is the last day of your life, you’ve done something meaningful.

By that measure, I have been far luckier than I probably deserve.

I might have gone from community to corporate to investor roles but my true calling never moved — my heart always knew that my life’s purpose was to build communities.

That moment reminded me of a song I heard in my youth by Lucky Ali. “Anjani raahon mein tu kya dhoondhta phire, door jisko samjha woh toh paas hai tere.” (What have you been looking for in unknown places, what you desired has always been around).

What I had been looking for was to return home — to return to SaaSBoomi.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] The very beginning of the India SaaS movement which started with a few founders huddled in hall. The crowd is seen deeply focused as Girish Mathrubootham unpacked his startup lessons with the gathering[/caption]

Homecoming

As SaaSBoomi makes an orbital jump to the next phase of evolution, I am delighted and humbled to come home as the CEO and founding volunteer of our tribe. In addition to an excellent team of fellow volunteers, we are fortunate enough to have many of the best SaaS leaders in India as part of the SaaSBoomi board, and several more taking ownership of one or more initiatives in our vast platform.

Here are a few initiatives that are at the top of my list at the moment:

• Create playbooks to help hybrid startups which currently offer services and products, become pure-play product companies.
• Scale our cross-border GTM initiatives for startups
• Build our mentor network
• Build a platform for aspiring founders
• Build communities around dev tools and infrastructure
• Build a membership program that allows more companies to become part of the network
• Go beyond the metros to give flight to hidden and unheralded talent in emerging cities
• Work towards building the bootstrapped ecosystem
• Build a strong network of founders for companies who have crossed $10M ARR and are aiming to join the $100M club
• Build a sister platform called “Jagah” focused on founders’ well-being

I am filled with excitement and optimism as I look at our ecosystem and future plans. This piece captures my emotion perfectly. I am “compelled to make things better, whomever, wherever, however — to make the hard, cage-rattling changes.”

Today is the first day of a new chapter and the start of another joyful stretch of my journey as I look forward to bridging more gaps and building more bonds in our community, working hand-in-hand with my parachute packers :)

It’s just amazing that there are so many founders who have taken the plunge to help other founders and also become part of the SaaSBoomi mission. What started as a small dream is now a nationwide movement — relentless and unstoppable.

At SaaSBoomi, we’ve been trying to inspire founders to innovate by growing their ideas in cohesion, without the boundaries of portfolios or competitors. If we want India to realize its potential as a Product Nation, we’ll have to find ways to work together instead of against each other in a blood sport.

This is what I want to build.

And this is what I want to spend the next decade of my life doing.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] From the verge of being named a boys’ club to a women participation share of ~15%, SaaSBoomi Annual ’23 brought forth the best of the women in SaaS, all huddled under one roof. May this tribe keep growing[/caption]

" } }

Breaking the 1000 barrier in attendees, SaaSBoomi Annual ’23 scores high in NPS too

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(5678) "As the dust settles and the echoes of the event fade away, it's time to reflect on the Annual ‘23. This article aims to encapsulate the event's key highlights, from the planning stages to the execution, showcasing the challenges, and the overall impact of this occasion. We had a total of 1,143 delegates that attended the Annual across two days. We had folks come in from the metropolitan cities of India, but also from the smaller towns like Surat, Indore, Erode, and even Kohima in Nagaland! We even saw attendees from the USA and Singapore. Over 90% of attendees participated in both days of the Annual, with a high recommendation score of 9.57/10! The two days were spread across 20+ sessions that were focused on themes like marketing, PLG, and playbooks. We saw some crowd favorites in the SEO workshop by Rakesh Patel, Outbound Tactics and Learnings by Sridhar Ranganathan, and the Grit Stories discussion by Shekhar Kirani. While SaaSBOOMi is primarily focused on learning and opening up playbooks for young entrepreneurs — we equally understand the importance of networking. And so this time — we tried a few experiments. The SaaS Pilot Market allowed early stage startups to get feedback from other startuppers and also explore synergies with early adopters and design partners. We had 16 startups showcase their products across two days. The M&A Clinic lent itself to founders who were exploring an acquisition or a merger. We saw experts in Shruti Kapoor (CEO, Wingman) and Nishant Malhotra (Director, DC Advisory) who spent quality time with participants chosen from founders who applied. Networking badges, unconference sessions, and the Sched app were used to ensure delegates were engaged the right way and networking was a lot more curated this time. Our very own VC Connect saw 150+ startups pitch to six of our ecosystem partners — Accel, March Capital, Westbridge, Eight Roads, Sequoia and B Capital Group. The VC Connect ran parallel to the main event across two days — and this one has been our biggest one so far. Gender parity is a big goal for us, and the DEI team worked hard to see to it that women founders got the front row. This Annual saw 80+ women founders — including second time founders, women building in the developer tools space, and more. An exclusive womens’ luncheon was held on day one to create safe spaces for women to network, brainstorm, and exchange ideas. The Annual isn’t complete without the SaaSBoomi Awards — we had winners in categories across devtools, bootstrapped startups and even ecosystem champions of the year. We also had a quick session on governance updates where the by-laws and new chief evangelist of SaaSBOOMi was announced! Since the scale of the event was the largest we’ve had, we needed to make sure the logistics and overall founder experience was top-notch. We had a solid foundation in our operational partners that seamlessly sewed up the Annual together. For the registrations, we tied up with Jaipur-based Dreamcast. There was also the in-house pre-event registration platform built by Mayank Nagpal, founder of Epyc. We also partnered with Premagic, a Cochin-based startup that handled photography with the magic of AI. And of course, our go-to event management agency, Running Django, helped us run the entire pre-, post-, and event as smoothly as it could get. And of course, kudos to the team of volunteers without whom we couldn’t pull this off. And finally, what’s a SaaSBoomi Annual without some bonding! We had heritage walks around the city in the mornings that covered historic temples, hole-in-the-wall restaurants, and the essence of Chennai on two mornings. During the event, we witnessed countless acts of kindness, generosity, and selflessness that left a lasting impact on everyone involved. Let us continue to spread love, positivity, and compassion, paying it forward one small act at a time. PS: SaaSBoomi volunteer Aastha Sharma has put together a deck that summarizes all the feedback from the attendees of the Annual ‘23. [embed]https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/key/yZupzSLAjC39BC?hostedIn=slideshare&page=upload[/embed] While we’re proud of our success this year, we’re always eager to learn and raise the bar." ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(5678) "As the dust settles and the echoes of the event fade away, it's time to reflect on the Annual ‘23. This article aims to encapsulate the event's key highlights, from the planning stages to the execution, showcasing the challenges, and the overall impact of this occasion. We had a total of 1,143 delegates that attended the Annual across two days. We had folks come in from the metropolitan cities of India, but also from the smaller towns like Surat, Indore, Erode, and even Kohima in Nagaland! We even saw attendees from the USA and Singapore. Over 90% of attendees participated in both days of the Annual, with a high recommendation score of 9.57/10! The two days were spread across 20+ sessions that were focused on themes like marketing, PLG, and playbooks. We saw some crowd favorites in the SEO workshop by Rakesh Patel, Outbound Tactics and Learnings by Sridhar Ranganathan, and the Grit Stories discussion by Shekhar Kirani. While SaaSBOOMi is primarily focused on learning and opening up playbooks for young entrepreneurs — we equally understand the importance of networking. And so this time — we tried a few experiments. The SaaS Pilot Market allowed early stage startups to get feedback from other startuppers and also explore synergies with early adopters and design partners. We had 16 startups showcase their products across two days. The M&A Clinic lent itself to founders who were exploring an acquisition or a merger. We saw experts in Shruti Kapoor (CEO, Wingman) and Nishant Malhotra (Director, DC Advisory) who spent quality time with participants chosen from founders who applied. Networking badges, unconference sessions, and the Sched app were used to ensure delegates were engaged the right way and networking was a lot more curated this time. Our very own VC Connect saw 150+ startups pitch to six of our ecosystem partners — Accel, March Capital, Westbridge, Eight Roads, Sequoia and B Capital Group. The VC Connect ran parallel to the main event across two days — and this one has been our biggest one so far. Gender parity is a big goal for us, and the DEI team worked hard to see to it that women founders got the front row. This Annual saw 80+ women founders — including second time founders, women building in the developer tools space, and more. An exclusive womens’ luncheon was held on day one to create safe spaces for women to network, brainstorm, and exchange ideas. The Annual isn’t complete without the SaaSBoomi Awards — we had winners in categories across devtools, bootstrapped startups and even ecosystem champions of the year. We also had a quick session on governance updates where the by-laws and new chief evangelist of SaaSBOOMi was announced! Since the scale of the event was the largest we’ve had, we needed to make sure the logistics and overall founder experience was top-notch. We had a solid foundation in our operational partners that seamlessly sewed up the Annual together. For the registrations, we tied up with Jaipur-based Dreamcast. There was also the in-house pre-event registration platform built by Mayank Nagpal, founder of Epyc. We also partnered with Premagic, a Cochin-based startup that handled photography with the magic of AI. And of course, our go-to event management agency, Running Django, helped us run the entire pre-, post-, and event as smoothly as it could get. And of course, kudos to the team of volunteers without whom we couldn’t pull this off. And finally, what’s a SaaSBoomi Annual without some bonding! We had heritage walks around the city in the mornings that covered historic temples, hole-in-the-wall restaurants, and the essence of Chennai on two mornings. During the event, we witnessed countless acts of kindness, generosity, and selflessness that left a lasting impact on everyone involved. Let us continue to spread love, positivity, and compassion, paying it forward one small act at a time. PS: SaaSBoomi volunteer Aastha Sharma has put together a deck that summarizes all the feedback from the attendees of the Annual ‘23. [embed]https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/key/yZupzSLAjC39BC?hostedIn=slideshare&page=upload[/embed] While we’re proud of our success this year, we’re always eager to learn and raise the bar." } }

SaaSBOOMi 2.0: Orbital shift requires new “Org” structure

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Dear SaaS Founders,

The idea of a community for SaaS founders by SaaS Founders came together in 2018 between Girish, Suresh, Krish, Manav, and Avinash (read the genesis story here) resulting in the not-for-profit foundation “SaaSBOOMi”.

Looking back, SaaSBOOMi’s growth has been more than spectacular in the last 5 years and it exceeded the community’s expectations.

In hindsight, it seems very fitting that we christened ourselves “BOOMi”, implying earth in most Indian languages — laying a strong foundation for our community initiatives and ambitions.

It is now time for us to take our movement to the next orbital level — we call this SaaSBOOMi 2.0.

If SaaSBOOMi 1.0 was about laying the foundation, SAASBOOMi 2.0 would be about taking our rocket ship off the ground into orbit.

The most critical part of this evolution is the creation of an organizational structure that can take SaaSBOOMi to the next level.

In any organization’s growth journey, there comes a time to set up a formal BoD and governance structure to gear it up for the next phase of growth. That time for SaaSBOOMi is now.

We truly believe that this new structure will provide transparency, openness, and inclusivity to drive the long-term growth of the SaaS Founder Community.

As per the new structure, the SaaSBOOMi foundation will be driven by 4 core pillars

1. Founding Team & Bylaws
2. Fiduciary BoD
3. Chairperson & Governing Council (Operating BoD)
4. CEO, Operating Team & Fellows

The founding team will play a minimal on-demand role in this new structure centered around owning and ratifying changes to the bylaws as required, which is expected to be very rare.

The bylaws of SaaSBOOMi define the immutable aspects of the foundation like the name of the foundation and the core structure of the foundation’s operating model. These bylaws can only be modified by a majority vote from the founding team.

The Governing Council (GC) is the Apex Operating Authority of the SaaSBOOMi foundation. Except for making changes to the bylaws, everything else comes under the purview of GC’s authority. The GC will be similar to the BoD of a company defining quarterly, and annual goals for the foundation and will meet once in a quarter. The GC will NOT be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the community. The GC consists of representatives from 2 founding members, 2 venture/ecosystem partners, 2 Independent SaaS Founders (or ex-SaaS founders), and the CEO of SaaSBOOMi totaling to a 7 member GC. The tenure of GC members will be for a period of 2 years and it can be extended for an additional 1 year. A mandatory gap of 2 years is required for re-election into the GC. The GC members do not have any fiduciary responsibilities.

As per the company law, nonprofit organizations require a fiduciary BoD. Hence, a 3-member fiduciary BoD is automatically created by including the Chairperson of the GC, the CEO of SaaSBOOMi, and one of the founding members in the GC. The fiduciary BoD is more of a compliance requirement and mostly will ratify all the GC recommendations as long as it does not conflict with any legal aspects.

The GC has the authority to appoint the CEO of SaaSBOOMi who will be responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of the SaaSBOOMi. The CEO and GC will collaboratively identify experienced SaaS Founders / CEOs as “Fellow” volunteers to drive various community-building initiatives. The CEO of SaaSBOOMi will create and manage a team of professionals to assist the “Fellow” volunteers to execute on their initiatives.

The first Governing Council consists of Ashwini Ashokan, Co-founder & CEO of MadStreetDen, Manav Garg, Founder & CEO of Eka Software, Mohit Bhatnagar, Managing Director and partner Sequoia Capital, Shekhar Kirani, Partner Accel Partners, Suresh Sambandam, Founder & CEO Kissflow and Vinod Muthukrishnan, co-founder of CloudCherry & CCO Uniphore. It also gives me great pleasure to announce that Avinash Raghava, co-founder of SaaSBOOMi will be the full-time CEO for SaaSBOOMi.

I am personally super thrilled to see SaaSBOOMi grown to this level in the last 5 years and I am super confident this new structure with a powerful 1st governing council will take the SaaSBOOMi mission to a whole new level.

I want to end this post, by thanking all the SaaS founders and our ecosystem partners Accel, Sequoia, TigerGlobal, Westbridge Capital, B Capital, 8 Roads, and March Capital who have been unequivocally supporting the SaaSBOOMi cause through their sponsorship. Thank you and I look forward to your continued support in building the most valuable community that helps SaaS founders succeed in their respective journeys.

- Suresh Sambandam, Founder & CEO, Kissflow.com

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(15334) "

Dear SaaS Founders,

The idea of a community for SaaS founders by SaaS Founders came together in 2018 between Girish, Suresh, Krish, Manav, and Avinash (read the genesis story here) resulting in the not-for-profit foundation “SaaSBOOMi”.

Looking back, SaaSBOOMi’s growth has been more than spectacular in the last 5 years and it exceeded the community’s expectations.

In hindsight, it seems very fitting that we christened ourselves “BOOMi”, implying earth in most Indian languages — laying a strong foundation for our community initiatives and ambitions.

It is now time for us to take our movement to the next orbital level — we call this SaaSBOOMi 2.0.

If SaaSBOOMi 1.0 was about laying the foundation, SAASBOOMi 2.0 would be about taking our rocket ship off the ground into orbit.

The most critical part of this evolution is the creation of an organizational structure that can take SaaSBOOMi to the next level.

In any organization’s growth journey, there comes a time to set up a formal BoD and governance structure to gear it up for the next phase of growth. That time for SaaSBOOMi is now.

We truly believe that this new structure will provide transparency, openness, and inclusivity to drive the long-term growth of the SaaS Founder Community.

As per the new structure, the SaaSBOOMi foundation will be driven by 4 core pillars

1. Founding Team & Bylaws
2. Fiduciary BoD
3. Chairperson & Governing Council (Operating BoD)
4. CEO, Operating Team & Fellows

The founding team will play a minimal on-demand role in this new structure centered around owning and ratifying changes to the bylaws as required, which is expected to be very rare.

The bylaws of SaaSBOOMi define the immutable aspects of the foundation like the name of the foundation and the core structure of the foundation’s operating model. These bylaws can only be modified by a majority vote from the founding team.

The Governing Council (GC) is the Apex Operating Authority of the SaaSBOOMi foundation. Except for making changes to the bylaws, everything else comes under the purview of GC’s authority. The GC will be similar to the BoD of a company defining quarterly, and annual goals for the foundation and will meet once in a quarter. The GC will NOT be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the community. The GC consists of representatives from 2 founding members, 2 venture/ecosystem partners, 2 Independent SaaS Founders (or ex-SaaS founders), and the CEO of SaaSBOOMi totaling to a 7 member GC. The tenure of GC members will be for a period of 2 years and it can be extended for an additional 1 year. A mandatory gap of 2 years is required for re-election into the GC. The GC members do not have any fiduciary responsibilities.

As per the company law, nonprofit organizations require a fiduciary BoD. Hence, a 3-member fiduciary BoD is automatically created by including the Chairperson of the GC, the CEO of SaaSBOOMi, and one of the founding members in the GC. The fiduciary BoD is more of a compliance requirement and mostly will ratify all the GC recommendations as long as it does not conflict with any legal aspects.

The GC has the authority to appoint the CEO of SaaSBOOMi who will be responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of the SaaSBOOMi. The CEO and GC will collaboratively identify experienced SaaS Founders / CEOs as “Fellow” volunteers to drive various community-building initiatives. The CEO of SaaSBOOMi will create and manage a team of professionals to assist the “Fellow” volunteers to execute on their initiatives.

The first Governing Council consists of Ashwini Ashokan, Co-founder & CEO of MadStreetDen, Manav Garg, Founder & CEO of Eka Software, Mohit Bhatnagar, Managing Director and partner Sequoia Capital, Shekhar Kirani, Partner Accel Partners, Suresh Sambandam, Founder & CEO Kissflow and Vinod Muthukrishnan, co-founder of CloudCherry & CCO Uniphore. It also gives me great pleasure to announce that Avinash Raghava, co-founder of SaaSBOOMi will be the full-time CEO for SaaSBOOMi.

I am personally super thrilled to see SaaSBOOMi grown to this level in the last 5 years and I am super confident this new structure with a powerful 1st governing council will take the SaaSBOOMi mission to a whole new level.

I want to end this post, by thanking all the SaaS founders and our ecosystem partners Accel, Sequoia, TigerGlobal, Westbridge Capital, B Capital, 8 Roads, and March Capital who have been unequivocally supporting the SaaSBOOMi cause through their sponsorship. Thank you and I look forward to your continued support in building the most valuable community that helps SaaS founders succeed in their respective journeys.

- Suresh Sambandam, Founder & CEO, Kissflow.com

" } }

Who made SaaSBoomi Annual ‘23 tick?

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(7348) "SaaSBoomi’s biggest event since its inception had 1143 attendees (final count); dozens of speakers for keynotes and panels; 150 plus investor-startup meetings; workshops; parties (and after-parties of course); curated bonding sessions like a women-in-Saas mixer - so much happening on parallel tracks, and all of it managed by two dozen volunteers. This was simply incredible. March 17-18 in Chennai was magical. Who are the superstars who made the SaaSBoomi Annual ‘23 tick? Here’s the who’s who and the magic they did. 

Tsunami-breakers 

Ankit Dudhwewala, Abhi Ballabh, and Anirudh Gopinath - We got hit by a tsunami of applications almost as soon as we opened registrations and these three miracle-makers filtered them all, cross-checked credentials, processed thousands of applications, and constantly interacted with those who got in and those who didn’t. Then, on the big occasion, they manned the registrations desk, ran errands, and did so many other little things that made this the Great Indian SaaS Wedding. Take Anirudh, for example, who took early risers on a heritage walk to central Chennai, at 6:15 am on Day 2. This came after a long party the previous evening, which went on to the wee hours of the morning. (What is he burning? I’d love some of that!) [caption id="attachment_5682" align="alignnone" width="740"] Krish Subramanian and Varun Shoor[/caption]

Brains-and-brawn team

Krish Subramanian and Varun Shoor took the lead sometime in late November to curate and craft the program schedule for this Annual. They began roping in other founders and the rest of the team fell in place: Ashwin Ramasamy, Ashwini Asokan, Prasanna Krishnamoorthy, Raj Sheth, Sridhar Ranganathan, Shruti Kapoor, Srikrishnan Ganesan, and Vivek Khandelwal. The team met every Sunday afternoon from December, braving Zoom fatigue to brainstorm ideas, thrash out details, and match-make the right speakers for the right sessions. Some meetings went on for three hours! They trained the speakers and went through slides and presentations to make sure that the audience got the best out of each session.  [caption id="attachment_5683" align="alignnone" width="740"] Ashwini Asokan[/caption]

Magicians on stage

Ooh! What fun we had with Vinod Muthukrishnan on stage almost throughout the two days. He had us and the audience eating out of his hands. Maansi Sanghi compered the Awards - one of which went to Vinod for his path-breaking work building the US chapter of SaaSBoomi and paying it forward at every step. [caption id="attachment_5684" align="alignnone" width="730"] Vinod Muthukrishnan, Varun Shoor, and Aastha Sharma[/caption]

In the founder’s shoes

How do we make the SaaSBoomi Annual experience something unforgettable for every founder in attendance? This was a question that kept our founding volunteer Avinash Raghava awake many a night. And so, this time, we got a team -  Aastha Sharma, Madhumitha Mani, Vaibhav Jain, Swetha Kannan, and Ashwin Ramasamy - to think through it and get it done. 

Creativity Inc

From the cute networking badges to all the posters and creatives on stage, it was Aastha Sharma and Amrutha Jalihal worked with three designers to get it all done. There were so many tweaks up till the last minute and they sailed through it all. Varun Thirumalai, our old friend, did his magic with words on social media once again. He also lent a hand to Matthew John and Dhanyal Radha Gopi who were working on some cool SaaSy short films at the event. 

Show me the money! 

Imagine planning, scheduling, and coordinating 150-plus meetings between startups and investors! That’s exactly what Murali Sankar did for SaaSBoomi Annual ‘23. He missed not a beat, while most of us would sweat gallons if we had to coordinate a mere handful of meetings.

Flea market with a twist

This was a new initiative we kicked off at this Annual, where a dozen plus startups picked from around 150 showcased their products for valuable, early feedback from attendees. It was an experiment we ran, and looking at the response, we are definitely going to refine it and make it a regular. The team behind this was Aditya Sanghi, Amrutha Jalihal, Arvind Parthiban, and Vartika Bansal. [caption id="attachment_5685" align="alignnone" width="740"] Amrutha Jalihal and Prajnachandra Arikathota[/caption]

Bug-squashers

Mayank Nagpal built and managed the events registrations platform. We understand there were a few glitches but he slayed the bugs as they came and kept going. Bharat Moro was right behind the console for the entire two days of sessions to make sure the video, audio, slides, and everything else worked seamlessly. Amrutha Jalihal and PC (PrajnaChandra) were hands-on with the event management agency, coordinating the humongous logistics. 

Clockwork wizards

These are the folks who made sure the jigsaw pieces fit, timelines met, and schedules set. Ashwin Ramasamy, and Surendran (Suren) Balachandran, please take a bow. They were part of almost every team behind the Annual. [caption id="attachment_5686" align="alignnone" width="740"] Suresh Sambamdam, Shekhar Kirani, Girish Mathrubootham, and Arvind Parthiban[/caption]

Unsung heroes

There were so many other characters who cannot be categorized, who played unseen but vital roles in this epic. Like Arvind Parthiban, Suresh Sambamdam, Shekhar Kirani, Arvind Krishnan, and so on who were busy as bees through the two days, the evening before, the evening after … And with that, we’re all taking a short well-earned break. But the world of SaaS never stops and we’re looking forward to lots of exciting events and initiatives ahead for our beloved community. We know we can be bigger and better. A big thank you once again to our beloved volunteers. May your tribe grow! And with it SaaSBoomi <3" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(7348) "SaaSBoomi’s biggest event since its inception had 1143 attendees (final count); dozens of speakers for keynotes and panels; 150 plus investor-startup meetings; workshops; parties (and after-parties of course); curated bonding sessions like a women-in-Saas mixer - so much happening on parallel tracks, and all of it managed by two dozen volunteers. This was simply incredible. March 17-18 in Chennai was magical. Who are the superstars who made the SaaSBoomi Annual ‘23 tick? Here’s the who’s who and the magic they did. 

Tsunami-breakers 

Ankit Dudhwewala, Abhi Ballabh, and Anirudh Gopinath - We got hit by a tsunami of applications almost as soon as we opened registrations and these three miracle-makers filtered them all, cross-checked credentials, processed thousands of applications, and constantly interacted with those who got in and those who didn’t. Then, on the big occasion, they manned the registrations desk, ran errands, and did so many other little things that made this the Great Indian SaaS Wedding. Take Anirudh, for example, who took early risers on a heritage walk to central Chennai, at 6:15 am on Day 2. This came after a long party the previous evening, which went on to the wee hours of the morning. (What is he burning? I’d love some of that!) [caption id="attachment_5682" align="alignnone" width="740"] Krish Subramanian and Varun Shoor[/caption]

Brains-and-brawn team

Krish Subramanian and Varun Shoor took the lead sometime in late November to curate and craft the program schedule for this Annual. They began roping in other founders and the rest of the team fell in place: Ashwin Ramasamy, Ashwini Asokan, Prasanna Krishnamoorthy, Raj Sheth, Sridhar Ranganathan, Shruti Kapoor, Srikrishnan Ganesan, and Vivek Khandelwal. The team met every Sunday afternoon from December, braving Zoom fatigue to brainstorm ideas, thrash out details, and match-make the right speakers for the right sessions. Some meetings went on for three hours! They trained the speakers and went through slides and presentations to make sure that the audience got the best out of each session.  [caption id="attachment_5683" align="alignnone" width="740"] Ashwini Asokan[/caption]

Magicians on stage

Ooh! What fun we had with Vinod Muthukrishnan on stage almost throughout the two days. He had us and the audience eating out of his hands. Maansi Sanghi compered the Awards - one of which went to Vinod for his path-breaking work building the US chapter of SaaSBoomi and paying it forward at every step. [caption id="attachment_5684" align="alignnone" width="730"] Vinod Muthukrishnan, Varun Shoor, and Aastha Sharma[/caption]

In the founder’s shoes

How do we make the SaaSBoomi Annual experience something unforgettable for every founder in attendance? This was a question that kept our founding volunteer Avinash Raghava awake many a night. And so, this time, we got a team -  Aastha Sharma, Madhumitha Mani, Vaibhav Jain, Swetha Kannan, and Ashwin Ramasamy - to think through it and get it done. 

Creativity Inc

From the cute networking badges to all the posters and creatives on stage, it was Aastha Sharma and Amrutha Jalihal worked with three designers to get it all done. There were so many tweaks up till the last minute and they sailed through it all. Varun Thirumalai, our old friend, did his magic with words on social media once again. He also lent a hand to Matthew John and Dhanyal Radha Gopi who were working on some cool SaaSy short films at the event. 

Show me the money! 

Imagine planning, scheduling, and coordinating 150-plus meetings between startups and investors! That’s exactly what Murali Sankar did for SaaSBoomi Annual ‘23. He missed not a beat, while most of us would sweat gallons if we had to coordinate a mere handful of meetings.

Flea market with a twist

This was a new initiative we kicked off at this Annual, where a dozen plus startups picked from around 150 showcased their products for valuable, early feedback from attendees. It was an experiment we ran, and looking at the response, we are definitely going to refine it and make it a regular. The team behind this was Aditya Sanghi, Amrutha Jalihal, Arvind Parthiban, and Vartika Bansal. [caption id="attachment_5685" align="alignnone" width="740"] Amrutha Jalihal and Prajnachandra Arikathota[/caption]

Bug-squashers

Mayank Nagpal built and managed the events registrations platform. We understand there were a few glitches but he slayed the bugs as they came and kept going. Bharat Moro was right behind the console for the entire two days of sessions to make sure the video, audio, slides, and everything else worked seamlessly. Amrutha Jalihal and PC (PrajnaChandra) were hands-on with the event management agency, coordinating the humongous logistics. 

Clockwork wizards

These are the folks who made sure the jigsaw pieces fit, timelines met, and schedules set. Ashwin Ramasamy, and Surendran (Suren) Balachandran, please take a bow. They were part of almost every team behind the Annual. [caption id="attachment_5686" align="alignnone" width="740"] Suresh Sambamdam, Shekhar Kirani, Girish Mathrubootham, and Arvind Parthiban[/caption]

Unsung heroes

There were so many other characters who cannot be categorized, who played unseen but vital roles in this epic. Like Arvind Parthiban, Suresh Sambamdam, Shekhar Kirani, Arvind Krishnan, and so on who were busy as bees through the two days, the evening before, the evening after … And with that, we’re all taking a short well-earned break. But the world of SaaS never stops and we’re looking forward to lots of exciting events and initiatives ahead for our beloved community. We know we can be bigger and better. A big thank you once again to our beloved volunteers. May your tribe grow! And with it SaaSBoomi <3" } }

A 3-step playbook for founders from the SaaSBoomi SaaS report

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Black Swan Bingo

If Covid and the financial market reset weren’t enough, the run on Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) last week was a sure sign that “Black Swan” events are no longer as unpredictable as one might have imagined a few years back. It almost seems that facing existential threats on a daily basis is now commonplace for every startup founder. For Indian SaaS founders, the SVB meltdown was particularly dangerous. A large number of Indian SaaS companies are either headquartered in the US or bank through SVB in any case due to the tradition of most tech VCs having close ties with the bank and routing funding through this channel. It, therefore, came as no surprise that more than 600 Indian SaaS companies faced the grim prospect of over USD 2 billion stuck in SVB.  Though a solution, fortunately, emerged quicker than most folks could have predicted, Indian SaaS businesses face grim prospects for the next 12-18 months. Given the fact that most Indian SaaS solutions target small and medium businesses as their target market, the looming recession is likely to hit them hardest as this sector is particularly sensitive to recessionary pressures. The spin-off impact of drastically lower spending on tech applications by the SMB market will hit Indian SaaS companies hard. This coupled with funding winter means Indian SaaS companies face a double whammy - lower access to capital coupled with lower revenue. However, amidst this grim prognosis, there is a silver lining.  The long-term view of SaaS remains intact and firmly bullish. If software is eating the world, SaaS is eating software and will progressively increase its share of the overall tech spending pie. Indian SaaS is expected to generate revenues of $50-70 billion by 2030, a sharp uptick from just $7 billion in 2022.  The key question is what Indian SaaS founders need to do in the short term to capitalize on the opportunity for the long term. This is the answer that the SaaSBOOMi Annual SaaS Report 2023 seeks to provide - a set of informed and actionable insights that will serve as a practical guide for navigating the rough seas ahead.

Key takeaways from the report

The report highlights that the primary requirement for SaaS founders today is to adopt a strategy that allows for both defense and offense plays. The defense aspects are in reaction to the sharp slowdown expected in tech and software budgets for the next 12-18 months and in line with this overarching “conservative and conservation” philosophy, SaaS startups need to offer productivity improvements to their customers through the optimal use of hyper-automation. These defensive moves should constitute at least 40-55% of the overall toolkit while a smaller slide of 20-25% can be reserved for offense plays such as garnering revenue through new offerings such as “generative AI” that has a buzz and therefore meaningful interest from customers at the current time. Overall, the report offers three key takeaways for Indian SaaS founders.

1. “Where to play” - Choose your market carefully

While it is still early days for SaaS in terms of future potential, it bears remembering that the SaaS story is well over a decade old. The nascent years of SaaS presented a number of greenfield opportunities for early players to build scalable businesses in every category - from horizontal SaaS to developer-focused offerings and from tools to vertical SaaS. However, today almost every single niche is a “red ocean” with multiple competitors jostling for the same piece of the pie. Indian SaaS companies must therefore choose their market carefully paying attention to “resilient domains” that offer attractive white spaces to play in. The report lays out over 30 such resilient domains for Indian SaaS companies to focus on.

2. “What to play” - Choose a differentiated business model

The second leg is choosing what game to play in terms of business models. Historically, Indian SaaS companies have experienced considerable business value across the entire spectrum of SaaS thus far. A simple map of the landscape can be summarized below: This matrix allows us to glean some interesting patterns.

1. Horizontal - Leveraging PLG motion in GTM: Most of the successful startups that have emerged from India, the likes of Zoho, Freshworks, Browserstack, and Postman, that have achieved meaningful scale did so leveraging product-led growth (PLG) as their primary GTM motion. Subsequently, they layered on a second engine to expand their market reach - typically, this seems to be a sales-led approach targeting the mid-market.
2. Multi-product offerings: Another significant insight from this table is that the scaled startups are all multi-product companies offering an entire portfolio of products, each of which is best-in-class by itself. This double engine of growth and differentiation is a key requirement for PLG motions to succeed at scale.
3. Use talent arbitrage to provide superior customer service: All these companies have also successfully leveraged the talent cost arbitrage advantage to provide superior customer service to their clients. However, this seems to have made a difference only to SMB and mid-size markets thus far and enterprise sales is still a largely untapped market segment.

Despite the success of Indian SaaS in multiple segments, one aspect that still remains elusive is SaaS players who have been successful as “category creators” - while there is some nascent promise here, there is still a long way to go. Finally, it is clear that vertical SaaS offerings that focus sharply on a specific industry or domain continue to remain attractive - even though these startups grow more slowly relative to the other categories, they can be highly profitable. Reading these tea leaves gives other Indian SaaS startups a roadmap to choosing their own business models and go-to-market playbooks.

3. “How to play” - shift focus from hustle to institutional execution

While there is justifiable confidence and bullishness about Indian SaaS, there is an elephant in the room that is often glossed over.  Indian SaaS companies are adept at garnering early success - many players have shown the ability to attract early customers but in a majority of cases, growth starts tapering off with scale. This is evident in the “bulging middle class” of players in the Indian SaaS ecosystem that are seemingly stuck in the $5-10m ARR category and seem unable to scale beyond.  While some of these companies may be stuck because of poor PMF beyond early adopters or small market sizes, it has been observed that a big determinant of achieving maturity lies in the “execution mindset”. While we celebrate “jugaad” or Indian hustle - scrappy Indian startups fighting well above their weights to get off the ground - this mindset doesn’t serve them well when it comes to the post-PMF scale. This requires an institutionalized execution mindset where efficiency and performance are achieved in a regimented and systematic manner. Here are a few aspects that Indian SaaS players need to adopt to achieve an “institutional mindset”: Invest in go-to-market as early as possible to achieve repeatability of sales success in a predictable manner rather than treat GTM as an afterthought. Thoughtful organization design that ensures that there are “right” persons in the “right roles. Many of us in India have not yet seen executives in mature roles so we don’t know what a successful executive looks like. Equally, our talent pools for GTM and product disciplines are not as deep as those in other mature markets. We need to consciously fill this shortcoming at an industry-wide level.  Finally, an institutionalized mindset requires companies to invest in the right tools as they scale and perceive these as investments that will offer ROI rather than as optional expenses. These tools need to be scaled with customer data in parallel to offer a comprehensive and informed view of the state of the business and a clear plan for success. The fact of the matter is that even after making all the above investments, Indian companies enjoy a structural advantage that permits them to realistically target a score of 60% on the “rule of 40” - something that foreign players will struggle to achieve.  Despite the challenges facing the Indian SaaS industry, we are fortunate to have a vibrant ecosystem and witness growth across the board. Indian SaaS founders should use their cash judiciously, evaluate initiatives in the company, stay close to their market and customers, and build for the future. With these strategies in place, India can expect to see over 100 $100M revenue companies by 2030 - helping us achieve our trillion-dollar tryst with destiny. Let us go and build. I’d like to thank our knowledge partners — McKinsey & Company." ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(11076) "

Black Swan Bingo

If Covid and the financial market reset weren’t enough, the run on Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) last week was a sure sign that “Black Swan” events are no longer as unpredictable as one might have imagined a few years back. It almost seems that facing existential threats on a daily basis is now commonplace for every startup founder. For Indian SaaS founders, the SVB meltdown was particularly dangerous. A large number of Indian SaaS companies are either headquartered in the US or bank through SVB in any case due to the tradition of most tech VCs having close ties with the bank and routing funding through this channel. It, therefore, came as no surprise that more than 600 Indian SaaS companies faced the grim prospect of over USD 2 billion stuck in SVB.  Though a solution, fortunately, emerged quicker than most folks could have predicted, Indian SaaS businesses face grim prospects for the next 12-18 months. Given the fact that most Indian SaaS solutions target small and medium businesses as their target market, the looming recession is likely to hit them hardest as this sector is particularly sensitive to recessionary pressures. The spin-off impact of drastically lower spending on tech applications by the SMB market will hit Indian SaaS companies hard. This coupled with funding winter means Indian SaaS companies face a double whammy - lower access to capital coupled with lower revenue. However, amidst this grim prognosis, there is a silver lining.  The long-term view of SaaS remains intact and firmly bullish. If software is eating the world, SaaS is eating software and will progressively increase its share of the overall tech spending pie. Indian SaaS is expected to generate revenues of $50-70 billion by 2030, a sharp uptick from just $7 billion in 2022.  The key question is what Indian SaaS founders need to do in the short term to capitalize on the opportunity for the long term. This is the answer that the SaaSBOOMi Annual SaaS Report 2023 seeks to provide - a set of informed and actionable insights that will serve as a practical guide for navigating the rough seas ahead.

Key takeaways from the report

The report highlights that the primary requirement for SaaS founders today is to adopt a strategy that allows for both defense and offense plays. The defense aspects are in reaction to the sharp slowdown expected in tech and software budgets for the next 12-18 months and in line with this overarching “conservative and conservation” philosophy, SaaS startups need to offer productivity improvements to their customers through the optimal use of hyper-automation. These defensive moves should constitute at least 40-55% of the overall toolkit while a smaller slide of 20-25% can be reserved for offense plays such as garnering revenue through new offerings such as “generative AI” that has a buzz and therefore meaningful interest from customers at the current time. Overall, the report offers three key takeaways for Indian SaaS founders.

1. “Where to play” - Choose your market carefully

While it is still early days for SaaS in terms of future potential, it bears remembering that the SaaS story is well over a decade old. The nascent years of SaaS presented a number of greenfield opportunities for early players to build scalable businesses in every category - from horizontal SaaS to developer-focused offerings and from tools to vertical SaaS. However, today almost every single niche is a “red ocean” with multiple competitors jostling for the same piece of the pie. Indian SaaS companies must therefore choose their market carefully paying attention to “resilient domains” that offer attractive white spaces to play in. The report lays out over 30 such resilient domains for Indian SaaS companies to focus on.

2. “What to play” - Choose a differentiated business model

The second leg is choosing what game to play in terms of business models. Historically, Indian SaaS companies have experienced considerable business value across the entire spectrum of SaaS thus far. A simple map of the landscape can be summarized below: This matrix allows us to glean some interesting patterns.

1. Horizontal - Leveraging PLG motion in GTM: Most of the successful startups that have emerged from India, the likes of Zoho, Freshworks, Browserstack, and Postman, that have achieved meaningful scale did so leveraging product-led growth (PLG) as their primary GTM motion. Subsequently, they layered on a second engine to expand their market reach - typically, this seems to be a sales-led approach targeting the mid-market.
2. Multi-product offerings: Another significant insight from this table is that the scaled startups are all multi-product companies offering an entire portfolio of products, each of which is best-in-class by itself. This double engine of growth and differentiation is a key requirement for PLG motions to succeed at scale.
3. Use talent arbitrage to provide superior customer service: All these companies have also successfully leveraged the talent cost arbitrage advantage to provide superior customer service to their clients. However, this seems to have made a difference only to SMB and mid-size markets thus far and enterprise sales is still a largely untapped market segment.

Despite the success of Indian SaaS in multiple segments, one aspect that still remains elusive is SaaS players who have been successful as “category creators” - while there is some nascent promise here, there is still a long way to go. Finally, it is clear that vertical SaaS offerings that focus sharply on a specific industry or domain continue to remain attractive - even though these startups grow more slowly relative to the other categories, they can be highly profitable. Reading these tea leaves gives other Indian SaaS startups a roadmap to choosing their own business models and go-to-market playbooks.

3. “How to play” - shift focus from hustle to institutional execution

While there is justifiable confidence and bullishness about Indian SaaS, there is an elephant in the room that is often glossed over.  Indian SaaS companies are adept at garnering early success - many players have shown the ability to attract early customers but in a majority of cases, growth starts tapering off with scale. This is evident in the “bulging middle class” of players in the Indian SaaS ecosystem that are seemingly stuck in the $5-10m ARR category and seem unable to scale beyond.  While some of these companies may be stuck because of poor PMF beyond early adopters or small market sizes, it has been observed that a big determinant of achieving maturity lies in the “execution mindset”. While we celebrate “jugaad” or Indian hustle - scrappy Indian startups fighting well above their weights to get off the ground - this mindset doesn’t serve them well when it comes to the post-PMF scale. This requires an institutionalized execution mindset where efficiency and performance are achieved in a regimented and systematic manner. Here are a few aspects that Indian SaaS players need to adopt to achieve an “institutional mindset”: Invest in go-to-market as early as possible to achieve repeatability of sales success in a predictable manner rather than treat GTM as an afterthought. Thoughtful organization design that ensures that there are “right” persons in the “right roles. Many of us in India have not yet seen executives in mature roles so we don’t know what a successful executive looks like. Equally, our talent pools for GTM and product disciplines are not as deep as those in other mature markets. We need to consciously fill this shortcoming at an industry-wide level.  Finally, an institutionalized mindset requires companies to invest in the right tools as they scale and perceive these as investments that will offer ROI rather than as optional expenses. These tools need to be scaled with customer data in parallel to offer a comprehensive and informed view of the state of the business and a clear plan for success. The fact of the matter is that even after making all the above investments, Indian companies enjoy a structural advantage that permits them to realistically target a score of 60% on the “rule of 40” - something that foreign players will struggle to achieve.  Despite the challenges facing the Indian SaaS industry, we are fortunate to have a vibrant ecosystem and witness growth across the board. Indian SaaS founders should use their cash judiciously, evaluate initiatives in the company, stay close to their market and customers, and build for the future. With these strategies in place, India can expect to see over 100 $100M revenue companies by 2030 - helping us achieve our trillion-dollar tryst with destiny. Let us go and build. I’d like to thank our knowledge partners — McKinsey & Company." } }

How content marketing unlocked international expansion from Guwahati

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(9707) "When Vantage Circle started out 12 years ago, it got corporate clients for its employee engagement SaaS platform mostly by personal contact and word of mouth. Co-founder and CEO Partha Neog leveraged his 13-year prior corporate career, which included a stint as Product Management VP at a Naukri group company. The first big client he netted for Vantage Circle was an Indian IT services giant. Neog’s co-founder and CTO, Anjan Pathak had worked with top ecommerce companies in the UK as a tech architect. Both Neog and Pathak found it personally satisfying to build the first sizable software product company out of Guwahati, in their home state of Assam, but it had its challenges. The founders’ tech and business background got them off the ground with a viable product and a few big enterprise customers to keep the lights burning, but it was a struggle to expand.

“Tech was easy for us, with our background. But neither of us had marketing experience,” says Pathak. “Like most founders, we used to think, ‘create a great product, solve a problem, and clients will come automatically’. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen.”

A pivotal transition happened five years back. “Everyone talks about content marketing these days, but five years ago it was not so evident that it could be so powerful,” says Pathak. It began with an HR best practices and how-to blog. “Within six months, traffic crossed 100,000 and we realized this was going to be a gold mine in attracting clients. Now we have 2 million monthly unique visitors and most of our leads come through this channel, from the US and all over the world. Then it’s just about converting those leads,” says Pathak. “Gradually we understood that we could do it all from Guwahati.” It was a game-changer, after other channels like paid marketing had yielded lukewarm results. Content marketing helped the small SaaS company from Guwahati land Fortune 500 clients, out-flanking much better funded and placed American HR tech companies. It has reached $5 million ARR and looks poised for faster growth, with its product scoring 4.7 out of 5 in G2 reviews. Its blog goes out in six international languages, with Spanish getting the most eyeballs after English, which augurs well for European and Latin American expansion. With a plethora of blogs out there and more coming out each day, it’s hard to rise to the top like Vantage Circle’s HR blog did. Most corporate blogs fall flat with keyword-obsessed clickbaity content. What did Vantage Circle do differently? In our Founder’s Playbook series, Pathak shares with SaaSBOOMi what made the difference:

1. Be patient and maintain conviction

“Building traffic with content, engaging the audience, and generating leads can be very rewarding, but it takes time to get it right. It’s a long-term game and you need to be patient,” says Pathak. “I’ve seen some of our competitors trying to follow the same route and they haven’t been so successful.”

The founder’s conviction is vital in setting realistic goals and milestones. You have to keep tweaking the content plan by tracking what’s working and what isn’t, where momentum is picking up and what’s driving that. Often a founder’s pressure on the content team to show results doesn’t allow enough time to figure out the sweet spot between the value they offer and what the audience requires. In many instances, the founder may lose interest as soon as the program stalls, because content marketing is low down on their priority list. In Vantage Circle’s case, Pathak himself took charge of the content marketing program, despite being the CTO. He was encouraged by what he saw in six months, and committed all the resources needed to make it work.

2. Don’t outsource, do it inhouse

A key decision Pathak took early on was to build the content team inhouse instead of outsourcing the work to content agencies. He wanted an internal team to understand what to write, what to track, and provide real value to the audience. Then the content could be differentiated from the generic, rambling articles that agencies working with multiple clients tend to produce. One thing that worked in his favor is that people in Northeast India are mostly educated in English medium. So he had no problem hiring good writers locally from day one. “We told them honestly that this was something we were trying and didn’t know how it would go,” says Pathak. “But now we have a massive team of 50 people just creating content and marketing. It has worked really well and it’s cost-effective."

"We’re playing the same game that Hubspot invented - inbound marketing.”

3. Get the tools you need to succeed

“I really invested a lot of time from the very outset on SEO and I still do that,” says Pathak. He mastered SEO tools from the likes of Ahrefs and Semrush, and taught the team to use them well. Being a techie, learning by using tools came naturally to him, and he passed that on to members of the team who were dedicated to SEO. Thus the content marketing team paid attention to the technical side of it, beyond writing, right from the get-go. This has been a big contributing factor in generating traffic for the blog, and Pathak feels confident that it can rise at the same rate to 10 million from the current 2 million. Thus a founder-led program, where the founder was hands-on with SEO and understood how it could work wonders, helped in staying on the long road to success with content marketing.

4. Invest in design for impact

Pathak hired a number of designers for the content marketing team. This became the third prong of the strategy, along with creating useful content and getting visibility with SEO. The designers sit with the content writers to create catchy images, highlight quotes, and use illustrations liberally. The look-and-feel got as much attention as the content and SEO. And because everything is in-house, the content writers, designers, and SEO engineers collaborate easily to produce the best results. This reduces the time lost in passing work from one silo to another - which would have been the case if the content or design or technical side of the blog had been outsourced. For example, interlinking is very important for SEO, but it can only be done well if there’s familiarity with the blog posts already produced.

5. Set objectives for different types of content

Being a SaaS company, it’s not surprising that Vantage Circle took a data-driven scientific approach to its content marketing. In SaaS parlance, Pathak explains how he thought of the content in terms of top of the funnel, middle funnel, and bottom funnel. Top of the funnel could be listicles like 30 Thoughtful Thank You Day Messages for Employees or blog posts written around quotes from top practitioners, such as 11 Actionable Ways to Boost Employee Morale. “These don’t give us many leads, but they get us a lot of traffic,” explains Pathak. Middle funnel blog posts could be around HR problems or company culture, such as a trend of Rage Applying. And finally, there are deeper bottom-funnel blog posts that actually produce most of the leads even if they get less traffic. These could be industry reports, leadership insights, or specific posts related to Vantage Circle’s four SaaS products, leveraging its data from working with multiple global organizations. What’s useful in this kind of approach is that objectives are clear for each type of blog content. That makes every blog post more purposeful than they would be otherwise, while at the same time offering a variety of content for different audience segments.

Turning challenges into opportunities

Building a global SaaS company out of a Tier-2 city like Guwahati is not everyone’s cup of tea. It lacks the ecosystem of tech hubs like Bangalore in terms of venture capital, tech talent, and corporate culture. This forced choices on Vantage Circle that made the early years a struggle but proved to be strengths in the long run for building a sustainable, global company that now has bases in the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, and India. Bootstrapped by necessity rather than choice, it had to be frugal. This led to hiring freshers and training them, rather than chasing experienced talent from outside. Guwahati has good engineering colleges, but it was a challenge to get freshers up to speed on the latest tech such as using a high-level programming language like Scala. This required robust in-house training modules. Pathak’s DIY mindset kicked in to solve the problem. “I became a Scala certified trainer, probably the first one in India to get that certification,” says Pathak. “At that time, companies like Twitter were using Scala, but very few people in India were using it. So I became a certified trainer and then I had access to excellent training material as well.” This created a mindset of learning by doing across the board. Pathak would immerse himself in a new tool, train young recruits, and encourage others to do the same. It took time, but it developed a process of building in-house talent from scratch, which was more cost-effective than hiring seasoned developers. Frugality was also the first driver of content marketing with a long-term view five years ago, rather than trying to score quick wins with paid marketing. This led to what is today a vital strength for Vantage Circle in inbound marketing and sales.

As Richard Bach wrote in Illusions: “Every problem has a gift for you in its hands.”

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(9707) "When Vantage Circle started out 12 years ago, it got corporate clients for its employee engagement SaaS platform mostly by personal contact and word of mouth. Co-founder and CEO Partha Neog leveraged his 13-year prior corporate career, which included a stint as Product Management VP at a Naukri group company. The first big client he netted for Vantage Circle was an Indian IT services giant. Neog’s co-founder and CTO, Anjan Pathak had worked with top ecommerce companies in the UK as a tech architect. Both Neog and Pathak found it personally satisfying to build the first sizable software product company out of Guwahati, in their home state of Assam, but it had its challenges. The founders’ tech and business background got them off the ground with a viable product and a few big enterprise customers to keep the lights burning, but it was a struggle to expand.

“Tech was easy for us, with our background. But neither of us had marketing experience,” says Pathak. “Like most founders, we used to think, ‘create a great product, solve a problem, and clients will come automatically’. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen.”

A pivotal transition happened five years back. “Everyone talks about content marketing these days, but five years ago it was not so evident that it could be so powerful,” says Pathak. It began with an HR best practices and how-to blog. “Within six months, traffic crossed 100,000 and we realized this was going to be a gold mine in attracting clients. Now we have 2 million monthly unique visitors and most of our leads come through this channel, from the US and all over the world. Then it’s just about converting those leads,” says Pathak. “Gradually we understood that we could do it all from Guwahati.” It was a game-changer, after other channels like paid marketing had yielded lukewarm results. Content marketing helped the small SaaS company from Guwahati land Fortune 500 clients, out-flanking much better funded and placed American HR tech companies. It has reached $5 million ARR and looks poised for faster growth, with its product scoring 4.7 out of 5 in G2 reviews. Its blog goes out in six international languages, with Spanish getting the most eyeballs after English, which augurs well for European and Latin American expansion. With a plethora of blogs out there and more coming out each day, it’s hard to rise to the top like Vantage Circle’s HR blog did. Most corporate blogs fall flat with keyword-obsessed clickbaity content. What did Vantage Circle do differently? In our Founder’s Playbook series, Pathak shares with SaaSBOOMi what made the difference:

1. Be patient and maintain conviction

“Building traffic with content, engaging the audience, and generating leads can be very rewarding, but it takes time to get it right. It’s a long-term game and you need to be patient,” says Pathak. “I’ve seen some of our competitors trying to follow the same route and they haven’t been so successful.”

The founder’s conviction is vital in setting realistic goals and milestones. You have to keep tweaking the content plan by tracking what’s working and what isn’t, where momentum is picking up and what’s driving that. Often a founder’s pressure on the content team to show results doesn’t allow enough time to figure out the sweet spot between the value they offer and what the audience requires. In many instances, the founder may lose interest as soon as the program stalls, because content marketing is low down on their priority list. In Vantage Circle’s case, Pathak himself took charge of the content marketing program, despite being the CTO. He was encouraged by what he saw in six months, and committed all the resources needed to make it work.

2. Don’t outsource, do it inhouse

A key decision Pathak took early on was to build the content team inhouse instead of outsourcing the work to content agencies. He wanted an internal team to understand what to write, what to track, and provide real value to the audience. Then the content could be differentiated from the generic, rambling articles that agencies working with multiple clients tend to produce. One thing that worked in his favor is that people in Northeast India are mostly educated in English medium. So he had no problem hiring good writers locally from day one. “We told them honestly that this was something we were trying and didn’t know how it would go,” says Pathak. “But now we have a massive team of 50 people just creating content and marketing. It has worked really well and it’s cost-effective."

"We’re playing the same game that Hubspot invented - inbound marketing.”

3. Get the tools you need to succeed

“I really invested a lot of time from the very outset on SEO and I still do that,” says Pathak. He mastered SEO tools from the likes of Ahrefs and Semrush, and taught the team to use them well. Being a techie, learning by using tools came naturally to him, and he passed that on to members of the team who were dedicated to SEO. Thus the content marketing team paid attention to the technical side of it, beyond writing, right from the get-go. This has been a big contributing factor in generating traffic for the blog, and Pathak feels confident that it can rise at the same rate to 10 million from the current 2 million. Thus a founder-led program, where the founder was hands-on with SEO and understood how it could work wonders, helped in staying on the long road to success with content marketing.

4. Invest in design for impact

Pathak hired a number of designers for the content marketing team. This became the third prong of the strategy, along with creating useful content and getting visibility with SEO. The designers sit with the content writers to create catchy images, highlight quotes, and use illustrations liberally. The look-and-feel got as much attention as the content and SEO. And because everything is in-house, the content writers, designers, and SEO engineers collaborate easily to produce the best results. This reduces the time lost in passing work from one silo to another - which would have been the case if the content or design or technical side of the blog had been outsourced. For example, interlinking is very important for SEO, but it can only be done well if there’s familiarity with the blog posts already produced.

5. Set objectives for different types of content

Being a SaaS company, it’s not surprising that Vantage Circle took a data-driven scientific approach to its content marketing. In SaaS parlance, Pathak explains how he thought of the content in terms of top of the funnel, middle funnel, and bottom funnel. Top of the funnel could be listicles like 30 Thoughtful Thank You Day Messages for Employees or blog posts written around quotes from top practitioners, such as 11 Actionable Ways to Boost Employee Morale. “These don’t give us many leads, but they get us a lot of traffic,” explains Pathak. Middle funnel blog posts could be around HR problems or company culture, such as a trend of Rage Applying. And finally, there are deeper bottom-funnel blog posts that actually produce most of the leads even if they get less traffic. These could be industry reports, leadership insights, or specific posts related to Vantage Circle’s four SaaS products, leveraging its data from working with multiple global organizations. What’s useful in this kind of approach is that objectives are clear for each type of blog content. That makes every blog post more purposeful than they would be otherwise, while at the same time offering a variety of content for different audience segments.

Turning challenges into opportunities

Building a global SaaS company out of a Tier-2 city like Guwahati is not everyone’s cup of tea. It lacks the ecosystem of tech hubs like Bangalore in terms of venture capital, tech talent, and corporate culture. This forced choices on Vantage Circle that made the early years a struggle but proved to be strengths in the long run for building a sustainable, global company that now has bases in the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, and India. Bootstrapped by necessity rather than choice, it had to be frugal. This led to hiring freshers and training them, rather than chasing experienced talent from outside. Guwahati has good engineering colleges, but it was a challenge to get freshers up to speed on the latest tech such as using a high-level programming language like Scala. This required robust in-house training modules. Pathak’s DIY mindset kicked in to solve the problem. “I became a Scala certified trainer, probably the first one in India to get that certification,” says Pathak. “At that time, companies like Twitter were using Scala, but very few people in India were using it. So I became a certified trainer and then I had access to excellent training material as well.” This created a mindset of learning by doing across the board. Pathak would immerse himself in a new tool, train young recruits, and encourage others to do the same. It took time, but it developed a process of building in-house talent from scratch, which was more cost-effective than hiring seasoned developers. Frugality was also the first driver of content marketing with a long-term view five years ago, rather than trying to score quick wins with paid marketing. This led to what is today a vital strength for Vantage Circle in inbound marketing and sales.

As Richard Bach wrote in Illusions: “Every problem has a gift for you in its hands.”

" } }

The Countdown to SaaSBoomi Annual is on!

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(13277) "As the founder of Veris, a SaaS platform in the enterprise space, I have had the privilege of being a part of SaaSBoomi – a dynamic and rapidly growing community of SaaS entrepreneurs, managed by volunteers from across India, many of whom are founders themselves.

A Gathering of Industry Experts

Each year, the SaaSBoomi Annual Conference brings together top leaders from the Indian SaaS ecosystem for a two-day event filled with learning, collaboration, camaraderie, and growth. This year's conference promises to be even more impactful, with a lineup of thought-provoking sessions, interactive workshops, and exciting networking opportunities. The goal of this year's conference is twofold:

1. To instill confidence in founders that the Indian SaaS story is as strong as ever, and that building a frugal motion out of India presents a big opportunity, even in the face of challenging macro conditions.
2. To provide a platform for attendees to learn from experts who have faced tough market conditions, and who can share their experiences and insights on what works (and what doesn't) in terms of funding, GTM approaches, hiring, and more in the rapidly changing tech landscape. The conference is curated to ensure that attendees are learning the most relevant and up-to-date information to help them succeed.

We are thrilled to be a part of these exciting preparations for this year's conference and can't wait to see the impact it will have on the Indian SaaS ecosystem. In the lead-up to this year's SaaSBoomi Annual, the volunteer teams are working tirelessly to make sure that this event is truly outstanding. Every aspect of the conference has been carefully planned, from attendee experience to session selection, with the goal of providing real value to SaaS startups and founders. Whether it's through VC connects, playbooks, or the SaaS Pilot Market (a flea market for new SaaS businesses to showcase their products), this event is a unique opportunity to learn and grow.

Uncover the Full Potential of SaaS

One of the standout features of this year's conference is the diversity of sessions, curated specifically to address the real challenges that businesses face. Here are just a few of the marquee sessions that you won't want to miss:

SaaS 2023: State of the Union

Get ready for the latest edition of the much-anticipated McKinsey-SaaSBoomi 2023 report. This report will provide insights and analysis of the current state of the Indian SaaS industry, including trends, opportunities, and challenges. It will offer valuable information for startups, investors, and industry players alike, helping them to better understand the market and make informed decisions. Step into the future of the Indian SaaS industry.

Resetting Expectations: How to prepare for the journey ahead

Join us for this keynote session where we'll be discussing what has changed in expectations for the next phase through the lens of metrics, covering everything from growing your company from 0 to $1M to 5M, 5M to 25M, and 25M to 100M. You'll come away equipped with a clear roadmap on how to prepare for the journey ahead, and the confidence to navigate any bumps in the road that come your way.

Sales in recession: Leveling up your SaaS Sales Approach

In today's challenging business environment, sales teams in the SaaS industry are constantly under pressure to improve and adapt. If you're struggling to transform your sales motions to better navigate the recessionary environment, you're not alone. At SaaSBoomi Annual 2023, we'll be exploring specific ideas and tactics to help you keep up the selling momentum. Join us for this session and learn from people who have cracked the code. Discover what worked for them, and what didn't, and gain valuable insights to take your sales performance to the next level.

Growth mindset: Think Growth First

This session is focused on developing a growth mindset for SaaS companies in India. It will feature discussions with some of the best minds in the industry. Attendees will surely come away with actionable insights on how to prioritize growth for their company and guarantee sustainable success.

Selling your company: The motivations & mechanics of success

If you're looking to sell your company, it's important to know the motivations and mechanics that can make or break the sale. In this session, you'll learn from investment bankers and experienced founders who have bought and sold businesses in the SaaS industry. They'll provide insights into what makes a successful sale and share their experiences on how to navigate the process. Whether you're considering an acquisition in the near future or simply want to better understand the M&A landscape, this session will offer valuable perspectives and tips to help you position your company for a successful sale.

Market expansion strategies: Growing your SaaS Business

If you are keen to learn about various market growth strategies that can be applied to their SaaS businesses in India, this session is for you. From identifying new customer segments to expanding into new geographies, this session will cover a range of approaches to growing your market. The session will also feature case studies and examples of successful market growth strategies, along with practical tips and advice for implementation.

Effective Compliance: Navigating the Indian Tax & Regulatory Landscape

If you are looking for insights on navigating the complex regulatory landscape in India, your search ends here. This session will cover various aspects of company structuring from a taxation and regulatory perspective, highlighting the most critical compliance needs for SaaS companies that plan to grow. The session will also discuss common pitfalls and the impact they can have on a company's future prospects.

Intentional Org design: Building a strong foundation for growth

Here, you'll learn about the importance of getting the organization design right for the stage you will be in, in the next 12 months. After all, we ship our org chart, right? You'll also learn how to create clear roles and responsibilities, build effective teams, and establish a strong company culture. Look out for actionable insights and tools to help you design and build a high-performing organization.

Product Marketing Deep Dive: Leverage your strengths to stand out among competition

Stand out in a sea of sameness! 9 out of 10 SaaS product websites say the same things. Learn how to confidently display authority, differentiate yourself from the competition, and position your product in a way that resonates with customers. This workshop will cover the nuts and bolts of product marketing, from positioning to packaging. Learn from case studies of successful Indian companies that have cracked the code.

Outbound tactics & learnings: Strategies for outreach & conversion

A discussion on targeting the right customers and building effective outbound campaigns to generate leads. You'll learn how to craft compelling messaging, use various channels and tools to reach prospects and measure the success of your outbound efforts. The session will also cover some of the common pitfalls to avoid when implementing outbound sales strategies.

M&A Clinic: 1:1 with experts

If you're considering getting acquired in the next year, this closed-door session is an opportunity not to be missed. M&A experts from the best investment banking world, along with experienced founders will provide hands-on guidance and advice on navigating the M&A process, covering everything from planning for an exit and pre-term sheet preparation to the mechanics of a successful deal. This is a unique opportunity for a select group of startups to receive 1:1 time with the M&A experts and practical advice on how to approach M&A. Don't miss out on the chance to gain valuable insights and knowledge that can help you make the deal happen.

Vertical SaaS: Unique GTM Challenges & Best Practices

Vertical SaaS has its own set of challenges and requires different go-to-market strategies compared to dev-first companies. In this session, we will hear from successful entrepreneurs in this space as they share their insights and strategies that are unique to their industries.

Mastering SEO: From Fundamentals to Advanced Techniques

In this comprehensive learning session, you'll gain a thorough understanding of the fundamentals of SEO, from lead funnel definition to advanced techniques. You'll learn about content strategy and how to choose the right topics to write about, as well as how to conduct keyword research and competitor analysis to develop effective backlinks and interlinking. Additionally, you'll explore the growing role of AI and how it's shaping the future of digital marketing. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced marketer, this session will equip you with the knowledge and skills to succeed in the world of SEO.

Product-Led Growth: Driving business growth through your product

Product-Led Growth (PLG) is an emerging go-to-market strategy that is gaining popularity in the SaaS industry. In this session, you'll explore real-world examples and case studies of how companies have successfully implemented PLG to drive growth and increase revenue. You'll gain valuable insights on how to leverage product design, user experience, and data to create a self-serve product experience that converts users into paying customers. Whether you're new to the concept or looking to refine your PLG strategy, this session will provide you with actionable tips and best practices to help you drive growth for your own business. Remember, these are just a few examples of the rich, diverse content available at the SaaSBoomi Annual. Our conference features a wide range of sessions designed to provide value to founders and businesses of all sizes and stages. While we've done our best to provide you with accurate information, please note that the conference schedule is subject to last-minute changes. We encourage you to check the most up-to-date information on our website and social media channels before the conference.

The SaaSBoomi Spirit

The countdown to the SaaSBoomi Annual is officially on, and as a founder myself, I can attest to the excitement that surrounds this annual event. Via this community, I have had the opportunity to meet so many incredible founders leading global large-scale SaaS businesses. Despite their success, they are still humble and eager to help others navigate real business challenges. I found the community to be incredibly supportive and helpful, and I have no doubt that attendees of the SaaSBoomi Annual Conference will feel the same. The volunteer teams are working extremely hard behind the scenes to make sure that you have an outstanding experience, from the visitor registration to the good-bye goodie bags and everything in between. 

The Future is Now

Whether you're looking to expand your knowledge, gain a fresh perspective, or simply make new connections, you're sure to leave the SaaSBoomi Annual 2023 feeling inspired and equipped. Join us on March 17-18 at The Leela Palace, Chennai, for two days of showcasing the latest advancements in SaaS and exploring the future of this exciting industry. Let's shape the future of Indian SaaS together. To learn more and register, please visit https://saasboomi.org/annual/." ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(13277) "As the founder of Veris, a SaaS platform in the enterprise space, I have had the privilege of being a part of SaaSBoomi – a dynamic and rapidly growing community of SaaS entrepreneurs, managed by volunteers from across India, many of whom are founders themselves.

A Gathering of Industry Experts

Each year, the SaaSBoomi Annual Conference brings together top leaders from the Indian SaaS ecosystem for a two-day event filled with learning, collaboration, camaraderie, and growth. This year's conference promises to be even more impactful, with a lineup of thought-provoking sessions, interactive workshops, and exciting networking opportunities. The goal of this year's conference is twofold:

1. To instill confidence in founders that the Indian SaaS story is as strong as ever, and that building a frugal motion out of India presents a big opportunity, even in the face of challenging macro conditions.
2. To provide a platform for attendees to learn from experts who have faced tough market conditions, and who can share their experiences and insights on what works (and what doesn't) in terms of funding, GTM approaches, hiring, and more in the rapidly changing tech landscape. The conference is curated to ensure that attendees are learning the most relevant and up-to-date information to help them succeed.

We are thrilled to be a part of these exciting preparations for this year's conference and can't wait to see the impact it will have on the Indian SaaS ecosystem. In the lead-up to this year's SaaSBoomi Annual, the volunteer teams are working tirelessly to make sure that this event is truly outstanding. Every aspect of the conference has been carefully planned, from attendee experience to session selection, with the goal of providing real value to SaaS startups and founders. Whether it's through VC connects, playbooks, or the SaaS Pilot Market (a flea market for new SaaS businesses to showcase their products), this event is a unique opportunity to learn and grow.

Uncover the Full Potential of SaaS

One of the standout features of this year's conference is the diversity of sessions, curated specifically to address the real challenges that businesses face. Here are just a few of the marquee sessions that you won't want to miss:

SaaS 2023: State of the Union

Get ready for the latest edition of the much-anticipated McKinsey-SaaSBoomi 2023 report. This report will provide insights and analysis of the current state of the Indian SaaS industry, including trends, opportunities, and challenges. It will offer valuable information for startups, investors, and industry players alike, helping them to better understand the market and make informed decisions. Step into the future of the Indian SaaS industry.

Resetting Expectations: How to prepare for the journey ahead

Join us for this keynote session where we'll be discussing what has changed in expectations for the next phase through the lens of metrics, covering everything from growing your company from 0 to $1M to 5M, 5M to 25M, and 25M to 100M. You'll come away equipped with a clear roadmap on how to prepare for the journey ahead, and the confidence to navigate any bumps in the road that come your way.

Sales in recession: Leveling up your SaaS Sales Approach

In today's challenging business environment, sales teams in the SaaS industry are constantly under pressure to improve and adapt. If you're struggling to transform your sales motions to better navigate the recessionary environment, you're not alone. At SaaSBoomi Annual 2023, we'll be exploring specific ideas and tactics to help you keep up the selling momentum. Join us for this session and learn from people who have cracked the code. Discover what worked for them, and what didn't, and gain valuable insights to take your sales performance to the next level.

Growth mindset: Think Growth First

This session is focused on developing a growth mindset for SaaS companies in India. It will feature discussions with some of the best minds in the industry. Attendees will surely come away with actionable insights on how to prioritize growth for their company and guarantee sustainable success.

Selling your company: The motivations & mechanics of success

If you're looking to sell your company, it's important to know the motivations and mechanics that can make or break the sale. In this session, you'll learn from investment bankers and experienced founders who have bought and sold businesses in the SaaS industry. They'll provide insights into what makes a successful sale and share their experiences on how to navigate the process. Whether you're considering an acquisition in the near future or simply want to better understand the M&A landscape, this session will offer valuable perspectives and tips to help you position your company for a successful sale.

Market expansion strategies: Growing your SaaS Business

If you are keen to learn about various market growth strategies that can be applied to their SaaS businesses in India, this session is for you. From identifying new customer segments to expanding into new geographies, this session will cover a range of approaches to growing your market. The session will also feature case studies and examples of successful market growth strategies, along with practical tips and advice for implementation.

Effective Compliance: Navigating the Indian Tax & Regulatory Landscape

If you are looking for insights on navigating the complex regulatory landscape in India, your search ends here. This session will cover various aspects of company structuring from a taxation and regulatory perspective, highlighting the most critical compliance needs for SaaS companies that plan to grow. The session will also discuss common pitfalls and the impact they can have on a company's future prospects.

Intentional Org design: Building a strong foundation for growth

Here, you'll learn about the importance of getting the organization design right for the stage you will be in, in the next 12 months. After all, we ship our org chart, right? You'll also learn how to create clear roles and responsibilities, build effective teams, and establish a strong company culture. Look out for actionable insights and tools to help you design and build a high-performing organization.

Product Marketing Deep Dive: Leverage your strengths to stand out among competition

Stand out in a sea of sameness! 9 out of 10 SaaS product websites say the same things. Learn how to confidently display authority, differentiate yourself from the competition, and position your product in a way that resonates with customers. This workshop will cover the nuts and bolts of product marketing, from positioning to packaging. Learn from case studies of successful Indian companies that have cracked the code.

Outbound tactics & learnings: Strategies for outreach & conversion

A discussion on targeting the right customers and building effective outbound campaigns to generate leads. You'll learn how to craft compelling messaging, use various channels and tools to reach prospects and measure the success of your outbound efforts. The session will also cover some of the common pitfalls to avoid when implementing outbound sales strategies.

M&A Clinic: 1:1 with experts

If you're considering getting acquired in the next year, this closed-door session is an opportunity not to be missed. M&A experts from the best investment banking world, along with experienced founders will provide hands-on guidance and advice on navigating the M&A process, covering everything from planning for an exit and pre-term sheet preparation to the mechanics of a successful deal. This is a unique opportunity for a select group of startups to receive 1:1 time with the M&A experts and practical advice on how to approach M&A. Don't miss out on the chance to gain valuable insights and knowledge that can help you make the deal happen.

Vertical SaaS: Unique GTM Challenges & Best Practices

Vertical SaaS has its own set of challenges and requires different go-to-market strategies compared to dev-first companies. In this session, we will hear from successful entrepreneurs in this space as they share their insights and strategies that are unique to their industries.

Mastering SEO: From Fundamentals to Advanced Techniques

In this comprehensive learning session, you'll gain a thorough understanding of the fundamentals of SEO, from lead funnel definition to advanced techniques. You'll learn about content strategy and how to choose the right topics to write about, as well as how to conduct keyword research and competitor analysis to develop effective backlinks and interlinking. Additionally, you'll explore the growing role of AI and how it's shaping the future of digital marketing. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced marketer, this session will equip you with the knowledge and skills to succeed in the world of SEO.

Product-Led Growth: Driving business growth through your product

Product-Led Growth (PLG) is an emerging go-to-market strategy that is gaining popularity in the SaaS industry. In this session, you'll explore real-world examples and case studies of how companies have successfully implemented PLG to drive growth and increase revenue. You'll gain valuable insights on how to leverage product design, user experience, and data to create a self-serve product experience that converts users into paying customers. Whether you're new to the concept or looking to refine your PLG strategy, this session will provide you with actionable tips and best practices to help you drive growth for your own business. Remember, these are just a few examples of the rich, diverse content available at the SaaSBoomi Annual. Our conference features a wide range of sessions designed to provide value to founders and businesses of all sizes and stages. While we've done our best to provide you with accurate information, please note that the conference schedule is subject to last-minute changes. We encourage you to check the most up-to-date information on our website and social media channels before the conference.

The SaaSBoomi Spirit

The countdown to the SaaSBoomi Annual is officially on, and as a founder myself, I can attest to the excitement that surrounds this annual event. Via this community, I have had the opportunity to meet so many incredible founders leading global large-scale SaaS businesses. Despite their success, they are still humble and eager to help others navigate real business challenges. I found the community to be incredibly supportive and helpful, and I have no doubt that attendees of the SaaSBoomi Annual Conference will feel the same. The volunteer teams are working extremely hard behind the scenes to make sure that you have an outstanding experience, from the visitor registration to the good-bye goodie bags and everything in between. 

The Future is Now

Whether you're looking to expand your knowledge, gain a fresh perspective, or simply make new connections, you're sure to leave the SaaSBoomi Annual 2023 feeling inspired and equipped. Join us on March 17-18 at The Leela Palace, Chennai, for two days of showcasing the latest advancements in SaaS and exploring the future of this exciting industry. Let's shape the future of Indian SaaS together. To learn more and register, please visit https://saasboomi.org/annual/." } }

CommerceIQ’s playbook to launch products in vertical SaaS

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(12675) "When Guru Hariharan left Amazon, where he applied machine learning to build an automated vendor management system, his vision was that the future of ecommerce was going to be algorithmic. As an entrepreneur, he knew the value of AI/ML to other retailers as well as retail brands for whom ecommerce marketplaces accounted for 90% of their sales. What he didn’t know as a vertical SaaS founder was that product-market fit, sales, and product marketing could be so different from what’s gospel in horizontal SaaS - because most SaaS products are horizontal and playbooks are mostly written for them. His lessons came from the painful mistakes he made while deploying a pricing engine for retailers in his first venture, Boomerang Commerce, whose retail analytics platform Lowe’s acquired in 2019. Hariharan was wiser in his second venture, CommerceIQ, which became a unicorn within three years, bringing automated retail ecommerce management to consumer brands selling on channels like Amazon. In Part 1 of this story, we looked at how he pushed back initially when VCs clamored for hypergrowth and why he set down a rule for his team to go after C20 (first 20 successful customers) instead of chasing ARR at the outset.

Takeaway 1: Target the bull’s eye

Inescapably, there were missteps on the way to finding ICP (ideal customer profile) and locking in the C20. This led to a colorful playbook to launch products in vertical SaaS, where sales teams had a target with a green bull’s eye. 

“Once you’ve achieved even a small product-market fit within a sub-segment, you mark that territory green. We had around 70 prospects in the first year of CommerceIQ, which we literally called green accounts. We told the sales team, ‘that’s the bull’s eye’,” says Hariharan. 

“We are the world's best in that bull’s eye; around that is yellow, and then red. Yellow is where the product is applicable, but we are not using the right language. I cannot go to a consumer electronics company and talk to them about replenishability. You talk about replenishing diapers and cereal boxes, but you're not replenishing TVs, right? The concept of out-of-stock is still valid. It just has to be communicated in different words.” The tricolor target board then became the GTM (go-to-market) strategy. Green accounts are where solution consulting and account executives are allowed to go and sell. Yellow accounts are where account executives can go and sell, but it’s product marketing and not solution consulting that helps the salesperson achieve the sale. Then there are the red accounts where account executives are not even allowed to sell, although they can bring leads. Red is where the product people have to do the hard work for PMF. “That’s how we achieve PMF in a small bull’s eye, expand it with product marketing, and further expand it with product management,” says Hariharan. “The roles and responsibilities of each of them are unique, unlike horizontal SaaS where you’re achieving some product-market fit and then giving it to solution engineering or sales consulting to do it in the wild out the gate.” 

Takeaway 2: Move MVP to the bin

“The Lean Startup and all those books will tell you that if you’ve perfected it or you’re above 60%, you’re already too late to the market. Well, in vertical SaaS, it turns out to be incorrect,” says Hariharan. “Even now we’re launching a plugin on Walmart. We have very high confidence in the product and that we’ll have PMF there within a quarter. But we’re not going out and selling it until we hit the C5 (five successful customers) metric for a new product. We don’t call it a launch until we have C5,” says Hariharan. It means moving one of the most familiar acronyms in the SaaS industry - MVP (minimum viable product) - to the bin.   “In vertical SaaS, the TAM (total addressable market) is limited and you have to be careful how many accounts you burn through. It’s a small world and if word gets out that a company is driving very hard, but their product sucks, then it can have a very long tail effect in a small setup where everybody's connected to everybody. Reputation is everything in this market, whereas in a horizontal market, if you mess up on one or two customers, you can cool it down for some time and focus on something else.” Think about the classic horizontal SaaS company Salesforce, whose CRM (customer relationship management) product can be used by any company, whereas a vertical SaaS company like Veeva sells its CRM only to pharmaceutical companies.

A big lesson Hariharan learnt from his previous venture was not to burn bridges while experimenting, because “it can bankrupt you in a vertical market.”

Veeva’s Peter Gassner talks about professional services being a significant portion of how he does business. “That’s not for ARR; it's for creating the reputation that you are the best in CRM in life sciences,” says Hariharan. “We are the best when it comes to REM (retail ecommerce management). That's why not burning bridges in the PMF stage was very important.” Providing professional services, either for a fee or free, is generally frowned upon in the software product industry, but it can be a necessity in vertical SaaS to go deep with each customer and raise the ACV (annual contract value). Here it’s equally important how you set up the expectations of customers.

Takeaway 3: Make customers your partners

“One of the first marketing emails that I sent to my entire customer base had this subject line: Startup CEO seeks product feedback,” says Hariharan. “I can't tell you how many responses I got from VPs and C-levels at large brands saying this was such a refreshing email to get. Many said they would love to contribute back to the industry because ‘you're not just selling me something, you want to actually get product feedback’.”  Each ICP brand becomes a mini-market in itself when the TAM (total addressable market) is relatively small compared to horizontal SaaS. Expanding the SAM (serviceable available market) and increasing the ACV (annual contract value) then become the cornerstones of the growth strategy.

“In the first year, we started with one product. Now, within four years, we have five products. So our average ACV increased from 60k to about 350k,” says Hariharan.

For example, CommerceIQ landed in a Fortune 500 company with just sales and operations in 2019 for an ACV of $120,000. Then it kept expanding into the customer’s subsidiary companies. It also kept adding modules, such as retail media management. And it added support for more retailers. In that way, the ACV ballooned to $7 million last year, and even that may have only scratched the surface. That’s just one brand. This is replicated in every ICP or green account. Then the working playbook is applied to the yellow segment. Blueprints are made for each of those - adding more modules, adding more retailers, and so on. For example, last year it expanded to the automotive industry, home improvement, kitchen goods, office and school supplies, alcohol, and even apparel companies, from which it had initially pulled back when the product was nascent. In this way, establishing itself as a leader in retail ecommerce management, CommerceIQ doubled its number of customers and revenue for the second consecutive year in 2022. It also doubled its headcount across the US, UK, and India. Hariharan believes a looming recession is even more reason to double down because profitability on ecommerce channels like Amazon will become more important to retail brands. The CommerceIQ experience shows that the metric that’s paramount in a vertical market is NRR (net revenue retention). “In our case, it has been hovering around 140-150%,” says Hariharan. “When your target market itself is about 5,000 brands that you can sell to, each brand starts to become like a market in itself. We have one rep, or sometimes two, assigned only to a brand and they keep increasing the value within that company. An enterprise rep can actually hit their quota in 2023 by just selling to one brand.” At the same time, he keeps an eye on customer concentration. No single customer accounts for more than 10% of CommerceIQ’s total revenue.

“The important thing is to have a product vision, and fleshing out the vision with the customer,” says Hariharan. 

Takeaway 4: Slice up the pizza

“When we go to a customer, we say that we will create an operating system for you consisting of five segments: data, content, media, supply chain, and sales. And for each of them, we have smaller pizza slices or sub-segments,” says Hariharan. So a customer could start with three small pizza slices, and then ask for more according to requirements. One customer may say, ‘MAP (minimum advertised price) enforcement is super important to me.’ Five others may say 3PL (third-party logistics) is a big problem for them. Based on these inputs and demand, CommerceIQ gets to prioritize pizza slices or carve out new ones. And each additional small pizza slice gives a $500k uplift in ACV. Each of the pizza slices can represent billions of dollars in TAM. Some companies have grown big by focusing on just one slice of the retail ecommerce pizza. Salsify provides product information management for brands to win on the digital shelf, and it’s close to becoming a public company. Bazaarvoice specializes in supporting the syndication of product reviews and ratings. 

So getting to a $7 million ACV in one brand doesn’t mean you become a professional services company, says Hariharan. “In our case, we mapped out all the problem areas that a brand has to solve in retail e-commerce. Then we mapped each of those sub-slices on a quadrant showing where is the highest urgency and where is the largest TAM. Then we started to work our way back from this quadrant.”

What it shows is that despite the constraints in vertical SaaS, like TAM being limited or the need to wait beyond MVP for product launch, there are advantages too. That’s because it blows another oft-quoted horizontal SaaS maxim out of the water - that it's not a winner-take-all market and the market share of a leader in any segment is <20%. A vertical SaaS leader can, on the contrary, win 30-50% of market share in a segment. That explains how Veeva can have a market capitalization nearly twice its TAM, even after the crash in cloud software stocks because of a fear of recession.  “You can definitely create a large enterprise value by focusing on a vertical market,” says Hariharan. “If you're the winner, you can take the lion’s share of the market value.” Read Part 1: What India’s vertical SaaS unicorn had to unlearn from horizontal SaaS playbook" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(12675) "When Guru Hariharan left Amazon, where he applied machine learning to build an automated vendor management system, his vision was that the future of ecommerce was going to be algorithmic. As an entrepreneur, he knew the value of AI/ML to other retailers as well as retail brands for whom ecommerce marketplaces accounted for 90% of their sales. What he didn’t know as a vertical SaaS founder was that product-market fit, sales, and product marketing could be so different from what’s gospel in horizontal SaaS - because most SaaS products are horizontal and playbooks are mostly written for them. His lessons came from the painful mistakes he made while deploying a pricing engine for retailers in his first venture, Boomerang Commerce, whose retail analytics platform Lowe’s acquired in 2019. Hariharan was wiser in his second venture, CommerceIQ, which became a unicorn within three years, bringing automated retail ecommerce management to consumer brands selling on channels like Amazon. In Part 1 of this story, we looked at how he pushed back initially when VCs clamored for hypergrowth and why he set down a rule for his team to go after C20 (first 20 successful customers) instead of chasing ARR at the outset.

Takeaway 1: Target the bull’s eye

Inescapably, there were missteps on the way to finding ICP (ideal customer profile) and locking in the C20. This led to a colorful playbook to launch products in vertical SaaS, where sales teams had a target with a green bull’s eye. 

“Once you’ve achieved even a small product-market fit within a sub-segment, you mark that territory green. We had around 70 prospects in the first year of CommerceIQ, which we literally called green accounts. We told the sales team, ‘that’s the bull’s eye’,” says Hariharan. 

“We are the world's best in that bull’s eye; around that is yellow, and then red. Yellow is where the product is applicable, but we are not using the right language. I cannot go to a consumer electronics company and talk to them about replenishability. You talk about replenishing diapers and cereal boxes, but you're not replenishing TVs, right? The concept of out-of-stock is still valid. It just has to be communicated in different words.” The tricolor target board then became the GTM (go-to-market) strategy. Green accounts are where solution consulting and account executives are allowed to go and sell. Yellow accounts are where account executives can go and sell, but it’s product marketing and not solution consulting that helps the salesperson achieve the sale. Then there are the red accounts where account executives are not even allowed to sell, although they can bring leads. Red is where the product people have to do the hard work for PMF. “That’s how we achieve PMF in a small bull’s eye, expand it with product marketing, and further expand it with product management,” says Hariharan. “The roles and responsibilities of each of them are unique, unlike horizontal SaaS where you’re achieving some product-market fit and then giving it to solution engineering or sales consulting to do it in the wild out the gate.” 

Takeaway 2: Move MVP to the bin

“The Lean Startup and all those books will tell you that if you’ve perfected it or you’re above 60%, you’re already too late to the market. Well, in vertical SaaS, it turns out to be incorrect,” says Hariharan. “Even now we’re launching a plugin on Walmart. We have very high confidence in the product and that we’ll have PMF there within a quarter. But we’re not going out and selling it until we hit the C5 (five successful customers) metric for a new product. We don’t call it a launch until we have C5,” says Hariharan. It means moving one of the most familiar acronyms in the SaaS industry - MVP (minimum viable product) - to the bin.   “In vertical SaaS, the TAM (total addressable market) is limited and you have to be careful how many accounts you burn through. It’s a small world and if word gets out that a company is driving very hard, but their product sucks, then it can have a very long tail effect in a small setup where everybody's connected to everybody. Reputation is everything in this market, whereas in a horizontal market, if you mess up on one or two customers, you can cool it down for some time and focus on something else.” Think about the classic horizontal SaaS company Salesforce, whose CRM (customer relationship management) product can be used by any company, whereas a vertical SaaS company like Veeva sells its CRM only to pharmaceutical companies.

A big lesson Hariharan learnt from his previous venture was not to burn bridges while experimenting, because “it can bankrupt you in a vertical market.”

Veeva’s Peter Gassner talks about professional services being a significant portion of how he does business. “That’s not for ARR; it's for creating the reputation that you are the best in CRM in life sciences,” says Hariharan. “We are the best when it comes to REM (retail ecommerce management). That's why not burning bridges in the PMF stage was very important.” Providing professional services, either for a fee or free, is generally frowned upon in the software product industry, but it can be a necessity in vertical SaaS to go deep with each customer and raise the ACV (annual contract value). Here it’s equally important how you set up the expectations of customers.

Takeaway 3: Make customers your partners

“One of the first marketing emails that I sent to my entire customer base had this subject line: Startup CEO seeks product feedback,” says Hariharan. “I can't tell you how many responses I got from VPs and C-levels at large brands saying this was such a refreshing email to get. Many said they would love to contribute back to the industry because ‘you're not just selling me something, you want to actually get product feedback’.”  Each ICP brand becomes a mini-market in itself when the TAM (total addressable market) is relatively small compared to horizontal SaaS. Expanding the SAM (serviceable available market) and increasing the ACV (annual contract value) then become the cornerstones of the growth strategy.

“In the first year, we started with one product. Now, within four years, we have five products. So our average ACV increased from 60k to about 350k,” says Hariharan.

For example, CommerceIQ landed in a Fortune 500 company with just sales and operations in 2019 for an ACV of $120,000. Then it kept expanding into the customer’s subsidiary companies. It also kept adding modules, such as retail media management. And it added support for more retailers. In that way, the ACV ballooned to $7 million last year, and even that may have only scratched the surface. That’s just one brand. This is replicated in every ICP or green account. Then the working playbook is applied to the yellow segment. Blueprints are made for each of those - adding more modules, adding more retailers, and so on. For example, last year it expanded to the automotive industry, home improvement, kitchen goods, office and school supplies, alcohol, and even apparel companies, from which it had initially pulled back when the product was nascent. In this way, establishing itself as a leader in retail ecommerce management, CommerceIQ doubled its number of customers and revenue for the second consecutive year in 2022. It also doubled its headcount across the US, UK, and India. Hariharan believes a looming recession is even more reason to double down because profitability on ecommerce channels like Amazon will become more important to retail brands. The CommerceIQ experience shows that the metric that’s paramount in a vertical market is NRR (net revenue retention). “In our case, it has been hovering around 140-150%,” says Hariharan. “When your target market itself is about 5,000 brands that you can sell to, each brand starts to become like a market in itself. We have one rep, or sometimes two, assigned only to a brand and they keep increasing the value within that company. An enterprise rep can actually hit their quota in 2023 by just selling to one brand.” At the same time, he keeps an eye on customer concentration. No single customer accounts for more than 10% of CommerceIQ’s total revenue.

“The important thing is to have a product vision, and fleshing out the vision with the customer,” says Hariharan. 

Takeaway 4: Slice up the pizza

“When we go to a customer, we say that we will create an operating system for you consisting of five segments: data, content, media, supply chain, and sales. And for each of them, we have smaller pizza slices or sub-segments,” says Hariharan. So a customer could start with three small pizza slices, and then ask for more according to requirements. One customer may say, ‘MAP (minimum advertised price) enforcement is super important to me.’ Five others may say 3PL (third-party logistics) is a big problem for them. Based on these inputs and demand, CommerceIQ gets to prioritize pizza slices or carve out new ones. And each additional small pizza slice gives a $500k uplift in ACV. Each of the pizza slices can represent billions of dollars in TAM. Some companies have grown big by focusing on just one slice of the retail ecommerce pizza. Salsify provides product information management for brands to win on the digital shelf, and it’s close to becoming a public company. Bazaarvoice specializes in supporting the syndication of product reviews and ratings. 

So getting to a $7 million ACV in one brand doesn’t mean you become a professional services company, says Hariharan. “In our case, we mapped out all the problem areas that a brand has to solve in retail e-commerce. Then we mapped each of those sub-slices on a quadrant showing where is the highest urgency and where is the largest TAM. Then we started to work our way back from this quadrant.”

What it shows is that despite the constraints in vertical SaaS, like TAM being limited or the need to wait beyond MVP for product launch, there are advantages too. That’s because it blows another oft-quoted horizontal SaaS maxim out of the water - that it's not a winner-take-all market and the market share of a leader in any segment is <20%. A vertical SaaS leader can, on the contrary, win 30-50% of market share in a segment. That explains how Veeva can have a market capitalization nearly twice its TAM, even after the crash in cloud software stocks because of a fear of recession.  “You can definitely create a large enterprise value by focusing on a vertical market,” says Hariharan. “If you're the winner, you can take the lion’s share of the market value.” Read Part 1: What India’s vertical SaaS unicorn had to unlearn from horizontal SaaS playbook" } }

What vertical SaaS unicorn CommerceIQ had to unlearn from horizontal SaaS playbook

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“Whether you’re talking to other founders or looking up books and blogs, they teach you the wrong thing when it comes to vertical SaaS. They made me commit a lot of mistakes. Even investors are not able to give you the proper advice because they’re usually working on horizontal SaaS… We are now a billion-dollar-plus-valued company, but it came with a lot of battle wounds,” says Guru Hariharan, founder and CEO of CommerceIQ.

The company, based in Palo Alto, Seattle, and Bangalore, helps retail brands with algorithmic ecommerce on channels like Amazon. Hariharan calls it the Shopify of ecommerce. While Shopify helps brands build an online presence, CommerceIQ helps them interface algorithmically with ecommerce marketplaces, where 90% of their sales are happening. Algorithms determine everything on a site like Amazon. So brands also need automation with SaaS products to make ecommerce algorithms work to their advantage. In the old days, they would deploy human managers to build relationships with physical retailers, jostling for shelf space or figuring out pricing. Now algorithms decide shelf positioning, as in showing up in search results, and competitive pricing, which can keep shifting. “And you can’t take an algorithm out to dinner,” quips Hariharan. You let a SaaS product with an AI brain talk to the algorithm. Hariharan gravitated towards machine learning during his MS at the University of Texas, Austin, and a stint at IBM Research. “It attracted me because of the foundation of math and the amount of stuff you can do with data that can be very impactful.” He earned his spurs on the practical applications of ML at Amazon, where his team automated vendor management. “For the first time in the history of retailing, we replaced people with machines on the retailer side to work with the millions of vendors you need to build the Earth’s largest selection of products. It allowed Amazon to remove the human capital bottleneck in its expansion to tens of millions or even 100 million plus vendor and seller entities.” It was during that period in the late noughties, as the head of the Amazon Dev Center at Phoenix and manager of Amazon Seller Services, that he had an epiphany. “Amazon was becoming an algorithm that other retailers would have to compete with. And in any human vs. algorithm contest, it’s hard for the human to win.” That led to his first startup, Boomerang Commerce, which built a dynamic pricing engine to help other retailers compete with Amazon. Seven years later in 2019, he sold Boomerang’s retail analytics platform to Lowe’s. He then focused on Boomerang’s offshoot CommerceIQ which became a separate business to help brands deal with the algorithms on the retailer side. Three years later it became a unicorn with a $115 million fund raise. Hariharan learned his lessons the hard way in Boomerang Commerce and tried not to repeat those mistakes in CommerceIQ. Now, for the first time, he shares his hard-earned playbook for vertical SaaS, which he says has to be fundamentally different from what you use in horizontal SaaS. Let’s dive into his three most important lessons.

Lesson 1/ Don’t believe the usual PMF definition

“In a vertical market, you tend to be a domain expert and you can be fooled by the revenue you get because there can be a lot of services underneath which are not repeatable. It’s actually not very difficult to get a million dollars in vertical SaaS,” says Hariharan. “We got fooled by that. And just measuring traction by revenue and throwing fuel to the fire almost bankrupted me in my previous company.” Not understanding the true PMF (product-market fit) can lead a vertical SaaS founder down the garden path after getting to $1 million in revenue, often spurred on by investors to ramp up marketing, hire more sales folk, and so on. Instead, you have to stay focused on finding the real PMF. That was the big learning. It’s different for a horizontal SaaS product applicable in multiple domains, where $1 million ARR can be a signal for blitzscaling. “A term you hear a lot in CommerceIQ is C3. Whenever we bring a new product in, we just think about three successful customers, not revenue,’’ says Hariharan.

The milestone he set for CommerceIQ in the first leg of its journey was C20 - that is, 20 successful customers. “Please don’t hold me accountable for revenue in the first year,” he told the board.

This can be jarring in a board meeting where a revenue milestone is usually the first point on the agenda, but Hariharan stuck to his guns, mindful of the scars from Boomerang. “We actually trained ourselves internally in the company, and the board, that until we hit C20, nobody's gonna talk about revenue, and that was very hard,” says Hariharan. “We maniacally focused on C20 and had a goal of getting to it in 18 months. We got there in 15 months.”

Lesson 2/ Don’t miss the trees for the forest

“Missing the forest for the trees” is an idiom to reminds us that we may not see the larger picture if we focus too hard on the parts. However, vertical SaaS may require you to reverse that idiom because it’s critical to drill down into each domain.

“Horizontal SaaS is seen as infrastructure software to which you add domain knowledge. But the expectation from a vertical SaaS company is that its software codifies a lot of domain knowledge,” says Hariharan.

CommerceIQ’s path to C20 in its first 15 months had a number of missteps which drove home the point that retail ecommerce management (REM), the vertical SaaS category it was creating, varied from domain to domain. “We went and sold our product to apparel companies and quickly figured out the product didn’t work there yet. We pulled back very quickly,” says Hariharan. You had to work in every brand’s domain long enough to be able to codify the domain knowledge and requirements. “So if you don't have TV customers, then you don't know how TVs sell. Third-party seller issues are important to them; replenishability is not important for them. Understanding those nuances and baking it into the product becomes critical.”

Lesson 3 / Don’t mess up your product with hypergrowth

That makes it imperative not to be influenced by VCs on the board to aim for hypergrowth. “It’s doable in horizontal SaaS by throwing fuel (salespeople) on one solid PMF,” says Hariharan. “You cannot do that in a vertical market because you have to grow the number of modules by building domain knowledge. You cannot buy your way into it” “Two years ago, when all VCs were harping on growth rate, we said, ‘You know what? We have a path to doubling our revenue but don’t push us to triple, because that's just the wrong thing to do.”

Unit economics for efficiency along with growth is twice as important in vertical SaaS. “Now, of course, in the last six months, people are asking for efficiency metrics, but frankly, this is what I showed in my series D fundraise in January 2022,” says Hariharan. “We had a burn multiple of just 0.62 in 2021 when everybody was going after growth. They were saying, ‘Why the hell are you burning only 0.62? Go burn at least 1 (the total net revenue)’.”

If you get into the common investor fallacy of pouring dollars for growth, you can mess up your vertical SaaS product. “I actually did that in my earlier startup when I signed up a very large retailer and became a slave to them. We had to show triple growth and didn’t have true PMF,” recalls Hariharan. “So you end up becoming a professional services company masquerading as a product company. Then it starts to eat away at the company.” His next startup, CommerceIQ, could never have gotten the trajectory it achieved if its PMF foundations had not been laid by setting C20 (20 successful customers) as the formative target. Part 2: CommerceIQ’s playbook to launch products in vertical SaaS" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(8416) "

“Whether you’re talking to other founders or looking up books and blogs, they teach you the wrong thing when it comes to vertical SaaS. They made me commit a lot of mistakes. Even investors are not able to give you the proper advice because they’re usually working on horizontal SaaS… We are now a billion-dollar-plus-valued company, but it came with a lot of battle wounds,” says Guru Hariharan, founder and CEO of CommerceIQ.

The company, based in Palo Alto, Seattle, and Bangalore, helps retail brands with algorithmic ecommerce on channels like Amazon. Hariharan calls it the Shopify of ecommerce. While Shopify helps brands build an online presence, CommerceIQ helps them interface algorithmically with ecommerce marketplaces, where 90% of their sales are happening. Algorithms determine everything on a site like Amazon. So brands also need automation with SaaS products to make ecommerce algorithms work to their advantage. In the old days, they would deploy human managers to build relationships with physical retailers, jostling for shelf space or figuring out pricing. Now algorithms decide shelf positioning, as in showing up in search results, and competitive pricing, which can keep shifting. “And you can’t take an algorithm out to dinner,” quips Hariharan. You let a SaaS product with an AI brain talk to the algorithm. Hariharan gravitated towards machine learning during his MS at the University of Texas, Austin, and a stint at IBM Research. “It attracted me because of the foundation of math and the amount of stuff you can do with data that can be very impactful.” He earned his spurs on the practical applications of ML at Amazon, where his team automated vendor management. “For the first time in the history of retailing, we replaced people with machines on the retailer side to work with the millions of vendors you need to build the Earth’s largest selection of products. It allowed Amazon to remove the human capital bottleneck in its expansion to tens of millions or even 100 million plus vendor and seller entities.” It was during that period in the late noughties, as the head of the Amazon Dev Center at Phoenix and manager of Amazon Seller Services, that he had an epiphany. “Amazon was becoming an algorithm that other retailers would have to compete with. And in any human vs. algorithm contest, it’s hard for the human to win.” That led to his first startup, Boomerang Commerce, which built a dynamic pricing engine to help other retailers compete with Amazon. Seven years later in 2019, he sold Boomerang’s retail analytics platform to Lowe’s. He then focused on Boomerang’s offshoot CommerceIQ which became a separate business to help brands deal with the algorithms on the retailer side. Three years later it became a unicorn with a $115 million fund raise. Hariharan learned his lessons the hard way in Boomerang Commerce and tried not to repeat those mistakes in CommerceIQ. Now, for the first time, he shares his hard-earned playbook for vertical SaaS, which he says has to be fundamentally different from what you use in horizontal SaaS. Let’s dive into his three most important lessons.

Lesson 1/ Don’t believe the usual PMF definition

“In a vertical market, you tend to be a domain expert and you can be fooled by the revenue you get because there can be a lot of services underneath which are not repeatable. It’s actually not very difficult to get a million dollars in vertical SaaS,” says Hariharan. “We got fooled by that. And just measuring traction by revenue and throwing fuel to the fire almost bankrupted me in my previous company.” Not understanding the true PMF (product-market fit) can lead a vertical SaaS founder down the garden path after getting to $1 million in revenue, often spurred on by investors to ramp up marketing, hire more sales folk, and so on. Instead, you have to stay focused on finding the real PMF. That was the big learning. It’s different for a horizontal SaaS product applicable in multiple domains, where $1 million ARR can be a signal for blitzscaling. “A term you hear a lot in CommerceIQ is C3. Whenever we bring a new product in, we just think about three successful customers, not revenue,’’ says Hariharan.

The milestone he set for CommerceIQ in the first leg of its journey was C20 - that is, 20 successful customers. “Please don’t hold me accountable for revenue in the first year,” he told the board.

This can be jarring in a board meeting where a revenue milestone is usually the first point on the agenda, but Hariharan stuck to his guns, mindful of the scars from Boomerang. “We actually trained ourselves internally in the company, and the board, that until we hit C20, nobody's gonna talk about revenue, and that was very hard,” says Hariharan. “We maniacally focused on C20 and had a goal of getting to it in 18 months. We got there in 15 months.”

Lesson 2/ Don’t miss the trees for the forest

“Missing the forest for the trees” is an idiom to reminds us that we may not see the larger picture if we focus too hard on the parts. However, vertical SaaS may require you to reverse that idiom because it’s critical to drill down into each domain.

“Horizontal SaaS is seen as infrastructure software to which you add domain knowledge. But the expectation from a vertical SaaS company is that its software codifies a lot of domain knowledge,” says Hariharan.

CommerceIQ’s path to C20 in its first 15 months had a number of missteps which drove home the point that retail ecommerce management (REM), the vertical SaaS category it was creating, varied from domain to domain. “We went and sold our product to apparel companies and quickly figured out the product didn’t work there yet. We pulled back very quickly,” says Hariharan. You had to work in every brand’s domain long enough to be able to codify the domain knowledge and requirements. “So if you don't have TV customers, then you don't know how TVs sell. Third-party seller issues are important to them; replenishability is not important for them. Understanding those nuances and baking it into the product becomes critical.”

Lesson 3 / Don’t mess up your product with hypergrowth

That makes it imperative not to be influenced by VCs on the board to aim for hypergrowth. “It’s doable in horizontal SaaS by throwing fuel (salespeople) on one solid PMF,” says Hariharan. “You cannot do that in a vertical market because you have to grow the number of modules by building domain knowledge. You cannot buy your way into it” “Two years ago, when all VCs were harping on growth rate, we said, ‘You know what? We have a path to doubling our revenue but don’t push us to triple, because that's just the wrong thing to do.”

Unit economics for efficiency along with growth is twice as important in vertical SaaS. “Now, of course, in the last six months, people are asking for efficiency metrics, but frankly, this is what I showed in my series D fundraise in January 2022,” says Hariharan. “We had a burn multiple of just 0.62 in 2021 when everybody was going after growth. They were saying, ‘Why the hell are you burning only 0.62? Go burn at least 1 (the total net revenue)’.”

If you get into the common investor fallacy of pouring dollars for growth, you can mess up your vertical SaaS product. “I actually did that in my earlier startup when I signed up a very large retailer and became a slave to them. We had to show triple growth and didn’t have true PMF,” recalls Hariharan. “So you end up becoming a professional services company masquerading as a product company. Then it starts to eat away at the company.” His next startup, CommerceIQ, could never have gotten the trajectory it achieved if its PMF foundations had not been laid by setting C20 (20 successful customers) as the formative target. Part 2: CommerceIQ’s playbook to launch products in vertical SaaS" } }

We’re building the game plan for you to survive and thrive in 2023

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(10285) "It’s when the fuel dries up that you realize you've hired the wrong people or scaled too big in a market that has a ceiling you can’t grow beyond, or that you should not have built a VC-funded company in the first place and could have been bootstrapped.  SaaS folks have a lot to reflect on right now, and SaaSBOOMi Annual 2023 comes at the right time to help them ride out the down market and also look at opportunities to thrive in it. We are bringing veterans who have gone through multiple business cycles and will share their learning on building the right kind of businesses. We have speakers coming in with playbooks on how to recalibrate for the new challenges that are at play. We will have founders who managed to grow really well last year and will share their secrets. We will also be sharing specific, contextual playbooks on product marketing, sales, growth, how you can use pricing to your advantage in this situation, and a lot more. We have a session lined up on compliance and how to deal with various regulations, which itself takes up substantial mind space for a founder. We have an excellent session on M&A, which will get more active in a down market. An investment banker, someone who sold the company, and someone who is a buyer will provide three different perspectives.  So a lot of tactical stuff would surface and if you don't attend, you'd miss out. 

What’s important is that founders will be able to think through strategies for every aspect of their business in these interactions.

For example, one of the biggest fallacies I've seen founders from India fall for is to say, 'Let me just price my product cheaper than my US counterpart. People are fighting over budgets and let me use this as a lever for competitive advantage. Then I'll get that deal and grow my revenue.'  It doesn't work. You’re just looking at the easiest solution that comes to mind. How I helped PipeCandy and Wingman in SaaSBOOMi’s SGx program at the height of the pandemic was to focus on communicating their value to the customer. With both companies, I got them to raise their prices. They were nervous, but their sales improved. These outcomes are possible in SaaSBOOMi because founders feel they can open up here about needing help without being judged. That’s a big contrast in culture with other communities where you rarely see a company talk about how they’re struggling and usually find companies boasting about how they’re making it.  Here, everyone realizes the struggle you're going through, the uniqueness of the journey, the emotions in bringing on your first leadership hire, tracking your first enterprise client, opening your first office, or having your co-founder leave, having a VC bail out on you, failing to sell the company … Everyone’s gone through tough experiences. They respect you for your struggle. They don’t respect you for vanity metrics here. That’s how SaaSBOOMi is different from other communities, and why the SaaSBOOMi Annual is special.

Fake Advice or Genuine?

I had the privilege of moving outside India and experiencing the Western world, as the founder of Kayako (acquired by US-based ESW Capital in 2018). I lived in London for six years, and I used to travel a lot to the US as well. It's one of those things that's talked about a lot -  if you wanna grow your business, go West.  When you make that move, you hear about all these communities - SaaStr and the Valley ecosystem are raved about as cult-like things. But when I became a part of these communities and attended their events, the US founder ecosystem came across as self-promotional. The mantra to ‘fake it till you make it’ seemed entrenched. You had to read between the lines in any conversation to see if any takeaways or guidance you got was the right advice. Contrast that with the SaaS community in India which has morphed into SaaSBOOMi. It has a strong volunteer network of founders leading it. That makes it a self-perpetuating group without the flaws I saw in the West.

This is where I found a deeper connection as a founder. The relationships are so much more meaningful. For example, during the pandemic year in 2020, a program called SaaSBOOMi GrowthX, now known as SGx, got started. It pairs an experienced founder with a stalled founder who has the potential to grow much faster.

I paired up with PipeCandy for four months. It doubled its revenue after joining SGx and went on to be acquired by a US group called Assembly. In the next cohort, I paired with Wingman, and a similar thing happened: it doubled its revenue and was also acquired after the SGx program, interestingly. I got a chance to work with a number of other founders. Everyone was open and candid. We all worked together as a team without judgment.  SaaSBOOMi gives meaning to my professional life. I keep dabbling in a bunch of other interesting stuff, but the moment you step out of the Indian SaaS community, everyone's very cagey. No one opens up. The opening up is a cultural value that was inculcated in SaaSBOOMi from its inception. And the SaaSBOOMi Annual is an occasion to recalibrate as a community, where you talk about recent developments, share your learnings, and deepen your friendships. The 2023 edition comes at a difficult time which calls for the right game plan to survive and thrive. It’s the first truly recessionary cycle that SaaS companies are experiencing.  I started my company (Kayako) after the internet bubble burst. I was young, had nothing to lose, and was not even thinking about failure. But I did get to experience the 2008 recession. We were close to $2 million in revenue by then. Bootstrapped and run efficiently, we only saw growth during that phase while US companies were struggling and people were losing their jobs. We would see all the crazy stories over there on the news. And yet, our revenues were still growing considerably. One of the reasons was the price arbitrage. Customers found us to be more affordable with a better solution. So we had enough cash in the bank, we were profitable, and we saw growth. I think where the challenges are coming from today is indigestion from excessive funding which led to inefficiencies creeping into the ecosystem during the easy money time in 2021. The recent GoMechanic collapse, due to pure fraud, is the extreme end of the spectrum. We got into a state where we took capital for granted.  Now the pain of scarce capital is forcing a change for the better. And honestly, if you ask me, no other external circumstance could have brought discipline. No matter how many blog posts experienced folks wrote, they would have been laughed away from the street. Now, founders will have to run companies efficiently, respect them as businesses, and not just focus on cheap capital to run perpetual loss-making machines. This had to happen. And at the Annual, we will be talking about the necessary recalibration and also growing from here to come out stronger. I personally feel the dominance of Indian SaaS globally is inevitable. As Western-first companies have set up development operations in India, most of the operational playbooks would eventually come from India. For example, if you open DoorDash and compare it to Swiggy and Zomato, the Indian apps are so much more polished and better. Six years back, we had leadership on price or maybe throwing humans at a problem, but you could've never imagined leadership in UX.  Similarly, we'll have a concentration of SaaS playbooks in India. And there’s no way a US company, with its high level of cost, can compete with the sheer amount of talent being built up here.

Once we crack the product marketing and UX playbooks to communicate the value of the product and be positioned equally with any US company perceptually, it will be impossible for US companies to compete. We are fairly close to cracking the sales playbook, with Covid accelerating buying from Indian companies.

That stigma of buying from India is gone.  So I think the current headwinds that companies are facing due to inflation will be an excellent forcing function, which will bring discipline and lead to Indian SaaS dominance. What China did with manufacturing, we’ll do with SaaS from India. The current recessionary challenge of capital becoming scarce or growth stalling is a bump on the road toward that dominance. A recalibration will strengthen the ecosystem. SaaSBOOMi Annual 2023 will be a catalyst for that. To register, click here: https://saasboomi.org/annual/ … Edited by Sumit Chakraberty" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(10285) "It’s when the fuel dries up that you realize you've hired the wrong people or scaled too big in a market that has a ceiling you can’t grow beyond, or that you should not have built a VC-funded company in the first place and could have been bootstrapped.  SaaS folks have a lot to reflect on right now, and SaaSBOOMi Annual 2023 comes at the right time to help them ride out the down market and also look at opportunities to thrive in it. We are bringing veterans who have gone through multiple business cycles and will share their learning on building the right kind of businesses. We have speakers coming in with playbooks on how to recalibrate for the new challenges that are at play. We will have founders who managed to grow really well last year and will share their secrets. We will also be sharing specific, contextual playbooks on product marketing, sales, growth, how you can use pricing to your advantage in this situation, and a lot more. We have a session lined up on compliance and how to deal with various regulations, which itself takes up substantial mind space for a founder. We have an excellent session on M&A, which will get more active in a down market. An investment banker, someone who sold the company, and someone who is a buyer will provide three different perspectives.  So a lot of tactical stuff would surface and if you don't attend, you'd miss out. 

What’s important is that founders will be able to think through strategies for every aspect of their business in these interactions.

For example, one of the biggest fallacies I've seen founders from India fall for is to say, 'Let me just price my product cheaper than my US counterpart. People are fighting over budgets and let me use this as a lever for competitive advantage. Then I'll get that deal and grow my revenue.'  It doesn't work. You’re just looking at the easiest solution that comes to mind. How I helped PipeCandy and Wingman in SaaSBOOMi’s SGx program at the height of the pandemic was to focus on communicating their value to the customer. With both companies, I got them to raise their prices. They were nervous, but their sales improved. These outcomes are possible in SaaSBOOMi because founders feel they can open up here about needing help without being judged. That’s a big contrast in culture with other communities where you rarely see a company talk about how they’re struggling and usually find companies boasting about how they’re making it.  Here, everyone realizes the struggle you're going through, the uniqueness of the journey, the emotions in bringing on your first leadership hire, tracking your first enterprise client, opening your first office, or having your co-founder leave, having a VC bail out on you, failing to sell the company … Everyone’s gone through tough experiences. They respect you for your struggle. They don’t respect you for vanity metrics here. That’s how SaaSBOOMi is different from other communities, and why the SaaSBOOMi Annual is special.

Fake Advice or Genuine?

I had the privilege of moving outside India and experiencing the Western world, as the founder of Kayako (acquired by US-based ESW Capital in 2018). I lived in London for six years, and I used to travel a lot to the US as well. It's one of those things that's talked about a lot -  if you wanna grow your business, go West.  When you make that move, you hear about all these communities - SaaStr and the Valley ecosystem are raved about as cult-like things. But when I became a part of these communities and attended their events, the US founder ecosystem came across as self-promotional. The mantra to ‘fake it till you make it’ seemed entrenched. You had to read between the lines in any conversation to see if any takeaways or guidance you got was the right advice. Contrast that with the SaaS community in India which has morphed into SaaSBOOMi. It has a strong volunteer network of founders leading it. That makes it a self-perpetuating group without the flaws I saw in the West.

This is where I found a deeper connection as a founder. The relationships are so much more meaningful. For example, during the pandemic year in 2020, a program called SaaSBOOMi GrowthX, now known as SGx, got started. It pairs an experienced founder with a stalled founder who has the potential to grow much faster.

I paired up with PipeCandy for four months. It doubled its revenue after joining SGx and went on to be acquired by a US group called Assembly. In the next cohort, I paired with Wingman, and a similar thing happened: it doubled its revenue and was also acquired after the SGx program, interestingly. I got a chance to work with a number of other founders. Everyone was open and candid. We all worked together as a team without judgment.  SaaSBOOMi gives meaning to my professional life. I keep dabbling in a bunch of other interesting stuff, but the moment you step out of the Indian SaaS community, everyone's very cagey. No one opens up. The opening up is a cultural value that was inculcated in SaaSBOOMi from its inception. And the SaaSBOOMi Annual is an occasion to recalibrate as a community, where you talk about recent developments, share your learnings, and deepen your friendships. The 2023 edition comes at a difficult time which calls for the right game plan to survive and thrive. It’s the first truly recessionary cycle that SaaS companies are experiencing.  I started my company (Kayako) after the internet bubble burst. I was young, had nothing to lose, and was not even thinking about failure. But I did get to experience the 2008 recession. We were close to $2 million in revenue by then. Bootstrapped and run efficiently, we only saw growth during that phase while US companies were struggling and people were losing their jobs. We would see all the crazy stories over there on the news. And yet, our revenues were still growing considerably. One of the reasons was the price arbitrage. Customers found us to be more affordable with a better solution. So we had enough cash in the bank, we were profitable, and we saw growth. I think where the challenges are coming from today is indigestion from excessive funding which led to inefficiencies creeping into the ecosystem during the easy money time in 2021. The recent GoMechanic collapse, due to pure fraud, is the extreme end of the spectrum. We got into a state where we took capital for granted.  Now the pain of scarce capital is forcing a change for the better. And honestly, if you ask me, no other external circumstance could have brought discipline. No matter how many blog posts experienced folks wrote, they would have been laughed away from the street. Now, founders will have to run companies efficiently, respect them as businesses, and not just focus on cheap capital to run perpetual loss-making machines. This had to happen. And at the Annual, we will be talking about the necessary recalibration and also growing from here to come out stronger. I personally feel the dominance of Indian SaaS globally is inevitable. As Western-first companies have set up development operations in India, most of the operational playbooks would eventually come from India. For example, if you open DoorDash and compare it to Swiggy and Zomato, the Indian apps are so much more polished and better. Six years back, we had leadership on price or maybe throwing humans at a problem, but you could've never imagined leadership in UX.  Similarly, we'll have a concentration of SaaS playbooks in India. And there’s no way a US company, with its high level of cost, can compete with the sheer amount of talent being built up here.

Once we crack the product marketing and UX playbooks to communicate the value of the product and be positioned equally with any US company perceptually, it will be impossible for US companies to compete. We are fairly close to cracking the sales playbook, with Covid accelerating buying from Indian companies.

That stigma of buying from India is gone.  So I think the current headwinds that companies are facing due to inflation will be an excellent forcing function, which will bring discipline and lead to Indian SaaS dominance. What China did with manufacturing, we’ll do with SaaS from India. The current recessionary challenge of capital becoming scarce or growth stalling is a bump on the road toward that dominance. A recalibration will strengthen the ecosystem. SaaSBOOMi Annual 2023 will be a catalyst for that. To register, click here: https://saasboomi.org/annual/ … Edited by Sumit Chakraberty" } }

Your competitor wants to acquire you. Now what?

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(10665) "A few weeks ago, a friend approached me. He was anxious and at a crossroads. A competitor had come in to acquire his company and the conversation seemed serious.  The story of this founder's friend started three months ago when the competitor called him and asked if he would be open to being acquired. My founder friend didn’t think much of it and let it go. The competitor returned in three months and repeated the question, “How much?” My founder friend fumbled and gave a range. The competitor promised to return in a week to talk some more.  It is an interesting place. Does he sell? If he does, how should he structure it? How much information should he share? It’s a competitor and if the deal falls apart, the competitor will have access to a whole lot of sensitive information. It made me think, how should a founder handle a situation such as this?  I’ve been through this before and I was lucky enough to get by and sell CloudCherry to Cisco. But Cisco was not a competitor and the market looked different. A founder, I realized, needs a guide to navigate this situation. This guide will protect founders and help them make the right decision and as is SaaSBOOMi’s style, we called in an expert from an expert to set up a playbook of sorts.  I called Omar Tawakol. He has an interesting personality not just because of his clarity of thought but because he has built and sold multiple companies in the past. Omar’s most recent company was acquired by Cisco for its conversational AI, but the largest exit he saw was when Oracle acquired Bluekai a few years earlier. If anyone knows acquisitions, it is Omar.  A little background on him: A few years after completing graduate school, Omar set up a SaaS-based recommendation engine. With just an eight-member team, his company produced the recommendation engine for Barnes & Noble and Nordstrom. Soon enough, he had a potential acquirer. This company run by a famous founder was almost 10X bigger, well-funded, and ready to go public. Omar was on board and his company was acquired. But after the acquisition, there were multiple CEO changes and the proposed IPO never happened and all the value Omar could have realized was gone. Poof! This made him set up a few ground rules, which set him up for great outcomes in his future ventures and hopefully be useful advice for others.  I posted to him the same question my founder friend had, and Omar asked: “Is this competitor a listed company or private?” That defines the way you have a conversation with them, explains Omar. Let’s take a small step into why this distinction is important, a listed company is public and has liquidity. It gives the founder an insight into the acquirer’s revenue, growth, profit, and strategic imperatives. This insight tells the founder how their company would fit into the larger scheme of things.  Now, let’s assume the company is privately owned. It means the data on the company is limited and the fear of giving too much information too early is justified.  He set a few ground rules to start with:

1. Don’t lose control over your destiny until you can provide capital to your employees and investors.  In the main, this means sticking with public companies as acquirers.
2. Try to avoid complex conditional earnouts, because conditions and strategies often change.

Now, let’s go deeper.

Stay with acquisitions that provide liquidity now

I prefer acquisitions from public companies.  If, however, the company is private and you are not the CEO of the go-forward entity, take cash.  Otherwise, you are taking stock that might not have value in the future.  This is a risky outcome for your employees and investors.  Liquidity now allows you to cede control for a known outcome today. However, Omar says that there are rare exceptions to this rule. For instance, if you were acquired by OpenAI or by Amazon prior to its IPO, these are rare opportunities. There should be clear signs in these rare cases, and it is not the total funds raised by the company or the CEO’s popularity. “It is about how loved their company’s products are and how much they drive revenue growth,” he says.  

Ref check

We all have ambitions to generate revenue and value for our shareholders. But when someone comes to offer you the exit, you need to know if the person you’re speaking to is legit. Do they have the juice to do a meaningful deal?  Speak to your confidant or an advisor, someone who is going, to be honest with you and does not have a vested interest in the transaction. Bankers want the deal to go through, you, the founder, aren’t on their mind. For founders, who are just getting started, find this mentor/advisor figure. It helps not only when you have major decisions to make but also makes the process less stressful. 

Find another offer

You can get the best price and terms when there is another entity in the picture ready to do the deal.  Competitive pressure is one tool that will keep the M&A table warm. Omar says that nothing will improve your M&A outcome more than competitive pressure.  Start this process early.  Finding another potential bidder in the middle of a process is very hard to do.  You need deep relationships in place in advance. Always drive great partnerships that can drive meaningful outcomes for both parties. Don’t build partnerships for the sake of acquisitions, build them for the sake of good business.  If you do that, one of them might end up having good acquisition potential. If you don’t have another bidder, don’t lie. Lies get caught out and things could go sideways quickly. 

Find reliable anchors 

Sometimes you are lucky and your acquirer reveals their price range to begin the discussion, but in other cases, they don’t.  In that case, you will have to start anchoring the potential acquirer. But don’t anchor in a way that makes bidders disappear or leaves too much on the table. “I saw this happen once, someone anchored a price that was too high and scared off a credible bidder,” he says.  Anchoring too low is also obviously bad. My point here is that you need to be careful about the price. Make it sound like the price range is determined more by the existing competition. Instead of offering exact numbers, give ranges where you should aim to anchor at the higher end. You want to provide the anchor that will push the interested bidder to stretch. A caveat here. Your ecosystem needs to know you enough so that your bidders are convinced by the price ranges that you quote. 

Look at the true value 

A lot of companies focus on the headline numbers, like say hitting a $1 million ARR. But what is more crucial is the inherent value addition that you bring to the table. Let’s say that you are building a $1 plugin. Your ARR may be $1 million now, but in the hands of the acquirer, it could be worth $30 million in 18 months. So think about what your product can do in the acquirer’s company and not what your product can do by itself.  But how do you know how your acquirer values you? You move the conversation to what you can do together. Say the competitor has 10,000 enterprises and you are a $100 package. Imagine the possibilities together. The combination of the two can potentially achieve a $100 million ARR. That’s the model you need to build.    “Don’t force the acquirer to build this model on their own. Do it with them. Ask yourself, what is the synergy, what are the growth drivers, and what is the revenue projection,” he says.  You need to help them build it because you know your company inside out. This will help model some hidden potentials that were otherwise being ignored.  

Don’t reveal too much

How much is too much? You don’t always know. But there is no obligation to share sensitive information with a potential competitor. So if someone’s asking for your customer list you can refuse.   You can do incremental reveals as the negotiations progress, from the early discussions to the term sheet stage.   “My suggestion is to not give out anything sensitive until you get the term sheet,” says Omar. If people insist, give out names of customers that you know are public anyway or you’re sure won’t migrate out of your platform.  An acquisition could be a positive outcome in your lifecycle, not every story ends in an IPO, and some of the most successful outcomes were acquisitions. WhatsApp, YouTube, and Flipkart are all examples of meaningful acquisitions that continued to thrive.  One last thought. Enjoy the ride while you are building your company and try not to think of acquisitions.  Thinking too much of acquisitions replaces focus and energy better spent on your customers. If you focus on your customers and how to make their experience 10x better — the acquisition offers will likely follow.  The opposite is not true." ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(10665) "A few weeks ago, a friend approached me. He was anxious and at a crossroads. A competitor had come in to acquire his company and the conversation seemed serious.  The story of this founder's friend started three months ago when the competitor called him and asked if he would be open to being acquired. My founder friend didn’t think much of it and let it go. The competitor returned in three months and repeated the question, “How much?” My founder friend fumbled and gave a range. The competitor promised to return in a week to talk some more.  It is an interesting place. Does he sell? If he does, how should he structure it? How much information should he share? It’s a competitor and if the deal falls apart, the competitor will have access to a whole lot of sensitive information. It made me think, how should a founder handle a situation such as this?  I’ve been through this before and I was lucky enough to get by and sell CloudCherry to Cisco. But Cisco was not a competitor and the market looked different. A founder, I realized, needs a guide to navigate this situation. This guide will protect founders and help them make the right decision and as is SaaSBOOMi’s style, we called in an expert from an expert to set up a playbook of sorts.  I called Omar Tawakol. He has an interesting personality not just because of his clarity of thought but because he has built and sold multiple companies in the past. Omar’s most recent company was acquired by Cisco for its conversational AI, but the largest exit he saw was when Oracle acquired Bluekai a few years earlier. If anyone knows acquisitions, it is Omar.  A little background on him: A few years after completing graduate school, Omar set up a SaaS-based recommendation engine. With just an eight-member team, his company produced the recommendation engine for Barnes & Noble and Nordstrom. Soon enough, he had a potential acquirer. This company run by a famous founder was almost 10X bigger, well-funded, and ready to go public. Omar was on board and his company was acquired. But after the acquisition, there were multiple CEO changes and the proposed IPO never happened and all the value Omar could have realized was gone. Poof! This made him set up a few ground rules, which set him up for great outcomes in his future ventures and hopefully be useful advice for others.  I posted to him the same question my founder friend had, and Omar asked: “Is this competitor a listed company or private?” That defines the way you have a conversation with them, explains Omar. Let’s take a small step into why this distinction is important, a listed company is public and has liquidity. It gives the founder an insight into the acquirer’s revenue, growth, profit, and strategic imperatives. This insight tells the founder how their company would fit into the larger scheme of things.  Now, let’s assume the company is privately owned. It means the data on the company is limited and the fear of giving too much information too early is justified.  He set a few ground rules to start with:

1. Don’t lose control over your destiny until you can provide capital to your employees and investors.  In the main, this means sticking with public companies as acquirers.
2. Try to avoid complex conditional earnouts, because conditions and strategies often change.

Now, let’s go deeper.

Stay with acquisitions that provide liquidity now

I prefer acquisitions from public companies.  If, however, the company is private and you are not the CEO of the go-forward entity, take cash.  Otherwise, you are taking stock that might not have value in the future.  This is a risky outcome for your employees and investors.  Liquidity now allows you to cede control for a known outcome today. However, Omar says that there are rare exceptions to this rule. For instance, if you were acquired by OpenAI or by Amazon prior to its IPO, these are rare opportunities. There should be clear signs in these rare cases, and it is not the total funds raised by the company or the CEO’s popularity. “It is about how loved their company’s products are and how much they drive revenue growth,” he says.  

Ref check

We all have ambitions to generate revenue and value for our shareholders. But when someone comes to offer you the exit, you need to know if the person you’re speaking to is legit. Do they have the juice to do a meaningful deal?  Speak to your confidant or an advisor, someone who is going, to be honest with you and does not have a vested interest in the transaction. Bankers want the deal to go through, you, the founder, aren’t on their mind. For founders, who are just getting started, find this mentor/advisor figure. It helps not only when you have major decisions to make but also makes the process less stressful. 

Find another offer

You can get the best price and terms when there is another entity in the picture ready to do the deal.  Competitive pressure is one tool that will keep the M&A table warm. Omar says that nothing will improve your M&A outcome more than competitive pressure.  Start this process early.  Finding another potential bidder in the middle of a process is very hard to do.  You need deep relationships in place in advance. Always drive great partnerships that can drive meaningful outcomes for both parties. Don’t build partnerships for the sake of acquisitions, build them for the sake of good business.  If you do that, one of them might end up having good acquisition potential. If you don’t have another bidder, don’t lie. Lies get caught out and things could go sideways quickly. 

Find reliable anchors 

Sometimes you are lucky and your acquirer reveals their price range to begin the discussion, but in other cases, they don’t.  In that case, you will have to start anchoring the potential acquirer. But don’t anchor in a way that makes bidders disappear or leaves too much on the table. “I saw this happen once, someone anchored a price that was too high and scared off a credible bidder,” he says.  Anchoring too low is also obviously bad. My point here is that you need to be careful about the price. Make it sound like the price range is determined more by the existing competition. Instead of offering exact numbers, give ranges where you should aim to anchor at the higher end. You want to provide the anchor that will push the interested bidder to stretch. A caveat here. Your ecosystem needs to know you enough so that your bidders are convinced by the price ranges that you quote. 

Look at the true value 

A lot of companies focus on the headline numbers, like say hitting a $1 million ARR. But what is more crucial is the inherent value addition that you bring to the table. Let’s say that you are building a $1 plugin. Your ARR may be $1 million now, but in the hands of the acquirer, it could be worth $30 million in 18 months. So think about what your product can do in the acquirer’s company and not what your product can do by itself.  But how do you know how your acquirer values you? You move the conversation to what you can do together. Say the competitor has 10,000 enterprises and you are a $100 package. Imagine the possibilities together. The combination of the two can potentially achieve a $100 million ARR. That’s the model you need to build.    “Don’t force the acquirer to build this model on their own. Do it with them. Ask yourself, what is the synergy, what are the growth drivers, and what is the revenue projection,” he says.  You need to help them build it because you know your company inside out. This will help model some hidden potentials that were otherwise being ignored.  

Don’t reveal too much

How much is too much? You don’t always know. But there is no obligation to share sensitive information with a potential competitor. So if someone’s asking for your customer list you can refuse.   You can do incremental reveals as the negotiations progress, from the early discussions to the term sheet stage.   “My suggestion is to not give out anything sensitive until you get the term sheet,” says Omar. If people insist, give out names of customers that you know are public anyway or you’re sure won’t migrate out of your platform.  An acquisition could be a positive outcome in your lifecycle, not every story ends in an IPO, and some of the most successful outcomes were acquisitions. WhatsApp, YouTube, and Flipkart are all examples of meaningful acquisitions that continued to thrive.  One last thought. Enjoy the ride while you are building your company and try not to think of acquisitions.  Thinking too much of acquisitions replaces focus and energy better spent on your customers. If you focus on your customers and how to make their experience 10x better — the acquisition offers will likely follow.  The opposite is not true." } }

Have you cracked the SEO code yet?

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(8884) "An old friend worked hard for years and launched his SaaS product. It was a high-quality product, so he got the initial few sign-ups. But, the business barely moved after that. It was almost as if his product was invisible. And to an extent, it was.  The product description on his website reads like this: Visit us for the best software solution for e-payment, mobile payment, online payment, cardless payment, digital payment, and instant bill payments.  Do you see what is wrong with this sentence? All the product descriptions are practically the same. They are generic and likely to drown in a sea of commonly used words, pushing the website to the back pages of the search engine. And this is what happened. While my friend perfected the product, he missed out on investing in SEO.  The worst thing that can happen to a startup is to land on the second page of Google's search results. It is mostly deserted. Customers don’t have the time or patience to go deeper, so if your website isn’t among the top 10 results, that’s the end of the story. If your SEO game isn’t strong, nothing else matters.  There are millions of tips and tricks on how to make your website stand out from the crowd but, unfortunately, there is no magic formula that works best. But there are some useful tools on the internet to help your SEO game become stronger.  When I was called in to do an AMA with the SaaSBOOMi members, I was thrilled. It was time to help give back to the community. It was a lively conversation, I had to use all my three decades of experience in SaaS and IT, to give founders, senior operators, and members answers to their questions.

Start with SEO, then software

If you have to spend money on something, spend it on SEO. If your website doesn’t rank, all your efforts will be futile, this is the mantra I repeat to all founders.  First, a word of caution. This doesn’t mean you spend thousands of dollars on paid ads that appear at the very beginning of the search engine. Budget, optimize, strategize, and then decide where you want to spend your money. So, what if you have multiple products? You must give priority to the product that has the maximum revenue potential. If your company has AI solutions for workplace access and HR automation, decide what is your core asset. Once your key service occupies valuable real estate on the Google search engine, its bots will automatically crawl your website for relevant add-ons. 

Where to start?

Not just us, even some of the oldest hands at Google won’t have all the answers for SEO. Because it changes almost every day. But there are some dedicated tools that come in handy.  Use either Ahrefs or Semrush to help drive organic traffic to your website. The premise is simple: these SEO tools will provide information on creating SEO-friendly content and suggest modifications. But it’s important to invest in the paid versions to find keyword suggestions that are relevant to your industry audience.  There are five things to remember:

1. More is not better. Adding 200 different keywords can distract your audience and Rakesh says that Google notices it too. As a founder, your gut feeling may be relevant in a lot of business areas, but SEO isn’t one of them. Google has an SEO starter pack with a list of guidelines that can help you.
2. Stick to 20 or 25 keywords: Using Ahrefs or Semrush, shortlist the keywords that have the highest volumes. But don’t go overboard and finalize 400 keywords. It won’t work. You should filter out the top of the funnel and the bottom of the funnel keywords.
3. Link and merge: When you are building your content bank, look for similar-looking words and merge content wherever possible. You can also build trustworthiness for your articles by adding relevant internal links. A high number of articles doesn’t lead to better SEO outcomes.
4. CPC is better than volumes: The cost-per-click metric is important to find out how much a competitor is willing to pay for Google keywords. CPC offers good returns because you are only paying for customers who are interested in your product.
5. Keyword Golden Ratio: KGR involves looking for underserved keywords and plugging them into your content. For example, instead of using a generic keyword such as SaaS, you can go into specific keywords such as HRM SaaS and HRMS SaaS. 

Finding the SEO entity

An SEO entity is what will pull Google users to your website. An entity is something that is singular, unique, and well-defined. If you look for “Apple” on Google, it will always recommend the company website. If you search “banana”, Google assumes you are looking for the fruit’s nutritional value. Again, this is not a random pattern, but an algorithm developed after analyzing millions of search results and click patterns.  Say you type “recurring business software”. A related Wikipedia page on “subscription business model” can be a good reference point to look for relevant keywords. Your aim should be to achieve an entity-level SEO. It is something similar to Salesforce being synonymous with SaaS. Type ‘SaaS product’ on Google and Salesforce will always be the first result. The search engine will crawl better if schema markup is added to your website. Think of it as tags that inform Google what your website content wants to convey. 

Planning the content calendar 

Developing a well-structured content calendar is key to ranking higher on Google. Now the strategy can vary depending on how old your business is.  If your SaaS is at the sandbox stage, meaning under six months old, about three articles a week should suffice. Typically, businesses older than six months should post between 20 and 40 articles a month. Here, tools such as Surfer SEO can offer the minutest details, including what GIFs to use, how many words to write, and where to break paragraphs.   As added support, use tools such as Nextjs and LabsMedia to improve your page load speed. In the world of SEO, every second is valuable. This is especially important if your website has a high bounce rate, something that Google monitors very closely.  The initial idea is to plan, create a valuable content bank, and build velocity. The game is not over, it never is. You have to keep re-optimizing the content so that Google knows that your articles are updated and relevant.  Predictability is an asset for Google, which means content that has a regular publishing schedule (date and time) draws more traffic. You can also tweak the publishing time using VPNs to match the local time zones of your target markets.  A lot of this involves a series of trials and errors. That is the reason outsourcing the entire content inventory may be a bad idea. You can outsource a few content pieces but create important high-quality content in-house.  Eventually, SEO is all about patience. There is no other option but to work towards attracting traffic. However, remember to strike the right balance. Don’t over-optimize or under-optimize. " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(8884) "An old friend worked hard for years and launched his SaaS product. It was a high-quality product, so he got the initial few sign-ups. But, the business barely moved after that. It was almost as if his product was invisible. And to an extent, it was.  The product description on his website reads like this: Visit us for the best software solution for e-payment, mobile payment, online payment, cardless payment, digital payment, and instant bill payments.  Do you see what is wrong with this sentence? All the product descriptions are practically the same. They are generic and likely to drown in a sea of commonly used words, pushing the website to the back pages of the search engine. And this is what happened. While my friend perfected the product, he missed out on investing in SEO.  The worst thing that can happen to a startup is to land on the second page of Google's search results. It is mostly deserted. Customers don’t have the time or patience to go deeper, so if your website isn’t among the top 10 results, that’s the end of the story. If your SEO game isn’t strong, nothing else matters.  There are millions of tips and tricks on how to make your website stand out from the crowd but, unfortunately, there is no magic formula that works best. But there are some useful tools on the internet to help your SEO game become stronger.  When I was called in to do an AMA with the SaaSBOOMi members, I was thrilled. It was time to help give back to the community. It was a lively conversation, I had to use all my three decades of experience in SaaS and IT, to give founders, senior operators, and members answers to their questions.

Start with SEO, then software

If you have to spend money on something, spend it on SEO. If your website doesn’t rank, all your efforts will be futile, this is the mantra I repeat to all founders.  First, a word of caution. This doesn’t mean you spend thousands of dollars on paid ads that appear at the very beginning of the search engine. Budget, optimize, strategize, and then decide where you want to spend your money. So, what if you have multiple products? You must give priority to the product that has the maximum revenue potential. If your company has AI solutions for workplace access and HR automation, decide what is your core asset. Once your key service occupies valuable real estate on the Google search engine, its bots will automatically crawl your website for relevant add-ons. 

Where to start?

Not just us, even some of the oldest hands at Google won’t have all the answers for SEO. Because it changes almost every day. But there are some dedicated tools that come in handy.  Use either Ahrefs or Semrush to help drive organic traffic to your website. The premise is simple: these SEO tools will provide information on creating SEO-friendly content and suggest modifications. But it’s important to invest in the paid versions to find keyword suggestions that are relevant to your industry audience.  There are five things to remember:

1. More is not better. Adding 200 different keywords can distract your audience and Rakesh says that Google notices it too. As a founder, your gut feeling may be relevant in a lot of business areas, but SEO isn’t one of them. Google has an SEO starter pack with a list of guidelines that can help you.
2. Stick to 20 or 25 keywords: Using Ahrefs or Semrush, shortlist the keywords that have the highest volumes. But don’t go overboard and finalize 400 keywords. It won’t work. You should filter out the top of the funnel and the bottom of the funnel keywords.
3. Link and merge: When you are building your content bank, look for similar-looking words and merge content wherever possible. You can also build trustworthiness for your articles by adding relevant internal links. A high number of articles doesn’t lead to better SEO outcomes.
4. CPC is better than volumes: The cost-per-click metric is important to find out how much a competitor is willing to pay for Google keywords. CPC offers good returns because you are only paying for customers who are interested in your product.
5. Keyword Golden Ratio: KGR involves looking for underserved keywords and plugging them into your content. For example, instead of using a generic keyword such as SaaS, you can go into specific keywords such as HRM SaaS and HRMS SaaS. 

Finding the SEO entity

An SEO entity is what will pull Google users to your website. An entity is something that is singular, unique, and well-defined. If you look for “Apple” on Google, it will always recommend the company website. If you search “banana”, Google assumes you are looking for the fruit’s nutritional value. Again, this is not a random pattern, but an algorithm developed after analyzing millions of search results and click patterns.  Say you type “recurring business software”. A related Wikipedia page on “subscription business model” can be a good reference point to look for relevant keywords. Your aim should be to achieve an entity-level SEO. It is something similar to Salesforce being synonymous with SaaS. Type ‘SaaS product’ on Google and Salesforce will always be the first result. The search engine will crawl better if schema markup is added to your website. Think of it as tags that inform Google what your website content wants to convey. 

Planning the content calendar 

Developing a well-structured content calendar is key to ranking higher on Google. Now the strategy can vary depending on how old your business is.  If your SaaS is at the sandbox stage, meaning under six months old, about three articles a week should suffice. Typically, businesses older than six months should post between 20 and 40 articles a month. Here, tools such as Surfer SEO can offer the minutest details, including what GIFs to use, how many words to write, and where to break paragraphs.   As added support, use tools such as Nextjs and LabsMedia to improve your page load speed. In the world of SEO, every second is valuable. This is especially important if your website has a high bounce rate, something that Google monitors very closely.  The initial idea is to plan, create a valuable content bank, and build velocity. The game is not over, it never is. You have to keep re-optimizing the content so that Google knows that your articles are updated and relevant.  Predictability is an asset for Google, which means content that has a regular publishing schedule (date and time) draws more traffic. You can also tweak the publishing time using VPNs to match the local time zones of your target markets.  A lot of this involves a series of trials and errors. That is the reason outsourcing the entire content inventory may be a bad idea. You can outsource a few content pieces but create important high-quality content in-house.  Eventually, SEO is all about patience. There is no other option but to work towards attracting traffic. However, remember to strike the right balance. Don’t over-optimize or under-optimize. " } }

What B2B SaaS marketing can learn from the B2C world

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(15335) "With nearly 15 years of work experience straddling between developing and executing organizational projects, the true test came with one of the biggest transitions that occurred on my career timeline - the transition from B2C to B2B SaaS.  After spending 7 years in the ‘female-powered’ consumer-facing side of the beauty & lifestyle industry, many questioned my choice of starting a company in the Enterprise SaaS space. It wasn’t seen as the usual course for someone who is not an engineer and thus not the quintessential poster person for the ‘boys club’ of B2B SaaS. But, as they say, embracing change is the only way. And indeed, embracing this shift has brought many aha's and revelations with it.

1. H2H has arrived: Human-to-Human Marketing takes centerstage

As Bryan Kramer (Zen Master to digital marketers) says, “There is no more B2B or B2C. It’s H2H: human to human.”  It is true that the pandemic and other recent events have highlighted the importance of putting people at the center of all conversations, whether in business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) contexts.  While B2B SaaS interactions may traditionally have been seen as more clinical and focused on products and technology, it is increasingly recognized that human factors, such as empathy and emotional intelligence, are important in all business interactions. This is because building strong relationships with customers, clients, and partners is essential for success in any business, and this requires a focus on people and their needs. By prioritizing the needs and well-being of people, businesses can create a more positive and rewarding experience for all parties involved.

2. Personalization is key

Personalization and configurability have proved to be important in both B2B and B2C contexts. In recent times, beauty brands like Bare Anatomy, Vedix, Freewill, Freshistry, and Emcee Beauty have gained traction in the market because they offer customized solutions to consumers’ problem statements. For example, if you want a fragrance-free, sulfate-free, dry-hair-friendly, frizz-treating shampoo versus someone who needs a mild fragrance, oily hair, volume-adding shampoo - they provide both and more. And so if one was to transfer this learning to B2B, why shouldn’t it apply?  While many SaaS companies today may offer a range of pricing plans or feature packages that can be customized to meet the specific needs of different customers, most of them are yet to run full circle. ​​There are several ways to personalize a SaaS product for the customer:

1. Customize the user interface: Allow customers to customize the look and feel of the product to match their brand or personal preferences. This could include customizing the color scheme, logo, and other visual elements.
2. Offer personalized recommendations: Use data and machine learning algorithms to provide personalized recommendations to customers based on their usage patterns and preferences.
3. Personalized onboarding: Create a customized onboarding experience for each customer to help them get started quickly and effectively. This could include personalized training and support materials. We, at Veris, also create branded internal marketing collaterals for enhanced user-adoption on the client side.
4. Customize features and functionality: Allow customers to customize certain features and functionality to meet their specific needs. This could include custom integrations, custom reports, and other tailored solutions.
5. Offer personalized support: Provide personalized support to customers through a variety of channels, such as email, phone, or chat. This could include assigning dedicated account managers or offering personalized training and support materials.

It is essential to map personalization needs in a much broader context- touchpoints, preferred languages, adoption cycle, usage patterns, feedback loop, etc. My company Veris has a SaaS suite in the workplace experience domain. Each time we are working on an account, we create a user-journey map. Our team typically starts by identifying the types of users and their preferences, their in-office journeys, key touchpoints, and their servicing wishlists. This map represents the steps that the customer/buyer needs to take for the choice of software they will deploy and the level of configuration that is required.

3. B2B needs to talk about emotion just as much as B2C

In B2C marketing, emotional appeals are often used to tap into the feelings and motivations of the target audience. B2B SaaS companies can also use emotional appeals to highlight the benefits of their products, such as how they can improve the user's work life or business operations.  For example, a SaaS company might use emotional marketing to emphasize how their project management tool can help teams work more efficiently and effectively, resulting in less stress and a more enjoyable work experience. Alternatively, customer relationship management (CRM) software might be marketed as a way to strengthen and deepen relationships with customers, which can lead to increased loyalty and customer satisfaction. It could be an effective way to differentiate your SaaS product from competitors and create a stronger connection with your target audience. There are several ways to incorporate emotional marketing into your SaaS marketing strategy:

1. Storytelling: Use storytelling to bring your product to life and create an emotional connection with the audience. Share customer success stories and testimonials that show how your software has made a positive impact on their lives or businesses.
2. Visual product usage journeys: Use visuals to convey the emotions associated with using your software. This can be especially effective for SaaS products that are hard to explain with words alone.
3. Personalization: Personalize your marketing messages to speak directly to the needs and desires of your target audience. This can help create a more emotional connection with the audience and make them feel like the product was designed specifically for them.
4. Emotional appeals: Use emotional appeals in your marketing messages to tap into the feelings and motivations of your target audience. For example, you might use fear of missing out (FOMO) to encourage people to try your software, or you might use feelings of accomplishment and success to show how your software can help users achieve their goals

4. Capture the audience in the moments that matter

During my stint at The Body Shop, I learned a lot about retail marketing. While these tactics are traditionally used in physical retail environments, these strategies can quite easily be applied to SaaS companies. When opening a new store, we paid a lot of attention to the design and placement of its visual components based on the journey the person walking into the store was expected to take. This attention is just as much required in SaaS. Here too, different audiences are at different stages. While some are aware and educated, and some have actually moved to a deeper evaluation, many are clueless about any solution available in the market.  If we do not create adequate interventions in their moments of need and understanding, we will perhaps never get through to them. 

• Planogram is a visual representation of how products should be displayed in a retail space. In the context of SaaS, a planogram might refer to the different touchpoints or moments when a customer might be exposed to or interact with the product. To capture SaaS customers in the moments that matter, it's important for companies to identify and understand these touchpoints, and to design a marketing and sales strategy that is tailored to each one. Here are some examples of touchpoints that might be relevant to a SaaS product: online searches, social media, landing pages, onboarding, and customer support.
• Customer marketing: In retail, customer marketing refers to efforts targeted specifically at existing customers, involving tactics such as loyalty programs, email marketing, and personalized recommendations. In SaaS, this directly correlates to upselling, cross-selling, referral programs, and crafting a responsive support experience essentially to encourage repeat business I'm wand reduce the churn rate.
• Experiential tactics focus on creating engaging, immersive moments for customers in a retail setting. This can involve using interactive displays, events, and other elements to create a memorable and enjoyable shopping experience. If we talk about SaaS, experiential marketing could be used to create engaging and meaningful impressions for potential customers that help to showcase the value of the product and build a strong emotional connection with the brand.

1. Virtual events or webinars: SaaS companies can host virtual events or webinars to engage with their customers and provide educational content. These events can be interactive, with opportunities for attendees to ask questions or participate in polls and discussions.
2. Product demonstrations: SaaS companies can offer live product demonstrations or walk-throughs to give potential customers a chance to see the product in action and ask questions about how it works.
3. Customer success stories: Sharing success stories or case studies of how other companies have used the product can be a powerful way to showcase the value of the product and create an emotional connection with potential customers.
4. Free trials or limited-time offers: Offering a free trial or a limited-time offer can create a sense of urgency and encourage potential customers to try the product.
5. Customer support: Providing excellent customer support can be a form of experiential marketing, as it helps to create a positive experience for customers and build trust in the brand.

5. Diversity is gold

Diversity is quickly becoming the new standard in tons of industries, not least of all fashion and beauty—it’s time that the SaaS industry catches up. If there is one thing that I can say proudly about my company Veris, it is that we are one of the most inclusive companies on the block. We are a team of round pegs & square holes - multiple sexualities and genders with representation from the LGBTQ+ community, varied nationalities, and diverse religious faiths.  There are several benefits of having diversity in SaaS teams, and these benefits can be similar to those in the beauty and lifestyle industry. Here are a few examples:

1. Improved representation: A diverse team can help ensure that the products and services are more representative of the diverse group of customers in both industries. This can be especially important for products and services that are targeted at specific geographies, regions, or ethnicities.
2. Enhanced credibility: A diverse team can help build trust and credibility with potential customers, as it shows that the company values diversity and inclusivity.
3. Improved creativity and innovation: Teams with diverse perspectives and experiences can bring new ideas and approaches to the table, leading to more innovative products and services.
4. Increased customer satisfaction: Customers may feel more comfortable and satisfied interacting with a team that is diverse and representative of the broader population.
5. Better decision-making: Research has shown that diverse teams can make better decisions, as they are more likely to consider a wider range of perspectives and are less prone to groupthink.

It's important to note that diversity in the team should be valued for its own sake and not just as a marketing tool. Companies should strive to create inclusive environments that welcome and support all team members, regardless of their gender or any other characteristics.

The way forward

The way forward is thus not looking at B2B and B2C as two different industries or verticals that operate in silos. The wall between the two has to be replaced by a permeable surface that allows learnings from one to travel to another. The world we are moving towards needs more exchanges than set rules." ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(15335) "With nearly 15 years of work experience straddling between developing and executing organizational projects, the true test came with one of the biggest transitions that occurred on my career timeline - the transition from B2C to B2B SaaS.  After spending 7 years in the ‘female-powered’ consumer-facing side of the beauty & lifestyle industry, many questioned my choice of starting a company in the Enterprise SaaS space. It wasn’t seen as the usual course for someone who is not an engineer and thus not the quintessential poster person for the ‘boys club’ of B2B SaaS. But, as they say, embracing change is the only way. And indeed, embracing this shift has brought many aha's and revelations with it.

1. H2H has arrived: Human-to-Human Marketing takes centerstage

As Bryan Kramer (Zen Master to digital marketers) says, “There is no more B2B or B2C. It’s H2H: human to human.”  It is true that the pandemic and other recent events have highlighted the importance of putting people at the center of all conversations, whether in business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) contexts.  While B2B SaaS interactions may traditionally have been seen as more clinical and focused on products and technology, it is increasingly recognized that human factors, such as empathy and emotional intelligence, are important in all business interactions. This is because building strong relationships with customers, clients, and partners is essential for success in any business, and this requires a focus on people and their needs. By prioritizing the needs and well-being of people, businesses can create a more positive and rewarding experience for all parties involved.

2. Personalization is key

Personalization and configurability have proved to be important in both B2B and B2C contexts. In recent times, beauty brands like Bare Anatomy, Vedix, Freewill, Freshistry, and Emcee Beauty have gained traction in the market because they offer customized solutions to consumers’ problem statements. For example, if you want a fragrance-free, sulfate-free, dry-hair-friendly, frizz-treating shampoo versus someone who needs a mild fragrance, oily hair, volume-adding shampoo - they provide both and more. And so if one was to transfer this learning to B2B, why shouldn’t it apply?  While many SaaS companies today may offer a range of pricing plans or feature packages that can be customized to meet the specific needs of different customers, most of them are yet to run full circle. ​​There are several ways to personalize a SaaS product for the customer:

1. Customize the user interface: Allow customers to customize the look and feel of the product to match their brand or personal preferences. This could include customizing the color scheme, logo, and other visual elements.
2. Offer personalized recommendations: Use data and machine learning algorithms to provide personalized recommendations to customers based on their usage patterns and preferences.
3. Personalized onboarding: Create a customized onboarding experience for each customer to help them get started quickly and effectively. This could include personalized training and support materials. We, at Veris, also create branded internal marketing collaterals for enhanced user-adoption on the client side.
4. Customize features and functionality: Allow customers to customize certain features and functionality to meet their specific needs. This could include custom integrations, custom reports, and other tailored solutions.
5. Offer personalized support: Provide personalized support to customers through a variety of channels, such as email, phone, or chat. This could include assigning dedicated account managers or offering personalized training and support materials.

It is essential to map personalization needs in a much broader context- touchpoints, preferred languages, adoption cycle, usage patterns, feedback loop, etc. My company Veris has a SaaS suite in the workplace experience domain. Each time we are working on an account, we create a user-journey map. Our team typically starts by identifying the types of users and their preferences, their in-office journeys, key touchpoints, and their servicing wishlists. This map represents the steps that the customer/buyer needs to take for the choice of software they will deploy and the level of configuration that is required.

3. B2B needs to talk about emotion just as much as B2C

In B2C marketing, emotional appeals are often used to tap into the feelings and motivations of the target audience. B2B SaaS companies can also use emotional appeals to highlight the benefits of their products, such as how they can improve the user's work life or business operations.  For example, a SaaS company might use emotional marketing to emphasize how their project management tool can help teams work more efficiently and effectively, resulting in less stress and a more enjoyable work experience. Alternatively, customer relationship management (CRM) software might be marketed as a way to strengthen and deepen relationships with customers, which can lead to increased loyalty and customer satisfaction. It could be an effective way to differentiate your SaaS product from competitors and create a stronger connection with your target audience. There are several ways to incorporate emotional marketing into your SaaS marketing strategy:

1. Storytelling: Use storytelling to bring your product to life and create an emotional connection with the audience. Share customer success stories and testimonials that show how your software has made a positive impact on their lives or businesses.
2. Visual product usage journeys: Use visuals to convey the emotions associated with using your software. This can be especially effective for SaaS products that are hard to explain with words alone.
3. Personalization: Personalize your marketing messages to speak directly to the needs and desires of your target audience. This can help create a more emotional connection with the audience and make them feel like the product was designed specifically for them.
4. Emotional appeals: Use emotional appeals in your marketing messages to tap into the feelings and motivations of your target audience. For example, you might use fear of missing out (FOMO) to encourage people to try your software, or you might use feelings of accomplishment and success to show how your software can help users achieve their goals

4. Capture the audience in the moments that matter

During my stint at The Body Shop, I learned a lot about retail marketing. While these tactics are traditionally used in physical retail environments, these strategies can quite easily be applied to SaaS companies. When opening a new store, we paid a lot of attention to the design and placement of its visual components based on the journey the person walking into the store was expected to take. This attention is just as much required in SaaS. Here too, different audiences are at different stages. While some are aware and educated, and some have actually moved to a deeper evaluation, many are clueless about any solution available in the market.  If we do not create adequate interventions in their moments of need and understanding, we will perhaps never get through to them. 

• Planogram is a visual representation of how products should be displayed in a retail space. In the context of SaaS, a planogram might refer to the different touchpoints or moments when a customer might be exposed to or interact with the product. To capture SaaS customers in the moments that matter, it's important for companies to identify and understand these touchpoints, and to design a marketing and sales strategy that is tailored to each one. Here are some examples of touchpoints that might be relevant to a SaaS product: online searches, social media, landing pages, onboarding, and customer support.
• Customer marketing: In retail, customer marketing refers to efforts targeted specifically at existing customers, involving tactics such as loyalty programs, email marketing, and personalized recommendations. In SaaS, this directly correlates to upselling, cross-selling, referral programs, and crafting a responsive support experience essentially to encourage repeat business I'm wand reduce the churn rate.
• Experiential tactics focus on creating engaging, immersive moments for customers in a retail setting. This can involve using interactive displays, events, and other elements to create a memorable and enjoyable shopping experience. If we talk about SaaS, experiential marketing could be used to create engaging and meaningful impressions for potential customers that help to showcase the value of the product and build a strong emotional connection with the brand.

1. Virtual events or webinars: SaaS companies can host virtual events or webinars to engage with their customers and provide educational content. These events can be interactive, with opportunities for attendees to ask questions or participate in polls and discussions.
2. Product demonstrations: SaaS companies can offer live product demonstrations or walk-throughs to give potential customers a chance to see the product in action and ask questions about how it works.
3. Customer success stories: Sharing success stories or case studies of how other companies have used the product can be a powerful way to showcase the value of the product and create an emotional connection with potential customers.
4. Free trials or limited-time offers: Offering a free trial or a limited-time offer can create a sense of urgency and encourage potential customers to try the product.
5. Customer support: Providing excellent customer support can be a form of experiential marketing, as it helps to create a positive experience for customers and build trust in the brand.

5. Diversity is gold

Diversity is quickly becoming the new standard in tons of industries, not least of all fashion and beauty—it’s time that the SaaS industry catches up. If there is one thing that I can say proudly about my company Veris, it is that we are one of the most inclusive companies on the block. We are a team of round pegs & square holes - multiple sexualities and genders with representation from the LGBTQ+ community, varied nationalities, and diverse religious faiths.  There are several benefits of having diversity in SaaS teams, and these benefits can be similar to those in the beauty and lifestyle industry. Here are a few examples:

1. Improved representation: A diverse team can help ensure that the products and services are more representative of the diverse group of customers in both industries. This can be especially important for products and services that are targeted at specific geographies, regions, or ethnicities.
2. Enhanced credibility: A diverse team can help build trust and credibility with potential customers, as it shows that the company values diversity and inclusivity.
3. Improved creativity and innovation: Teams with diverse perspectives and experiences can bring new ideas and approaches to the table, leading to more innovative products and services.
4. Increased customer satisfaction: Customers may feel more comfortable and satisfied interacting with a team that is diverse and representative of the broader population.
5. Better decision-making: Research has shown that diverse teams can make better decisions, as they are more likely to consider a wider range of perspectives and are less prone to groupthink.

It's important to note that diversity in the team should be valued for its own sake and not just as a marketing tool. Companies should strive to create inclusive environments that welcome and support all team members, regardless of their gender or any other characteristics.

The way forward

The way forward is thus not looking at B2B and B2C as two different industries or verticals that operate in silos. The wall between the two has to be replaced by a permeable surface that allows learnings from one to travel to another. The world we are moving towards needs more exchanges than set rules." } }

A brick-by-brick path to a winning product — Founding lessons from Shekhar Kirani

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Starting from scratch, the tech exec-turned-VC shares a tactical guide on how to think about founding, product, and funding

There are more questions than answers in the run-up to and during the early stages of founding a company. Founders have many ideas they could pursue and several different approaches they take. The only way to streamline your journey is by talking to people who have had a ringside view of the process.

Shekhar Kirani, a partner at Accel, was among the first VCs to see Indian SaaS as a diamond in the rough. He has written some of the earliest checks for record-making SaaS firms including Freshworks, Chargebee, BrowserStack, and Zenoti. He is known for having the Midas touch. We know him as the Don Valentine of Indian SaaS. His wisdom draws from his time working in tech companies.

In a roundtable, he shared some insights around founding with fluent insight and characteristic wit.

Why do we start up? What is the end goal?

To solve a pain point. A problem that you have spotted and can relate to, which no one has solved for, or at least solved well for.

What you absolutely need to have, in Shekhar’s view, are a great idea, good unit economics, a good market, and the conviction to put in the time. How do you know if your idea is great? The VC says that has to do with product thinking: “It takes keen observation of what people struggle with and how.”

Your execution will be affected by unit economics and market conditions, he adds.

“If market conditions and unit economics are good, you can win even if you’re an okay entrepreneur. If you are a great entrepreneur but in a niche market with enough fish in the pond, no matter how efficient you are, you will exhaust the market.”

He reminds founders that starting up is a long-haul journey. Typically, it means putting in one decade of work, says Shekhar. “By the time you hit 35, all your prime years will have gone towards solving this problem. So pick a problem that is worth spending 10 years solving.”

How do you cultivate the entrepreneur mindset?

Once an entrepreneur decides to start up, it is hard to continue working for somebody else. Shekhar’s advice is: Don’t try to start up part-time and make it a success.

“Because almost all fail even while doing it full time, so part time is impossible,” he quips. “Do the work, collect the data, meet people and talk, and once you have enough data, commit to it long term.”

Entrepreneurs who belong to families with very high regard for ownership-driven ventures benefit from already having that mindset. “If you come from traditional business families, there is the advantage of understanding unit economics — how do I buy, how do I sell, will I make money? If it does not pass the family sniff test or the dhanda test, you know it is not a good idea.”

In other cases, people have to learn how to make decisions. That is non-negotiable, particularly in India, where somebody else makes major decisions for us.

“We are not trained to make decisions but are suddenly exposed to it as entrepreneurs. So you have to learn the art and science of that.”

Understand people. Without that, you can’t run a big team and earn big revenue. Extend that learnability to other subjects too.

Your learnability index has to be high, according to Shekhar, and that only happens from meeting up, having discussions, and — importantly — reading books. “All the entrepreneurs who are successful read a lot.”

Another skill Shekhar points to here is the ability to spot talent. There is no way for an entrepreneur to be successful without having a large and thoughtfully assembled team.

“You need to know who is the right person and how to recruit them. For me that is the sign of a good founder — knowing how to spot raw diamonds and rewarding them with salaries and ESOPs over time.”

How to prepare yourself for a life as an entrepreneur?

Clarity of thinking and focus will help with every action that is involved in entrepreneurship.

Give yourself two to three years of runway to clear your mind and have a really good stab at the problem. Any less than that, and it is difficult to judge potential. Have that milestone and build the capacity to run your life for three years.

“There will be a lot of pressure,” warns Shekhar. “Colleagues will buy cars, go on international holidays. But you need to have the internal stamina to say it is okay.” If you don’t prepare yourself as such, you risk giving up too soon.

One hack is to keep your own lifestyle very simple and low maintenance.

How do you know whether enough people are affected by your particular pain point?

Identify whether what you have is a push idea or a pull idea.

There are multiple ways to know if people are looking for your solution, says Shekhar. Imagine that you are building a children’s product. He suggests going to 20 houses in any metropolitan city and asking them what are the top five things they would want to change for their kids. They may talk about issues with lunch, homework, and illnesses.

“If you do 100 studies and no one mentions your problem, then I call it a ‘push idea’,” Shekhar observes. “The push market is hard, you have to spend money to acquire customers. If there is no need for it, you have to evangelise it.”

Another measure is whether many people are buying particular keywords on Google AdSense and if search volumes are going through the roof. If there is a lot of interest around your keywords already, the pain point you want to solve is in a pull market. Pull-market ideas are easier to work with. You can simply buy an ad and sell it.

One of the risks to be wary of while talking to people about pain points is selective hearing. As a founder, you may be tempted to pay attention to things that are favorable to you rather than things that are not. Don’t fall into that trap.

Is it possible to win with a push market idea?

Shekhar shares the example of Zenoti, a company he has backed for a long time. It makes cloud software for spas and salons. When the founders started out, they did not think that would be a very big market, they did not know if the idea was great but it was good enough. To evangelize, they started by doing demos.

“Every demo is converted into a customer. That means people did not know it but there was a latent need.” The company got creative. It sent CEOs gift boxes — an iPad with a 4-min video specifically personalised for their business. The ROI on that was worthwhile for Zenoti, which hit a $1 billion valuation by 2020.

With time, a push market can become a pull market. “Just show clarity of thought in what you are doing,” Shekhar advises.

How to take no for an answer?

This is a tough one. You were probably finishing at the top of your class, always performing better than your friends, and accustomed to getting praised for your work. You have a specific picture of yourself and that can make any rejection feel more brutal. But that is all a part and parcel of starting up. “You will hear a lot of ‘nos’ before you hear any ‘yesses’,” says Shekhar.

How you take that ‘no’ makes all the difference. Make sure all the basic factors are in place — unit economics, market conditions, the idea, and your 10-year commitment. Argue the ‘no’ with data.

What makes a good co-founder?

Most founders tend to go with their roommate, batchmate, hostel mate, colleague — someone they know. But making a decision based on familiarity alone can backfire.

Shekhar has a foolproof gauge. “Have you seen elements of scale in this person? Do they figure out things on their own? If there is a problem given, are they resourceful? Do they go out of their way to find answers?”

Transparency and resourcefulness are the co-founder qualities you cannot overlook. A co-founder should be able to speak their mind on what is and isn’t working.

As a founder, you also need to learn the art of storytelling. “When you don’t practice your elevator pitch, potential co-founders won’t reflect on it for two minutes. You have to repeat the message of what you’re doing and why, otherwise, people will move to other options.” If you can’t articulate that story, you can’t convince the cofounder.

Looking for a co-founder outside your circle requires influencing. You have to meet and exchange ideas, which can sometimes take six months or more. Shekhar brings up one of the companies he works with, where the founder roped in a co-founder she did not personally know. Her process was to meet with 6–7 people, zeroing in on one of them, and working together for six months before saying they are aligned. The founder was clear on exactly what she was looking for. She was focused on the business side, while the co-founder would work on the building.

What sort of equity should you offer a co-founder?

This is a question of make-or-break significance. The way you structure ownership guides many considerations including how VCs view you. By default, people go with a 50–50 split. By the time they realize their mistake, it is too late. It is important to see who your co-founder is and what value they are bringing. “If I see that a company is diluted too much, I don’t invest. The company is dead on arrival if it is split between five co-founders,” Shekhar notes.

He stresses preserving ownership. In one instance, a company had given away 30–40 percent to a foreign investor despite having a great team, business model, and initial efforts. It took the team 12 months to negotiate with those investors and take back the equity.

Here’s how to look at splitting equity. “If you start out together even before having the idea, then you guys are equal partners. If not, then you do not need to break ownership equally.”

How to think about approaching investors?

Convincing an investor has everything to do with your own conviction. Typically you want conviction in your mind first, which you should be able to clearly articulate. “Your ability to convince me based on your data helps me convince those in my network,” Shekhar shares.

A lot of founders wonder what the benchmarks are for the first seed round. How much to give? Shekhar’s suggestion is to be careful about the level of dilution in the early rounds. Around 15–20% is usually acceptable in the seed round, he says, since it is all about risk-reward then.

Besides, the company has to fit into the categories the specific VC is interested in — say SaaS, B2B, or B2C marketplaces, etc. VCs can also be convinced if someone they trust tells them about the company.

“If you have all these things — unit economics, right market conditions, good ideas, and a dedicated team — VCs will approach you before you approach them,” the investor concludes.

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Starting from scratch, the tech exec-turned-VC shares a tactical guide on how to think about founding, product, and funding

There are more questions than answers in the run-up to and during the early stages of founding a company. Founders have many ideas they could pursue and several different approaches they take. The only way to streamline your journey is by talking to people who have had a ringside view of the process.

Shekhar Kirani, a partner at Accel, was among the first VCs to see Indian SaaS as a diamond in the rough. He has written some of the earliest checks for record-making SaaS firms including Freshworks, Chargebee, BrowserStack, and Zenoti. He is known for having the Midas touch. We know him as the Don Valentine of Indian SaaS. His wisdom draws from his time working in tech companies.

In a roundtable, he shared some insights around founding with fluent insight and characteristic wit.

Why do we start up? What is the end goal?

To solve a pain point. A problem that you have spotted and can relate to, which no one has solved for, or at least solved well for.

What you absolutely need to have, in Shekhar’s view, are a great idea, good unit economics, a good market, and the conviction to put in the time. How do you know if your idea is great? The VC says that has to do with product thinking: “It takes keen observation of what people struggle with and how.”

Your execution will be affected by unit economics and market conditions, he adds.

“If market conditions and unit economics are good, you can win even if you’re an okay entrepreneur. If you are a great entrepreneur but in a niche market with enough fish in the pond, no matter how efficient you are, you will exhaust the market.”

He reminds founders that starting up is a long-haul journey. Typically, it means putting in one decade of work, says Shekhar. “By the time you hit 35, all your prime years will have gone towards solving this problem. So pick a problem that is worth spending 10 years solving.”

How do you cultivate the entrepreneur mindset?

Once an entrepreneur decides to start up, it is hard to continue working for somebody else. Shekhar’s advice is: Don’t try to start up part-time and make it a success.

“Because almost all fail even while doing it full time, so part time is impossible,” he quips. “Do the work, collect the data, meet people and talk, and once you have enough data, commit to it long term.”

Entrepreneurs who belong to families with very high regard for ownership-driven ventures benefit from already having that mindset. “If you come from traditional business families, there is the advantage of understanding unit economics — how do I buy, how do I sell, will I make money? If it does not pass the family sniff test or the dhanda test, you know it is not a good idea.”

In other cases, people have to learn how to make decisions. That is non-negotiable, particularly in India, where somebody else makes major decisions for us.

“We are not trained to make decisions but are suddenly exposed to it as entrepreneurs. So you have to learn the art and science of that.”

Understand people. Without that, you can’t run a big team and earn big revenue. Extend that learnability to other subjects too.

Your learnability index has to be high, according to Shekhar, and that only happens from meeting up, having discussions, and — importantly — reading books. “All the entrepreneurs who are successful read a lot.”

Another skill Shekhar points to here is the ability to spot talent. There is no way for an entrepreneur to be successful without having a large and thoughtfully assembled team.

“You need to know who is the right person and how to recruit them. For me that is the sign of a good founder — knowing how to spot raw diamonds and rewarding them with salaries and ESOPs over time.”

How to prepare yourself for a life as an entrepreneur?

Clarity of thinking and focus will help with every action that is involved in entrepreneurship.

Give yourself two to three years of runway to clear your mind and have a really good stab at the problem. Any less than that, and it is difficult to judge potential. Have that milestone and build the capacity to run your life for three years.

“There will be a lot of pressure,” warns Shekhar. “Colleagues will buy cars, go on international holidays. But you need to have the internal stamina to say it is okay.” If you don’t prepare yourself as such, you risk giving up too soon.

One hack is to keep your own lifestyle very simple and low maintenance.

How do you know whether enough people are affected by your particular pain point?

Identify whether what you have is a push idea or a pull idea.

There are multiple ways to know if people are looking for your solution, says Shekhar. Imagine that you are building a children’s product. He suggests going to 20 houses in any metropolitan city and asking them what are the top five things they would want to change for their kids. They may talk about issues with lunch, homework, and illnesses.

“If you do 100 studies and no one mentions your problem, then I call it a ‘push idea’,” Shekhar observes. “The push market is hard, you have to spend money to acquire customers. If there is no need for it, you have to evangelise it.”

Another measure is whether many people are buying particular keywords on Google AdSense and if search volumes are going through the roof. If there is a lot of interest around your keywords already, the pain point you want to solve is in a pull market. Pull-market ideas are easier to work with. You can simply buy an ad and sell it.

One of the risks to be wary of while talking to people about pain points is selective hearing. As a founder, you may be tempted to pay attention to things that are favorable to you rather than things that are not. Don’t fall into that trap.

Is it possible to win with a push market idea?

Shekhar shares the example of Zenoti, a company he has backed for a long time. It makes cloud software for spas and salons. When the founders started out, they did not think that would be a very big market, they did not know if the idea was great but it was good enough. To evangelize, they started by doing demos.

“Every demo is converted into a customer. That means people did not know it but there was a latent need.” The company got creative. It sent CEOs gift boxes — an iPad with a 4-min video specifically personalised for their business. The ROI on that was worthwhile for Zenoti, which hit a $1 billion valuation by 2020.

With time, a push market can become a pull market. “Just show clarity of thought in what you are doing,” Shekhar advises.

How to take no for an answer?

This is a tough one. You were probably finishing at the top of your class, always performing better than your friends, and accustomed to getting praised for your work. You have a specific picture of yourself and that can make any rejection feel more brutal. But that is all a part and parcel of starting up. “You will hear a lot of ‘nos’ before you hear any ‘yesses’,” says Shekhar.

How you take that ‘no’ makes all the difference. Make sure all the basic factors are in place — unit economics, market conditions, the idea, and your 10-year commitment. Argue the ‘no’ with data.

What makes a good co-founder?

Most founders tend to go with their roommate, batchmate, hostel mate, colleague — someone they know. But making a decision based on familiarity alone can backfire.

Shekhar has a foolproof gauge. “Have you seen elements of scale in this person? Do they figure out things on their own? If there is a problem given, are they resourceful? Do they go out of their way to find answers?”

Transparency and resourcefulness are the co-founder qualities you cannot overlook. A co-founder should be able to speak their mind on what is and isn’t working.

As a founder, you also need to learn the art of storytelling. “When you don’t practice your elevator pitch, potential co-founders won’t reflect on it for two minutes. You have to repeat the message of what you’re doing and why, otherwise, people will move to other options.” If you can’t articulate that story, you can’t convince the cofounder.

Looking for a co-founder outside your circle requires influencing. You have to meet and exchange ideas, which can sometimes take six months or more. Shekhar brings up one of the companies he works with, where the founder roped in a co-founder she did not personally know. Her process was to meet with 6–7 people, zeroing in on one of them, and working together for six months before saying they are aligned. The founder was clear on exactly what she was looking for. She was focused on the business side, while the co-founder would work on the building.

What sort of equity should you offer a co-founder?

This is a question of make-or-break significance. The way you structure ownership guides many considerations including how VCs view you. By default, people go with a 50–50 split. By the time they realize their mistake, it is too late. It is important to see who your co-founder is and what value they are bringing. “If I see that a company is diluted too much, I don’t invest. The company is dead on arrival if it is split between five co-founders,” Shekhar notes.

He stresses preserving ownership. In one instance, a company had given away 30–40 percent to a foreign investor despite having a great team, business model, and initial efforts. It took the team 12 months to negotiate with those investors and take back the equity.

Here’s how to look at splitting equity. “If you start out together even before having the idea, then you guys are equal partners. If not, then you do not need to break ownership equally.”

How to think about approaching investors?

Convincing an investor has everything to do with your own conviction. Typically you want conviction in your mind first, which you should be able to clearly articulate. “Your ability to convince me based on your data helps me convince those in my network,” Shekhar shares.

A lot of founders wonder what the benchmarks are for the first seed round. How much to give? Shekhar’s suggestion is to be careful about the level of dilution in the early rounds. Around 15–20% is usually acceptable in the seed round, he says, since it is all about risk-reward then.

Besides, the company has to fit into the categories the specific VC is interested in — say SaaS, B2B, or B2C marketplaces, etc. VCs can also be convinced if someone they trust tells them about the company.

“If you have all these things — unit economics, right market conditions, good ideas, and a dedicated team — VCs will approach you before you approach them,” the investor concludes.

" } }

How we became #1 in Product Hunt after being treated like a bug

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(9616) "We launched Bugasura.io in Product Hunt last month. We became the #1 Product of the day on November 23. This was magical. I have felt ‘wow’ about those who got there and thought we were not there yet. This is a feeling many entrepreneurs have. I kept pitching and pitching Bugasura everywhere and people would look at it with a ‘huh!’ When we built the first piece of our bug tracking tool and did a launch, we hardly got 30 upvotes. Even those, we had to beg for. No shame. Even today we beg and borrow, but don't steal.

Rejection is the founder’s life

Rejection is not part of life. Rejection is life. This is what founders experience. The early days are all about this. Having been in the Software Quality space as a thought leader - I still couldn't get Bugasura into my own friends’ startups. Shame shame, puppy shame, Pradeepa! My friend runs a successful startup with 100+ devs. He is the CEO. He was gung-ho about what we were building and the vision of Bugasura.io, and he asked his team to check this out and adopt it. But the junior-most guy down there was finding bugs in Bugasura instead of seeing how life-changing it can be. They were with a poor bug tracker themselves. Yet, there was resistance to change. This is natural; we all face it. I persisted as other founders do too. Nothing moved. Only more feedback on missing features came out. I dropped an email to my friend, saying, "Dey, I am not persisting with your team anymore". The CEOs and CTOs I knew couldn't muster the courage to talk to their teams to bring a change to their current bug-tracking software. We learned an important lesson. Friends and known people are not the real early adopters. We kept observing the behavior of people who signed up through Adwords and kept refining the signup experience till it worked for one company. That day we knew we had a hope to crack this. They paid and it delighted us even more.

How did the magic happen?

Everything changed when we hired a Marketing Head. Note that we are self-funded. So bringing a top hire Marketing Head would have put a big hole in our startup if it had gone wrong. That's why I personally put in days of effort to write a JD that would attract the right talent to apply. This super girl who applied, Rapti, had spent 11 years overall in marketing, and six years with Instamojo where she grew to be Director of Marketing. She wanted to do the 0 to 1 journey again and wasn't too keen on the 100 - 500 journey where Instamojo is now. Perfect fit. Even before she came on board, my CTO and I had done a bunch of things to get our first few paying customers from India and the first few international paying customers from countries like the UK, Indonesia, Germany, Switzerland, Egypt, and the UAE. We had gotten the product to a good daily active usage. The people paying were actually living by our product and we had like zero churn with them over the eight months they had been paying. This attracted the super girl to come to join us. She was giving me an appraisal during the interview and said, "Good job, Pradeep. I like the stickiness you have built." Despite being a five-member dev team that includes front end - back end - that end - this end - we had achieved this before she came on board. We had international paying customers who discovered us through AdWords + Capterra + G2. We also got some pretty good reviews on Capterra from our existing users and customers. Both Indian and International.

We made a super-duper-free plan. How?

When a company moves from a free plan to a pro plan, what we have seen is - all users are moved to the paid plan. We thought, let's try something a bit different. Make it a lot more exciting for people to pay. We made the first 5 users always free. So, a company from the UK brought in a 5-member team to try out Bugasura.io and expanded it to their 27-member team. They only pay for 22 users because the first 5 always remain free. A saturated multi-billion-dollar market is the right place for revolutionary thinkers like us. Issue and bug tracker - people don't even think of it. They think - Jira is there. Asana is there. ClickUp is there. Trello is there. Why do we need a bug tracker? Worst case, Google Sheets. We ran a thread in Hacker News asking devs to talk about the issue and bug tracker in use in their company and why they like or not like it. Common and not surprising response - they all hated to be using Jira. Even those who liked Jira thought they were over-customized by admins and the complexity of customization grew to the extent that refactoring was never done. The whole thing was in a state of mess. We looked at others too. Asana is a PM tool. Trello isn't a ticketing system but has handy stuff that makes things move fast. ClickUp is good when things are small, but bug tracking, nah! Google Sheets are a joke for bug tracking. Yet, this joke happens. Long ago, I was a victim too. So, we said, we need a plan that doesn't limit people from trying what they want to. We made projects unlimited. A lot of tools make projects limited in the free plan. Didn't matter to us. Companies who signed up realized that this was helpful even in the free plan because the same team members are part of different projects sometimes. Our own designer contributes to app design, web design, website design, and marketing material design. So, he is part of four projects. That's what startups are. This worked well. We have plenty of startups across the globe from countries that we never imagined to be running software projects using Bugasura. We have several teams from remote parts of Africa that use our free plan. We have banks and sub-teams from Switzerland using our free plan.

Public tracker is a game changer

We did something after observing a need carefully. We spoke to customer success teams on how they filter issues and feedback from customers. We then asked tech teams and QA teams how they address it back. We asked B2B SaaS providers on how they collaborate with their customers and provide transparency to issues their customers report. Then we built an option to have a public tracker exposed to customers - but where each customer issue is private. This means Customer A reports an issue and can't see what Customer B reports, but can see things moving on their own reported issue. A few international customers loved this. One customer from Indonesia quit everything they had set up on Jira and came to Bugasura.io because this helped them make more money by solving customer problems faster. This also attracted an elephant. A large enterprise from the US, unbelievably large, came to us and said they wanted to use Bugasura.io I personally shooed them away. I know large enterprise customers very well. They waste money and founders’ time. Too much hope they will give us, founders and salespeople. They are a mess within. Not all, but most. I shooed them away, saying, "Please use Jira". I was selling Jira to them. Think about it. My website says, "Issue tracker that Jira couldn't build". They saw that and came to us, and here I was selling Jira to them as a CEO and Founder of Bugasura. They persisted. They tried selling Bugasura.io to me. They explained why they couldn't use Jira. I pushed them to another product. They came back saying they didn't want to get tied into that ecosystem because then change management would become a headache for them. I pushed them back again. This happened over four different calls on Zoom and Google Meet. The fourth time, the person on the other side was pissed off with me. He said, "Pradeep, this is the third time I am telling you that I am aware of the options and I came to you, thinking you would be hungry to solve my problem. Are you or should I go away?" I felt the frustration in his voice was real. I had my CTO on this call. He was like, "Pradeep, don't get me to build anything for this guy unless there's money." But what the customer said convinced him. We didn't do customization for them. We deepened an existing feature. That's all. A lot of back and forth. The only pending thing is the paperwork for the contract. Guess how many users they want to onboard - 500.

Life after being #1 in Product Hunt

Some companies who had rejected Bugasura have come back. Wow! I didn't expect that. Things like this started to happen: A CTO who tried Bugasura and found it more helpful than their existing tool for collaborating with extended teams and customers, which helps close bugs faster and make more money, moved a 40-member team and paid the same day. Are you kidding, Pradeep? Earlier I was begging a few CTOs, PMs, and Engineering Heads to try. Just try. Simply try. Over the weekend. Over your own free time. They kept saying, "Looks interesting, will give it a try." Nothing moved. Now, after the message from the CTO, and many such messages we got from Product Managers, Product Owners, Devs, and Testers, we are humbled.

Lesson

The world needs acceptance from the world itself. Companies do realize the need for an issue tracker and bug tracker that helps them solve their customer's problems faster. I will be as helpful as I can to you to enable you to succeed. I will be the world that enables others - not rejects others. I will at least connect people to where they can get acceptance. I won't say, "I will try" and not try. I better say, "I will not try" and still give it a try. We will seek help. We will continue to seek help. We will share. We will continue to share. We will work together." ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(9616) "We launched Bugasura.io in Product Hunt last month. We became the #1 Product of the day on November 23. This was magical. I have felt ‘wow’ about those who got there and thought we were not there yet. This is a feeling many entrepreneurs have. I kept pitching and pitching Bugasura everywhere and people would look at it with a ‘huh!’ When we built the first piece of our bug tracking tool and did a launch, we hardly got 30 upvotes. Even those, we had to beg for. No shame. Even today we beg and borrow, but don't steal.

Rejection is the founder’s life

Rejection is not part of life. Rejection is life. This is what founders experience. The early days are all about this. Having been in the Software Quality space as a thought leader - I still couldn't get Bugasura into my own friends’ startups. Shame shame, puppy shame, Pradeepa! My friend runs a successful startup with 100+ devs. He is the CEO. He was gung-ho about what we were building and the vision of Bugasura.io, and he asked his team to check this out and adopt it. But the junior-most guy down there was finding bugs in Bugasura instead of seeing how life-changing it can be. They were with a poor bug tracker themselves. Yet, there was resistance to change. This is natural; we all face it. I persisted as other founders do too. Nothing moved. Only more feedback on missing features came out. I dropped an email to my friend, saying, "Dey, I am not persisting with your team anymore". The CEOs and CTOs I knew couldn't muster the courage to talk to their teams to bring a change to their current bug-tracking software. We learned an important lesson. Friends and known people are not the real early adopters. We kept observing the behavior of people who signed up through Adwords and kept refining the signup experience till it worked for one company. That day we knew we had a hope to crack this. They paid and it delighted us even more.

How did the magic happen?

Everything changed when we hired a Marketing Head. Note that we are self-funded. So bringing a top hire Marketing Head would have put a big hole in our startup if it had gone wrong. That's why I personally put in days of effort to write a JD that would attract the right talent to apply. This super girl who applied, Rapti, had spent 11 years overall in marketing, and six years with Instamojo where she grew to be Director of Marketing. She wanted to do the 0 to 1 journey again and wasn't too keen on the 100 - 500 journey where Instamojo is now. Perfect fit. Even before she came on board, my CTO and I had done a bunch of things to get our first few paying customers from India and the first few international paying customers from countries like the UK, Indonesia, Germany, Switzerland, Egypt, and the UAE. We had gotten the product to a good daily active usage. The people paying were actually living by our product and we had like zero churn with them over the eight months they had been paying. This attracted the super girl to come to join us. She was giving me an appraisal during the interview and said, "Good job, Pradeep. I like the stickiness you have built." Despite being a five-member dev team that includes front end - back end - that end - this end - we had achieved this before she came on board. We had international paying customers who discovered us through AdWords + Capterra + G2. We also got some pretty good reviews on Capterra from our existing users and customers. Both Indian and International.

We made a super-duper-free plan. How?

When a company moves from a free plan to a pro plan, what we have seen is - all users are moved to the paid plan. We thought, let's try something a bit different. Make it a lot more exciting for people to pay. We made the first 5 users always free. So, a company from the UK brought in a 5-member team to try out Bugasura.io and expanded it to their 27-member team. They only pay for 22 users because the first 5 always remain free. A saturated multi-billion-dollar market is the right place for revolutionary thinkers like us. Issue and bug tracker - people don't even think of it. They think - Jira is there. Asana is there. ClickUp is there. Trello is there. Why do we need a bug tracker? Worst case, Google Sheets. We ran a thread in Hacker News asking devs to talk about the issue and bug tracker in use in their company and why they like or not like it. Common and not surprising response - they all hated to be using Jira. Even those who liked Jira thought they were over-customized by admins and the complexity of customization grew to the extent that refactoring was never done. The whole thing was in a state of mess. We looked at others too. Asana is a PM tool. Trello isn't a ticketing system but has handy stuff that makes things move fast. ClickUp is good when things are small, but bug tracking, nah! Google Sheets are a joke for bug tracking. Yet, this joke happens. Long ago, I was a victim too. So, we said, we need a plan that doesn't limit people from trying what they want to. We made projects unlimited. A lot of tools make projects limited in the free plan. Didn't matter to us. Companies who signed up realized that this was helpful even in the free plan because the same team members are part of different projects sometimes. Our own designer contributes to app design, web design, website design, and marketing material design. So, he is part of four projects. That's what startups are. This worked well. We have plenty of startups across the globe from countries that we never imagined to be running software projects using Bugasura. We have several teams from remote parts of Africa that use our free plan. We have banks and sub-teams from Switzerland using our free plan.

Public tracker is a game changer

We did something after observing a need carefully. We spoke to customer success teams on how they filter issues and feedback from customers. We then asked tech teams and QA teams how they address it back. We asked B2B SaaS providers on how they collaborate with their customers and provide transparency to issues their customers report. Then we built an option to have a public tracker exposed to customers - but where each customer issue is private. This means Customer A reports an issue and can't see what Customer B reports, but can see things moving on their own reported issue. A few international customers loved this. One customer from Indonesia quit everything they had set up on Jira and came to Bugasura.io because this helped them make more money by solving customer problems faster. This also attracted an elephant. A large enterprise from the US, unbelievably large, came to us and said they wanted to use Bugasura.io I personally shooed them away. I know large enterprise customers very well. They waste money and founders’ time. Too much hope they will give us, founders and salespeople. They are a mess within. Not all, but most. I shooed them away, saying, "Please use Jira". I was selling Jira to them. Think about it. My website says, "Issue tracker that Jira couldn't build". They saw that and came to us, and here I was selling Jira to them as a CEO and Founder of Bugasura. They persisted. They tried selling Bugasura.io to me. They explained why they couldn't use Jira. I pushed them to another product. They came back saying they didn't want to get tied into that ecosystem because then change management would become a headache for them. I pushed them back again. This happened over four different calls on Zoom and Google Meet. The fourth time, the person on the other side was pissed off with me. He said, "Pradeep, this is the third time I am telling you that I am aware of the options and I came to you, thinking you would be hungry to solve my problem. Are you or should I go away?" I felt the frustration in his voice was real. I had my CTO on this call. He was like, "Pradeep, don't get me to build anything for this guy unless there's money." But what the customer said convinced him. We didn't do customization for them. We deepened an existing feature. That's all. A lot of back and forth. The only pending thing is the paperwork for the contract. Guess how many users they want to onboard - 500.

Life after being #1 in Product Hunt

Some companies who had rejected Bugasura have come back. Wow! I didn't expect that. Things like this started to happen: A CTO who tried Bugasura and found it more helpful than their existing tool for collaborating with extended teams and customers, which helps close bugs faster and make more money, moved a 40-member team and paid the same day. Are you kidding, Pradeep? Earlier I was begging a few CTOs, PMs, and Engineering Heads to try. Just try. Simply try. Over the weekend. Over your own free time. They kept saying, "Looks interesting, will give it a try." Nothing moved. Now, after the message from the CTO, and many such messages we got from Product Managers, Product Owners, Devs, and Testers, we are humbled.

Lesson

The world needs acceptance from the world itself. Companies do realize the need for an issue tracker and bug tracker that helps them solve their customer's problems faster. I will be as helpful as I can to you to enable you to succeed. I will be the world that enables others - not rejects others. I will at least connect people to where they can get acceptance. I won't say, "I will try" and not try. I better say, "I will not try" and still give it a try. We will seek help. We will continue to seek help. We will share. We will continue to share. We will work together." } }

Starting up again, to make customer success easy!

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I still remember the day when we got our 1st customer in my last startup. It was a lovely rainy day in November 2013 and it came with a terrific feeling – it felt absolutely amazing; almost akin to the 1st kiss. And after 2 years of honeymoon – they churned. I felt crushed, hollowed, gutted; almost akin to a breakup.

This started a 6-year-long tug of war between me trying to understand why my customers threatened to churn and why some of them actually did churn. In fact, before I sold my 1st B2B SaaS startup in 2019, we had seen 40+ churn threats from our customers and we managed to douse the flame in 30 cases. We lost only 10 customers over a 5-year period, giving us an enviable 1.5% YoY churn performance (the industry average is 10% – 15% YoY churn).

Every time a customer threatened to churn, I would mount a deep data dig to find evidence of their displeasure with the data. Funny story – there was always data that I had missed. With time and patience that ran over 5 years, we were able to create a customer success health profile that helped us deliver the fantastic 1.5% YoY churn figure.

Here are the top Customer Success mistakes I was doing when I was running my last start-up:

1. I relied on simple and seductive, gut-feel techniques:

I used to define customer health through very simple if-then-else circuits.

For instance, I used to believe that a customer is healthy if they logged into my product 3 times a week, logged less than 5 bugs a month, and had at least 3 email exchanges in a quarter.

Was this the right approach? At the time it seemed so. But, did I ever run any correlation test of all churned customers and examined if they were logging in at least 3 times per week? Absolutely not!

So, I actually did not have a factual base that if a customer logged in less than 3 times a week, they would churn. So even though it looked like I had a seemingly logical health metric, it had no factual legs.

Ask yourself – What is the factual basis of your customer health calculations? Do you have the background work or are they just seductive-looking simple formulae merely expressing a gut feeling?

I had none at the beginning.

It took us 5 years of effort to identify 40 odd objective customer health KPIs by sourcing data from our product usage, ticketing system, CRM, subscription and payment system, feature request system, and customer communications.

2. I never measured my product’s customer outcomes

My customers were my customers because my product promised them business outcomes. If I were to understand my customers’ happiness, I should have looked at this very fundamental aspect.

A business outcome is the end result of completing one or more use cases on your product. If a customer gets repeatable and reliable business outcomes, they will forgive a clunky UI design, a few bugs here and there, and even poor after-sales support.

Let’s assume your product promises that customers can do faster airline ticket booking. What would be your customer outcome metric? You would want to ensure that the booking use case takes no more than say 60 seconds. Just a successful booking is not the desired customer outcome – a fast under 60-second booking is.

A customer who booked 5 tickets from your platform last week where each booking took 2 minutes would churn and go back to their favorite booking website because your product didn’t deliver the speed. Yes, you had high usage, and fewer bugs – everything all right, but you failed to deliver the customer outcome of speed!

Ask yourself – Are you measuring your product-driven customer outcomes?

I was not.

Later, we had around 10 objectives KPIs that defined the product-driven business outcomes to measure the value addition we were doing for our customers.

3. I never measured my users’ health

In the early days, I was not measuring user-level health.

Users make up customers. Users are decision-makers. Users are influencers.

Without measuring user health, a key piece of my customer success was lacking. And yet, I had missed this key insight.

Ask yourself – do you have visibility of each of your users and their health?

I didn’t have that.

After years of effort, we ended up with some 20 objectives KPIs to measure each user’s health.

4. In the name of customer success, I had built an elaborate task system and not an intelligence system

Again, in the early days, I had built a whole list of tasks for my CS team. “Do this, do that, send this email, call them, meet them…”

The CS system didn’t deliver any clear data-driven actionable moves. The reason was our customer health calculation was simple seductive gut-feel oriented and we had no inkling of customer outcomes and user health. So, the tasks generated on top of these fuzzy KPIs had a lot of activity, but no real value addition. It was death by tasks!

Ask yourself – do you have high-quality customer and user intelligence that you can drill down and find the root cause of the issues or do you just have an elaborate task system?

I didn’t have that.

With the 40+ objective KPIs, came to the discipline to see customer health in 40 dimensions. That created repeatable playbooks to handle poor health for each of the 40 KPI dimensions.

The lesson was clear, your health KPIs extend to your CS playbooks. Go light on the health KPIs and your CS playbooks cannot be bulletproof.

5. I missed customer-centricity by a mile

At the outset, all my CS issues and tasks, etc. were seen only by my CS team. My leadership of the product team, sales team, marketing team, finance team, DevOps team, training team, support team, etc. had no idea of the CS activities.

The problem is that the CS team could not solve all the problems themselves. They needed help from other teams. However, the other teams had no idea about the customers' and the users’ health. This created a huge gap in building a customer-centric business where all the other department leadership didn’t quite empathize with the CS concerns.

Ask yourself – Does the leadership of all your departments know about the CS issues and can empathize with them and in turn have a holistic customer-centric approach?

I sure didn’t.

Over the years, customer health was exposed to all the department leadership folks. That generated an org-wide appreciation for the customer concerns.

I sold my 1st startup in 2019. As fate would have it, we all got bogged down in our homes in 2020-2021 as a global pandemic raged on. In 2021, I and my co-founders quit our jobs and started building ZapScale – a customer success platform.

The objective is to make CS 10x simpler by productizing all the learnings from my last B2B SaaS startup. I intend to build a CS tool that has:

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I still remember the day when we got our 1st customer in my last startup. It was a lovely rainy day in November 2013 and it came with a terrific feeling – it felt absolutely amazing; almost akin to the 1st kiss. And after 2 years of honeymoon – they churned. I felt crushed, hollowed, gutted; almost akin to a breakup.

This started a 6-year-long tug of war between me trying to understand why my customers threatened to churn and why some of them actually did churn. In fact, before I sold my 1st B2B SaaS startup in 2019, we had seen 40+ churn threats from our customers and we managed to douse the flame in 30 cases. We lost only 10 customers over a 5-year period, giving us an enviable 1.5% YoY churn performance (the industry average is 10% – 15% YoY churn).

Every time a customer threatened to churn, I would mount a deep data dig to find evidence of their displeasure with the data. Funny story – there was always data that I had missed. With time and patience that ran over 5 years, we were able to create a customer success health profile that helped us deliver the fantastic 1.5% YoY churn figure.

Here are the top Customer Success mistakes I was doing when I was running my last start-up:

1. I relied on simple and seductive, gut-feel techniques:

I used to define customer health through very simple if-then-else circuits.

For instance, I used to believe that a customer is healthy if they logged into my product 3 times a week, logged less than 5 bugs a month, and had at least 3 email exchanges in a quarter.

Was this the right approach? At the time it seemed so. But, did I ever run any correlation test of all churned customers and examined if they were logging in at least 3 times per week? Absolutely not!

So, I actually did not have a factual base that if a customer logged in less than 3 times a week, they would churn. So even though it looked like I had a seemingly logical health metric, it had no factual legs.

Ask yourself – What is the factual basis of your customer health calculations? Do you have the background work or are they just seductive-looking simple formulae merely expressing a gut feeling?

I had none at the beginning.

It took us 5 years of effort to identify 40 odd objective customer health KPIs by sourcing data from our product usage, ticketing system, CRM, subscription and payment system, feature request system, and customer communications.

2. I never measured my product’s customer outcomes

My customers were my customers because my product promised them business outcomes. If I were to understand my customers’ happiness, I should have looked at this very fundamental aspect.

A business outcome is the end result of completing one or more use cases on your product. If a customer gets repeatable and reliable business outcomes, they will forgive a clunky UI design, a few bugs here and there, and even poor after-sales support.

Let’s assume your product promises that customers can do faster airline ticket booking. What would be your customer outcome metric? You would want to ensure that the booking use case takes no more than say 60 seconds. Just a successful booking is not the desired customer outcome – a fast under 60-second booking is.

A customer who booked 5 tickets from your platform last week where each booking took 2 minutes would churn and go back to their favorite booking website because your product didn’t deliver the speed. Yes, you had high usage, and fewer bugs – everything all right, but you failed to deliver the customer outcome of speed!

Ask yourself – Are you measuring your product-driven customer outcomes?

I was not.

Later, we had around 10 objectives KPIs that defined the product-driven business outcomes to measure the value addition we were doing for our customers.

3. I never measured my users’ health

In the early days, I was not measuring user-level health.

Users make up customers. Users are decision-makers. Users are influencers.

Without measuring user health, a key piece of my customer success was lacking. And yet, I had missed this key insight.

Ask yourself – do you have visibility of each of your users and their health?

I didn’t have that.

After years of effort, we ended up with some 20 objectives KPIs to measure each user’s health.

4. In the name of customer success, I had built an elaborate task system and not an intelligence system

Again, in the early days, I had built a whole list of tasks for my CS team. “Do this, do that, send this email, call them, meet them…”

The CS system didn’t deliver any clear data-driven actionable moves. The reason was our customer health calculation was simple seductive gut-feel oriented and we had no inkling of customer outcomes and user health. So, the tasks generated on top of these fuzzy KPIs had a lot of activity, but no real value addition. It was death by tasks!

Ask yourself – do you have high-quality customer and user intelligence that you can drill down and find the root cause of the issues or do you just have an elaborate task system?

I didn’t have that.

With the 40+ objective KPIs, came to the discipline to see customer health in 40 dimensions. That created repeatable playbooks to handle poor health for each of the 40 KPI dimensions.

The lesson was clear, your health KPIs extend to your CS playbooks. Go light on the health KPIs and your CS playbooks cannot be bulletproof.

5. I missed customer-centricity by a mile

At the outset, all my CS issues and tasks, etc. were seen only by my CS team. My leadership of the product team, sales team, marketing team, finance team, DevOps team, training team, support team, etc. had no idea of the CS activities.

The problem is that the CS team could not solve all the problems themselves. They needed help from other teams. However, the other teams had no idea about the customers' and the users’ health. This created a huge gap in building a customer-centric business where all the other department leadership didn’t quite empathize with the CS concerns.

Ask yourself – Does the leadership of all your departments know about the CS issues and can empathize with them and in turn have a holistic customer-centric approach?

I sure didn’t.

Over the years, customer health was exposed to all the department leadership folks. That generated an org-wide appreciation for the customer concerns.

I sold my 1st startup in 2019. As fate would have it, we all got bogged down in our homes in 2020-2021 as a global pandemic raged on. In 2021, I and my co-founders quit our jobs and started building ZapScale – a customer success platform.

The objective is to make CS 10x simpler by productizing all the learnings from my last B2B SaaS startup. I intend to build a CS tool that has:

" } }

How to not run out of money and other insights from my founding journey

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(8915) "All businesses are people businesses. With the right team, founders can cruise towards North Stars and tide over cash crunches. At CloudCherry before, and now at Uniphore, I have seen that encouraging teams to play together helps the company stay together. I have always been a big believer in small stories. That is how I took away an existential lesson from an IKEA chest I once tried to assemble. When I first moved CloudCherry to the US in 2016, I picked up a DIY seat for my house. Budgets were tight and the cost differential between handymen in India and the US was still subject to sticker shock. I chose to take “DIY” as an edict, not wanting to spend $300 for a handyman to assemble it. After a few evenings of fussing over nuts and bolts, the realization hit me. These were hours and energy I could have been using to get customers, raise capital, build a world-beating team, think of the next great feature or to even waylay a complete stranger and tell them why Cloudcherry was going to change the world. I was there to put together a company, not furniture. In that scheme of things, $300 was not life-changing. My time was. This was a pivotal reminder of the company’s north star. We had brought CloudCherry to the US chasing a higher objective. Because that was where the most influential customers with the most dollars to spend were. Winning them over would make us the company we wanted to be. It was why we had taken a mad leap of faith. So I got to work again. My point is that big moments don’t always announce themselves loudly, in a ‘stop-the-presses!’ kind of way. They emerge from small, everyday events. As a founder, I have learned to pay attention to them. 

Do not run out of cash.

In 2014, when CloudCherry was a baby and two years before its big move from India, another small story helped me get out of a rocky road.  Just three months in, we were out of cash. How did we get there? We had signed an agreement for early investment and, still wet behind the ears, the money was to flow in tranches. We ran out of cash. Fast. And had to run the next eight months on loans from family and well-wishers. I felt guilty because they were not betting this money on an oversubscribed IPO, they were giving it to a captain trying to plug the hole in a sinking boat. Things looked bleak when we had not found the money to pay salaries by the 10th day of one month. We were a team of 12 and I knew they had mortgages to pay and families to support. I dragged myself to the office, expecting anxious looks and a deflated mood. But they were already at work, upbeat and motivated as if nothing had changed.  That episode told me they were a crew that would fight for us. And they were worth fighting for. We heightened our search and got another small investment to keep the boat steady. By the 17th of the month, we managed to pay out pending salaries. We have never skipped payments since then. So what is the takeaway for founders here? Make sure your company always has capital. And if you do run out of cash. If it means giving customers a discount to get working capital in the company, do it. But make sure you have got yourself a team that can rescue you from a slump. 

Think of your company as people, not a product.

That brings me to the next learning. Perhaps the gravest mistake a founder can make is failing to recognize that a company is the sum of its people. They are the fuel to your plans, the lifeblood of your actions. Without people, your idea is worth about as much as the paper it is written on.  It takes effort to bring together a team that has passion, commitment, and incredible talent. Skimp on that and you have on your hands a team struggling to bring its A-game. So start investing in ways and means to understand your employees. I believe that founders need to be present in the room and hire employees. Brian Chesky of Airbnb famously spent six months going through thousands of resumes to hire his first engineer. For him, it was important to know who he would be building his idea with. He needed to know if they saw his vision and appreciated the problem.  Creating a highly collaborative atmosphere can seem like a daunting task. People are not machines, they don’t come with instructions. I wanted to solve this from the beginning at Uniphore. But, if you ask nicely, I find employees will give you a cheat sheet. We tell every new recruit at the company to fill in what we call, in good humor, a ‘user manual’. It is one of our great innovations. Instead of introductions, employees just discuss each others’ manuals.  Always know and understand who you hire. At the end of the day, they are the people who will make spending the 10 hours every day at work worthwhile. 

Optimize company culture.

[caption id="attachment_5077" align="aligncenter" width="512"] One of the blogs from the CloudCherry ‘Culture Manual’[/caption] The idea for the user manual actually came from a ‘culture manual’ I used to write at CloudCherry. These were candid internal blogs about startup life, our people, and the ups and downs of business. It was my attempt to communicate the company culture and make sure new entrants could catch up with our journey.  What even is company culture? It is when you inspire people to care and connect, and they reward you with their spirit and pride. Founders need to carve out time for building culture because it makes operational sense too. Consider a simple example. There are going to be a number of morning people on your team, and equally, a few late risers. Would you rather have some employees turn up grumpy for a 7 am meeting? Or can you comfortably push it to 11 am and keep everybody happy? When your team’s preferences and pet peeves are known, it is possible to make easy fixes so that everyone feels included.  With the user manual, things fast-forward to the point where colleagues know each other’s working styles. The questions we add range from some searching ones to a few just for laughs: ‘What kind of environment brings me down’, ‘How do I receive feedback?’, ‘If I were a meme, what would I be?’  The team learns to trust and communicate this way. They can safely fight the good fight and have those healthy arguments that lead to the best ideas.

Let employees ‘own’ their work.

Founders should also take a leaf from Girish Mathrubootham’s book. He manages to share little inside jokes with several of his employees. That comes from an authentic place of being interested. Folks at his company go beyond the brief.  I will leave you with one last small story. A few years ago I got a call from a Freshworks employee, Nivas. As I was driving through Palo Alto traffic, he quizzed me on ideas for a SaaS community. Because I had gone through startup programs including the Microsoft Accelerator, I shared everything I knew. He made notes and began working on a blueprint for what is now a multimillion-dollar business – the Freshworks Startup Program. It was an instance where someone was taking initiative outside their work responsibilities. Beyond being an employee, Nivas was acting as an owner would have. This success of the initiative was representative of the true triumph of the culture of ownership of Freshworks. If you can give them suitable conditions, that is the kind of magic employees feel motivated to create. Take it from a captain whose crew helped him sail over rough seas. The team which worked without a salary for a month at CloudCherry? They are with me at Uniphore. There is no magical way of creating a successful company. But these are small steps that help it become a success. " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(8915) "All businesses are people businesses. With the right team, founders can cruise towards North Stars and tide over cash crunches. At CloudCherry before, and now at Uniphore, I have seen that encouraging teams to play together helps the company stay together. I have always been a big believer in small stories. That is how I took away an existential lesson from an IKEA chest I once tried to assemble. When I first moved CloudCherry to the US in 2016, I picked up a DIY seat for my house. Budgets were tight and the cost differential between handymen in India and the US was still subject to sticker shock. I chose to take “DIY” as an edict, not wanting to spend $300 for a handyman to assemble it. After a few evenings of fussing over nuts and bolts, the realization hit me. These were hours and energy I could have been using to get customers, raise capital, build a world-beating team, think of the next great feature or to even waylay a complete stranger and tell them why Cloudcherry was going to change the world. I was there to put together a company, not furniture. In that scheme of things, $300 was not life-changing. My time was. This was a pivotal reminder of the company’s north star. We had brought CloudCherry to the US chasing a higher objective. Because that was where the most influential customers with the most dollars to spend were. Winning them over would make us the company we wanted to be. It was why we had taken a mad leap of faith. So I got to work again. My point is that big moments don’t always announce themselves loudly, in a ‘stop-the-presses!’ kind of way. They emerge from small, everyday events. As a founder, I have learned to pay attention to them. 

Do not run out of cash.

In 2014, when CloudCherry was a baby and two years before its big move from India, another small story helped me get out of a rocky road.  Just three months in, we were out of cash. How did we get there? We had signed an agreement for early investment and, still wet behind the ears, the money was to flow in tranches. We ran out of cash. Fast. And had to run the next eight months on loans from family and well-wishers. I felt guilty because they were not betting this money on an oversubscribed IPO, they were giving it to a captain trying to plug the hole in a sinking boat. Things looked bleak when we had not found the money to pay salaries by the 10th day of one month. We were a team of 12 and I knew they had mortgages to pay and families to support. I dragged myself to the office, expecting anxious looks and a deflated mood. But they were already at work, upbeat and motivated as if nothing had changed.  That episode told me they were a crew that would fight for us. And they were worth fighting for. We heightened our search and got another small investment to keep the boat steady. By the 17th of the month, we managed to pay out pending salaries. We have never skipped payments since then. So what is the takeaway for founders here? Make sure your company always has capital. And if you do run out of cash. If it means giving customers a discount to get working capital in the company, do it. But make sure you have got yourself a team that can rescue you from a slump. 

Think of your company as people, not a product.

That brings me to the next learning. Perhaps the gravest mistake a founder can make is failing to recognize that a company is the sum of its people. They are the fuel to your plans, the lifeblood of your actions. Without people, your idea is worth about as much as the paper it is written on.  It takes effort to bring together a team that has passion, commitment, and incredible talent. Skimp on that and you have on your hands a team struggling to bring its A-game. So start investing in ways and means to understand your employees. I believe that founders need to be present in the room and hire employees. Brian Chesky of Airbnb famously spent six months going through thousands of resumes to hire his first engineer. For him, it was important to know who he would be building his idea with. He needed to know if they saw his vision and appreciated the problem.  Creating a highly collaborative atmosphere can seem like a daunting task. People are not machines, they don’t come with instructions. I wanted to solve this from the beginning at Uniphore. But, if you ask nicely, I find employees will give you a cheat sheet. We tell every new recruit at the company to fill in what we call, in good humor, a ‘user manual’. It is one of our great innovations. Instead of introductions, employees just discuss each others’ manuals.  Always know and understand who you hire. At the end of the day, they are the people who will make spending the 10 hours every day at work worthwhile. 

Optimize company culture.

[caption id="attachment_5077" align="aligncenter" width="512"] One of the blogs from the CloudCherry ‘Culture Manual’[/caption] The idea for the user manual actually came from a ‘culture manual’ I used to write at CloudCherry. These were candid internal blogs about startup life, our people, and the ups and downs of business. It was my attempt to communicate the company culture and make sure new entrants could catch up with our journey.  What even is company culture? It is when you inspire people to care and connect, and they reward you with their spirit and pride. Founders need to carve out time for building culture because it makes operational sense too. Consider a simple example. There are going to be a number of morning people on your team, and equally, a few late risers. Would you rather have some employees turn up grumpy for a 7 am meeting? Or can you comfortably push it to 11 am and keep everybody happy? When your team’s preferences and pet peeves are known, it is possible to make easy fixes so that everyone feels included.  With the user manual, things fast-forward to the point where colleagues know each other’s working styles. The questions we add range from some searching ones to a few just for laughs: ‘What kind of environment brings me down’, ‘How do I receive feedback?’, ‘If I were a meme, what would I be?’  The team learns to trust and communicate this way. They can safely fight the good fight and have those healthy arguments that lead to the best ideas.

Let employees ‘own’ their work.

Founders should also take a leaf from Girish Mathrubootham’s book. He manages to share little inside jokes with several of his employees. That comes from an authentic place of being interested. Folks at his company go beyond the brief.  I will leave you with one last small story. A few years ago I got a call from a Freshworks employee, Nivas. As I was driving through Palo Alto traffic, he quizzed me on ideas for a SaaS community. Because I had gone through startup programs including the Microsoft Accelerator, I shared everything I knew. He made notes and began working on a blueprint for what is now a multimillion-dollar business – the Freshworks Startup Program. It was an instance where someone was taking initiative outside their work responsibilities. Beyond being an employee, Nivas was acting as an owner would have. This success of the initiative was representative of the true triumph of the culture of ownership of Freshworks. If you can give them suitable conditions, that is the kind of magic employees feel motivated to create. Take it from a captain whose crew helped him sail over rough seas. The team which worked without a salary for a month at CloudCherry? They are with me at Uniphore. There is no magical way of creating a successful company. But these are small steps that help it become a success. " } }

A sixteen-week deep learning program: SGx is a pay-it-forward, pro bono initiative by SaaSBOOMi

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Since early 2020, we’ve been busy strengthening the SaaS ecosystem through a new personalized coaching program called SaaSBOOMi SGx. So far, more than 15 young companies have been nurtured and shaped by seasoned entrepreneurs who founded the program. They have played mentors to these eager mentees and shared with them their years of learning, wisdom, and hours and hours of time. This two-year-long journey has finally come to an end. But it’s not the end of SGx, it’s the beginning of a new chapter. SGx will continue to shape stories, there’s a lot left to do. But let’s begin with unpacking all that happened in the first chapter.

Two weeks ago, I was in Goa. It wasn’t a holiday, but it sure did feel like one. I was in the company of founders who were all sharing stories and talking about their experiences. But there was something uncanny about what was happening there. Strange and magical. Along with sharing their learnings, they were talking about this one thing people often shy away from. They were talking about failing.

For years, I’ve been a SaaS community evangelist and observer. Within the SaaS community, there is an understanding that early-stage companies need to be handheld; they need an ecosystem to foster their growth. And the community had worked hard to create and sustain this ecosystem. But what we witnessed in Goa was special.

It was an entire community enshrining the spirit of paying it forward. Founders were sharing their failures because they wanted to teach their mentees about the growth that happens when you fail. How failure prepares you for the next step instead of holding you back.

What was this event?

It was the SaaSBOOMi SGx #GoaRetreat. A culmination of the three SaaSBOOMi SGx cohorts, born out of a conference we did in 2020, called SaaSBOOMi Growth. There was the comfort of being vulnerable because these founders had spent hours, months actually, talking to each other on Zoom. There was no ice to break.

It was a community coming together, investing its time and efforts so the SaaS ecosystem could not just grow but flourish. It was a beautiful feeling. It was extraordinary.

But before we talk more about the Goa chapter, let me share with you how it all started.

Origin story

The year was 2019. We were doing a one-day event called SaaSBOOMi Enterprise in Bengaluru. After the event concluded, a few of us were talking when a participant, Vivek Khandelwal of iZooto, raised a question. Whenever all these events happen, we have to come to Bengaluru. Why aren’t we doing any in Delhi?

With the SaaS ecosystem growing in the country, and more and more startups emerging even in cities such as Surat, Indore, and Jaipur, there absolutely was no need for Bengaluru to remain the epicenter. If startups are growing everywhere, learning opportunities also need to be democratized.

The great thing about building this Delhi-NCR startup ecosystem idea was that this region-centric approach if replicated in other states could achieve exactly that. It could serve founders from the smallest of cities rather well. So we began working on building a model for such an event in Delhi, and the work of SaaSBOOMi Growth began.

The Delhi founders — Mrigank Tripathi of PeopleStrong, Sachin Bhatia of Ameyo, Ankit Oberoi of AdPushup, Ashish Tulsian of Posist, and others — immediately started planning a conference. But before this could hit the ground, Covid-19 lockdowns happened, and SaaSBOOMi Growth moved online. The conference which happened on 9th May 2020 was a big success, over 250+ founders and growth practitioners attended it. We had a carefully curated list of speakers who brought with them their unique playbooks to share with the audience. Curious questions were asked, and learnings were shared eagerly.

The conference was a success, but it worked for more reasons than one. What came out of the conference was a hunger to do more. These founders who had kickstarted the SaaSBOOMi Growth event (Delhi chapter) said they wanted to do something big. This “something big” took the shape of a learning program — GrowthX.

The program structure

Here’s how it worked. We decided we would choose six early-stage companies with ARR $500,000–$2 million to be a part of it. Six founders who’ve been running the growth engines of their companies for a while will mentor the founders of these six companies. The mentoring will happen through intense one-on-one sessions every week for four months with one goal: to help these founders solve the challenges they are facing, be it with product development, scaling, or revenue growth.

How it happened

Sachin, Mrigank, Vivek, Ankit, Varun Shoor, and Kapil Makhija became the first six mentors. And call it serendipity or fate, but the way these mentors and mentees were matched, it was all things falling into the right place. So, for instance, if someone had a solid product, they automatically were matched with a mentor whose area of focus was product development. This wasn’t by design. It’s just how things worked out.

The first cohort, where mentors invested nearly six to eight hours a week in nurturing their mentee’s company, was an invigorating experience. It was intense work, mentors were guiding the new founders while also running their own companies. But it never stopped them from showing up. They were dedicating their weekends to mentoring, all for the benefit of the community. There was such a great flow of energy that soon enough, we found ourselves launching the second cohort. Another four-month-long program with another set of six companies.

While Sachin, Mrigank, Ankit, and Varun from the original list of mentors continued in the second cohort, we had Raj Sheth join the pack as the mentor for the fifth startup. We also onboarded founders from the first cohort Vengat, Kalyan, Ashwin, and Abhi to assist the mentor pool as wingmates. This led to a mentoring structure with Saarthis (senior mentor) leading the coaching effort with the wingmates assisting them. This structure, we believe, would be vital for the continuity of the program as graduates from the program can choose to become wingmates and later Saarthis with a pay-it-forward mindset thereby enabling us to groom a rich mentor pool.

The second cohort also had Matthew join as a volunteer to coordinate the program with Sachin. The cohort ran successfully amidst the challenges caused by the Covid-19 pandemic’s second wave. While all five startups from the cohort were able to make tangible progress in building their growth flywheel, we also celebrated the acquisition of two startups from the second cohort and one from the first cohort during this period. We knew we were onto something special, we just had to persevere and continue with the effort.

Evolution of the story

By the time the second cohort ended, our six mentors were bone tired. So we decided to take a break and then return to the idea. When we reconvened, Mrigank took charge of promoting SaaSBOOMi Growthx (which was then rebranded to SGx) and led the effort to structure the admissions process. Meanwhile, Sachin and Matthew John put together the curriculum for the 16-week program and also focussed on onboarding new mentors to the pool. The preparation for the new cohort then gathered momentum, as other mentors such as Kalyan Varma and Vengat Krishnaraj also started helping with the effort. For the third cohort, ‌45 companies applied, and six were chosen.

The Goa Chapter

The Goa idea germinated, a little bit, from Zoom exhaustion. Three cohorts were conducted digitally, but no one had met in the real world. It was time to change that. So, an offsite was planned and all three cohorts, along with the mentors, came to Goa.

Day 1

We landed in Goa on Friday and gathered in the evening. Remember, this was the first time they were all seeing each other in person, and so naturally, the initial hour was people talking to each other, which was followed by some networking.

Everyone shared a unique life experience. They talked about their startup ideas, their products, and their plans with it. Eventually, we played some games, and it was time to retire to our respective rooms.

Day one was slow. It was about getting people situated and comfortable, but honestly, there was no need to establish comfort. These mentors and mentees had worked so extensively with each other, that there was nothing but pure, unadulterated camaraderie between them.

Day 2

The second day was our first morning in Goa, and so naturally, it started with a walk on the beach. Then we started our first session for the day, where each founder talked about the values they got from the program.

A thing these mentees had learned during their four months in the program was the value of communicating with clarity. The way each mentee spoke about their experience made one thing clear — they had learned the art of articulation. Some people spoke about how they learned to value failures and even developed a risk appetite because of it. While others talked about the value that can be found in protecting your own. It’s something that never goes unrewarded.

There were business and life lessons shared. Be it about leading by example, or about the literal and philosophical value of money. How much money is too much money? What is the right time to exit? And what’s the point of accumulating all this money if you don’t have the time to spend it?

These were enriching conversations. It was spellbinding, just watching these founders talk about the things they learned from the program and their mentors.

But if you want to understand the impact the program has had on these companies, consider these points.

1. There was a 120% Marketing-Qualified Lead (MQL) and the Top of the Funnel (TOFU) growth within 90 days. The companies saw more interest from potential customers and their brand awareness grew.
2. There was a cumulative pipeline increase of ~$15M across six companies with an average pipeline increase of ~$1.5M
3. Earlier, none of the companies were tracking their growth metrics effectively. But post the program, they all began tracking their SaaS Growth Marketing OKRs.
4. Three of the companies, Spyne, Veris, and APPSeCONNECT, successfully executed a cross-border GTM motion. They moved from domestic to international GTM and fully aligned their business hiring, readiness, and positioning in the new geography.
5. All six companies were able to clearly differentiate the identification of the buyer universe and TAM.

After the day concluded, instead of retiring to their rooms, we stayed back and talked about the next phase of SGx. Among the new crop of founders, someone asked if there would be a new cohort and when. Another one said they’d like to volunteer their time to mentor the next generation.

It is incidents such as this that tell us why the SaaS ecosystem is thriving in India. And why it is going to grow from strength to strength in the coming years. The SGx story that started from a small idea is becoming a tomb. There are more chapters left to write, more left to read. This is just the beginning.

I would like to end the note by acknowledging Matthew, who has been managing the program since the launch of the second cohort, along with Sachin, Mrigank, and other mentors. We are looking for more founder volunteers to step in and help us shape SGx into one of the most thoughtful growth accelerator programs in the world. Reach out to us at [email protected] if you would like to be part of this journey.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(31523) "

Since early 2020, we’ve been busy strengthening the SaaS ecosystem through a new personalized coaching program called SaaSBOOMi SGx. So far, more than 15 young companies have been nurtured and shaped by seasoned entrepreneurs who founded the program. They have played mentors to these eager mentees and shared with them their years of learning, wisdom, and hours and hours of time. This two-year-long journey has finally come to an end. But it’s not the end of SGx, it’s the beginning of a new chapter. SGx will continue to shape stories, there’s a lot left to do. But let’s begin with unpacking all that happened in the first chapter.

Two weeks ago, I was in Goa. It wasn’t a holiday, but it sure did feel like one. I was in the company of founders who were all sharing stories and talking about their experiences. But there was something uncanny about what was happening there. Strange and magical. Along with sharing their learnings, they were talking about this one thing people often shy away from. They were talking about failing.

For years, I’ve been a SaaS community evangelist and observer. Within the SaaS community, there is an understanding that early-stage companies need to be handheld; they need an ecosystem to foster their growth. And the community had worked hard to create and sustain this ecosystem. But what we witnessed in Goa was special.

It was an entire community enshrining the spirit of paying it forward. Founders were sharing their failures because they wanted to teach their mentees about the growth that happens when you fail. How failure prepares you for the next step instead of holding you back.

What was this event?

It was the SaaSBOOMi SGx #GoaRetreat. A culmination of the three SaaSBOOMi SGx cohorts, born out of a conference we did in 2020, called SaaSBOOMi Growth. There was the comfort of being vulnerable because these founders had spent hours, months actually, talking to each other on Zoom. There was no ice to break.

It was a community coming together, investing its time and efforts so the SaaS ecosystem could not just grow but flourish. It was a beautiful feeling. It was extraordinary.

But before we talk more about the Goa chapter, let me share with you how it all started.

Origin story

The year was 2019. We were doing a one-day event called SaaSBOOMi Enterprise in Bengaluru. After the event concluded, a few of us were talking when a participant, Vivek Khandelwal of iZooto, raised a question. Whenever all these events happen, we have to come to Bengaluru. Why aren’t we doing any in Delhi?

With the SaaS ecosystem growing in the country, and more and more startups emerging even in cities such as Surat, Indore, and Jaipur, there absolutely was no need for Bengaluru to remain the epicenter. If startups are growing everywhere, learning opportunities also need to be democratized.

The great thing about building this Delhi-NCR startup ecosystem idea was that this region-centric approach if replicated in other states could achieve exactly that. It could serve founders from the smallest of cities rather well. So we began working on building a model for such an event in Delhi, and the work of SaaSBOOMi Growth began.

The Delhi founders — Mrigank Tripathi of PeopleStrong, Sachin Bhatia of Ameyo, Ankit Oberoi of AdPushup, Ashish Tulsian of Posist, and others — immediately started planning a conference. But before this could hit the ground, Covid-19 lockdowns happened, and SaaSBOOMi Growth moved online. The conference which happened on 9th May 2020 was a big success, over 250+ founders and growth practitioners attended it. We had a carefully curated list of speakers who brought with them their unique playbooks to share with the audience. Curious questions were asked, and learnings were shared eagerly.

The conference was a success, but it worked for more reasons than one. What came out of the conference was a hunger to do more. These founders who had kickstarted the SaaSBOOMi Growth event (Delhi chapter) said they wanted to do something big. This “something big” took the shape of a learning program — GrowthX.

The program structure

Here’s how it worked. We decided we would choose six early-stage companies with ARR $500,000–$2 million to be a part of it. Six founders who’ve been running the growth engines of their companies for a while will mentor the founders of these six companies. The mentoring will happen through intense one-on-one sessions every week for four months with one goal: to help these founders solve the challenges they are facing, be it with product development, scaling, or revenue growth.

How it happened

Sachin, Mrigank, Vivek, Ankit, Varun Shoor, and Kapil Makhija became the first six mentors. And call it serendipity or fate, but the way these mentors and mentees were matched, it was all things falling into the right place. So, for instance, if someone had a solid product, they automatically were matched with a mentor whose area of focus was product development. This wasn’t by design. It’s just how things worked out.

The first cohort, where mentors invested nearly six to eight hours a week in nurturing their mentee’s company, was an invigorating experience. It was intense work, mentors were guiding the new founders while also running their own companies. But it never stopped them from showing up. They were dedicating their weekends to mentoring, all for the benefit of the community. There was such a great flow of energy that soon enough, we found ourselves launching the second cohort. Another four-month-long program with another set of six companies.

While Sachin, Mrigank, Ankit, and Varun from the original list of mentors continued in the second cohort, we had Raj Sheth join the pack as the mentor for the fifth startup. We also onboarded founders from the first cohort Vengat, Kalyan, Ashwin, and Abhi to assist the mentor pool as wingmates. This led to a mentoring structure with Saarthis (senior mentor) leading the coaching effort with the wingmates assisting them. This structure, we believe, would be vital for the continuity of the program as graduates from the program can choose to become wingmates and later Saarthis with a pay-it-forward mindset thereby enabling us to groom a rich mentor pool.

The second cohort also had Matthew join as a volunteer to coordinate the program with Sachin. The cohort ran successfully amidst the challenges caused by the Covid-19 pandemic’s second wave. While all five startups from the cohort were able to make tangible progress in building their growth flywheel, we also celebrated the acquisition of two startups from the second cohort and one from the first cohort during this period. We knew we were onto something special, we just had to persevere and continue with the effort.

Evolution of the story

By the time the second cohort ended, our six mentors were bone tired. So we decided to take a break and then return to the idea. When we reconvened, Mrigank took charge of promoting SaaSBOOMi Growthx (which was then rebranded to SGx) and led the effort to structure the admissions process. Meanwhile, Sachin and Matthew John put together the curriculum for the 16-week program and also focussed on onboarding new mentors to the pool. The preparation for the new cohort then gathered momentum, as other mentors such as Kalyan Varma and Vengat Krishnaraj also started helping with the effort. For the third cohort, ‌45 companies applied, and six were chosen.

The Goa Chapter

The Goa idea germinated, a little bit, from Zoom exhaustion. Three cohorts were conducted digitally, but no one had met in the real world. It was time to change that. So, an offsite was planned and all three cohorts, along with the mentors, came to Goa.

Day 1

We landed in Goa on Friday and gathered in the evening. Remember, this was the first time they were all seeing each other in person, and so naturally, the initial hour was people talking to each other, which was followed by some networking.

Everyone shared a unique life experience. They talked about their startup ideas, their products, and their plans with it. Eventually, we played some games, and it was time to retire to our respective rooms.

Day one was slow. It was about getting people situated and comfortable, but honestly, there was no need to establish comfort. These mentors and mentees had worked so extensively with each other, that there was nothing but pure, unadulterated camaraderie between them.

Day 2

The second day was our first morning in Goa, and so naturally, it started with a walk on the beach. Then we started our first session for the day, where each founder talked about the values they got from the program.

A thing these mentees had learned during their four months in the program was the value of communicating with clarity. The way each mentee spoke about their experience made one thing clear — they had learned the art of articulation. Some people spoke about how they learned to value failures and even developed a risk appetite because of it. While others talked about the value that can be found in protecting your own. It’s something that never goes unrewarded.

There were business and life lessons shared. Be it about leading by example, or about the literal and philosophical value of money. How much money is too much money? What is the right time to exit? And what’s the point of accumulating all this money if you don’t have the time to spend it?

These were enriching conversations. It was spellbinding, just watching these founders talk about the things they learned from the program and their mentors.

But if you want to understand the impact the program has had on these companies, consider these points.

1. There was a 120% Marketing-Qualified Lead (MQL) and the Top of the Funnel (TOFU) growth within 90 days. The companies saw more interest from potential customers and their brand awareness grew.
2. There was a cumulative pipeline increase of ~$15M across six companies with an average pipeline increase of ~$1.5M
3. Earlier, none of the companies were tracking their growth metrics effectively. But post the program, they all began tracking their SaaS Growth Marketing OKRs.
4. Three of the companies, Spyne, Veris, and APPSeCONNECT, successfully executed a cross-border GTM motion. They moved from domestic to international GTM and fully aligned their business hiring, readiness, and positioning in the new geography.
5. All six companies were able to clearly differentiate the identification of the buyer universe and TAM.

After the day concluded, instead of retiring to their rooms, we stayed back and talked about the next phase of SGx. Among the new crop of founders, someone asked if there would be a new cohort and when. Another one said they’d like to volunteer their time to mentor the next generation.

It is incidents such as this that tell us why the SaaS ecosystem is thriving in India. And why it is going to grow from strength to strength in the coming years. The SGx story that started from a small idea is becoming a tomb. There are more chapters left to write, more left to read. This is just the beginning.

I would like to end the note by acknowledging Matthew, who has been managing the program since the launch of the second cohort, along with Sachin, Mrigank, and other mentors. We are looking for more founder volunteers to step in and help us shape SGx into one of the most thoughtful growth accelerator programs in the world. Reach out to us at [email protected] if you would like to be part of this journey.

" } }

SaaSBoomi Awards 2022 – Third time’s a charm

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(5703) "We are delighted to announce the third edition of the SaaSBoomi Awards. The most striking aspect presaging this year’s announcement is how the context has drastically shifted year-over-year in these past three years. When we launched the inaugural version of the SaaSBoomi Awards in 2020, it was against the backdrop of the dark cloud of Covid-19. The hope was that it would serve as a rallying point for inspiring all other SaaS startups in India to aim higher and bigger despite the challenges of the pandemic. It was gratifying to see over 200 high-quality applications with many of these startups achieving amazing progress and success over the subsequent years. The second edition of the awards last year was during an unprecedented market boom with the glut of venture capital juxtaposed against an unprecedented rush for talent. This year, the dial seems to have shifted to the polar end of the spectrum with a funding winter and widespread layoffs. While the market conditions have swung wildly over the last three years with wildly different expectations from founders and investors, the one aspect that has remained constant is the never-say-die attitude of our founders and their unceasing ambitions to “ding the universe”. Irrespective of whether the market is good or bad, our founders continue to persist and preserve building out their products, teams, and businesses, smoothly pivoting or seamlessly changing course to adjust to new realities as and when such demands arise. While no one knows what the future looks like, there is no doubt that companies with good fundamentals and high values will continue to hold the currency for customers, employees, and investors alike. Lock in step with these principles, SaaSBoomi Awards continues to be an endeavor to celebrate our SaaS companies and their founders – to recognize and laud their achievements, to bring to little-known light gems, to inspire others to follow their path unmindful of temporary disruptions in markets and capital.

Why should you apply for the SaaSBoomi Awards?

SaaSBOOMi Awards is the first and only startup awards program in India that is shaped and judged entirely by the community. You will be judged and recognized not by corporate sponsors or VC investors but by your peers in the Indian SaaS community. By folks who have walked in your shoes but have strode to great heights – community members who have taken their companies to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, who have bootstrapped their startups to profitability at scale with hundreds of team members, who have set global standards in deep tech and cutting-edge innovation. The SaaSBOOMi Awards program is designed to recognize a select set of exemplary startups along a thoughtfully constructed set of categories that will in essence serve as a proxy for the entire Indian SaaS industry. Winning an award here is all but guaranteed to give you and your startup enduring recognition and respect – all done by the community, for the community. Winning a SaaSBOOMi award will also allow you to join a cohort of high-quality exemplar startups who have leveraged their success in the awards event to garner global success and recognition in subsequent years. Joining this peer group will open up access to a tight-knit tribe within the larger community. As always, we have taken our learnings while running the awards process from previous years to streamline and finetune the selection process as well as the award categories for this year. For SaaSBOOMi Awards 2022, we’re inviting applications for the following award categories:

• SaaS startup of the year – For the best SaaS startup in India, which has achieved great heights at a global level and serves as a lighthouse for all other SaaS entrepreneurs in India. This will be selected by jury members among all the SaaS startups in India.
• Breakout SaaS startup of the year – For startups that have achieved phenomenal traction or recognition in the recent past, whether through a pivot, paradigm shift, focussed execution, or through the acceleration of funding.
• Emerging SaaS Startup of the year – For startups below $1M in revenue, which has achieved phenomenal traction in their journey from the start.
• Bootstrapped SaaS startup of the year – For startups that have scaled without raising any institutional money (over $100K) and only rely on revenue to fund and grow their operations.
• Developer, Tools, and Infra SaaS Startup of the year – For startups that are building tools for developers, DevOps, DataOps, Security Ops, or those used by applications or infrastructure teams, and have received critical acclaim for the same.
• Wunderkind SaaS Startup of the year – For startups by young founders (below 25 years of age) that have achieved preternatural success.
• Vertical SaaS Startup of the year – For startups that play in a vertical domain and have achieved phenomenal traction within that domain, be it in terms of revenue or customers.

So if you’re a SaaS startup or know someone who you think deserves to be recognized, head straight to this link. Applications are open till Jan 7, 2023." ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(5703) "We are delighted to announce the third edition of the SaaSBoomi Awards. The most striking aspect presaging this year’s announcement is how the context has drastically shifted year-over-year in these past three years. When we launched the inaugural version of the SaaSBoomi Awards in 2020, it was against the backdrop of the dark cloud of Covid-19. The hope was that it would serve as a rallying point for inspiring all other SaaS startups in India to aim higher and bigger despite the challenges of the pandemic. It was gratifying to see over 200 high-quality applications with many of these startups achieving amazing progress and success over the subsequent years. The second edition of the awards last year was during an unprecedented market boom with the glut of venture capital juxtaposed against an unprecedented rush for talent. This year, the dial seems to have shifted to the polar end of the spectrum with a funding winter and widespread layoffs. While the market conditions have swung wildly over the last three years with wildly different expectations from founders and investors, the one aspect that has remained constant is the never-say-die attitude of our founders and their unceasing ambitions to “ding the universe”. Irrespective of whether the market is good or bad, our founders continue to persist and preserve building out their products, teams, and businesses, smoothly pivoting or seamlessly changing course to adjust to new realities as and when such demands arise. While no one knows what the future looks like, there is no doubt that companies with good fundamentals and high values will continue to hold the currency for customers, employees, and investors alike. Lock in step with these principles, SaaSBoomi Awards continues to be an endeavor to celebrate our SaaS companies and their founders – to recognize and laud their achievements, to bring to little-known light gems, to inspire others to follow their path unmindful of temporary disruptions in markets and capital.

Why should you apply for the SaaSBoomi Awards?

SaaSBOOMi Awards is the first and only startup awards program in India that is shaped and judged entirely by the community. You will be judged and recognized not by corporate sponsors or VC investors but by your peers in the Indian SaaS community. By folks who have walked in your shoes but have strode to great heights – community members who have taken their companies to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, who have bootstrapped their startups to profitability at scale with hundreds of team members, who have set global standards in deep tech and cutting-edge innovation. The SaaSBOOMi Awards program is designed to recognize a select set of exemplary startups along a thoughtfully constructed set of categories that will in essence serve as a proxy for the entire Indian SaaS industry. Winning an award here is all but guaranteed to give you and your startup enduring recognition and respect – all done by the community, for the community. Winning a SaaSBOOMi award will also allow you to join a cohort of high-quality exemplar startups who have leveraged their success in the awards event to garner global success and recognition in subsequent years. Joining this peer group will open up access to a tight-knit tribe within the larger community. As always, we have taken our learnings while running the awards process from previous years to streamline and finetune the selection process as well as the award categories for this year. For SaaSBOOMi Awards 2022, we’re inviting applications for the following award categories:

• SaaS startup of the year – For the best SaaS startup in India, which has achieved great heights at a global level and serves as a lighthouse for all other SaaS entrepreneurs in India. This will be selected by jury members among all the SaaS startups in India.
• Breakout SaaS startup of the year – For startups that have achieved phenomenal traction or recognition in the recent past, whether through a pivot, paradigm shift, focussed execution, or through the acceleration of funding.
• Emerging SaaS Startup of the year – For startups below $1M in revenue, which has achieved phenomenal traction in their journey from the start.
• Bootstrapped SaaS startup of the year – For startups that have scaled without raising any institutional money (over $100K) and only rely on revenue to fund and grow their operations.
• Developer, Tools, and Infra SaaS Startup of the year – For startups that are building tools for developers, DevOps, DataOps, Security Ops, or those used by applications or infrastructure teams, and have received critical acclaim for the same.
• Wunderkind SaaS Startup of the year – For startups by young founders (below 25 years of age) that have achieved preternatural success.
• Vertical SaaS Startup of the year – For startups that play in a vertical domain and have achieved phenomenal traction within that domain, be it in terms of revenue or customers.

So if you’re a SaaS startup or know someone who you think deserves to be recognized, head straight to this link. Applications are open till Jan 7, 2023." } }

Founder Gospel: Waves, Wisdom, Wealth, & the Wolf | Reflections from the SaaSBOOMi SGx Goa Retreat

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(16940) "First things first. I’m Aastha, co-founder of Veris and a proud SGx Summer ‘22 graduate. For everyone reading, SGx is a stellar program for SaaS entrepreneurs. The past four immersive months of SGx founder coaching with SaaSBoomi have been more than just good times. It’s been one of the most stirring, inspiring, and spirited journeys I’ve undertaken in my 14 years of work. And still, all these adjectives don’t do justice to the ride we’ve been on. We’ve had the privilege of being mentored by seasoned entrepreneurs, grounded in real-life business needs, challenges, and opportunities. They’ve asked us some pointed and probing questions and shared with us some solid insights and advice that will go with us a long way as a company, and as individuals. If all that wasn’t enough, the 3-day graduation ‘un-ceremony’ in Goa was beyond memorable - it led me to realize the 4 W’s of entrepreneurship: Waves, Wisdom, Wealth & the Wolf

Dancing on the Waves

You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf. ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

One mentions  ‘Goa’, and views of beautiful beaches come to mind inadvertently. Arabian Sea scallops and beach shacks beckon, the sunset demands your presence, and the undulating waves touch your heart. It’s like when nature herself wants you to avail her bounties; then why not listen and rejoice? That was the intention we went to Goa with. Who knew we’d learn to ride on the waves in a different context altogether: The waves of life's ups and downs. As founders, a lot of us, at different points in life, have been told to ‘embrace failure’ in the spirit of entrepreneurship. I never really understood it until a few days ago.  “What’s your failure resume?” some were asked… and oh, the mind-blowing anecdotes that came by! This blog sure won’t do justice to their magnetic storytelling - Sachin Bhatia, Founder & Chief Growth Officer - Exotel, Dhruvil Sanghvi, Founder & CEO - LogiNext, Sundeep Sahi, Founder & CEO - Skuad.  Meeting them in the flesh was a near-fangirl moment for me. These are people I used to read about. And there they stood…sharing their ‘not-so-perfect’ choices and the roller-coaster ride that eventually led them to succeed against all odds.  My takeaway: If you haven’t failed, you haven’t truly grown. Their stories guided me to a point of self-reflection. For the first time ever, I acknowledged a willingness to stumble along the way… and that failures are as much a part of your growth journey as success. They define you, they expand your horizon, and they give you the strength for your next fight & flight. From my notebook: Learnings by association

1. It’s critical to hold skip-level meetings for richer insights, better organizational relationships, continuous improvement, and performance monitoring.
2. Get ahead in the collection curve, and don’t ever lose sight of the cash runway
3. Protect your people, and they shall return the favor if ever in need
4. Articulation is an art one should harness. Founder success depends on precise communication and aligned action

The Wisdom School

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. ~Will Rogers

If SaaSBooMi SGx was a wisdom school, Mrigank Tripathi, Chief Growth Officer, PeopleStrong, was our dean. Mentors come in many flavors. Sometimes we learn by observation, other times there is direct business intervention. They annoy us, perhaps pushing us beyond our notional stretch limit.  Over the last four months of intensive founder training, Mrigank truly molded us to harness the potential that we ourselves were unaware of. In the little time we worked with him, we doubled not only our leads but also our pipeline and our closing rate. We restructured our team and also automated all critical processes.  It would be naïve to think that we've done it 'all on our own'. Yes, we've done the work, but our work, our plan and execution, and the outcomes have all been influenced so greatly by him and all the other mentors. From my notebook: The speed course Business Learnings

1. Opening a new market is like setting up a new business: Every geography works differently. Their pain points, the language they relate with, and the places they search at.
2. Content bridges the gap between the product and buyer expectations: Insight-driven original content is the most effective method of growing audience engagement, developing presence, and driving sales.
3. Customers are inclined to trust you if they view you as an industry expert: Once you are recognized by peers, customers, and industry experts as someone who deeply understands the space, there is no looking back.

Quotes that will stay with me forever

1. “Nazar Hati Durghatna Ghati” {Always keep your eyes on the road to avoid accidents} Evaluate > Plan > Execute > Measure > Repeat                                 From setting SGx OKRs to weekly reviews, we learned how to run a project, a team, and a company 2. “In a seven-course meal, never get up at the third course” Run the full cycle > Only then repeat or change track  Run the full cycle of wholehearted-all-hands-on-deck kind of efforts. If it doesn’t work, only then move on to plan B 3. “Sharpen the sword before the battle” Anticipate > Prepare > Progress Do your homework, build & prep the team, stay agile, and anticipate what’s coming next. When the battle drum beats, be ready!

Life Beyond Business

The past few months brought to light a lot of interesting life and business lessons that I hope you can borrow from as well. Five of those I want to share with you because I think their application goes beyond the realm of business and actually connects with life at large.

1. It’s good to make yourself redundant sometimes because your redundancy is a sign that your team and the people around you are becoming self-sufficient. What it also means is that as a leader and as an individual, you have newer goals to look forward to, to which you can now devote your time.
2. Leading doesn’t happen from behind. One has to step forward and lead by example. And this is not just true for the good times, but also for those trying times when one doesn’t necessarily lead from a place of privilege.
3. You are your own benchmark. For me, this is more about self-introspection than about comparison. Very often we pivot our measures of success outside when in reality, they lie inward.
4. Play it like a sport. That's the true peer community. When you’re playing, you’re known for your excellence, not mentor or mentee, senior or junior, new or old.
5. Focus on what you have rather than what you can have. This is a big one for me personally because I feel that we are so used to - as people, as leaders - chasing the future and the things we don’t have, that we stop relishing what we do. It’s a great way to be mindful rather than always being in a chase.

F*** You Wealth

Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it. ~Benjamin Franklin

Have you ever wondered How much money is enough money? What’s your FU Number? This was a question that pulled an all-nighter during the Goa Retreat. I believed in simple calculations till then. When a person accumulates around 400-500 times their monthly expenses, they have enough to last for another 30 years. Even if you adjust it with your and your family’s increasing needs, for inflation, a longer lifespan, and unforeseen needs, an estimated 1000 times might be a good number to look at.  In Goa, when I happened to meet three charismatic entrepreneurs with incredibly successful exits and acquisitions, my perception evolved. Varun Shoor, Founder, Kayako, Pallav Nadhani, Founder, of FusionCharts & Charts.com, and Aakrit Vaish, Co-Founder & CEO, Haptik - the three alongside Dhruvil - hosted a rather interesting panel discussion: ‘Bechne ke baad kya?’ - What after exit? From my notebook: When to sell As an entrepreneur, take an exit or get acquired only if one or more of the scenarios below is true:

1. You are getting an undebatable offer: a number preferably bigger than your FU Money
2. You don't have enough working capital to keep going, but you want the company and your people to thrive even if it’s in someone else's ship.
3. Your health isn’t supporting you, and now the most powerful asset of the company, you, need a break
4. You have outgrown the business or the business has outgrown you

Now the money is in your account, you surely have dreams about what to buy or build—a new home, travel, investing, or a new company. But is that enough? How do you do justice to your biggest life win? From my notebook: Some realizations

1. Money is nothing if you don’t know how to enjoy it. The three panelists sure knew how to do this. Bubbling with energy and steadily striking off their bucket list.
2. Money is nothing if you aren't in the best of your health. The late, great entrepreneur Jim Rohn once said, "Take care of your body. It's the only place you have to live." Surely not the dream home you just bought. 
3. Money is nothing if you lack purpose. Empty calendars hit you hard. The realization that happiness lies in doing what we like and not only the money we bagged is an important one. 

The Wolf of Growth Street

Hunger drives the wolf out of the woods. ~German Proverb

For those who aren’t GOT fans or don't know much about wolves, they are complex, highly intelligent animals who are caring, playful, and above all, devoted to family. Only a select few other species exhibit these traits so clearly. Just like elephants, gorillas, and dolphins, wolves educate their young, take care of their injured and live in family groups. The SaaSBooMi SGx family quite remarkably shares these traits. They treat & teach you like family.  If one analogy wasn’t enough, there is always the ‘Wolf of Wall Street’. Meeting mentors and wingmates at SGx Goa Retreat, listening to their dreams and failures, their journeys at large, and their conviction in their vision and also in us…leaves you pumping with motivation. I’m a personal fan of the movie. What I and my team felt was similar to one particular scene in the movie, and the emotion it relates to The Chest Thump. Let me try to describe the scene, my emotional response to it, and the similarity to my SGx journey:  ‘He begins humming and beating his chest… in the middle of a crowded restaurant. Unfazed by this, Jordan joins in, setting the stage for the entire film {for me, setting a high growth stage for my company, Veris}. The scene goes on for so much longer than other films would allow it to. The audience is captivated at the moment with them {Much similar to the connection founders felt with their mentors. All at the moment, giving in to their wisdom, sincerely wanting to believe, learn, grow}. Though we might want to escape, we can’t. Though I was oddly uncomfortable watching two grown men in suits beating their chests, I couldn’t bring myself to look away {Being pushed to harness our own potential, however uncomfortable we were, we eventually began to enjoy and welcome the change}. That moment told me exactly what this world was like {and what being a founder truly means}’ It was ‘action-learning’ at its best! I want to thank all mentors and wingmates for their selfless efforts, and all the awesome founders I met on this journey. It’s a true pay-it-forward community and I do hope I'd be able to do justice to this spirit! For those with these aspirations, I cannot recommend it enough. I will cherish the friends I’ve made and look forward to seeing everyone’s business grow." ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(16940) "First things first. I’m Aastha, co-founder of Veris and a proud SGx Summer ‘22 graduate. For everyone reading, SGx is a stellar program for SaaS entrepreneurs. The past four immersive months of SGx founder coaching with SaaSBoomi have been more than just good times. It’s been one of the most stirring, inspiring, and spirited journeys I’ve undertaken in my 14 years of work. And still, all these adjectives don’t do justice to the ride we’ve been on. We’ve had the privilege of being mentored by seasoned entrepreneurs, grounded in real-life business needs, challenges, and opportunities. They’ve asked us some pointed and probing questions and shared with us some solid insights and advice that will go with us a long way as a company, and as individuals. If all that wasn’t enough, the 3-day graduation ‘un-ceremony’ in Goa was beyond memorable - it led me to realize the 4 W’s of entrepreneurship: Waves, Wisdom, Wealth & the Wolf

Dancing on the Waves

You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf. ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

One mentions  ‘Goa’, and views of beautiful beaches come to mind inadvertently. Arabian Sea scallops and beach shacks beckon, the sunset demands your presence, and the undulating waves touch your heart. It’s like when nature herself wants you to avail her bounties; then why not listen and rejoice? That was the intention we went to Goa with. Who knew we’d learn to ride on the waves in a different context altogether: The waves of life's ups and downs. As founders, a lot of us, at different points in life, have been told to ‘embrace failure’ in the spirit of entrepreneurship. I never really understood it until a few days ago.  “What’s your failure resume?” some were asked… and oh, the mind-blowing anecdotes that came by! This blog sure won’t do justice to their magnetic storytelling - Sachin Bhatia, Founder & Chief Growth Officer - Exotel, Dhruvil Sanghvi, Founder & CEO - LogiNext, Sundeep Sahi, Founder & CEO - Skuad.  Meeting them in the flesh was a near-fangirl moment for me. These are people I used to read about. And there they stood…sharing their ‘not-so-perfect’ choices and the roller-coaster ride that eventually led them to succeed against all odds.  My takeaway: If you haven’t failed, you haven’t truly grown. Their stories guided me to a point of self-reflection. For the first time ever, I acknowledged a willingness to stumble along the way… and that failures are as much a part of your growth journey as success. They define you, they expand your horizon, and they give you the strength for your next fight & flight. From my notebook: Learnings by association

1. It’s critical to hold skip-level meetings for richer insights, better organizational relationships, continuous improvement, and performance monitoring.
2. Get ahead in the collection curve, and don’t ever lose sight of the cash runway
3. Protect your people, and they shall return the favor if ever in need
4. Articulation is an art one should harness. Founder success depends on precise communication and aligned action

The Wisdom School

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. ~Will Rogers

If SaaSBooMi SGx was a wisdom school, Mrigank Tripathi, Chief Growth Officer, PeopleStrong, was our dean. Mentors come in many flavors. Sometimes we learn by observation, other times there is direct business intervention. They annoy us, perhaps pushing us beyond our notional stretch limit.  Over the last four months of intensive founder training, Mrigank truly molded us to harness the potential that we ourselves were unaware of. In the little time we worked with him, we doubled not only our leads but also our pipeline and our closing rate. We restructured our team and also automated all critical processes.  It would be naïve to think that we've done it 'all on our own'. Yes, we've done the work, but our work, our plan and execution, and the outcomes have all been influenced so greatly by him and all the other mentors. From my notebook: The speed course Business Learnings

1. Opening a new market is like setting up a new business: Every geography works differently. Their pain points, the language they relate with, and the places they search at.
2. Content bridges the gap between the product and buyer expectations: Insight-driven original content is the most effective method of growing audience engagement, developing presence, and driving sales.
3. Customers are inclined to trust you if they view you as an industry expert: Once you are recognized by peers, customers, and industry experts as someone who deeply understands the space, there is no looking back.

Quotes that will stay with me forever

1. “Nazar Hati Durghatna Ghati” {Always keep your eyes on the road to avoid accidents} Evaluate > Plan > Execute > Measure > Repeat                                 From setting SGx OKRs to weekly reviews, we learned how to run a project, a team, and a company 2. “In a seven-course meal, never get up at the third course” Run the full cycle > Only then repeat or change track  Run the full cycle of wholehearted-all-hands-on-deck kind of efforts. If it doesn’t work, only then move on to plan B 3. “Sharpen the sword before the battle” Anticipate > Prepare > Progress Do your homework, build & prep the team, stay agile, and anticipate what’s coming next. When the battle drum beats, be ready!

Life Beyond Business

The past few months brought to light a lot of interesting life and business lessons that I hope you can borrow from as well. Five of those I want to share with you because I think their application goes beyond the realm of business and actually connects with life at large.

1. It’s good to make yourself redundant sometimes because your redundancy is a sign that your team and the people around you are becoming self-sufficient. What it also means is that as a leader and as an individual, you have newer goals to look forward to, to which you can now devote your time.
2. Leading doesn’t happen from behind. One has to step forward and lead by example. And this is not just true for the good times, but also for those trying times when one doesn’t necessarily lead from a place of privilege.
3. You are your own benchmark. For me, this is more about self-introspection than about comparison. Very often we pivot our measures of success outside when in reality, they lie inward.
4. Play it like a sport. That's the true peer community. When you’re playing, you’re known for your excellence, not mentor or mentee, senior or junior, new or old.
5. Focus on what you have rather than what you can have. This is a big one for me personally because I feel that we are so used to - as people, as leaders - chasing the future and the things we don’t have, that we stop relishing what we do. It’s a great way to be mindful rather than always being in a chase.

F*** You Wealth

Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it. ~Benjamin Franklin

Have you ever wondered How much money is enough money? What’s your FU Number? This was a question that pulled an all-nighter during the Goa Retreat. I believed in simple calculations till then. When a person accumulates around 400-500 times their monthly expenses, they have enough to last for another 30 years. Even if you adjust it with your and your family’s increasing needs, for inflation, a longer lifespan, and unforeseen needs, an estimated 1000 times might be a good number to look at.  In Goa, when I happened to meet three charismatic entrepreneurs with incredibly successful exits and acquisitions, my perception evolved. Varun Shoor, Founder, Kayako, Pallav Nadhani, Founder, of FusionCharts & Charts.com, and Aakrit Vaish, Co-Founder & CEO, Haptik - the three alongside Dhruvil - hosted a rather interesting panel discussion: ‘Bechne ke baad kya?’ - What after exit? From my notebook: When to sell As an entrepreneur, take an exit or get acquired only if one or more of the scenarios below is true:

1. You are getting an undebatable offer: a number preferably bigger than your FU Money
2. You don't have enough working capital to keep going, but you want the company and your people to thrive even if it’s in someone else's ship.
3. Your health isn’t supporting you, and now the most powerful asset of the company, you, need a break
4. You have outgrown the business or the business has outgrown you

Now the money is in your account, you surely have dreams about what to buy or build—a new home, travel, investing, or a new company. But is that enough? How do you do justice to your biggest life win? From my notebook: Some realizations

1. Money is nothing if you don’t know how to enjoy it. The three panelists sure knew how to do this. Bubbling with energy and steadily striking off their bucket list.
2. Money is nothing if you aren't in the best of your health. The late, great entrepreneur Jim Rohn once said, "Take care of your body. It's the only place you have to live." Surely not the dream home you just bought. 
3. Money is nothing if you lack purpose. Empty calendars hit you hard. The realization that happiness lies in doing what we like and not only the money we bagged is an important one. 

The Wolf of Growth Street

Hunger drives the wolf out of the woods. ~German Proverb

For those who aren’t GOT fans or don't know much about wolves, they are complex, highly intelligent animals who are caring, playful, and above all, devoted to family. Only a select few other species exhibit these traits so clearly. Just like elephants, gorillas, and dolphins, wolves educate their young, take care of their injured and live in family groups. The SaaSBooMi SGx family quite remarkably shares these traits. They treat & teach you like family.  If one analogy wasn’t enough, there is always the ‘Wolf of Wall Street’. Meeting mentors and wingmates at SGx Goa Retreat, listening to their dreams and failures, their journeys at large, and their conviction in their vision and also in us…leaves you pumping with motivation. I’m a personal fan of the movie. What I and my team felt was similar to one particular scene in the movie, and the emotion it relates to The Chest Thump. Let me try to describe the scene, my emotional response to it, and the similarity to my SGx journey:  ‘He begins humming and beating his chest… in the middle of a crowded restaurant. Unfazed by this, Jordan joins in, setting the stage for the entire film {for me, setting a high growth stage for my company, Veris}. The scene goes on for so much longer than other films would allow it to. The audience is captivated at the moment with them {Much similar to the connection founders felt with their mentors. All at the moment, giving in to their wisdom, sincerely wanting to believe, learn, grow}. Though we might want to escape, we can’t. Though I was oddly uncomfortable watching two grown men in suits beating their chests, I couldn’t bring myself to look away {Being pushed to harness our own potential, however uncomfortable we were, we eventually began to enjoy and welcome the change}. That moment told me exactly what this world was like {and what being a founder truly means}’ It was ‘action-learning’ at its best! I want to thank all mentors and wingmates for their selfless efforts, and all the awesome founders I met on this journey. It’s a true pay-it-forward community and I do hope I'd be able to do justice to this spirit! For those with these aspirations, I cannot recommend it enough. I will cherish the friends I’ve made and look forward to seeing everyone’s business grow." } }

Netcore founder Rajesh Jain’s three keys to unlock the US market

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(9860) "(Photo caption: L to R - Netcore Cloud Group CEO Kalpit Jain, Unbxd founders Pavan Sondur and Prashant Kumar, Netcore Cloud CHRO Bhavana Jain and founder Rajesh Jain.) To build for India first or the US straight away? How do you time your move to the US market? What can you do to survive and thrive in the foray? SaaS founders from India grapple with these questions at one point or the other on their startup journeys. Netcore Cloud, one of the few SaaS companies to be bootstrapped to $100 million ARR from India, made the foray only in 2019, which was rather late in its 25-year journey. Its founder, Rajesh Jain, candidly admits the company could have grown bigger, and faster if it had gone to the US market a few years earlier.  Why it did not do so comes down to a combination of factors, and there are lessons for other SaaS founders to take away from the Netcore experience.  Partly it was a lack of ambition earlier, says Jain in an interview with SaaSBOOMi. “See, we were growing quite well in India and the emerging markets, so we thought we didn’t have to worry about the US. But the US market, at the end of the day, is much, much larger. I or the CEO should have spent time there earlier.”

Relocate to the US

It’s vital for one of the founders to shift to the US because the setup requires leadership and an entrepreneurial mind. “You can’t hire that easily in the US,” points out Jain. “That also means you need to make sure your India front is well taken care of because 80-90 percent of your team is still here.” Family commitments made Rajesh Jain a reluctant mover. He had also partially switched off from Netcore when he got deeply involved in other interests, such as strategizing the BJP’s famous digital marketing campaign for the 2014 general election.  Finally, right after Netcore hired a US team in 2019, the Covid pandemic arrived and disrupted travel. “None of us could go there for over a year. We could not do events. And before we got early traction, even the people we had hired left us,” recounts Jain. So the earlier delay in going to the US market proved doubly costly. That’s the context of Netcore’s second coming in the US market this year with a $100-million acquisition of Unbxd, a Bangalore SaaS company with an established customer base in the US. Its AI-powered personalization product is complementary to Netcore’s full-stack marketing automation. 

5x better than the competition

One of the lessons Netcore learned while testing the US waters earlier was the importance of product innovation. “I thought initially that the same product at a cheaper price point could do well. But people are not that interested in the little extra savings,” says Jain. “At the SMB or mid-market enterprise level, they want to see how your product can do things 5x or 10x better than the competition…"

Pricing innovation can help, but product innovation is more important."

“The US market is 50 to 100 times deeper than in India. So there are lots of companies in each vertical. You need to figure out which vertical you will go deep into, instead of spreading yourself too thin. That means the product-market fit will be different… And finding all this out takes time,” says Jain. Unbxd’s CEO and co-founder Pavan Sondur moved to the US to drive growth in that market early in the startup’s 12-year journey, while the other co-founder and CTO, Prashant Kumar, remained in Bangalore to take care of the product engineering. It also had enough capital to develop and deploy its personalization engine on ecommerce sites, having raised around $27 million from well-known VC firms like Eight Roads, Inventus Capital, and Nirvana Ventures. It’s easy to underestimate the amount of capital required to crack the US market. “You need to be able to invest $3-5 million in three years,” says Jain. “One salesperson will cost you $200,000-250,000. So a frontend of four or five people, including sales, marketing, and CSM, will cost you a million dollars straightaway. And that’s not factoring participation in events. Plus, there will be one or two iterations of learning."

If you hire the wrong person, it will take three months to discover you hired the wrong person, and another three months to replace that person.”

Expenses can thus mount fast in the course of finding the right product-market fit and building the front end in the US market. At the same time, you need a reasonable length of time to get it right. “So you need to make sure there’s sufficient capital available. Otherwise, you’ll come back home like a wounded tiger very quickly,” says Jain. 

Sales-led or Product-led?

In Netcore’s case, the push into the US now comes hand-in-hand with Unbxd. Albeit an expensive acquisition, it accelerates the US GTM and growth in preparation for an IPO down the line. And it was financed entirely by Netcore’s own accruals over the years, rather than VC money, underscoring the virtues of being bootstrapped and razor-focused on profitability early on in the startup journey, as detailed in an earlier article. One constraint of being bootstrapped is that it can be harder to build for the US market from the outset, because of the amount of capital needed for a sales-led model. “If you’re bootstrapped and want to target the US market from an early stage, you need a product that you can sell from India without hiring in the US. Because you can’t hire just one person in the US; you need a team of at least three or four which is expensive. So you need a product-led growth model targeting the SMB market because it may not work so well in the enterprise market,” explains Jain. It gets trickier in the current recessionary environment with revenue growth rates falling. Jain figures a founder would need a buffer of $10 million in investor capital or sustainable profits which are unlikely to be impacted significantly in the downturn. “If people reduce what they’re spending with you and you already have substantial expenses, it can quickly turn into a negative spiral.”

In sum, the three key lessons for Rajesh Jain from his forays into foreign markets are:

1. Top leaders of the company have to relocate and be hands-on with understanding customers, identifying verticals, finding product-market fit, and building a team in the new market.
2. Sufficient capital for hiring the right people, fine-tuning the GTM strategy and allowing for downturn effects and iterations.
3. Deep product innovation for developed markets like the US, where competitors abound in every vertical, and not just pricing innovation.

These lessons were hard-earned from the multiple pivots Netcore had over the years as well as several mistakes along the way. Jain recalls the first foray outside India into emerging markets like Southeast Asia, where the model was to work with local partners. And that bombed. “The partners were responsible for selling but had very little skin in the game and did not know our product well either. Within the first few months, if they were not selling the product much, they would not do anything about it. Our people would go there every quarter and meet the partners. Finally, we realized they were just making these foreign trips and nothing was coming out of it,” Jain recalls. Then Netcore decided to make the upfront investments needed to put some of its own best people in foreign markets. “So, instead of tourism, we made it a destination for people to relocate,” quips Jain. What it did was that Netcore people were now going out on customer calls, giving a first-hand view of the market. Then it also became more fruitful to work closely with the partners. “That was the big learning which we have now used everywhere else,” says Jain.  Perhaps the biggest takeaway from Rajesh Jain is to never give up. The move to the US was delayed and then disrupted by the pandemic. But, thanks to the cash reserves it built up by always keeping an eye on profitability and sustainability, Netcore could now fast-track the GTM with acquisitions. Also read Part 1: Navigate the choppy waters ahead with Rajesh Jain of Netcore" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(9860) "(Photo caption: L to R - Netcore Cloud Group CEO Kalpit Jain, Unbxd founders Pavan Sondur and Prashant Kumar, Netcore Cloud CHRO Bhavana Jain and founder Rajesh Jain.) To build for India first or the US straight away? How do you time your move to the US market? What can you do to survive and thrive in the foray? SaaS founders from India grapple with these questions at one point or the other on their startup journeys. Netcore Cloud, one of the few SaaS companies to be bootstrapped to $100 million ARR from India, made the foray only in 2019, which was rather late in its 25-year journey. Its founder, Rajesh Jain, candidly admits the company could have grown bigger, and faster if it had gone to the US market a few years earlier.  Why it did not do so comes down to a combination of factors, and there are lessons for other SaaS founders to take away from the Netcore experience.  Partly it was a lack of ambition earlier, says Jain in an interview with SaaSBOOMi. “See, we were growing quite well in India and the emerging markets, so we thought we didn’t have to worry about the US. But the US market, at the end of the day, is much, much larger. I or the CEO should have spent time there earlier.”

Relocate to the US

It’s vital for one of the founders to shift to the US because the setup requires leadership and an entrepreneurial mind. “You can’t hire that easily in the US,” points out Jain. “That also means you need to make sure your India front is well taken care of because 80-90 percent of your team is still here.” Family commitments made Rajesh Jain a reluctant mover. He had also partially switched off from Netcore when he got deeply involved in other interests, such as strategizing the BJP’s famous digital marketing campaign for the 2014 general election.  Finally, right after Netcore hired a US team in 2019, the Covid pandemic arrived and disrupted travel. “None of us could go there for over a year. We could not do events. And before we got early traction, even the people we had hired left us,” recounts Jain. So the earlier delay in going to the US market proved doubly costly. That’s the context of Netcore’s second coming in the US market this year with a $100-million acquisition of Unbxd, a Bangalore SaaS company with an established customer base in the US. Its AI-powered personalization product is complementary to Netcore’s full-stack marketing automation. 

5x better than the competition

One of the lessons Netcore learned while testing the US waters earlier was the importance of product innovation. “I thought initially that the same product at a cheaper price point could do well. But people are not that interested in the little extra savings,” says Jain. “At the SMB or mid-market enterprise level, they want to see how your product can do things 5x or 10x better than the competition…"

Pricing innovation can help, but product innovation is more important."

“The US market is 50 to 100 times deeper than in India. So there are lots of companies in each vertical. You need to figure out which vertical you will go deep into, instead of spreading yourself too thin. That means the product-market fit will be different… And finding all this out takes time,” says Jain. Unbxd’s CEO and co-founder Pavan Sondur moved to the US to drive growth in that market early in the startup’s 12-year journey, while the other co-founder and CTO, Prashant Kumar, remained in Bangalore to take care of the product engineering. It also had enough capital to develop and deploy its personalization engine on ecommerce sites, having raised around $27 million from well-known VC firms like Eight Roads, Inventus Capital, and Nirvana Ventures. It’s easy to underestimate the amount of capital required to crack the US market. “You need to be able to invest $3-5 million in three years,” says Jain. “One salesperson will cost you $200,000-250,000. So a frontend of four or five people, including sales, marketing, and CSM, will cost you a million dollars straightaway. And that’s not factoring participation in events. Plus, there will be one or two iterations of learning."

If you hire the wrong person, it will take three months to discover you hired the wrong person, and another three months to replace that person.”

Expenses can thus mount fast in the course of finding the right product-market fit and building the front end in the US market. At the same time, you need a reasonable length of time to get it right. “So you need to make sure there’s sufficient capital available. Otherwise, you’ll come back home like a wounded tiger very quickly,” says Jain. 

Sales-led or Product-led?

In Netcore’s case, the push into the US now comes hand-in-hand with Unbxd. Albeit an expensive acquisition, it accelerates the US GTM and growth in preparation for an IPO down the line. And it was financed entirely by Netcore’s own accruals over the years, rather than VC money, underscoring the virtues of being bootstrapped and razor-focused on profitability early on in the startup journey, as detailed in an earlier article. One constraint of being bootstrapped is that it can be harder to build for the US market from the outset, because of the amount of capital needed for a sales-led model. “If you’re bootstrapped and want to target the US market from an early stage, you need a product that you can sell from India without hiring in the US. Because you can’t hire just one person in the US; you need a team of at least three or four which is expensive. So you need a product-led growth model targeting the SMB market because it may not work so well in the enterprise market,” explains Jain. It gets trickier in the current recessionary environment with revenue growth rates falling. Jain figures a founder would need a buffer of $10 million in investor capital or sustainable profits which are unlikely to be impacted significantly in the downturn. “If people reduce what they’re spending with you and you already have substantial expenses, it can quickly turn into a negative spiral.”

In sum, the three key lessons for Rajesh Jain from his forays into foreign markets are:

1. Top leaders of the company have to relocate and be hands-on with understanding customers, identifying verticals, finding product-market fit, and building a team in the new market.
2. Sufficient capital for hiring the right people, fine-tuning the GTM strategy and allowing for downturn effects and iterations.
3. Deep product innovation for developed markets like the US, where competitors abound in every vertical, and not just pricing innovation.

These lessons were hard-earned from the multiple pivots Netcore had over the years as well as several mistakes along the way. Jain recalls the first foray outside India into emerging markets like Southeast Asia, where the model was to work with local partners. And that bombed. “The partners were responsible for selling but had very little skin in the game and did not know our product well either. Within the first few months, if they were not selling the product much, they would not do anything about it. Our people would go there every quarter and meet the partners. Finally, we realized they were just making these foreign trips and nothing was coming out of it,” Jain recalls. Then Netcore decided to make the upfront investments needed to put some of its own best people in foreign markets. “So, instead of tourism, we made it a destination for people to relocate,” quips Jain. What it did was that Netcore people were now going out on customer calls, giving a first-hand view of the market. Then it also became more fruitful to work closely with the partners. “That was the big learning which we have now used everywhere else,” says Jain.  Perhaps the biggest takeaway from Rajesh Jain is to never give up. The move to the US was delayed and then disrupted by the pandemic. But, thanks to the cash reserves it built up by always keeping an eye on profitability and sustainability, Netcore could now fast-track the GTM with acquisitions. Also read Part 1: Navigate the choppy waters ahead with Rajesh Jain of Netcore" } }

The art of positioning yourself by taking on your biggest competitor

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(6654) "We at SuperOps.ai did something recently. We went to our largest competitor’s biggest conference in Washington DC and organized a flash mob. It was a success—more prospects now know about us, we created noise, we got interview requests and media attention, and we generated reactions, mostly good. But, this post is not about our success. It is about why early-stage Indian SaaS startups need to add ambush marketing or guerilla marketing tactics to their marketing arsenal. Especially when your goal is to disrupt a market.  Before I get to that, here’s a look at the flash mob we organized and a selection of the reactions: Back to what we were discussing. Ambush marketing or guerilla marketing tactics are not new. It is as old as marketing itself. The Pepsi-Coca Cola rivalry has famously created some wonderful case studies for how such marketing works. You should check out some of the old ads and campaigns the two have pulled off against each other. More recently, Samsung went to town trolling Apple during the recent iPhone14 launch. Freshworks too has done many campaigns on these lines. The famous Freshworks vs. ServiceNow campaigns are a case in point, and there’s, of course, the #Failsforce blimp campaign.  Yet, it is also true that our early-stage SaaS startups have rarely attempted such guerilla marketing tactics.  There is a cultural mindset that we need to overcome. In India, even in traditional businesses and traditional marketing, we rarely see brands taking on each other openly. There is also this belief that we need to play nice. But that won’t work, or rather, it won’t be enough if you want to disrupt a market. If you need to make it to the top, you need to take on the strongest player in the industry. Guerilla marketing allows you to do that. It allows you to take on the leader, in their own front yard, and grab customer and industry attention. In a free market like the USA, where brands can name each other and attack each other directly in advertising and marketing, taking the direct approach will help you reap rich brand and sales rewards.  The industry leader has already done much of the work of getting customers and partners to the event and doing promotional activities. So if you run a well-tailored and thoughtfully done “gatecrashing” then you will not just ensure you build brand recall among prospects, because most of them are gathered there, but also win the respect of the competition. The result of a successful “gatecrashing” is clearly and directly establishing yourself as an alternative to the dominant player. How to get a “gatecrashing” organized, depends on your exact campaign. Here’s how we organized our flash mob: - The first step was deciding on what we wanted to do. We decided on a flash mob, as we wanted to bring a smile to the faces of our customers and, even, competitors. We also had a very simple, single message, as brand building was our goal. - We hired a choreographer in Los Angeles and brainstormed on what music we should use.  - We got t-shirts printed in Los Angeles and our choreographer carried them to Washington DC. - We hired dancers in Washington DC, and our choreographer trained them the evening before the flash mob. - Our team did a recce of the venue and identified areas where chances of attendees seeing the flash mob were high. - We had clearly told the dancers that they needed to be respectful and to be outside the venue. - The first dance happened just before the sessions started, as attendees were entering the venue. Subsequent performances happened as people stepped out, and t-shirts were also distributed by the dancers at the end of the flash mob. - We had a photographer recording the performances. We got a couple of promos done with the footage and promoted them on social media to increase impact. There is a caveat, though. You can’t force a campaign. There needs to be a clear pain point that the competitor’s customers feel that you can capitalize upon. You can’t just pull something out of thin air. For our recent flash mob, we took on Kaseya who had acquired another competitor, Datto, earlier this year. The Managed Services Provider (MSP) market went into shock when this acquisition happened, as Kaseya is infamous for acquiring and gutting beloved MSP tech products for parts or shutting them down. A vast majority of the MSP industry is upset about the acquisition and many have expressed how they will miss Datto. This is the message we went with because we too respect what Datto had built. Similarly, the Failsforce campaign worked because there were strong issues customers were facing with Salesforce For an early-stage startup with limited resources, investing in such a campaign needs to be carefully thought out - they can’t afford a campaign backfiring or failing. This is why such a guerilla campaign needs to be thoughtfully planned and well executed. You should read your market and ensure the majority of your audience appreciates and gets excited by your message. That said, there will always be detractors—a good marketing campaign will create a reaction, and as founders, we should be willing to take that risk." ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(6654) "We at SuperOps.ai did something recently. We went to our largest competitor’s biggest conference in Washington DC and organized a flash mob. It was a success—more prospects now know about us, we created noise, we got interview requests and media attention, and we generated reactions, mostly good. But, this post is not about our success. It is about why early-stage Indian SaaS startups need to add ambush marketing or guerilla marketing tactics to their marketing arsenal. Especially when your goal is to disrupt a market.  Before I get to that, here’s a look at the flash mob we organized and a selection of the reactions: Back to what we were discussing. Ambush marketing or guerilla marketing tactics are not new. It is as old as marketing itself. The Pepsi-Coca Cola rivalry has famously created some wonderful case studies for how such marketing works. You should check out some of the old ads and campaigns the two have pulled off against each other. More recently, Samsung went to town trolling Apple during the recent iPhone14 launch. Freshworks too has done many campaigns on these lines. The famous Freshworks vs. ServiceNow campaigns are a case in point, and there’s, of course, the #Failsforce blimp campaign.  Yet, it is also true that our early-stage SaaS startups have rarely attempted such guerilla marketing tactics.  There is a cultural mindset that we need to overcome. In India, even in traditional businesses and traditional marketing, we rarely see brands taking on each other openly. There is also this belief that we need to play nice. But that won’t work, or rather, it won’t be enough if you want to disrupt a market. If you need to make it to the top, you need to take on the strongest player in the industry. Guerilla marketing allows you to do that. It allows you to take on the leader, in their own front yard, and grab customer and industry attention. In a free market like the USA, where brands can name each other and attack each other directly in advertising and marketing, taking the direct approach will help you reap rich brand and sales rewards.  The industry leader has already done much of the work of getting customers and partners to the event and doing promotional activities. So if you run a well-tailored and thoughtfully done “gatecrashing” then you will not just ensure you build brand recall among prospects, because most of them are gathered there, but also win the respect of the competition. The result of a successful “gatecrashing” is clearly and directly establishing yourself as an alternative to the dominant player. How to get a “gatecrashing” organized, depends on your exact campaign. Here’s how we organized our flash mob: - The first step was deciding on what we wanted to do. We decided on a flash mob, as we wanted to bring a smile to the faces of our customers and, even, competitors. We also had a very simple, single message, as brand building was our goal. - We hired a choreographer in Los Angeles and brainstormed on what music we should use.  - We got t-shirts printed in Los Angeles and our choreographer carried them to Washington DC. - We hired dancers in Washington DC, and our choreographer trained them the evening before the flash mob. - Our team did a recce of the venue and identified areas where chances of attendees seeing the flash mob were high. - We had clearly told the dancers that they needed to be respectful and to be outside the venue. - The first dance happened just before the sessions started, as attendees were entering the venue. Subsequent performances happened as people stepped out, and t-shirts were also distributed by the dancers at the end of the flash mob. - We had a photographer recording the performances. We got a couple of promos done with the footage and promoted them on social media to increase impact. There is a caveat, though. You can’t force a campaign. There needs to be a clear pain point that the competitor’s customers feel that you can capitalize upon. You can’t just pull something out of thin air. For our recent flash mob, we took on Kaseya who had acquired another competitor, Datto, earlier this year. The Managed Services Provider (MSP) market went into shock when this acquisition happened, as Kaseya is infamous for acquiring and gutting beloved MSP tech products for parts or shutting them down. A vast majority of the MSP industry is upset about the acquisition and many have expressed how they will miss Datto. This is the message we went with because we too respect what Datto had built. Similarly, the Failsforce campaign worked because there were strong issues customers were facing with Salesforce For an early-stage startup with limited resources, investing in such a campaign needs to be carefully thought out - they can’t afford a campaign backfiring or failing. This is why such a guerilla campaign needs to be thoughtfully planned and well executed. You should read your market and ensure the majority of your audience appreciates and gets excited by your message. That said, there will always be detractors—a good marketing campaign will create a reaction, and as founders, we should be willing to take that risk." } }

Navigate the choppy waters ahead with Rajesh Jain of Netcore

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(10353) "We’re heading into choppy waters. The BVP Nasdaq emerging cloud index, Emcloud, is down 56% in the last year, compared to 30% for Nasdaq overall. The median revenue growth rate for the companies in the index has dipped below 30%. The Accel 2022 Euroscape report paints an equally gloomy outlook. Revenue multiples for public SaaS companies are down from 17x last year to below 6x, lower than a 10-year pre-Covid average. And in the private market, funding fell by 42% in Q3. Rajesh Jain has sailed into many a storm in his 25-year journey of building Netcore Cloud, a full-stack marketing automation company serving over 6500 customers globally. It’s in a rarefied club of SaaS companies bootstrapped to $100 million ARR from India, and its founder has always placed profitability and sustainability above chasing valuations and funding. So we asked Jain for his thoughts on navigating the stormy weather ahead for companies targeting the world’s biggest market for cloud software, as rising inflation and interest rates inexorably push the US towards a recession. The Netcore Cloud founder, who made a strong commitment to the US market this year with a $100-million acquisition of Unbxd, expects the waters to get choppier in the next 12-15 months. At the same time, he takes heart from the fundamentals of the SaaS model being as sound as ever, or even stronger, as migration to the cloud for greater efficiency and lower costs gathers momentum in hard times. “The contours of the SaaS business are such that once you have product-market fit, you can get good scale; once customers come in, the LTV (life-time value) tends to be much longer than in the B2C world.” Nevertheless, the market conditions and investor sentiments are a siren call for prudence. “We haven’t seen a prolonged period of capital being hard to get. We saw a little bit of that in the pandemic, but the recovery was V-shaped because we knew it was an artificially induced crash. This time it’s more fundamental,” says Jain in an interview with SaaSBOOMi.

“The easy money (we saw last year) is gone and won’t come back any time soon. Investors are more discerning in the parameters for making their bets.”

[caption id="attachment_4723" align="alignnone" width="2416"] The BVP Nasdaq Emerging Cloud Index performance for the last one year[/caption]

Hang On To The Capital

On the positive side, SaaS companies in India raised an unprecedented amount of capital in the last two years before the funding winter set in. Last year’s rebound from the pandemic brought $4.8 billion in funding for the SaaS sector, three times the 2020 level, and the first two quarters this year surpassed 2021 levels. Research firm Venture Intelligence reported $2 billion in funding for SaaS startups in India in the first quarter of 2022. A lot of this money is still lying in company coffers, and Jain’s advice to founders is to hang on to it. “If you raised capital at a 15x multiple, and if your business has not grown fast enough, you are going to look at a down round soon, which will be painful. So I think every entrepreneur, regardless of which stage they are in, has to think hard about their path to profitability. Can you become profitable with the existing capital you have without having to raise a new round? Because then you can call the shots on valuation and terms. Otherwise, you're going to be in trouble.” Jain’s cautionary note comes from first-hand experience. He admits getting sucked into overspending in 2007-08 in a bid for faster growth. And that was right before the 2008 financial crisis led to a recession.

“My lesson was never to take expenses to a level where there is a disconnect with how you think revenues are going to grow.”

It’s a similar situation now as the funding exuberance of the last couple of years cools off. It’s hard to change tack in step with the switch in momentum. “Once you start burning cash, it’s very painful to roll it back. You tend to become inward-focused because you have to think about which team has to be shrunk, and that has its own impact on morale. So in tough times, which we’re going to see in the next 12 months, the biggest challenge is that the entrepreneur’s time gets spent on cutting costs or raising capital. Whereas, for a growing company, time has to be spent with customers, product, and engineering,” says Jain. What then is the path forward for founders who slipped into high cash burn last year and are now trying to ride out a crunch? “Two things are important in this situation,” says Jain. “Founders should have more capital than they think they will use because buyers are going to take longer to make decisions. So you need the extra runway for early-stage companies. You have to assume sales will take 50-100 percent more time.” “Secondly, you need to be cautious on the cost side and find a faster path to profitability."

"When you next raise capital, your new investors are definitely going to ask how soon you’re going to be profitable."

The previous ones may not have asked, but the next ones will ask. So if you can show that you will make money in a reasonable length of time, it will help you negotiate from a better position. Otherwise, you may still be able to raise capital but it will likely be a down round.”

Bootstrapping to $100 million ARR

Rajesh Jain’s own philosophy as an entrepreneur from the very outset has been: “The best growth capital is your own profit because you don’t depend on anybody else.” He put that into practice with his first venture itself, although he did try to raise funding initially for IndiaWorld back in 1996 when venture capital was virtually non-existent for Indian startups. He now recalls the experience with some amusement. “I met one of the largest corporations in Silicon Valley who were planning to invest. The CFO of this company, after the initial small talk, asked, ‘Where are your five-year projections?’ And I said, ‘Look, I don't run the business on five-year projections. For me, this business is life and death, OK? There is nothing else I do. You tell me the numbers you want, and I will fill out your forms for year 1, 2, 3, and so on’... “Of course, the meeting ended five minutes after that. They did not invest. But, in a way, my failure to raise capital became a strength for me, because I had to be profitable.” Jain ran IndiaWorld with its profits as well as the savings he had from his work in the US earlier, until he sold it to Satyam Infoway in 1999 for around $115 million. That provided substantial seed money for his next venture, Netcore. But he carried over the bootstrapped mindset for building it. He admits that Netcore lost out to an extent by delaying its foray into the US market, unlike others who went there with VC money. But he’s happy with the path he chose.   “I had the freedom to make my own choices. I was not dependent on someone from outside telling me what to do… Being profitable, we did not lay off anybody or reduce salaries in crises. We could put our people first and not investors’ money.” His firm belief is that you build a more lasting business model when you’re driven by the need to be profitable. “The ease of availability of capital, actually, harms entrepreneurs at an early stage, because there's pressure from a VC to show appreciating valuation," he says.

"You make different choices when you’re profitable. You know that one stupid mistake can mean you fail. So you have to think a lot harder, and spend a lot more time focusing on the product and customer and market.”  

Netcore’s own journey of making pivots or expanding into new markets has always relied on its own accruals. This included the $100-million acquisition of Unbxd to expand in the US market and prepare for an IPO. “We used the profits accumulated over a number of years to do the large acquisition, which gave us a lot of US customers and a very good complementary line of products. We could not have done that easily in any other way. We would have needed N number of conversations with investors to give them justification (if we were VC-funded),” says Jain. “I told our Group CEO, Kalpit Jain, if you believe in it, go ahead. Just a few of us in the room made the call and went ahead.” Also read Part 2: Rajesh Jain's three keys to unlocking the US market [In this, he shares insights on going to the US, building for the local or global market first, and more.]" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(10353) "We’re heading into choppy waters. The BVP Nasdaq emerging cloud index, Emcloud, is down 56% in the last year, compared to 30% for Nasdaq overall. The median revenue growth rate for the companies in the index has dipped below 30%. The Accel 2022 Euroscape report paints an equally gloomy outlook. Revenue multiples for public SaaS companies are down from 17x last year to below 6x, lower than a 10-year pre-Covid average. And in the private market, funding fell by 42% in Q3. Rajesh Jain has sailed into many a storm in his 25-year journey of building Netcore Cloud, a full-stack marketing automation company serving over 6500 customers globally. It’s in a rarefied club of SaaS companies bootstrapped to $100 million ARR from India, and its founder has always placed profitability and sustainability above chasing valuations and funding. So we asked Jain for his thoughts on navigating the stormy weather ahead for companies targeting the world’s biggest market for cloud software, as rising inflation and interest rates inexorably push the US towards a recession. The Netcore Cloud founder, who made a strong commitment to the US market this year with a $100-million acquisition of Unbxd, expects the waters to get choppier in the next 12-15 months. At the same time, he takes heart from the fundamentals of the SaaS model being as sound as ever, or even stronger, as migration to the cloud for greater efficiency and lower costs gathers momentum in hard times. “The contours of the SaaS business are such that once you have product-market fit, you can get good scale; once customers come in, the LTV (life-time value) tends to be much longer than in the B2C world.” Nevertheless, the market conditions and investor sentiments are a siren call for prudence. “We haven’t seen a prolonged period of capital being hard to get. We saw a little bit of that in the pandemic, but the recovery was V-shaped because we knew it was an artificially induced crash. This time it’s more fundamental,” says Jain in an interview with SaaSBOOMi.

“The easy money (we saw last year) is gone and won’t come back any time soon. Investors are more discerning in the parameters for making their bets.”

[caption id="attachment_4723" align="alignnone" width="2416"] The BVP Nasdaq Emerging Cloud Index performance for the last one year[/caption]

Hang On To The Capital

On the positive side, SaaS companies in India raised an unprecedented amount of capital in the last two years before the funding winter set in. Last year’s rebound from the pandemic brought $4.8 billion in funding for the SaaS sector, three times the 2020 level, and the first two quarters this year surpassed 2021 levels. Research firm Venture Intelligence reported $2 billion in funding for SaaS startups in India in the first quarter of 2022. A lot of this money is still lying in company coffers, and Jain’s advice to founders is to hang on to it. “If you raised capital at a 15x multiple, and if your business has not grown fast enough, you are going to look at a down round soon, which will be painful. So I think every entrepreneur, regardless of which stage they are in, has to think hard about their path to profitability. Can you become profitable with the existing capital you have without having to raise a new round? Because then you can call the shots on valuation and terms. Otherwise, you're going to be in trouble.” Jain’s cautionary note comes from first-hand experience. He admits getting sucked into overspending in 2007-08 in a bid for faster growth. And that was right before the 2008 financial crisis led to a recession.

“My lesson was never to take expenses to a level where there is a disconnect with how you think revenues are going to grow.”

It’s a similar situation now as the funding exuberance of the last couple of years cools off. It’s hard to change tack in step with the switch in momentum. “Once you start burning cash, it’s very painful to roll it back. You tend to become inward-focused because you have to think about which team has to be shrunk, and that has its own impact on morale. So in tough times, which we’re going to see in the next 12 months, the biggest challenge is that the entrepreneur’s time gets spent on cutting costs or raising capital. Whereas, for a growing company, time has to be spent with customers, product, and engineering,” says Jain. What then is the path forward for founders who slipped into high cash burn last year and are now trying to ride out a crunch? “Two things are important in this situation,” says Jain. “Founders should have more capital than they think they will use because buyers are going to take longer to make decisions. So you need the extra runway for early-stage companies. You have to assume sales will take 50-100 percent more time.” “Secondly, you need to be cautious on the cost side and find a faster path to profitability."

"When you next raise capital, your new investors are definitely going to ask how soon you’re going to be profitable."

The previous ones may not have asked, but the next ones will ask. So if you can show that you will make money in a reasonable length of time, it will help you negotiate from a better position. Otherwise, you may still be able to raise capital but it will likely be a down round.”

Bootstrapping to $100 million ARR

Rajesh Jain’s own philosophy as an entrepreneur from the very outset has been: “The best growth capital is your own profit because you don’t depend on anybody else.” He put that into practice with his first venture itself, although he did try to raise funding initially for IndiaWorld back in 1996 when venture capital was virtually non-existent for Indian startups. He now recalls the experience with some amusement. “I met one of the largest corporations in Silicon Valley who were planning to invest. The CFO of this company, after the initial small talk, asked, ‘Where are your five-year projections?’ And I said, ‘Look, I don't run the business on five-year projections. For me, this business is life and death, OK? There is nothing else I do. You tell me the numbers you want, and I will fill out your forms for year 1, 2, 3, and so on’... “Of course, the meeting ended five minutes after that. They did not invest. But, in a way, my failure to raise capital became a strength for me, because I had to be profitable.” Jain ran IndiaWorld with its profits as well as the savings he had from his work in the US earlier, until he sold it to Satyam Infoway in 1999 for around $115 million. That provided substantial seed money for his next venture, Netcore. But he carried over the bootstrapped mindset for building it. He admits that Netcore lost out to an extent by delaying its foray into the US market, unlike others who went there with VC money. But he’s happy with the path he chose.   “I had the freedom to make my own choices. I was not dependent on someone from outside telling me what to do… Being profitable, we did not lay off anybody or reduce salaries in crises. We could put our people first and not investors’ money.” His firm belief is that you build a more lasting business model when you’re driven by the need to be profitable. “The ease of availability of capital, actually, harms entrepreneurs at an early stage, because there's pressure from a VC to show appreciating valuation," he says.

"You make different choices when you’re profitable. You know that one stupid mistake can mean you fail. So you have to think a lot harder, and spend a lot more time focusing on the product and customer and market.”  

Netcore’s own journey of making pivots or expanding into new markets has always relied on its own accruals. This included the $100-million acquisition of Unbxd to expand in the US market and prepare for an IPO. “We used the profits accumulated over a number of years to do the large acquisition, which gave us a lot of US customers and a very good complementary line of products. We could not have done that easily in any other way. We would have needed N number of conversations with investors to give them justification (if we were VC-funded),” says Jain. “I told our Group CEO, Kalpit Jain, if you believe in it, go ahead. Just a few of us in the room made the call and went ahead.” Also read Part 2: Rajesh Jain's three keys to unlocking the US market [In this, he shares insights on going to the US, building for the local or global market first, and more.]" } }

SaaSBoomi Caravan in Silicon Valley

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A bounty of learnings emerged over the course of curated roundtables, a cricket match, some hiking, delicious food, and heart-to-heart chats with founders. These are my collected thoughts from the SaaSBoomi Caravan that rolled into the Valley.

As my flight touched down in the US on September 14, I was excited. My last trip to the Valley had given me the conviction that founders need a community that is not transactional. And I was about to test out my conviction. To put it in terms people get, I knew I had PMF, now it was time to launch the product. It needed to come out of the MVP phase.

Over the past few years, the Indian SaaS story has grown. Founders have discovered not just success but also acceptance in the US. And as my colleague Manav wrote, there is a $1 trillion value-creation market for SaaS. To truly reach its potential, founders not only need to be able to work and build in the largest market in the world, but also find a way to make it their home. The journey to find home starts early. And no one is ever prepared for it. Now, there are about 75–100 founders in the Valley every week. They’re all trying to find customers, company builders, and investors.

And thanks to SaaStr that number was going to be much higher. Our call for RSVP got us over 200+ sign-ups. Personally, I enjoy the SaaStr platform. People from across the world gather to meet, sell, and network. But SaaStr is transactional. People put up booths, the idea is to work, it isn’t to build relationships.

We (Vinod Muthukrishnan, Priya Ramachandran, Avinash Harsh, and Shreesha Ramdas) wanted to design the SaaSBoomi Caravan differently. We wanted to build relationships and work would be a byproduct of it. Everything I have learned about technology and the power of SaaS has been through deep conversations with founders and senior leaders and we wanted to replicate this process with Caravan. So, the way we designed it was that we would have smaller, intimate groups where people could learn from each other’s experiences and struggles. We wanted to “unconference” the experience of founder summits.

Creating relationships

You can unconference a day, maybe two. But how do you unconference for 11 days? That was our challenge. I think we did a good job. Of the 200 founders already there, over 125 stayed on for the first full week of Caravan, and ~90 stayed on right till the last day.

From a learning perspective, because speakers engaged closely with the founders, many practical problems and equally practical solutions around founding came up. From a bonding perspective, having a smaller guest list really helped. It opened up a much more interesting choice of venues and we were able to get that much more creative.

And the event created a sense of belonging. For me, that was its biggest success.

Our ambition was to encourage founders who had managed a successful move to the US to pay it forward. In this diary, I am going to relive some of the high points of Caravan.

The Caravan rolls in

We launched into introductions on Day 1, which started on the evening of the 16th, in a hall that was small but packed with that founder energy — at least 175 were gathered.

Let me rewind a little. There were a few meetings before the first gathering that really helped us shape the event. One, Karan Chaudhary of Sprouts.ai, and I caught up over coffee at the Computer History Museum, surrounded by artifacts of the computing revolution. We had exchanged a few emails before I arrived in the US, so the conversation took off enthusiastically. Through Karan, I got the chance to meet several interesting Valley founders, who went on to contribute actively to our sessions.

Even earlier than that, the day I landed, Vinod Muthukrishan from Uniphore and the co-chair for the SaaSBOOMi US initiative had me and about 30 founders over for an informal gathering at his home in Pleasanton. Some scale founders such as Anand Jain of CleverTap, Rohit Choudhary of AccelData and Manisha Raisinghani of LogiNext were there too. It was an evening of drinks, some dosas, and lots of conversations with founders at various stages of their journey.

Fun fact: When they say ‘evening’ in the Bay Area, they mean it. Everyone is in by 5–5:30 pm and dinner service starts as early as 6:30, the last of us were out by 9:30 pm. Of course, some people break away into smaller groups to continue conversations in after-parties.

A distinct and diverse turnout

One of my favorite things about the experience was the kind of stories I saw emerging. Much of that was down to how diverse the crowd was. Most, around 75% of the turnout, were founders from India. Of the rest, 15% were founders based in the US, and 10% were investors from the US.

Within India, Gujarat is clearly going to be a game-changer. There were some amazing founders from Ahmedabad and Surat. A good number of all the companies, 50% at least, were bootstrapped. Maybe 20–25 percent were funded. In revenue terms, two-thirds of the firms were below the $1 million mark. Maybe 20% were in that $1 million-$10 million range, and the rest made over $10 million.

Founders on the field

Day 2 was all about the outdoors. Hiking, I have discovered, is one of the best ways to get people to open up and make connections, over the course of finding their way through nature together. We also invited a few founders from Singapore and France, who had not experienced a community like ours, to join in the fun. Once we made our way back down, there was no time to rest.

After a quick pit stop at the Stanford campus for snacks, we zoomed off to Pleasanton for the event everyone was waiting for: the cricket match.

I had doubted whether the founders would take the game seriously. But founders are competitive and that was on display. Those of us who were not playing were cheering and indulging in a bit of banter.

While it was tiring, we were refreshed enough to be able to continue with a three-hour networking session to close the day. There were no chairs but people were happy to sit on the floor and bond over biryani and drinks. We had a Sunday post that, with no planned events, put our feet up and recovered from all the action.

A season of sessions

A Monday dinner with 30–35 founders set us up nicely for the packed calendar ahead. Sequoia Capital was kind enough to host the evening.

Next day, we kicked off our panel sessions, packed with frank insider perspectives, all aimed at how to get one’s business off the ground in the US. Here’s a quick rundown.

September 20 — CIO Roundtable

We began with this so that founders could get the customers’ perspective. Leading SaaS CIOs from the Valley — Carter Busse from Workato, Coupa’s Eric Tan, Klarissa Marenitch from Hippo Insurance, and Prasad Ramakrishnan from Freshworks — offered a view of their experiences of buying and using SaaS products.

They also had some great advice for SaaS founders, particularly on what they expect from founders’ pitches and products. The good news? Reputation and product vision excite them more than what stage a company is in.

I also got to meet Sanket Shah, the Founder of Invideo at Blue Bottle Coffee, inside the beautiful Hanahaus coworking cafe. It was for the first time I met Sanket. I had heard great things about him and his expertise in PLG. On meeting him, I was super impressed with how he was always thinking about growth and how keen he was to help fellow founders. We ended the coffee hoping to meet each other in India soon.

September 21 — CHRO/Legal Roundtable

A panel of human resources experts and legal eagles, who all happen to be women, shared invaluable wisdom on the nitty-gritty of starting up in the Valley.

Enablers Miriam Dijkxhoorn and Sanjeevnie Syngal, lawyers Rajvinder Kaur and Susan Akina, and Annie Shea Weckessner, former HR head who now heads marketing at Uniphore, spoke, while Joyce Zhang of Alariss moderated.

They answered some burning questions: How to integrate Indian and US cultures in a team, how to get the legal structure in order if you are India incorporated and looking to enter the US, and the best way to shift your family overseas.

I also got to meet Lalit Singh from Vareto who invited me to his home for lunch. He actually cooked lunch while we spoke. The conversation was almost exclusively not about work. He spoke passionately on yoga, meditation, and mental wellness. He is one of the calmest people I met in the Bay Area.

September 22 — VC Connect

Our next fixture was a massive success. We had planned for 125 founders and investors to attend, but more than 150 were in attendance. VC Connect opened with investors discussing how they evaluate founders and the founding ecosystem, and likewise, founders talked about the way they view investors and the VC ecosystem. Afterward, founders got 15-minute sessions to pick investors' brains; each VC got to meet about 4–6 companies.

The networking continued in a spur-of-the-moment session following this. Some 30–35 founders stayed back to talk about their products and themselves and where they needed help. It is moments like these that made Caravan feel like an “unconference”.

September 23 — Essential Marketing Strategies

This was about all things marketing. Experts included Kevin Cheng (PR), Anurag Singhal (search engine marketing), Shekar Hariharan (product marketing), and Leena Kamath (partner marketing).

The TL;DR of their perspectives: Keep it real, keep it relevant, and do more with less. Being passionate about storytelling means collaborating early on at various levels — with founders, engineers and demo givers.

September 24 — Experts from the cohort

On Sunday morning I met Harsh from V-Comply and his wife at their home. They hosted me for breakfast. Later, I met Ralph and Sameera from Pathfix and we went out for lunch at an Italian restaurant. They had very interesting ideas on how the founder community in the US could help young entrepreneurs from India. The idea of a demo day where we invite potential customers instead of investors originated here, at lunch.

This was another impromptu decision with a big payoff. Considering the bright minds we had among the attendees, we invited three of them to lead sessions on subjects of their expertise. Rakesh Patel of SpaceO Technologies did a deep dive into the finer points of SEO, Saurabh & Preksha took us through how to effectively use LinkedIn, and Ashish Tulsian of Posist did an AMA chat on his bootstrapping journey.

September 25 — Evening gathering at Avi’s home

Avinash Harsh is one of the core team members of SaaSBOOMi. He and his wife were gracious hosts to more than 35+ founders and friends. We had a fantastic time with snacks, conversations, and some folks getting to dance and sing later in the night. It was a warm reception and the bonding was just amazing and a good way to spend the Sunday evening.

September 26 — Scaling & Selling in the US

This session probably had the maximum attendance and most of the founders were busy taking slides from Mohit’s presentation. The session was led by Mohit Garg of Oloid and Shankar Ganapathy, one of the early members of the MindTickle sales team. They both did an amazing job of sharing their learnings on how they built their initial sales and how they made it into a repeatable model. Mohit has done this session for us at least five times. But every time he talks, people in the audience can derive new insight into how sales in the US actually work. What helps Mohit stand out is that he speaks from experience, especially from his time at MindTickle. This session was probably the highlight of the trip from a knowledge-sharing perspective.

September 27 — SaaSBOOMi Summit

In the first fireside chat, Dheeraj Pandey of Nutanix shared wisdom on how to know and support the customer, especially in a red ocean market. Ashish Tulsian moderated the session. Dheeraj warned against bad product management and being too top-heavy because that always leads to cash burn. Large deals don’t make PMF.

Umesh Sachdeva of Uniphore spoke in the next session, moderated by Priya Ramachandran, a volunteer for SaaSBOOMi, going over the kind of reorientation needed when building a company to go public. Some invaluable insights came out of it — Umesh got into the specifics of Enterprise SaaS and how to pick out mentors and keep them engaged. Two standout learnings:

1. Every person in the startup is a salesperson.
2. The role of the CEO is to work on the machine and not in the machine.

The final fireside chat with Donald Tucker of DocuSign, and Omar Tawakol of Voicea, moderated by Vinod Muthukrishnan of Uniphore, demystified mergers and acquisitions. We wanted founders to understand what to look out for ahead of a merger and on the other side of it.

Most important learning: Always have a number to sell at in the back of your mind, it will keep you grounded. Omar says for corp dev, time to market, talent and product gaps are critical considerations. At the same time, he pointed out that a sponsor should come with credibility and a great business case for a business they are looking to buy. If you are looking to make partnerships happen, have regular conversations in the ecosystem.

After this, we had Avi Harsh who walked us through the SaaSBOOMi Mentor Platform and how founders can leverage the platform in the next few months we plan to add more mentors here and also help founders with GTM for the US Market.

Women leaders who are building great products from HR/People management, all the way to deep tech.

But there was something I knew I had to do. Listen. I spoke to a lot of people throughout the 11 days. I listened to them and tried to understand where the gaps lay. Over the course of splitting dosas or sipping beers with members of the community, we were left with a much clearer picture of where Indian SaaS and the US market are headed. And also where SaaSBoomi can bridge gaps and create inroads.

My last meeting was with Rabi of Evabot and Sanjeevnie. They really came all the way to meet me as they were keen to volunteer for SaaSBoomi. Sanjeevnie has some amazing thoughts on how she can help the spouses settle in the Bay Area and we will be sharing more on that.

Observations from my notebook

I sat down at the end of each day to jot down all the lightbulb moments that came out of Caravan for me. This is a snapshot:

● Bootstrapping is in! There are a lot of bootstrapped companies that are making decent revenue. They are being taken seriously and they will take off in a big way.

● Too little, but not too late: In India, we have a lot of developers. But it is surprising how we are not building developer tool products. There is clearly a market. Encouragingly, one example is Dhiwise which is part of the Surat ecosystem, which is trying to bring a kind of innovation in the developer tool space. It is good to see many more companies jumping onto the bandwagon of dev infra tools.

● A tale of emerging cities: The story of new India will not come from Mumbai and Gurgaon. While those cities still produce great companies, what is most exciting is the activity bubbling away in the likes of Surat, Jaipur, Trichy, etc. People are discovering you can build global kickass products from these off-the-beaten-track centers.

● Confidence boost: A lot of Indian SaaS founders met with global VCs and realized that these are also people like us, who think like us, and they are rational. It has boosted the confidence of founders in global VCs. I think we will see many more category-creating companies coming from India in the future.

● A time of discovery: We came across many hidden gems, like bootstrapped companies that are ready for growth, and second-time founders, which was fascinating. For many of them, it was their first trip to the US, so it is something they will cherish.

● There is always value: Indian companies can be a target for M&A by large US companies. Indian founders have built excellent products and those who are clocking $5–10 million ARR, can be a useful and important addition to large companies in the US. It’s a matter of time until this potential is discovered.

● Help was always at hand: People were eager to contribute, whenever we called for help. Even simple things like if we needed to set up chairs, or organize for extra food or drinks. A fun aside here, at Draper University where some delegates had decided to stay, there was a sense of belonging and bonding. I walked in one morning and one of the guys was making 40–50 dosas, others sharing mithai and khakra from wherever they had come. It felt as real and fun as a college dorm.

● US hits different, fits different: Many founders who have got PMF and good revenue in India feel that it will work like that in the US too. But that is wrong. So that awareness is still not all there.

● New ground to cover: As SaaSBOOMi grows, we will be looking to help founders grow from France, Singapore, Dubai, London, etc. If we can expand and help these people, we would love to do that.

● Pay it forward has begun: When people like Jaspreet — Druva, Krishna & Mohit MindTickle, Sunil — Clevertap, Vinod — CloudCherry, and Umesh — Uniphore moved, there was not much support system. Now there is a vibrant support system. Just like the Draper University hostel, I may look at starting a SaaSBOOMi House with about three or four rooms and an event area where founders can stay and bond when they are in the US. That is homework for me.

● Keep on starting up: What do founders do when they hit 70? Some become VCs, some retire, but one trend I see in the Bay Area is they cannot get over their love for the building phase. I met a founder who was getting ready for his next startup in his sunset years. That was fascinating.

● From fanboy to fan-man: I am going to close with a personal ‘wow’ moment. At the VC Connect event, a tall gentleman stood up and introduced himself to the room as “B.V. Jagadeesh”. The name stopped me in my tracks. I had grown up reading about him on the cover of Businessworld. Seeing him in the audience was definitely a big deal for me. I am not one for taking selfies but it was such a proud moment, I wish I had dropped that hesitation for one day.

I don’t want to end this without thanking Priya Rajan, Natalie Lescure, and the SVB team for hosting all the sessions at their auditorium. Thanks to Waleed & Mustafa for hosting 30-odd founders at Draper University.

I also want to tell the awesome founders, who always supported me by being part of the sessions staying late and engaging with other founders, that I see you and appreciate you.

Our sponsors have been very generous and the Caravan would not be possible without their help.

My sincere thanks to the many volunteers who stepped forward and helped us with executing the sessions.

And finally, my heartfelt gratitude to Vinod, Priya, Avi & Shreesha for curating, managing all logistics, and being super awesome for the Caravan startups.

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A bounty of learnings emerged over the course of curated roundtables, a cricket match, some hiking, delicious food, and heart-to-heart chats with founders. These are my collected thoughts from the SaaSBoomi Caravan that rolled into the Valley.

As my flight touched down in the US on September 14, I was excited. My last trip to the Valley had given me the conviction that founders need a community that is not transactional. And I was about to test out my conviction. To put it in terms people get, I knew I had PMF, now it was time to launch the product. It needed to come out of the MVP phase.

Over the past few years, the Indian SaaS story has grown. Founders have discovered not just success but also acceptance in the US. And as my colleague Manav wrote, there is a $1 trillion value-creation market for SaaS. To truly reach its potential, founders not only need to be able to work and build in the largest market in the world, but also find a way to make it their home. The journey to find home starts early. And no one is ever prepared for it. Now, there are about 75–100 founders in the Valley every week. They’re all trying to find customers, company builders, and investors.

And thanks to SaaStr that number was going to be much higher. Our call for RSVP got us over 200+ sign-ups. Personally, I enjoy the SaaStr platform. People from across the world gather to meet, sell, and network. But SaaStr is transactional. People put up booths, the idea is to work, it isn’t to build relationships.

We (Vinod Muthukrishnan, Priya Ramachandran, Avinash Harsh, and Shreesha Ramdas) wanted to design the SaaSBoomi Caravan differently. We wanted to build relationships and work would be a byproduct of it. Everything I have learned about technology and the power of SaaS has been through deep conversations with founders and senior leaders and we wanted to replicate this process with Caravan. So, the way we designed it was that we would have smaller, intimate groups where people could learn from each other’s experiences and struggles. We wanted to “unconference” the experience of founder summits.

Creating relationships

You can unconference a day, maybe two. But how do you unconference for 11 days? That was our challenge. I think we did a good job. Of the 200 founders already there, over 125 stayed on for the first full week of Caravan, and ~90 stayed on right till the last day.

From a learning perspective, because speakers engaged closely with the founders, many practical problems and equally practical solutions around founding came up. From a bonding perspective, having a smaller guest list really helped. It opened up a much more interesting choice of venues and we were able to get that much more creative.

And the event created a sense of belonging. For me, that was its biggest success.

Our ambition was to encourage founders who had managed a successful move to the US to pay it forward. In this diary, I am going to relive some of the high points of Caravan.

The Caravan rolls in

We launched into introductions on Day 1, which started on the evening of the 16th, in a hall that was small but packed with that founder energy — at least 175 were gathered.

Let me rewind a little. There were a few meetings before the first gathering that really helped us shape the event. One, Karan Chaudhary of Sprouts.ai, and I caught up over coffee at the Computer History Museum, surrounded by artifacts of the computing revolution. We had exchanged a few emails before I arrived in the US, so the conversation took off enthusiastically. Through Karan, I got the chance to meet several interesting Valley founders, who went on to contribute actively to our sessions.

Even earlier than that, the day I landed, Vinod Muthukrishan from Uniphore and the co-chair for the SaaSBOOMi US initiative had me and about 30 founders over for an informal gathering at his home in Pleasanton. Some scale founders such as Anand Jain of CleverTap, Rohit Choudhary of AccelData and Manisha Raisinghani of LogiNext were there too. It was an evening of drinks, some dosas, and lots of conversations with founders at various stages of their journey.

Fun fact: When they say ‘evening’ in the Bay Area, they mean it. Everyone is in by 5–5:30 pm and dinner service starts as early as 6:30, the last of us were out by 9:30 pm. Of course, some people break away into smaller groups to continue conversations in after-parties.

A distinct and diverse turnout

One of my favorite things about the experience was the kind of stories I saw emerging. Much of that was down to how diverse the crowd was. Most, around 75% of the turnout, were founders from India. Of the rest, 15% were founders based in the US, and 10% were investors from the US.

Within India, Gujarat is clearly going to be a game-changer. There were some amazing founders from Ahmedabad and Surat. A good number of all the companies, 50% at least, were bootstrapped. Maybe 20–25 percent were funded. In revenue terms, two-thirds of the firms were below the $1 million mark. Maybe 20% were in that $1 million-$10 million range, and the rest made over $10 million.

Founders on the field

Day 2 was all about the outdoors. Hiking, I have discovered, is one of the best ways to get people to open up and make connections, over the course of finding their way through nature together. We also invited a few founders from Singapore and France, who had not experienced a community like ours, to join in the fun. Once we made our way back down, there was no time to rest.

After a quick pit stop at the Stanford campus for snacks, we zoomed off to Pleasanton for the event everyone was waiting for: the cricket match.

I had doubted whether the founders would take the game seriously. But founders are competitive and that was on display. Those of us who were not playing were cheering and indulging in a bit of banter.

While it was tiring, we were refreshed enough to be able to continue with a three-hour networking session to close the day. There were no chairs but people were happy to sit on the floor and bond over biryani and drinks. We had a Sunday post that, with no planned events, put our feet up and recovered from all the action.

A season of sessions

A Monday dinner with 30–35 founders set us up nicely for the packed calendar ahead. Sequoia Capital was kind enough to host the evening.

Next day, we kicked off our panel sessions, packed with frank insider perspectives, all aimed at how to get one’s business off the ground in the US. Here’s a quick rundown.

September 20 — CIO Roundtable

We began with this so that founders could get the customers’ perspective. Leading SaaS CIOs from the Valley — Carter Busse from Workato, Coupa’s Eric Tan, Klarissa Marenitch from Hippo Insurance, and Prasad Ramakrishnan from Freshworks — offered a view of their experiences of buying and using SaaS products.

They also had some great advice for SaaS founders, particularly on what they expect from founders’ pitches and products. The good news? Reputation and product vision excite them more than what stage a company is in.

I also got to meet Sanket Shah, the Founder of Invideo at Blue Bottle Coffee, inside the beautiful Hanahaus coworking cafe. It was for the first time I met Sanket. I had heard great things about him and his expertise in PLG. On meeting him, I was super impressed with how he was always thinking about growth and how keen he was to help fellow founders. We ended the coffee hoping to meet each other in India soon.

September 21 — CHRO/Legal Roundtable

A panel of human resources experts and legal eagles, who all happen to be women, shared invaluable wisdom on the nitty-gritty of starting up in the Valley.

Enablers Miriam Dijkxhoorn and Sanjeevnie Syngal, lawyers Rajvinder Kaur and Susan Akina, and Annie Shea Weckessner, former HR head who now heads marketing at Uniphore, spoke, while Joyce Zhang of Alariss moderated.

They answered some burning questions: How to integrate Indian and US cultures in a team, how to get the legal structure in order if you are India incorporated and looking to enter the US, and the best way to shift your family overseas.

I also got to meet Lalit Singh from Vareto who invited me to his home for lunch. He actually cooked lunch while we spoke. The conversation was almost exclusively not about work. He spoke passionately on yoga, meditation, and mental wellness. He is one of the calmest people I met in the Bay Area.

September 22 — VC Connect

Our next fixture was a massive success. We had planned for 125 founders and investors to attend, but more than 150 were in attendance. VC Connect opened with investors discussing how they evaluate founders and the founding ecosystem, and likewise, founders talked about the way they view investors and the VC ecosystem. Afterward, founders got 15-minute sessions to pick investors' brains; each VC got to meet about 4–6 companies.

The networking continued in a spur-of-the-moment session following this. Some 30–35 founders stayed back to talk about their products and themselves and where they needed help. It is moments like these that made Caravan feel like an “unconference”.

September 23 — Essential Marketing Strategies

This was about all things marketing. Experts included Kevin Cheng (PR), Anurag Singhal (search engine marketing), Shekar Hariharan (product marketing), and Leena Kamath (partner marketing).

The TL;DR of their perspectives: Keep it real, keep it relevant, and do more with less. Being passionate about storytelling means collaborating early on at various levels — with founders, engineers and demo givers.

September 24 — Experts from the cohort

On Sunday morning I met Harsh from V-Comply and his wife at their home. They hosted me for breakfast. Later, I met Ralph and Sameera from Pathfix and we went out for lunch at an Italian restaurant. They had very interesting ideas on how the founder community in the US could help young entrepreneurs from India. The idea of a demo day where we invite potential customers instead of investors originated here, at lunch.

This was another impromptu decision with a big payoff. Considering the bright minds we had among the attendees, we invited three of them to lead sessions on subjects of their expertise. Rakesh Patel of SpaceO Technologies did a deep dive into the finer points of SEO, Saurabh & Preksha took us through how to effectively use LinkedIn, and Ashish Tulsian of Posist did an AMA chat on his bootstrapping journey.

September 25 — Evening gathering at Avi’s home

Avinash Harsh is one of the core team members of SaaSBOOMi. He and his wife were gracious hosts to more than 35+ founders and friends. We had a fantastic time with snacks, conversations, and some folks getting to dance and sing later in the night. It was a warm reception and the bonding was just amazing and a good way to spend the Sunday evening.

September 26 — Scaling & Selling in the US

This session probably had the maximum attendance and most of the founders were busy taking slides from Mohit’s presentation. The session was led by Mohit Garg of Oloid and Shankar Ganapathy, one of the early members of the MindTickle sales team. They both did an amazing job of sharing their learnings on how they built their initial sales and how they made it into a repeatable model. Mohit has done this session for us at least five times. But every time he talks, people in the audience can derive new insight into how sales in the US actually work. What helps Mohit stand out is that he speaks from experience, especially from his time at MindTickle. This session was probably the highlight of the trip from a knowledge-sharing perspective.

September 27 — SaaSBOOMi Summit

In the first fireside chat, Dheeraj Pandey of Nutanix shared wisdom on how to know and support the customer, especially in a red ocean market. Ashish Tulsian moderated the session. Dheeraj warned against bad product management and being too top-heavy because that always leads to cash burn. Large deals don’t make PMF.

Umesh Sachdeva of Uniphore spoke in the next session, moderated by Priya Ramachandran, a volunteer for SaaSBOOMi, going over the kind of reorientation needed when building a company to go public. Some invaluable insights came out of it — Umesh got into the specifics of Enterprise SaaS and how to pick out mentors and keep them engaged. Two standout learnings:

1. Every person in the startup is a salesperson.
2. The role of the CEO is to work on the machine and not in the machine.

The final fireside chat with Donald Tucker of DocuSign, and Omar Tawakol of Voicea, moderated by Vinod Muthukrishnan of Uniphore, demystified mergers and acquisitions. We wanted founders to understand what to look out for ahead of a merger and on the other side of it.

Most important learning: Always have a number to sell at in the back of your mind, it will keep you grounded. Omar says for corp dev, time to market, talent and product gaps are critical considerations. At the same time, he pointed out that a sponsor should come with credibility and a great business case for a business they are looking to buy. If you are looking to make partnerships happen, have regular conversations in the ecosystem.

After this, we had Avi Harsh who walked us through the SaaSBOOMi Mentor Platform and how founders can leverage the platform in the next few months we plan to add more mentors here and also help founders with GTM for the US Market.

Women leaders who are building great products from HR/People management, all the way to deep tech.

But there was something I knew I had to do. Listen. I spoke to a lot of people throughout the 11 days. I listened to them and tried to understand where the gaps lay. Over the course of splitting dosas or sipping beers with members of the community, we were left with a much clearer picture of where Indian SaaS and the US market are headed. And also where SaaSBoomi can bridge gaps and create inroads.

My last meeting was with Rabi of Evabot and Sanjeevnie. They really came all the way to meet me as they were keen to volunteer for SaaSBoomi. Sanjeevnie has some amazing thoughts on how she can help the spouses settle in the Bay Area and we will be sharing more on that.

Observations from my notebook

I sat down at the end of each day to jot down all the lightbulb moments that came out of Caravan for me. This is a snapshot:

● Bootstrapping is in! There are a lot of bootstrapped companies that are making decent revenue. They are being taken seriously and they will take off in a big way.

● Too little, but not too late: In India, we have a lot of developers. But it is surprising how we are not building developer tool products. There is clearly a market. Encouragingly, one example is Dhiwise which is part of the Surat ecosystem, which is trying to bring a kind of innovation in the developer tool space. It is good to see many more companies jumping onto the bandwagon of dev infra tools.

● A tale of emerging cities: The story of new India will not come from Mumbai and Gurgaon. While those cities still produce great companies, what is most exciting is the activity bubbling away in the likes of Surat, Jaipur, Trichy, etc. People are discovering you can build global kickass products from these off-the-beaten-track centers.

● Confidence boost: A lot of Indian SaaS founders met with global VCs and realized that these are also people like us, who think like us, and they are rational. It has boosted the confidence of founders in global VCs. I think we will see many more category-creating companies coming from India in the future.

● A time of discovery: We came across many hidden gems, like bootstrapped companies that are ready for growth, and second-time founders, which was fascinating. For many of them, it was their first trip to the US, so it is something they will cherish.

● There is always value: Indian companies can be a target for M&A by large US companies. Indian founders have built excellent products and those who are clocking $5–10 million ARR, can be a useful and important addition to large companies in the US. It’s a matter of time until this potential is discovered.

● Help was always at hand: People were eager to contribute, whenever we called for help. Even simple things like if we needed to set up chairs, or organize for extra food or drinks. A fun aside here, at Draper University where some delegates had decided to stay, there was a sense of belonging and bonding. I walked in one morning and one of the guys was making 40–50 dosas, others sharing mithai and khakra from wherever they had come. It felt as real and fun as a college dorm.

● US hits different, fits different: Many founders who have got PMF and good revenue in India feel that it will work like that in the US too. But that is wrong. So that awareness is still not all there.

● New ground to cover: As SaaSBOOMi grows, we will be looking to help founders grow from France, Singapore, Dubai, London, etc. If we can expand and help these people, we would love to do that.

● Pay it forward has begun: When people like Jaspreet — Druva, Krishna & Mohit MindTickle, Sunil — Clevertap, Vinod — CloudCherry, and Umesh — Uniphore moved, there was not much support system. Now there is a vibrant support system. Just like the Draper University hostel, I may look at starting a SaaSBOOMi House with about three or four rooms and an event area where founders can stay and bond when they are in the US. That is homework for me.

● Keep on starting up: What do founders do when they hit 70? Some become VCs, some retire, but one trend I see in the Bay Area is they cannot get over their love for the building phase. I met a founder who was getting ready for his next startup in his sunset years. That was fascinating.

● From fanboy to fan-man: I am going to close with a personal ‘wow’ moment. At the VC Connect event, a tall gentleman stood up and introduced himself to the room as “B.V. Jagadeesh”. The name stopped me in my tracks. I had grown up reading about him on the cover of Businessworld. Seeing him in the audience was definitely a big deal for me. I am not one for taking selfies but it was such a proud moment, I wish I had dropped that hesitation for one day.

I don’t want to end this without thanking Priya Rajan, Natalie Lescure, and the SVB team for hosting all the sessions at their auditorium. Thanks to Waleed & Mustafa for hosting 30-odd founders at Draper University.

I also want to tell the awesome founders, who always supported me by being part of the sessions staying late and engaging with other founders, that I see you and appreciate you.

Our sponsors have been very generous and the Caravan would not be possible without their help.

My sincere thanks to the many volunteers who stepped forward and helped us with executing the sessions.

And finally, my heartfelt gratitude to Vinod, Priya, Avi & Shreesha for curating, managing all logistics, and being super awesome for the Caravan startups.

" } }

Unbox Delight – An Insider for SaaS Startups from Leading Silicon Valley CIOs

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(5697) "SaaSBoomi Caravan kicked off this week, starting with a CIO Panel discussion on September 20th with leading SaaS CIOs from the valley. Carter Busse from Workato, Eric Tan from Coupa, Klarissa Marenitch from Hippo Insurance, and Prasad Ramakrishnan from Freshworks offered an insider perspective on their experiences of buying and using SaaS products, plus some invaluable advice for SaaS founders. Owned by Sanket Naik, Priya Rajan from Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) hosted the show, keeping the interests of founders alive and kicking through the discussion. SVB graciously facilitated the day’s event in their auditorium. And now into some action from the market and the day’s journey. Technology spend is projected to total $4.5 trillion in 2022, an increase of 3% from 2021. Most companies today use over 250 SaaS applications with some teams using between 40 to 60 different applications for running day-to-day operations. CIOs have one of the most significant challenges in managing this large portfolio of applications, improving employee experience, creating adoption and managing change, and continuing to deliver enterprise value to business stakeholders. On a related front, SaaS startups compete with several products to acclaim fame and value proposition. Founders fight hard to build a mature and scalable product that solves the business problem(s), offers a seamless engagement experience, and delivers a higher return on investment to customers – the race is always On – you slide, your competitors will glide, and take away your spot. What should SaaS founders do to stay ahead in their game, to continue to serve their customers and clients? Here is what the leading Silicon Valley CIOs have to offer you ~ a customer’s perspective for SaaS startups. What are the biggest challenges for CIOs? - Adoption and change management costs run high. - Improving employee experience is the key to your product’s success. - Data is draining businesses. Getting data to the right people, in the least intrusive way, compliant and secure, and at the right time is a mammoth affair. - Intelligence and insights to penetrate and sell in new markets are limited or unreliable. - GTM strategies are often delayed or fail to take off. What attributes do CIOs want from their SaaS product? - Design for invisible experience and seamless engagement - Knowledge of business and problem statement ~ don't be a solution looking for a problem - Supportability ~ don’t over promise - Position a 1-year subscription ~ compete and stay ahead of the game to get the next year’s subscription - Investors back the idea and are invested in the founders What attributes of founders please CIOs? - Are founders thinking about adoption and change management? - How are founders approaching product market fit? - Do founders Care? ~ honest and prepared to hold your client's hand - Founders always hustle hard, are they humble? - Are founders prepared to sell? - How do founders leverage relationships and their network? What is the one piece of advice you would give to founders? You only have one chance – make it count! Say what your product does and does not do ~ keep it simple. Be humble ~ know your space, know your competition; don't bad mouth anyone to promote your product’s competitive advantage. Be honest about the timelines and feature expectations. Be prepared to make a change and improve ~ build a cushion to accommodate client expectations. What stage of company do you like to work with? Reputation is key. Are you funded? Who are the investors? We love bootstrapping and appreciate founders who are innovating and building products through personal hardships. Vision is exciting. Founders with a vision for a solid product have a purpose ~ doesn't matter if you are small, if you can support that's sufficient and good to start a working relationship. Compliance ready, secure engagement. Get the security components out of the way ~ security is your entry ticket. Make security a part of the product performance feature ~ don’t make it an afterthought. What customer base reference do you need? Should it be from your market? The world is flatter today. Any market reference is fine, any client count is good ~ doesn't matter which market, the product must be market fit and you should be able to support the service delivery. Concluding Thoughts: Applications with department buy-ins enjoy higher engagement rates than apps provisioned by IT departments. Find the right sponsor and buyer for your product and stay ready to respond to CIOs expectations ~ don’t see them as hurdles, rather build them as essential performance features of your product. Don't be afraid of selling to people who work for the CIOs office ~ directors and managers. Startups need promoters of their product and people who can better explain the product features (use cases) to business leaders (decision makers). Investors have the same expectations! Build user communities and bring actual memorable experiences of how your customers are unboxing delight by using your product. Thanks to the SaaSBoomi community leaders for organizing a splendid event – Avinash, Avi, Priya, and Vinod – no count of thanks is enough recognition for their ongoing relentless effort, support, and guidance. Our heart goes out to Rukmani from Wellbowls, who brought us unforgettable, delicious, food that remains in our memories as one of the best Indian meals! To merrier times as we roll into the week and more insights, let the SaaSBoomi Caravan continue!" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(5697) "SaaSBoomi Caravan kicked off this week, starting with a CIO Panel discussion on September 20th with leading SaaS CIOs from the valley. Carter Busse from Workato, Eric Tan from Coupa, Klarissa Marenitch from Hippo Insurance, and Prasad Ramakrishnan from Freshworks offered an insider perspective on their experiences of buying and using SaaS products, plus some invaluable advice for SaaS founders. Owned by Sanket Naik, Priya Rajan from Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) hosted the show, keeping the interests of founders alive and kicking through the discussion. SVB graciously facilitated the day’s event in their auditorium. And now into some action from the market and the day’s journey. Technology spend is projected to total $4.5 trillion in 2022, an increase of 3% from 2021. Most companies today use over 250 SaaS applications with some teams using between 40 to 60 different applications for running day-to-day operations. CIOs have one of the most significant challenges in managing this large portfolio of applications, improving employee experience, creating adoption and managing change, and continuing to deliver enterprise value to business stakeholders. On a related front, SaaS startups compete with several products to acclaim fame and value proposition. Founders fight hard to build a mature and scalable product that solves the business problem(s), offers a seamless engagement experience, and delivers a higher return on investment to customers – the race is always On – you slide, your competitors will glide, and take away your spot. What should SaaS founders do to stay ahead in their game, to continue to serve their customers and clients? Here is what the leading Silicon Valley CIOs have to offer you ~ a customer’s perspective for SaaS startups. What are the biggest challenges for CIOs? - Adoption and change management costs run high. - Improving employee experience is the key to your product’s success. - Data is draining businesses. Getting data to the right people, in the least intrusive way, compliant and secure, and at the right time is a mammoth affair. - Intelligence and insights to penetrate and sell in new markets are limited or unreliable. - GTM strategies are often delayed or fail to take off. What attributes do CIOs want from their SaaS product? - Design for invisible experience and seamless engagement - Knowledge of business and problem statement ~ don't be a solution looking for a problem - Supportability ~ don’t over promise - Position a 1-year subscription ~ compete and stay ahead of the game to get the next year’s subscription - Investors back the idea and are invested in the founders What attributes of founders please CIOs? - Are founders thinking about adoption and change management? - How are founders approaching product market fit? - Do founders Care? ~ honest and prepared to hold your client's hand - Founders always hustle hard, are they humble? - Are founders prepared to sell? - How do founders leverage relationships and their network? What is the one piece of advice you would give to founders? You only have one chance – make it count! Say what your product does and does not do ~ keep it simple. Be humble ~ know your space, know your competition; don't bad mouth anyone to promote your product’s competitive advantage. Be honest about the timelines and feature expectations. Be prepared to make a change and improve ~ build a cushion to accommodate client expectations. What stage of company do you like to work with? Reputation is key. Are you funded? Who are the investors? We love bootstrapping and appreciate founders who are innovating and building products through personal hardships. Vision is exciting. Founders with a vision for a solid product have a purpose ~ doesn't matter if you are small, if you can support that's sufficient and good to start a working relationship. Compliance ready, secure engagement. Get the security components out of the way ~ security is your entry ticket. Make security a part of the product performance feature ~ don’t make it an afterthought. What customer base reference do you need? Should it be from your market? The world is flatter today. Any market reference is fine, any client count is good ~ doesn't matter which market, the product must be market fit and you should be able to support the service delivery. Concluding Thoughts: Applications with department buy-ins enjoy higher engagement rates than apps provisioned by IT departments. Find the right sponsor and buyer for your product and stay ready to respond to CIOs expectations ~ don’t see them as hurdles, rather build them as essential performance features of your product. Don't be afraid of selling to people who work for the CIOs office ~ directors and managers. Startups need promoters of their product and people who can better explain the product features (use cases) to business leaders (decision makers). Investors have the same expectations! Build user communities and bring actual memorable experiences of how your customers are unboxing delight by using your product. Thanks to the SaaSBoomi community leaders for organizing a splendid event – Avinash, Avi, Priya, and Vinod – no count of thanks is enough recognition for their ongoing relentless effort, support, and guidance. Our heart goes out to Rukmani from Wellbowls, who brought us unforgettable, delicious, food that remains in our memories as one of the best Indian meals! To merrier times as we roll into the week and more insights, let the SaaSBoomi Caravan continue!" } }

Tryst with a Digital Destiny – India as the SaaS Operating System of the World

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A trillion-dollar manifesto reframing the SaaS opportunity for India

As India celebrates 75 years of independence, it offers us an opportune milestone to introspect and reflect on the India SaaS journey so far and to contemplate our future. Over the last decade, the rise of SaaS has been both dramatic as well as transformational. Almost every industry in the world has progressively become more technology-centric, SaaS has emerged as the de facto software-delivery model of choice in this digital transformation journey. A drastically lower cost of entry, minimal infrastructure requirements, and simple implementation made moving to a SaaS tech stack the clear choice. This paradigm shift to an on-demand, cloud-based model has opened up a world of possibilities for ambitious SaaS startups to create iconic global businesses. In this race, Indian SaaS startups have a first-class seat at the table.  It merits noting that SaaS is only a five-year journey in India. While there were other SaaS startups in India earlier, our “coming of age” moment arguably arrived when Freshworks became the first Indian SaaS unicorn in 2018. In 2019, two more SaaS unicorns were added - iCertis and Druva. Since then, 15 more unicorns have been added from India to the SaaS stable in the subsequent 2.5 years.  A perfect storm of scaled startups like Zoho and Freshworks combined with abundant risk capital and deep talent pools established India as a SaaS powerhouse in the global sweepstakes. By any measure, 2021 was a landmark year for SaaS in India. Indian SaaS startups attracted $4.5 billion in total funding up 3X over the previous year. As of today, there are nearly one thousand funded SaaS companies in India and a robust pool of 3,500 SaaS startups overall - up from just 800 companies in 2018. These startups now generate nearly $3 billion in total revenues and employ 40,000 people. Freshworks went public on Nasdaq and over 70 companies have crossed the $10 million annual revenue milestone.  A major driver of this growth has been the secular trend toward digitalization triggered by the pandemic. Over the last two years, the pandemic has changed the way companies operate in a fundamental manner, altering every aspect of work life. This digital transformation has impacted all types of companies across all sectors, from Fortune 500 behemoths to every small-scale business. So much so that the total global spend on software has now hit the $3 trillion mark. And as “software eats the world”, SaaS is eating software - SaaS now comprises $600 billion of the $3 trillion global enterprise IT and communications spending market. But with an 8% annual growth rate, its upward trajectory is almost twice the pace of the overall market. Should this remarkable growth continue, the SaaS market is expected to be worth about $1.3 trillion by 2030? While this ambitious target might have seemed achievable last year, 2022 has witnessed some momentous changes.  The pandemic might be all but over, morphing into an endemic that rears its head from time to time but one that can be managed without resorting to the kind of large-scale and total lockdowns that were inevitable earlier. There has also been a drying up of venture capital right from public market multiples and IPOs down to early-stage investments. Will these developments impede the growth of SaaS? While the pandemic might no longer be as prevalent as before, there is no doubt that many changes that it precipitated are likely to be long-term, if not permanent. Hybrid work environments are the norm now with companies allowing team members to work remotely along with appearing in person. Buyer preferences, especially in the B2B market where most SaaS companies play with, have moved to a digital-first approach irrevocably. According to a recent survey, more than 70% of buyers are comfortable purchasing software that costs more than $50,000 online. In 2021, Deloitte estimated that 94% of organizations were using at least one cloud-based SaaS product with the average enterprise organization doubling its SaaS outlay since 2018 to spend $35,000 on nearly 300 different tools. On average, a mid-size company in the US consumes more than 25 SaaS solutions. So while the pandemic tapering might hit growth rates and valuations of SaaS startups, the long-term trend is still very positive. This bullish outlook has also meant that despite funding having dipped precipitously on an overall basis in 2022, SaaS startups in India have still managed to attract meaningful funding. As per a recent report, SaaS was the second-ranked segment in terms of the number of funding during H1 2022 with more than 90 Indian SaaS startups mopping up $1.76 billion. If anything, the global tightening of capital availability plays to the strengths of Indian SaaS startups that have traditionally been more capital-efficient than their global counterparts.  Given these underlying strengths, our analysis shows that if Indian SaaS providers can execute to their full potential, they could potentially generate annual revenues of $50-$70 billion by 2030 representing 4-6% of the global market – a value-creation opportunity of $500 billion to $1 trillion. India is already the third largest SaaS ecosystem in the world, behind the US and China, and if it tracks this rate of growth, there is a real possibility that it could emerge as the second largest player overtaking China within the next few years. While this is a laudable goal, we should not take it for granted that we will get there automatically. There are several systemic issues around talent and domestic capital availability that we need to actively solve. More importantly, is the goal of “Indian SaaS startups” reaching “6% of the global market” the right way to frame this narrative? Perhaps not. Why so? For one thing, in the post-pandemic era, startups are not just “born digital”, they are also “born global”. A global outlook is baked into their DNA right from birth - not just in terms of servicing global markets but also in terms of having a global network of talent, capital, and partners. In a sense, in this brave new world, Silicon Valley is becoming unbundled - cross-border, trans-national collaborations with the best resources are as common across Bangalore and Berlin as it is between Boston and Beijing as ecosystems have become more interconnected and teams have become more international. While this means that SaaS startups in India can access talent globally, it also implies that companies outside India can access talent in India just as easily - democracy in its truest form. A bunch of engineers, domain experts, and product managers can now sit and create world-beating products from anywhere in the world - we are already seeing the emergence of such clusters in Tier 2/3 towns in India like Surat and Bhopal, in Estonia in the Black sea region and many more pockets. In such a flat-world scenario, does it even make sense to use the narrow constructs of geography to define what an “Indian SaaS” startup constitutes? For another, is the goal of reaching 6% of the global market a meaningful one?  Rather than frame the global SaaS market as a zero-sum game fought by countries facing off against each other, can we frame the India SaaS opportunity orthogonally?

Presenting the idea of “India as the SaaS Operating System of the World”

Under this manifesto, the SaaS opportunity for India is flipped from merely looking at Indian SaaS startups competing for a piece of the global pie to India establishing itself as a global substratum for SaaS operations. We believe that this is a $1 trillion opportunity for India within the next five ( 10 years) years. India’s “tryst with a digital destiny” can be deconstructed into the following vectors.

India as a base for digital R&D talent

As the world becomes progressively digital-first, many nations face the prospect of the worst labor shortage of the last 100 years. A combination of factors - from top talent migrating to other countries or choosing to work for foreign companies to move to a different line of work - will lead to a talent-poor environment for many countries and companies. On the other hand, India has the world’s largest pool of developers - more than 3 million developers. 55-60% of global IT and operations workflows are already delivered from India. And this base is becoming broader - according to a recent study, India's tech industry added 450,000 new jobs in FY22 and is likely to just an equal or higher number each year over the next five years. This deep talent pool can be leveraged by companies across the globe to fuel their digital ambitions and imperatives.

India as a base for digital go-to-market initiatives

Based on your business model, from desk-based PLG to sales-led motions, more than 75% of go-to-market initiatives can be run remotely from India for any organization around the world. The pandemic has accelerated the shift to remote selling and domains such as the developer tools market lends themselves very well to product-led growth motions that Indian SaaS companies can excel at as companies such as BrowserStack and Postman have already demonstrated. Our large pool of developers not only gives us a ready domestic market, it also endows us with a deep understanding and an intimate first-hand experience of the problems to be solved. “India has a large business process management workforce which provides a pool for building a scalable inside sales team in India,” analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein wrote in a note to clients earlier this year pointing out that the size of India's inside-sales pool is ~120,000 with the count of skill-ready professionals pegged at ~380,000 compared to the US at 300,000-400,000. Hiring Indian talent for these activities bestows companies with better profitability as they have the advantage of lower product development costs and sales and marketing costs.

India as a base for digital support functions

Transnational operations and global markets mean that support functions such as finance, HR, and legal ops can be delivered remotely from anywhere in the world. India is unmatched in terms of the depth and breadth of its talent pool for these aspects. A rich legacy of decades of IT services and offshore BPO capabilities has endowed India with an asymmetric competitive advantage. With the rise of the mobile internet, over 750 million people have smartphones in India and can use these devices for work as much as for play. According to a recent study by the McKinsey Global Institute, by 2030, one billion Indians will be online and become the plurality of English speakers in the world, offering an army of talented support professionals for hire. 

India as a digital customer success base

A recent industry report revealed that digital customer engagement has made a significant impact — increasing revenue by 70% on average for companies that invested in it. These same companies expect to almost double their investment in customer engagement and success by 2025.  Scaled Indian SaaS startups such as Freshworks and Zoho have successfully demonstrated how to leverage India as a low-cost high-value customer success base. India’s labor cost arbitrage allows companies to economically hire young professionals to complement self-serve customer onboarding and success motions. This not only increases trial-to-paid conversion rates, it also facilitates higher engagement and lower customer attrition. 

India as a digital market

While India had traditionally not been a large market for software, the situation has drastically (meaningfully) changed over the last two years. There are many facets to this development: The move towards digitization precipitated by the pandemic and the emergence of digital rails for many large sectors has spurred market development. For instance, on the back of platforms such as Aadhaar and UPI, the fintech market in India has leapfrogged other geographies and is generationally more advanced. Companies are now building banking solutions and financial services on top of these ubiquitous digital rails and universal standards. Similar trends in other industries such as healthcare (the National Digital Health Stack), retail (ONDC), and logistics(FastTag) will lead to rapid penetration of technology into these large legacy markets.  Scaled startups are becoming early adopters of SaaS - Scaled startups understand the significance of speed of technology adoption in achieving scale and operational effectiveness. They want to focus on their core competency and don’t wish to deploy their core tech talent in developing all products in-house. Even Indian SMBs are slowly willing to adopt SaaS as they see merit in adoption and they also have to compete with their digital more tech-enabled counterparts.  India is a services-heavy economy but with massive fragmentation in supply. These services, particularly B2B services, will get productized as mobile internet penetration increases and as financial rails get standardized. Vendors in these businesses can use cloud software to organize the fragmented supply, standardize service delivery, increase transparency, and facilitate payments. With India's internet user base set to touch 900 million by 2025, there is a large opportunity for the digital ecosystem to solve for “Bharat” with unique mobile-first digital solutions such as those pioneered by Dukaan tech startups that can then be exported to other parts of the globe. A recent report from Unesco Science Report that in purchasing-power-parity terms, India now spends more on research than France, the UK, and Italy indicating a healthy appetite for technology innovation. Technology behemoths such as Amazon, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Google have woken up to India - the country is one of the fastest-growing markets for public cloud and SaaS companies. Going by Amazon's internal revenue forecasting, AWS revenue from India is slated to exceed even Japan and Korea in the near future.  In a nutshell, the center of the world economy is returning to Asia. While China is a manufacturing superpower, India is becoming a tech and digital superpower. Such a feat will be befitting for an economy that once was the most prosperous in the world - in the 18th century, India was the world’s leading economy with a GDP share of 27% of the globe. Beyond the sepia-tinted nostalgia of becoming “Sone ki chidiya'' once again, we have a real opportunity to become a land of prosperity and progress once again. This is not just a goal, this is our obligation. This is our tryst with destiny to become a digital superpower. If you’re an entrepreneur building the next great SaaS business anywhere in the world, it would be worthwhile to consider India as your “SaaS operating system”." ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(17882) "

A trillion-dollar manifesto reframing the SaaS opportunity for India

As India celebrates 75 years of independence, it offers us an opportune milestone to introspect and reflect on the India SaaS journey so far and to contemplate our future. Over the last decade, the rise of SaaS has been both dramatic as well as transformational. Almost every industry in the world has progressively become more technology-centric, SaaS has emerged as the de facto software-delivery model of choice in this digital transformation journey. A drastically lower cost of entry, minimal infrastructure requirements, and simple implementation made moving to a SaaS tech stack the clear choice. This paradigm shift to an on-demand, cloud-based model has opened up a world of possibilities for ambitious SaaS startups to create iconic global businesses. In this race, Indian SaaS startups have a first-class seat at the table.  It merits noting that SaaS is only a five-year journey in India. While there were other SaaS startups in India earlier, our “coming of age” moment arguably arrived when Freshworks became the first Indian SaaS unicorn in 2018. In 2019, two more SaaS unicorns were added - iCertis and Druva. Since then, 15 more unicorns have been added from India to the SaaS stable in the subsequent 2.5 years.  A perfect storm of scaled startups like Zoho and Freshworks combined with abundant risk capital and deep talent pools established India as a SaaS powerhouse in the global sweepstakes. By any measure, 2021 was a landmark year for SaaS in India. Indian SaaS startups attracted $4.5 billion in total funding up 3X over the previous year. As of today, there are nearly one thousand funded SaaS companies in India and a robust pool of 3,500 SaaS startups overall - up from just 800 companies in 2018. These startups now generate nearly $3 billion in total revenues and employ 40,000 people. Freshworks went public on Nasdaq and over 70 companies have crossed the $10 million annual revenue milestone.  A major driver of this growth has been the secular trend toward digitalization triggered by the pandemic. Over the last two years, the pandemic has changed the way companies operate in a fundamental manner, altering every aspect of work life. This digital transformation has impacted all types of companies across all sectors, from Fortune 500 behemoths to every small-scale business. So much so that the total global spend on software has now hit the $3 trillion mark. And as “software eats the world”, SaaS is eating software - SaaS now comprises $600 billion of the $3 trillion global enterprise IT and communications spending market. But with an 8% annual growth rate, its upward trajectory is almost twice the pace of the overall market. Should this remarkable growth continue, the SaaS market is expected to be worth about $1.3 trillion by 2030? While this ambitious target might have seemed achievable last year, 2022 has witnessed some momentous changes.  The pandemic might be all but over, morphing into an endemic that rears its head from time to time but one that can be managed without resorting to the kind of large-scale and total lockdowns that were inevitable earlier. There has also been a drying up of venture capital right from public market multiples and IPOs down to early-stage investments. Will these developments impede the growth of SaaS? While the pandemic might no longer be as prevalent as before, there is no doubt that many changes that it precipitated are likely to be long-term, if not permanent. Hybrid work environments are the norm now with companies allowing team members to work remotely along with appearing in person. Buyer preferences, especially in the B2B market where most SaaS companies play with, have moved to a digital-first approach irrevocably. According to a recent survey, more than 70% of buyers are comfortable purchasing software that costs more than $50,000 online. In 2021, Deloitte estimated that 94% of organizations were using at least one cloud-based SaaS product with the average enterprise organization doubling its SaaS outlay since 2018 to spend $35,000 on nearly 300 different tools. On average, a mid-size company in the US consumes more than 25 SaaS solutions. So while the pandemic tapering might hit growth rates and valuations of SaaS startups, the long-term trend is still very positive. This bullish outlook has also meant that despite funding having dipped precipitously on an overall basis in 2022, SaaS startups in India have still managed to attract meaningful funding. As per a recent report, SaaS was the second-ranked segment in terms of the number of funding during H1 2022 with more than 90 Indian SaaS startups mopping up $1.76 billion. If anything, the global tightening of capital availability plays to the strengths of Indian SaaS startups that have traditionally been more capital-efficient than their global counterparts.  Given these underlying strengths, our analysis shows that if Indian SaaS providers can execute to their full potential, they could potentially generate annual revenues of $50-$70 billion by 2030 representing 4-6% of the global market – a value-creation opportunity of $500 billion to $1 trillion. India is already the third largest SaaS ecosystem in the world, behind the US and China, and if it tracks this rate of growth, there is a real possibility that it could emerge as the second largest player overtaking China within the next few years. While this is a laudable goal, we should not take it for granted that we will get there automatically. There are several systemic issues around talent and domestic capital availability that we need to actively solve. More importantly, is the goal of “Indian SaaS startups” reaching “6% of the global market” the right way to frame this narrative? Perhaps not. Why so? For one thing, in the post-pandemic era, startups are not just “born digital”, they are also “born global”. A global outlook is baked into their DNA right from birth - not just in terms of servicing global markets but also in terms of having a global network of talent, capital, and partners. In a sense, in this brave new world, Silicon Valley is becoming unbundled - cross-border, trans-national collaborations with the best resources are as common across Bangalore and Berlin as it is between Boston and Beijing as ecosystems have become more interconnected and teams have become more international. While this means that SaaS startups in India can access talent globally, it also implies that companies outside India can access talent in India just as easily - democracy in its truest form. A bunch of engineers, domain experts, and product managers can now sit and create world-beating products from anywhere in the world - we are already seeing the emergence of such clusters in Tier 2/3 towns in India like Surat and Bhopal, in Estonia in the Black sea region and many more pockets. In such a flat-world scenario, does it even make sense to use the narrow constructs of geography to define what an “Indian SaaS” startup constitutes? For another, is the goal of reaching 6% of the global market a meaningful one?  Rather than frame the global SaaS market as a zero-sum game fought by countries facing off against each other, can we frame the India SaaS opportunity orthogonally?

Presenting the idea of “India as the SaaS Operating System of the World”

Under this manifesto, the SaaS opportunity for India is flipped from merely looking at Indian SaaS startups competing for a piece of the global pie to India establishing itself as a global substratum for SaaS operations. We believe that this is a $1 trillion opportunity for India within the next five ( 10 years) years. India’s “tryst with a digital destiny” can be deconstructed into the following vectors.

India as a base for digital R&D talent

As the world becomes progressively digital-first, many nations face the prospect of the worst labor shortage of the last 100 years. A combination of factors - from top talent migrating to other countries or choosing to work for foreign companies to move to a different line of work - will lead to a talent-poor environment for many countries and companies. On the other hand, India has the world’s largest pool of developers - more than 3 million developers. 55-60% of global IT and operations workflows are already delivered from India. And this base is becoming broader - according to a recent study, India's tech industry added 450,000 new jobs in FY22 and is likely to just an equal or higher number each year over the next five years. This deep talent pool can be leveraged by companies across the globe to fuel their digital ambitions and imperatives.

India as a base for digital go-to-market initiatives

Based on your business model, from desk-based PLG to sales-led motions, more than 75% of go-to-market initiatives can be run remotely from India for any organization around the world. The pandemic has accelerated the shift to remote selling and domains such as the developer tools market lends themselves very well to product-led growth motions that Indian SaaS companies can excel at as companies such as BrowserStack and Postman have already demonstrated. Our large pool of developers not only gives us a ready domestic market, it also endows us with a deep understanding and an intimate first-hand experience of the problems to be solved. “India has a large business process management workforce which provides a pool for building a scalable inside sales team in India,” analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein wrote in a note to clients earlier this year pointing out that the size of India's inside-sales pool is ~120,000 with the count of skill-ready professionals pegged at ~380,000 compared to the US at 300,000-400,000. Hiring Indian talent for these activities bestows companies with better profitability as they have the advantage of lower product development costs and sales and marketing costs.

India as a base for digital support functions

Transnational operations and global markets mean that support functions such as finance, HR, and legal ops can be delivered remotely from anywhere in the world. India is unmatched in terms of the depth and breadth of its talent pool for these aspects. A rich legacy of decades of IT services and offshore BPO capabilities has endowed India with an asymmetric competitive advantage. With the rise of the mobile internet, over 750 million people have smartphones in India and can use these devices for work as much as for play. According to a recent study by the McKinsey Global Institute, by 2030, one billion Indians will be online and become the plurality of English speakers in the world, offering an army of talented support professionals for hire. 

India as a digital customer success base

A recent industry report revealed that digital customer engagement has made a significant impact — increasing revenue by 70% on average for companies that invested in it. These same companies expect to almost double their investment in customer engagement and success by 2025.  Scaled Indian SaaS startups such as Freshworks and Zoho have successfully demonstrated how to leverage India as a low-cost high-value customer success base. India’s labor cost arbitrage allows companies to economically hire young professionals to complement self-serve customer onboarding and success motions. This not only increases trial-to-paid conversion rates, it also facilitates higher engagement and lower customer attrition. 

India as a digital market

While India had traditionally not been a large market for software, the situation has drastically (meaningfully) changed over the last two years. There are many facets to this development: The move towards digitization precipitated by the pandemic and the emergence of digital rails for many large sectors has spurred market development. For instance, on the back of platforms such as Aadhaar and UPI, the fintech market in India has leapfrogged other geographies and is generationally more advanced. Companies are now building banking solutions and financial services on top of these ubiquitous digital rails and universal standards. Similar trends in other industries such as healthcare (the National Digital Health Stack), retail (ONDC), and logistics(FastTag) will lead to rapid penetration of technology into these large legacy markets.  Scaled startups are becoming early adopters of SaaS - Scaled startups understand the significance of speed of technology adoption in achieving scale and operational effectiveness. They want to focus on their core competency and don’t wish to deploy their core tech talent in developing all products in-house. Even Indian SMBs are slowly willing to adopt SaaS as they see merit in adoption and they also have to compete with their digital more tech-enabled counterparts.  India is a services-heavy economy but with massive fragmentation in supply. These services, particularly B2B services, will get productized as mobile internet penetration increases and as financial rails get standardized. Vendors in these businesses can use cloud software to organize the fragmented supply, standardize service delivery, increase transparency, and facilitate payments. With India's internet user base set to touch 900 million by 2025, there is a large opportunity for the digital ecosystem to solve for “Bharat” with unique mobile-first digital solutions such as those pioneered by Dukaan tech startups that can then be exported to other parts of the globe. A recent report from Unesco Science Report that in purchasing-power-parity terms, India now spends more on research than France, the UK, and Italy indicating a healthy appetite for technology innovation. Technology behemoths such as Amazon, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Google have woken up to India - the country is one of the fastest-growing markets for public cloud and SaaS companies. Going by Amazon's internal revenue forecasting, AWS revenue from India is slated to exceed even Japan and Korea in the near future.  In a nutshell, the center of the world economy is returning to Asia. While China is a manufacturing superpower, India is becoming a tech and digital superpower. Such a feat will be befitting for an economy that once was the most prosperous in the world - in the 18th century, India was the world’s leading economy with a GDP share of 27% of the globe. Beyond the sepia-tinted nostalgia of becoming “Sone ki chidiya'' once again, we have a real opportunity to become a land of prosperity and progress once again. This is not just a goal, this is our obligation. This is our tryst with destiny to become a digital superpower. If you’re an entrepreneur building the next great SaaS business anywhere in the world, it would be worthwhile to consider India as your “SaaS operating system”." } }

Demystifying RevOps, the Siva Rajamani way

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(8024) "Numbers in their absolute form are just meaningless digits. But, when sliced and diced with context, they can tell stories of growth, slowdown, success, misfires, efficiencies, challenges, and whatnot. Coming from a consulting background, Siva Rajamani is someone who has lived most of his career with numbers. He is currently the Co-founder and CEO of Everstage, the SaaS platform that helps simplify sales commission management.  Before co-founding Everstage, Siva led the RevOps function at Freshworks. In the SaaS community, he is well known as the guy who set up and built the RevOps engine at Freshworks.  He scaled the RevOps org from being a one-person team to a 25-member org. The RevOps org has played a vital role in helping Freshworks become the unicorn that we know it as today. At the recent SaaSBOOMi Growth 2022 event, Siva gave us a quick in-depth introduction to RevOps. By the end of the session, most startup founders were better off than just knowing the term RevOps. To quote Venkat Krishnaraj, who is the co-founder of Klenty and the session manager of the RevOps for Growth event, 

“Driving revenue is increasingly complex for GTM organizations.” 

It is common knowledge that data can help with revenue optimization. But, there are definite challenges that need to be conquered. To begin with, the sheer volume and variety of data.  At an SMB level, there is an explosion of data from all corners. Leads, pipelines, closures, and levers that contribute to these include website traffic, visitors to lead conversion, lead to customer conversion, etc. Handling the sheer volume and variety of data makes it difficult to make informed decisions. Also, it is not practical for a founder to do such extensive number-crunching. As the business scales to new heights, there would be a need for a dedicated org that can pull in data, disseminate it, and finally handpick insights out of it. It is here that RevOps comes into the picture.

So, what is RevOps?

RevOps (Revenue Operations) is a relatively new term, and function that was introduced to the business fraternity during the past 5 years. RevOps offers a unified view of sales, marketing, and customer success. Ultimately, it leads to creating better use of data, technology, and processes to enable a SaaS business to grow faster. 

The case for RevOps

A typical organization SaaS consists of individual orgs and functions with specific targets/goals attached to them.  For eg: revenue for sales, pipeline generation for marketing, churn and product adoption for customer success, etc. While individual orgs must have their targets to chase, each organization might get siloed as the business scales. Siloed orgs will soon start running their tracks focused on achieving targets set for their org. This division of efforts between critical functions will drag the  GTM org in different directions. As a cascading effect, inefficiencies will creep in, processes will slow down, and growth will suffer. 

“In SaaS, sales, marketing, and customer success functions cannot be in silos. They should work in unison.”

It is here that RevOps steps in and acts as a hub that gives a unified view of sales, marketing, and customer success. 

The difference between RevOps and analytics 

and why RevOps folks are not just data nerds Although RevOps involves a lot of number-crunching, it cannot be limited to analytics alone. It is much more than that.  RevOps helps with revenue optimization by pulling in data from diverse sources. The data so collated is analyzed to create insights about business performance, revenue growth, churn, capacity utilization, capacity planning, etc. So, does that make RevOps folks data nerds? RevOps folks are not just data nerds. They are uniquely talented individuals who can connect the dots between people, processes, and data.  They have in-depth knowledge about business logic, can make sense of data, and are also process-centric at large.  As the SaaS space continues to expand, the need for RevOps talent is also skyrocketing. There are currently 6,000+ RevOps positions open in the job market.   Startups and even some traditional business verticals are looking out for RevOps talent. 

How and when to hire RevOps talent

As someone who scaled the RevOps function from scratch, Siva’s pointers can help you make the right choice when hiring for RevOps talent.

When should an SMB hire for a RevOps role?

For an SMB & mid-market-focused company, about a 1 Million and above is a good time to start hiring for RevOps. An ideal person could be a junior analyst who can support the VP of sales. 

When should an enterprise hire for a RevOps role?

Since enterprises have bigger deal sizes and longer sales cycles, it would be better to wait longer after the 1 Million mark.

What traits should an ideal RevOps personnel have?

An ideal candidate would be someone who has an analytical bent of mind. Someone can pull in data from various sources and make sense of it. An individual who is process-centric can introduce a structure to everything. Most importantly, someone who can be comfortable with ambiguity. 

Where to find RevOps talent?

Consulting companies are good hiring grounds. Primarily because consultants possess the prerequisites to become RevOps professionals. 

The Bottom Line

RevOps is a relatively new practice. It is so new to the next that even the vast majority of the highly-talented startup founders at our recent SaaSBOOMi event had heard of the term but had not got an opportunity to understand it in detail.  Thanks to Siva, RevOps is no longer an alien concept to most SaaS founders.  After all, it is the mission of SaaSBOOMi to pay it forward to the SaaS startup community by bringing knowledge, mentorship, and intel easily accessible to SaaS founders. The RevOps for Growth session at SaaSBOOMi Growth 2022 was one such interactive session that upheld our mission. " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(8024) "Numbers in their absolute form are just meaningless digits. But, when sliced and diced with context, they can tell stories of growth, slowdown, success, misfires, efficiencies, challenges, and whatnot. Coming from a consulting background, Siva Rajamani is someone who has lived most of his career with numbers. He is currently the Co-founder and CEO of Everstage, the SaaS platform that helps simplify sales commission management.  Before co-founding Everstage, Siva led the RevOps function at Freshworks. In the SaaS community, he is well known as the guy who set up and built the RevOps engine at Freshworks.  He scaled the RevOps org from being a one-person team to a 25-member org. The RevOps org has played a vital role in helping Freshworks become the unicorn that we know it as today. At the recent SaaSBOOMi Growth 2022 event, Siva gave us a quick in-depth introduction to RevOps. By the end of the session, most startup founders were better off than just knowing the term RevOps. To quote Venkat Krishnaraj, who is the co-founder of Klenty and the session manager of the RevOps for Growth event, 

“Driving revenue is increasingly complex for GTM organizations.” 

It is common knowledge that data can help with revenue optimization. But, there are definite challenges that need to be conquered. To begin with, the sheer volume and variety of data.  At an SMB level, there is an explosion of data from all corners. Leads, pipelines, closures, and levers that contribute to these include website traffic, visitors to lead conversion, lead to customer conversion, etc. Handling the sheer volume and variety of data makes it difficult to make informed decisions. Also, it is not practical for a founder to do such extensive number-crunching. As the business scales to new heights, there would be a need for a dedicated org that can pull in data, disseminate it, and finally handpick insights out of it. It is here that RevOps comes into the picture.

So, what is RevOps?

RevOps (Revenue Operations) is a relatively new term, and function that was introduced to the business fraternity during the past 5 years. RevOps offers a unified view of sales, marketing, and customer success. Ultimately, it leads to creating better use of data, technology, and processes to enable a SaaS business to grow faster. 

The case for RevOps

A typical organization SaaS consists of individual orgs and functions with specific targets/goals attached to them.  For eg: revenue for sales, pipeline generation for marketing, churn and product adoption for customer success, etc. While individual orgs must have their targets to chase, each organization might get siloed as the business scales. Siloed orgs will soon start running their tracks focused on achieving targets set for their org. This division of efforts between critical functions will drag the  GTM org in different directions. As a cascading effect, inefficiencies will creep in, processes will slow down, and growth will suffer. 

“In SaaS, sales, marketing, and customer success functions cannot be in silos. They should work in unison.”

It is here that RevOps steps in and acts as a hub that gives a unified view of sales, marketing, and customer success. 

The difference between RevOps and analytics 

and why RevOps folks are not just data nerds Although RevOps involves a lot of number-crunching, it cannot be limited to analytics alone. It is much more than that.  RevOps helps with revenue optimization by pulling in data from diverse sources. The data so collated is analyzed to create insights about business performance, revenue growth, churn, capacity utilization, capacity planning, etc. So, does that make RevOps folks data nerds? RevOps folks are not just data nerds. They are uniquely talented individuals who can connect the dots between people, processes, and data.  They have in-depth knowledge about business logic, can make sense of data, and are also process-centric at large.  As the SaaS space continues to expand, the need for RevOps talent is also skyrocketing. There are currently 6,000+ RevOps positions open in the job market.   Startups and even some traditional business verticals are looking out for RevOps talent. 

How and when to hire RevOps talent

As someone who scaled the RevOps function from scratch, Siva’s pointers can help you make the right choice when hiring for RevOps talent.

When should an SMB hire for a RevOps role?

For an SMB & mid-market-focused company, about a 1 Million and above is a good time to start hiring for RevOps. An ideal person could be a junior analyst who can support the VP of sales. 

When should an enterprise hire for a RevOps role?

Since enterprises have bigger deal sizes and longer sales cycles, it would be better to wait longer after the 1 Million mark.

What traits should an ideal RevOps personnel have?

An ideal candidate would be someone who has an analytical bent of mind. Someone can pull in data from various sources and make sense of it. An individual who is process-centric can introduce a structure to everything. Most importantly, someone who can be comfortable with ambiguity. 

Where to find RevOps talent?

Consulting companies are good hiring grounds. Primarily because consultants possess the prerequisites to become RevOps professionals. 

The Bottom Line

RevOps is a relatively new practice. It is so new to the next that even the vast majority of the highly-talented startup founders at our recent SaaSBOOMi event had heard of the term but had not got an opportunity to understand it in detail.  Thanks to Siva, RevOps is no longer an alien concept to most SaaS founders.  After all, it is the mission of SaaSBOOMi to pay it forward to the SaaS startup community by bringing knowledge, mentorship, and intel easily accessible to SaaS founders. The RevOps for Growth session at SaaSBOOMi Growth 2022 was one such interactive session that upheld our mission. " } }

Making your product work while you are asleep – The PLG Way

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(12705) "As a product company owner, wouldn't you want your product to be on its own and bring in customers and revenue eventually? Guess we would like to. You would be aware of one of the business methodologies for product companies, i.e., Product-led growth (PLG). To put it simply, we can imagine it  as a GTM strategy where the Product is the primary vehicle to Acquire, Activate, and Retain customers (Courtesy: www.productled.com) 

Is PLG new? 

We have all experienced buying things the PLG way, in some way, shape, or form. Whether it's your car or your favorite perfume, you would have tried it out before buying it. That's precisely what PLG is, very simply put.  PLG means the customer can try, buy, and renew with very little manual intervention. The Product must be conceptualized and designed so that the customer can quickly come on board and get going with it. 

The PLG benefits 

The PLG approach brings with it a bunch of key benefits to product organizations. Some of the key ones are, 

• Widen the top of the sales funnel 
• Rapid global scale possible 
• Exponential vs linear growth – (E.g.,) Zoom grew from 10M to 200M active users in 3 months
• Capex efficient 
• Reduce CAC 
• Better user experience during the trial 
• Auto choice of the plan (reduced friction in sales) 
• Faster sales cycles 
• Higher revenue per employee (e.g., AHREF – 50MN ARR with 50 employees)

But is PLG for all?

Having said all this, it doesn't mean PLG is the panacea and would be the ultimate solution for all product companies. The following high-level guidelines will help you self-evaluate if PLG is suitable for your organization.  PLG may NOT suit you, if: 

• Your sales cycle involves a considerable implementation cycle 
• If the buying decision is driven top-down 

PLG will suit you well, if: 

• The Product offers a uniquely valuable solution to its users 
• Users can realize significant, ongoing value quickly and easily 
• The customer gets real value before they hit the paywall 
• Marketing funnels lead to product engagement 
• Customers' company has product champions who drive internal adoption of your Product 

Also, PLG is as much a mindset as an approach. So, you can always adopt the beneficial elements of  PLG into your existing strategy. For example, Pendo cleverly combines PLG with a sales-led strategy. It lets users try it for free while also letting them request a demo. 

How do you go about with PLG, then? 

Having understood what PLG is, the benefits it brings, and who is more suited, let's go deeper into the  PLG via the typical funnel and a few suggestions on how to approach each of these stages. But, before you get started with these, it will help you have your "As-is" conversion data for each of these stages. 

1. Visitor 
2. Registration (MQL) 
3. Activation (PQL) 
4. Subscription 
5. Expansion

Visitor to Registration  

Once visitors are on your site, it is essential to take them to the registration stage. One of the ways is to ensure you have a transparent pricing page that lets your user know clearly what to expect from each of the available plans. An excellent example is the pricing page of Clickup, which smartly uses PLG and a  sales-led approach by having options to self-service or contact their sales team.  While customers are on the registration page, making sure that there is only minimal data input requested from the user will ensure they provide the information. It will also persuade your customers to complete the step by adding social proof (like testimonials) and other customers on the registration page.  A good example of this is Hiver. Apart from providing ample social proof, they have also enabled Single Sign-on and made it clear that users don't have to provide their credit card information.

Registration to Activation 

The general tendency for your users is to taste the Product through free trials/plans before they start using the paid versions of your Product. It would be best if you made a data-driven decision on what your  PQL (Product qualified lead) is to be able to decide on when to start promoting your customer who is trying your free version.  Such Activation metrics could either be certain events being performed by your customer or when they reach a specific threshold limit. For example, the PQL for Slack is when an account reaches the 2000  message limit. That's when they consider the user to be seriously adopting their Product. In the case of another SaaS product, RecruiterBox, an applicant tracking system, their PQL was when a user posted a  job opening on their platform. Similarly, you must define your PQL and be prepared with strategies on how you would nudge your customers to start paying.  Some approaches to taking customers towards activation might include drip emails indicating their next step along a happy path or demonstrating "Paid" features within the Product itself while they are at it. 

Activation to Subscription 

This is probably the most critical phase of your customer journey where they make the leap of faith and decide to pay for your Product.  A good example of moving the customers to a paid plan is Typito, a video editing product. They offer a  free plan where users can try out the Product's features. While they are at it, Typito indicates to users if they are using any "PRO" features that are not part of the Free plan. Users can continue to avail the  "PRO" features, but the blocking step comes in when they try to export their video. They are informed of their paid features and redirected to the subscription page. Having tried out the Product to this extent,  users are more likely to pay for the subscription.  A few more important things to consider while designing your product pricing page is to indicate the "$"  savings the users would make by opting for the plan of your choice, monthly vs yearly subscription. An excellent example of smart pricing is the one by Freshdesk. Their "Free" plan offers all the necessary features a new user would want but provides some important features like "Collision detection" only in the paid plans. Customers who have tried the product would want to avail of the "Collision Detection" feature, thus increasing the chance of them moving to the paid plan. You can also make such decisions on pricing but must gather necessary user and product information. 

Subscription to Expansion 

This is the stage where cross-selling and up-selling happen for a product. Among various ways to drive users to move to a higher plan, a couple of approaches are worth considering. 

• Virality-based expansion
• Feature-based expansion

Virality based expansion This indicates ways to reach out to other functions/teams of your customer organization and get them to try your Product. You can achieve this by understanding your customer business processes and mapping the other functional stakeholders in those processes. This way, you can build features that would help you reach out to them.  Feature-based expansion This is again another approach to upselling your Product by understanding your customer's needs and prompting them to try out relevant features of your Product, leading them to a higher-paid plan. An example of this is how Stripe recommends features like "Revenue Recognition", which a free user might be interested in. To avail of this, users must then pay.

Summary 

The single most important factor in a PLG-based approach is the “Time to value” for the customer. It’s the intersection of the perceived value and the experienced value.   There must be a mindset shift towards the customer and how the product can deliver on its promised value.  The intention must be to service your customer before you sell the product. It is also important that all the functions in your organization buy into this idea and contribute to it. Everyone must contribute from the marketing team to the customer support team. 

• Marketing – How to use the product as a lead magnet  - Campaigns to be not just for buyers but “users” also

• Sales – How to use product data to qualify leads - Define “value” metrics (on how to charge customers) - Reduce discussion on pricing - Focus more on users who have experienced the product - Enhance better onboarding & product experience

• Product Team - Build features for free to meet the MKTG goals - Revenue target to be set for prod team & tracked - Product needs to drive “usage” is given more importance

• Customer support – how to create prod for customers to succeed without our help - To be more efficient - Be prepared for more support tickets (in a freemium model)

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(12705) "As a product company owner, wouldn't you want your product to be on its own and bring in customers and revenue eventually? Guess we would like to. You would be aware of one of the business methodologies for product companies, i.e., Product-led growth (PLG). To put it simply, we can imagine it  as a GTM strategy where the Product is the primary vehicle to Acquire, Activate, and Retain customers (Courtesy: www.productled.com) 

Is PLG new? 

We have all experienced buying things the PLG way, in some way, shape, or form. Whether it's your car or your favorite perfume, you would have tried it out before buying it. That's precisely what PLG is, very simply put.  PLG means the customer can try, buy, and renew with very little manual intervention. The Product must be conceptualized and designed so that the customer can quickly come on board and get going with it. 

The PLG benefits 

The PLG approach brings with it a bunch of key benefits to product organizations. Some of the key ones are, 

• Widen the top of the sales funnel 
• Rapid global scale possible 
• Exponential vs linear growth – (E.g.,) Zoom grew from 10M to 200M active users in 3 months
• Capex efficient 
• Reduce CAC 
• Better user experience during the trial 
• Auto choice of the plan (reduced friction in sales) 
• Faster sales cycles 
• Higher revenue per employee (e.g., AHREF – 50MN ARR with 50 employees)

But is PLG for all?

Having said all this, it doesn't mean PLG is the panacea and would be the ultimate solution for all product companies. The following high-level guidelines will help you self-evaluate if PLG is suitable for your organization.  PLG may NOT suit you, if: 

• Your sales cycle involves a considerable implementation cycle 
• If the buying decision is driven top-down 

PLG will suit you well, if: 

• The Product offers a uniquely valuable solution to its users 
• Users can realize significant, ongoing value quickly and easily 
• The customer gets real value before they hit the paywall 
• Marketing funnels lead to product engagement 
• Customers' company has product champions who drive internal adoption of your Product 

Also, PLG is as much a mindset as an approach. So, you can always adopt the beneficial elements of  PLG into your existing strategy. For example, Pendo cleverly combines PLG with a sales-led strategy. It lets users try it for free while also letting them request a demo. 

How do you go about with PLG, then? 

Having understood what PLG is, the benefits it brings, and who is more suited, let's go deeper into the  PLG via the typical funnel and a few suggestions on how to approach each of these stages. But, before you get started with these, it will help you have your "As-is" conversion data for each of these stages. 

1. Visitor 
2. Registration (MQL) 
3. Activation (PQL) 
4. Subscription 
5. Expansion

Visitor to Registration  

Once visitors are on your site, it is essential to take them to the registration stage. One of the ways is to ensure you have a transparent pricing page that lets your user know clearly what to expect from each of the available plans. An excellent example is the pricing page of Clickup, which smartly uses PLG and a  sales-led approach by having options to self-service or contact their sales team.  While customers are on the registration page, making sure that there is only minimal data input requested from the user will ensure they provide the information. It will also persuade your customers to complete the step by adding social proof (like testimonials) and other customers on the registration page.  A good example of this is Hiver. Apart from providing ample social proof, they have also enabled Single Sign-on and made it clear that users don't have to provide their credit card information.

Registration to Activation 

The general tendency for your users is to taste the Product through free trials/plans before they start using the paid versions of your Product. It would be best if you made a data-driven decision on what your  PQL (Product qualified lead) is to be able to decide on when to start promoting your customer who is trying your free version.  Such Activation metrics could either be certain events being performed by your customer or when they reach a specific threshold limit. For example, the PQL for Slack is when an account reaches the 2000  message limit. That's when they consider the user to be seriously adopting their Product. In the case of another SaaS product, RecruiterBox, an applicant tracking system, their PQL was when a user posted a  job opening on their platform. Similarly, you must define your PQL and be prepared with strategies on how you would nudge your customers to start paying.  Some approaches to taking customers towards activation might include drip emails indicating their next step along a happy path or demonstrating "Paid" features within the Product itself while they are at it. 

Activation to Subscription 

This is probably the most critical phase of your customer journey where they make the leap of faith and decide to pay for your Product.  A good example of moving the customers to a paid plan is Typito, a video editing product. They offer a  free plan where users can try out the Product's features. While they are at it, Typito indicates to users if they are using any "PRO" features that are not part of the Free plan. Users can continue to avail the  "PRO" features, but the blocking step comes in when they try to export their video. They are informed of their paid features and redirected to the subscription page. Having tried out the Product to this extent,  users are more likely to pay for the subscription.  A few more important things to consider while designing your product pricing page is to indicate the "$"  savings the users would make by opting for the plan of your choice, monthly vs yearly subscription. An excellent example of smart pricing is the one by Freshdesk. Their "Free" plan offers all the necessary features a new user would want but provides some important features like "Collision detection" only in the paid plans. Customers who have tried the product would want to avail of the "Collision Detection" feature, thus increasing the chance of them moving to the paid plan. You can also make such decisions on pricing but must gather necessary user and product information. 

Subscription to Expansion 

This is the stage where cross-selling and up-selling happen for a product. Among various ways to drive users to move to a higher plan, a couple of approaches are worth considering. 

• Virality-based expansion
• Feature-based expansion

Virality based expansion This indicates ways to reach out to other functions/teams of your customer organization and get them to try your Product. You can achieve this by understanding your customer business processes and mapping the other functional stakeholders in those processes. This way, you can build features that would help you reach out to them.  Feature-based expansion This is again another approach to upselling your Product by understanding your customer's needs and prompting them to try out relevant features of your Product, leading them to a higher-paid plan. An example of this is how Stripe recommends features like "Revenue Recognition", which a free user might be interested in. To avail of this, users must then pay.

Summary 

The single most important factor in a PLG-based approach is the “Time to value” for the customer. It’s the intersection of the perceived value and the experienced value.   There must be a mindset shift towards the customer and how the product can deliver on its promised value.  The intention must be to service your customer before you sell the product. It is also important that all the functions in your organization buy into this idea and contribute to it. Everyone must contribute from the marketing team to the customer support team. 

• Marketing – How to use the product as a lead magnet  - Campaigns to be not just for buyers but “users” also

• Sales – How to use product data to qualify leads - Define “value” metrics (on how to charge customers) - Reduce discussion on pricing - Focus more on users who have experienced the product - Enhance better onboarding & product experience

• Product Team - Build features for free to meet the MKTG goals - Revenue target to be set for prod team & tracked - Product needs to drive “usage” is given more importance

• Customer support – how to create prod for customers to succeed without our help - To be more efficient - Be prepared for more support tickets (in a freemium model)

" } }

My new engagement with founders, as a community builder

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(8924) "In my dozen-plus years as a journalist, there is nothing I enjoyed more than meeting founders. What is so special about them? Aren’t there so many wonderful people out there whose stories are as fascinating or more? Of course! And I have enjoyed meeting many and telling their stories.  But founders hold a special place for me. Here are people who stumbled upon a problem or had an idea to improve something, gave it their all, and managed to infuse their passion enough into others to have them join in to change the world or at least tiny pieces of it for the better.  How do they do that? What makes them different from so many others around? What are they running on? Where does their courage to take risks come from? I am endlessly fascinated by it all. When I’ve picked their brains as a journalist, I haven’t just been out to get a story for my readers, but I have also been living vicariously lives so full - ups, downs, highs, lows, ripples - never still water.  I have always considered myself incredibly lucky to have found so much joy at work. To make a living out of something you love is happiness. Since 2013, I have focussed exclusively on covering startups - mostly in India, but I also got a real taste of the startup ecosystems across Asia during my four-year-stint with Singapore-headquartered Tech in Asia. From meeting Jack Ma’s pet goat at one of his homes in China :) to interviewing diverse founders across Asia, I had many remarkable experiences.  One of my fondest memories is traveling with a busload of 40 SaaS entrepreneurs from Bangalore to Chennai in 2015 to attend a unique event called SaaSx.  Indian media hadn’t yet caught on to the SaaS wave back then, and I was the only journalist on board. The founders opened up about their challenges in a way that’s only possible in what’s perceived to be a safe environment. For me, this was education. Apart from the founders, iSPIRT co-founder and one of the early evangelists of India’s software product ecosystem, Sharad Sharma, who was also on the bus, gave me a perspective on how and why SaaS was gathering momentum in India “like a flywheel”. One of the enabling factors in the flywheel speeding up became apparent to me at SaaSx. As a journalist I had attended many conferences, including Tech in Asia’s own very large ones in Singapore, Tokyo, and Jakarta, but SaaSx had an ambience that stood out. Around 120 founders big and small rubbed shoulders with one another sharing experiences from their startup journeys that went far beyond the banal.  Not surprisingly, the star turn came from Girish Mathrubootham of Freshworks with his bravura storytelling. But again, it was different from what you would get from Girish at any other event. Here he was in his element, engaging with the audience of fellow SaaS founders, taking cheeky questions, and opening up his playbook for others to learn from.  Other top SaaS founders like Suresh Sambandam of Kissflow, Krish Subramanian of Chargebee, and Manav Garg of Eka have been unsparing in giving their time and insights at multiple SaaS events without fanfare. Founders who attended such events have told me how listening to these masters talk about their modus operandi gave them flashes of understanding that would have taken them years to get otherwise. People talk about ‘Pay it forward’ but rarely does it go beyond lip service. Here it’s real and that is the strength of Indian SaaS - the large, well-knit, and well-organized community that has grown around it, involving Indian founders as well as the diaspora, supported wholeheartedly by successful founders and VCs investing in this space.  I’ve had a ringside view of other communities that have emerged, thanks to the selfless efforts of believers in the India story. But none can match India’s SaaS community in scale, effectiveness, and a collegiate sense of camaraderie, nurtured initially by iSPIRT until its agenda changed to focus on India’s digital infrastructure, and then SaaSBOOMi, which has grown the community to over 1500 members.  I’ve had many openhearted interactions with the driver of SaaSBOOMi, Avinash Raghava, over the years from his iSPIRT days to Accel and SaaSBOOMi. He had invited me to take a seat on that SaaSy bus back in 2015. And in early June this year, he roped me in to volunteer with SaaSBOOMi’s first Badminton League in Bangalore. I didn’t know what to expect, but I should have known. The large turnout of founders who registered to play, the palpable excitement, and the serious competitiveness was typical of SaaSBOOMi which had just created a new setting for bonding and peer-to-peer networking.  I feel privileged to join SaaSBOOMi now to lead initiatives and events. This will be on paper my first non-journalistic assignment. But I wore several hats at Tech in Asia, one of whose missions was to connect multiple startup ecosystems across Asia. A standout moment was bringing the Tech in Asia conference to Bangalore in 2016 with 1200+ attendees. I enjoyed being a ‘connector’ then, and I’m excited about my role now as a community builder. SaaSBOOMi has taken significant strides since its inception four years ago, driven by the trust that it has got from SaaS founders and other stakeholders. I aim to build on that and then keep raising the bar.  From my journalistic perspective, I see three areas of action:

1. Playbooks, roundtables, 200+ events, SaaSBOOMi does a lot in a packed calendar. Nuggets of learning from these are captured in blog posts and videos, but inevitably many nuggets will slip through the cracks. A systematic process of capturing and organizing key learnings will create an invaluable knowledge repository for founders. SaaSBOOMi has the wherewithal to be a think-tank as well as a community.
2. Mentorship, awards, and even a badminton league, SaaSBOOMi has adopted different formats to help founders learn and grow, and network. My first task will be to reach out to founders in the community to understand how these can be more useful to them and what new formats can be tried for learning, knowledge-sharing, and multiplying India’s SaaS success stories. We also need to explore how SaaSBOOMi can bring value to leaders other than founders in startups and involve them more in the community.
3. The world over there is a great gender imbalance in startup communities. One of my priorities will be to figure out ways to bring women leaders to the fore, who can be an inspiration to others, and provide them with extra support.

SaaSBOOMi is built on the backs of 75+ volunteers who make the magic happen in the background. The volunteers in turn get a precious insider’s perspective on the inner workings of the SaaS industry and opportunities to connect deeply with successful founders. In my chats with founders and others, I will always be on the lookout for great volunteers and how their interests can be aligned with those of SaaSBOOMi. There’s so much to be done that I’m rubbing my hands in anticipation. I look forward to reconnecting with Chennai, India’s SaaS epicenter, where I began my career as a trainee sub-editor at The Hindu long ago. And I’m equally excited about visiting other emerging SaaS hubs and meeting the growing band of SaaSBOOMi volunteers. Let’s all take that bus ride again, metaphorically speaking." ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(8924) "In my dozen-plus years as a journalist, there is nothing I enjoyed more than meeting founders. What is so special about them? Aren’t there so many wonderful people out there whose stories are as fascinating or more? Of course! And I have enjoyed meeting many and telling their stories.  But founders hold a special place for me. Here are people who stumbled upon a problem or had an idea to improve something, gave it their all, and managed to infuse their passion enough into others to have them join in to change the world or at least tiny pieces of it for the better.  How do they do that? What makes them different from so many others around? What are they running on? Where does their courage to take risks come from? I am endlessly fascinated by it all. When I’ve picked their brains as a journalist, I haven’t just been out to get a story for my readers, but I have also been living vicariously lives so full - ups, downs, highs, lows, ripples - never still water.  I have always considered myself incredibly lucky to have found so much joy at work. To make a living out of something you love is happiness. Since 2013, I have focussed exclusively on covering startups - mostly in India, but I also got a real taste of the startup ecosystems across Asia during my four-year-stint with Singapore-headquartered Tech in Asia. From meeting Jack Ma’s pet goat at one of his homes in China :) to interviewing diverse founders across Asia, I had many remarkable experiences.  One of my fondest memories is traveling with a busload of 40 SaaS entrepreneurs from Bangalore to Chennai in 2015 to attend a unique event called SaaSx.  Indian media hadn’t yet caught on to the SaaS wave back then, and I was the only journalist on board. The founders opened up about their challenges in a way that’s only possible in what’s perceived to be a safe environment. For me, this was education. Apart from the founders, iSPIRT co-founder and one of the early evangelists of India’s software product ecosystem, Sharad Sharma, who was also on the bus, gave me a perspective on how and why SaaS was gathering momentum in India “like a flywheel”. One of the enabling factors in the flywheel speeding up became apparent to me at SaaSx. As a journalist I had attended many conferences, including Tech in Asia’s own very large ones in Singapore, Tokyo, and Jakarta, but SaaSx had an ambience that stood out. Around 120 founders big and small rubbed shoulders with one another sharing experiences from their startup journeys that went far beyond the banal.  Not surprisingly, the star turn came from Girish Mathrubootham of Freshworks with his bravura storytelling. But again, it was different from what you would get from Girish at any other event. Here he was in his element, engaging with the audience of fellow SaaS founders, taking cheeky questions, and opening up his playbook for others to learn from.  Other top SaaS founders like Suresh Sambandam of Kissflow, Krish Subramanian of Chargebee, and Manav Garg of Eka have been unsparing in giving their time and insights at multiple SaaS events without fanfare. Founders who attended such events have told me how listening to these masters talk about their modus operandi gave them flashes of understanding that would have taken them years to get otherwise. People talk about ‘Pay it forward’ but rarely does it go beyond lip service. Here it’s real and that is the strength of Indian SaaS - the large, well-knit, and well-organized community that has grown around it, involving Indian founders as well as the diaspora, supported wholeheartedly by successful founders and VCs investing in this space.  I’ve had a ringside view of other communities that have emerged, thanks to the selfless efforts of believers in the India story. But none can match India’s SaaS community in scale, effectiveness, and a collegiate sense of camaraderie, nurtured initially by iSPIRT until its agenda changed to focus on India’s digital infrastructure, and then SaaSBOOMi, which has grown the community to over 1500 members.  I’ve had many openhearted interactions with the driver of SaaSBOOMi, Avinash Raghava, over the years from his iSPIRT days to Accel and SaaSBOOMi. He had invited me to take a seat on that SaaSy bus back in 2015. And in early June this year, he roped me in to volunteer with SaaSBOOMi’s first Badminton League in Bangalore. I didn’t know what to expect, but I should have known. The large turnout of founders who registered to play, the palpable excitement, and the serious competitiveness was typical of SaaSBOOMi which had just created a new setting for bonding and peer-to-peer networking.  I feel privileged to join SaaSBOOMi now to lead initiatives and events. This will be on paper my first non-journalistic assignment. But I wore several hats at Tech in Asia, one of whose missions was to connect multiple startup ecosystems across Asia. A standout moment was bringing the Tech in Asia conference to Bangalore in 2016 with 1200+ attendees. I enjoyed being a ‘connector’ then, and I’m excited about my role now as a community builder. SaaSBOOMi has taken significant strides since its inception four years ago, driven by the trust that it has got from SaaS founders and other stakeholders. I aim to build on that and then keep raising the bar.  From my journalistic perspective, I see three areas of action:

1. Playbooks, roundtables, 200+ events, SaaSBOOMi does a lot in a packed calendar. Nuggets of learning from these are captured in blog posts and videos, but inevitably many nuggets will slip through the cracks. A systematic process of capturing and organizing key learnings will create an invaluable knowledge repository for founders. SaaSBOOMi has the wherewithal to be a think-tank as well as a community.
2. Mentorship, awards, and even a badminton league, SaaSBOOMi has adopted different formats to help founders learn and grow, and network. My first task will be to reach out to founders in the community to understand how these can be more useful to them and what new formats can be tried for learning, knowledge-sharing, and multiplying India’s SaaS success stories. We also need to explore how SaaSBOOMi can bring value to leaders other than founders in startups and involve them more in the community.
3. The world over there is a great gender imbalance in startup communities. One of my priorities will be to figure out ways to bring women leaders to the fore, who can be an inspiration to others, and provide them with extra support.

SaaSBOOMi is built on the backs of 75+ volunteers who make the magic happen in the background. The volunteers in turn get a precious insider’s perspective on the inner workings of the SaaS industry and opportunities to connect deeply with successful founders. In my chats with founders and others, I will always be on the lookout for great volunteers and how their interests can be aligned with those of SaaSBOOMi. There’s so much to be done that I’m rubbing my hands in anticipation. I look forward to reconnecting with Chennai, India’s SaaS epicenter, where I began my career as a trainee sub-editor at The Hindu long ago. And I’m equally excited about visiting other emerging SaaS hubs and meeting the growing band of SaaSBOOMi volunteers. Let’s all take that bus ride again, metaphorically speaking." } }

What’s all the fluff about – A messaging masterclass by Vikram Bhaskaran

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(7610) "SETTING THE STAGE  It was Summer's first break. She was skipping around her backyard with her puppy in tow when she stopped for a moment below the tree to look up at the beaming sun. That's when a lemon hit her on the head. She chanced upon her Eureka moment and decided to make, well, lemonade. She realized there was so much more lemonade left that she decided to sell it. She drew up a signboard advertising lemonade, put up some chairs, got a table, and set them on her lawn under the shade. She sat down with her large jug of lemonade and waited eagerly for her first customer.  The mild breeze made her doze off as she waited, and was woken up by a sound from across the street, only to realize that she had her first customer waiting. Dressed in a full-length cloak, an old man walked up to her and bought some lemonade to strike up a conversation with her. He began asking her questions about why she wanted to sell lemonade. She replied that she wanted to help people beat the heat and enjoy their day. Being charmed by the little girl's answer and doing his bit in paying it forward, the cloaked man gave Summer a couple of hints to help her find her hidden treasure. And here's what he had to say.  We start businesses because we are passionate about something in life, and we exist to make meaning. Setting out on the journey to explore the meaning of every business involves five steps. 

STEP 1: Testing the waters

It's just like learning to swim. You don't just jump into the water and expect everything to be alright. You understand and have a sense of the pool before stepping in. Likewise, understanding the market shape is quintessential when beginning with your narrative arc. Know who you want to go after and their availability. Think about your market and how you want to pitch your story or value. Pay attention to how the demand scene is in the market; will you be seeking your ideal customers, or will they be seeking you. With Summer, he explained that she needed to be more proactive in seeking out her customers. 

STEP 2: Gathering your superpowers 

Once you have tested the waters, it's time to round up all your equipment. You will need to decode where your strength lies and how you will stay afloat. In marketing parlance, this would mean construing who your competition is. You will need to show your prospects how you are significantly different and better than the rest of the players. And customers might need a bit of convincing and persuasion to gravitate towards you. Decoding your behavior irrelevance, use-case irrelevance, and key-feature irrelevance will further help your cause. 

STEP 3: Taking the plunge 

Answering the who, why, and when questions are the toughest. But when you begin to unbuild and rebuild in layers, it becomes more like having a cake. Here are some tricks and beginner ingredients to go with. 

1. It's time to retire John and Jane - With a modern spin on the classic jobs-to-be-done framework, you analyze and reiterate the purpose your customers have hired you to do. The user in any situation will have a motivation to try a product, service, or offering for her to reach an expected outcome. For example, with Rocketlane, a SaaS purpose-built customer onboarding platform, the user will be able to streamline their onboarding process and get themselves out of an escalation situation. In this case, the expected outcome for the user would be to deliver a delightful customer onboarding experience to her clients. One counter to this framework is to work on what happens when you cease to exist in the market.

2. Why are you 'the Chosen One'? - It's wonderful to be the chosen one. But like in Harry Potter, you will have to swish your wands and make the world a better place for your customers. Here, the age-old value prop canvas with circles and rectangles can be reformulated to point out customers' pains and aspirations to be linked back to one's product pain relievers and gain creators. Your aim would be to 'wow' your customers and get them to be all smiles after using your product. 
3. The build-up before the finale - Somewhere along the way, customers would have had an event or situation leading them to realize that something was challenging. The incident would have made them want a better solution, and that is when they search for you. For Summer, the heat was making people want a cool drink. But with Chargebee, the Zero Moment of Truth for customers was when they realized they couldn't spend so many manual hours sending invoices to multiple people. 

STEP 4: Tying things up 

Here's where you start making sense of how your narrative should flow. You begin to focus on something beautiful you want to save in this world and how you will do it. You can have unlimited sides to the multifaceted protagonist, and she might as well wear a cape, carry a wand or come dressed in a suit. But this is going to bring meaning to what you do. Conspire a solution to solve the world's pain, and make sure you are there to help solve it. 

STEP 5: The Circle of Life 

No journey is complete without piecing all the bits together. When you started, you had a broken world to fix. Your customer had landed in the abyss, the pit of exasperation, and had found you as their Gandalf. With you on their team, the customer was able to experience their 'wow' moment and return to their zen mode. Having ended his long monologue, the cloaked man saw Summer and her puppy snoring slightly beside him. The scene brought a smile to the man's face, and he set out on his path with a chuckle.  THE ACTUAL FLUFF  Leaving behind Summer and her puppy, we pan out to see how the narrative arc and sticky story will help startups with their marketing.  Everyone remembers the adorable Vodafone puppy that follows you around. Everyone remembers the Coca-Cola red, the Pepsi blue, and the Cadbury purple. And everyone surely remembers McDonald's jingle of 'I'm lovin' it'! All this is to say people love a sticky, good narrative.  As the saying goes, people don't buy goods and services; they look to buy relations, stories, and magic. And weaving magic into your story is the elixir of your marketing game, be it for category players or category creators.  Startups want to stand out from the crowd and get noticed as unique snowflakes. They want to create foundational building blocks by upping their marketing game in the most ingenious ways. And more often than not, all this marketing might seem like a truckload of fluff. But once you unpack all the fluff, you will have gotten to the inner core of your business, and this is precisely what Vikram Bhaskaran, Fractional CMO & Advisor, for SaaSBOOMi Growth 2022, taught everyone to do in his exquisite workshop recently." ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(7610) "SETTING THE STAGE  It was Summer's first break. She was skipping around her backyard with her puppy in tow when she stopped for a moment below the tree to look up at the beaming sun. That's when a lemon hit her on the head. She chanced upon her Eureka moment and decided to make, well, lemonade. She realized there was so much more lemonade left that she decided to sell it. She drew up a signboard advertising lemonade, put up some chairs, got a table, and set them on her lawn under the shade. She sat down with her large jug of lemonade and waited eagerly for her first customer.  The mild breeze made her doze off as she waited, and was woken up by a sound from across the street, only to realize that she had her first customer waiting. Dressed in a full-length cloak, an old man walked up to her and bought some lemonade to strike up a conversation with her. He began asking her questions about why she wanted to sell lemonade. She replied that she wanted to help people beat the heat and enjoy their day. Being charmed by the little girl's answer and doing his bit in paying it forward, the cloaked man gave Summer a couple of hints to help her find her hidden treasure. And here's what he had to say.  We start businesses because we are passionate about something in life, and we exist to make meaning. Setting out on the journey to explore the meaning of every business involves five steps. 

STEP 1: Testing the waters

It's just like learning to swim. You don't just jump into the water and expect everything to be alright. You understand and have a sense of the pool before stepping in. Likewise, understanding the market shape is quintessential when beginning with your narrative arc. Know who you want to go after and their availability. Think about your market and how you want to pitch your story or value. Pay attention to how the demand scene is in the market; will you be seeking your ideal customers, or will they be seeking you. With Summer, he explained that she needed to be more proactive in seeking out her customers. 

STEP 2: Gathering your superpowers 

Once you have tested the waters, it's time to round up all your equipment. You will need to decode where your strength lies and how you will stay afloat. In marketing parlance, this would mean construing who your competition is. You will need to show your prospects how you are significantly different and better than the rest of the players. And customers might need a bit of convincing and persuasion to gravitate towards you. Decoding your behavior irrelevance, use-case irrelevance, and key-feature irrelevance will further help your cause. 

STEP 3: Taking the plunge 

Answering the who, why, and when questions are the toughest. But when you begin to unbuild and rebuild in layers, it becomes more like having a cake. Here are some tricks and beginner ingredients to go with. 

1. It's time to retire John and Jane - With a modern spin on the classic jobs-to-be-done framework, you analyze and reiterate the purpose your customers have hired you to do. The user in any situation will have a motivation to try a product, service, or offering for her to reach an expected outcome. For example, with Rocketlane, a SaaS purpose-built customer onboarding platform, the user will be able to streamline their onboarding process and get themselves out of an escalation situation. In this case, the expected outcome for the user would be to deliver a delightful customer onboarding experience to her clients. One counter to this framework is to work on what happens when you cease to exist in the market.

2. Why are you 'the Chosen One'? - It's wonderful to be the chosen one. But like in Harry Potter, you will have to swish your wands and make the world a better place for your customers. Here, the age-old value prop canvas with circles and rectangles can be reformulated to point out customers' pains and aspirations to be linked back to one's product pain relievers and gain creators. Your aim would be to 'wow' your customers and get them to be all smiles after using your product. 
3. The build-up before the finale - Somewhere along the way, customers would have had an event or situation leading them to realize that something was challenging. The incident would have made them want a better solution, and that is when they search for you. For Summer, the heat was making people want a cool drink. But with Chargebee, the Zero Moment of Truth for customers was when they realized they couldn't spend so many manual hours sending invoices to multiple people. 

STEP 4: Tying things up 

Here's where you start making sense of how your narrative should flow. You begin to focus on something beautiful you want to save in this world and how you will do it. You can have unlimited sides to the multifaceted protagonist, and she might as well wear a cape, carry a wand or come dressed in a suit. But this is going to bring meaning to what you do. Conspire a solution to solve the world's pain, and make sure you are there to help solve it. 

STEP 5: The Circle of Life 

No journey is complete without piecing all the bits together. When you started, you had a broken world to fix. Your customer had landed in the abyss, the pit of exasperation, and had found you as their Gandalf. With you on their team, the customer was able to experience their 'wow' moment and return to their zen mode. Having ended his long monologue, the cloaked man saw Summer and her puppy snoring slightly beside him. The scene brought a smile to the man's face, and he set out on his path with a chuckle.  THE ACTUAL FLUFF  Leaving behind Summer and her puppy, we pan out to see how the narrative arc and sticky story will help startups with their marketing.  Everyone remembers the adorable Vodafone puppy that follows you around. Everyone remembers the Coca-Cola red, the Pepsi blue, and the Cadbury purple. And everyone surely remembers McDonald's jingle of 'I'm lovin' it'! All this is to say people love a sticky, good narrative.  As the saying goes, people don't buy goods and services; they look to buy relations, stories, and magic. And weaving magic into your story is the elixir of your marketing game, be it for category players or category creators.  Startups want to stand out from the crowd and get noticed as unique snowflakes. They want to create foundational building blocks by upping their marketing game in the most ingenious ways. And more often than not, all this marketing might seem like a truckload of fluff. But once you unpack all the fluff, you will have gotten to the inner core of your business, and this is precisely what Vikram Bhaskaran, Fractional CMO & Advisor, for SaaSBOOMi Growth 2022, taught everyone to do in his exquisite workshop recently." } }

Your journey into the US market starts here

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(9135) "In the winter of 2016, I decided to take a long flight. I could only check in two bags and one just had to be my cricket kit. With some amusement, I noted that all it took was one suitcase to pack the rest of my earthly possessions. I landed in the US, just the morning before the StartupBridge event. There was no time for second thoughts. From the airport, I went to the house I had rented, dropped off my bags, and raced to the venue to practice my pitch.   The event was a whirlwind of activities, where founders showcased their products to Bay area execs and networked with a few other India-based companies. It was loud and friendly. When the event ended, I drove my rental car home.  Once home, the noise faded. The quiet took over. A pit started to form in my stomach. The house felt large and I kept feeling smaller and smaller. I had landed in the US with a dream, 10 months left on a visa, no credit score, and one customer in Arizona. My inbox was filled with emails from CloudCherry’s (my startup) India operations but I knew when I would wake up the following day, there would be nothing for me to do. I had no US business. I had no team or friends (maybe one couple in the Bay area) or mentors to lean on. And in two weeks, my family was to land in the US. I had given myself no wiggle room. I had to make it.  We all gamble in and with our lives. It’s a gamble to follow your convictions even if it takes you out of your comfort zone and sometimes these gambles pay off. Oftentimes they don’t. I took a gamble by coming to the US. But what I did should not be a gamble anymore. It should be less about the founder's hustle and more about science. Many founders from India are making this journey to the US. There is a large market in the US that is waiting to be addressed and Indian SaaS startups are uniquely positioned to capture this market. And these founders need not make my mistakes, of which I made many. They need to know that there is a family that awaits them. 

Soft landing

When I was in the US, I relied on the kindness of strangers. My one friend in the Bay Area had introduced me to a couple of his friends. Prasad, someone I had met once before, co-signed my car lease and took me home for many a meal. Years later he said, “it was a $30,000 call option I took on you.” His friend Vineet, took me shopping and always called me over for dinner. I had been to the Bay Area about four times before this trip and I didn’t know what to expect.  Thankfully, my background in the merchant navy had prepared me just a little for ocean voyages with rough weather. I leveraged every connection I had, I spoke to people and asked for introductions, and I urged them to talk to their friends about CloudCherry. I shopped CloudCherry’s products for everyone I could. I even went to our biggest competitor and ran a demo of our product and how (I believed) it could do what they could not. I wanted people to know I exist. My prospects, my potential investors, my community, and even my competitors needed to know that CloudCherry had a product that was going to make the world a more delightful place.  I believe in serendipity. But I also believe that you can make serendipity happen. There is a direct correlation between network density and serendipity. Let’s say you wanted to meet Tom Cruise. You could bump into him at a coffee shop. But the chances of that happening in Bangalore or Delhi are lower than of it happening in LA. It’s the same with meeting customers and investors. Your strategy can’t be built for serendipity but you can plan for it. And that’s what I did. I camped outside offices, hung out at coffee shops near where my universe of people could be and tried to maximize my chances of meeting more people. Cisco had invested in us by then so I marked my calendar to be there every two weeks; no matter what.  But it took a few hard lessons to get to this place. It took me a year to build even the ground floor of a network and connections. I would argue, that it has been over six years that I have been strengthening that network and it’s still not as strong as I would want it to be.  What I wanted when I was at home, the first night, jetlagged, lonely, and afraid, was a mentor, a friend, someone who was probably six months or a year ahead of me on the path. Someone I could call and say, ‘Hey buddy, what do I do now?’  I don’t think founders need to feel what I felt at that moment. The US now has a deep network of Indian founders based in the US. The diaspora is also very well connected to the new startup ecosystem. It’s all about reaching out to them. And you can.  Hundreds of founders are planning to come to San Francisco to attend SaaStr. And my suggestion is to make a plan to stick around for two weeks longer. SaaSBOOMi is preparing a roadshow and a couple of brilliant events for you.   If you’re not planning to come for the SaaStr event, my suggestion is to put this event on your calendar anyway. We all have come to the US when a prospect said they may be interested in your product. Here, we’re promising a sure thing.  It’s not a once-and-done event. It’s not just a place where you learn and share stories. It is a place where you meet people, swap stories, and create bonds. It is also a place where you meet potential mentors. Mentors who will help you with everything from where to live, and how to get your driver’s license, to helping you raise capital, meeting the right Corp Dev executives in companies, and where to get the best food. And I know that you can’t get all of this in a few hours. Real life is different. What we, at SaaSBOOMi, are also doing is creating a platform, where you can reach out to your mentors and ask them for help when needed. 

The event

So what can you expect over the two weeks between Sept 15th to the 30th?

• A cocktail mixer of founders, investors, ecosystem enablers, and tech executives
• A roadshow of Bay Area startups founded in India where you learn from those who have done this before
• Deep dive round tables on every topic related to moving your operations to the US
• Launch of our first ever online mentorship platform
• Connects with Bay Area tech execs, Corp Dev leaders, investors, and more 
• Our first SaaSBOOMi annual event where we bring it all home

A few days ago, I was hosting a panel at the Montgomery summit and two of the Unicorn founders on that panel (Rohit of Darwinbox and Rajoshi of Hasura) reminisced that I had invited them over for drinks and dinner when they were first scoping out the US market. Correlation is not causation but there seems to be a relationship between coming home for dinner and the elusive billion-dollar valuation.  I want to extend this invitation to every one of you. It won’t always be at my place (though there may be an after-party), but our event will feel like home. A place where you can be yourself. Come home, sit down with us, and let’s build your destiny together. Please fill out this form if you would like to be part of the US trip from 15-30th September in the Bay area. Let’s build SaaSBOOMi US together. " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(9135) "In the winter of 2016, I decided to take a long flight. I could only check in two bags and one just had to be my cricket kit. With some amusement, I noted that all it took was one suitcase to pack the rest of my earthly possessions. I landed in the US, just the morning before the StartupBridge event. There was no time for second thoughts. From the airport, I went to the house I had rented, dropped off my bags, and raced to the venue to practice my pitch.   The event was a whirlwind of activities, where founders showcased their products to Bay area execs and networked with a few other India-based companies. It was loud and friendly. When the event ended, I drove my rental car home.  Once home, the noise faded. The quiet took over. A pit started to form in my stomach. The house felt large and I kept feeling smaller and smaller. I had landed in the US with a dream, 10 months left on a visa, no credit score, and one customer in Arizona. My inbox was filled with emails from CloudCherry’s (my startup) India operations but I knew when I would wake up the following day, there would be nothing for me to do. I had no US business. I had no team or friends (maybe one couple in the Bay area) or mentors to lean on. And in two weeks, my family was to land in the US. I had given myself no wiggle room. I had to make it.  We all gamble in and with our lives. It’s a gamble to follow your convictions even if it takes you out of your comfort zone and sometimes these gambles pay off. Oftentimes they don’t. I took a gamble by coming to the US. But what I did should not be a gamble anymore. It should be less about the founder's hustle and more about science. Many founders from India are making this journey to the US. There is a large market in the US that is waiting to be addressed and Indian SaaS startups are uniquely positioned to capture this market. And these founders need not make my mistakes, of which I made many. They need to know that there is a family that awaits them. 

Soft landing

When I was in the US, I relied on the kindness of strangers. My one friend in the Bay Area had introduced me to a couple of his friends. Prasad, someone I had met once before, co-signed my car lease and took me home for many a meal. Years later he said, “it was a $30,000 call option I took on you.” His friend Vineet, took me shopping and always called me over for dinner. I had been to the Bay Area about four times before this trip and I didn’t know what to expect.  Thankfully, my background in the merchant navy had prepared me just a little for ocean voyages with rough weather. I leveraged every connection I had, I spoke to people and asked for introductions, and I urged them to talk to their friends about CloudCherry. I shopped CloudCherry’s products for everyone I could. I even went to our biggest competitor and ran a demo of our product and how (I believed) it could do what they could not. I wanted people to know I exist. My prospects, my potential investors, my community, and even my competitors needed to know that CloudCherry had a product that was going to make the world a more delightful place.  I believe in serendipity. But I also believe that you can make serendipity happen. There is a direct correlation between network density and serendipity. Let’s say you wanted to meet Tom Cruise. You could bump into him at a coffee shop. But the chances of that happening in Bangalore or Delhi are lower than of it happening in LA. It’s the same with meeting customers and investors. Your strategy can’t be built for serendipity but you can plan for it. And that’s what I did. I camped outside offices, hung out at coffee shops near where my universe of people could be and tried to maximize my chances of meeting more people. Cisco had invested in us by then so I marked my calendar to be there every two weeks; no matter what.  But it took a few hard lessons to get to this place. It took me a year to build even the ground floor of a network and connections. I would argue, that it has been over six years that I have been strengthening that network and it’s still not as strong as I would want it to be.  What I wanted when I was at home, the first night, jetlagged, lonely, and afraid, was a mentor, a friend, someone who was probably six months or a year ahead of me on the path. Someone I could call and say, ‘Hey buddy, what do I do now?’  I don’t think founders need to feel what I felt at that moment. The US now has a deep network of Indian founders based in the US. The diaspora is also very well connected to the new startup ecosystem. It’s all about reaching out to them. And you can.  Hundreds of founders are planning to come to San Francisco to attend SaaStr. And my suggestion is to make a plan to stick around for two weeks longer. SaaSBOOMi is preparing a roadshow and a couple of brilliant events for you.   If you’re not planning to come for the SaaStr event, my suggestion is to put this event on your calendar anyway. We all have come to the US when a prospect said they may be interested in your product. Here, we’re promising a sure thing.  It’s not a once-and-done event. It’s not just a place where you learn and share stories. It is a place where you meet people, swap stories, and create bonds. It is also a place where you meet potential mentors. Mentors who will help you with everything from where to live, and how to get your driver’s license, to helping you raise capital, meeting the right Corp Dev executives in companies, and where to get the best food. And I know that you can’t get all of this in a few hours. Real life is different. What we, at SaaSBOOMi, are also doing is creating a platform, where you can reach out to your mentors and ask them for help when needed. 

The event

So what can you expect over the two weeks between Sept 15th to the 30th?

• A cocktail mixer of founders, investors, ecosystem enablers, and tech executives
• A roadshow of Bay Area startups founded in India where you learn from those who have done this before
• Deep dive round tables on every topic related to moving your operations to the US
• Launch of our first ever online mentorship platform
• Connects with Bay Area tech execs, Corp Dev leaders, investors, and more 
• Our first SaaSBOOMi annual event where we bring it all home

A few days ago, I was hosting a panel at the Montgomery summit and two of the Unicorn founders on that panel (Rohit of Darwinbox and Rajoshi of Hasura) reminisced that I had invited them over for drinks and dinner when they were first scoping out the US market. Correlation is not causation but there seems to be a relationship between coming home for dinner and the elusive billion-dollar valuation.  I want to extend this invitation to every one of you. It won’t always be at my place (though there may be an after-party), but our event will feel like home. A place where you can be yourself. Come home, sit down with us, and let’s build your destiny together. Please fill out this form if you would like to be part of the US trip from 15-30th September in the Bay area. Let’s build SaaSBOOMi US together. " } }

Build local, think global: SaaSBOOMi’s Valley Trip Lessons (2/2)

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This is a piece based on SaaSBoomi’s trip to the valley. The learnings here are extracted from seven roundtables, a few walks, countless orders of beer, wine, and coffee, and one-on-one conversations with the most ambitious founders in the world. For part one of this piece, click here.

When Sunil Thomas moved to the US to set up CleverTap in 2013, his goal was to build a global product. Sunil simply wanted real-time feedback from the US market, but selling in the US was not his top priority then. Even now, CleverTap feels like they’re just getting started.

Visualizing a global company at the conception stage is critical for every SaaS venture. This was a key message from entrepreneurs and investors in the recent SaasBoomi knowledge series held in Silicon Valley. The industry experts came together to help the SaaS community build more valuable companies in a tough economy.

Startups are facing new headwinds. From a pandemic-led uncertainty, entrepreneurs are bracing themselves for a Grey Rhino scenario of a highly probable, high-impact slowdown.

But simultaneously, our research has shown that India’s SaaS industry could potentially be valued at $1 trillion and employ 500,000 people by 2030. Despite potential threats, the current environment has a silver lining. It gives founders the opportunity to reorient their priorities and rebuild their business efficiencies.

With the current market landscape in mind, we aimed our SaaSBoomi series discussions at helping entrepreneurs create bold global products. Here, our experts delved deeper into the three Ps: product, process, and people.

The where to build conundrum

The key question that founders need to ask themselves is where should their company be located. SaaS experts on our panels concur that while India is an attractive market to start building, in reality, it is a difficult market to conquer.

Girish Mathrubootham, founder and CEO at Nasdaq-listed Freshworks, says that Indian corporates are looking for global brands. So if a SaaS company wins global customers, it will become easier for them to sell in India.

There are also key differences in the market dynamics between India and the US. India is more plan-as-you-go with sales. The US, however, is structured.

Localisation and finding customers who will derive maximum value from the product is essential, believes Mohit Garg, co-founder of Oloid. Even the area between San Francisco to San Jose is a massive geography on its own. So going deeper to find the most appropriate target audience is necessary.

Zeroing down the market opportunities to one geography is the first step. Our experts are of the view that SaaS companies should steer clear of only focusing on the big picture. Looking into what the market termed as non-critical problems is the key to success.

Hiring talent for the world

A company’s initial brand ambassadors are its employees, and SaaS companies are no different. The fundamental objective for SaaS companies should be to hire SaaS talent who is ready to solve problems for the world.

The top insight gathered from our SaaS experts is to strategize on recruitment. Being specific makes the process easier. There is no one-size-fits-all playbook for hiring because it will depend on the buying patterns of your customers.

For instance, people in the US buy by specific categories while in India, a single platform solution works better. Similarly, while India has a wide availability of SEO/SEM talent, our experts believe that there is a dearth of product marketing talent in the country.

While India would be cost-effective from a hiring perspective, the success ratio could also turn out to be lower. On the theme of building a team, our experts view the natural progression as market discovery, followed by demand generation, and eventually moving to full-fledged hiring.

But the expectations of hires have significantly changed compared to a decade ago. Flexibility, including remote work options, holds prominence for young recruits. Work-from-anywhere may sound good on paper, but it can crush the collaborative spirit of a team. So finding a middle ground that is acceptable to the company and employees becomes a task.

Freshworks’ Girish offers some insights on how they made it work. Similar to the rest of the world, his employees too wanted to work from home. Instead of issuing diktats, Freshworks decided to ease back into work by asking employees to come to the office thrice a week.

Scaling during uncertainty

Fear and unpredictability have taken over founders’ minds. Funding has hit a slow lane, and investors are concerned about a looming recession risk in the United States. But all is not lost.

Deep Nishar, MD, General Catalyst, calls it the best time to sustain one’s business performance. Think about value creation rather than valuation, is his success mantra.

The primary metric to measure a SaaS company’s success is its ARR. At present, there are only 15 pure-play SaaS companies in the world that do more than $2 billion in revenue. Deep says that this is the club that all founders should aspire to be a part of.

For SaaS founders, this downturn is also the time to introspect about their future. Arun Mathew, Partner, Accel, views this phase as a period of reckoning in terms of value. Arun believes that this slow-growth stage will push more discipline and effort. Companies that focus on the fundamentals and create product value will get rewarded.

This is the season to identify and chase opportunities. As Guru Chahal, Partner, Lightspeed puts it, “Everything is up for grabs”. No business segment, geography, or sector is out of bounds. If revenue growth is slowing, think about improving efficiency.

India is no longer just an R&D centre for SaaS companies. Right from product strategy and research to GTM, entire global teams have now started operating out of India. A few years ago, India’s SaaS professionals would spend a lot of time on the why of starting a business. Now, they are on the right track and asking how to build a successful SaaS business.

Reflecting on the future

Deep believes that while the last three years were about the fundraising founder, the next three years will be about the operational founder. SaaS businesses that can adapt to market sensitivities and get ahead of the curve will be the real winners.

India already has the necessary raw materials to build scalable SaaS models. Investors are noticing repeatable patterns in business models. There is a definite cost advantage in building locally.

While inflation and recession are uncontrollable market forces, building a sustainable SaaS business is what will truly create value. This is the moment for SaaS entrepreneurs to pursue their limitless ambitions. The time to build is now.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(15759) "

This is a piece based on SaaSBoomi’s trip to the valley. The learnings here are extracted from seven roundtables, a few walks, countless orders of beer, wine, and coffee, and one-on-one conversations with the most ambitious founders in the world. For part one of this piece, click here.

When Sunil Thomas moved to the US to set up CleverTap in 2013, his goal was to build a global product. Sunil simply wanted real-time feedback from the US market, but selling in the US was not his top priority then. Even now, CleverTap feels like they’re just getting started.

Visualizing a global company at the conception stage is critical for every SaaS venture. This was a key message from entrepreneurs and investors in the recent SaasBoomi knowledge series held in Silicon Valley. The industry experts came together to help the SaaS community build more valuable companies in a tough economy.

Startups are facing new headwinds. From a pandemic-led uncertainty, entrepreneurs are bracing themselves for a Grey Rhino scenario of a highly probable, high-impact slowdown.

But simultaneously, our research has shown that India’s SaaS industry could potentially be valued at $1 trillion and employ 500,000 people by 2030. Despite potential threats, the current environment has a silver lining. It gives founders the opportunity to reorient their priorities and rebuild their business efficiencies.

With the current market landscape in mind, we aimed our SaaSBoomi series discussions at helping entrepreneurs create bold global products. Here, our experts delved deeper into the three Ps: product, process, and people.

The where to build conundrum

The key question that founders need to ask themselves is where should their company be located. SaaS experts on our panels concur that while India is an attractive market to start building, in reality, it is a difficult market to conquer.

Girish Mathrubootham, founder and CEO at Nasdaq-listed Freshworks, says that Indian corporates are looking for global brands. So if a SaaS company wins global customers, it will become easier for them to sell in India.

There are also key differences in the market dynamics between India and the US. India is more plan-as-you-go with sales. The US, however, is structured.

Localisation and finding customers who will derive maximum value from the product is essential, believes Mohit Garg, co-founder of Oloid. Even the area between San Francisco to San Jose is a massive geography on its own. So going deeper to find the most appropriate target audience is necessary.

Zeroing down the market opportunities to one geography is the first step. Our experts are of the view that SaaS companies should steer clear of only focusing on the big picture. Looking into what the market termed as non-critical problems is the key to success.

Hiring talent for the world

A company’s initial brand ambassadors are its employees, and SaaS companies are no different. The fundamental objective for SaaS companies should be to hire SaaS talent who is ready to solve problems for the world.

The top insight gathered from our SaaS experts is to strategize on recruitment. Being specific makes the process easier. There is no one-size-fits-all playbook for hiring because it will depend on the buying patterns of your customers.

For instance, people in the US buy by specific categories while in India, a single platform solution works better. Similarly, while India has a wide availability of SEO/SEM talent, our experts believe that there is a dearth of product marketing talent in the country.

While India would be cost-effective from a hiring perspective, the success ratio could also turn out to be lower. On the theme of building a team, our experts view the natural progression as market discovery, followed by demand generation, and eventually moving to full-fledged hiring.

But the expectations of hires have significantly changed compared to a decade ago. Flexibility, including remote work options, holds prominence for young recruits. Work-from-anywhere may sound good on paper, but it can crush the collaborative spirit of a team. So finding a middle ground that is acceptable to the company and employees becomes a task.

Freshworks’ Girish offers some insights on how they made it work. Similar to the rest of the world, his employees too wanted to work from home. Instead of issuing diktats, Freshworks decided to ease back into work by asking employees to come to the office thrice a week.

Scaling during uncertainty

Fear and unpredictability have taken over founders’ minds. Funding has hit a slow lane, and investors are concerned about a looming recession risk in the United States. But all is not lost.

Deep Nishar, MD, General Catalyst, calls it the best time to sustain one’s business performance. Think about value creation rather than valuation, is his success mantra.

The primary metric to measure a SaaS company’s success is its ARR. At present, there are only 15 pure-play SaaS companies in the world that do more than $2 billion in revenue. Deep says that this is the club that all founders should aspire to be a part of.

For SaaS founders, this downturn is also the time to introspect about their future. Arun Mathew, Partner, Accel, views this phase as a period of reckoning in terms of value. Arun believes that this slow-growth stage will push more discipline and effort. Companies that focus on the fundamentals and create product value will get rewarded.

This is the season to identify and chase opportunities. As Guru Chahal, Partner, Lightspeed puts it, “Everything is up for grabs”. No business segment, geography, or sector is out of bounds. If revenue growth is slowing, think about improving efficiency.

India is no longer just an R&D centre for SaaS companies. Right from product strategy and research to GTM, entire global teams have now started operating out of India. A few years ago, India’s SaaS professionals would spend a lot of time on the why of starting a business. Now, they are on the right track and asking how to build a successful SaaS business.

Reflecting on the future

Deep believes that while the last three years were about the fundraising founder, the next three years will be about the operational founder. SaaS businesses that can adapt to market sensitivities and get ahead of the curve will be the real winners.

India already has the necessary raw materials to build scalable SaaS models. Investors are noticing repeatable patterns in business models. There is a definite cost advantage in building locally.

While inflation and recession are uncontrollable market forces, building a sustainable SaaS business is what will truly create value. This is the moment for SaaS entrepreneurs to pursue their limitless ambitions. The time to build is now.

" } }

Onward to building a strong US-India SaaS corridor: The rise of #IndiaSaaS

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When I was making plans to fly to the US, I was enthused but a little tentative. Do they even need SaaSBoomi there? There exists SaaStr, which is extremely popular and has a large cohort of founders from across the world. But as I’ve learnt over the years, effort is never in vain. Worst case scenario, we would meet a handful of founders, make a few friends, and eat some good food. But the trip surpassed our best-case scenarios. It has given us, the entire community, motivation that there should be a US chapter for SaaSBoomi.

When I first sent out the email, simply checking if we could find a way to get together, I expected a handful of people to reply. It was one of those quick things you do before bed. I wrote it, turned the phone to Do Not Disturb, and went to sleep. When I woke up, my inbox was full. Not just Indian founders in the US, but entrepreneurs visiting the country were also e-mailing, wanting to network.

Why do we need to do this now? Couldn’t it wait? Over the past few years, there has been a meteoric rise in companies adopting SaaS as a business model. These companies are increasingly cementing their position in the global landscape, inspiring more and more founders to build for the world, beyond just India. Market valuations may be cooling off, but we believe SaaS is a secular trend.

India has what it takes to touch $1 trillion in market cap and unlock close to half a million new jobs by 2030. And in this climate where things look difficult, we need to band together to help each other succeed. So, now is the right moment to step on the gas and accelerate learning from each other about going global, starting with tackling the biggest enterprise software market — the US.

This is purely anecdotal, but there are about 50-75 founders visiting the US every month. They travel to the Valley, East Coast, Austin, and many other centers. About 25 to 30 SaaS founders station themselves in the Bay Area every month.

This is a large community that is still untapped. It is a community that wants to come together.

Think of the India-origin SaaS community as a 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. There is an impressive picture that forms if you put it together. But it has been a scattered group so far. What it needed was a sense of harmony and a collegial environment where founders could open up and become close-knit. That feeling of home away from home. This trip gave me the confidence to bring all of these similar but isolated founders together.

The way we designed the trip was to make it as informal as possible. We all know entrepreneurship can be lonely work, more so in a foreign land. So the intention was to help build playbooks on how Indian founders could move to the US with as little friction as possible. We requested Girish Mathrubootham, Manav Garg, Dheeraj Pandey, Jaspreet Singh, Indus Khaitan, Mohit Garg and Sunil Thomas to help founders understand scaling in the US. The SaaSBOOMi US launch event hosted 150 SaaS founders and opened the door to connecting with many founders in the US.

Big communities are great, but there is tremendous meaning in creating niche communities too. I have realized that some people are more comfortable in smaller groups. We made sure to host intimate roundtables around getting started. In these discussions, no question was considered too frivolous. What should a founder do once they land in the US? What might catch them off guard? What type of insurance do they need? What kind of people will they be meeting?

But the trip was much more than just a few planned events. Let me walk you through what we did.

A SaaSBoomi Social

It all began with the SaaSBoomi Social. Around 20–25 founders got to meet and greet each other that evening, sharing laughs and a dinner, hosted by the good folks at Sequoia. A cracking start to the exciting lineup of activities. Our ambition was to talk about Growth, GTM, Hiring, and Scaling with early-stage and experienced founders. During our conversations, people switched between languages and dialects. For a few hours, this could have been a bar in Gurgaon or a coffee shop in Bengaluru.

The big launch

Indian SaaS is leaping from ‘build in India’ to ‘build for the world’. There is a need to understand both the big possibilities in its future and the headwinds in the current landscape. So we brought together more than 150 SaaS founders at the Rosewood Hotel for our big fixture The Rise of India SaaS. The occasion had the same vibrant energy as the first-ever SaaSBoomi event held in March 2015 in Chennai. It had the same energy that something was in the offing. We were sitting on something huge.

We opened the event with Manav and Girish diving into some context about how SaaSBoomi began and what the opportunities are for SaaS in general over the next decade. They explained the $1 trillion opportunity that exists specifically for Indian SaaS companies.

Speaking next, Vinod Khosla shared his wizardly insights on how Indian founders should steer through temporary challenges, keeping their eye on the eventual prize. That was followed by a freewheeling conversation between MR Rangaswami and Girish on his historic journey from Madras to Nasdaq (not Chennai, because after all “Madras is an emotion”!). Later, Priya Rajan from SVB moderated an engrossing panel discussion, getting perspectives from VC investors.

We brought the day to a close with a networking dinner in the beautiful setting of the Rosewood property.

A go-to-market starter kit for the US

This was a special event, not just because it was the first roundtable that was conducted in the Bay Area but also the first roundtable we held globally post the pandemic. We were not sure we would get many takers but the discussion ran for two hours and if we had had more time, it would have kept going.

Indus Khaitan of Quolum and Mohit Garg of Oloid facilitated it. Indus threw open the session by sharing a unique Bingo card with all participants, inviting them to say where they need help with the business.

We covered the 101 of moving to the US — like how to hire your first sales guy, where to stay, insights on medical insurance and how the US actually works. Kishore from Hyperverge has documented key insights. There will be a longer post on these roundtable discussions soon. Watch this space.

I must say one thing about the roundtables, and about every event really: they were not purely serious gatherings. The famous Indian hospitality was on full display. Between or after events, someone among the founders would always offer to take us out for a glass of wine or a beer. I got the distinct feeling that this wasn’t just a transactional relationship but it was a coming together of minds and hearts.

One of the reasons was probably because a lot of founders live away from their family and need people around them who are going through the same kind of experience. It helps them relate to each other, forge a connection that extends beyond business. It was somewhere on the horizon where friendship ends and family begins.

The Stanford Dish Loop Trail

The next day, around 15 founders set off on a hike, planned and led enthusiastically by Amit Pande and Priya Ramachandran. I had tagged along and was struck by how nature can inspire unaffected, wholehearted conversations. Though the morning was sweltering hot, not a single person complained.

They mingled, spoke with different people as they walked, and listened attentively. After the trek, the group settled down in a park with a picnic of snacks from the Stanford campus, homemade treats, and fruit. This is when people opened up even more. The founders were candid and eager to talk about their journey and their views on the market. We all went out to get a few drinks and eat some good food.

I probably met over a 100 people on my US trip. I’ve collected more cards, phone numbers, email addresses and Twitter handles than I have ever before. A lot has changed in the US, especially in the life of a SaaS founder. Most of these founders have scaled not just their businesses but also their thinking. As human beings they have matured. I took off wondering if there was a need for a SaaSBoomi-like community. I touched down in New Delhi knowing that this SaaS community had the potential to grow into one of the biggest in the world. All it needs is a little love and attention. I’ll be back. This story hasn’t been written yet.

Some observations so far

• The city, famously called SF, was deserted. You didn’t really get to see many founders or companies. It shows some early signs of recession, empty buildings, etc. And that is not just because people are working remotely or something. Even otherwise, the scene was generally disappointing.
• SF city also has a visible housing crisis, with many being homeless and living on the streets….the city was stinking :(
• It was promising to see Freshworks, Mindtickle, and Hubilo having their own signage on Route 101.
• Entrepreneurs are open to sharing their learnings, but you have to clearly articulate where you need their help and in what capacity.
• There are very few platforms for SaaS founders here. SaaStr does exist but it is an event-based platform. It doesn’t have the playbook roundtable format that is built around a community and the spirit of paying it forward. In the Bay Area, most Indian SaaS founders don’t have the kind of ties they enjoy in India, that sense of belonging to anchor them and to help them adjust is missing. So there is a potential for SaaSBoomi to make a dent here.
• If first-time founders are selling to the US Market, it will be easier for them to sell to SaaS founders from India who would be happy to explore their product. There is a good opportunity to build something here.
• When I made this trip, the idea was only to talk to people and see if SaaSBoomi could work here. Back home in India now, I am already drawing plans for my next trip and the things we could do.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] So happy to see the MindTickle hoarding as soon as you get on the highway. You can’t miss this. Great stuff Krishna and team. Really happy to see this.[/caption]

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When I was making plans to fly to the US, I was enthused but a little tentative. Do they even need SaaSBoomi there? There exists SaaStr, which is extremely popular and has a large cohort of founders from across the world. But as I’ve learnt over the years, effort is never in vain. Worst case scenario, we would meet a handful of founders, make a few friends, and eat some good food. But the trip surpassed our best-case scenarios. It has given us, the entire community, motivation that there should be a US chapter for SaaSBoomi.

When I first sent out the email, simply checking if we could find a way to get together, I expected a handful of people to reply. It was one of those quick things you do before bed. I wrote it, turned the phone to Do Not Disturb, and went to sleep. When I woke up, my inbox was full. Not just Indian founders in the US, but entrepreneurs visiting the country were also e-mailing, wanting to network.

Why do we need to do this now? Couldn’t it wait? Over the past few years, there has been a meteoric rise in companies adopting SaaS as a business model. These companies are increasingly cementing their position in the global landscape, inspiring more and more founders to build for the world, beyond just India. Market valuations may be cooling off, but we believe SaaS is a secular trend.

India has what it takes to touch $1 trillion in market cap and unlock close to half a million new jobs by 2030. And in this climate where things look difficult, we need to band together to help each other succeed. So, now is the right moment to step on the gas and accelerate learning from each other about going global, starting with tackling the biggest enterprise software market — the US.

This is purely anecdotal, but there are about 50-75 founders visiting the US every month. They travel to the Valley, East Coast, Austin, and many other centers. About 25 to 30 SaaS founders station themselves in the Bay Area every month.

This is a large community that is still untapped. It is a community that wants to come together.

Think of the India-origin SaaS community as a 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. There is an impressive picture that forms if you put it together. But it has been a scattered group so far. What it needed was a sense of harmony and a collegial environment where founders could open up and become close-knit. That feeling of home away from home. This trip gave me the confidence to bring all of these similar but isolated founders together.

The way we designed the trip was to make it as informal as possible. We all know entrepreneurship can be lonely work, more so in a foreign land. So the intention was to help build playbooks on how Indian founders could move to the US with as little friction as possible. We requested Girish Mathrubootham, Manav Garg, Dheeraj Pandey, Jaspreet Singh, Indus Khaitan, Mohit Garg and Sunil Thomas to help founders understand scaling in the US. The SaaSBOOMi US launch event hosted 150 SaaS founders and opened the door to connecting with many founders in the US.

Big communities are great, but there is tremendous meaning in creating niche communities too. I have realized that some people are more comfortable in smaller groups. We made sure to host intimate roundtables around getting started. In these discussions, no question was considered too frivolous. What should a founder do once they land in the US? What might catch them off guard? What type of insurance do they need? What kind of people will they be meeting?

But the trip was much more than just a few planned events. Let me walk you through what we did.

A SaaSBoomi Social

It all began with the SaaSBoomi Social. Around 20–25 founders got to meet and greet each other that evening, sharing laughs and a dinner, hosted by the good folks at Sequoia. A cracking start to the exciting lineup of activities. Our ambition was to talk about Growth, GTM, Hiring, and Scaling with early-stage and experienced founders. During our conversations, people switched between languages and dialects. For a few hours, this could have been a bar in Gurgaon or a coffee shop in Bengaluru.

The big launch

Indian SaaS is leaping from ‘build in India’ to ‘build for the world’. There is a need to understand both the big possibilities in its future and the headwinds in the current landscape. So we brought together more than 150 SaaS founders at the Rosewood Hotel for our big fixture The Rise of India SaaS. The occasion had the same vibrant energy as the first-ever SaaSBoomi event held in March 2015 in Chennai. It had the same energy that something was in the offing. We were sitting on something huge.

We opened the event with Manav and Girish diving into some context about how SaaSBoomi began and what the opportunities are for SaaS in general over the next decade. They explained the $1 trillion opportunity that exists specifically for Indian SaaS companies.

Speaking next, Vinod Khosla shared his wizardly insights on how Indian founders should steer through temporary challenges, keeping their eye on the eventual prize. That was followed by a freewheeling conversation between MR Rangaswami and Girish on his historic journey from Madras to Nasdaq (not Chennai, because after all “Madras is an emotion”!). Later, Priya Rajan from SVB moderated an engrossing panel discussion, getting perspectives from VC investors.

We brought the day to a close with a networking dinner in the beautiful setting of the Rosewood property.

A go-to-market starter kit for the US

This was a special event, not just because it was the first roundtable that was conducted in the Bay Area but also the first roundtable we held globally post the pandemic. We were not sure we would get many takers but the discussion ran for two hours and if we had had more time, it would have kept going.

Indus Khaitan of Quolum and Mohit Garg of Oloid facilitated it. Indus threw open the session by sharing a unique Bingo card with all participants, inviting them to say where they need help with the business.

We covered the 101 of moving to the US — like how to hire your first sales guy, where to stay, insights on medical insurance and how the US actually works. Kishore from Hyperverge has documented key insights. There will be a longer post on these roundtable discussions soon. Watch this space.

I must say one thing about the roundtables, and about every event really: they were not purely serious gatherings. The famous Indian hospitality was on full display. Between or after events, someone among the founders would always offer to take us out for a glass of wine or a beer. I got the distinct feeling that this wasn’t just a transactional relationship but it was a coming together of minds and hearts.

One of the reasons was probably because a lot of founders live away from their family and need people around them who are going through the same kind of experience. It helps them relate to each other, forge a connection that extends beyond business. It was somewhere on the horizon where friendship ends and family begins.

The Stanford Dish Loop Trail

The next day, around 15 founders set off on a hike, planned and led enthusiastically by Amit Pande and Priya Ramachandran. I had tagged along and was struck by how nature can inspire unaffected, wholehearted conversations. Though the morning was sweltering hot, not a single person complained.

They mingled, spoke with different people as they walked, and listened attentively. After the trek, the group settled down in a park with a picnic of snacks from the Stanford campus, homemade treats, and fruit. This is when people opened up even more. The founders were candid and eager to talk about their journey and their views on the market. We all went out to get a few drinks and eat some good food.

I probably met over a 100 people on my US trip. I’ve collected more cards, phone numbers, email addresses and Twitter handles than I have ever before. A lot has changed in the US, especially in the life of a SaaS founder. Most of these founders have scaled not just their businesses but also their thinking. As human beings they have matured. I took off wondering if there was a need for a SaaSBoomi-like community. I touched down in New Delhi knowing that this SaaS community had the potential to grow into one of the biggest in the world. All it needs is a little love and attention. I’ll be back. This story hasn’t been written yet.

Some observations so far

• The city, famously called SF, was deserted. You didn’t really get to see many founders or companies. It shows some early signs of recession, empty buildings, etc. And that is not just because people are working remotely or something. Even otherwise, the scene was generally disappointing.
• SF city also has a visible housing crisis, with many being homeless and living on the streets….the city was stinking :(
• It was promising to see Freshworks, Mindtickle, and Hubilo having their own signage on Route 101.
• Entrepreneurs are open to sharing their learnings, but you have to clearly articulate where you need their help and in what capacity.
• There are very few platforms for SaaS founders here. SaaStr does exist but it is an event-based platform. It doesn’t have the playbook roundtable format that is built around a community and the spirit of paying it forward. In the Bay Area, most Indian SaaS founders don’t have the kind of ties they enjoy in India, that sense of belonging to anchor them and to help them adjust is missing. So there is a potential for SaaSBoomi to make a dent here.
• If first-time founders are selling to the US Market, it will be easier for them to sell to SaaS founders from India who would be happy to explore their product. There is a good opportunity to build something here.
• When I made this trip, the idea was only to talk to people and see if SaaSBoomi could work here. Back home in India now, I am already drawing plans for my next trip and the things we could do.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] So happy to see the MindTickle hoarding as soon as you get on the highway. You can’t miss this. Great stuff Krishna and team. Really happy to see this.[/caption]

" } }

SaaS Sporting League Makes A Winning Start

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(7258) "The Greeks knew it. Sports touch our deepest instinct of competitiveness. At the same time, we feel a kinship with our partners and rivals alike. It is a reminder for everyone to strive to be the best versions of themselves. These are also the fundamental building blocks of success in startups.  This was evident in the tremendous response and enthusiasm that the SaaSBoomi Badminton League 2022 generated.  The setting was as good as it could get - the sprawling Padukone - Dravid Centre For Sports Excellence (CSE) in Bengaluru. Everyone knows by now that a product of this academy, Lakshya Sen, was a leading player in the Indian team that became world champions this year by winning the Thomas Cup. Indians have an affinity for the sport because of their natural wristiness and Prakash Padukone and Pullela Gopichand have created a badminton wave across the country. World class women shuttlers like Saina Nehwal, and PV Sindhu are an inspiration. So this was the perfect sport to pick for our potential world champions in SaaS. Founders and teammates came from all over - Surat, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bhopal. There was even a founder from the US: serial entrepreneur Satish Garimella of Olivo Inc.  He was in Hyderabad to hire some teammates when he heard of the SaaSBoomi badminton tournament, and decided to fly in. “I hadn’t touched a racket in nine years. But I love sports. I believe the fighting spirit that sports demand from us is the same fighting spirit required in business,” he said, after a tough post-lunch match which he lost to a sprightly opponent. “I hit some good shots in the beginning. Then my opponent realized I couldn’t move!”  It isn’t just the lure of sports that got him to Bangalore. “In a community like this, you get to learn from others’ mistakes. And that alone is so powerful. There’s so much knowledge sharing that happens,” he said.  “I love being part of this community.”  That was a sentiment echoed by all the founders and SaaS builders who pulled up their socks and landed early in the morning to spend the next 12 hours playing, talking, and having fun. Two months ago, when Avinash Raghava, founding volunteer of SaaSBoomi, called out on LinkedIn for volunteers to organize the event, he was happy to see so many founders put up their hands. The idea of the event itself was seeded by a founder - Anirudh Gopinath of location marketing platform Zceppa.  “I volunteered because I had attended a SaaSBoomi conference in Chennai a few months back and found it so helpful. Meeting and talking to my peers (other SaaS founders, who were going through similar stages of the startup journey) eased my stress,” said Raghu Ramanathan, co-founder and CEO of QwikBus. “I want to do my bit for the community.”  Aishwarya Thilak of Freshworks, Ranga Jagannath of Agora, Anand Kumar Sengottaiyan of Dataflo, Ralph Vaz of Pathfix, and Akshaya Chandramouli of Paperflite were the other volunteers who put their heads together to organize the event. With the operations muscle of Pragna Chandra (PC) of SaaSBoomi of course! But little did they imagine the final turnout at the event when they began their discussions about it. “I thought it would be a win if we got 100 participants,” Aishwarya recalled. But 177 registered. Some had clearly been playing regularly. Some were rusty. Quite a few got a rude awakening to their level of fitness. But everyone across the range participated with all their heart. Just how seriously people took it was evident from how some startups even held internal matches to choose their participants for the big event.  Each SaaS company was allowed to have not more than six players. Some like Kalyan Varma of alumni engagement software Almabase signed up not just to play, but to help his teammates meet other SaaS folks. Kalyan is part of SaaSBoomi GrowthX, a pro bono initiative where successful founders coach younger startups for 16 weeks. He was mentored by Ankit Oberoi of AdPushup in the first cohort, and after Almabase became a category leader in its space, Kalyan has been mentoring other founders and sharing his learnings at SaaSBoomi conferences.  Most participants will go back to their startup hustle buzzing with fresh energy. Science has shown how movement rewires the brain. Sports have been proven to be effective in not only rejuvenating us but in subtly altering the ways we think. It is not just the players who get this but even spectators can feel new vibes flowing through their veins.  The big turnout also meant a gathering of startup founders in a more convivial setting than in a typical conference. New friendships were made. And people saw a new side of others, and of themselves, that they wouldn’t at the usual meetup or roundtable. This has serious intangible value for collaborations in the future.  The organizing team as well as the players have all vowed to return fitter, stronger, and mightier for the next edition of the badminton league. After all, SaaS has more in common with sports than just the first and last letters. Check out the winners here -  " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(7258) "The Greeks knew it. Sports touch our deepest instinct of competitiveness. At the same time, we feel a kinship with our partners and rivals alike. It is a reminder for everyone to strive to be the best versions of themselves. These are also the fundamental building blocks of success in startups.  This was evident in the tremendous response and enthusiasm that the SaaSBoomi Badminton League 2022 generated.  The setting was as good as it could get - the sprawling Padukone - Dravid Centre For Sports Excellence (CSE) in Bengaluru. Everyone knows by now that a product of this academy, Lakshya Sen, was a leading player in the Indian team that became world champions this year by winning the Thomas Cup. Indians have an affinity for the sport because of their natural wristiness and Prakash Padukone and Pullela Gopichand have created a badminton wave across the country. World class women shuttlers like Saina Nehwal, and PV Sindhu are an inspiration. So this was the perfect sport to pick for our potential world champions in SaaS. Founders and teammates came from all over - Surat, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bhopal. There was even a founder from the US: serial entrepreneur Satish Garimella of Olivo Inc.  He was in Hyderabad to hire some teammates when he heard of the SaaSBoomi badminton tournament, and decided to fly in. “I hadn’t touched a racket in nine years. But I love sports. I believe the fighting spirit that sports demand from us is the same fighting spirit required in business,” he said, after a tough post-lunch match which he lost to a sprightly opponent. “I hit some good shots in the beginning. Then my opponent realized I couldn’t move!”  It isn’t just the lure of sports that got him to Bangalore. “In a community like this, you get to learn from others’ mistakes. And that alone is so powerful. There’s so much knowledge sharing that happens,” he said.  “I love being part of this community.”  That was a sentiment echoed by all the founders and SaaS builders who pulled up their socks and landed early in the morning to spend the next 12 hours playing, talking, and having fun. Two months ago, when Avinash Raghava, founding volunteer of SaaSBoomi, called out on LinkedIn for volunteers to organize the event, he was happy to see so many founders put up their hands. The idea of the event itself was seeded by a founder - Anirudh Gopinath of location marketing platform Zceppa.  “I volunteered because I had attended a SaaSBoomi conference in Chennai a few months back and found it so helpful. Meeting and talking to my peers (other SaaS founders, who were going through similar stages of the startup journey) eased my stress,” said Raghu Ramanathan, co-founder and CEO of QwikBus. “I want to do my bit for the community.”  Aishwarya Thilak of Freshworks, Ranga Jagannath of Agora, Anand Kumar Sengottaiyan of Dataflo, Ralph Vaz of Pathfix, and Akshaya Chandramouli of Paperflite were the other volunteers who put their heads together to organize the event. With the operations muscle of Pragna Chandra (PC) of SaaSBoomi of course! But little did they imagine the final turnout at the event when they began their discussions about it. “I thought it would be a win if we got 100 participants,” Aishwarya recalled. But 177 registered. Some had clearly been playing regularly. Some were rusty. Quite a few got a rude awakening to their level of fitness. But everyone across the range participated with all their heart. Just how seriously people took it was evident from how some startups even held internal matches to choose their participants for the big event.  Each SaaS company was allowed to have not more than six players. Some like Kalyan Varma of alumni engagement software Almabase signed up not just to play, but to help his teammates meet other SaaS folks. Kalyan is part of SaaSBoomi GrowthX, a pro bono initiative where successful founders coach younger startups for 16 weeks. He was mentored by Ankit Oberoi of AdPushup in the first cohort, and after Almabase became a category leader in its space, Kalyan has been mentoring other founders and sharing his learnings at SaaSBoomi conferences.  Most participants will go back to their startup hustle buzzing with fresh energy. Science has shown how movement rewires the brain. Sports have been proven to be effective in not only rejuvenating us but in subtly altering the ways we think. It is not just the players who get this but even spectators can feel new vibes flowing through their veins.  The big turnout also meant a gathering of startup founders in a more convivial setting than in a typical conference. New friendships were made. And people saw a new side of others, and of themselves, that they wouldn’t at the usual meetup or roundtable. This has serious intangible value for collaborations in the future.  The organizing team as well as the players have all vowed to return fitter, stronger, and mightier for the next edition of the badminton league. After all, SaaS has more in common with sports than just the first and last letters. Check out the winners here -  " } }

SaaSBoomi Growth 2022 Retrospect | Nailing your ICP to Supercharge Growth 🚀

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(7083) "It was another warm Sunday afternoon in Chennai, when Rushabh Sheth (Co-founder and CEO, Docsumo) and I were all set to go on stage for our presentation about finding ICP during the biggest SaaS conference in India - SaaSBoomi Growth 2022. Life seemed to be coming full circle for me from attending tons of startup events in my early days as a founder to now presenting in front of so many founders. I was definitely amped about this opportunity.  We had a topic that we knew would resonate well with our audience, and weeks of hard work and intense Zoom calls went into our prep work over the last few weeks. Rushabh and I have prior experience presenting on stage but this time felt different. Both of us haven’t been on stage in front of a live audience for the last two years (thanks to a virus that shall not be named). We were keen on making sure we do justice to the opportunity and make the session valuable for hundreds of founders and growth leaders. The stakes were high. Fast-forward to 45 minutes later, and the session went really well. We had tons of great conversations one-on-one as a follow-up to the session and the audience loved it. The post-conference NPS survey also reflected the same sentiment. But this post is not about that. Instead, this is going to be a sneak peek into what went into putting together a session that created meaningful value for the audience. A little behind the scenes, if you will.

The Inspiration

Let’s rewind the clock a few quarters back. I had the privilege of partnering with Ankit Oberoi (CEO of Adpushup, now Zelto) to mentor Rushabh as he led Docsumo during their early days. This was part of SaaSBoomi's SGx program (now called SGx). As with a lot of early-stage startups in the country, Docsumo had an interesting product on its hands, but had trouble finding its target market.  While Docsumo was trying to go after a broad market, we eventually realised that the road to success wasn’t to try and sell to as many people as possible. Instead, Docsumo had to narrow down its ideal customer profile (or ICP) in order to crack that winning formula and create a sustainable (and profitable!) business model. In order to do this effectively, it’s important to first narrow down a pain point that your product is trying to solve. That is essentially what we did. Through a series of exercises, Rushabh, Ankit, and I spent many an hour coming up with a game plan to find the right audience for Docsumo. This involved understanding whom the product was for, and what particular problem(s) it could solve for them. Essentially, the next step was to take a pinpointed approach to find those select few segments that could benefit from the product, and drive up ACV (Avg Contract Value). Credit to Rushabh and Bikram for going so deep and doing this exercise so diligently. It was pivotal in changing the course of Docsumo’s future.  SaaSBoomi noticed this instrumental change, and that’s how I was invited to be the Session Manager to talk about the process of finding the right ICP. I invited Rushabh to present his story as-is while I would present the overall framework. We believed this would be extremely helpful to any founder whose SaaS company is under $1M ARR (sometimes even beyond that).

Drive Action, not Inspiration

In the past, I’ve seen that SaaSBoomi sessions are very real and actionable. Incredible founders open up their own playbooks as opposed to just sharing generic advice. I wanted our session to remain true to that spirit. Again, credit to Rushabh for being comfortable with this.  Both of us had spoken with many early-stage founders in the past describing their “cool idea” and selling to everyone in the world. So we started with a comic picture and defined our own ICP for the session so that people know whether they should continue there or walk out. The idea was to reiterate the theme of picking a clear ICP.  Once we got into the Docsumo story we also paused after every few slides and recapped the story until that point to keep people hooked. We ended with a recap of the entire process and the benefits of picking a clear ICP.  All of these were deliberate choices to ensure that the audience walked away with actionable takeaways and not just inspiration. 

The Experience

The presentation went well, but after the presentation ended, a lot of founders from the audience approached us with specific questions related to their ICP-related problems, and this was gratifying. Our main objective with the presentation was to create an impact for a few founders who were in the same shoes we were in, a few years back. Based on the reception and the overall audience feedback we received, I’m hoping we did justice to our goal. I’d consider all our efforts (both before, and during the conference) to be a huge success if we were able to make an impact on at least a handful of founders present that day.  I’m also happy to pay forward the knowledge and guidance I’ve received from other experienced SaaS founders. SaaSBoomi’s community is built on that thesis and I’m thrilled to see it come to life in such an amazing way.  A special shoutout to all those involved in putting together such a fantastic conference. I definitely can’t wait to do this again, should the opportunity present itself! " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(7083) "It was another warm Sunday afternoon in Chennai, when Rushabh Sheth (Co-founder and CEO, Docsumo) and I were all set to go on stage for our presentation about finding ICP during the biggest SaaS conference in India - SaaSBoomi Growth 2022. Life seemed to be coming full circle for me from attending tons of startup events in my early days as a founder to now presenting in front of so many founders. I was definitely amped about this opportunity.  We had a topic that we knew would resonate well with our audience, and weeks of hard work and intense Zoom calls went into our prep work over the last few weeks. Rushabh and I have prior experience presenting on stage but this time felt different. Both of us haven’t been on stage in front of a live audience for the last two years (thanks to a virus that shall not be named). We were keen on making sure we do justice to the opportunity and make the session valuable for hundreds of founders and growth leaders. The stakes were high. Fast-forward to 45 minutes later, and the session went really well. We had tons of great conversations one-on-one as a follow-up to the session and the audience loved it. The post-conference NPS survey also reflected the same sentiment. But this post is not about that. Instead, this is going to be a sneak peek into what went into putting together a session that created meaningful value for the audience. A little behind the scenes, if you will.

The Inspiration

Let’s rewind the clock a few quarters back. I had the privilege of partnering with Ankit Oberoi (CEO of Adpushup, now Zelto) to mentor Rushabh as he led Docsumo during their early days. This was part of SaaSBoomi's SGx program (now called SGx). As with a lot of early-stage startups in the country, Docsumo had an interesting product on its hands, but had trouble finding its target market.  While Docsumo was trying to go after a broad market, we eventually realised that the road to success wasn’t to try and sell to as many people as possible. Instead, Docsumo had to narrow down its ideal customer profile (or ICP) in order to crack that winning formula and create a sustainable (and profitable!) business model. In order to do this effectively, it’s important to first narrow down a pain point that your product is trying to solve. That is essentially what we did. Through a series of exercises, Rushabh, Ankit, and I spent many an hour coming up with a game plan to find the right audience for Docsumo. This involved understanding whom the product was for, and what particular problem(s) it could solve for them. Essentially, the next step was to take a pinpointed approach to find those select few segments that could benefit from the product, and drive up ACV (Avg Contract Value). Credit to Rushabh and Bikram for going so deep and doing this exercise so diligently. It was pivotal in changing the course of Docsumo’s future.  SaaSBoomi noticed this instrumental change, and that’s how I was invited to be the Session Manager to talk about the process of finding the right ICP. I invited Rushabh to present his story as-is while I would present the overall framework. We believed this would be extremely helpful to any founder whose SaaS company is under $1M ARR (sometimes even beyond that).

Drive Action, not Inspiration

In the past, I’ve seen that SaaSBoomi sessions are very real and actionable. Incredible founders open up their own playbooks as opposed to just sharing generic advice. I wanted our session to remain true to that spirit. Again, credit to Rushabh for being comfortable with this.  Both of us had spoken with many early-stage founders in the past describing their “cool idea” and selling to everyone in the world. So we started with a comic picture and defined our own ICP for the session so that people know whether they should continue there or walk out. The idea was to reiterate the theme of picking a clear ICP.  Once we got into the Docsumo story we also paused after every few slides and recapped the story until that point to keep people hooked. We ended with a recap of the entire process and the benefits of picking a clear ICP.  All of these were deliberate choices to ensure that the audience walked away with actionable takeaways and not just inspiration. 

The Experience

The presentation went well, but after the presentation ended, a lot of founders from the audience approached us with specific questions related to their ICP-related problems, and this was gratifying. Our main objective with the presentation was to create an impact for a few founders who were in the same shoes we were in, a few years back. Based on the reception and the overall audience feedback we received, I’m hoping we did justice to our goal. I’d consider all our efforts (both before, and during the conference) to be a huge success if we were able to make an impact on at least a handful of founders present that day.  I’m also happy to pay forward the knowledge and guidance I’ve received from other experienced SaaS founders. SaaSBoomi’s community is built on that thesis and I’m thrilled to see it come to life in such an amazing way.  A special shoutout to all those involved in putting together such a fantastic conference. I definitely can’t wait to do this again, should the opportunity present itself! " } }

Aiming for Coimbatore to be one of the SaaS hubs in the country

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(17993) "My career as an IT consultant began in London in 2000 right at the height of the dot.com bubble, when I was 22 years old and fresh out of university.  For most of us, our first job determines our career trajectory, luckily for me, I ended up in the right place at the right time. For 10 years, I worked on some exciting projects mainly around the technology called Microsoft BizTalk Server. Since 2007 Microsoft started to shift its focus towards Azure and started paying less attention to on-premise server products like BizTalk Server. This is where I identified the opportunity and turned it into our first product BizTalk360 focusing on monitoring, and managing the BizTalk Server. I began working solo in 2010 and scaled up to a five-member team in London in 2012-13. By that time, we had approximately 150 enterprise customers. The product-market fit was obvious at that point and we needed to expand the team. For obvious reasons, being a bootstrapped company scaling in London was ruled out and starting in India became a straightforward choice. The next big question was where in India?  I consulted various fellow entrepreneurs at the time and the general advice was to start in Bangalore or Chennai.  Before leaving India I had never lived anywhere outside my home town, Coimbatore, apart from a short three-month stint in Bangalore. I had never travelled anywhere in India since those days (22 years ago) . It was not that common for people to travel. Flying was a luxury and only accessible to the wealthy.     I received a lot of negative feedback regarding attracting talent in Coimbatore. There were hardly any established software companies apart from a few small consulting firms.  I felt that there was no point in me starting an office in Bangalore or Chennai. There were thousands of companies out there and I would have gotten lost easily. Even though the access to the talent pool was tempting,  it outweighed the risk of starting something in an unknown place. More than that it also raised a question in my mind--why don’t we try and execute it from our home town, as a pay-it-forward gesture. At that stage, my thought process was that I just needed around 20 engineers and was sure I could find them in the city. Not many people know or realize that Coimbatore boasts over 100 educational institutions, including those that feature in the top 10 colleges in the country. Every year over 100,000 graduates come out of the universities. So, talent is aplenty.  Our hunch worked in our favour. We were able to attract experienced people who had left the city but wanted to come back to their native to look after their aging parents or be closer to their friends and family. We were also able to attract young talent who came out of university. We created special programs like Kovai.co Connect to mentor and mold young talent transitioning them from the academic world to the corporate world. We have homegrown talent who joined as freshers and are today leading some core product initiatives over the 8+ years journey. One thing I wanted to highlight is the loyalty and empathy of people in Coimbatore. The attrition rate is extremely low, today we still have people who joined us at the very beginning. Off the top of my head, I can recall at least 6 out of the first 10 hires who are still with us. Today we create and sell world-class products out of Coimbatore. We crossed $10 million in annual revenue with a workforce of 240+, 95% of them residing in Coimbatore.  Our next mission is to create a unicorn company out of Coimbatore and to make the city one of the nation's leading SaaS hubs. Similar to the IT consulting boom from 2000, we believe the next big thing will be software products, especially SaaS. We just need to jump on the bandwagon.  With the experience gained over the past decade, we wanted to create an impact in the city. We are doing everything we can to make it happen. Our recent office construction, setting up a state of the art 40,000 sq ft office space, spending $1.3 million which resembles the ones you see in the tech hubs like Bay Area, Seattle, and Bangalore, is in that direction. Breaking the traditional barrier, we felt someone needs to do it first and others will follow quickly. Our first goal is to provide the best of opportunities to great talent in the city. Since Coimbatore was a Tier II city, there was a severe brain drain, with the better talent moving to Chennai, Bangalore, or abroad for work. Honestly, I moved to London 22 years back simply because there were no job opportunities for me here, and I remember not wanting to leave.  Our second goal is for SaaS founders in the city and outside to realize Coimbatore as a perfect place to set up shop. I want Kovai.co to be one of the front runners in showing SaaS companies that if we can do it, so can others. Now there are some notable SaaS companies like RFPIO, that are creating waves on the international scene.  Our third goal is to encourage and mentor more early-stage SaaS companies and startups on scaling up, getting funded, and growing from Coimbatore. This was one of the reasons I was so excited to champion the SaaSBoomi Social event in the city. Bringing SaaSBoomi to Coimbatore, will create a platform for SaaS founders to network, share learnings, and motivate each other.  I have witnessed firsthand the benefit of a closed group community like SaaSBoomi where founders open up their internal playbooks to help each other. Our internal company motto is #TogetherWeGrow and now we want to expand it to the wider SaaS community in Coimbatore.  During our social meet, I was blown away by some of the interesting products SaaS companies in the city had built. Some of them including PreSkale, which helps B2B companies with presales, and Revenue Hero, which helps customer executives identify good quality leads, have got funded. I hope SaaSBoomi’s Coimbatore chapter grows like Chennai’s year on year.  The attendees included:

• Ganesh Shankar Co-Founder & CEO, RFPIO. RFPIO is software that automates and streamlines the process of responding to a request for a proposal. 
• Babu Shanmugam, founder of Aalam. Aalam provides software tools for people to run their businesses. 
• Vishwanth, founder of Actyv.ai. Actyv.ai is a SaaS platform that helps large organisations transform their supply chains and empower their suppliers, distributors, and retailers. 
• Gautam and M Pradeep, founders of Adapt.io. Adapt.io provides fresh, accurate buyer intelligence for sales and marketing teams to accelerate every stage of the funnel. 
• Aravindan Selvaraj, founder of Aosta India Private Limited. Aosta India Private Limited provides expert IT solutions and services to hospitals and healthcare institutions.
• Gopalakrishnan S, founder of Atna Technologies: Atna Tech provides enterprise solutions specialising in Microsoft Dynamics365, Finance and Operations, Business Central and Power Platforms.
• Ramesh Subramaniam, Founder of Cartrabbit. Cartrabbit provides solutions and flexibility for growing online businesses. 
• Jabeer Khan, Founder of DoodleMango. DoodleMango is a creative studio that creates art and animation videos to create brand awareness.
• Logesh Velusamy, Founder of Effitrac. Effitrac provides innovative IT solutions for small and medium enterprises to help them overcome traditional growth barriers
• Vivek Suriyamoorthy, founder of Everstage. Everstage helps create, model, and improve the visibility of incentives to ensure sales reps get the most out of them
• Monish Ram A, founder of Hirezo.co. Hirezo.co is a full-stack recruitment company sourcing candidates for top companies from all sectors in Coimbatore.
• Senthilkumar, co-founder of Iamneo. Iamneo is an AI-powered EdTech startup that provides AI-driven tools for assessment, recruitment, learning, and development.
• Rammohan P M and Dhruv Suyamprakasam, co-founders of iCliniq: Icliniq is a platform where patients can get 24/7 online consultations with the best doctors without waiting in a queue and economically.
• Vishnu Vardhaan, founder of Infinite Cercle Private Inc: It’s a tech-driven waste management firm. They aim to enable brands to achieve zero waste through circularity.
• Ponvannan P, founder of Konnectify Limited. Konnectify is an integration platform to connect your software stack and automate workflows between them.
• Gobi Selvaraj, founder of Listen2it. Listen2it is a platform that allows people to generate lifelike audio for content using deep learning technology.
• Abishek Baskaran and Saravanakumar CP, co-founders of LogBase. LogBase provides Shopify apps to grow e-commerce businesses. 
• Hemanand Ramasamy, founder of MachDatum. MachDatum provides a low code IoT platform to monitor operations and automate workflows for improved asset and process efficiency.
• Yuvaraj L, founder of Nutanix. Nutanix provides business solutions allowing centralised management, one-click operations, and AI-driven automation.
• Vijayanand Kailash, founder of PerPilot. PerPilot is an AI-powered hiring automation platform.
• Vijay Balasubramanian, founder of PilotBeri. PilotBeri provides business apps to improve efficiency and keep the workforce focused. 
• Ajay Jay, founder of PreSkale Inc. PreSkale Inc is an intelligence platform enabling B2B presales organisations.
• Arun CR, founder of Realiti.io. Realiti.io is a cloud real estate marketing ecosystem.
• Surender Nadarajan, founder of Salesgear. Salesgear is a multi-channel sales engagement platform that helps sales and marketing professionals effectively engage their prospective customers.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(17993) "My career as an IT consultant began in London in 2000 right at the height of the dot.com bubble, when I was 22 years old and fresh out of university.  For most of us, our first job determines our career trajectory, luckily for me, I ended up in the right place at the right time. For 10 years, I worked on some exciting projects mainly around the technology called Microsoft BizTalk Server. Since 2007 Microsoft started to shift its focus towards Azure and started paying less attention to on-premise server products like BizTalk Server. This is where I identified the opportunity and turned it into our first product BizTalk360 focusing on monitoring, and managing the BizTalk Server. I began working solo in 2010 and scaled up to a five-member team in London in 2012-13. By that time, we had approximately 150 enterprise customers. The product-market fit was obvious at that point and we needed to expand the team. For obvious reasons, being a bootstrapped company scaling in London was ruled out and starting in India became a straightforward choice. The next big question was where in India?  I consulted various fellow entrepreneurs at the time and the general advice was to start in Bangalore or Chennai.  Before leaving India I had never lived anywhere outside my home town, Coimbatore, apart from a short three-month stint in Bangalore. I had never travelled anywhere in India since those days (22 years ago) . It was not that common for people to travel. Flying was a luxury and only accessible to the wealthy.     I received a lot of negative feedback regarding attracting talent in Coimbatore. There were hardly any established software companies apart from a few small consulting firms.  I felt that there was no point in me starting an office in Bangalore or Chennai. There were thousands of companies out there and I would have gotten lost easily. Even though the access to the talent pool was tempting,  it outweighed the risk of starting something in an unknown place. More than that it also raised a question in my mind--why don’t we try and execute it from our home town, as a pay-it-forward gesture. At that stage, my thought process was that I just needed around 20 engineers and was sure I could find them in the city. Not many people know or realize that Coimbatore boasts over 100 educational institutions, including those that feature in the top 10 colleges in the country. Every year over 100,000 graduates come out of the universities. So, talent is aplenty.  Our hunch worked in our favour. We were able to attract experienced people who had left the city but wanted to come back to their native to look after their aging parents or be closer to their friends and family. We were also able to attract young talent who came out of university. We created special programs like Kovai.co Connect to mentor and mold young talent transitioning them from the academic world to the corporate world. We have homegrown talent who joined as freshers and are today leading some core product initiatives over the 8+ years journey. One thing I wanted to highlight is the loyalty and empathy of people in Coimbatore. The attrition rate is extremely low, today we still have people who joined us at the very beginning. Off the top of my head, I can recall at least 6 out of the first 10 hires who are still with us. Today we create and sell world-class products out of Coimbatore. We crossed $10 million in annual revenue with a workforce of 240+, 95% of them residing in Coimbatore.  Our next mission is to create a unicorn company out of Coimbatore and to make the city one of the nation's leading SaaS hubs. Similar to the IT consulting boom from 2000, we believe the next big thing will be software products, especially SaaS. We just need to jump on the bandwagon.  With the experience gained over the past decade, we wanted to create an impact in the city. We are doing everything we can to make it happen. Our recent office construction, setting up a state of the art 40,000 sq ft office space, spending $1.3 million which resembles the ones you see in the tech hubs like Bay Area, Seattle, and Bangalore, is in that direction. Breaking the traditional barrier, we felt someone needs to do it first and others will follow quickly. Our first goal is to provide the best of opportunities to great talent in the city. Since Coimbatore was a Tier II city, there was a severe brain drain, with the better talent moving to Chennai, Bangalore, or abroad for work. Honestly, I moved to London 22 years back simply because there were no job opportunities for me here, and I remember not wanting to leave.  Our second goal is for SaaS founders in the city and outside to realize Coimbatore as a perfect place to set up shop. I want Kovai.co to be one of the front runners in showing SaaS companies that if we can do it, so can others. Now there are some notable SaaS companies like RFPIO, that are creating waves on the international scene.  Our third goal is to encourage and mentor more early-stage SaaS companies and startups on scaling up, getting funded, and growing from Coimbatore. This was one of the reasons I was so excited to champion the SaaSBoomi Social event in the city. Bringing SaaSBoomi to Coimbatore, will create a platform for SaaS founders to network, share learnings, and motivate each other.  I have witnessed firsthand the benefit of a closed group community like SaaSBoomi where founders open up their internal playbooks to help each other. Our internal company motto is #TogetherWeGrow and now we want to expand it to the wider SaaS community in Coimbatore.  During our social meet, I was blown away by some of the interesting products SaaS companies in the city had built. Some of them including PreSkale, which helps B2B companies with presales, and Revenue Hero, which helps customer executives identify good quality leads, have got funded. I hope SaaSBoomi’s Coimbatore chapter grows like Chennai’s year on year.  The attendees included:

• Ganesh Shankar Co-Founder & CEO, RFPIO. RFPIO is software that automates and streamlines the process of responding to a request for a proposal. 
• Babu Shanmugam, founder of Aalam. Aalam provides software tools for people to run their businesses. 
• Vishwanth, founder of Actyv.ai. Actyv.ai is a SaaS platform that helps large organisations transform their supply chains and empower their suppliers, distributors, and retailers. 
• Gautam and M Pradeep, founders of Adapt.io. Adapt.io provides fresh, accurate buyer intelligence for sales and marketing teams to accelerate every stage of the funnel. 
• Aravindan Selvaraj, founder of Aosta India Private Limited. Aosta India Private Limited provides expert IT solutions and services to hospitals and healthcare institutions.
• Gopalakrishnan S, founder of Atna Technologies: Atna Tech provides enterprise solutions specialising in Microsoft Dynamics365, Finance and Operations, Business Central and Power Platforms.
• Ramesh Subramaniam, Founder of Cartrabbit. Cartrabbit provides solutions and flexibility for growing online businesses. 
• Jabeer Khan, Founder of DoodleMango. DoodleMango is a creative studio that creates art and animation videos to create brand awareness.
• Logesh Velusamy, Founder of Effitrac. Effitrac provides innovative IT solutions for small and medium enterprises to help them overcome traditional growth barriers
• Vivek Suriyamoorthy, founder of Everstage. Everstage helps create, model, and improve the visibility of incentives to ensure sales reps get the most out of them
• Monish Ram A, founder of Hirezo.co. Hirezo.co is a full-stack recruitment company sourcing candidates for top companies from all sectors in Coimbatore.
• Senthilkumar, co-founder of Iamneo. Iamneo is an AI-powered EdTech startup that provides AI-driven tools for assessment, recruitment, learning, and development.
• Rammohan P M and Dhruv Suyamprakasam, co-founders of iCliniq: Icliniq is a platform where patients can get 24/7 online consultations with the best doctors without waiting in a queue and economically.
• Vishnu Vardhaan, founder of Infinite Cercle Private Inc: It’s a tech-driven waste management firm. They aim to enable brands to achieve zero waste through circularity.
• Ponvannan P, founder of Konnectify Limited. Konnectify is an integration platform to connect your software stack and automate workflows between them.
• Gobi Selvaraj, founder of Listen2it. Listen2it is a platform that allows people to generate lifelike audio for content using deep learning technology.
• Abishek Baskaran and Saravanakumar CP, co-founders of LogBase. LogBase provides Shopify apps to grow e-commerce businesses. 
• Hemanand Ramasamy, founder of MachDatum. MachDatum provides a low code IoT platform to monitor operations and automate workflows for improved asset and process efficiency.
• Yuvaraj L, founder of Nutanix. Nutanix provides business solutions allowing centralised management, one-click operations, and AI-driven automation.
• Vijayanand Kailash, founder of PerPilot. PerPilot is an AI-powered hiring automation platform.
• Vijay Balasubramanian, founder of PilotBeri. PilotBeri provides business apps to improve efficiency and keep the workforce focused. 
• Ajay Jay, founder of PreSkale Inc. PreSkale Inc is an intelligence platform enabling B2B presales organisations.
• Arun CR, founder of Realiti.io. Realiti.io is a cloud real estate marketing ecosystem.
• Surender Nadarajan, founder of Salesgear. Salesgear is a multi-channel sales engagement platform that helps sales and marketing professionals effectively engage their prospective customers.

" } }

ESOPs vs SARs

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2708) "Employee Stock Option Plans or ESOPs as they’re more commonly known, are employee benefit plans which offer employees a stake in the entity. These plans are just options that could be purchased by the employees at a specified price before a deadline. There are defined rules and regulations laid out in the law that employers need to follow for the granting of ESOPs to their employees. For the longest time, ESOPs were considered the best retention strategy out there to retain the employees and incentivize them to work harder. It’s a win-win situation for the company and the employees - the company can retain its top employees and the employees can cash out big when the company goes public. Of late, a lot of startups are also on an ESOP buy-back spree. Typically, ESOPs get liquidated at the time of IPO or an acquisition. But not all companies have a roadmap to IPO/ plans to get acquired. In this case, the employees won’t be able to appreciate the value of the ESOP or liquidate the stock options. Another huge disadvantage of ESOPs is that they are taxed twice in the hands of the employees - one as a perquisite and one as capital gains at the time of sale. Companies have also experimented with other ways to give employees the incentive derived from ESOPs. Stock Appreciation Rights (SARs) are one of them. A stock appreciation right entitles the holder to receive the benefit of the increase in value of a company’s stock in cash or stock or a combination of both. As per Securities and Exchange Board of India (Share Based Employee Benefits) Regulations, 2014, SAR is defined as, "a right given to a SAR grantee entitling him to receive appreciation for a specified number of shares of the company where the settlement of such appreciation may be made by way of cash payment or shares of the company". For example, if 100 SARs are issued to an employee when the stock price of the company is at $10 and in a few years, the stock prices rise to $25, then the employee shall be entitled to receive $1500 ($15 x 100 SARs) in cash. SARs have some advantages over ESOP:

1. Dilution of shareholding can be reduced/ eliminated;
2. From a financial disclosure and compliance perspective, SARs are not governed by Companies Act and do not require much disclosure
3. For an employee, they don’t have to pay exercise price and there is no double taxation (like in the case of ESOPs). SARs get taxed as a perquisite at the slab rates in which the employee falls.

At the end of the day, issuing ESOPs or SARs is a choice that the founders and investors have to make, depending on the company’s roadmap for the future." ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2708) "Employee Stock Option Plans or ESOPs as they’re more commonly known, are employee benefit plans which offer employees a stake in the entity. These plans are just options that could be purchased by the employees at a specified price before a deadline. There are defined rules and regulations laid out in the law that employers need to follow for the granting of ESOPs to their employees. For the longest time, ESOPs were considered the best retention strategy out there to retain the employees and incentivize them to work harder. It’s a win-win situation for the company and the employees - the company can retain its top employees and the employees can cash out big when the company goes public. Of late, a lot of startups are also on an ESOP buy-back spree. Typically, ESOPs get liquidated at the time of IPO or an acquisition. But not all companies have a roadmap to IPO/ plans to get acquired. In this case, the employees won’t be able to appreciate the value of the ESOP or liquidate the stock options. Another huge disadvantage of ESOPs is that they are taxed twice in the hands of the employees - one as a perquisite and one as capital gains at the time of sale. Companies have also experimented with other ways to give employees the incentive derived from ESOPs. Stock Appreciation Rights (SARs) are one of them. A stock appreciation right entitles the holder to receive the benefit of the increase in value of a company’s stock in cash or stock or a combination of both. As per Securities and Exchange Board of India (Share Based Employee Benefits) Regulations, 2014, SAR is defined as, "a right given to a SAR grantee entitling him to receive appreciation for a specified number of shares of the company where the settlement of such appreciation may be made by way of cash payment or shares of the company". For example, if 100 SARs are issued to an employee when the stock price of the company is at $10 and in a few years, the stock prices rise to $25, then the employee shall be entitled to receive $1500 ($15 x 100 SARs) in cash. SARs have some advantages over ESOP:

1. Dilution of shareholding can be reduced/ eliminated;
2. From a financial disclosure and compliance perspective, SARs are not governed by Companies Act and do not require much disclosure
3. For an employee, they don’t have to pay exercise price and there is no double taxation (like in the case of ESOPs). SARs get taxed as a perquisite at the slab rates in which the employee falls.

At the end of the day, issuing ESOPs or SARs is a choice that the founders and investors have to make, depending on the company’s roadmap for the future." } }

The much-awaited SaasBoomi GrowthX (SGx) Summer 2022 cohort is launching soon. Are you going to be in it?

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(5007) "It's been a little less than a month since SaaSBoomi Growth happened, and we couldn't have asked for more. The response has been phenomenal, and the demand for more hasn't stopped. We didn't intend to disappoint. We are announcing the launch of the Summer 2022 Cohort of SGx. A four-month-long intensive program that is built for early-stage SaaS Startups, with a focus on getting their marketing flywheel in order. You will have one Saarthi/Mentor and a Wingmate who will work with the Saarthi to ensure that you remain on track. The kickoff will happen on 18th July 2022, but we are opening the applications now. You can find out more about the program at www.saasboomi.org/sgx. [caption id="attachment_3622" align="aligncenter" width="512"] GrowthX program in a nutshell[/caption] This is our third cohort. We have helped 12 companies to date across our two previous cohorts.  We are inviting companies that are between $400K to $1.5Mn to apply. This will be an intensive four-month program focused almost exclusively on building your growth engine. You will typically be spending about 6 hours a week on discussions and you will be expected to implement the discussions quickly. Together, we will build whatever is needed for your growth. Customised to your needs. This is a founder-first program, so we expect the founders to be available and drive the outcomes from this program internally. [caption id="attachment_3623" align="aligncenter" width="512"] Saarthis, Wingmates, and the peers from the cohort form the sounding board for every startup.[/caption] Just to give you a quick peek into what goes behind the scene - post your application, the following steps will be done by us:

1. Evaluate your application on the basis of readiness and fit
2. Evaluate the profile of the founders
3. Speak with the references you give us to understand more about you and the business you are building
4. Two separate discussions will be done with you by two of the mentors
5. The results will be calibrated and a final score will be derived
6. Once the scores are all done - we will take a final call on the basis of:
   1. The score
   2. Our hypothesis about what is needed by your business to grow
   3. Our ability to serve that requirement
   4. Availability of a relevant Saarthi/Mentor and Wingman

While this seems fairly straightforward, trust me when I say that it is not. To align everyone towards a uniform and harmonious outcome and ensure that you get the best Saarthi to guide you along the way along with the correct Wingman.  Remember - this is a pro-bono initiative being done by Founders/Ex-founders to help fellow entrepreneurs scale up. There is nothing in this for them. No equity. No money. Just the thrill of helping build another great SaaS business out of India. So, again - if you don't think your business is at a stage where you can dedicate the required amount of time to do this, please do not apply. You will have other chances in the future.  So, if you think GrowthX is for you, don't wait - apply now. The applications will close on 15th June 2022 and we will start the cohort on 18th July 2022. We look forward to helping you grow your business. " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(5007) "It's been a little less than a month since SaaSBoomi Growth happened, and we couldn't have asked for more. The response has been phenomenal, and the demand for more hasn't stopped. We didn't intend to disappoint. We are announcing the launch of the Summer 2022 Cohort of SGx. A four-month-long intensive program that is built for early-stage SaaS Startups, with a focus on getting their marketing flywheel in order. You will have one Saarthi/Mentor and a Wingmate who will work with the Saarthi to ensure that you remain on track. The kickoff will happen on 18th July 2022, but we are opening the applications now. You can find out more about the program at www.saasboomi.org/sgx. [caption id="attachment_3622" align="aligncenter" width="512"] GrowthX program in a nutshell[/caption] This is our third cohort. We have helped 12 companies to date across our two previous cohorts.  We are inviting companies that are between $400K to $1.5Mn to apply. This will be an intensive four-month program focused almost exclusively on building your growth engine. You will typically be spending about 6 hours a week on discussions and you will be expected to implement the discussions quickly. Together, we will build whatever is needed for your growth. Customised to your needs. This is a founder-first program, so we expect the founders to be available and drive the outcomes from this program internally. [caption id="attachment_3623" align="aligncenter" width="512"] Saarthis, Wingmates, and the peers from the cohort form the sounding board for every startup.[/caption] Just to give you a quick peek into what goes behind the scene - post your application, the following steps will be done by us:

1. Evaluate your application on the basis of readiness and fit
2. Evaluate the profile of the founders
3. Speak with the references you give us to understand more about you and the business you are building
4. Two separate discussions will be done with you by two of the mentors
5. The results will be calibrated and a final score will be derived
6. Once the scores are all done - we will take a final call on the basis of:
   1. The score
   2. Our hypothesis about what is needed by your business to grow
   3. Our ability to serve that requirement
   4. Availability of a relevant Saarthi/Mentor and Wingman

While this seems fairly straightforward, trust me when I say that it is not. To align everyone towards a uniform and harmonious outcome and ensure that you get the best Saarthi to guide you along the way along with the correct Wingman.  Remember - this is a pro-bono initiative being done by Founders/Ex-founders to help fellow entrepreneurs scale up. There is nothing in this for them. No equity. No money. Just the thrill of helping build another great SaaS business out of India. So, again - if you don't think your business is at a stage where you can dedicate the required amount of time to do this, please do not apply. You will have other chances in the future.  So, if you think GrowthX is for you, don't wait - apply now. The applications will close on 15th June 2022 and we will start the cohort on 18th July 2022. We look forward to helping you grow your business. " } }

Amazing stories and startups from Bhopal, Indore, and Surat

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I’m writing this piece from a beautiful café in Bhopal, amidst lush greenery, butterflies, and chirping sounds of birds. This café is very special as all the stuff here is organic, with the farm right next to it. It’s always a pleasure to receive hospitality in an emerging city. You get to meet interesting people and you also realize how life moves at its own pace in these places… slow and steady.

I’m here to be part of SaaSBoomi Social, and I’ll also be traveling to other upcoming SaaS cities like Indore, and Surat over the next few days for the same.

While I get to meet with a lot of founders at events, it’s hard to make meaningful connections and conversations, as there are so many of them. And after a long time, I’m traveling to emerging cities, meeting founders there, having conversations with them about their business, and understanding them better.

Here’s a chronicle of my journey and the interesting founders I met in these three cities.

Bhopal (17–18th May ‘22)

Every city has a host for SaaSBoomi Social and the host for Bhopal is Nemesh from Appointy, one of the most successful bootstrapped companies in the city.

Nemesh founded Appointy in 2008 as a web services company and now he is helping entrepreneurs in Bhopal to learn from his mistakes by sharing his learnings. The government of Bhopal is very supportive of the startup ecosystem as well, and there are commendable initiatives being done to help the startups.

Appointy has also developed a low-code SaaS development platform that can be used to build, deploy, and scale complex SaaS applications. In a short while, I will be getting to see the 4-acre campus that they are setting up — he seems excited about this latest project that he has been leading for some time now. His co-founder Sarang has been a big support in his journey.

Thanks to Nemesh, I got to meet some really interesting founders and what they have been up to. Some of them are disrupting big startups from here. So let me start by giving a brief about each company:

1. Sanjeev Sharma — Founder and CEO at Swaayatt Robots, a company working to solve Autonomous Driving for adversarial traffic and unstructured environments in India. Graduated from IIT Roorkee in 2011 and after completing his Master’s from the University of Alberta, Sanjeev came back to India with the goal to achieve level-5 autonomy. The company raised 3M USD from US-based investors. Sanjeev is also the founder of DeepEigen, an EDTech platform forced on advanced courses from RL and AI.
2. Pankaj Aggarwal and Neeraj Agrawal — The duo founded Pabbly in 2009, which offers multiple business-critical applications from creation, email marketing, billing, and automation. The company reached 1M ARR within a few years after identifying the right PMF. Neeraj also loves building a community around the product and currently has an active group of 9K+ followers on Facebook. The duo also founded Magnet Brains, an EdTech platform focused on helping students with competitive exams. Their Youtube channel has more than 6M subscribers.
3. Amitesh Mishra — Founded Finchfly in 2019, an influencer marketing platform that helps brands connect with influencers, and offers a one-stop solution for managing the campaigns. He, along with Vibhu, also co-founded Zyoga, an AI-enabled platform that helps fitness and yoga instructors to organise live sessions and courses, and be more productive. The platform uses computer vision to track the human body and provide real-time feedback to the users.
4. Arnav Gupta — The co-founder and CEO at WE360.AI, an employee productivity monitoring software that helps SMBs to manage the efficiency of their employees using real-time analytics. The company raised its seed round of half a million dollars and is scaling fast. Arnav went to Australia to pursue higher education but dropped out during COVID and decided to pursue his own entrepreneurial journey.
5. Vibhu Tripathi — Founded Vizzbee in 2019, a one-stop solution to manage Autonomous Drone Operations and comply with regulatory requirements. The company raised pre-seed from a Hong Kong-based investor and won various challenges including the Airbus GEO challenge. He’s also an open-source and tech enthusiast, and community manager at Aerobridge. (Thanks to Vibhu for the notes)

I will be heading to Indore today in the afternoon and Nemesh will be driving there.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Clicked this from my morning walk in Bhopal[/caption]

Indore (18–19th May ‘22)

We drove down from Bhopal to Indore next. It took us almost three hours, during which I got to hear some interesting stories from Nemesh on how he has been building Appointy for the last 12+ years. Hopefully, I will get to write another GritStory about Appointy.

So, my host for Indore is Mayank Pratap Singh and Aditi Charausia, co-founders of EngineerBabu and SuperSourcing. Mayank is an amazing community builder, and I loved the hustle and the energy that he demonstrates. He is never on time :) but makes up for it with fascinating stories and multi-tasking.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] With some of the founders in Indore[/caption]

The first dinner meeting was with a group of scaled founders, who shared inspiring stories on what it took to build their startup from Indore. Since most of the information shared was confidential, I won’t be able to share much of it here. The founders who have built those brilliant companies are:

• Tanu Tejas — Founder of ShopKirana. They are Empowering Retailers with the power of technology and brands. He shared his story and did a Q&A for around eight mins with the Prime Minister of India.
• Rohit Gadia — Founder of OneHash SaaS, previously built a 1500-person company CapitalVia. He shared some brilliant stories about building CapitalVia.
• Manish Dabkare — Enking, Carbon Credit company. They are India’s first public limited company and an ISO 9001:2008 certified organisation, that works in the field of energy, carbon, and quality management.
• Nemesh Singh — Appointy (covered above)
• Mayank and Aditi — Founders of Supersourcing. It is a B2B platform for hiring remote engineers at scale, that is trusted by 4000+ startups.

The next morning, Mayank picked me up and took me to a place called Chappan Dukaan — (56 shops). It’s an incredible food joint with great food from Indore, where I got to know that 90% of the folks from Indore have Poha.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] This is the place where you get some amazing snacks in Indore. Chappan Dukkan![/caption]

They are planning to make Indore a 24/7 city and it seems like the government is very proactive and is playing an active role in shaping the startup culture. I missed going to the market which is open at night, and I learned that it was set up to ensure that the shops actually sell gold and this was one way to provide them security doing night.

I got to meet around 18–20 startups who came to meet me. The event was at Social and completely organized by Aditi and supported by Mayank. I shared a few insights about entrepreneurship and my background. Each startup then shared what they are building, where they can help and where they are looking for help.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] With amazing founders in Indore[/caption]

The best part was that there were many women founders who joined the meet-up. I also got to meet Pushpendra from Msg91, again a hidden bootstrapped startup from Indore. I will soon bring out their story. It seems like he has been hiding for a long time.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] At the railway station :)[/caption]

Later, Mayank and Aditi hosted me and Gaurav from Bingage, and we also managed to get some time to drop by a beautiful cafe called Mitthi which had been set up by Pushpendra from MSG91. After some wonderful chai and a return gift, Gaurav and I left for the railway station to go to my next destination, Surat. I hope to reach around 2:30 am in the morning and looking forward to seeing some fantastic founders out there. This is been written from the train and now the Airtel network seems to be quite stable from Indore to Surat.

Surat (20–21st May ‘22)

We reached Surat around 2:30 am and managed to get some sleep as the next day was going to be hectic. It also started with a delicious breakfast hosted by Kalpesh and Ankit from Suvit. They showed me around the city, and bragged about Surat being #2 in cleanliness and that it is also called the city of bridges — something that I actually got to experience. The food in Surat is probably the best in the country and one must make sure to have it in their lifetime.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] This signage is something that you will see right across the city[/caption]

I reached the office where Vishal from Dhiwise was eager to host me and he had lined up meetings with startups from 11 am to 5:30 pm, with just a 30-minute break in between.

Apart from hosting this event in Surat, Vishal has been playing the role of bringing more and more startups to the SaaSBOOMi community and making sure we start initiating a few sessions and playbooks in Surat. Vishal is also clearly the most respected leader and founder in the Surat ecosystem.

Ritesh Arora of BrowserStack also hails from Surat and the other company which came out of Ahmedabad was Hubilo which is in the event management space. Naman of Refrens, also one of the most thoughtful product people, is based out of Surat and is now building his next startup from Surat.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="700"] Amazing breakfast place at Surat[/caption]

Some of the founders that I met in Surat are:

• Kalpesh and Ankit — Founders of Suvit, a Zapier for accounting businesses. It has only been a few months since they started up and they already have 400 customers and around 18K subscriptions. It seems like they are creating a category here with a first-class tech product.
• Alpesh — Founder of UBSapp. He is building a suite of products that can be used by small businesses.
• Krunal — Founder of WiserNotify, a platform that helps in building social proof and FOMO notifications.
• Vinay and Puresh — Founders of UpMetrics, a platform that helps you to build a business plan for a new business. They have 5K paid users and 1700 active users on their platform.
• Dinesh Agarwal — Founder of RecurrPost.com, a Buffer++ tool that allows you to do many more things to schedule and manage your social media accounts. He came to the event in shorts and was the typical founder in Bangalore and had some exciting stories to share about his growth hacks and how he ended in trouble with Facebook multiple times.
• Gaurav Nagani — Founder of DeskU.io, a helpdesk software for SMBs.
• Manoj Advani — Founder of BizSomia, a social commerce tool for B2B and for the Indian market.
• Puneet Ganjera — Founder of Visitorz.io, a touchless visitor management system.
• Nirav Alagiya — Founder of PhotoAdKing. This is a tool like Canva which allows you to build any kind of tool. I also got to know about BrandSpot365 which is from Ahmedabad and allows you to build WhatsApp images and are apparently growing very fast. They have 18K customers and are largely built for the Indian market.
• Arjun — Founder of VideoSDK. Here is probably one of the best techies in Surat and has built an amazing product that has gained some good traction. They are offering cloud infra for live audio/video communications. Using their tool, you can even build a product like Zoom.
• Vishal Virani — Founder of Dhiwise, who was also the host for my trip. He had started Coruscate solutions, and now at Dhiwise, they are building a developer tool that allows you to build enterprise apps. Vishal has also been able to create an entrepreneurial culture at Corusscate where 4 to 5 startups have come up in the last few years.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] The SaaSBOOMi Social at Surat - we had close to 100–120 founders here[/caption]

I did get to meet around 30–35 founder/startups in the evening where they talked about their products. One of them that stood out was Stitchmax which has built software for embroidery and has also one competition globally.

RoyalPOS is POS software with 800 customers globally. In the logistics space, I met a very interesting company and they apparently are doing some amazing work with 15 customers and their solution integrates with companies like Fareye, etc. Some amazing conversations and we had close to 80–100 people who came for the SaaSBoomi social.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="700"] With Nischit and Shreya from Firecamp[/caption]

In the morning, I had Shreya & Nischit from Firecamp who came to drop me at the airport and they talked about their product to me. It was in the API space and something better than what Postman is building. I didn’t understand much, but with their passion and energy, I knew they were onto something big.

That was almost the end of the trip, had amazing fun, got to learn a lot about what startups are up to, and also loved their sheer passion for building something. Just reassures us that we are on our way to building some awesome global products from India and young India is all about entrepreneurship. Here are some learnings and insights from my trip.

If you are someone, who enjoyed reading the above and wants to contribute towards the emerging eco-system like Surat, Indore, or Bhopal, do ping me. If you want to be connected with one of the entrepreneurs, please ping me and I shall connect.

If you are a VC, you can always make a trip to one of these cities and help do a workshop on VC101…..there is a lot to be shared with the audience.

Thank you all who help in putting the above trip together.

Some learnings and observations from the trip :)

• A mentor network is missing and an entrepreneur who crosses a certain threshold is unable to get the right set of advice.
• Most of the companies are bootstrapped and there is an opportunity for someone to enable peer learning amongst founders.
• Most of the companies started as IT services companies and then saw an opportunity to pivot into a product company…which is very impressive. I met 50+ companies and 80% started as services companies.
• While few founders have been able to build global businesses, most of them still focus on building products for the India SMB market….it again becomes a challenge on going global.
• Thinking Big is not so much in the DNA….most of them are ok to build a lifestyle company and no harm in that.
• The good talent in most of the cities is also trying to move out to other metros as they see a bigger opportunity and a better cultural lifestyle for youngsters.
• Many founders who have their origins from these emerging cities should contribute their time and efforts towards building the city eco-system
• Awareness around VC funding, Growth mindset seems to be a bit of a challenge.
• While the govt. Is very supportive of policies, they should also be playing the role of market creation for companies that are building for Bharat.
• Indore & Surat have an amazing entrepreneurial culture and I feel Surat probably is the next emerging city and will emerge as a SaaS leader in the emerging cities space.
• All founders seem to be very well bonded, they are there for each other and often help when required.
• The tech skills in these cities are amazing, however, they do lack, Product, Design, and Sales mindset.
• The good part about these startups is they understand how business functions and also know how to build a profitable business….they come from the Dhanda mindset and don’t really believe in splurging money.
• eChai seems to be doing an amazing job of connecting all founders in these cities.

A special thanks to my colleague Sadhana Balaji for editing this :)

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(34786) "

I’m writing this piece from a beautiful café in Bhopal, amidst lush greenery, butterflies, and chirping sounds of birds. This café is very special as all the stuff here is organic, with the farm right next to it. It’s always a pleasure to receive hospitality in an emerging city. You get to meet interesting people and you also realize how life moves at its own pace in these places… slow and steady.

I’m here to be part of SaaSBoomi Social, and I’ll also be traveling to other upcoming SaaS cities like Indore, and Surat over the next few days for the same.

While I get to meet with a lot of founders at events, it’s hard to make meaningful connections and conversations, as there are so many of them. And after a long time, I’m traveling to emerging cities, meeting founders there, having conversations with them about their business, and understanding them better.

Here’s a chronicle of my journey and the interesting founders I met in these three cities.

Bhopal (17–18th May ‘22)

Every city has a host for SaaSBoomi Social and the host for Bhopal is Nemesh from Appointy, one of the most successful bootstrapped companies in the city.

Nemesh founded Appointy in 2008 as a web services company and now he is helping entrepreneurs in Bhopal to learn from his mistakes by sharing his learnings. The government of Bhopal is very supportive of the startup ecosystem as well, and there are commendable initiatives being done to help the startups.

Appointy has also developed a low-code SaaS development platform that can be used to build, deploy, and scale complex SaaS applications. In a short while, I will be getting to see the 4-acre campus that they are setting up — he seems excited about this latest project that he has been leading for some time now. His co-founder Sarang has been a big support in his journey.

Thanks to Nemesh, I got to meet some really interesting founders and what they have been up to. Some of them are disrupting big startups from here. So let me start by giving a brief about each company:

1. Sanjeev Sharma — Founder and CEO at Swaayatt Robots, a company working to solve Autonomous Driving for adversarial traffic and unstructured environments in India. Graduated from IIT Roorkee in 2011 and after completing his Master’s from the University of Alberta, Sanjeev came back to India with the goal to achieve level-5 autonomy. The company raised 3M USD from US-based investors. Sanjeev is also the founder of DeepEigen, an EDTech platform forced on advanced courses from RL and AI.
2. Pankaj Aggarwal and Neeraj Agrawal — The duo founded Pabbly in 2009, which offers multiple business-critical applications from creation, email marketing, billing, and automation. The company reached 1M ARR within a few years after identifying the right PMF. Neeraj also loves building a community around the product and currently has an active group of 9K+ followers on Facebook. The duo also founded Magnet Brains, an EdTech platform focused on helping students with competitive exams. Their Youtube channel has more than 6M subscribers.
3. Amitesh Mishra — Founded Finchfly in 2019, an influencer marketing platform that helps brands connect with influencers, and offers a one-stop solution for managing the campaigns. He, along with Vibhu, also co-founded Zyoga, an AI-enabled platform that helps fitness and yoga instructors to organise live sessions and courses, and be more productive. The platform uses computer vision to track the human body and provide real-time feedback to the users.
4. Arnav Gupta — The co-founder and CEO at WE360.AI, an employee productivity monitoring software that helps SMBs to manage the efficiency of their employees using real-time analytics. The company raised its seed round of half a million dollars and is scaling fast. Arnav went to Australia to pursue higher education but dropped out during COVID and decided to pursue his own entrepreneurial journey.
5. Vibhu Tripathi — Founded Vizzbee in 2019, a one-stop solution to manage Autonomous Drone Operations and comply with regulatory requirements. The company raised pre-seed from a Hong Kong-based investor and won various challenges including the Airbus GEO challenge. He’s also an open-source and tech enthusiast, and community manager at Aerobridge. (Thanks to Vibhu for the notes)

I will be heading to Indore today in the afternoon and Nemesh will be driving there.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Clicked this from my morning walk in Bhopal[/caption]

Indore (18–19th May ‘22)

We drove down from Bhopal to Indore next. It took us almost three hours, during which I got to hear some interesting stories from Nemesh on how he has been building Appointy for the last 12+ years. Hopefully, I will get to write another GritStory about Appointy.

So, my host for Indore is Mayank Pratap Singh and Aditi Charausia, co-founders of EngineerBabu and SuperSourcing. Mayank is an amazing community builder, and I loved the hustle and the energy that he demonstrates. He is never on time :) but makes up for it with fascinating stories and multi-tasking.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] With some of the founders in Indore[/caption]

The first dinner meeting was with a group of scaled founders, who shared inspiring stories on what it took to build their startup from Indore. Since most of the information shared was confidential, I won’t be able to share much of it here. The founders who have built those brilliant companies are:

• Tanu Tejas — Founder of ShopKirana. They are Empowering Retailers with the power of technology and brands. He shared his story and did a Q&A for around eight mins with the Prime Minister of India.
• Rohit Gadia — Founder of OneHash SaaS, previously built a 1500-person company CapitalVia. He shared some brilliant stories about building CapitalVia.
• Manish Dabkare — Enking, Carbon Credit company. They are India’s first public limited company and an ISO 9001:2008 certified organisation, that works in the field of energy, carbon, and quality management.
• Nemesh Singh — Appointy (covered above)
• Mayank and Aditi — Founders of Supersourcing. It is a B2B platform for hiring remote engineers at scale, that is trusted by 4000+ startups.

The next morning, Mayank picked me up and took me to a place called Chappan Dukaan — (56 shops). It’s an incredible food joint with great food from Indore, where I got to know that 90% of the folks from Indore have Poha.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] This is the place where you get some amazing snacks in Indore. Chappan Dukkan![/caption]

They are planning to make Indore a 24/7 city and it seems like the government is very proactive and is playing an active role in shaping the startup culture. I missed going to the market which is open at night, and I learned that it was set up to ensure that the shops actually sell gold and this was one way to provide them security doing night.

I got to meet around 18–20 startups who came to meet me. The event was at Social and completely organized by Aditi and supported by Mayank. I shared a few insights about entrepreneurship and my background. Each startup then shared what they are building, where they can help and where they are looking for help.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] With amazing founders in Indore[/caption]

The best part was that there were many women founders who joined the meet-up. I also got to meet Pushpendra from Msg91, again a hidden bootstrapped startup from Indore. I will soon bring out their story. It seems like he has been hiding for a long time.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] At the railway station :)[/caption]

Later, Mayank and Aditi hosted me and Gaurav from Bingage, and we also managed to get some time to drop by a beautiful cafe called Mitthi which had been set up by Pushpendra from MSG91. After some wonderful chai and a return gift, Gaurav and I left for the railway station to go to my next destination, Surat. I hope to reach around 2:30 am in the morning and looking forward to seeing some fantastic founders out there. This is been written from the train and now the Airtel network seems to be quite stable from Indore to Surat.

Surat (20–21st May ‘22)

We reached Surat around 2:30 am and managed to get some sleep as the next day was going to be hectic. It also started with a delicious breakfast hosted by Kalpesh and Ankit from Suvit. They showed me around the city, and bragged about Surat being #2 in cleanliness and that it is also called the city of bridges — something that I actually got to experience. The food in Surat is probably the best in the country and one must make sure to have it in their lifetime.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] This signage is something that you will see right across the city[/caption]

I reached the office where Vishal from Dhiwise was eager to host me and he had lined up meetings with startups from 11 am to 5:30 pm, with just a 30-minute break in between.

Apart from hosting this event in Surat, Vishal has been playing the role of bringing more and more startups to the SaaSBOOMi community and making sure we start initiating a few sessions and playbooks in Surat. Vishal is also clearly the most respected leader and founder in the Surat ecosystem.

Ritesh Arora of BrowserStack also hails from Surat and the other company which came out of Ahmedabad was Hubilo which is in the event management space. Naman of Refrens, also one of the most thoughtful product people, is based out of Surat and is now building his next startup from Surat.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="700"] Amazing breakfast place at Surat[/caption]

Some of the founders that I met in Surat are:

• Kalpesh and Ankit — Founders of Suvit, a Zapier for accounting businesses. It has only been a few months since they started up and they already have 400 customers and around 18K subscriptions. It seems like they are creating a category here with a first-class tech product.
• Alpesh — Founder of UBSapp. He is building a suite of products that can be used by small businesses.
• Krunal — Founder of WiserNotify, a platform that helps in building social proof and FOMO notifications.
• Vinay and Puresh — Founders of UpMetrics, a platform that helps you to build a business plan for a new business. They have 5K paid users and 1700 active users on their platform.
• Dinesh Agarwal — Founder of RecurrPost.com, a Buffer++ tool that allows you to do many more things to schedule and manage your social media accounts. He came to the event in shorts and was the typical founder in Bangalore and had some exciting stories to share about his growth hacks and how he ended in trouble with Facebook multiple times.
• Gaurav Nagani — Founder of DeskU.io, a helpdesk software for SMBs.
• Manoj Advani — Founder of BizSomia, a social commerce tool for B2B and for the Indian market.
• Puneet Ganjera — Founder of Visitorz.io, a touchless visitor management system.
• Nirav Alagiya — Founder of PhotoAdKing. This is a tool like Canva which allows you to build any kind of tool. I also got to know about BrandSpot365 which is from Ahmedabad and allows you to build WhatsApp images and are apparently growing very fast. They have 18K customers and are largely built for the Indian market.
• Arjun — Founder of VideoSDK. Here is probably one of the best techies in Surat and has built an amazing product that has gained some good traction. They are offering cloud infra for live audio/video communications. Using their tool, you can even build a product like Zoom.
• Vishal Virani — Founder of Dhiwise, who was also the host for my trip. He had started Coruscate solutions, and now at Dhiwise, they are building a developer tool that allows you to build enterprise apps. Vishal has also been able to create an entrepreneurial culture at Corusscate where 4 to 5 startups have come up in the last few years.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700"] The SaaSBOOMi Social at Surat - we had close to 100–120 founders here[/caption]

I did get to meet around 30–35 founder/startups in the evening where they talked about their products. One of them that stood out was Stitchmax which has built software for embroidery and has also one competition globally.

RoyalPOS is POS software with 800 customers globally. In the logistics space, I met a very interesting company and they apparently are doing some amazing work with 15 customers and their solution integrates with companies like Fareye, etc. Some amazing conversations and we had close to 80–100 people who came for the SaaSBoomi social.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="700"] With Nischit and Shreya from Firecamp[/caption]

In the morning, I had Shreya & Nischit from Firecamp who came to drop me at the airport and they talked about their product to me. It was in the API space and something better than what Postman is building. I didn’t understand much, but with their passion and energy, I knew they were onto something big.

That was almost the end of the trip, had amazing fun, got to learn a lot about what startups are up to, and also loved their sheer passion for building something. Just reassures us that we are on our way to building some awesome global products from India and young India is all about entrepreneurship. Here are some learnings and insights from my trip.

If you are someone, who enjoyed reading the above and wants to contribute towards the emerging eco-system like Surat, Indore, or Bhopal, do ping me. If you want to be connected with one of the entrepreneurs, please ping me and I shall connect.

If you are a VC, you can always make a trip to one of these cities and help do a workshop on VC101…..there is a lot to be shared with the audience.

Thank you all who help in putting the above trip together.

Some learnings and observations from the trip :)

• A mentor network is missing and an entrepreneur who crosses a certain threshold is unable to get the right set of advice.
• Most of the companies are bootstrapped and there is an opportunity for someone to enable peer learning amongst founders.
• Most of the companies started as IT services companies and then saw an opportunity to pivot into a product company…which is very impressive. I met 50+ companies and 80% started as services companies.
• While few founders have been able to build global businesses, most of them still focus on building products for the India SMB market….it again becomes a challenge on going global.
• Thinking Big is not so much in the DNA….most of them are ok to build a lifestyle company and no harm in that.
• The good talent in most of the cities is also trying to move out to other metros as they see a bigger opportunity and a better cultural lifestyle for youngsters.
• Many founders who have their origins from these emerging cities should contribute their time and efforts towards building the city eco-system
• Awareness around VC funding, Growth mindset seems to be a bit of a challenge.
• While the govt. Is very supportive of policies, they should also be playing the role of market creation for companies that are building for Bharat.
• Indore & Surat have an amazing entrepreneurial culture and I feel Surat probably is the next emerging city and will emerge as a SaaS leader in the emerging cities space.
• All founders seem to be very well bonded, they are there for each other and often help when required.
• The tech skills in these cities are amazing, however, they do lack, Product, Design, and Sales mindset.
• The good part about these startups is they understand how business functions and also know how to build a profitable business….they come from the Dhanda mindset and don’t really believe in splurging money.
• eChai seems to be doing an amazing job of connecting all founders in these cities.

A special thanks to my colleague Sadhana Balaji for editing this :)

" } }

The Dance of Entrepreneurship – In Dhiraj Rajaram’s Words

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What it truly means to be an entrepreneur in a highly complex world

As the rules of the world change, so do the rules of entrepreneurship. In his keynote address at SaaSBoomi Growth 2022, Dhiraj Rajaram, Founder and CEO of Mu Sigma, addresses the issue of what it truly means to be an entrepreneur in a highly complex world, in a rather poetic way.  Blended with the philosophies of the East, Dhiraj's take on the new age of entrepreneurship indicates the paradigm shift that we've unknowingly adopted over the years. Come, join us on this quick and profound meditation around the philosophical side of entrepreneurship. According to Dhiraj, there is a specific personality trait every successful entrepreneur in today’s world would identify with. 

Always confident, often risk-takers

We're not alien to the imposter syndrome that we often experience. And Dhiraj says that it’s an essential aspect of becoming an entrepreneur. 

“In the tug-of-war between confidence and capability-building, one ought to behave in an over-confident, risk-taking manner before they're able to build capability.” 

This goes in cycles, where being unduly confident (risk-taking) precedes capability-building (risk mitigation) in each cycle. It's in this alternation that we achieve the 'flow' of entrepreneurship.  This is essential because we live in a probabilistic, non-linear world of complexity. We do not know what outcomes we will yield from our inputs and at what scale. The only thing that keeps us moving is the underlying uncertainty. As entrepreneurs, we cannot stand still in the face of uncertainty. 

Uncertainty is one big adventure every single time

Often when we're faced with difficult problems, our immediate response is fear. The tug of survival called fear causes paralysis and leaves us in inaction.  And this is an everyday challenge for the entrepreneur in a complex world. 

“To move from inaction to action, one must appreciate the complexity of the problem and discover their own ignorance. To know what it is that we don't know can be powerful because we can then set ourselves to collecting that new knowledge.” 

In the words of poet-philosopher Rumi, "Fear is non-acceptance of Uncertainty. If you accept that Uncertainty, it becomes an adventure." Dhiraj rightly points out that fear and confusion will always occur, just before that adventure begins. All it takes is accepting the uncertainty.  Indeed, uncertainty is the main characteristic of a complex world. 

“We're increasingly heading towards the space of not knowing what to do and not knowing how to do it. The problem that emerges from this space is what we solve as entrepreneurs.” 

Explore more, execute or exploit less

Unlike in the industrial era, nobody is going to hand out a definitive playbook to run a business today. That's why entrepreneurship involves so much uncertainty. In this era, we've got to explore, execute, and exploit simultaneously. Dhiraj says that there is a lot more to explore than to execute and exploit.  What does that entail? We first discover what it is that we don't know, then assess whether it can be done, take a risk, and do it while building our capability in it.  Sounds risky, doesn't it? Therein lies the job of the entrepreneur - to take that risk. However, as Dhiraj rightly points out, many entrepreneurs take the risk and then get cold feet. Their strategy to mitigate their risk is to take money, usually from VCs. A word of advice from Dhiraj here,

“Instead of taking money to mitigate risk, raise capital to take more risk.” 

This brings us to the question, What is money to an entrepreneur? Is it only the thermostat that controls the heat of risk? Not quite. 

“Technically speaking, money is value that was created in the past by accomplishing work. VCs are agents of money, and they invest in ideas, which are nothing but value created in the future by talent (employees).” 

Entrepreneurship is simply an exchange of value between money and talent. Money dares one to a higher purpose and the talent dreams then of a higher purpose.  Only entrepreneurship does the DOING. It takes the dreaming and the daring to DO. That’s the verb that deals with the investor’s money.  So what does 'Doing' look like? In Dhiraj's words, it is-

The Dance of Entrepreneurship

Dhiraj closes his keynote address with the metaphor of Indian mysticism.  Let's consider the trinity of Vishnu, Brahma, and Shiva.  Vishnu is the preserver of the value of the past, Brahma is the creator of the future, and Shiva dances in the present. 

“To translate this to modern business lingo - VCs preserve the value of the past, that is money, Talent creates new futures, and Entrepreneurs take the risk of making both happen at once.” 

The entrepreneur's risk-taking is the Shiv-Taandav here, as Dhiraj poetically concludes his talk.  Entrepreneurship is not easy. In fact, it is painful. 

“The past (VCs) and the future (talent) have the ability to go off on different tangents, but the present (entrepreneur) needs to stay where it is. This pain is something like lifting weights in the gym. It's going to hurt like hell, but it is possible to fully enjoy the fruits in the future.” 

In the Shiv-Taandav that is entrepreneurship, pain is compulsory. But misery is not. " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(7348) "

What it truly means to be an entrepreneur in a highly complex world

As the rules of the world change, so do the rules of entrepreneurship. In his keynote address at SaaSBoomi Growth 2022, Dhiraj Rajaram, Founder and CEO of Mu Sigma, addresses the issue of what it truly means to be an entrepreneur in a highly complex world, in a rather poetic way.  Blended with the philosophies of the East, Dhiraj's take on the new age of entrepreneurship indicates the paradigm shift that we've unknowingly adopted over the years. Come, join us on this quick and profound meditation around the philosophical side of entrepreneurship. According to Dhiraj, there is a specific personality trait every successful entrepreneur in today’s world would identify with. 

Always confident, often risk-takers

We're not alien to the imposter syndrome that we often experience. And Dhiraj says that it’s an essential aspect of becoming an entrepreneur. 

“In the tug-of-war between confidence and capability-building, one ought to behave in an over-confident, risk-taking manner before they're able to build capability.” 

This goes in cycles, where being unduly confident (risk-taking) precedes capability-building (risk mitigation) in each cycle. It's in this alternation that we achieve the 'flow' of entrepreneurship.  This is essential because we live in a probabilistic, non-linear world of complexity. We do not know what outcomes we will yield from our inputs and at what scale. The only thing that keeps us moving is the underlying uncertainty. As entrepreneurs, we cannot stand still in the face of uncertainty. 

Uncertainty is one big adventure every single time

Often when we're faced with difficult problems, our immediate response is fear. The tug of survival called fear causes paralysis and leaves us in inaction.  And this is an everyday challenge for the entrepreneur in a complex world. 

“To move from inaction to action, one must appreciate the complexity of the problem and discover their own ignorance. To know what it is that we don't know can be powerful because we can then set ourselves to collecting that new knowledge.” 

In the words of poet-philosopher Rumi, "Fear is non-acceptance of Uncertainty. If you accept that Uncertainty, it becomes an adventure." Dhiraj rightly points out that fear and confusion will always occur, just before that adventure begins. All it takes is accepting the uncertainty.  Indeed, uncertainty is the main characteristic of a complex world. 

“We're increasingly heading towards the space of not knowing what to do and not knowing how to do it. The problem that emerges from this space is what we solve as entrepreneurs.” 

Explore more, execute or exploit less

Unlike in the industrial era, nobody is going to hand out a definitive playbook to run a business today. That's why entrepreneurship involves so much uncertainty. In this era, we've got to explore, execute, and exploit simultaneously. Dhiraj says that there is a lot more to explore than to execute and exploit.  What does that entail? We first discover what it is that we don't know, then assess whether it can be done, take a risk, and do it while building our capability in it.  Sounds risky, doesn't it? Therein lies the job of the entrepreneur - to take that risk. However, as Dhiraj rightly points out, many entrepreneurs take the risk and then get cold feet. Their strategy to mitigate their risk is to take money, usually from VCs. A word of advice from Dhiraj here,

“Instead of taking money to mitigate risk, raise capital to take more risk.” 

This brings us to the question, What is money to an entrepreneur? Is it only the thermostat that controls the heat of risk? Not quite. 

“Technically speaking, money is value that was created in the past by accomplishing work. VCs are agents of money, and they invest in ideas, which are nothing but value created in the future by talent (employees).” 

Entrepreneurship is simply an exchange of value between money and talent. Money dares one to a higher purpose and the talent dreams then of a higher purpose.  Only entrepreneurship does the DOING. It takes the dreaming and the daring to DO. That’s the verb that deals with the investor’s money.  So what does 'Doing' look like? In Dhiraj's words, it is-

The Dance of Entrepreneurship

Dhiraj closes his keynote address with the metaphor of Indian mysticism.  Let's consider the trinity of Vishnu, Brahma, and Shiva.  Vishnu is the preserver of the value of the past, Brahma is the creator of the future, and Shiva dances in the present. 

“To translate this to modern business lingo - VCs preserve the value of the past, that is money, Talent creates new futures, and Entrepreneurs take the risk of making both happen at once.” 

The entrepreneur's risk-taking is the Shiv-Taandav here, as Dhiraj poetically concludes his talk.  Entrepreneurship is not easy. In fact, it is painful. 

“The past (VCs) and the future (talent) have the ability to go off on different tangents, but the present (entrepreneur) needs to stay where it is. This pain is something like lifting weights in the gym. It's going to hurt like hell, but it is possible to fully enjoy the fruits in the future.” 

In the Shiv-Taandav that is entrepreneurship, pain is compulsory. But misery is not. " } }

Meet The 6 SaaS Startups That Won The SaaSBOOMi Awards 2021

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(12368) "This is the second season the awards and aims to encourage the best talent in the industry The winners include BrowserStack, Rattle, CleverTap, FarEye, PriceLabs and Hevo Data Indian enterprisetech startups raised more than $3.2 Bn in investments last year. Apart from that, India boasts of 16 unicorns in the enterprisetech space. The Indian Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) market has grown by leaps and bounds in the last few years. With it, many SaaS startups have emerged in the country, grabbing the attention of global investors. This is evident from the funding raised by the sector in the past few years. In 2021, Indian enterprisetech startups raised more than $3.2 Bn in investments. In addition, the sector has also shown enormous potential for growth. A report by SaaSBoomi estimated that the Indian SaaS sector was on track to generate revenue between $50 Bn and $70 Bn by 2030. The report also found that Indian entrepreneurs were likely to dominate 4%-6% of the global market by 2030. To recognize the work of Indian SaaS startups, this year’s SaaSBoomi Awards winners have been announced. The awards felicitate homegrown startups for their achievements in six categories – SaaS Startup of the Year, Emerging SaaS Startup of the Year, Breakout SaaS of the Year, Bootstrapped SaaS Startup of the Year, DevTools SaaS Startup of the Year and Vertical SaaS Startup of the Year. SaaSBoomi claims to be India’s largest community of SaaS founders and product builders. Founded in 2015 as an informal group, it has grown to include more than 1,500 SaaS as part of initiatives to foster greater learning in the sector.

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The SaaSBoomi Awards were judged entirely by the SaaS community and aimed to highlight the growing clout of the sector within the overall startup ecosystem in the country. The list included Freshworks’ Girish Mathrubootham, Chargebee’s Krish Subramanian, Capillary Tech’s CEO Aneesh Reddy, Postman CTO Ankit Sobti, MadStreetDen CEO Ashwini Asokan, Eka Software CEO Manav Garg and Kissflow’s Suresh Sambandam.

Meet The SaaSBoomi Award Winners

BrowserStack: SaaS Startup Of The Year

• Headquarters: Dublin, Ireland
• Founders: Ritesh Arora, Nakul Aggarwal
• Founded In: 2011
• Total Funding: $250 Mn
• Key Investors: Accel, BOND and Insight Partners
• No. Of Customers/Clients: 50,000+

BrowserStack took home the trophy for the “SaaS Startup Of The Year”. BrowserStack is an app testing platform that allows its clients to comprehensively test mobiles and apps through millions of combinations of digital environments. This allows developers to build bug-free apps without the need for large-scale manpower to test such systems. It also offers products that enable firms to scale testing and ship products faster without any issues. The Ireland-headquartered startup has more than 50,000 customers from as many as 135 countries. BrowserStack also claims to have over 4 Mn developers who have reportedly signed up for its products across the globe. The startup last raised $200 Mn in Series B funding last year, which valued it at $4 Bn. Since then, the startup has grown to more than 1,000 employees and is backed by marquee investors such as Accel, BOND and Insight Partners. Interestingly, the startup has been profitable since day one and has been a market leader since its early days. Going ahead, the startup plans to expand its product offerings. It also aims to scale its business and ramp up hiring in key roles such as engineering, sales and marketing. Speaking about its long term plans, BrowserStack said that it aims to be the go-to platform for startups to test and ship software.

Rattle: Emerging SaaS Startup Of The Year 

• Headquarters: San Francisco, US
• Founders:  Sahil Aggarwal, Milan Pal Singh, Apoorva Verma
• Founded In: 2020
• Total Funding: $28.8 Mn
• Key Investors: Insight Partners, Lightspeed, GV and Sequoia
• No. Of Customers/Clients: 100+ Customers and 4000+ users

At this year’s SaaSBOOMi awards, Rattle won the “Emerging SaaS startup Of The Year” award. Rattle is an enterprisetech startup that sits on top of solutions such as Salesforce and Slack, and allows team members to set up and automate their workflows. The startup raised a massive $26 Mn in its Series A funding round earlier this month, led by Insight Partners. Till date, Rattle has raised $28.8 Mn in funding from big institutional investors such as GV (formerly Google Ventures), Lightspeed, and Sequoia. The startup claims to have more than 4,000 users on its rolls including companies such as Miro, Rippling and ClearBit. It has a team of just 20 people. The startup aims to ramp up hiring and scale its operations by the end of this year. Rattle also plans to deploy all enterprise softwares through the platform on all engagement apps by 2025.

CleverTap: Breakout SaaS Startup Of The Year 

• Headquarters: California, US
• Founders: Sunil Thomas, Anand Jain, Suresh Kondamudi
• Founded In: 2013
• Total Funding: $76.1 Mn
• Key Investors: Sequoia, Tiger Global, Accel
• No. Of Customers/Clients: 1,000+

CleverTap won the award for the “Breakout SaaS Startup Of The Year”. CleverTap works with apps to increase user retention and customer lifetime value in terms of revenue. The platform leverages deeptech and first-party data to personalise and automate engagement with app users. Essentially, CleverTap enables consumer brands to understand their users better and engage the customers across multiple touchpoints. CleverTap claims that its clients created more than 9 Mn campaigns and sent over 1 Tn personalised messages to their users last year. The startup has more than 1, 000 clients under its belt such as PharmEasy, Nykaa, MX Player, Tata CLiQ, Premier League, Dream11, Air Asia, Carousell, and Gojek. The startup was founded in 2013 by Anand Jain, Sunil Thomas and Suresh Kondamudi. The trio left their jobs at Network18 to build a customised platform which can analyse user behaviour and send them personalised notifications. CleverTap has so far raised $76.1 Mn across different funding rounds and is backed by big names such as Sequoia, Tiger Global and Accel. The startup claims to have crossed the $55 Mn Annualised Run Rate (ARR) mark in March this year. It also claims to have gross margin upwards of 73% and net revenue retention at 124% in FY22. The startup plans to reach an ARR of $100 Mn by the end of this year. The California-based startup also plans to ramp up its presence in key markets of North America and Europe this year. CleverTap also has underlined its plans to go public by 2025.

PriceLabs: Bootstrapped SaaS Startup Of The Year 

• Headquarters: Chicago, US
• Founders: Richie Khandelwal, Anurag Verma, Syed Sana Hassan
• Founded In: 2014
• Total Funding: Bootstrapped
• Key Investors: NA
• No. Of Customers/Clients: 15,000+

Proptech startup PriceLabs emerged as the winner of the SaaSBOOMi “Bootstrapped Startup Of Year” award. PriceLabs offers revenue management software catering to the vacation and short-term rental industry. The platform uses proprietary algorithms to crunch market data and helps property managers maximise revenues.

The startup tracks rental and hotel data from around the globe to identify trends in bookings. This is then used to generate unique prices for clients’ local listings. The startup claims to have priced more than 1 Lakh listings across 95 countries globally. PriceLabs claims to have grown 3X in 2021 and doubled its team during the same period. The Chicago-based startup claims to have more than 15,000 customers on its rolls. PriceLabs plans to build a bigger team to cash in on its growth momentum. Over the long term, the startup intends to diversify its product offerings and create more streams of revenue to lead its next stage of growth.

Hevo Data: DevTools SaaS Startup Of The Year 

• Headquarters: San Francisco, US
• Founders: Manish Jethani, Sourabh Agarwal
• Founded In: 2017
• Total Funding: $43 Mn
• Key Investors: Sequoia Capital, Chiratae Ventures, Qualgro Partners
• No. Of Customers/Clients: 1,000+

Hevo Data was picked as the winner for this year’s SaaSBOOMi “DevTools SaaS Startup of the Year”. Hevo Data is an automated self-serve no-code data pipeline platform that loads data from any source into warehouses like Snowflake, Google BigQuery, Amazon Redshift, and others. The startup helps companies combine data from a wide array of applications including CRM, advertising channels, martech, financial system software, and customer support products to allow companies to get up-to-date data in their warehouse. The startup offers services to more than 1,000 companies spread across 35 countries.  It claims to have grown its revenue by 4X over the last year and to be well on track to grow it further by 3X this year. The startup has so far raised $43Mn in funding across multiple funding rounds. Hevo Data is backed by big names in the investor world such as Sequoia Capital, Chiratae Ventures and Qualgro Partners. The startup is based out of San Francisco and operates with a team of more than 200 people. Hevo Data plans to continue investing in product development and add more people to its workforce. Outlining its long term plans, the startup plans to expand its user offerings to allow non-technical users to utilise the platform.

FarEye: Vertical SaaS Startup Of The Year

• Headquarters: Delhi NCR
• Founders: Kushal Nahata, Gautam Kumar, Gaurav Srivastava
• Founded In: 2013
• Total Funding: $150 Mn
• Key Investors: Indian Angel Network, 23i, Eight Roads Ventures
• No. Of Customers/Clients: 150+

Logistics management startup FarEye clinched the SaaSBOOMi award for the “Vertical SaaS Startup Of The Year.” The startup aims to solve the complicated last-mile delivery issues through its automation software that allows companies to schedule and dispatch jobs, monitor execution and analyse performance in real-time. The startup has so far raised $150 Mn in funding from a slew of marquee names such as Indian Angel Network, Eight Roads Ventures, Honeywell  Ventures, SAIF Partners, among others. The Noida-based startup claims to work with 150 companies across 30 countries such as Gordon Food Service, Hilti, and Tata Steel. The startup also has an office in Chicago which serves as its US headquarters. The startup claims to process more than 5 Mn transactions per day. The startup claims to have grown by 200% since the pandemic and has more than 900 employees on its rolls." ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(12368) "This is the second season the awards and aims to encourage the best talent in the industry The winners include BrowserStack, Rattle, CleverTap, FarEye, PriceLabs and Hevo Data Indian enterprisetech startups raised more than $3.2 Bn in investments last year. Apart from that, India boasts of 16 unicorns in the enterprisetech space. The Indian Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) market has grown by leaps and bounds in the last few years. With it, many SaaS startups have emerged in the country, grabbing the attention of global investors. This is evident from the funding raised by the sector in the past few years. In 2021, Indian enterprisetech startups raised more than $3.2 Bn in investments. In addition, the sector has also shown enormous potential for growth. A report by SaaSBoomi estimated that the Indian SaaS sector was on track to generate revenue between $50 Bn and $70 Bn by 2030. The report also found that Indian entrepreneurs were likely to dominate 4%-6% of the global market by 2030. To recognize the work of Indian SaaS startups, this year’s SaaSBoomi Awards winners have been announced. The awards felicitate homegrown startups for their achievements in six categories – SaaS Startup of the Year, Emerging SaaS Startup of the Year, Breakout SaaS of the Year, Bootstrapped SaaS Startup of the Year, DevTools SaaS Startup of the Year and Vertical SaaS Startup of the Year. SaaSBoomi claims to be India’s largest community of SaaS founders and product builders. Founded in 2015 as an informal group, it has grown to include more than 1,500 SaaS as part of initiatives to foster greater learning in the sector.

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The SaaSBoomi Awards were judged entirely by the SaaS community and aimed to highlight the growing clout of the sector within the overall startup ecosystem in the country. The list included Freshworks’ Girish Mathrubootham, Chargebee’s Krish Subramanian, Capillary Tech’s CEO Aneesh Reddy, Postman CTO Ankit Sobti, MadStreetDen CEO Ashwini Asokan, Eka Software CEO Manav Garg and Kissflow’s Suresh Sambandam.

Meet The SaaSBoomi Award Winners

BrowserStack: SaaS Startup Of The Year

• Headquarters: Dublin, Ireland
• Founders: Ritesh Arora, Nakul Aggarwal
• Founded In: 2011
• Total Funding: $250 Mn
• Key Investors: Accel, BOND and Insight Partners
• No. Of Customers/Clients: 50,000+

BrowserStack took home the trophy for the “SaaS Startup Of The Year”. BrowserStack is an app testing platform that allows its clients to comprehensively test mobiles and apps through millions of combinations of digital environments. This allows developers to build bug-free apps without the need for large-scale manpower to test such systems. It also offers products that enable firms to scale testing and ship products faster without any issues. The Ireland-headquartered startup has more than 50,000 customers from as many as 135 countries. BrowserStack also claims to have over 4 Mn developers who have reportedly signed up for its products across the globe. The startup last raised $200 Mn in Series B funding last year, which valued it at $4 Bn. Since then, the startup has grown to more than 1,000 employees and is backed by marquee investors such as Accel, BOND and Insight Partners. Interestingly, the startup has been profitable since day one and has been a market leader since its early days. Going ahead, the startup plans to expand its product offerings. It also aims to scale its business and ramp up hiring in key roles such as engineering, sales and marketing. Speaking about its long term plans, BrowserStack said that it aims to be the go-to platform for startups to test and ship software.

Rattle: Emerging SaaS Startup Of The Year 

• Headquarters: San Francisco, US
• Founders:  Sahil Aggarwal, Milan Pal Singh, Apoorva Verma
• Founded In: 2020
• Total Funding: $28.8 Mn
• Key Investors: Insight Partners, Lightspeed, GV and Sequoia
• No. Of Customers/Clients: 100+ Customers and 4000+ users

At this year’s SaaSBOOMi awards, Rattle won the “Emerging SaaS startup Of The Year” award. Rattle is an enterprisetech startup that sits on top of solutions such as Salesforce and Slack, and allows team members to set up and automate their workflows. The startup raised a massive $26 Mn in its Series A funding round earlier this month, led by Insight Partners. Till date, Rattle has raised $28.8 Mn in funding from big institutional investors such as GV (formerly Google Ventures), Lightspeed, and Sequoia. The startup claims to have more than 4,000 users on its rolls including companies such as Miro, Rippling and ClearBit. It has a team of just 20 people. The startup aims to ramp up hiring and scale its operations by the end of this year. Rattle also plans to deploy all enterprise softwares through the platform on all engagement apps by 2025.

CleverTap: Breakout SaaS Startup Of The Year 

• Headquarters: California, US
• Founders: Sunil Thomas, Anand Jain, Suresh Kondamudi
• Founded In: 2013
• Total Funding: $76.1 Mn
• Key Investors: Sequoia, Tiger Global, Accel
• No. Of Customers/Clients: 1,000+

CleverTap won the award for the “Breakout SaaS Startup Of The Year”. CleverTap works with apps to increase user retention and customer lifetime value in terms of revenue. The platform leverages deeptech and first-party data to personalise and automate engagement with app users. Essentially, CleverTap enables consumer brands to understand their users better and engage the customers across multiple touchpoints. CleverTap claims that its clients created more than 9 Mn campaigns and sent over 1 Tn personalised messages to their users last year. The startup has more than 1, 000 clients under its belt such as PharmEasy, Nykaa, MX Player, Tata CLiQ, Premier League, Dream11, Air Asia, Carousell, and Gojek. The startup was founded in 2013 by Anand Jain, Sunil Thomas and Suresh Kondamudi. The trio left their jobs at Network18 to build a customised platform which can analyse user behaviour and send them personalised notifications. CleverTap has so far raised $76.1 Mn across different funding rounds and is backed by big names such as Sequoia, Tiger Global and Accel. The startup claims to have crossed the $55 Mn Annualised Run Rate (ARR) mark in March this year. It also claims to have gross margin upwards of 73% and net revenue retention at 124% in FY22. The startup plans to reach an ARR of $100 Mn by the end of this year. The California-based startup also plans to ramp up its presence in key markets of North America and Europe this year. CleverTap also has underlined its plans to go public by 2025.

PriceLabs: Bootstrapped SaaS Startup Of The Year 

• Headquarters: Chicago, US
• Founders: Richie Khandelwal, Anurag Verma, Syed Sana Hassan
• Founded In: 2014
• Total Funding: Bootstrapped
• Key Investors: NA
• No. Of Customers/Clients: 15,000+

Proptech startup PriceLabs emerged as the winner of the SaaSBOOMi “Bootstrapped Startup Of Year” award. PriceLabs offers revenue management software catering to the vacation and short-term rental industry. The platform uses proprietary algorithms to crunch market data and helps property managers maximise revenues.

The startup tracks rental and hotel data from around the globe to identify trends in bookings. This is then used to generate unique prices for clients’ local listings. The startup claims to have priced more than 1 Lakh listings across 95 countries globally. PriceLabs claims to have grown 3X in 2021 and doubled its team during the same period. The Chicago-based startup claims to have more than 15,000 customers on its rolls. PriceLabs plans to build a bigger team to cash in on its growth momentum. Over the long term, the startup intends to diversify its product offerings and create more streams of revenue to lead its next stage of growth.

Hevo Data: DevTools SaaS Startup Of The Year 

• Headquarters: San Francisco, US
• Founders: Manish Jethani, Sourabh Agarwal
• Founded In: 2017
• Total Funding: $43 Mn
• Key Investors: Sequoia Capital, Chiratae Ventures, Qualgro Partners
• No. Of Customers/Clients: 1,000+

Hevo Data was picked as the winner for this year’s SaaSBOOMi “DevTools SaaS Startup of the Year”. Hevo Data is an automated self-serve no-code data pipeline platform that loads data from any source into warehouses like Snowflake, Google BigQuery, Amazon Redshift, and others. The startup helps companies combine data from a wide array of applications including CRM, advertising channels, martech, financial system software, and customer support products to allow companies to get up-to-date data in their warehouse. The startup offers services to more than 1,000 companies spread across 35 countries.  It claims to have grown its revenue by 4X over the last year and to be well on track to grow it further by 3X this year. The startup has so far raised $43Mn in funding across multiple funding rounds. Hevo Data is backed by big names in the investor world such as Sequoia Capital, Chiratae Ventures and Qualgro Partners. The startup is based out of San Francisco and operates with a team of more than 200 people. Hevo Data plans to continue investing in product development and add more people to its workforce. Outlining its long term plans, the startup plans to expand its user offerings to allow non-technical users to utilise the platform.

FarEye: Vertical SaaS Startup Of The Year

• Headquarters: Delhi NCR
• Founders: Kushal Nahata, Gautam Kumar, Gaurav Srivastava
• Founded In: 2013
• Total Funding: $150 Mn
• Key Investors: Indian Angel Network, 23i, Eight Roads Ventures
• No. Of Customers/Clients: 150+

Logistics management startup FarEye clinched the SaaSBOOMi award for the “Vertical SaaS Startup Of The Year.” The startup aims to solve the complicated last-mile delivery issues through its automation software that allows companies to schedule and dispatch jobs, monitor execution and analyse performance in real-time. The startup has so far raised $150 Mn in funding from a slew of marquee names such as Indian Angel Network, Eight Roads Ventures, Honeywell  Ventures, SAIF Partners, among others. The Noida-based startup claims to work with 150 companies across 30 countries such as Gordon Food Service, Hilti, and Tata Steel. The startup also has an office in Chicago which serves as its US headquarters. The startup claims to process more than 5 Mn transactions per day. The startup claims to have grown by 200% since the pandemic and has more than 900 employees on its rolls." } }

Struggling with making ‘remote’ work for your startup? Find out what other founders have done to make it work for them

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(22003) "What a time for the Matrix Resurrections movie to have come out!  Right in the midst of a global event that has left many of us wondering if we are living in a boring, but nevertheless scary, version of The Matrix-like dystopian simulation. Simulation or not, we are definitely seeing a real-life mass experiment play out—an experiment to find out whether true and almost complete remote work can work for a vast chunk of companies and employees.   The jury is still out on whether work-from-home or work-from-anywhere is as good or even better than work-from-office. There are startups, and even large organizations, that have transitioned to a fully remote or remote-first option and are loving it. Then there are those who are still in remote work or have gone back to remote mode only because they have no other choice.  Whichever camp you belong to, the chances are remote work or hybrid work mode will continue for a while, especially considering the new mutated COVID-19 variants that keep arriving quite like the new and improved smartphone models that keep getting released.  At SaaSBoomi we wanted to find out how SaaS startups are making remote work work for them, what lessons they have to share with others who may be struggling or who are just starting out and wondering whether fully online will work for them, and what is not working out. I believe, just like the mutating virus, our lessons and ‘takeaways’ will mutate and evolve as the feedback loops strengthen and we keep implementing past lessons. Yet, this is a good time to take stock. This is why I checked in with some SaaS founders to not just understand how helming an online team has worked out for them, but also to gather some best practices.

Trepidation, productivity, fatigue

When India went remote in late March of 2020, many startup founders did so with trepidation. Would employees work? How will they manage work and home? Will they get the support they get in office? Will they collaborate? Many believed that this forced work-from-home would last a few weeks or at worst a few months. How wrong were we all! In the initial weeks and months many startups saw productivity actually soar. With no commute to worry about and not many other distractions, beyond ensuring food is available and the house doesn’t fall apart (privilege check), employees were working around the clock. The novelty factor also helped. Sure, there were issues. Many did not have a good home office setup or did not have great broadband connectivity. But startups quickly came up with home office allowances and home internet allowances. Startup founders and the HR teams focused their time and efforts almost entirely on ensuring employees were happy, felt connected, seen and heard, and stayed engaged through multiple initiatives ranging from regular town halls, fun online events, and even sending surprise hampers or food and discount coupons.  Unsurprisingly, between mid to late 2020, we saw a flurry of announcements from startups who decided to make the shift to remote permanent or decided to become remote-first.  When Ankit Dudhwewala’s startup Appitsimple, which runs software solutions discovery platform Software Suggest and cloud telephony platform CallHippo, went remote a week before the March lockdown, he did so because there was no choice. However, by June, he had seen the value of work-from-home and had implemented a WFH Pro policy. [caption id="attachment_3414" align="aligncenter" width="631"] Ankit Dudhwewala, Founder of Appitsimple runs software solutions discovery platform Software Suggest and cloud telephony platform CallHippo[/caption] Similarly, HR technology startup Springworks announced the company would be entirely work-from-anywhere in December 2020. Kartik Mandaville, Founder and CEO of HR software solutions startup Springworks, wrote of this shift:  “We went through all different types of work model(s) other companies emulate (office, hybrid, remote) and after much deliberation came to the conclusion that we will be going completely remote. We decided that there would be no HQ. We will provide an allowance for co-working spaces and will be meeting 2-4 times a year at an offsite.” [caption id="attachment_3413" align="aligncenter" width="512"] Kartik Mandaville, Founder and CEO of HR software solutions startup Springworks[/caption] But, even in those early days when optimism was the dominant emotion, concerns surrounding burnout, employee dissatisfaction, and yo-yo-ing productivity among other issues were being raised. In the past few months, the doubts have crystallized further.  There is a very real worry in some of the companies that work-from-home has resulted in a less engaged team; onboarding of new hires, especially freshers, has posed challenges; many employees are getting bogged down by having to be at home almost all the time; some employees are using work-from-home as an excuse to shirk work or to take on projects with other organization.  All these are legitimate worries. Many of them are enough to cause considerable and constant issues for founders - something founders shouldn’t have to deal with.  So, is remote work worth it? I posed questions to a sample set of founders in June 2021 and then again in November/December 2021 to see if the pros and cons of remote work remain over a period of time and what have they done to solve these challenges.  These founders are Kartik Mandaville of Springworks, Ankit Dudhwewala of Appitsimple, Rushabh Sheth, Founder of document workflow automation startup DocSumo, Aravind Ravi Sulekha and Abhijeet Vijayvergiya, Co-founders of B2B sales tech startup Nektar.ai, and Manoj Agarwal, Co-founder of rewards and incentives platform for businesses Xoxoday. Most of the points below are a distillation of their insights. 

Here’s what I found

There are clear pros of remote work, when it is done right. With unnecessary demands on time like long commutes and distracting office chit chat being done away with, productivity is high. Employees are also happier as they get to spend more time with family. There is access to a wider pool of talent. Nektra.ai, which has always functioned as a remote-only workplace since its inception in February 2020, has employees in Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia and Australia, apart from India. Kartik of Springworks says work-from-anywhere has helped him hire employees from all parts of India. Since employees do not have to relocate, that is one friction point the company doesn’t have to worry about. This sentiment is echoed by other founders.

“The inertia in global hiring, sales, marketing, and everything else has just gone away. We now work with many employees/freelancers in different parts of India and outside India. We could have never hired such people if it was work from an office situation,” says Manoj of Xoxoday.

[caption id="attachment_3412" align="aligncenter" width="512"] Manoj Agarwal, Co-founder of rewards and incentives platform for businesses Xoxoday[/caption] Quicker decision-making, more workplace innovation and lower administrative costs are some of the other advantages.  However, there are challenges to remote work especially if it has not been well-implemented. A significant challenge is the assimilation of company culture and values. This is tougher to convey and implement in a remote environment. This has a domino effect leading to disconnected employees and work becoming transactional.  Training in a remote environment is especially hard. “Lot of things which one learns on the floor by seeing and connecting, requires a lot of handholding in remote working,” says Manoj of Xoxoday. When everyone is open to hiring from anywhere, competition for talent can get fiercer. The limitations of the place the employee is in or of the home setup, like lack of space or bad connectivity, have a spillover effect on work. There is a chance of misuse across the spectrum, from toxic behaviors in a team not being visible to employees taking on a second job under the radar. Even more significant may be the mental health issues linked to burnout and isolation or from a lack of a supportive home environment. 

How to succeed at remote 

Now that the main pros and cons are clear, let’s take a look at how to ensure that remote work can work for your startup, if that’s the path you choose.

1. Design for remote: Why are you going remote? Will it be short term or will it be permanent? Will it be work-from-home for everyone or will it be a hybrid model with some or all teams getting the option to work remotely some or all the time? Depending on the answer, design your processes, policies and communication specifically for the option you choose for. If you are going entirely remote, what happens if some employees do not want that? Will you give them access to a co-working space or are you fine if they leave? What about situations where a remote employee has issues with connectivity? If you are planning to go hybrid, decide on which teams need to definitely be in office and who do not have to be. If all teams need to spend some time in the office every month, will you offer out of station employees a hotel and transport allowance? Thoughtful and thorough planning is required and you will need to have answers for all kinds of situations and emergencies.
2. Tailor hiring: Hire for the model you are following. If you hire someone who thrives in an office environment for a remote role, you are setting that employee up for failure. Do communicate your expectations and listen to theirs too. You may need to design your organization differently, with more focus on individual contributors rather than teams. You will also need to decide if you will hire from anywhere or restrict the hiring to a specific geography. For instance, if you expect employees to come to the office or have physical meetings with the team once a week or once a month, it may not make sense to hire people in too many different locations.
3. Build for employee success: Just because the employees are remote, does not mean they are on their own. It is in the company’s best interest to have employees who are taken care of and feel taken care of. Allowances for home office setups, for internet and phone calls, for F&B are some of the requisites. Access to virtual psychologists or counselors, expanded health insurance, generous travel allowances are some of the additional perks companies are offering. Most important though is creating a work environment and processes that are built for employees to succeed and flourish. Some of the following points elaborate on this. But the most fundamental requirement is that the founder and the managers will need to work from a place of trust. Founders will need to trust their employees to deliver without constant monitoring and checks. Aravind Ravi Sulekha of Nektar.ai says, “​​There is no assumption (at Nektar.ai) that work can only be done in the usual daytime shift at the usual workplace. So there is a lot of scope for employees to get creative with building that unique work environment for themselves, and one that aligns with their personal lives.” [caption id="attachment_3415" align="aligncenter" width="702"] Abhijeet Vijayvergiya (L) and Aravind Ravi Sulekha (R), Co-founders of B2B sales tech startup Nektar.ai[/caption] Having clear-cut roles, goals and expectations go a long way in helping establish trust among all employees. In a remote environment, it doesn’t make sense to compute time spent on work. Actual work done and goals met are what matter. Establishing OKRs for teams and individuals and establishing a system of regular, but not too often, reviews will help ensure employees are on track.
4. Focus on culture: When everyone’s together in an office, culture and values trickle down in a number of unsaid ways. In an online and virtual model, more thought needs to be put in. Rushabh Sheth of DocSumo, which has always been remote, suggests documenting Culture right from day one. “Creating version 1 of your culture deck always helps even if it has only 10 slides. Think of it as an evolving document just like your sales deck. Anytime team size exceeds 10, you need a written system to agree on what are the accepted values and expected behaviors,” he says. “Effective remote culture doesn't just happen. Keep a Googledoc on small things that bug you or pleasantly surprise you. You can include these anecdotes in your culture deck and make sure to communicate on team channels.” Finding interesting ways to reinforce desired values is a need—some companies have instituted peer awards over Slack channels for employees who embody organisational values. But nothing matches role modeling. In a virtual environment, more so than in an in-person environment, if the founder and the senior leaders do not live the values then it will not percolate.
5. Prioritize onboarding and training: Onboarding a new employee is among the key processes of a startup. In a remote environment, it is very easy for a new employee to feel lost, not understand workplace nuances and team dynamics, and feel disconnected and eventually disenchanted. An onboarding process that includes a buddy system or allows new hires to shadow experienced team members even if virtually can help solve many of these challenges. Some startups have created video intros so employees can get to know each other. Startups have expanded their Learning & Development programmes and are investing in specialized online training modules. Training bootcamps and peer pairings are some other methods startups are trying out.
6. Use tools: One of the blessings of running a startup today is the availability of a whole host of productivity, workflow and communication tools. The idea is to make virtual work processes seem as intuitive and comfortable, if not more, as the ones in office. Trello, Slack, Notion, Google’s suite of tools, Zoom, JIRA, Trooper, and Obsidian are just some of the tools being used. Manoj of Xoxoday says the company uses over 80 SaaS tools across different departments to bring a lot of process efficiencies and automation. Many startups have even developed their own in-house apps for employee engagement. For instance, Springworks created a Trivia app and a peer-to-peer recognition app called EngageWith. Interestingly, the company has commercialized these products and they have turned revenue generators.
7. Asynchronous work: There is a tendency in many of our offices to get work done through meetings. This need not work well always, even in the physical world. In the virtual environment, such a practice can backfire. Most companies are relying on asynchronous work and strengthening such processes as they are more effective in increasing productivity. Employees can prioritize their time and ensure work gets done. Many of the workflow tools today enable such a model of work. One of the requirements of not just asynchronous work but of remote work in general is the need to document. Kartik of Springworks says an asynchronous model “means solid documentation (helps everyone, whether current employee or ones joining later), radical transparency (everyone's aware of what's happening across teams and at the org level), and fewer and fewer Zoom/Gmeet calls”.
8. Communicate more: This might seem like I am contradicting the previous point. Far from it. The idea is to schedule regular check-ins that are quick and fit the requirement of specific teams, organize regular town halls, send out regular emails or Slack messages—communicate in such a way that it takes up the minimum time of employees but ensures they know what the company, their team, other teams and the senior leadership are up to.  Additionally, the founder needs to be visible and more open with communication. When employees, including juniors, feel like they can approach the founders and leaders, or when it is clear that the leadership is being transparent with their decision making, employees will feel secure and connected.
9. Define face-to-face time: Many remote-only or remote-first companies do recognise the need for in-person time. Only companies that strictly follow the gig worker or contractor model can stay completely remote with no in-person meetings at all. Companies can solve this in multiple ways. A few have scheduled once-a-month office meetups, while others require different teams to spend a week in office by rotation. Most schedule at least a couple of full-team offsites each year to ensure fun bonding time in-person. But face-to-face does not have to happen only in the physical world. Many companies also schedule regular weekly video-based live fun events and sessions during office hours. This helps immensely.

Fully remote work is truly a new experience and the learning curve has been steep. But, it is good for all SaaS startups to figure out how to succeed at remote work sooner rather than later, as increasingly SaaS teams are becoming global and at least a part of the team will be working remotely even when the pandemic is behind us.  As Aravind of Nektar.ai says, “The future of work is already here, the pandemic just made it vastly apparent. Continue to reimagine the workplace and give your employees the same amount of attention as you would to your customers. The new generations joining the workforce are rejecting the old ways of working. Technology has made this transition smoother than we could ever imagine. The sooner we make this shift, the earlier you can access a wide pool of talent not limited by any barriers like geography, and start building a truly global workforce.”" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(22003) "What a time for the Matrix Resurrections movie to have come out!  Right in the midst of a global event that has left many of us wondering if we are living in a boring, but nevertheless scary, version of The Matrix-like dystopian simulation. Simulation or not, we are definitely seeing a real-life mass experiment play out—an experiment to find out whether true and almost complete remote work can work for a vast chunk of companies and employees.   The jury is still out on whether work-from-home or work-from-anywhere is as good or even better than work-from-office. There are startups, and even large organizations, that have transitioned to a fully remote or remote-first option and are loving it. Then there are those who are still in remote work or have gone back to remote mode only because they have no other choice.  Whichever camp you belong to, the chances are remote work or hybrid work mode will continue for a while, especially considering the new mutated COVID-19 variants that keep arriving quite like the new and improved smartphone models that keep getting released.  At SaaSBoomi we wanted to find out how SaaS startups are making remote work work for them, what lessons they have to share with others who may be struggling or who are just starting out and wondering whether fully online will work for them, and what is not working out. I believe, just like the mutating virus, our lessons and ‘takeaways’ will mutate and evolve as the feedback loops strengthen and we keep implementing past lessons. Yet, this is a good time to take stock. This is why I checked in with some SaaS founders to not just understand how helming an online team has worked out for them, but also to gather some best practices.

Trepidation, productivity, fatigue

When India went remote in late March of 2020, many startup founders did so with trepidation. Would employees work? How will they manage work and home? Will they get the support they get in office? Will they collaborate? Many believed that this forced work-from-home would last a few weeks or at worst a few months. How wrong were we all! In the initial weeks and months many startups saw productivity actually soar. With no commute to worry about and not many other distractions, beyond ensuring food is available and the house doesn’t fall apart (privilege check), employees were working around the clock. The novelty factor also helped. Sure, there were issues. Many did not have a good home office setup or did not have great broadband connectivity. But startups quickly came up with home office allowances and home internet allowances. Startup founders and the HR teams focused their time and efforts almost entirely on ensuring employees were happy, felt connected, seen and heard, and stayed engaged through multiple initiatives ranging from regular town halls, fun online events, and even sending surprise hampers or food and discount coupons.  Unsurprisingly, between mid to late 2020, we saw a flurry of announcements from startups who decided to make the shift to remote permanent or decided to become remote-first.  When Ankit Dudhwewala’s startup Appitsimple, which runs software solutions discovery platform Software Suggest and cloud telephony platform CallHippo, went remote a week before the March lockdown, he did so because there was no choice. However, by June, he had seen the value of work-from-home and had implemented a WFH Pro policy. [caption id="attachment_3414" align="aligncenter" width="631"] Ankit Dudhwewala, Founder of Appitsimple runs software solutions discovery platform Software Suggest and cloud telephony platform CallHippo[/caption] Similarly, HR technology startup Springworks announced the company would be entirely work-from-anywhere in December 2020. Kartik Mandaville, Founder and CEO of HR software solutions startup Springworks, wrote of this shift:  “We went through all different types of work model(s) other companies emulate (office, hybrid, remote) and after much deliberation came to the conclusion that we will be going completely remote. We decided that there would be no HQ. We will provide an allowance for co-working spaces and will be meeting 2-4 times a year at an offsite.” [caption id="attachment_3413" align="aligncenter" width="512"] Kartik Mandaville, Founder and CEO of HR software solutions startup Springworks[/caption] But, even in those early days when optimism was the dominant emotion, concerns surrounding burnout, employee dissatisfaction, and yo-yo-ing productivity among other issues were being raised. In the past few months, the doubts have crystallized further.  There is a very real worry in some of the companies that work-from-home has resulted in a less engaged team; onboarding of new hires, especially freshers, has posed challenges; many employees are getting bogged down by having to be at home almost all the time; some employees are using work-from-home as an excuse to shirk work or to take on projects with other organization.  All these are legitimate worries. Many of them are enough to cause considerable and constant issues for founders - something founders shouldn’t have to deal with.  So, is remote work worth it? I posed questions to a sample set of founders in June 2021 and then again in November/December 2021 to see if the pros and cons of remote work remain over a period of time and what have they done to solve these challenges.  These founders are Kartik Mandaville of Springworks, Ankit Dudhwewala of Appitsimple, Rushabh Sheth, Founder of document workflow automation startup DocSumo, Aravind Ravi Sulekha and Abhijeet Vijayvergiya, Co-founders of B2B sales tech startup Nektar.ai, and Manoj Agarwal, Co-founder of rewards and incentives platform for businesses Xoxoday. Most of the points below are a distillation of their insights. 

Here’s what I found

There are clear pros of remote work, when it is done right. With unnecessary demands on time like long commutes and distracting office chit chat being done away with, productivity is high. Employees are also happier as they get to spend more time with family. There is access to a wider pool of talent. Nektra.ai, which has always functioned as a remote-only workplace since its inception in February 2020, has employees in Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia and Australia, apart from India. Kartik of Springworks says work-from-anywhere has helped him hire employees from all parts of India. Since employees do not have to relocate, that is one friction point the company doesn’t have to worry about. This sentiment is echoed by other founders.

“The inertia in global hiring, sales, marketing, and everything else has just gone away. We now work with many employees/freelancers in different parts of India and outside India. We could have never hired such people if it was work from an office situation,” says Manoj of Xoxoday.

[caption id="attachment_3412" align="aligncenter" width="512"] Manoj Agarwal, Co-founder of rewards and incentives platform for businesses Xoxoday[/caption] Quicker decision-making, more workplace innovation and lower administrative costs are some of the other advantages.  However, there are challenges to remote work especially if it has not been well-implemented. A significant challenge is the assimilation of company culture and values. This is tougher to convey and implement in a remote environment. This has a domino effect leading to disconnected employees and work becoming transactional.  Training in a remote environment is especially hard. “Lot of things which one learns on the floor by seeing and connecting, requires a lot of handholding in remote working,” says Manoj of Xoxoday. When everyone is open to hiring from anywhere, competition for talent can get fiercer. The limitations of the place the employee is in or of the home setup, like lack of space or bad connectivity, have a spillover effect on work. There is a chance of misuse across the spectrum, from toxic behaviors in a team not being visible to employees taking on a second job under the radar. Even more significant may be the mental health issues linked to burnout and isolation or from a lack of a supportive home environment. 

How to succeed at remote 

Now that the main pros and cons are clear, let’s take a look at how to ensure that remote work can work for your startup, if that’s the path you choose.

1. Design for remote: Why are you going remote? Will it be short term or will it be permanent? Will it be work-from-home for everyone or will it be a hybrid model with some or all teams getting the option to work remotely some or all the time? Depending on the answer, design your processes, policies and communication specifically for the option you choose for. If you are going entirely remote, what happens if some employees do not want that? Will you give them access to a co-working space or are you fine if they leave? What about situations where a remote employee has issues with connectivity? If you are planning to go hybrid, decide on which teams need to definitely be in office and who do not have to be. If all teams need to spend some time in the office every month, will you offer out of station employees a hotel and transport allowance? Thoughtful and thorough planning is required and you will need to have answers for all kinds of situations and emergencies.
2. Tailor hiring: Hire for the model you are following. If you hire someone who thrives in an office environment for a remote role, you are setting that employee up for failure. Do communicate your expectations and listen to theirs too. You may need to design your organization differently, with more focus on individual contributors rather than teams. You will also need to decide if you will hire from anywhere or restrict the hiring to a specific geography. For instance, if you expect employees to come to the office or have physical meetings with the team once a week or once a month, it may not make sense to hire people in too many different locations.
3. Build for employee success: Just because the employees are remote, does not mean they are on their own. It is in the company’s best interest to have employees who are taken care of and feel taken care of. Allowances for home office setups, for internet and phone calls, for F&B are some of the requisites. Access to virtual psychologists or counselors, expanded health insurance, generous travel allowances are some of the additional perks companies are offering. Most important though is creating a work environment and processes that are built for employees to succeed and flourish. Some of the following points elaborate on this. But the most fundamental requirement is that the founder and the managers will need to work from a place of trust. Founders will need to trust their employees to deliver without constant monitoring and checks. Aravind Ravi Sulekha of Nektar.ai says, “​​There is no assumption (at Nektar.ai) that work can only be done in the usual daytime shift at the usual workplace. So there is a lot of scope for employees to get creative with building that unique work environment for themselves, and one that aligns with their personal lives.” [caption id="attachment_3415" align="aligncenter" width="702"] Abhijeet Vijayvergiya (L) and Aravind Ravi Sulekha (R), Co-founders of B2B sales tech startup Nektar.ai[/caption] Having clear-cut roles, goals and expectations go a long way in helping establish trust among all employees. In a remote environment, it doesn’t make sense to compute time spent on work. Actual work done and goals met are what matter. Establishing OKRs for teams and individuals and establishing a system of regular, but not too often, reviews will help ensure employees are on track.
4. Focus on culture: When everyone’s together in an office, culture and values trickle down in a number of unsaid ways. In an online and virtual model, more thought needs to be put in. Rushabh Sheth of DocSumo, which has always been remote, suggests documenting Culture right from day one. “Creating version 1 of your culture deck always helps even if it has only 10 slides. Think of it as an evolving document just like your sales deck. Anytime team size exceeds 10, you need a written system to agree on what are the accepted values and expected behaviors,” he says. “Effective remote culture doesn't just happen. Keep a Googledoc on small things that bug you or pleasantly surprise you. You can include these anecdotes in your culture deck and make sure to communicate on team channels.” Finding interesting ways to reinforce desired values is a need—some companies have instituted peer awards over Slack channels for employees who embody organisational values. But nothing matches role modeling. In a virtual environment, more so than in an in-person environment, if the founder and the senior leaders do not live the values then it will not percolate.
5. Prioritize onboarding and training: Onboarding a new employee is among the key processes of a startup. In a remote environment, it is very easy for a new employee to feel lost, not understand workplace nuances and team dynamics, and feel disconnected and eventually disenchanted. An onboarding process that includes a buddy system or allows new hires to shadow experienced team members even if virtually can help solve many of these challenges. Some startups have created video intros so employees can get to know each other. Startups have expanded their Learning & Development programmes and are investing in specialized online training modules. Training bootcamps and peer pairings are some other methods startups are trying out.
6. Use tools: One of the blessings of running a startup today is the availability of a whole host of productivity, workflow and communication tools. The idea is to make virtual work processes seem as intuitive and comfortable, if not more, as the ones in office. Trello, Slack, Notion, Google’s suite of tools, Zoom, JIRA, Trooper, and Obsidian are just some of the tools being used. Manoj of Xoxoday says the company uses over 80 SaaS tools across different departments to bring a lot of process efficiencies and automation. Many startups have even developed their own in-house apps for employee engagement. For instance, Springworks created a Trivia app and a peer-to-peer recognition app called EngageWith. Interestingly, the company has commercialized these products and they have turned revenue generators.
7. Asynchronous work: There is a tendency in many of our offices to get work done through meetings. This need not work well always, even in the physical world. In the virtual environment, such a practice can backfire. Most companies are relying on asynchronous work and strengthening such processes as they are more effective in increasing productivity. Employees can prioritize their time and ensure work gets done. Many of the workflow tools today enable such a model of work. One of the requirements of not just asynchronous work but of remote work in general is the need to document. Kartik of Springworks says an asynchronous model “means solid documentation (helps everyone, whether current employee or ones joining later), radical transparency (everyone's aware of what's happening across teams and at the org level), and fewer and fewer Zoom/Gmeet calls”.
8. Communicate more: This might seem like I am contradicting the previous point. Far from it. The idea is to schedule regular check-ins that are quick and fit the requirement of specific teams, organize regular town halls, send out regular emails or Slack messages—communicate in such a way that it takes up the minimum time of employees but ensures they know what the company, their team, other teams and the senior leadership are up to.  Additionally, the founder needs to be visible and more open with communication. When employees, including juniors, feel like they can approach the founders and leaders, or when it is clear that the leadership is being transparent with their decision making, employees will feel secure and connected.
9. Define face-to-face time: Many remote-only or remote-first companies do recognise the need for in-person time. Only companies that strictly follow the gig worker or contractor model can stay completely remote with no in-person meetings at all. Companies can solve this in multiple ways. A few have scheduled once-a-month office meetups, while others require different teams to spend a week in office by rotation. Most schedule at least a couple of full-team offsites each year to ensure fun bonding time in-person. But face-to-face does not have to happen only in the physical world. Many companies also schedule regular weekly video-based live fun events and sessions during office hours. This helps immensely.

Fully remote work is truly a new experience and the learning curve has been steep. But, it is good for all SaaS startups to figure out how to succeed at remote work sooner rather than later, as increasingly SaaS teams are becoming global and at least a part of the team will be working remotely even when the pandemic is behind us.  As Aravind of Nektar.ai says, “The future of work is already here, the pandemic just made it vastly apparent. Continue to reimagine the workplace and give your employees the same amount of attention as you would to your customers. The new generations joining the workforce are rejecting the old ways of working. Technology has made this transition smoother than we could ever imagine. The sooner we make this shift, the earlier you can access a wide pool of talent not limited by any barriers like geography, and start building a truly global workforce.”" } }

A playground where SaaS leaders open up their growth playbooks

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(9769) "

The what and the why behind SaaSBoomi Growth 2022

In the last few years, the Indian SaaS ecosystem has come farther and faster than our anticipations in our quest to become a ‘product nation’.

In this time, we’ve seen a plethora of world-class product offerings solving complex business problems for customers across the globe.

To put things in perspective, Indian SaaS companies generate $2–3 billion in revenues each year and have earned about 1% of the global technology market.

Even by the most conservative estimates, that number could grow into anywhere between $50-$70 billion in the next decade, winning around 5% of the global market: A value creation opportunity to the tune of $500billion to $1 trillion dollars.

At this critical juncture for individual companies as well as the ecosystem as a whole, it is important we do a little self-introspection and accurately address our strengths and weaknesses that play a starring role in our success.

To that tune, at SaaSBoomi we’ve had the privilege of interacting and learning from countless SaaS founders from companies that range from one-man shops to those with offices across continents, to get a well-rounded sense of the state of things and how we are positioned in our journey to a trillion-dollar economy.

We’ve come to observe one general sentiment amongst founders:

“We’ve figured out the part of building a world-class product. Now, how do we build a growth flywheel around it to hit our revenue targets?”

While it would be a stretch to call it a chink in the armour, founders do acknowledge that one of the tougher problems in company building has been establishing a repeatable, scalable growth engine that the marketing and sales teams can emulate.

In fact, this is one of the biggest headaches for companies that have a great product, serve a few hundred happy users, and are currently in the middle of attaining product-market fit. Because the processes and frameworks you set up at this stage of company building could very well make or break your business goals.

This is a particularly tricky proposition because as you move up the rung of product-building milestones as a company, there are fewer and fewer blueprints of those who have been there and done that, sharing their lessons and mistakes.

It is for all these reasons, we at SaaSBoomi envisioned ‘SaaSBoomi Growth’, a one-of-its-kind closed room gathering for founders, marketers, and sales leaders, where successful growth leaders open up their playbooks on how they built a high-flying growth engine at their companies.

Last year, ‘SaaSBoomi Growth’ saw participation from ~200 founders and growth leaders who went back with invaluable insights on highly specific growth themes from niche experts.

Building on that buzzing reception, we’re back with SaaSBoomi Growth 2022, a 2-day spectacle where dozens of growth leaders and founders share everything they’ve learnt in their journey: Mistakes, Insights, Playbooks, Temptations, that every marketing and sales leader should be aware of.

At SaaSBoomi Growth 2022, you are guaranteed to walk away with tried and tested strategies and tactics for user acquisition, engagement, retention, and many more insights to help you set up the perfect launchpad a successful growth engine of your own.

And of course, following the same philosophy as every SaaSBoomi event, there are a lot of initiatives in store to help you meet, network, pay-it-forward, and learn from growth and marketing leaders who are tackling the same problems as your company.

Packed with lessons from top growth experts in the country who’ve been there and done that

At a venue as special as the conference, the community, and the cause Brought to you by a team that’s equally passionate about growth, as they are about paying it forward

Note for the applicants

We’re tremendously grateful for the overwhelming response from the community, with us receiving over 350+ applications in a span of 14 days.

As always, our curation team followed a rigorous review process in vetting the applications. Startups were reviewed based on three criteria:

1. ARR less than 2M
2. B2B SaaS Company
3. No lower revenue threshold

While we would’ve loved to approve almost every application we received, we were unable to do so because of capacity constraints at the venue. We’d like to convey our sincere apologies for those who weren’t able to get through this time. We truly hope to see you in the next edition.

Here’s to building world-class products and sustainable growth engines that catalyse their success.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(9769) "

The what and the why behind SaaSBoomi Growth 2022

In the last few years, the Indian SaaS ecosystem has come farther and faster than our anticipations in our quest to become a ‘product nation’.

In this time, we’ve seen a plethora of world-class product offerings solving complex business problems for customers across the globe.

To put things in perspective, Indian SaaS companies generate $2–3 billion in revenues each year and have earned about 1% of the global technology market.

Even by the most conservative estimates, that number could grow into anywhere between $50-$70 billion in the next decade, winning around 5% of the global market: A value creation opportunity to the tune of $500billion to $1 trillion dollars.

At this critical juncture for individual companies as well as the ecosystem as a whole, it is important we do a little self-introspection and accurately address our strengths and weaknesses that play a starring role in our success.

To that tune, at SaaSBoomi we’ve had the privilege of interacting and learning from countless SaaS founders from companies that range from one-man shops to those with offices across continents, to get a well-rounded sense of the state of things and how we are positioned in our journey to a trillion-dollar economy.

We’ve come to observe one general sentiment amongst founders:

“We’ve figured out the part of building a world-class product. Now, how do we build a growth flywheel around it to hit our revenue targets?”

While it would be a stretch to call it a chink in the armour, founders do acknowledge that one of the tougher problems in company building has been establishing a repeatable, scalable growth engine that the marketing and sales teams can emulate.

In fact, this is one of the biggest headaches for companies that have a great product, serve a few hundred happy users, and are currently in the middle of attaining product-market fit. Because the processes and frameworks you set up at this stage of company building could very well make or break your business goals.

This is a particularly tricky proposition because as you move up the rung of product-building milestones as a company, there are fewer and fewer blueprints of those who have been there and done that, sharing their lessons and mistakes.

It is for all these reasons, we at SaaSBoomi envisioned ‘SaaSBoomi Growth’, a one-of-its-kind closed room gathering for founders, marketers, and sales leaders, where successful growth leaders open up their playbooks on how they built a high-flying growth engine at their companies.

Last year, ‘SaaSBoomi Growth’ saw participation from ~200 founders and growth leaders who went back with invaluable insights on highly specific growth themes from niche experts.

Building on that buzzing reception, we’re back with SaaSBoomi Growth 2022, a 2-day spectacle where dozens of growth leaders and founders share everything they’ve learnt in their journey: Mistakes, Insights, Playbooks, Temptations, that every marketing and sales leader should be aware of.

At SaaSBoomi Growth 2022, you are guaranteed to walk away with tried and tested strategies and tactics for user acquisition, engagement, retention, and many more insights to help you set up the perfect launchpad a successful growth engine of your own.

And of course, following the same philosophy as every SaaSBoomi event, there are a lot of initiatives in store to help you meet, network, pay-it-forward, and learn from growth and marketing leaders who are tackling the same problems as your company.

Packed with lessons from top growth experts in the country who’ve been there and done that

At a venue as special as the conference, the community, and the cause Brought to you by a team that’s equally passionate about growth, as they are about paying it forward

Note for the applicants

We’re tremendously grateful for the overwhelming response from the community, with us receiving over 350+ applications in a span of 14 days.

As always, our curation team followed a rigorous review process in vetting the applications. Startups were reviewed based on three criteria:

1. ARR less than 2M
2. B2B SaaS Company
3. No lower revenue threshold

While we would’ve loved to approve almost every application we received, we were unable to do so because of capacity constraints at the venue. We’d like to convey our sincere apologies for those who weren’t able to get through this time. We truly hope to see you in the next edition.

Here’s to building world-class products and sustainable growth engines that catalyse their success.

" } }

Meet the Finalists of SaaSBoomi Awards 2021

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(10359) "When we launched the inaugural SaaSBoomi awards in 2020, the world was just about waking up to the horrors of the pandemic. The intent of instituting a new award during this grim time was rooted in the hope that it would serve as a rallying point for inspiring all other SaaS startups in India.  As it turned out, the pandemic accelerated the shift towards online and digital services and the world of SaaS emerged more buoyant than ever before. With billions of fresh funding capital chasing ambitious founders looking to dent large markets, we are on the cusp of a new digital order with India definitively establishing itself as one of the most important SaaS hubs of the world. The second edition of the SaasBoomi Awards is therefore an attempt to recognize and laud companies who are poised to take up important positions in the firmament of this new world order. Even in this bold new environment, our North Star continues to be an honest and community-driven attempt to recognize exemplary startups, several of whom might not have come to public attention otherwise and celebrate the extraordinary aspirations and efforts of Indian SaaS founders.

The SaaSBoomi Awards Process

As in the previous inaugural edition, the second season of the SaaSBoomi Awards followed a regimented and transparent process. We finalized eight award categories - based on feedback from the community, we dropped the Moonshot category from the previous edition and replaced it with a new category called "Emerging startup of the year" to recognize nascent startups below $1M in revenue but have achieved phenomenal early traction or have attracted wide praise for an original solution approach. The rest of the categories are the same as the previous year. Our call for applications received an overwhelming response - we were pleasantly surprised with not just the quantity but also the quality of the applications. There was a great diversity of companies in the Breakout and Vertical SaaS categories and we saw many early stage companies with great products focusing on PMF, distribution and big rounds of funding in the Emerging startup category.  We would have loved to see more companies in the Dev Tools category in the future From the applicants, we shortlisted a select set of four to six companies per category. The shortlisting was done using an objective process with a scoring system that was based on different parameters and measured on quantitative metrics.   The short-listed companies were evaluated by a high-quality jury:

• Aneesh Reddy, Co-Founder and CEO at Capillary Technologies
• Ankit Sobti, Co-founder & CTO, Postman
• Ashwini Asokan, Founder and CEO at MadStreetDen
• Girish Mathrubootham, Founder and CEO at Freshworks
• Krish Subramanian, Co-founder and CEO at Chargebee
• Manav Garg, Founder and CEO at Eka Software
• Suresh Sambandam, CEO at KissFlow 
• Pallav Nadhani, Co-founder and former CEO of FusionCharts

For each category, three jury members with relevant domain expertise or informed opinions were tasked with deliberating upon the shortlisted candidates to decide on the winner.  For two categories, SaaS Startup of the Year and a new surprise category, the entire jury chose the winner.

The Finalists

While the SaaS startup of the year will be announced in the upcoming SaaSBoomi Growth event, we are delighted to announce the finalists for all the other categories.

Breakout SaaS startup of the year

For startups that have achieved phenomenal traction or recognition in the recent past, whether through a paradigm shift or through focused execution. The shortlisted finalists are:

• SaaS Labs
• Shiprocket
• Exotel
• CleverTap
• Darwinbox

Emerging SaaS Startup of the year

For young SaaS startups that are relatively early in the journey (less than $1m ARR) but have demonstrated promise and potential. The shortlisted finalists are:

• Aerchain
• BarRaiser
• Rattle
• Credgenics
• Wingman

Bootstrapped SaaS startup of the year

For startups that have scaled without raising any institutional money (over $100K) and only rely on revenue to fund and grow their operations. The shortlisted finalists are:

• PriceLabs
• Cardinality.ai
• SignDesk
• FieldAssist
• Acqueon

DevTools SaaS Startup of the year

For startups that are building tools, libraries, or systems for the burgeoning developer market, and have received critical acclaim for the same. The shortlisted finalists are:

• Hevo Data
• SAWO Labs Pvt. Ltd.
• Appknox
• Sn126

Vertical SaaS startup of the year

For startups that play in a vertical domain and have achieved phenomenal traction within that domain, be it in terms of revenue or customers. The shortlisted finalists are:

• FarEye
• Shiprocket
• Increff
• GoBOLT
• Yellow.ai

We would like to congratulate all the finalists for their successes and achievements. While every shortlisted company is a winner in its own right already, the final winners for each award will be unveiled on 25-26th April during the SaaSBoomi Growth event at Chennai. We look forward to seeing you there! You can also check out more here." ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(10359) "When we launched the inaugural SaaSBoomi awards in 2020, the world was just about waking up to the horrors of the pandemic. The intent of instituting a new award during this grim time was rooted in the hope that it would serve as a rallying point for inspiring all other SaaS startups in India.  As it turned out, the pandemic accelerated the shift towards online and digital services and the world of SaaS emerged more buoyant than ever before. With billions of fresh funding capital chasing ambitious founders looking to dent large markets, we are on the cusp of a new digital order with India definitively establishing itself as one of the most important SaaS hubs of the world. The second edition of the SaasBoomi Awards is therefore an attempt to recognize and laud companies who are poised to take up important positions in the firmament of this new world order. Even in this bold new environment, our North Star continues to be an honest and community-driven attempt to recognize exemplary startups, several of whom might not have come to public attention otherwise and celebrate the extraordinary aspirations and efforts of Indian SaaS founders.

The SaaSBoomi Awards Process

As in the previous inaugural edition, the second season of the SaaSBoomi Awards followed a regimented and transparent process. We finalized eight award categories - based on feedback from the community, we dropped the Moonshot category from the previous edition and replaced it with a new category called "Emerging startup of the year" to recognize nascent startups below $1M in revenue but have achieved phenomenal early traction or have attracted wide praise for an original solution approach. The rest of the categories are the same as the previous year. Our call for applications received an overwhelming response - we were pleasantly surprised with not just the quantity but also the quality of the applications. There was a great diversity of companies in the Breakout and Vertical SaaS categories and we saw many early stage companies with great products focusing on PMF, distribution and big rounds of funding in the Emerging startup category.  We would have loved to see more companies in the Dev Tools category in the future From the applicants, we shortlisted a select set of four to six companies per category. The shortlisting was done using an objective process with a scoring system that was based on different parameters and measured on quantitative metrics.   The short-listed companies were evaluated by a high-quality jury:

• Aneesh Reddy, Co-Founder and CEO at Capillary Technologies
• Ankit Sobti, Co-founder & CTO, Postman
• Ashwini Asokan, Founder and CEO at MadStreetDen
• Girish Mathrubootham, Founder and CEO at Freshworks
• Krish Subramanian, Co-founder and CEO at Chargebee
• Manav Garg, Founder and CEO at Eka Software
• Suresh Sambandam, CEO at KissFlow 
• Pallav Nadhani, Co-founder and former CEO of FusionCharts

For each category, three jury members with relevant domain expertise or informed opinions were tasked with deliberating upon the shortlisted candidates to decide on the winner.  For two categories, SaaS Startup of the Year and a new surprise category, the entire jury chose the winner.

The Finalists

While the SaaS startup of the year will be announced in the upcoming SaaSBoomi Growth event, we are delighted to announce the finalists for all the other categories.

Breakout SaaS startup of the year

For startups that have achieved phenomenal traction or recognition in the recent past, whether through a paradigm shift or through focused execution. The shortlisted finalists are:

• SaaS Labs
• Shiprocket
• Exotel
• CleverTap
• Darwinbox

Emerging SaaS Startup of the year

For young SaaS startups that are relatively early in the journey (less than $1m ARR) but have demonstrated promise and potential. The shortlisted finalists are:

• Aerchain
• BarRaiser
• Rattle
• Credgenics
• Wingman

Bootstrapped SaaS startup of the year

For startups that have scaled without raising any institutional money (over $100K) and only rely on revenue to fund and grow their operations. The shortlisted finalists are:

• PriceLabs
• Cardinality.ai
• SignDesk
• FieldAssist
• Acqueon

DevTools SaaS Startup of the year

For startups that are building tools, libraries, or systems for the burgeoning developer market, and have received critical acclaim for the same. The shortlisted finalists are:

• Hevo Data
• SAWO Labs Pvt. Ltd.
• Appknox
• Sn126

Vertical SaaS startup of the year

For startups that play in a vertical domain and have achieved phenomenal traction within that domain, be it in terms of revenue or customers. The shortlisted finalists are:

• FarEye
• Shiprocket
• Increff
• GoBOLT
• Yellow.ai

We would like to congratulate all the finalists for their successes and achievements. While every shortlisted company is a winner in its own right already, the final winners for each award will be unveiled on 25-26th April during the SaaSBoomi Growth event at Chennai. We look forward to seeing you there! You can also check out more here." } }

It takes a village to build a company. It takes many villages to build a community.

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(16490) "

So far at SaaSBoomi, almost all our offline events have been following a similar format — we pick a prime tech city in the country — Chennai, Bangalore, or Hyderabad, and host large-scale conferences with 80% focus on content and 20% focus on networking. In fact, all major tech events follow this playbook in general.

They work, no doubt, but we knew that we could do so much more to help build the Indian SaaS community. Adding the pandemic’s effect to this, we found an opportunity to experiment with a new event structure we’ve never tried before.

It all started with a conversation with Sameera Vanekar, co-founder of PathFix, at SaaSBoomi’s first social gathering with founders in Bangalore. She thoroughly enjoyed the discussions that happened before the networking drinks. She kept talking about how she loved the energy of such social meetups, and how people come together and create serendipitous connections.

This was after almost two years that we were doing an in-person event in Bangalore as part of SaaSBoomi in the week of February. We had around 120–130 people in the evening and the energy was buzzing, with everyone meeting, greeting, and hugging each other after a long time.

We realized that while content is one of the reasons why people come to events, the connections and friendships they form there are what make them stay back.

A few days later, my colleague Tarun and I were reflecting on the event and we wanted to create similar energy in all major cities in the country. We came up with a solution — organize social gatherings in every city with no agenda and organic conversations. And that’s how Tarun came up with the name and the positioning statement of the SaaSBoomi Social.

As an event organizer, I believe that this is a new and powerful format we have stumbled upon. The impact has been phenomenal — we have touched 650+ founders and probably made 2000+ connections.

Here is the playbook that we have followed and if someone is trying to do something in their city, we would be happy to support the same.

Accessibility

Instead of making SaaS founders from across the country come to our events, we took the events to them.

We planned to start with Hyderabad (as Tarun is the brand ambassador for HYD), followed by Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, and Delhi. Around 650+ founders were invited to attend the socials in 6 cities with more than 1100+ applications. It was truly magical to see cities like Pune having over 100+ founders attending the event.

Firstly, huge congratulations for organizing such a great event, it was a bold yet right move to schedule an in-person event.

It was great to give names to faces to folks whom I helped via the group, but never saw them. Few people (Rohit from Darwinbox, Outplay team, Sreedhar, Bhanu from Highradius and more), I heard great things about, but never met, I got to see them, meet them. Most interestingly, I got to connect with a US friend who also returned to India, but never saw each other. Overall, I would definitely do this again when done next time. The event without an agenda is a great idea.

- Sudheer Bandaru, Founder — Insightly Analytics

We understood the impact of SaaSBoomi Social when we started receiving requests from all over the country. We want to include a special callout to the SaaS founders from Surat, who all traveled all the way to Mumbai for the event. We’re really looking forward to meeting them in their own hometown in the next edition.

Thanks for the amazing event in Pune. I never realised we had more than 100 startups as part of SaasBoomi here. It was so enticing to see so many different SAAS products and ideas. I was able to connect with a lot of them for my product.

Thanks to this great initiative, I would truly request you all to make this a monthly event. You sure can play around with holding more formal events or paid events like this in the future. Would like to participate regularly in connecting with founders in person. We surely have missed this connect in the past couple of years but kudos to you guys for taking the lead in making this happen. Looking forward to the next event already!! :)

- Neha Mathur — Founder, Personifwy

Agenda-less conversations

Unlike our previous events, SaaSBoomi Social had zero planned content and a 100% focus on networking.

We wanted to offer a secure platform for free-flowing conversations and unexpected connections to happen. In fact, after the Hyderabad and Chennai chapters, we avoided distributing the name badges in the other cities, as a way to encourage serendipity.

Even though we initially wanted to invite non-SaaS founders, a few friends, and sponsors as well to the meetups, we finally decided to make it an exclusive SaaS founder-only event, to make it a safe space for openness and synergy.

And it worked. We witnessed numerous deep and pure conversations where founders opened up like never before, especially during the last legs of the events.

The people behind this

Tarun and I wanted to thank the city champions who played an active role in making this happen, right from finding the venue, inviting the right people, and helping out with the overall logistics. We couldn’t have done this without you.

Fabulous indeed event it was. Great thanks to the team for making it an unforgettable joyful moment. Unlike other formal meetups, this was super helpful to spread the energy and positivity to everyone that every founder needs in the initial stage. The event proved that there are a lot of areas to discuss beyond PMF, GTM, Traction, Growth that no boxed agenda would solve. “No Agenda” was the right pick.

- Vijayanand Kailash, Founder — PerPilot

Our curation engine was managed by Prajna Chandra (PC). He was uncompromisingly committed to curating the right attendees for the event. We also want to thank Varun, Gana, and Sadhana for creating the buzz on social media and helping us with all the content possible. All the catchy lines that you saw on Twitter and in the event were personalised by them.

I am the founder of Provakil, but have been in the B2B enterprise software industry for my entire professional career (Sabre and Innovaccer.) This was my first rodeo with SaaSBoomi and I hope to engage, collaborate, and contribute more in the future.

At Provakil, we were originally based in Noida. In August of 2019, we decided to move our base away from Delhi NCR, and picked Pune as the place we wanted to grow (above Bangalore, where I have an extensive network and spent my early career there). By the time we settled ourselves in Pune, the lockdown hit and of course our offices have only opened sporadically since. Pune is a completely new city for us and covid made our experience more isolating because we haven’t been able to embed into the local community of entrepreneurs and startups.

To that end, for us, the SaaSBoomi social was not a breath of fresh air, it was a tank full of oxygen! It was heartwarming and exciting to meet fellow SaaS founders from Pune — remarkable individuals building remarkable companies. I took away conversations to cherish, and have connected with a lot of folks with whom we would be connecting again soon.

I am not only looking forward to being a part of it again, but would also like to extend our help and support to SaaSBoomi — please feel free to reach out if we can contribute in any way.

Pulkit, Founder — Provakil

What we could have done better

• The only thing which kept bothering me in all the social meetups was the percentage of women leaders. We somehow were unable to get more women leaders. We have formed an inclusivity team and hope to solve this as we build this community.
• We could have done a better job of putting together a few ice-breaking activities to warm up the attendees for easier networking
• We couldn’t send emails/messages on time to folks who were not qualified. Our sincere apologies for causing the delay.
• Some folks who met the criteria also got rejected for other unavoidable reasons. Apologies to them as well.

Our sincere thanks to all the sponsors — Accel, B-Capital, Microsoft, Nexus, Sequoia, Tiger, and West Bridge Capital who supported us in this initiative.

The way forward

We plan to create a WhatsApp group for each city and add all the founders who attended the SaaSBoomi Social events. Hopefully, we should be able to revive the roundtable discussions in each city.

We have gotten interested entrepreneurs from Rajkot, Kolkata, Surat, Ahmedabad, Kochi, Indore, Bhopal, etc and in the next phase, we will be hosting small meetups + SaaSBoomi Social meetups in these cities. Please stay tuned for more updates on this after the SaaSBoomi Growth event in Chennai.

We are always looking for ideas to enable connections and help the Indian SaaS ecosystem. If you have ideas on what we can do to achieve that, please feel free to reach out to us. We are committed to making an impact in every city, which could benefit from the SaaSBoomi Platform.

It takes a village to build a company. It takes many villages to build a community. And we wish to create as many villages as we can across the country, to foster and flourish the Indian SaaS community.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(16490) "

So far at SaaSBoomi, almost all our offline events have been following a similar format — we pick a prime tech city in the country — Chennai, Bangalore, or Hyderabad, and host large-scale conferences with 80% focus on content and 20% focus on networking. In fact, all major tech events follow this playbook in general.

They work, no doubt, but we knew that we could do so much more to help build the Indian SaaS community. Adding the pandemic’s effect to this, we found an opportunity to experiment with a new event structure we’ve never tried before.

It all started with a conversation with Sameera Vanekar, co-founder of PathFix, at SaaSBoomi’s first social gathering with founders in Bangalore. She thoroughly enjoyed the discussions that happened before the networking drinks. She kept talking about how she loved the energy of such social meetups, and how people come together and create serendipitous connections.

This was after almost two years that we were doing an in-person event in Bangalore as part of SaaSBoomi in the week of February. We had around 120–130 people in the evening and the energy was buzzing, with everyone meeting, greeting, and hugging each other after a long time.

We realized that while content is one of the reasons why people come to events, the connections and friendships they form there are what make them stay back.

A few days later, my colleague Tarun and I were reflecting on the event and we wanted to create similar energy in all major cities in the country. We came up with a solution — organize social gatherings in every city with no agenda and organic conversations. And that’s how Tarun came up with the name and the positioning statement of the SaaSBoomi Social.

As an event organizer, I believe that this is a new and powerful format we have stumbled upon. The impact has been phenomenal — we have touched 650+ founders and probably made 2000+ connections.

Here is the playbook that we have followed and if someone is trying to do something in their city, we would be happy to support the same.

Accessibility

Instead of making SaaS founders from across the country come to our events, we took the events to them.

We planned to start with Hyderabad (as Tarun is the brand ambassador for HYD), followed by Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, and Delhi. Around 650+ founders were invited to attend the socials in 6 cities with more than 1100+ applications. It was truly magical to see cities like Pune having over 100+ founders attending the event.

Firstly, huge congratulations for organizing such a great event, it was a bold yet right move to schedule an in-person event.

It was great to give names to faces to folks whom I helped via the group, but never saw them. Few people (Rohit from Darwinbox, Outplay team, Sreedhar, Bhanu from Highradius and more), I heard great things about, but never met, I got to see them, meet them. Most interestingly, I got to connect with a US friend who also returned to India, but never saw each other. Overall, I would definitely do this again when done next time. The event without an agenda is a great idea.

- Sudheer Bandaru, Founder — Insightly Analytics

We understood the impact of SaaSBoomi Social when we started receiving requests from all over the country. We want to include a special callout to the SaaS founders from Surat, who all traveled all the way to Mumbai for the event. We’re really looking forward to meeting them in their own hometown in the next edition.

Thanks for the amazing event in Pune. I never realised we had more than 100 startups as part of SaasBoomi here. It was so enticing to see so many different SAAS products and ideas. I was able to connect with a lot of them for my product.

Thanks to this great initiative, I would truly request you all to make this a monthly event. You sure can play around with holding more formal events or paid events like this in the future. Would like to participate regularly in connecting with founders in person. We surely have missed this connect in the past couple of years but kudos to you guys for taking the lead in making this happen. Looking forward to the next event already!! :)

- Neha Mathur — Founder, Personifwy

Agenda-less conversations

Unlike our previous events, SaaSBoomi Social had zero planned content and a 100% focus on networking.

We wanted to offer a secure platform for free-flowing conversations and unexpected connections to happen. In fact, after the Hyderabad and Chennai chapters, we avoided distributing the name badges in the other cities, as a way to encourage serendipity.

Even though we initially wanted to invite non-SaaS founders, a few friends, and sponsors as well to the meetups, we finally decided to make it an exclusive SaaS founder-only event, to make it a safe space for openness and synergy.

And it worked. We witnessed numerous deep and pure conversations where founders opened up like never before, especially during the last legs of the events.

The people behind this

Tarun and I wanted to thank the city champions who played an active role in making this happen, right from finding the venue, inviting the right people, and helping out with the overall logistics. We couldn’t have done this without you.

Fabulous indeed event it was. Great thanks to the team for making it an unforgettable joyful moment. Unlike other formal meetups, this was super helpful to spread the energy and positivity to everyone that every founder needs in the initial stage. The event proved that there are a lot of areas to discuss beyond PMF, GTM, Traction, Growth that no boxed agenda would solve. “No Agenda” was the right pick.

- Vijayanand Kailash, Founder — PerPilot

Our curation engine was managed by Prajna Chandra (PC). He was uncompromisingly committed to curating the right attendees for the event. We also want to thank Varun, Gana, and Sadhana for creating the buzz on social media and helping us with all the content possible. All the catchy lines that you saw on Twitter and in the event were personalised by them.

I am the founder of Provakil, but have been in the B2B enterprise software industry for my entire professional career (Sabre and Innovaccer.) This was my first rodeo with SaaSBoomi and I hope to engage, collaborate, and contribute more in the future.

At Provakil, we were originally based in Noida. In August of 2019, we decided to move our base away from Delhi NCR, and picked Pune as the place we wanted to grow (above Bangalore, where I have an extensive network and spent my early career there). By the time we settled ourselves in Pune, the lockdown hit and of course our offices have only opened sporadically since. Pune is a completely new city for us and covid made our experience more isolating because we haven’t been able to embed into the local community of entrepreneurs and startups.

To that end, for us, the SaaSBoomi social was not a breath of fresh air, it was a tank full of oxygen! It was heartwarming and exciting to meet fellow SaaS founders from Pune — remarkable individuals building remarkable companies. I took away conversations to cherish, and have connected with a lot of folks with whom we would be connecting again soon.

I am not only looking forward to being a part of it again, but would also like to extend our help and support to SaaSBoomi — please feel free to reach out if we can contribute in any way.

Pulkit, Founder — Provakil

What we could have done better

• The only thing which kept bothering me in all the social meetups was the percentage of women leaders. We somehow were unable to get more women leaders. We have formed an inclusivity team and hope to solve this as we build this community.
• We could have done a better job of putting together a few ice-breaking activities to warm up the attendees for easier networking
• We couldn’t send emails/messages on time to folks who were not qualified. Our sincere apologies for causing the delay.
• Some folks who met the criteria also got rejected for other unavoidable reasons. Apologies to them as well.

Our sincere thanks to all the sponsors — Accel, B-Capital, Microsoft, Nexus, Sequoia, Tiger, and West Bridge Capital who supported us in this initiative.

The way forward

We plan to create a WhatsApp group for each city and add all the founders who attended the SaaSBoomi Social events. Hopefully, we should be able to revive the roundtable discussions in each city.

We have gotten interested entrepreneurs from Rajkot, Kolkata, Surat, Ahmedabad, Kochi, Indore, Bhopal, etc and in the next phase, we will be hosting small meetups + SaaSBoomi Social meetups in these cities. Please stay tuned for more updates on this after the SaaSBoomi Growth event in Chennai.

We are always looking for ideas to enable connections and help the Indian SaaS ecosystem. If you have ideas on what we can do to achieve that, please feel free to reach out to us. We are committed to making an impact in every city, which could benefit from the SaaSBoomi Platform.

It takes a village to build a company. It takes many villages to build a community. And we wish to create as many villages as we can across the country, to foster and flourish the Indian SaaS community.

" } }

Insights from the “Shaping India’s SaaS Landscape” report by McKinsey & Company

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(3317) "After a long lull due to the pandemic, we at SaaSBoomi hosted an in-person meeting in Bangalore on February 24, 2022. I was just four days old at SaaSBoomi Foundation, and I wondered how many people would get the opportunity to help host such a big event in their very first week of work. The event was a successful one and all the stakeholders were happy to connect physically after a while. I was glad to have been a part of the event, interact with founders/co-founders, and learn about the SaaS product(s) they were building. The insights I got about the Indian SaaS landscape were immense.  Here are some of those insights which would interest you as well.

• SaaS is globally the largest value-creation opportunity within the DMT and the Telecom space. While it contributes to only 30-35% of revenues, it accounts for 50% of value creation, which is actually higher than our Information Technology services cohort.
• By 2030, the SaaS ecosystem is capable of creating trillion-dollar value and half a million jobs in the process. This rivals what the tech service achieved in around 30 years but SaaS would do it in 10 to 15 years.
• Four billion dollars is the total venture capitalists’ investment in Indian SaaS companies in the last five years. This clearly shows that SaaS products are VC’s favorite in recent times.
• Higher growth in the SaaS ecosystem is valued relatively more by investors.
• Indian pure-play SaaS companies have generated 2.6 billion combined revenue and have employed over 40k people.
• Working more on defining and understanding the Product-Market Fit before starting to invest in growth, helps to save equity.

To know more insights about our country’s SaaS ecosystem, please do watch the video, “Shaping India’s SaaS Landscape” by McKinsey & Company - an enlightening and informative session hosted by Mr. Kushagra Gupta, Associate Partner at McKinsey, and Mr. Manav Garg, CEO at Eka and co-founder of SaaSBoomi. Watch the complete event video here! " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(3317) "After a long lull due to the pandemic, we at SaaSBoomi hosted an in-person meeting in Bangalore on February 24, 2022. I was just four days old at SaaSBoomi Foundation, and I wondered how many people would get the opportunity to help host such a big event in their very first week of work. The event was a successful one and all the stakeholders were happy to connect physically after a while. I was glad to have been a part of the event, interact with founders/co-founders, and learn about the SaaS product(s) they were building. The insights I got about the Indian SaaS landscape were immense.  Here are some of those insights which would interest you as well.

• SaaS is globally the largest value-creation opportunity within the DMT and the Telecom space. While it contributes to only 30-35% of revenues, it accounts for 50% of value creation, which is actually higher than our Information Technology services cohort.
• By 2030, the SaaS ecosystem is capable of creating trillion-dollar value and half a million jobs in the process. This rivals what the tech service achieved in around 30 years but SaaS would do it in 10 to 15 years.
• Four billion dollars is the total venture capitalists’ investment in Indian SaaS companies in the last five years. This clearly shows that SaaS products are VC’s favorite in recent times.
• Higher growth in the SaaS ecosystem is valued relatively more by investors.
• Indian pure-play SaaS companies have generated 2.6 billion combined revenue and have employed over 40k people.
• Working more on defining and understanding the Product-Market Fit before starting to invest in growth, helps to save equity.

To know more insights about our country’s SaaS ecosystem, please do watch the video, “Shaping India’s SaaS Landscape” by McKinsey & Company - an enlightening and informative session hosted by Mr. Kushagra Gupta, Associate Partner at McKinsey, and Mr. Manav Garg, CEO at Eka and co-founder of SaaSBoomi. Watch the complete event video here! " } }

Announcing SaasBoomi Growth 2022

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(4717) "SaasBoomi Growth is one of the places I look up to stay abreast with what is critical for growth, what’s moving the needle around, what the leaders are doing, and how I can replicate that success. Last time’s SaasBoomi Growth was the first virtual conference for SaasBoomi, and since then it’s been a barrage of virtual events here and around. Finally, it’s time to breathe in the fresh air and experience that thrill of being in a room together - Growth folks bouncing off each other’s passion to make India more SaaSy. Folks, this year’s SaasBoomi Growth is happening by the shores! We’re thrilled to announce the 2022 edition of SaasBoomi Growth – a two-day in-person event that will feature a host of workshops, teardowns, playbooks, case studies, and more, led by some of the incredible founders & leaders from the ecosystem. Nothing less than what you would expect! For the uninitiated:

Why SaasBoomi Growth?

Growth is a multi-disciplinary effort that involves multiple teams collaborating including product, marketing, sales & success. After establishing the product-market fit & finding a repeatable sales motion/channel, growth becomes a powerful lever to help companies hit scale. Building a growth engine often involves defining the right frameworks, betting on the right channels, setting up your growth stack, aligning the teams & building the operational framework to support growth. SaasBoomi Growth is aimed at helping early-stage teams to unlock growth! Over the 2 days, founders & leaders, who’ve built & scaled incredible products, will share their knowledge & experience, in a format that’s easy to consume and build upon. 

Who should attend?

• Early-stage and Growth stage Startups - up to $5Mn ARR
• Founders, Growth Leaders in Sales, Marketing and Product functions
• Anyone who’s looking to build a Growth flywheel at their startup

What can you learn?

Drawing from the experiences of founders & leaders, over the two days we will cover a bunch of topics including:

• Creating ICPs & how can you translate that to growth
• Building the marketing & sales motions that can power your growth
• Positioning your product for a global audience
• Leverage product-led-growth & how to accelerate the go-to-market motion
• How to set up your growth stack

and a lot more…

How to participate/attend?

SaaSBoomi Growth is an application-based session. Applications are open right now. Go ahead and apply here - https://saasboomi.org/growth Below are some key dates:  Early bird registrations end on 12th March Registrations close by 31st March Event on 25-26th April Growth is a mindset - and hence we can create it - distribute it - and grow it. Let’s come together to grow together. In those endless discussions with your teams to get the strategy and execution right, you are not alone. Let’s leverage the power of compounding as we gather to celebrate Growth for our SaaS Products - Growth for a SaaS India. See you there!" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(4717) "SaasBoomi Growth is one of the places I look up to stay abreast with what is critical for growth, what’s moving the needle around, what the leaders are doing, and how I can replicate that success. Last time’s SaasBoomi Growth was the first virtual conference for SaasBoomi, and since then it’s been a barrage of virtual events here and around. Finally, it’s time to breathe in the fresh air and experience that thrill of being in a room together - Growth folks bouncing off each other’s passion to make India more SaaSy. Folks, this year’s SaasBoomi Growth is happening by the shores! We’re thrilled to announce the 2022 edition of SaasBoomi Growth – a two-day in-person event that will feature a host of workshops, teardowns, playbooks, case studies, and more, led by some of the incredible founders & leaders from the ecosystem. Nothing less than what you would expect! For the uninitiated:

Why SaasBoomi Growth?

Growth is a multi-disciplinary effort that involves multiple teams collaborating including product, marketing, sales & success. After establishing the product-market fit & finding a repeatable sales motion/channel, growth becomes a powerful lever to help companies hit scale. Building a growth engine often involves defining the right frameworks, betting on the right channels, setting up your growth stack, aligning the teams & building the operational framework to support growth. SaasBoomi Growth is aimed at helping early-stage teams to unlock growth! Over the 2 days, founders & leaders, who’ve built & scaled incredible products, will share their knowledge & experience, in a format that’s easy to consume and build upon. 

Who should attend?

• Early-stage and Growth stage Startups - up to $5Mn ARR
• Founders, Growth Leaders in Sales, Marketing and Product functions
• Anyone who’s looking to build a Growth flywheel at their startup

What can you learn?

Drawing from the experiences of founders & leaders, over the two days we will cover a bunch of topics including:

• Creating ICPs & how can you translate that to growth
• Building the marketing & sales motions that can power your growth
• Positioning your product for a global audience
• Leverage product-led-growth & how to accelerate the go-to-market motion
• How to set up your growth stack

and a lot more…

How to participate/attend?

SaaSBoomi Growth is an application-based session. Applications are open right now. Go ahead and apply here - https://saasboomi.org/growth Below are some key dates:  Early bird registrations end on 12th March Registrations close by 31st March Event on 25-26th April Growth is a mindset - and hence we can create it - distribute it - and grow it. Let’s come together to grow together. In those endless discussions with your teams to get the strategy and execution right, you are not alone. Let’s leverage the power of compounding as we gather to celebrate Growth for our SaaS Products - Growth for a SaaS India. See you there!" } }

The Why, What, and How of Product-Led Growth Strategy: A Cheat Sheet

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Over the last decade, there has been a tremendous change in how people use and buy the software. Starting from the early days of Salesforce to the increasingly growing SaaS ecosystem of 2021, customers have been demanding the consumerization of SaaS products.

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Over the last decade, there has been a tremendous change in how people use and buy the software. Starting from the early days of Salesforce to the increasingly growing SaaS ecosystem of 2021, customers have been demanding the consumerization of SaaS products.

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With an increase in tech-savviness among the general audience, buyers are preferring to make the purchase decisions by self-educating themselves through an app/website rather than going through a sales cycle.

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With an increase in tech-savviness among the general audience, buyers are preferring to make the purchase decisions by self-educating themselves through an app/website rather than going through a sales cycle.

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Due to a gradual accumulation of such factors, the responsibility of igniting the growth engine in any SaaS startup has shifted onto the shoulders of the product team. But devising and deploying a product-led strategy that’s scalable across dimensions isn’t a child’s play.

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Due to a gradual accumulation of such factors, the responsibility of igniting the growth engine in any SaaS startup has shifted onto the shoulders of the product team. But devising and deploying a product-led strategy that’s scalable across dimensions isn’t a child’s play.

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This squeezed-form blog post is a condensed collection of notes on the why, what, and how of Product-Led Growth (PLG) strategy, reformatted concisely into bullet points and diagrams for the reader to refer back for a quick refresher on any specific section.

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This squeezed-form blog post is a condensed collection of notes on the why, what, and how of Product-Led Growth (PLG) strategy, reformatted concisely into bullet points and diagrams for the reader to refer back for a quick refresher on any specific section.

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What's inside:

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What's inside:

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Introduction

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Introduction

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For a SaaS business, there are three tidal waves/problems:

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For a SaaS business, there are three tidal waves/problems:

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Over the years, as the Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) increases, the willingness to pay decreases.

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Over the years, as the Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) increases, the willingness to pay decreases.

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Buyers increasingly prefer to self-educate and try out the product themselves, versus going through a sales demo. (Reference)

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Buyers increasingly prefer to self-educate and try out the product themselves, versus going through a sales demo. (Reference)

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The product experience has become a part of the buying process.

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The product experience has become a part of the buying process.

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" ["innerContent"]=> array(7) { [0]=> string(5) "

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GTM: How the company will target customers and achieve a competitive advantage. There are two major types of GTM - Sales-Led and Product-Led.

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GTM: How the company will target customers and achieve a competitive advantage. There are two major types of GTM - Sales-Led and Product-Led.

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Sales-Led GTM (SLG) 

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Sales-Led GTM (SLG) 

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The only way to sell is to talk to users. 

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The only way to sell is to talk to users. 

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Pros of SLG:

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Pros of SLG:

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✅ High Lifetime Value (LTV) 

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✅ High Lifetime Value (LTV) 

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✅ Perfect for niche and small Total Addressable Market (TAM), to build relationships

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✅ Perfect for niche and small Total Addressable Market (TAM), to build relationships

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✅ Perfect for a new market that needs to be educated

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✅ Perfect for a new market that needs to be educated

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Cons of SLG:

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Cons of SLG:

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❌ High CAC -> pushes LTV -> increases price 

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❌ High CAC -> pushes LTV -> increases price 

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❌ Leaky acquisition -> Only 2% of marketing qualified leads (MQLs) 

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❌ Leaky acquisition -> Only 2% of marketing qualified leads (MQLs) 

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❌ Organisation structure product innovation

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❌ Organisation structure product innovation

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❌ In SLG your primary Annual Contract Value (ACV) customers will drive the product and company 

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❌ In SLG your primary Annual Contract Value (ACV) customers will drive the product and company 

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❌ In SLG, Sales marketing and success teams operate in parallel with the product team

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❌ In SLG, Sales marketing and success teams operate in parallel with the product team

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In short, SLG would most likely fail in a SaaS setup, considering the above three tidal waves.

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In short, SLG would most likely fail in a SaaS setup, considering the above three tidal waves.

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Product-Led GTM (PLG) 

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Product-Led GTM (PLG) 

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The Product team drives sales, marketing, and success.

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The Product team drives sales, marketing, and success.

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In PLG:

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In PLG:

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😇 Marketing: Product is the lead magnet 

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😇 Marketing: Product is the lead magnet 

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👜 Sales: Product helps people understand our value 

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👜 Sales: Product helps people understand our value 

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💯 Success: Product helps customers be independent 

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💯 Success: Product helps customers be independent 

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🔧 Engineering: Product minimizes time to value

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🔧 Engineering: Product minimizes time to value

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Pros of PLG:

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Pros of PLG:

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Easily Scalable
- Wider top of the funnel with freemium, etc.
- Easy vertical and horizontal expansion, especially global

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Easily Scalable
- Wider top of the funnel with freemium, etc.
- Easy vertical and horizontal expansion, especially global

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Low CAC
- High time to value, fast sales
- High RPE - Revenue per employee

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Low CAC
- High time to value, fast sales
- High RPE - Revenue per employee

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Better UX

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Better UX

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In short, PLG tackles all three SaaS tidal waves.

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In short, PLG tackles all three SaaS tidal waves.

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Setting up the PLG strategy

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Setting up the PLG strategy

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There are three top sales strategies:

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(46) "

There are three top sales strategies:

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Free trial: A portion of the product or the complete product offered free for a limited time

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Free trial: A portion of the product or the complete product offered free for a limited time

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Freemium: Partial access to the product for an unlimited time

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Freemium: Partial access to the product for an unlimited time

" } } [2]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(56) "

Demo: Sales-driven walkthrough of the product

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(56) "

Demo: Sales-driven walkthrough of the product

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(15) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(7) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(96) "

MOAT framework to decide the sales strategy

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(96) "

MOAT framework to decide the sales strategy

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M — Market strategy: Is the GTM strategy dominant, disruptive, or differentiated?

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M — Market strategy: Is the GTM strategy dominant, disruptive, or differentiated?

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O — Ocean conditions: Red Ocean or Blue Ocean business?

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O — Ocean conditions: Red Ocean or Blue Ocean business?

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(69) "

A — Acquisition: Top-down or bottom-up marketing strategy?

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(69) "

A — Acquisition: Top-down or bottom-up marketing strategy?

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T — Time-to-value: How fast can you showcase value?

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T — Time-to-value: How fast can you showcase value?

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M: Market strategy

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M: Market strategy

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1. Dominant: Do better, charge less.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(89) "

1. Dominant: Do better, charge less.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(153) "

Examples- Netflix, Uber 

🌟 Freemium is ideal: Control the sizeable chunk of the TAM, convert it into paid in large volumes. 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(153) "

Examples- Netflix, Uber 

🌟 Freemium is ideal: Control the sizeable chunk of the TAM, convert it into paid in large volumes. 

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(361) "

😬 Free trial is also okay: Convert trial users quickly. It’s okay to shed off a market segment as well.

Checkboxes for dominant:
☑️ Is the TAM big enough?
☑️ Does the product do the job better and cheaper?
☑️ Are the time and effort to value low?
☑️ Do you want to capture a majority of the TAM?

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(361) "

😬 Free trial is also okay: Convert trial users quickly. It’s okay to shed off a market segment as well.

Checkboxes for dominant:
☑️ Is the TAM big enough?
☑️ Does the product do the job better and cheaper?
☑️ Are the time and effort to value low?
☑️ Do you want to capture a majority of the TAM?

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" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(9) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(1) { ["level"]=> int(4) } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(92) "

2. Differential: Pick a niche, nail it.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(92) "

2. Differential: Pick a niche, nail it.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(340) "

🌟 Both free trial and demo work well because of fewer market alternatives and low time-to-convert 
💸 Can charge a high premium

Checkboxes for differential:
☑️ Is the TAM underserved?
☑️ Can you afford a high ACV to support the sales team or have a superior free trial experience?

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(340) "

🌟 Both free trial and demo work well because of fewer market alternatives and low time-to-convert 
💸 Can charge a high premium

Checkboxes for differential:
☑️ Is the TAM underserved?
☑️ Can you afford a high ACV to support the sales team or have a superior free trial experience?

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(9) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(9) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(1) { ["level"]=> int(4) } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(125) "

3. Disruptive: Cater some use cases of an overserved TAM and sell cheap.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(125) "

3. Disruptive: Cater some use cases of an overserved TAM and sell cheap.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(525) "

Examples - Canva for Adobe Photoshop’s market 

🌟 Freemium model works best: It lets the customers try out the product, validate their use cases, and compare the alternatives themselves. 
😬 Free trial can also apply: But it will have a less magnetic pull compared to freemium.

Checkboxes for disruptive:
☑️ Is the market full of overserved customers?
☑️ Is it a hyper-competitive market?
☑️ Is the TAM large enough for freemium?
☑️ Is freemium feasible?

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(525) "

Examples - Canva for Adobe Photoshop’s market 

🌟 Freemium model works best: It lets the customers try out the product, validate their use cases, and compare the alternatives themselves. 
😬 Free trial can also apply: But it will have a less magnetic pull compared to freemium.

Checkboxes for disruptive:
☑️ Is the market full of overserved customers?
☑️ Is it a hyper-competitive market?
☑️ Is the TAM large enough for freemium?
☑️ Is freemium feasible?

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(1) { ["level"]=> int(4) } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(78) "

O: Ocean conditions 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(78) "

O: Ocean conditions 

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🔴 Red Ocean companies: Outperform competitors to grab a greater share
🔵 Blue Ocean companies: Access an untapped market and create demand

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(155) "

🔴 Red Ocean companies: Outperform competitors to grab a greater share
🔵 Blue Ocean companies: Access an untapped market and create demand

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" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(202) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(34) "

🔵 Blue Ocean products:

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(34) "

🔵 Blue Ocean products:

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(9) "core/list" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(4) { [0]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(28) "

Lots of learning.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(28) "

Lots of learning.

" } } [1]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(71) "

Have to educate users: via sales teams or product-led sales.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(71) "

Have to educate users: via sales teams or product-led sales.

" } } [2]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(65) "

For a complex product: Use sales teams. Ex- Salesforce

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(65) "

For a complex product: Use sales teams. Ex- Salesforce

" } } [3]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(83) "

For a simple product and quick time-to-value: Use PLG. Example - Spotify

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(83) "

For a simple product and quick time-to-value: Use PLG. Example - Spotify

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(17) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(9) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(2) " " [7]=> NULL [8]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(33) "

🔴 Red Ocean products:

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(33) "

🔴 Red Ocean products:

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(9) "core/list" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(4) { [0]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(41) "

Easy to understand the market.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(41) "

Easy to understand the market.

" } } [1]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(78) "

Outperform competitors: Lower the CAC, widen the funnel, be leaner.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(78) "

Outperform competitors: Lower the CAC, widen the funnel, be leaner.

" } } [2]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(57) "

Try to exhaust the market completely with PLG.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(57) "

Try to exhaust the market completely with PLG.

" } } [3]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(128) "

Product-Led GTM is preferred because Sales-Led GTM doesn’t scale and is less lucrative in a blood bath of a market.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(128) "

Product-Led GTM is preferred because Sales-Led GTM doesn’t scale and is less lucrative in a blood bath of a market.

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(17) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(9) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(2) " " [7]=> NULL [8]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(1) { ["level"]=> int(4) } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(90) "

A: Acquisition 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(90) "

A: Acquisition 

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Bottom-Up or Top-Down. More on this here.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(87) "

Bottom-Up or Top-Down. More on this here.

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⏬ Top-Down:

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(39) "

⏬ Top-Down:

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(9) "core/list" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(4) { [0]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(52) "

Target executives and key decision-makers

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(52) "

Target executives and key decision-makers

" } } [1]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(48) "

One sale: Large company-wide roll-out

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(48) "

One sale: Large company-wide roll-out

" } } [2]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(59) "

Helps in achieving uniformity across the company

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(59) "

Helps in achieving uniformity across the company

" } } [3]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(39) "

Sales-Led model is preferred

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(39) "

Sales-Led model is preferred

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(17) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(9) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(2) " " [7]=> NULL [8]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(10) "core/image" ["attrs"]=> array(3) { ["id"]=> int(12481) ["sizeSlug"]=> string(4) "full" ["linkDestination"]=> string(4) "none" } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(170) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(170) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(40) "

⏫ Bottom-Up:

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(40) "

⏫ Bottom-Up:

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(9) "core/list" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(4) { [0]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(99) "

Target frontline employees with freemiums and free trials and let them expand internally

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(99) "

Target frontline employees with freemiums and free trials and let them expand internally

" } } [1]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(47) "

Quick adoption and low time-to-value

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(47) "

Quick adoption and low time-to-value

" } } [2]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(75) "

Lower ACV: to let lower-level executives make purchase decisions

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(75) "

Lower ACV: to let lower-level executives make purchase decisions

" } } [3]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(41) "

Product-Led model is preferred

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(41) "

Product-Led model is preferred

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(17) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(9) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(2) " " [7]=> NULL [8]=> string(6) "

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Benefits:

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Benefits:

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Wide top of funnel

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(29) "

Wide top of funnel

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Low CAC

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(18) "

Low CAC

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Faster sales cycle

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Faster sales cycle

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Predictable internal figures

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(39) "

Predictable internal figures

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Diverse revenue sources

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(34) "

Diverse revenue sources

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Scalable

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Scalable

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" ["innerContent"]=> array(13) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(2) " " [7]=> NULL [8]=> string(2) " " [9]=> NULL [10]=> string(2) " " [11]=> NULL [12]=> string(6) "

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Disadvantages:

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Disadvantages:

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Small ticket size

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(28) "

Small ticket size

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Free customers

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(25) "

Free customers

" } } [2]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(33) "

Significant investment

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(33) "

Significant investment

" } } [3]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(29) "

Expertise shortage

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(29) "

Expertise shortage

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(17) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(9) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(2) " " [7]=> NULL [8]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(47) "

📊 Relevant trends:

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📊 Relevant trends:

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Earlier only top executives had the power to make purchasing decisions, nowadays that is shifting down

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Earlier only top executives had the power to make purchasing decisions, nowadays that is shifting down

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With a flat team structure trending, impressing lower executives is enough to have the entire team discuss and adopt the product

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With a flat team structure trending, impressing lower executives is enough to have the entire team discuss and adopt the product

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(13) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(5) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(23) "

Example- Slack

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Example- Slack

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Anyone can create a workspace

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(40) "

Anyone can create a workspace

" } } [1]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(27) "

Invite coworkers

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(27) "

Invite coworkers

" } } [2]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(104) "

Let the trial exhaust and let the coworkers including top executives feel the need to upgrade

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Let the trial exhaust and let the coworkers including top executives feel the need to upgrade

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(15) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(7) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(90) "

Which PLG model should be preferred for which Acquisition model?

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Which PLG model should be preferred for which Acquisition model?

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" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(172) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(1) { ["level"]=> int(3) } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(92) "

T: Time-to-value 

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T: Time-to-value 

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New users should be able to experience the key outcome quickly and easily. More on this here.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(139) "

New users should be able to experience the key outcome quickly and easily. More on this here.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(24) "

Types of users:

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Types of users:

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" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(169) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(39) "

To strengthen user motivation:

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(39) "

To strengthen user motivation:

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Good copy, landing page, blog, content 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(55) "

Good copy, landing page, blog, content 

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(11) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(3) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(31) "

To strengthen ability:

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(31) "

To strengthen ability:

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Streamline onboarding

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(32) "

Streamline onboarding

" } } [1]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(41) "

Educate with coach marks, etc.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(41) "

Educate with coach marks, etc.

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(13) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(5) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(250) "

All of these 4 combined makes up the MOAT frameworks  - M: Market Strategy O: Ocean conditions A: Audience T: Time to value

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(250) "

All of these 4 combined makes up the MOAT frameworks  - M: Market Strategy O: Ocean conditions A: Audience T: Time to value

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(9) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(9) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(74) "

Food for thought: Can a hybrid model work? 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(74) "

Food for thought: Can a hybrid model work? 

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Hybrid 1: Launch a new product in-house 
Hybrid 2: Go freemium, give a trial for premium 
Hybrid 3: Go free trial of premium, give freemium afterward

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(178) "

Hybrid 1: Launch a new product in-house 
Hybrid 2: Go freemium, give a trial for premium 
Hybrid 3: Go free trial of premium, give freemium afterward

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(80) "

Building the PLG foundation

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(80) "

Building the PLG foundation

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UCD framework:

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UCD framework:

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Understand your value

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(32) "

Understand your value

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Communicate the perceived value of your product

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(58) "

Communicate the perceived value of your product

" } } [2]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(38) "

Deliver on what you promise

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(38) "

Deliver on what you promise

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(15) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(7) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(1) { ["level"]=> int(3) } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(83) "

U: Understand your value 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(83) "

U: Understand your value 

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Why do people buy products? 

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Why do people buy products? 

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(73) "

🔧 Functional Outcome: The jobs that users are able to perform

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🔧 Functional Outcome: The jobs that users are able to perform

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😁 Emotional Outcome: How customers want to or avoid feeling while using the product 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(101) "

😁 Emotional Outcome: How customers want to or avoid feeling while using the product 

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(92) "

😎 Social Outcome: How customers want to be perceived by others using the product

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(92) "

😎 Social Outcome: How customers want to be perceived by others using the product

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(49) "

What are value metrics?

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(49) "

What are value metrics?

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(202) "

The way you measure the value exchange in your product. It acts as the bridge between your revenue and customer acquisition models. More on this here. 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(202) "

The way you measure the value exchange in your product. It acts as the bridge between your revenue and customer acquisition models. More on this here. 

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(36) "

Two types of value metrics:

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(36) "

Two types of value metrics:

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Functional: Number of videos that you can upload, number of courses you can take, etc.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(114) "

Functional: Number of videos that you can upload, number of courses you can take, etc.

" } } [1]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(128) "

Outcome: Number of views that your video will get, the revenue you will make using the product, etc.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(128) "

Outcome: Number of views that your video will get, the revenue you will make using the product, etc.

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(13) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(5) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(31) "

A good value metric is

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(31) "

A good value metric is

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(9) "core/list" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(3) { [0]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(135) "

Easy to understand: Helps the user decide within seconds on the pricing page, is driven by market practices

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(135) "

Easy to understand: Helps the user decide within seconds on the pricing page, is driven by market practices

" } } [1]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(127) "

Reflects the value received: Includes the core product components that lead to a meaningful outcome

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(127) "

Reflects the value received: Includes the core product components that lead to a meaningful outcome

" } } [2]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(109) "

Grows with usage: Less usage - don't charge more | More usage - don't charge less

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(109) "

Grows with usage: Less usage - don't charge more | More usage - don't charge less

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(15) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(7) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(87) "

Use a data-driven approach to finding the right value metric:

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(87) "

Use a data-driven approach to finding the right value metric:

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(9) "core/list" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(2) { [0]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(87) "

Find a metric that resonates with the usage of power users or high LTV users

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(87) "

Find a metric that resonates with the usage of power users or high LTV users

" } } [1]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(66) "

Prevent using metrics that resonate with churning users

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(66) "

Prevent using metrics that resonate with churning users

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(13) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(5) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(1) { ["level"]=> int(3) } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(78) "

C: Communicate your value

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(78) "

C: Communicate your value

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(78) "

Ensure that your customer acquisition strategy drives revenue growth.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(78) "

Ensure that your customer acquisition strategy drives revenue growth.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(78) "

How to treat pricing and customer acquisition right:

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(78) "

How to treat pricing and customer acquisition right:

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(106) "

❌ Don’t overcomplicate the pricing page: Users check out your pricing like a five-second test

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(106) "

❌ Don’t overcomplicate the pricing page: Users check out your pricing like a five-second test

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(161) "

❌ Don’t create a free plan with no incentive to upgrade: Tricky because offering key features makes it more lucrative and burns more resources 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(161) "

❌ Don’t create a free plan with no incentive to upgrade: Tricky because offering key features makes it more lucrative and burns more resources 

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(93) "

❌ Don’t create a free plan robust enough for the users to downgrade conveniently

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(93) "

❌ Don’t create a free plan robust enough for the users to downgrade conveniently

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(57) "

Four common pricing strategies:

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(57) "

Four common pricing strategies:

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(9) "core/list" ["attrs"]=> array(1) { ["ordered"]=> bool(true) } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(4) { [0]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(82) "

Best judgement pricing: Driven by internal discussions

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(82) "

Best judgement pricing: Driven by internal discussions

" } } [1]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(112) "

Cost-plus pricing: Driven by the total cost incurred topped with a profit percentage

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(112) "

Cost-plus pricing: Driven by the total cost incurred topped with a profit percentage

" } } [2]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(114) "

Competitor-based pricing: Depends on market prices - not ideal for disruptive products

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(114) "

Competitor-based pricing: Depends on market prices - not ideal for disruptive products

" } } [3]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(69) "

Value-based pricing: Two ways to do that.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(69) "

Value-based pricing: Two ways to do that.

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(17) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(9) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(2) " " [7]=> NULL [8]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(65) "

a. Economic Value Analysis (EVA): 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(65) "

a. Economic Value Analysis (EVA): 

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(220) "

Sum of all the outcomes - Functional outcome, Emotional, and Social. Take the sum of all three outcome-based prices and divide by 10 - the common assumption is to help customers make 10x than what they paid you.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(220) "

Sum of all the outcomes - Functional outcome, Emotional, and Social. Take the sum of all three outcome-based prices and divide by 10 - the common assumption is to help customers make 10x than what they paid you.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(66) "

b. Market & consumer research: 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(66) "

b. Market & consumer research: 

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(220) "

Ask your customers how much price will be -
🤯 Too expensive: Won’t even give a thought
😅 Expensive: Have to think
😁 Bargain: A great deal
🤨 Too cheap: So inexpensive -> cheap quality

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(220) "

Ask your customers how much price will be -
🤯 Too expensive: Won’t even give a thought
😅 Expensive: Have to think
😁 Bargain: A great deal
🤨 Too cheap: So inexpensive -> cheap quality

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(90) "

Ask users to categorize different prices into these 4 and find optimal the price:

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(90) "

Ask users to categorize different prices into these 4 and find optimal the price:

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(10) "core/image" ["attrs"]=> array(3) { ["id"]=> int(12483) ["sizeSlug"]=> string(4) "full" ["linkDestination"]=> string(4) "none" } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(168) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(168) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(57) "

Major elements of pricing page:

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(57) "

Major elements of pricing page:

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(9) "core/list" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(4) { [0]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(24) "

Value metrics

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(24) "

Value metrics

" } } [1]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(29) "

Willingness to pay

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(29) "

Willingness to pay

" } } [2]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(31) "

Most-valued features

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(31) "

Most-valued features

" } } [3]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(67) "

Demographic info: Ex- what plan suits what business size

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(67) "

Demographic info: Ex- what plan suits what business size

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(17) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(9) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(2) " " [7]=> NULL [8]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(64) "

3 major types of value features: 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(64) "

3 major types of value features: 

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(65) "

👑 Leaders: Core features, included in all plans 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(65) "

👑 Leaders: Core features, included in all plans 

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(119) "

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Fillers: Some users need them, included in higher plans for ARPU (Average Revenue Per User)

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(119) "

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Fillers: Some users need them, included in higher plans for ARPU (Average Revenue Per User)

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(96) "

👿 Bundle killers: Most of the users don’t care, included only in the highest plans

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(96) "

👿 Bundle killers: Most of the users don’t care, included only in the highest plans

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(45) "

D: Delivering Value

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(45) "

D: Delivering Value

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(71) "

Perceived value: What is communicated in marketing the product

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(71) "

Perceived value: What is communicated in marketing the product

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(66) "

Experienced value: What users get after using the product

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(66) "

Experienced value: What users get after using the product

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(126) "

Ideally, both should be equal but most companies struggle with it, thus creating an overall skepticism in the market.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(126) "

Ideally, both should be equal but most companies struggle with it, thus creating an overall skepticism in the market.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(67) "

Bigger the value gap - more churn, especially in freemium.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(67) "

Bigger the value gap - more churn, especially in freemium.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(48) "

3 types of value gaps:

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(48) "

3 types of value gaps:

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(9) "core/list" ["attrs"]=> array(1) { ["ordered"]=> bool(true) } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(3) { [0]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(196) "

Ability debt: When users fail to accomplish a key outcome. Ex- Promising a one-click landing page and eventually asking users to design it from scratch after signing up

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(196) "

Ability debt: When users fail to accomplish a key outcome. Ex- Promising a one-click landing page and eventually asking users to design it from scratch after signing up

" } } [1]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(198) "

No clue why people are buying your products: You’ll either walk them through the entire product to let them understand the value or drive them to an irrelevant use case

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(198) "

No clue why people are buying your products: You’ll either walk them through the entire product to let them understand the value or drive them to an irrelevant use case

" } } [2]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(124) "

Not communicating the right value: If you bring the user thinking of X while your company does Y

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(124) "

Not communicating the right value: If you bring the user thinking of X while your company does Y

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(15) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(7) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(92) "

Developing the PLG optimisation process

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(92) "

Developing the PLG optimisation process

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(1) { ["level"]=> int(3) } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(72) "

Triple-A Framework:

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(72) "

Triple-A Framework:

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(10) "core/image" ["attrs"]=> array(3) { ["id"]=> int(12484) ["sizeSlug"]=> string(4) "full" ["linkDestination"]=> string(4) "none" } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(168) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(168) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(34) "

Analyze:

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(34) "

Analyze:

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(140) "

📥 Inputs: Resources put in for user acquisition and retention. Ex- Ads, Email campaigns, Onboarding flows, etc.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(140) "

📥 Inputs: Resources put in for user acquisition and retention. Ex- Ads, Email campaigns, Onboarding flows, etc.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(10) "core/image" ["attrs"]=> array(3) { ["id"]=> int(12485) ["sizeSlug"]=> string(4) "full" ["linkDestination"]=> string(4) "none" } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(168) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(168) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(220) "

📤 Output: How does the input affect the product metrics. Output metrics should be macro enough to give a bigger idea of the business. Common ones- Signups, upgrades, ARPU, Churn, and ARR/MRR.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(220) "

📤 Output: How does the input affect the product metrics. Output metrics should be macro enough to give a bigger idea of the business. Common ones- Signups, upgrades, ARPU, Churn, and ARR/MRR.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(101) "

Measuring output for every input helps you in understanding what is working and what is not.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(101) "

Measuring output for every input helps you in understanding what is working and what is not.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(36) "

Ask: 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(36) "

Ask: 

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(120) "

🤔 Where do you want to go: What is your North Star metric and where do you want to take it?

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(120) "

🤔 Where do you want to go: What is your North Star metric and where do you want to take it?

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(98) "

🤔 Which levers can you pull to get it there: Three major focus areas.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(98) "

🤔 Which levers can you pull to get it there: Three major focus areas.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(9) "core/list" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(3) { [0]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(23) "

Reduce Churn

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(23) "

Reduce Churn

" } } [1]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(24) "

Increase ARPU

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(24) "

Increase ARPU

" } } [2]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(45) "

Increase number of customers 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(45) "

Increase number of customers 

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(15) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(7) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(67) "

Find out changing which number brings in maximum ARR jump.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(67) "

Find out changing which number brings in maximum ARR jump.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(56) "

🤔 Which inputs to focus on:

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(56) "

🤔 Which inputs to focus on:

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(29) "

Choose the ones that

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(29) "

Choose the ones that

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(9) "core/list" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(3) { [0]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(33) "

Creates maximum output

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(33) "

Creates maximum output

" } } [1]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(33) "

Improves UCD processes

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(33) "

Improves UCD processes

" } } [2]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(58) "

Prioritise using ICE (impact, cost, and effort)

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(58) "

Prioritise using ICE (impact, cost, and effort)

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(15) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(7) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(30) "

Act:

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(30) "

Act:

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(9) "core/list" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(2) { [0]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(46) "

Execute fast in a phased-out manner

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(46) "

Execute fast in a phased-out manner

" } } [1]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(41) "

Focus on small wins/milestones

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(41) "

Focus on small wins/milestones

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(13) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(5) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(81) "

Optimizing the 3 main levers

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(81) "

Optimizing the 3 main levers

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(9) "core/list" ["attrs"]=> array(1) { ["ordered"]=> bool(true) } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(3) { [0]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(68) "

Increasing the total number of customers

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(68) "

Increasing the total number of customers

" } } [1]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(43) "

Increasing ARPU

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(43) "

Increasing ARPU

" } } [2]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(41) "

Slaying churn

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(41) "

Slaying churn

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(15) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(7) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(1) { ["level"]=> int(3) } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(101) "

1️⃣ Increasing the total number of customers

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(101) "

1️⃣ Increasing the total number of customers

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(50) "

Bowling Alley Framework:

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(50) "

Bowling Alley Framework:

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(299) "

🎳 Bowling: Throwing the ball to knock maximum pins. The straighter the ball’s path the better. In the event of a bad throw, the ball goes into the side gutters. Similarly in a SaaS product, a streamlined onboarding process and few to no bad experiences prevent users from churning out.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(299) "

🎳 Bowling: Throwing the ball to knock maximum pins. The straighter the ball’s path the better. In the event of a bad throw, the ball goes into the side gutters. Similarly in a SaaS product, a streamlined onboarding process and few to no bad experiences prevent users from churning out.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(284) "

😇 Bumper bowling: Installing multiple bumpers at multiple points on either side, to make sure that every throw hits at least one pin. Similarly in a SaaS product, we need to prevent churn by setting up multiple types of bumpers that nudge the user back on the right track.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(284) "

😇 Bumper bowling: Installing multiple bumpers at multiple points on either side, to make sure that every throw hits at least one pin. Similarly in a SaaS product, we need to prevent churn by setting up multiple types of bumpers that nudge the user back on the right track.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(28) "

🏁 2 major tasks:

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(28) "

🏁 2 major tasks:

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(9) "core/list" ["attrs"]=> array(1) { ["ordered"]=> bool(true) } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(2) { [0]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(33) "

Develop straight lines

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(33) "

Develop straight lines

" } } [1]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(26) "

Develop bumpers

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(26) "

Develop bumpers

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(13) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(5) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(55) "

Develop straight lines: 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(55) "

Develop straight lines: 

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(190) "

The shortest distance between the starting and ending points hit the maximum number of pins.

Help users understand the outcome in the easiest and least distracting way. 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(190) "

The shortest distance between the starting and ending points hit the maximum number of pins.

Help users understand the outcome in the easiest and least distracting way. 

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(74) "

In SLG: ending point = purchase
In PLG: ending point = outcome

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(74) "

In SLG: ending point = purchase
In PLG: ending point = outcome

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(75) "

👉🏻 3 steps to develop straight lines: 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(75) "

👉🏻 3 steps to develop straight lines: 

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(35) "

a. Map out the path: 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(35) "

a. Map out the path: 

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(131) "

Revisit the onboarding journey like you are writing a tutorial - take a screenshot of each step and arrange them in order.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(131) "

Revisit the onboarding journey like you are writing a tutorial - take a screenshot of each step and arrange them in order.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(29) "

b. Label every step:

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(29) "

b. Label every step:

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(9) "core/list" ["attrs"]=> array(1) { ["ordered"]=> bool(true) } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(3) { [0]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(36) "

Green: Absolute Necessary

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(36) "

Green: Absolute Necessary

" } } [1]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(41) "

Yellow: Can be performed later

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(41) "

Yellow: Can be performed later

" } } [2]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(37) "

Red: Can be removed. 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(37) "

Red: Can be removed. 

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(15) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(7) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(44) "

c. Develop the straight line: 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(44) "

c. Develop the straight line: 

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(227) "

Rather than having a combination of Red, Yellow, and Green tasks, prioritize Green > Yellow > Red and try to push the desired outcome as early as possible. Keep the Greens, remove the Reds, and delay the Yellows.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(227) "

Rather than having a combination of Red, Yellow, and Green tasks, prioritize Green > Yellow > Red and try to push the desired outcome as early as possible. Keep the Greens, remove the Reds, and delay the Yellows.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(42) "

Develop Bumpers:

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(42) "

Develop Bumpers:

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(46) "

There are two types of bumpers: 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(46) "

There are two types of bumpers: 

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a. Product bumpers: Help users adopt the product themselves. 

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a. Product bumpers: Help users adopt the product themselves. 

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Ex-

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Ex-

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Welcome messages: Greet -> Communicate value and build trust -> Set expectations

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Welcome messages: Greet -> Communicate value and build trust -> Set expectations

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Product tours: Ask goal -> Take via shortcut [Show progress: ~4-5 steps]

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Product tours: Ask goal -> Take via shortcut [Show progress: ~4-5 steps]

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Progress bars: Prefilled %, realistically distributed

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Progress bars: Prefilled %, realistically distributed

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Checklists: Only crucial steps, reduce complexity via milestones, employ Zeigarnik effect (tendency to not leave incomplete tasks) and Endowed progress (make them feel they are closer to completion)

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(226) "

Checklists: Only crucial steps, reduce complexity via milestones, employ Zeigarnik effect (tendency to not leave incomplete tasks) and Endowed progress (make them feel they are closer to completion)

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Onboarding tooltips: Help them decide the most valuable path, decrease their impact-less exploration

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Onboarding tooltips: Help them decide the most valuable path, decrease their impact-less exploration

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Empty states: First-time states of different objects -> Prompt them to take action and create a FOMO of what it will be about

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Empty states: First-time states of different objects -> Prompt them to take action and create a FOMO of what it will be about

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(21) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(13) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(2) " " [7]=> NULL [8]=> string(2) " " [9]=> NULL [10]=> string(2) " " [11]=> NULL [12]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(106) "

b. Conversational bumpers: Educate, set expectations, pull back, motivate to buy

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b. Conversational bumpers: Educate, set expectations, pull back, motivate to buy

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Ex-

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(12) "

Ex-

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(9) "core/list" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(8) { [0]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(106) "

Welcome email: Highest open rate, train for initial push, and set expectations

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Welcome email: Highest open rate, train for initial push, and set expectations

" } } [1]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(69) "

Usage tips email: Tutorial of first steps

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(69) "

Usage tips email: Tutorial of first steps

" } } [2]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(142) "

Sales touch email: After users accomplish a milestone -> celebrate and ask for a query in reply/schedule a call

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(142) "

Sales touch email: After users accomplish a milestone -> celebrate and ask for a query in reply/schedule a call

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Case study email: Adds validation just before they buy

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(82) "

Case study email: Adds validation just before they buy

" } } [4]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(96) "

Better-life email: Nudge them to exhaust the benefits of the product

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(96) "

Better-life email: Nudge them to exhaust the benefits of the product

" } } [5]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(110) "

Expiry-warning email: Set expectations, make it easy to pay, be available for help

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(110) "

Expiry-warning email: Set expectations, make it easy to pay, be available for help

" } } [6]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(114) "

Customer welcome email: Reassure the decision -> Remind value -> Set Expectation

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(114) "

Customer welcome email: Reassure the decision -> Remind value -> Set Expectation

" } } [7]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(72) "

Post-trial survey: Why didn’t you upgrade?

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(72) "

Post-trial survey: Why didn’t you upgrade?

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(25) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(17) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(2) " " [7]=> NULL [8]=> string(2) " " [9]=> NULL [10]=> string(2) " " [11]=> NULL [12]=> string(2) " " [13]=> NULL [14]=> string(2) " " [15]=> NULL [16]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(71) "

Three smart signals of conversational emails:

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Three smart signals of conversational emails:

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Signup: Streamline them to quick win - Welcome and usage tips

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(72) "

Signup: Streamline them to quick win - Welcome and usage tips

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Quick win: Help them validate the desired outcome - Sales touch

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(74) "

Quick win: Help them validate the desired outcome - Sales touch

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Convert: Upgrade while maintaining LTV

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(49) "

Convert: Upgrade while maintaining LTV

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(15) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(7) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(1) { ["level"]=> int(3) } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(89) "

2️⃣ Increasing ARPU: MRR/# users

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2️⃣ Increasing ARPU: MRR/# users

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ARPU calculation:

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ARPU calculation:

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Vares from company-to-company, depending on whether you want to include free users in the calculation or not. In B2C it’s ideal to include the free users.

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Vares from company-to-company, depending on whether you want to include free users in the calculation or not. In B2C it’s ideal to include the free users.

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ARPU defines your ideal customers, sales, and marketing strategy.

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ARPU defines your ideal customers, sales, and marketing strategy.

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(13) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(5) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(10) "core/image" ["attrs"]=> array(3) { ["id"]=> int(12486) ["sizeSlug"]=> string(4) "full" ["linkDestination"]=> string(4) "none" } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(168) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(168) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(30) "

How to optimize ARPU:

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How to optimize ARPU:

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Use value metrics: Price the product in a balanced way according to price sensitivity, and limit the ideal features in the free trial

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(161) "

Use value metrics: Price the product in a balanced way according to price sensitivity, and limit the ideal features in the free trial

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Improve pricing tiers: Limited choices that fit everyone

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Improve pricing tiers: Limited choices that fit everyone

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Increase prices: Check the price sensitivity graph to find the right price point of drop

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(116) "

Increase prices: Check the price sensitivity graph to find the right price point of drop

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Upsell/cross-sell: Addons, services, or parallel products

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(85) "

Upsell/cross-sell: Addons, services, or parallel products

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(17) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(9) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(2) " " [7]=> NULL [8]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(1) { ["level"]=> int(3) } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(76) "

3️⃣ Slay the Churn:

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3️⃣ Slay the Churn:

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Three types of churn:

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Three types of churn:

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Customer churn: (Churned Customers/total customers)*100

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Customer churn: (Churned Customers/total customers)*100

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Revenue churn: (Churned MRR/Total MRR)*100

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Revenue churn: (Churned MRR/Total MRR)*100

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Activity churn:

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(43) "

Activity churn:

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(15) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(7) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(9) "core/list" ["attrs"]=> array(1) { ["ordered"]=> bool(true) } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(5) { [0]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(115) "

Define engagement: List critical actions that’ll reflect the willingness to continue using the product

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Define engagement: List critical actions that’ll reflect the willingness to continue using the product

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Start tracking: Make dashboards to check regularly

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Start tracking: Make dashboards to check regularly

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Set weights to each action

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Set weights to each action

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Define Ideal Score

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(29) "

Define Ideal Score

" } } [4]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(35) "

Focus on low score users

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(35) "

Focus on low score users

" } } } ["innerHTML"]=> string(19) "

" ["innerContent"]=> array(11) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(2) " " [7]=> NULL [8]=> string(2) " " [9]=> NULL [10]=> string(6) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(41) "

To analyze activity churn: 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(41) "

To analyze activity churn: 

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Rank users -> Rank customer accounts -> Calculate total score of the product (all users) -> Compare Cohorts -> Find correlations

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(149) "

Rank users -> Rank customer accounts -> Calculate total score of the product (all users) -> Compare Cohorts -> Find correlations

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(42) "

To reduce churn:

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(42) "

To reduce churn:

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Measure churn metrics

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(32) "

Measure churn metrics

" } } [1]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(48) "

Set right expectations from the start

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(48) "

Set right expectations from the start

" } } [2]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(30) "

Reduce ability debt

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(30) "

Reduce ability debt

" } } [3]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(29) "

Get usage feedback

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(29) "

Get usage feedback

" } } [4]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(42) "

Reinstate value while repayment

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(42) "

Reinstate value while repayment

" } } [5]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/list-item" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(41) "

Run churn prevention campaigns

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(41) "

Run churn prevention campaigns

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Get maximum info on why a cancellation occurred

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Get maximum info on why a cancellation occurred

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Reduce delinquent churn

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Reduce delinquent churn

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Invest in customer success

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Invest in customer success

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Fix the pricing

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Fix the pricing

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Conclusion

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Conclusion

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Over the course of this post, we skimmed through the basics of a product-led growth strategy and how one can implement the same in their business. Product-Led GTM in contrast to the Sales-Led approach is more scalable, easier, and faster to implement.

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Over the course of this post, we skimmed through the basics of a product-led growth strategy and how one can implement the same in their business. Product-Led GTM in contrast to the Sales-Led approach is more scalable, easier, and faster to implement.

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This post is inspired by @Vishant_Batta’s Twitter thread based on reading notes of the book - Product-Led Growth by Wes Bush. 

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This post is inspired by @Vishant_Batta’s Twitter thread based on reading notes of the book - Product-Led Growth by Wes Bush. 

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The India SaaS Story – A Book for SaaS Founders by SaaS Founders

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Entrepreneurship is a difficult and lonely journey—a truism if ever there was one! 

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Entrepreneurship is a difficult and lonely journey—a truism if ever there was one! 

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Many of us wear our invisible scars acquired on the battlefield of entrepreneurship as badges of honor. This is such an intrinsic part of startup culture, all over the world and not just in India, that we never stop to question this assumption. We never stop to ask—does entrepreneurship have to be so tough? Isn’t there a way to make it easier, even if only by a bit? I asked myself that question and the answer is the book, India SaaS Story. 

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Many of us wear our invisible scars acquired on the battlefield of entrepreneurship as badges of honor. This is such an intrinsic part of startup culture, all over the world and not just in India, that we never stop to question this assumption. We never stop to ask—does entrepreneurship have to be so tough? Isn’t there a way to make it easier, even if only by a bit? I asked myself that question and the answer is the book, India SaaS Story. 

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Opening up access to knowledge 

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Opening up access to knowledge 

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I grew up at a time when information was scarce and access to useful information was available to a select few. This has shaped my journey, from choosing to go to REC because of a teacher’s suggestion to deciding to focus on becoming employable after graduation instead of entrepreneurship on my father’s advice. My story isn’t unique. Many Indian founders who grew up in small-town India will relate to my story. 

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I grew up at a time when information was scarce and access to useful information was available to a select few. This has shaped my journey, from choosing to go to REC because of a teacher’s suggestion to deciding to focus on becoming employable after graduation instead of entrepreneurship on my father’s advice. My story isn’t unique. Many Indian founders who grew up in small-town India will relate to my story. 

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When I started Eka in 2004 at the age of 30, I really was figuring out my path as I went along. There were very few examples to follow, fewer people who could give relevant advice or support. Remember, India was then an IT Services hub and there was no real product ecosystem to learn from or leverage. 

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When I started Eka in 2004 at the age of 30, I really was figuring out my path as I went along. There were very few examples to follow, fewer people who could give relevant advice or support. Remember, India was then an IT Services hub and there was no real product ecosystem to learn from or leverage. 

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How the world has changed since then! India is today a technology product hub and Indian founders have created products for the global market from right here. We have created the SaaS industry in just about a decade, with Indian SaaS companies generating $2 billion to $3 billion in revenue every year. The industry counts among its ranks a successful public listed company in Freshworks and 11 Unicorns. We are on track to unlock $1 trillion in value by 2030.

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How the world has changed since then! India is today a technology product hub and Indian founders have created products for the global market from right here. We have created the SaaS industry in just about a decade, with Indian SaaS companies generating $2 billion to $3 billion in revenue every year. The industry counts among its ranks a successful public listed company in Freshworks and 11 Unicorns. We are on track to unlock $1 trillion in value by 2030.

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But, even as times have changed and opportunities have opened up, the script remains too painfully familiar. Most startup founders, especially first-timers, face much too many stumbling blocks along the way. 

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But, even as times have changed and opportunities have opened up, the script remains too painfully familiar. Most startup founders, especially first-timers, face much too many stumbling blocks along the way. 

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One of the reasons SaaS startup founders came together in 2015 to start SaaSBoomi was because we saw we were all making the same mistakes in our own silos. We asked ourselves if we open up our playbooks, share the hard-earned lessons, and offer support and guidance, can we ensure the next generation of SaaS entrepreneurs do not make the same mistakes that we did?

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One of the reasons SaaS startup founders came together in 2015 to start SaaSBoomi was because we saw we were all making the same mistakes in our own silos. We asked ourselves if we open up our playbooks, share the hard-earned lessons, and offer support and guidance, can we ensure the next generation of SaaS entrepreneurs do not make the same mistakes that we did?

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We have seen how effective our Pay It Forward SaaSBoomi community has been in the past few years. The knowledge sharing has been unparalleled. We can see for ourselves through the many SaaS success stories around us that this model of sharing openly is truly helping the industry and founders.

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We have seen how effective our Pay It Forward SaaSBoomi community has been in the past few years. The knowledge sharing has been unparalleled. We can see for ourselves through the many SaaS success stories around us that this model of sharing openly is truly helping the industry and founders.

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The time is now

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The time is now

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When 2020 and the pandemic hit us all collectively, it had a surprisingly positive impact on Indian SaaS. The world had to embrace digital technologies and the remote model of working and Indian SaaS was in the right place at the right time. 

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When 2020 and the pandemic hit us all collectively, it had a surprisingly positive impact on Indian SaaS. The world had to embrace digital technologies and the remote model of working and Indian SaaS was in the right place at the right time. 

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The larger market reality is clear—organizations globally are embracing SaaS with a vengeance leading to more opportunities for Indian SaaS, if we are willing to seize it. 

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The larger market reality is clear—organizations globally are embracing SaaS with a vengeance leading to more opportunities for Indian SaaS, if we are willing to seize it. 

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(585) "

In the midst of the pandemic, we came out with Shaping India’s SaaS Landscape report, with McKinsey & Company as our Knowledge Partner. The report, which clearly showed that India could be on the cusp of unlocking a $1 trillion opportunity for SaaS companies, creating nearly half a million new jobs by 2030, also highlighted many of the steps all stakeholders in the industry need to take to ensure India SaaS lives up to its potential.

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In the midst of the pandemic, we came out with Shaping India’s SaaS Landscape report, with McKinsey & Company as our Knowledge Partner. The report, which clearly showed that India could be on the cusp of unlocking a $1 trillion opportunity for SaaS companies, creating nearly half a million new jobs by 2030, also highlighted many of the steps all stakeholders in the industry need to take to ensure India SaaS lives up to its potential.

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One of the challenges that still remains is the access to useful info. That seems counter-intuitive when information glut is reality. Yet, how can a young, first-time founder sift through the tonnes of information all around them to find what’s relevant? While many of our top SaaS founders are surprisingly accessible, it is still not easy for newbie founder to get their time for relevant advice precisely right at the time they need it. 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(456) "

One of the challenges that still remains is the access to useful info. That seems counter-intuitive when information glut is reality. Yet, how can a young, first-time founder sift through the tonnes of information all around them to find what’s relevant? While many of our top SaaS founders are surprisingly accessible, it is still not easy for newbie founder to get their time for relevant advice precisely right at the time they need it. 

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Yet, this wealth of invaluable real-life information that the top founders have created needs to be distributed. For, SaaS founders who launched their startups in the past decade have templates-that-work. Founders of tomorrow should not have to go through the learning process that I, and countless other SaaS founders, went through. Especially when momentous growth is within reach.

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Yet, this wealth of invaluable real-life information that the top founders have created needs to be distributed. For, SaaS founders who launched their startups in the past decade have templates-that-work. Founders of tomorrow should not have to go through the learning process that I, and countless other SaaS founders, went through. Especially when momentous growth is within reach.

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This is why I decided that the time for this book is now—when the confluence of talent, opportunity, and will is at its most potent, and with it the need for the right knowledge and support is at its greatest. 

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This is why I decided that the time for this book is now—when the confluence of talent, opportunity, and will is at its most potent, and with it the need for the right knowledge and support is at its greatest. 

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This is the reason I did not want the book to be based on just my experiences and what I have learned over the years building a product SaaS startup. That would have limited the scope of this book, for SaaS Founders can take multiple paths and different verticals may need different playbooks. I spoke to over 15 other SaaS founders, who represent the whole range of the Indian SaaS landscape, and I have included their views and their lessons to create a book that will act as a guide to founders who are at various stages of their SaaS startup journey. 

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This is the reason I did not want the book to be based on just my experiences and what I have learned over the years building a product SaaS startup. That would have limited the scope of this book, for SaaS Founders can take multiple paths and different verticals may need different playbooks. I spoke to over 15 other SaaS founders, who represent the whole range of the Indian SaaS landscape, and I have included their views and their lessons to create a book that will act as a guide to founders who are at various stages of their SaaS startup journey. 

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The book covers every topic over which a founder could potentially agonize over, including co-founder agreements, first hires, fundraising, equity dilution, product-led growth, org structure, M&As, Board composition, and dealing with challenges.

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The book covers every topic over which a founder could potentially agonize over, including co-founder agreements, first hires, fundraising, equity dilution, product-led growth, org structure, M&As, Board composition, and dealing with challenges.

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While this book is relevant for founders of all SaaS startups, no matter the stage, I believe it is particularly relevant for founders who are in the first flush of entrepreneurship. They can use this book almost like a step-by-step guide and refer to it when faced with doubts or roadblocks during the course of launching and scaling their firm. 

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While this book is relevant for founders of all SaaS startups, no matter the stage, I believe it is particularly relevant for founders who are in the first flush of entrepreneurship. They can use this book almost like a step-by-step guide and refer to it when faced with doubts or roadblocks during the course of launching and scaling their firm. 

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When I was working on this book, I kept the new entrepreneur in mind—the founder I was when I started out in 2004. I thought of what I would have found useful then, the resource that I would have loved to have all those years ago when I was a struggling startup founder. I believe the India SaaS Story book is that resource. 

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When I was working on this book, I kept the new entrepreneur in mind—the founder I was when I started out in 2004. I thought of what I would have found useful then, the resource that I would have loved to have all those years ago when I was a struggling startup founder. I believe the India SaaS Story book is that resource. 

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The India SaaS Story is also my tribute to SaaSBoomi and to its Pay It Forward philosophy, which I have attempted to serve through this book. I hope SaaS founders find value in The India SaaS Story and the book helps India SaaS scale to even greater heights. 

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The India SaaS Story is also my tribute to SaaSBoomi and to its Pay It Forward philosophy, which I have attempted to serve through this book. I hope SaaS founders find value in The India SaaS Story and the book helps India SaaS scale to even greater heights. 

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You can pre-order the book on Amazon by clicking here.

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You can pre-order the book on Amazon by clicking here.

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Launching SaaSBoomi Awards 2021 – Bigger, Brighter, Better.

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It is amazing how much of a difference one year can make.

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It is amazing how much of a difference one year can make.

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Last year, when we launched the inaugural version of SaaSBoomi Awards 2020, the dark cloud of Covid-19 hung over the world like a shroud. Even in this grim environment, we pushed ahead with the awards with the hope that it would serve as a rallying point for inspiring all other SaaS startups in India. Indeed, it was a heartfelt surprise for all of us to see well over 200 high-quality applications across all the categories - making it tough for the jury to pick just one winner in each.

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Last year, when we launched the inaugural version of SaaSBoomi Awards 2020, the dark cloud of Covid-19 hung over the world like a shroud. Even in this grim environment, we pushed ahead with the awards with the hope that it would serve as a rallying point for inspiring all other SaaS startups in India. Indeed, it was a heartfelt surprise for all of us to see well over 200 high-quality applications across all the categories - making it tough for the jury to pick just one winner in each.

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Fast forward to the present and the picture is very different. As the world looks beyond Covid,  Indian startups and entrepreneurs are more ambitious than ever, buoyed by a worldwide demand for online and digital services and a hitherto unprecedented amount of venture capital chasing the new generation of SaaS leaders following the exemplar established by companies like Freshworks that went public at decacorn valuations recently. The last year has been great for Indian startups, be it in terms of IPOs, freshly-minted unicorns, massive fundraises and tremendous growth - India has definitively established itself as one of the most important SaaS hubs of the world.

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Fast forward to the present and the picture is very different. As the world looks beyond Covid,  Indian startups and entrepreneurs are more ambitious than ever, buoyed by a worldwide demand for online and digital services and a hitherto unprecedented amount of venture capital chasing the new generation of SaaS leaders following the exemplar established by companies like Freshworks that went public at decacorn valuations recently. The last year has been great for Indian startups, be it in terms of IPOs, freshly-minted unicorns, massive fundraises and tremendous growth - India has definitively established itself as one of the most important SaaS hubs of the world.

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It is against this confident backdrop that we are back with the 2021 edition of SaaSBoomi Awards. While the previous inaugural edition was a experiment in hope, this year’s event is intended to shine light on our brightest stars - SaaS companies that were probably not even born a year or two back but have emblazoned their presence in the firmament of global tech leaders who will build large and tremendously successful businesses over the next decade.

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It is against this confident backdrop that we are back with the 2021 edition of SaaSBoomi Awards. While the previous inaugural edition was a experiment in hope, this year’s event is intended to shine light on our brightest stars - SaaS companies that were probably not even born a year or two back but have emblazoned their presence in the firmament of global tech leaders who will build large and tremendously successful businesses over the next decade.

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SaaSBoomi Awards is an endeavour to celebrate our SaaS companies and their founders - to recognize and laud their achievements, to bring to light little-known gems, to inspire others to follow their path.

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SaaSBoomi Awards is an endeavour to celebrate our SaaS companies and their founders - to recognize and laud their achievements, to bring to light little-known gems, to inspire others to follow their path.

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Why should you apply for the SaaSBoomi Awards? 

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Why should you apply for the SaaSBoomi Awards? 

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Awards are expected to bring name and fame - SaaSBoomi Awards will deliver those in spades but that is not the most important reason why you should consider participating.

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Awards are expected to bring name and fame - SaaSBoomi Awards will deliver those in spades but that is not the most important reason why you should consider participating.

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SaaSBoomi Awards is the first and only startup awards program in India that is shaped and judged entirely by the community. You will be judged and recognized not by corporate sponsors or VC investors but by your peers in the Indian SaaS community. By folks who have walked in your shoes but have strode to great heights - community members who have taken their companies to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, who have bootstrapped their startups to profitability at scale with hundreds of team members, who have set global standards in deep tech and cutting-edge innovation.

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SaaSBoomi Awards is the first and only startup awards program in India that is shaped and judged entirely by the community. You will be judged and recognized not by corporate sponsors or VC investors but by your peers in the Indian SaaS community. By folks who have walked in your shoes but have strode to great heights - community members who have taken their companies to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, who have bootstrapped their startups to profitability at scale with hundreds of team members, who have set global standards in deep tech and cutting-edge innovation.

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The SaaSBoomi Awards program is designed to recognize a select set of exemplary startups along a thoughtfully constructed set of categories that will in essence serve as a proxy for the entire Indian SaaS industry. Winning an award here is all but guaranteed to give you and your startup enduring recognition and respect - all done by the community, for the community. 

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The SaaSBoomi Awards program is designed to recognize a select set of exemplary startups along a thoughtfully constructed set of categories that will in essence serve as a proxy for the entire Indian SaaS industry. Winning an award here is all but guaranteed to give you and your startup enduring recognition and respect - all done by the community, for the community. 

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We had a few interesting learnings while running the awards process last year, which we’ve incorporated in this year’s awards - from newer and sharper categories to a more streamlined application process.

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We had a few interesting learnings while running the awards process last year, which we’ve incorporated in this year’s awards - from newer and sharper categories to a more streamlined application process.

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For SaaSBoomi Awards 2021, we’re inviting applications for the following award categories:

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For SaaSBoomi Awards 2021, we’re inviting applications for the following award categories:

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SaaS startup of the year - For the best SaaS startup of India, which has achieved great heights at a global level and serves as a lighthouse for all other SaaS entrepreneurs in India. This will be selected by the jury members among all the SaaS startups in India.

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SaaS startup of the year - For the best SaaS startup of India, which has achieved great heights at a global level and serves as a lighthouse for all other SaaS entrepreneurs in India. This will be selected by the jury members among all the SaaS startups in India.

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Breakout SaaS startup of the year - For startups that have achieved phenomenal traction or recognition in the recent past, whether through a paradigm shift or through focussed execution.

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Breakout SaaS startup of the year - For startups that have achieved phenomenal traction or recognition in the recent past, whether through a paradigm shift or through focussed execution.

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Emerging SaaS Startup of the year: For startups below $1M in revenue, which has achieved phenomenal traction in its journey from start.

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Emerging SaaS Startup of the year: For startups below $1M in revenue, which has achieved phenomenal traction in its journey from start.

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Bootstrapped SaaS startup of the year - For startups that have scaled without raising any institutional money (over $100K) and only rely on revenue to fund and grow their operations.

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Bootstrapped SaaS startup of the year - For startups that have scaled without raising any institutional money (over $100K) and only rely on revenue to fund and grow their operations.

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DevTools SaaS Startup of the year - For startups that are building tools, libraries, or systems for the burgeoning developer market, and have received critical acclaim for the same.

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DevTools SaaS Startup of the year - For startups that are building tools, libraries, or systems for the burgeoning developer market, and have received critical acclaim for the same.

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Vertical SaaS startup of the year - For startups that play in a vertical domain and have achieved phenomenal traction within that domain, be it in terms of revenue or customers.

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Vertical SaaS startup of the year - For startups that play in a vertical domain and have achieved phenomenal traction within that domain, be it in terms of revenue or customers.

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So if you’re a SaaS startup or know someone who you think deserves to be recognized, head straight to this link. Applications are open till Jan 7, 2022.

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So if you’re a SaaS startup or know someone who you think deserves to be recognized, head straight to this link. Applications are open till Jan 7, 2022.

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SaaSBoomi Awards unveils 2020 winners, recognising the achievements of SaaS startups

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This article was first posted on YourStory. 

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This article was first posted on YourStory. 

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Over the last few years, the SaaS industry in India has grown by leaps and bounds. Though the industry started small, today, this segment boasts of a combined annual recurring revenue of $2 billion, consisting of more than 10,000 companies.

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Over the last few years, the SaaS industry in India has grown by leaps and bounds. Though the industry started small, today, this segment boasts of a combined annual recurring revenue of $2 billion, consisting of more than 10,000 companies.

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The coming together of engineering and product talent, venture capital, and the drive of founders to take their companies global has made this industry the one to watch out for. According to a recent report by Google and Accel, the Indian SaaS sector is on the way to hit the $10 billion revenue milestone by 2025.

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The coming together of engineering and product talent, venture capital, and the drive of founders to take their companies global has made this industry the one to watch out for. According to a recent report by Google and Accel, the Indian SaaS sector is on the way to hit the $10 billion revenue milestone by 2025.

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This is why, for the first time, SaaSBoomi, the umbrella organisation for all Software as a Service (SaaS) companies and startups in India, has come out with a set of awards recognising the companies in this sector across various categories.

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This is why, for the first time, SaaSBoomi, the umbrella organisation for all Software as a Service (SaaS) companies and startups in India, has come out with a set of awards recognising the companies in this sector across various categories.

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The unique aspect of the SaaSBoomi Awards is that it is judged entirely by the SaaS community, with no involvement from any outside parties or individuals.

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The unique aspect of the SaaSBoomi Awards is that it is judged entirely by the SaaS community, with no involvement from any outside parties or individuals.

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The awards were held for achievements in eight categories – Breakout SaaS of the Year, Bootstrapped SaaS Startup of the Year, Deep-Tech SaaS Startup of the Year, Category Creator SaaS Startup of the Year, Vertical SaaS Startup of the Year, Moonshot Startup of the Year, B2D SaaS Startup of the Year, and SaaS Startup of the Year.

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The awards were held for achievements in eight categories – Breakout SaaS of the Year, Bootstrapped SaaS Startup of the Year, Deep-Tech SaaS Startup of the Year, Category Creator SaaS Startup of the Year, Vertical SaaS Startup of the Year, Moonshot Startup of the Year, B2D SaaS Startup of the Year, and SaaS Startup of the Year.

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The jury consisted of stalwarts of the industry: 

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The jury consisted of stalwarts of the industry: 

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Aneesh Reddy - Co-founder and CEO of Capillary Technologies; Ashwini Asokan – Founder and CEO of Mad Street Den; Girish Mathrubootham – Founder and CEO of Freshworks; Krish Subramanian – Co-founder and CEO of Chargebee; Manav Garg – Founder and CEO of Eka Software; Suresh Sambandam – CEO of Kissflow; and Pallav Nadhani - Co-founder and CEO, Ex-FusionCharts.

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Aneesh Reddy - Co-founder and CEO of Capillary Technologies; Ashwini Asokan – Founder and CEO of Mad Street Den; Girish Mathrubootham – Founder and CEO of Freshworks; Krish Subramanian – Co-founder and CEO of Chargebee; Manav Garg – Founder and CEO of Eka Software; Suresh Sambandam – CEO of Kissflow; and Pallav Nadhani - Co-founder and CEO, Ex-FusionCharts.

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There were five startups shortlisted in each category, with one of them declared as the winner. Here are the winners in each category.

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There were five startups shortlisted in each category, with one of them declared as the winner. Here are the winners in each category.

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Bootstrapped Startup of the Year – Kovai

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Bootstrapped Startup of the Year – Kovai

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This London-headquartered enterprise SaaS company offers multiple products primarily in the areas of Microsoft BizTalk and Azure Serverless environments, as well as for B2B entities. It has its development centre in Coimbatore.

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This London-headquartered enterprise SaaS company offers multiple products primarily in the areas of Microsoft BizTalk and Azure Serverless environments, as well as for B2B entities. It has its development centre in Coimbatore.

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Breakout Startup of the Year - Hubilo

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Breakout Startup of the Year - Hubilo

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The COVID-19 pandemic has brought out the critical technological role played by Hubilo. As a platform provider of intelligent virtual events, Hubilo provides key insights to CMOs and event organisers, and sponsors to track the attendee engagement of events.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has brought out the critical technological role played by Hubilo. As a platform provider of intelligent virtual events, Hubilo provides key insights to CMOs and event organisers, and sponsors to track the attendee engagement of events.

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Category Creator SaaS Startup of the Year – Acceldata

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Category Creator SaaS Startup of the Year – Acceldata

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The data management tools created by Acceldata enables enterprises to measure, monitor, and model the information that moves across different pipelines. Acceldata’s technology platform can provide this on a single pane to create data observability.

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The data management tools created by Acceldata enables enterprises to measure, monitor, and model the information that moves across different pipelines. Acceldata’s technology platform can provide this on a single pane to create data observability.

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DeepTech Startup of the Year - Entropik Tech

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DeepTech Startup of the Year - Entropik Tech

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Entropik Tech is a leader in Emotion AI enabling global brands leverage actionable emotion insights to deliver superlative marketing, brand and product experiences.

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Entropik Tech is a leader in Emotion AI enabling global brands leverage actionable emotion insights to deliver superlative marketing, brand and product experiences.

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DevTools (B2D) Startup of the Year - Hasura

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DevTools (B2D) Startup of the Year - Hasura

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Hasura enables easy access to data by instantly composing a GraphQL API that is backed by databases and services so that the developer team (or API consumers) get immediately productive. The nature of GraphQL itself and Hasura’s dynamic approach makes integration and iteration easy.

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Hasura enables easy access to data by instantly composing a GraphQL API that is backed by databases and services so that the developer team (or API consumers) get immediately productive. The nature of GraphQL itself and Hasura’s dynamic approach makes integration and iteration easy.

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Vertical SaaS Startup of the Year - Cardinality

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Vertical SaaS Startup of the Year - Cardinality

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Cardinality has developed an asset-light solution that offers easy-to-configure, low-code platforms based on AI and ML technologies, thus helping the ecosystem of welfare service stakeholders, especially the healthcare sector, to access case information on the go.

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Cardinality has developed an asset-light solution that offers easy-to-configure, low-code platforms based on AI and ML technologies, thus helping the ecosystem of welfare service stakeholders, especially the healthcare sector, to access case information on the go.

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Moonshot Startup of the Year – OkCredit

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Moonshot Startup of the Year – OkCredit

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OKCredit simplifies credit account management for shop owners and their customers. It is a mobile-based solution that enables the recording of credit/payment transactions digitally all across the country.

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OKCredit simplifies credit account management for shop owners and their customers. It is a mobile-based solution that enables the recording of credit/payment transactions digitally all across the country.

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SaaS Startup of the Year - Postman 

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SaaS Startup of the Year - Postman 

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Postman turned into a unicorn last year, joining the list of other SaaS companies in the $1 billion valuation club. It is a collaboration platform for API development and simplifies each step, thereby making the entire process faster.

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Postman turned into a unicorn last year, joining the list of other SaaS companies in the $1 billion valuation club. It is a collaboration platform for API development and simplifies each step, thereby making the entire process faster.

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Story of Kovai.co: Building a billion-dollar bootstrapped startup

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We all know the importance of solving customer pain points for product success but doing so in a B2B product is even more crucial. However, the devil lies in the detail. 

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We all know the importance of solving customer pain points for product success but doing so in a B2B product is even more crucial. However, the devil lies in the detail. 

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Anybody can solve high-level problems but it’s those who target the nuances of the problem who succeed. And Saravana Kumar, Founder & CEO, Kovai.co, did exactly that. Having worked on the technology for the past 10 years, he knew exactly what the customer pain point was and went straight for it.

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Anybody can solve high-level problems but it’s those who target the nuances of the problem who succeed. And Saravana Kumar, Founder & CEO, Kovai.co, did exactly that. Having worked on the technology for the past 10 years, he knew exactly what the customer pain point was and went straight for it.

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In this fireside chat with Vinod Muthukrishnan, Founder & ex-CEO, Cloudcherry, Sarvana talks candidly about his initial years - the first clients, building a team as tech founder and his vision for 2030.

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In this fireside chat with Vinod Muthukrishnan, Founder & ex-CEO, Cloudcherry, Sarvana talks candidly about his initial years - the first clients, building a team as tech founder and his vision for 2030.

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Saravana is your typical technical founder who is more inclined to tackle technical problems rather than business problems. However, over the last couple of years he has been focusing on leading the team through strategic thinking rather than technical prowess. He has come to believe that he can move the needle more by being strategic.

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Saravana is your typical technical founder who is more inclined to tackle technical problems rather than business problems. However, over the last couple of years he has been focusing on leading the team through strategic thinking rather than technical prowess. He has come to believe that he can move the needle more by being strategic.

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Watch this fireside chat where Saravana talks about a wide variety of challenges faced by startup founders, including:

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Watch this fireside chat where Saravana talks about a wide variety of challenges faced by startup founders, including:

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Working solo as an entrepreneur

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Working solo as an entrepreneur

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Going from 1st to 5th customer

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Going from 1st to 5th customer

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Growing from five employees in 2013 to 240 in 2020

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Growing from five employees in 2013 to 240 in 2020

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Reaching $10 million in revenue through organic growth

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Reaching $10 million in revenue through organic growth

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Devising and executing an organic GTM strategy

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Devising and executing an organic GTM strategy

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Building a world class team from a Tier-2 Indian city

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Building a world class team from a Tier-2 Indian city

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Setting long-term goals and pursuing them aggressively

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Setting long-term goals and pursuing them aggressively

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When Saravana launched the first version of his product in 2011, he already had 15,000 readers on his blog, who were also his potential customers. His is the classical story of a hobby project turning into a bootstrapped startup that is geared up to be a $1 billion revenue company by 2030.

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When Saravana launched the first version of his product in 2011, he already had 15,000 readers on his blog, who were also his potential customers. His is the classical story of a hobby project turning into a bootstrapped startup that is geared up to be a $1 billion revenue company by 2030.

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So dive right in.

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So dive right in.

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https://www.youtube.com/embed/s4W8c99Juw0

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https://www.youtube.com/embed/s4W8c99Juw0

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Building Products that Sell Themselves: Journey of Appointy from Bhopal to Boston

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If Nemesh Singh, Founder & CEO, Appointy India, were given a time machine, he would want to go back 21 years, when he started his entrepreneurial journey, and change a couple of things.

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If Nemesh Singh, Founder & CEO, Appointy India, were given a time machine, he would want to go back 21 years, when he started his entrepreneurial journey, and change a couple of things.

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In this session for SaaSBoomi Annual 2021 OnAir, curated be Varun Shoor, Founder and CEO, Kayako, Nemesh shares how he has bootstrapped Appointy to a level where he envisages it to reach $1 billion MRR in the next couple of years. That too from tier 2 city, Bhopal.

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In this session for SaaSBoomi Annual 2021 OnAir, curated be Varun Shoor, Founder and CEO, Kayako, Nemesh shares how he has bootstrapped Appointy to a level where he envisages it to reach $1 billion MRR in the next couple of years. That too from tier 2 city, Bhopal.

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But he would not trade Bhopal for anywhere else in the world because that would be downgrading his quality of life. In this candid chat with Varun, Nemesh talks about his expensive mistakes like not setting up organisational structure correctly or not understanding pricing plans in time, so that other founders don’t make the same mistakes.

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But he would not trade Bhopal for anywhere else in the world because that would be downgrading his quality of life. In this candid chat with Varun, Nemesh talks about his expensive mistakes like not setting up organisational structure correctly or not understanding pricing plans in time, so that other founders don’t make the same mistakes.

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But he would not dream of anything except owning up his mistakes saying,

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But he would not dream of anything except owning up his mistakes saying,

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“Being a single founder, I am responsible for everything.”

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“Being a single founder, I am responsible for everything.”

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After his revenue tanked to $0 overnight in 2014, Nemesh managed to on-board his co-founder and there has been no looking back.

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After his revenue tanked to $0 overnight in 2014, Nemesh managed to on-board his co-founder and there has been no looking back.

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Nemesh‘s story is one of grit, perseverance and cockroach-like resilience. If you are a startup operating from a tier 2 or 3 Indian city, there is so much you will identify with and learn. And even if you are not, you would benefit by his sage advice on:

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Nemesh‘s story is one of grit, perseverance and cockroach-like resilience. If you are a startup operating from a tier 2 or 3 Indian city, there is so much you will identify with and learn. And even if you are not, you would benefit by his sage advice on:

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Technical debt

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Technical debt

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Secret sauce to $2 million inbound deals

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Secret sauce to $2 million inbound deals

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Running a SaaS company from tier 2 or 3 city

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Running a SaaS company from tier 2 or 3 city

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How to achieve inbuilt virality in a PLG product

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How to achieve inbuilt virality in a PLG product

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So, what are you waiting for, dive straight into the session.

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So, what are you waiting for, dive straight into the session.

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https://www.youtube.com/embed/Wo_95ferR8U

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https://www.youtube.com/embed/Wo_95ferR8U

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Every movement needs a hero — Freshworks and the dream of a Product Nation

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It all started in 2005. More than 15 years ago.

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It all started in 2005. More than 15 years ago.

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In a boardroom with around 20–25 founders, we were discussing the vision of what India’s software industry could become. Suddenly, an elderly gentleman stood up and started questioning me and others at the table. His argument was simple: How do you want India to be positioned? Not, as coolies for these big companies, right, he asked.

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In a boardroom with around 20–25 founders, we were discussing the vision of what India’s software industry could become. Suddenly, an elderly gentleman stood up and started questioning me and others at the table. His argument was simple: How do you want India to be positioned? Not, as coolies for these big companies, right, he asked.

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Innovation is in our DNA, he said, and we should be building software for the world.

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Innovation is in our DNA, he said, and we should be building software for the world.

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There was utter silence.

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There was utter silence.

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At the table there were only 3–4 founders who were building software products, the rest were services companies. This was at a NASSCOM forum for SMEs, which we had convened to vet ideas to help speed growth up in that sector.

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At the table there were only 3–4 founders who were building software products, the rest were services companies. This was at a NASSCOM forum for SMEs, which we had convened to vet ideas to help speed growth up in that sector.

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This elderly gentleman was Anil Bakht, CEO of Eastern Software Systems. That was the first time I started thinking about evangelizing software products.

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This elderly gentleman was Anil Bakht, CEO of Eastern Software Systems. That was the first time I started thinking about evangelizing software products.

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The dream of a product nation

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The dream of a product nation

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In the years that followed, I worked alongside people like Sharad Sharma, Ganesh Natarajan, and MR Rangaswami to give shape to that dream of building India into a ‘Product Nation’ through initiatives such as NASSCOM Product Conclave and PNGrowth, activities that spanned more than a decade.

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In the years that followed, I worked alongside people like Sharad Sharma, Ganesh Natarajan, and MR Rangaswami to give shape to that dream of building India into a ‘Product Nation’ through initiatives such as NASSCOM Product Conclave and PNGrowth, activities that spanned more than a decade.

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Many of these efforts were small and modest to start with. Given the state of the Indian startup ecosystem at that time, software products were still a dream, an aspiration.

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Many of these efforts were small and modest to start with. Given the state of the Indian startup ecosystem at that time, software products were still a dream, an aspiration.

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All that changed when I met him — the man they called ‘G’.

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All that changed when I met him — the man they called ‘G’.

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A special beginning — moving from a dream to a goal

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A special beginning — moving from a dream to a goal

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One of the volunteers at NASSCOM Product Conclave in 2011 was an excellent writer named Sairam Krishnan (NB: I owe a debt of gratitude to Sai for helping me become a bit of a writer myself!). Sai used to rave about his boss in Chennai, whom he would refer to as “Ji” — later, I got to know it was not “Ji” but “G”, and that it stood for Girish Mathrubootham, the founder of a small SaaS startup called Freshdesk. Sai had built an amazing picture in my mind about Girish.

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One of the volunteers at NASSCOM Product Conclave in 2011 was an excellent writer named Sairam Krishnan (NB: I owe a debt of gratitude to Sai for helping me become a bit of a writer myself!). Sai used to rave about his boss in Chennai, whom he would refer to as “Ji” — later, I got to know it was not “Ji” but “G”, and that it stood for Girish Mathrubootham, the founder of a small SaaS startup called Freshdesk. Sai had built an amazing picture in my mind about Girish.

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So, on my next trip to Chennai in June 2014, I requested Sai to help me schedule a meeting.

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So, on my next trip to Chennai in June 2014, I requested Sai to help me schedule a meeting.

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When I reached the Freshdesk office, I was struck by the energy in the room — there was so much buzz and action, so much so that they simply couldn’t find a meeting room. Eventually, they managed to get two additional chairs in a room already occupied by 3 or 4 engineers.

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When I reached the Freshdesk office, I was struck by the energy in the room — there was so much buzz and action, so much so that they simply couldn’t find a meeting room. Eventually, they managed to get two additional chairs in a room already occupied by 3 or 4 engineers.

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I shook hands with Girish and he said that we could chat here. He made me comfortable, and in his usual style offered me filter coffee. Not sure if I was imagining it but the other folks in the room seemed a bit hassled — they were probably curious to find out if I was there for a job or to sell something.

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I shook hands with Girish and he said that we could chat here. He made me comfortable, and in his usual style offered me filter coffee. Not sure if I was imagining it but the other folks in the room seemed a bit hassled — they were probably curious to find out if I was there for a job or to sell something.

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Within the first ten minutes of that meeting, I realized that Girish was a kindred soul — we were individually talking about our dreams but the dream was the one and the same — building a Product Nation. Girish agreed to support some community initiatives that I had proposed and was happy to help fellow founders with his learnings.

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Within the first ten minutes of that meeting, I realized that Girish was a kindred soul — we were individually talking about our dreams but the dream was the one and the same — building a Product Nation. Girish agreed to support some community initiatives that I had proposed and was happy to help fellow founders with his learnings.

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Even in this short meeting, there was something special about Girish — it seemed that he would always remember you and he would do things that you’ll remember for life.

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Even in this short meeting, there was something special about Girish — it seemed that he would always remember you and he would do things that you’ll remember for life.

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Post that first meeting, I was fortunate enough to interact with Girish closely on multiple occasions. But all of these are personal to me. Over this same time as I was getting to be close to him, he grew Freshdesk from a small single-product startup to Freshworks, a multi-billion dollar global behemoth with a full range of products. I saw, in real-time, how Girish grew as a leader.

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Post that first meeting, I was fortunate enough to interact with Girish closely on multiple occasions. But all of these are personal to me. Over this same time as I was getting to be close to him, he grew Freshdesk from a small single-product startup to Freshworks, a multi-billion dollar global behemoth with a full range of products. I saw, in real-time, how Girish grew as a leader.

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There are very few leaders who scale well along with the company, and Girish is definitely one of them. Every time I met him in the last couple of years, I met a more evolved Girish.

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There are very few leaders who scale well along with the company, and Girish is definitely one of them. Every time I met him in the last couple of years, I met a more evolved Girish.

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I particularly remember one session which we did at Accel LaunchPad, where Girish was sharing his insights. When he walked into the room, he changed the energy and the vibe immediately. And this wasn’t a one-off. Every keynote session that Girish would conduct during events would leave the hotel corridors empty, every person would want to listen to him. Although people would hear him every year, he would mesmerise the audience with his storytelling and delivery. At the last SaaSBoomi event in Feb 2019 that we had in person — the year before Covid forced us all to go online — Girish got a standing ovation from the audience.

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I particularly remember one session which we did at Accel LaunchPad, where Girish was sharing his insights. When he walked into the room, he changed the energy and the vibe immediately. And this wasn’t a one-off. Every keynote session that Girish would conduct during events would leave the hotel corridors empty, every person would want to listen to him. Although people would hear him every year, he would mesmerise the audience with his storytelling and delivery. At the last SaaSBoomi event in Feb 2019 that we had in person — the year before Covid forced us all to go online — Girish got a standing ovation from the audience.

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But the most striking thing about Girish was that not only did he transform himself and his company into leaders, he also took the entire Indian SaaS community with him.

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But the most striking thing about Girish was that not only did he transform himself and his company into leaders, he also took the entire Indian SaaS community with him.

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Building the Product Nation brick by brick

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Building the Product Nation brick by brick

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At iSPIRT, I was tasked with managing the Playbook pillar — putting together playbooks and conducting bootcamps around Sales, Marketing, Product Management for product companies. Girish was inevitably at the forefront, sharing his lessons and experiences openly and transparently with other SaaS founders, helping them avoid mistakes and in reaching PMF earlier. He was joined by others like Suresh Sambandam, Manav Garg, Aneesh Reddy, Pallav Nadhani, and Krish Subramanian who helped make this playbook format a valuable tool for founders to learn from other founders.

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At iSPIRT, I was tasked with managing the Playbook pillar — putting together playbooks and conducting bootcamps around Sales, Marketing, Product Management for product companies. Girish was inevitably at the forefront, sharing his lessons and experiences openly and transparently with other SaaS founders, helping them avoid mistakes and in reaching PMF earlier. He was joined by others like Suresh Sambandam, Manav Garg, Aneesh Reddy, Pallav Nadhani, and Krish Subramanian who helped make this playbook format a valuable tool for founders to learn from other founders.

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The last couple of years have been an amazing journey of Indian SaaS companies becoming global, and today we boast of around 11 unicorns and probably 1500 startups who are building SaaS business for global markets. ‘Shaping India’s SaaS Landscape’, a report developed by SaaSBoomi and McKinsey & Company this year, revealed how this dream of a Product Nation has the potential to create $1 trillion in value and nearly half a million jobs by 2030.

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The last couple of years have been an amazing journey of Indian SaaS companies becoming global, and today we boast of around 11 unicorns and probably 1500 startups who are building SaaS business for global markets. ‘Shaping India’s SaaS Landscape’, a report developed by SaaSBoomi and McKinsey & Company this year, revealed how this dream of a Product Nation has the potential to create $1 trillion in value and nearly half a million jobs by 2030.

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Freshworks is at the head of this trillion-dollar dream and I have seen them go from milestone to milestone quietly and confidently — spreading their joy with everyone else in the ecosystem. I was fortunate to be part of the celebrations when Freshworks became a $100Mn company and then getting to see them touch $300Mn. I found it fascinating to see how the brand got built and how every founder in the ecosystem talks about Freshworks and Girish proudly and with affection, seeing his victory as their own.

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Freshworks is at the head of this trillion-dollar dream and I have seen them go from milestone to milestone quietly and confidently — spreading their joy with everyone else in the ecosystem. I was fortunate to be part of the celebrations when Freshworks became a $100Mn company and then getting to see them touch $300Mn. I found it fascinating to see how the brand got built and how every founder in the ecosystem talks about Freshworks and Girish proudly and with affection, seeing his victory as their own.

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And it is now time to celebrate another milestone, another victory.

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And it is now time to celebrate another milestone, another victory.

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The harbinger of this revolution is now going public

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The harbinger of this revolution is now going public

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In the next week or so, Freshworks will list publicly in the US — the first Indian SaaS company to file for an IPO in the West.

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In the next week or so, Freshworks will list publicly in the US — the first Indian SaaS company to file for an IPO in the West.

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Every movement needs a hero, and Freshworks is not just a hero, it is our hero — a wonderful exemplar of leading with humility, of paying it forward, of winning without taking shortcuts.

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Every movement needs a hero, and Freshworks is not just a hero, it is our hero — a wonderful exemplar of leading with humility, of paying it forward, of winning without taking shortcuts.

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In a sense, this IPO signals that the dream of seeing India as a Product Nation is now reality.

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In a sense, this IPO signals that the dream of seeing India as a Product Nation is now reality.

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In tech circles globally, Finland is known for Nokia, Estonia is known for Skype, Australia is known for Atlassian and from now, India will be known for Freshworks. Not just as a supplier of low-cost tech talent but as a global software product powerhouse.

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In tech circles globally, Finland is known for Nokia, Estonia is known for Skype, Australia is known for Atlassian and from now, India will be known for Freshworks. Not just as a supplier of low-cost tech talent but as a global software product powerhouse.

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There is a story that Girish had shared in SaaSBoomi 2019 annual about the 4 min barrier — about how running a mile in under 4 minutes was considered impossible, but once Roger Bannister broke this mark, he was very soon followed by a number of other athletes who did likewise. Bannister showed the path and showed that what was earlier considered impossible was now well within reach.

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There is a story that Girish had shared in SaaSBoomi 2019 annual about the 4 min barrier — about how running a mile in under 4 minutes was considered impossible, but once Roger Bannister broke this mark, he was very soon followed by a number of other athletes who did likewise. Bannister showed the path and showed that what was earlier considered impossible was now well within reach.

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From a software product perspective, Freshworks has emulated this for the rest of India’s SaaS community — it has shown the path towards becoming a global product leader. And now hopefully many more Indian companies will see similar success over the next few years.

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From a software product perspective, Freshworks has emulated this for the rest of India’s SaaS community — it has shown the path towards becoming a global product leader. And now hopefully many more Indian companies will see similar success over the next few years.

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It seems that the dream that many of us dreamt all the way back in 2005 in a small conference room has finally been realised.

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It seems that the dream that many of us dreamt all the way back in 2005 in a small conference room has finally been realised.

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" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(223) "

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Another dream coming true

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Another dream coming true

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In addition to this shared ambition, there is another dream that is poised to become a reality — something that is a lot more personal.

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In addition to this shared ambition, there is another dream that is poised to become a reality — something that is a lot more personal.

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A long time back when Freshworks was a small but growing company, I had a gut feeling that this startup would go public someday, and I had promised myself that I will be with Girish at NASDAQ when he rings the bell. Not so much because I had any personal ambitions for myself, but because it celebrates the coming of age of India as a Product Nation — a proud moment for many of us who have waited for this day.

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A long time back when Freshworks was a small but growing company, I had a gut feeling that this startup would go public someday, and I had promised myself that I will be with Girish at NASDAQ when he rings the bell. Not so much because I had any personal ambitions for myself, but because it celebrates the coming of age of India as a Product Nation — a proud moment for many of us who have waited for this day.

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For the first time in my life, I have undertaken a trip beyond ten days to be part of this milestone. Given the travel constraints imposed by the pandemic, I had to be in Mexico for fifteen days to gain entry to the US and make it on time for the IPO.

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For the first time in my life, I have undertaken a trip beyond ten days to be part of this milestone. Given the travel constraints imposed by the pandemic, I had to be in Mexico for fifteen days to gain entry to the US and make it on time for the IPO.

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While I was apprehensive about spending so much time in quarantine and was worried about how I could manage, all through this stay I never felt despondent for a single moment — the exhilaration of seeing a long-cherished dream kept me going.

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While I was apprehensive about spending so much time in quarantine and was worried about how I could manage, all through this stay I never felt despondent for a single moment — the exhilaration of seeing a long-cherished dream kept me going.

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Girish has inspired and energized dozens, if not hundreds, of Indian SaaS founders. All these folks might not be physically present in the room when Girish rings the bell, but they will be with us in spirit, joining us to celebrate India definitively becoming a Product Nation.

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Girish has inspired and energized dozens, if not hundreds, of Indian SaaS founders. All these folks might not be physically present in the room when Girish rings the bell, but they will be with us in spirit, joining us to celebrate India definitively becoming a Product Nation.

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On behalf of all these people, I would like to say: Thank you, G, and thank you, Freshworks.

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On behalf of all these people, I would like to say: Thank you, G, and thank you, Freshworks.

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Grateful to my friend Sai for editing this piece and to another friend who remains anonymous :)

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Grateful to my friend Sai for editing this piece and to another friend who remains anonymous :)

" } }

Ideas do not make successful companies, solutions do: Ritesh Arora, Co-founder & CEO, BrowserStack

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It took Ritesh Arora and his long-time college friend Nakul Aggarwal 7 years and 25 ideas to stumble on the winner – BrowserStack. And that was when he realized that great ideas do not make great products or successful companies; it’s about solving your target customer’s problems. 

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It took Ritesh Arora and his long-time college friend Nakul Aggarwal 7 years and 25 ideas to stumble on the winner – BrowserStack. And that was when he realized that great ideas do not make great products or successful companies; it’s about solving your target customer’s problems. 

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In this session of SaaSBoomi Annual OnAir 2021, curated by Manav Garg, Founder, Eka, Ritesh talks about what their early failures taught them about building successful products. BrowserStack turned a SaaS unicorn recently and we all could learn a few things from Ritesh’s journey.

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In this session of SaaSBoomi Annual OnAir 2021, curated by Manav Garg, Founder, Eka, Ritesh talks about what their early failures taught them about building successful products. BrowserStack turned a SaaS unicorn recently and we all could learn a few things from Ritesh’s journey.

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DevTools is a challenging domain because developers give your tool just one chance. They integrate it and see how it works. If all is good, they continue using the product, else they provide feedback and move on to the next tool that promises to solve their pain points.

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DevTools is a challenging domain because developers give your tool just one chance. They integrate it and see how it works. If all is good, they continue using the product, else they provide feedback and move on to the next tool that promises to solve their pain points.

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BrowserStack was profitable from day 1, so they continued to be a bootstrapped company for a long time. They went for funding only when they needed to acquire smaller SaaS companies for growth and to retain quality content. Ritesh feels that if they had priced their launch product higher, they could have grown much faster and reached this milestone earlier.

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BrowserStack was profitable from day 1, so they continued to be a bootstrapped company for a long time. They went for funding only when they needed to acquire smaller SaaS companies for growth and to retain quality content. Ritesh feels that if they had priced their launch product higher, they could have grown much faster and reached this milestone earlier.

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Ritesh says that if he were to start all over again, he would challenge himself to achieve where he is now in 4 years rather than the 10 years it took, because it is achievable.  

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Ritesh says that if he were to start all over again, he would challenge himself to achieve where he is now in 4 years rather than the 10 years it took, because it is achievable.  

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Watch this video to find out why

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Watch this video to find out why

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Pricing right from the start is essential

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Pricing right from the start is essential

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You should think about scaling up from early days

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You should think about scaling up from early days

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Money should not be the factor deciding your roadmap

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Money should not be the factor deciding your roadmap

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You need to hire right

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You need to hire right

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Listening to the customers should be a priority

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Listening to the customers should be a priority

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and be poised to be India’s next SaaS unicorn.

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and be poised to be India’s next SaaS unicorn.

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Is marketing India’s Achilles’ heel?

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India’s startup ecosystem has a marketing problem.
Here’s how it can be fixed.

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India’s startup ecosystem has a marketing problem.
Here’s how it can be fixed.

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Over the last decade, Indian entrepreneurs have done a phenomenal job of transforming the way India is seen by the tech world.

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Over the last decade, Indian entrepreneurs have done a phenomenal job of transforming the way India is seen by the tech world.

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While our engineering and technical prowess has never been in question, for a long time, we’ve been in the shadow of global leaders. And now, we’ve evolved from being a services provider to a product nation, driven predominantly by the exponential growth of SaaS. From being the back-office for western technology and IT companies, India has expanded its scope to become the provider of top-notch products with features, quality, and innovations that are on par if not better than western products. 

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While our engineering and technical prowess has never been in question, for a long time, we’ve been in the shadow of global leaders. And now, we’ve evolved from being a services provider to a product nation, driven predominantly by the exponential growth of SaaS. From being the back-office for western technology and IT companies, India has expanded its scope to become the provider of top-notch products with features, quality, and innovations that are on par if not better than western products. 

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In 2020, twelve Indian startups joined the unicorn club, and we have already seen ten startups achieve unicorn status this year. This is a great sign for the Indian business world, and there is no doubt India has earned the respect of the world and a seat at the global tech table. 

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In 2020, twelve Indian startups joined the unicorn club, and we have already seen ten startups achieve unicorn status this year. This is a great sign for the Indian business world, and there is no doubt India has earned the respect of the world and a seat at the global tech table. 

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There’s one conspicuous gap, though: marketing. 

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There’s one conspicuous gap, though: marketing. 

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For some reason, Indian businesspeople simply don’t give storytelling and marketing their due. We come up with transformative ideas, put in tremendous hard work, and create great products and companies, but struggle with marketing and inevitably depend on talent from the West for marketing and branding. We have solid talent when it comes to engineering, product, and other technical aspects of building a company but fall short when it comes to marketing. 

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For some reason, Indian businesspeople simply don’t give storytelling and marketing their due. We come up with transformative ideas, put in tremendous hard work, and create great products and companies, but struggle with marketing and inevitably depend on talent from the West for marketing and branding. We have solid talent when it comes to engineering, product, and other technical aspects of building a company but fall short when it comes to marketing. 

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It isn’t that we are inherently poor at marketing. Indians have historically been great storytellers and have, in fact, given the world some of the most fascinating, creative epics and works of fiction. But somewhere over the last few decades, our focus has veered away from storytelling and marketing. Indian business houses have been tightlipped about their work and journeys despite being incredibly successful in what they do. This has become culturally ingrained in entrepreneurs over the last few decades and now requires a fundamental change in mindset. 

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It isn’t that we are inherently poor at marketing. Indians have historically been great storytellers and have, in fact, given the world some of the most fascinating, creative epics and works of fiction. But somewhere over the last few decades, our focus has veered away from storytelling and marketing. Indian business houses have been tightlipped about their work and journeys despite being incredibly successful in what they do. This has become culturally ingrained in entrepreneurs over the last few decades and now requires a fundamental change in mindset. 

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We haven’t paid enough attention to marketing, and because of this we don’t have success stories to inspire and don’t have marketing talent to carry the legacy forward. 

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We haven’t paid enough attention to marketing, and because of this we don’t have success stories to inspire and don’t have marketing talent to carry the legacy forward. 

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Young engineers have mentors and leaders to learn from and successful companies they aspire to join. Marketers, on the other hand, end up moving to the West to learn from them. 

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Young engineers have mentors and leaders to learn from and successful companies they aspire to join. Marketers, on the other hand, end up moving to the West to learn from them. 

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My fellow entrepreneur Varun Shoor, Avinash Raghava, the quarterback of Indian SaaS, and I got talking about this recently. It was gnawing at us, and we realized that this is something that requires tackling before it gets too late for the ecosystem. 

From our experiences, we noticed that even when Indian startup founders did invest in marketing, they didn’t do it right. They’re quite conservative in their approach to marketing. 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(455) "

My fellow entrepreneur Varun Shoor, Avinash Raghava, the quarterback of Indian SaaS, and I got talking about this recently. It was gnawing at us, and we realized that this is something that requires tackling before it gets too late for the ecosystem. 

From our experiences, we noticed that even when Indian startup founders did invest in marketing, they didn’t do it right. They’re quite conservative in their approach to marketing. 

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So often, I’ve had startup founders tell me they need “a marketer” to help them build their startups, and I’ve always pointed out that there’s no such thing as “a marketer.” There are different kinds of marketers for the various types of marketing activities, whether it is creative campaign building, marketing analytics, brand storytelling, social media, or any other such function. Trying to get one marketer to do everything is akin to getting an engineer to own and run the front-end, back-end, and all engineering functions. Western countries recognize this and have fostered a talent pool that has experts in each of the dozen marketing functions. That’s what we ought to do too. 

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So often, I’ve had startup founders tell me they need “a marketer” to help them build their startups, and I’ve always pointed out that there’s no such thing as “a marketer.” There are different kinds of marketers for the various types of marketing activities, whether it is creative campaign building, marketing analytics, brand storytelling, social media, or any other such function. Trying to get one marketer to do everything is akin to getting an engineer to own and run the front-end, back-end, and all engineering functions. Western countries recognize this and have fostered a talent pool that has experts in each of the dozen marketing functions. That’s what we ought to do too. 

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Varun and I wanted to do our bit to fix this problem and bring about a change in mindset among young entrepreneurs. Having done quite a bit of marketing for our respective businesses over the last decade, we wanted to share some of our learnings and draw attention to things that wouldn’t typically come to the fore. 

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Varun and I wanted to do our bit to fix this problem and bring about a change in mindset among young entrepreneurs. Having done quite a bit of marketing for our respective businesses over the last decade, we wanted to share some of our learnings and draw attention to things that wouldn’t typically come to the fore. 

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https://www.youtube.com/embed/a_yXp14Gn60

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https://www.youtube.com/embed/a_yXp14Gn60

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When it comes to the technical aspects of building companies, startups have playbooks they can refer to. There are standard practices of successful companies that startups can replicate and hit certain milestones.

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When it comes to the technical aspects of building companies, startups have playbooks they can refer to. There are standard practices of successful companies that startups can replicate and hit certain milestones.

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But when it comes to marketing, it is difficult to come up with a ‘playbook,’ really. 

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But when it comes to marketing, it is difficult to come up with a ‘playbook,’ really. 

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For every marketing campaign that blows someone’s mind away, there’ll be six damp squibs. What might work for a company today may not work for the same company the month after, even if the execution is done by the same team in the same manner. 

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For every marketing campaign that blows someone’s mind away, there’ll be six damp squibs. What might work for a company today may not work for the same company the month after, even if the execution is done by the same team in the same manner. 

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So, a playbook or case study documents from successful companies won’t be of much use. What is important is to understand why a company chose to do what they did, learn how they did it, and then apply those learnings to your startup. Replicating their ideas won’t do you much good, but dissecting their experiences and understanding how they executed their plans will help you formulate the marketing strategy your company needs.     

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So, a playbook or case study documents from successful companies won’t be of much use. What is important is to understand why a company chose to do what they did, learn how they did it, and then apply those learnings to your startup. Replicating their ideas won’t do you much good, but dissecting their experiences and understanding how they executed their plans will help you formulate the marketing strategy your company needs.     

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Varun and I felt that the best way to learn and teach would be to just have a series of conversations with some of our country’s best marketers and discuss different aspects of their work. We thought we should get backstage and see what goes on behind the scenes and into the making of a marketing campaign. That way, we can shine the light on how marketing is done, what works, and what doesn’t, and let you learn from the experience of marketers. Today, people don’t pay attention to how things were done or look into things that failed. We want to tackle those too and learn from others’ experiences. 

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Varun and I felt that the best way to learn and teach would be to just have a series of conversations with some of our country’s best marketers and discuss different aspects of their work. We thought we should get backstage and see what goes on behind the scenes and into the making of a marketing campaign. That way, we can shine the light on how marketing is done, what works, and what doesn’t, and let you learn from the experience of marketers. Today, people don’t pay attention to how things were done or look into things that failed. We want to tackle those too and learn from others’ experiences. 

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I’m happy to introduce to you SaaSBoomi’s new podcast series ‘BTS with Arvind and Varun’. The first episode with Arun Pattabhiraman from Freshworks and Noel Wax of GSG will be out next week. We’ll be talking about the Art of event marketing in the new age.

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I’m happy to introduce to you SaaSBoomi’s new podcast series ‘BTS with Arvind and Varun’. The first episode with Arun Pattabhiraman from Freshworks and Noel Wax of GSG will be out next week. We’ll be talking about the Art of event marketing in the new age.

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Stay tuned for more updates from Marketing BTS.

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Stay tuned for more updates from Marketing BTS.

" } }

Southeast Asia Expansion Playbook for Founders Looking to Launch a New Geo

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Once you have matured in the Indian market and things are running on autopilot, it’s time to look for growth levers in other geographies. But the question is which path should you take – look east to Southeast Asia or west towards the US? This is a question that plagues many founders and so we decided to curate a session on Southeast Asia expansion to ensure you understand the nuances. Because on the face of it, SEA doesn’t look much different to India, but each country there is different, and technical maturity is at least 4-5 years behind India.

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Once you have matured in the Indian market and things are running on autopilot, it’s time to look for growth levers in other geographies. But the question is which path should you take – look east to Southeast Asia or west towards the US? This is a question that plagues many founders and so we decided to curate a session on Southeast Asia expansion to ensure you understand the nuances. Because on the face of it, SEA doesn’t look much different to India, but each country there is different, and technical maturity is at least 4-5 years behind India.

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In this session on early-stage playbook for Southeast Asia expansion, we bring to Raviteja Dodda, Founder & CEO, MoEngage, and Jayant Paleti, Co-founder, Darwinbox with their playbooks. Led by Aneesh Reddy, Co-founder & CEO, Capillary Technologies, they dive deep into how they approached SEA journey.

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In this session on early-stage playbook for Southeast Asia expansion, we bring to Raviteja Dodda, Founder & CEO, MoEngage, and Jayant Paleti, Co-founder, Darwinbox with their playbooks. Led by Aneesh Reddy, Co-founder & CEO, Capillary Technologies, they dive deep into how they approached SEA journey.

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Both Raviteja and Jayant had different reasons for choosing to go the SEA way, and hence they emphasize the importance of having your “why” sorted out before going into the expansion mode. A deep analysis of the market readiness, target segment, competitors and product maturity can help you reach the right decision.

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Both Raviteja and Jayant had different reasons for choosing to go the SEA way, and hence they emphasize the importance of having your “why” sorted out before going into the expansion mode. A deep analysis of the market readiness, target segment, competitors and product maturity can help you reach the right decision.

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Some of the things Reviteja and Jayant talk about:

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Some of the things Reviteja and Jayant talk about:

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GTM strategies

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GTM strategies

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Understanding product localization

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Understanding product localization

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Signing first ten customers

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Signing first ten customers

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Unique challenges in the journey from 0 to $1M ARR

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Unique challenges in the journey from 0 to $1M ARR

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Hiring the right people

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Hiring the right people

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" ["innerContent"]=> array(11) { [0]=> string(5) "

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Without further ado, dive in for an in-depth SEA expansion analysis and fine-tune your own playbook.

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Without further ado, dive in for an in-depth SEA expansion analysis and fine-tune your own playbook.

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https://www.youtube.com/embed/0rszq1QudZ4

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https://www.youtube.com/embed/0rszq1QudZ4

" } }

India’s Path to SaaS Leadership is clear, but Challenges remain

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The article was first published on TechCrunch

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The article was first published on TechCrunch

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Software as a service is one of the most important sectors in tech today. While its transformative potential was quite clear before the pandemic, the sudden pivot to distributed workforces caused interest in SaaS products to skyrocket as medium and large enterprises embraced digital and remote sales processes, significantly expanding their utility.

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Software as a service is one of the most important sectors in tech today. While its transformative potential was quite clear before the pandemic, the sudden pivot to distributed workforces caused interest in SaaS products to skyrocket as medium and large enterprises embraced digital and remote sales processes, significantly expanding their utility.

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This phenomenon is global, but India in particular has the opportunity to take its SaaS momentum to the next level. The Indian SaaS industry is projected to generate revenue of $50 billion to $70 billion and win 4%-6% of the global SaaS market by 2030, creating as much as $1 trillion in value, according to a report by SaaSBoomi and McKinsey.

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This phenomenon is global, but India in particular has the opportunity to take its SaaS momentum to the next level. The Indian SaaS industry is projected to generate revenue of $50 billion to $70 billion and win 4%-6% of the global SaaS market by 2030, creating as much as $1 trillion in value, according to a report by SaaSBoomi and McKinsey.

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The Indian SaaS industry is projected to generate revenue of $50 billion to $70 billion and win 4%-6% of the global SaaS market by 2030.

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The Indian SaaS industry is projected to generate revenue of $50 billion to $70 billion and win 4%-6% of the global SaaS market by 2030.

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There are certain important long-term trends that are fuelling this expansion.

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There are certain important long-term trends that are fuelling this expansion.

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The rise of Indian SaaS unicorns.

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The rise of Indian SaaS unicorns.

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 The Indian SaaS community has seen a flurry of innovation and success. Entrepreneurs in India have founded about a thousand funded SaaS companies in the last few years, doubling the rate from five years ago and creating several unicorns in the process. Together, these companies generate $2 billion to $3 billion in total revenues and represent approximately 1% of the global SaaS market, according to SaaSBoomi and McKinsey.

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 The Indian SaaS community has seen a flurry of innovation and success. Entrepreneurs in India have founded about a thousand funded SaaS companies in the last few years, doubling the rate from five years ago and creating several unicorns in the process. Together, these companies generate $2 billion to $3 billion in total revenues and represent approximately 1% of the global SaaS market, according to SaaSBoomi and McKinsey.

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These firms are diverse in terms of the clients they serve and the problems they solve, but several garnered global attention during the pandemic by enabling flexibility for newly remote workers. Zoho helped streamline this pivot by providing sales teams with apps for collateral, videos and demos; Freshworks offered businesses a seamless customer experience platform, and Eka extended its cloud platform to unify workflows from procurement to payments for the CFO office.

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These firms are diverse in terms of the clients they serve and the problems they solve, but several garnered global attention during the pandemic by enabling flexibility for newly remote workers. Zoho helped streamline this pivot by providing sales teams with apps for collateral, videos and demos; Freshworks offered businesses a seamless customer experience platform, and Eka extended its cloud platform to unify workflows from procurement to payments for the CFO office.

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Other SaaS firms stayed busy in other ways. Over the course of the pandemic, 10 new unicorns emerged: Postman, Zenoti, Innovacer, Highradius, Chargebee and Browserstack, Mindtickle, Byju, UpGrad and Unacademy. There were also several instances of substantial venture funding, including a $150 million deal for Postman, bringing the total amount raised by the Indian SaaS community in 2020 to around $1.5 billion, four times the investment in 2018.

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Other SaaS firms stayed busy in other ways. Over the course of the pandemic, 10 new unicorns emerged: Postman, Zenoti, Innovacer, Highradius, Chargebee and Browserstack, Mindtickle, Byju, UpGrad and Unacademy. There were also several instances of substantial venture funding, including a $150 million deal for Postman, bringing the total amount raised by the Indian SaaS community in 2020 to around $1.5 billion, four times the investment in 2018.

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India’s path to leadership

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India’s path to leadership

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While the Indian SaaS community has made admirable progress in recent years, there are several key growth drivers that could lead to as much as $1 trillion in revenue by 2030. They include:

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While the Indian SaaS community has made admirable progress in recent years, there are several key growth drivers that could lead to as much as $1 trillion in revenue by 2030. They include:

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The global pivot to digital go-to-market

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The global pivot to digital go-to-market

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The number of enterprises that are comfortable with assessing products and making business decisions via Zoom is increasing rapidly. This embrace of digital go-to-market fundamentally levels the playing field for Indian companies in terms of access to customers and end markets.

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The number of enterprises that are comfortable with assessing products and making business decisions via Zoom is increasing rapidly. This embrace of digital go-to-market fundamentally levels the playing field for Indian companies in terms of access to customers and end markets.

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In the years ahead, instead of being hampered by a lack of field presence in the U.S., Western Europe and other key locales, Indian companies can drive digitally enabled marketing and sales with tailored vectors for target customer segments, directing field sales investments to critical customer segments and touchpoints. Along with product-led growth models in several segments and strong analytical capabilities, this shift represents a massive tailwind for the SaaS ecosystem. 

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In the years ahead, instead of being hampered by a lack of field presence in the U.S., Western Europe and other key locales, Indian companies can drive digitally enabled marketing and sales with tailored vectors for target customer segments, directing field sales investments to critical customer segments and touchpoints. Along with product-led growth models in several segments and strong analytical capabilities, this shift represents a massive tailwind for the SaaS ecosystem. 

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While large enterprises have historically relied on fully in-person sales processes, we could now see as much as 80% of sales functions having some sort of remote component, with 50% existing in a hybrid state, per the report. This will require a strong focus on digital marketing and product-led models. Small companies, which previously had 70% of their interactions with the Indian SaaS community via inside sales, are poised for a total reversal, with 80% of overall sales activities ripe for digitization. 

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While large enterprises have historically relied on fully in-person sales processes, we could now see as much as 80% of sales functions having some sort of remote component, with 50% existing in a hybrid state, per the report. This will require a strong focus on digital marketing and product-led models. Small companies, which previously had 70% of their interactions with the Indian SaaS community via inside sales, are poised for a total reversal, with 80% of overall sales activities ripe for digitization. 

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Superior base of developers to build deep tech offerings

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Superior base of developers to build deep tech offerings

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With the largest concentration of developers in the world — approximately 3 million, 50% more than the U.S. — India is home to a huge number of people who use software and technology on a daily basis. This privileged access to key market segments means Indian SaaS companies are uniquely positioned to understand the needs of their customers and translate deeper insights into better products that win globally. 

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With the largest concentration of developers in the world — approximately 3 million, 50% more than the U.S. — India is home to a huge number of people who use software and technology on a daily basis. This privileged access to key market segments means Indian SaaS companies are uniquely positioned to understand the needs of their customers and translate deeper insights into better products that win globally. 

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By focusing on developers’ most urgent needs and driving widespread adoption of their products, Indian companies can eventually create network effects and achieve dominance in the category. As a result, these firms are identifying a particularly strong opportunity in the developer tools market, which could be worth as much as $160 billion by 2025, per IDC data.

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By focusing on developers’ most urgent needs and driving widespread adoption of their products, Indian companies can eventually create network effects and achieve dominance in the category. As a result, these firms are identifying a particularly strong opportunity in the developer tools market, which could be worth as much as $160 billion by 2025, per IDC data.

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Customer success: Inherent advantage in serving enterprises post-sale

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Customer success: Inherent advantage in serving enterprises post-sale

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Post-sale customer experience in SaaS has gained prominence of late and the future will be no different. While product-led initiatives have been the growth mantra for a while, the industry is also recognizing that post-sales customer experience is key to sustained revenue growth. Research shows that net retention rates of 120%-130% are critical to driving high growth and creating value. A study by The Temkin Group revealed companies that earn $1 billion annually can expect to net an additional $700 million on average within three years of investing in customer experience. SaaS companies, in particular, can expect to increase revenue by $1 billion.

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Post-sale customer experience in SaaS has gained prominence of late and the future will be no different. While product-led initiatives have been the growth mantra for a while, the industry is also recognizing that post-sales customer experience is key to sustained revenue growth. Research shows that net retention rates of 120%-130% are critical to driving high growth and creating value. A study by The Temkin Group revealed companies that earn $1 billion annually can expect to net an additional $700 million on average within three years of investing in customer experience. SaaS companies, in particular, can expect to increase revenue by $1 billion.

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There are many different strategies for boosting customer engagement, from leveraging analytical tools to assessing customer behavior. But the common thread is investing in a previously under-explored area, and this is where the opportunity lies for SaaS businesses. 

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There are many different strategies for boosting customer engagement, from leveraging analytical tools to assessing customer behavior. But the common thread is investing in a previously under-explored area, and this is where the opportunity lies for SaaS businesses. 

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Thanks to their deep expertise in service and support and lower cost structure, leading Indian SaaS companies are in a good position to offer customers winning combinations of superior products and white-glove professional services that differentiate them from global competitors. 

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Thanks to their deep expertise in service and support and lower cost structure, leading Indian SaaS companies are in a good position to offer customers winning combinations of superior products and white-glove professional services that differentiate them from global competitors. 

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SaaS is not a winner-take-all market. 

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SaaS is not a winner-take-all market. 

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One fundamental difference between consumer technology and enterprise technology is that the latter has room for robust competition and upstart players. In the consumer world, there is only one Facebook, one Google, and one Amazon — but at the enterprise level, Salesforce has just under 20% market share in the CRM space despite its status as a household name. 

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One fundamental difference between consumer technology and enterprise technology is that the latter has room for robust competition and upstart players. In the consumer world, there is only one Facebook, one Google, and one Amazon — but at the enterprise level, Salesforce has just under 20% market share in the CRM space despite its status as a household name. 

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Behemoths will always exist, but by taking an intelligent approach to differentiation and identifying relevant subdomains and microdomains, SaaS companies can find new and better ways to serve their clients, develop new product offerings, penetrate markets throughout the world and scale their businesses in a resilient fashion. Challenges to overcome The opportunity before the Indian SaaS community is very real, but realizing it won’t be easy. These firms must take several steps to meet the most.

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Behemoths will always exist, but by taking an intelligent approach to differentiation and identifying relevant subdomains and microdomains, SaaS companies can find new and better ways to serve their clients, develop new product offerings, penetrate markets throughout the world and scale their businesses in a resilient fashion. Challenges to overcome The opportunity before the Indian SaaS community is very real, but realizing it won’t be easy. These firms must take several steps to meet the most.

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Challenges to overcome

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Challenges to overcome

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The opportunity before the Indian SaaS community is very real, but realizing it won’t be easy. These firms must take several steps to meet the most optimistic projections:

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The opportunity before the Indian SaaS community is very real, but realizing it won’t be easy. These firms must take several steps to meet the most optimistic projections:

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Ramping up the talent pool 

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Ramping up the talent pool 

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According to the SaaSBoomi report, 77% of SaaS leaders in India say their biggest challenge is ramping up critical talent. Indian companies need to invest more in product management, R&D, sales, marketing, and services and support talent pools. To keep pace with global competitors, Indian firms must increase the size of talent pools in these areas by three to six times.

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According to the SaaSBoomi report, 77% of SaaS leaders in India say their biggest challenge is ramping up critical talent. Indian companies need to invest more in product management, R&D, sales, marketing, and services and support talent pools. To keep pace with global competitors, Indian firms must increase the size of talent pools in these areas by three to six times.

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Developing talent is crucial. At global SaaS organizations, best-in-class product managers serve as “mini-CEOs” for their products. Indian firms, in contrast, tend to rely on engineers-turned-product-managers who have strong technical skills but lack the necessary business orientation. This can be addressed by having senior product managers mentor their more junior counterparts, working with them to understand how products fit into the overall strategy and touch upon sales and marketing processes in addition to the technical details.

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Developing talent is crucial. At global SaaS organizations, best-in-class product managers serve as “mini-CEOs” for their products. Indian firms, in contrast, tend to rely on engineers-turned-product-managers who have strong technical skills but lack the necessary business orientation. This can be addressed by having senior product managers mentor their more junior counterparts, working with them to understand how products fit into the overall strategy and touch upon sales and marketing processes in addition to the technical details.

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To cultivate talent, Indian SaaS companies can implement mentorship initiatives, academic courses, internship programs that match the scale of the industry, more inclusive recruiting strategies, and open and employee-centric management practices.

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To cultivate talent, Indian SaaS companies can implement mentorship initiatives, academic courses, internship programs that match the scale of the industry, more inclusive recruiting strategies, and open and employee-centric management practices.

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Pursuing GTM-centric growth strategies

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Pursuing GTM-centric growth strategies

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Growth requires a growth mindset. On average, Indian SaaS companies with annual revenues of under $5 million are growing at a rate of around 50%, compared to 150%-200% for their global peers.
Some of this can be attributed to underinvestment in go-to-market efforts, as global SaaS leaders spend more than three times as much in this area as Indian firms. In addition, global SaaS leaders spend 90% more on customer success to increase retention, which has been a challenge for Indian firms. It’s clear that this underinvestment in this crucial component of the marketing mix is an area that needs to be addressed.

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Growth requires a growth mindset. On average, Indian SaaS companies with annual revenues of under $5 million are growing at a rate of around 50%, compared to 150%-200% for their global peers.
Some of this can be attributed to underinvestment in go-to-market efforts, as global SaaS leaders spend more than three times as much in this area as Indian firms. In addition, global SaaS leaders spend 90% more on customer success to increase retention, which has been a challenge for Indian firms. It’s clear that this underinvestment in this crucial component of the marketing mix is an area that needs to be addressed.

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This is a multifaceted priority. Indian SaaS firms must implement feature-rich systems to analyze their sales and marketing efforts, including sophisticated demand generation engines enabled by analytics that track and ROI and conversion rates. This transparency can lead to more targeted efforts and reduce churn. It can also support technology-enabled interventions to identify high-risk customers and trigger outreach.

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This is a multifaceted priority. Indian SaaS firms must implement feature-rich systems to analyze their sales and marketing efforts, including sophisticated demand generation engines enabled by analytics that track and ROI and conversion rates. This transparency can lead to more targeted efforts and reduce churn. It can also support technology-enabled interventions to identify high-risk customers and trigger outreach.

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The future of SaaS is bright, and while nothing is guaranteed, it is likely that India will take an even bigger place in that limelight. With the right approach, it won’t be long before the Indian SaaS community becomes a large-scale employer of talent, a significant contributor to India’s GDP and a creator of unmatched products.

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The future of SaaS is bright, and while nothing is guaranteed, it is likely that India will take an even bigger place in that limelight. With the right approach, it won’t be long before the Indian SaaS community becomes a large-scale employer of talent, a significant contributor to India’s GDP and a creator of unmatched products.

" } }

Investors look at just two numbers – ARR and ARR growth, says Dave Kellogg

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SaaS companies are growing faster than ever, spurred by the COVID-19-induced digital adoption globally. Amidst rapid growth, founders often find it hard to track growth correctly. The major bottleneck here is deciding on the right metrics to measure and devising the appropriate framework.

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SaaS companies are growing faster than ever, spurred by the COVID-19-induced digital adoption globally. Amidst rapid growth, founders often find it hard to track growth correctly. The major bottleneck here is deciding on the right metrics to measure and devising the appropriate framework.

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Dave Kellogg, ex CEO Host Analytics, ex-SVP/GM of Salesforce Service Cloud, ex-CEO MarkLogic, ex-CMO SAP Business Objects, led a SaaSBoomi Annual OnAir deep-dive session into two crucial SaaS metrics – customer acquisition cost (CAC) & net dollar rate (NDR). Dave has a unique perspective on SaaS metrics because he has been both CMO and CEO of SaaS companies for close to two decades and sat on boards of 6.

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Dave Kellogg, ex CEO Host Analytics, ex-SVP/GM of Salesforce Service Cloud, ex-CEO MarkLogic, ex-CMO SAP Business Objects, led a SaaSBoomi Annual OnAir deep-dive session into two crucial SaaS metrics – customer acquisition cost (CAC) & net dollar rate (NDR). Dave has a unique perspective on SaaS metrics because he has been both CMO and CEO of SaaS companies for close to two decades and sat on boards of 6.

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Jayadevan PK, Evangelist, Freshworks for Startups, hosted Dave in this power-packed session, asking all the right questions that plague a SaaS company doing $1 million and up in ARR.

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Jayadevan PK, Evangelist, Freshworks for Startups, hosted Dave in this power-packed session, asking all the right questions that plague a SaaS company doing $1 million and up in ARR.

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Dave says that any SaaS founder needs to look at only two metrics – ARR and ARR growth – because those are the two numbers investors look at. All other metrics must support measuring these two. Dave calls SaaS companies a leaky bucket of ARR. He says,

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Dave says that any SaaS founder needs to look at only two metrics – ARR and ARR growth – because those are the two numbers investors look at. All other metrics must support measuring these two. Dave calls SaaS companies a leaky bucket of ARR. He says,

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If you want me to understand how your company is performing, tell me how high is the water level and how fast is it growing.

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If you want me to understand how your company is performing, tell me how high is the water level and how fast is it growing.

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Starting with the basic question of whether you should be ARR-focused or MRR-focused, Dave provides awesome insights and actionable steps on important SaaS metrics like CAC, NDR, NPS and more. Watch this video to reinforce your understanding of the SaaS metrics and how you can use them to empower your teams.

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Starting with the basic question of whether you should be ARR-focused or MRR-focused, Dave provides awesome insights and actionable steps on important SaaS metrics like CAC, NDR, NPS and more. Watch this video to reinforce your understanding of the SaaS metrics and how you can use them to empower your teams.

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https://www.youtube.com/embed/NZ9ZAAwlRTM

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https://www.youtube.com/embed/NZ9ZAAwlRTM

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Traditional Sales Models don’t work in the US Market, says Jen Abel, Co-founder & Partner, JJellyfish

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As part of the ongoing SaaSBoomi Annual OnAir 2021, Jen Abel, Co-founder & Partner, JJellyfish, walks us through a go to market strategy for early-stage founders looking to expand to the US.

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As part of the ongoing SaaSBoomi Annual OnAir 2021, Jen Abel, Co-founder & Partner, JJellyfish, walks us through a go to market strategy for early-stage founders looking to expand to the US.

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Jen emphasizes repeatedly that the US market is completely different from the Indian market, so the right strategy can be the differentiator between a startup not getting much traction even after a couple of years and another reaching $1M within a year.

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Jen emphasizes repeatedly that the US market is completely different from the Indian market, so the right strategy can be the differentiator between a startup not getting much traction even after a couple of years and another reaching $1M within a year.

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According to JJellyfish statistics,

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According to JJellyfish statistics,

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91% of early-stage sales in US are counterintuitive

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91% of early-stage sales in US are counterintuitive

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93% of international startups expanding into the US market don’t find traction

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93% of international startups expanding into the US market don’t find traction

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Jen says that the US market is so competitive that the initial marketing must be founder-led. You need to focus on high-conversion conversations to maximize ROI. And sales hires should be made only after validating that the sales process is repeatable.

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Jen says that the US market is so competitive that the initial marketing must be founder-led. You need to focus on high-conversion conversations to maximize ROI. And sales hires should be made only after validating that the sales process is repeatable.

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Jen is joined by Saurabh Nangia, Co-founder, Mesh, and shares the challenges they faced when expanding into the US market. He agrees with Jen that the initial focus must be on the problem space to understand and define the pain points of your target customer. Watch this video with a paper and a pen by your side, and you might be able to come up with the right framework for your own GTM strategy for expanding into the US.

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Jen is joined by Saurabh Nangia, Co-founder, Mesh, and shares the challenges they faced when expanding into the US market. He agrees with Jen that the initial focus must be on the problem space to understand and define the pain points of your target customer. Watch this video with a paper and a pen by your side, and you might be able to come up with the right framework for your own GTM strategy for expanding into the US.

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https://www.youtube.com/embed/9Ux2ppYS0P4

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https://www.youtube.com/embed/9Ux2ppYS0P4

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Unlocking True Potential by Harnessing the Power of Intuition

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How do you take business decisions?

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How do you take business decisions?

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If you are like most founders and business leaders you think logically, look at data, and try to have a structure that can be replicated for future decisions. But decision-making need not always follow this structured approach.

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If you are like most founders and business leaders you think logically, look at data, and try to have a structure that can be replicated for future decisions. But decision-making need not always follow this structured approach.

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In this session titled A dialog on Intuition : Unlocking our True potential, Aneesh Reddy, Co-founder & CEO @ Capillary Technologies; Kshitij Bhotika, SVP, Product @Practo; Prasanna Krishnamoorthy, Partner @ Upekkha and Sameer Guglani, Founder @ Morpheus Ananta try to reverse engineer decision-making process to highlight why we should rely also on our ‘gut instinct’ to take decisions.

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In this session titled A dialog on Intuition : Unlocking our True potential, Aneesh Reddy, Co-founder & CEO @ Capillary Technologies; Kshitij Bhotika, SVP, Product @Practo; Prasanna Krishnamoorthy, Partner @ Upekkha and Sameer Guglani, Founder @ Morpheus Ananta try to reverse engineer decision-making process to highlight why we should rely also on our ‘gut instinct’ to take decisions.

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As Sameer says, most of the founders already possess a high level of self-awareness, otherwise they would also have been working for others. To unlock their true potential, they need to identify what blocks their intuition. And mindfulness or self-watching can be a good starting point.

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As Sameer says, most of the founders already possess a high level of self-awareness, otherwise they would also have been working for others. To unlock their true potential, they need to identify what blocks their intuition. And mindfulness or self-watching can be a good starting point.

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Relying on intuition to take business decisions has the potential to alleviate some of the stress associated with decision-making and outcomes.

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Relying on intuition to take business decisions has the potential to alleviate some of the stress associated with decision-making and outcomes.

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Watch this video to understand why you should practice self-observation to sharpen your intuition and hear for yourself how it has helped others grow businesses while fostering trust and team spirit. It might also be a unique opportunity to reflect on your own journey.

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Watch this video to understand why you should practice self-observation to sharpen your intuition and hear for yourself how it has helped others grow businesses while fostering trust and team spirit. It might also be a unique opportunity to reflect on your own journey.

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https://www.youtube.com/embed/OFn5kxYXYzA

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https://www.youtube.com/embed/OFn5kxYXYzA

" } }

People are scared of revolution, not evolution, says Sudheer Koneru, Founder & CEO, Zenoti

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Sudheer Koneru wanted to retire by the age of 40. Instead, he is building and leading India’s first beauty and wellness unicorn Zenoti. 

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Sudheer Koneru wanted to retire by the age of 40. Instead, he is building and leading India’s first beauty and wellness unicorn Zenoti. 

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The journey began with his hunt for software to manage administrative functions like payroll, finances, HR for his chain of seven spas. When he couldn’t find the right solution, he did the next best thing. He built it from scratch. 

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The journey began with his hunt for software to manage administrative functions like payroll, finances, HR for his chain of seven spas. When he couldn’t find the right solution, he did the next best thing. He built it from scratch. 

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Sudheer had prior expertise in building enterprise solutions. To gain first-hand information about the pain points of the spas, he sat at their reception desk for months. It took him two years to develop the entire suite to address end-to-end needs. 

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Sudheer had prior expertise in building enterprise solutions. To gain first-hand information about the pain points of the spas, he sat at their reception desk for months. It took him two years to develop the entire suite to address end-to-end needs. 

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In this opening session of SaaSBoomi Annual OnAir 2021, curated by Shekhar Kirani, Partner, Accel, Sudheer talks candidly about how they got their first clients, why they expanded to MENA & SEA before the US, and how payments has proved to be the gamechanger for Zenoti.

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In this opening session of SaaSBoomi Annual OnAir 2021, curated by Shekhar Kirani, Partner, Accel, Sudheer talks candidly about how they got their first clients, why they expanded to MENA & SEA before the US, and how payments has proved to be the gamechanger for Zenoti.

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Sudheer says that building in India allowed them to make mistakes without critical repercussions. That’s because in India business is relationship-driven. If you make mistakes, your software has bugs or your site is down for an hour, clients are forgiving due to personal relationships. Zenoti leveraged this by perfecting their offerings before expanding to other regions. 

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Sudheer says that building in India allowed them to make mistakes without critical repercussions. That’s because in India business is relationship-driven. If you make mistakes, your software has bugs or your site is down for an hour, clients are forgiving due to personal relationships. Zenoti leveraged this by perfecting their offerings before expanding to other regions. 

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Zenoti’s success can be attributed to its willingness to evaluate new opportunities and grab them when the ecosystem was right. Their expansion to the Aus/NZ market, where there were no players at all, is a case in point. 

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Zenoti’s success can be attributed to its willingness to evaluate new opportunities and grab them when the ecosystem was right. Their expansion to the Aus/NZ market, where there were no players at all, is a case in point. 

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Sudheer says there is no replacement for researching and understanding your target customers. Once you do that, you are in a position to take critical decisions like choosing new markets versus serving the existing one. And also work with the dream clients.

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Sudheer says there is no replacement for researching and understanding your target customers. Once you do that, you are in a position to take critical decisions like choosing new markets versus serving the existing one. And also work with the dream clients.

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For instance, after 30 days of intensive research in the US with his core team, Sudheer wrote 5-line emails to five CEOs, got three responses (one within 5 minutes), and converted one of them within 15 days. That’s the power of understanding the customers.

Let’s dive straight into the session to know more.

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For instance, after 30 days of intensive research in the US with his core team, Sudheer wrote 5-line emails to five CEOs, got three responses (one within 5 minutes), and converted one of them within 15 days. That’s the power of understanding the customers.

Let’s dive straight into the session to know more.

" } }

Planning for failures in your startup journey

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A startup is a dream for many - most often that dream is to spot a problem, build a product, find a few customers, raise funds, and have a successful life with media coverage… you get the drift. However, if you have been around the startup ecosystem for a while, you’d know that this dream could come crashing very fast. 

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A startup is a dream for many - most often that dream is to spot a problem, build a product, find a few customers, raise funds, and have a successful life with media coverage… you get the drift. However, if you have been around the startup ecosystem for a while, you’d know that this dream could come crashing very fast. 

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In your startup journey, it’s normal for you to hit a number of roadblocks and as someone put this into perspective, your success is but one more attempt after failure.

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In your startup journey, it’s normal for you to hit a number of roadblocks and as someone put this into perspective, your success is but one more attempt after failure.

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So, while you plan to build a product, team, business, and everything else, it is important that you also prepare for if things don't work out your way, because

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So, while you plan to build a product, team, business, and everything else, it is important that you also prepare for if things don't work out your way, because

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Your visibility into the downside helps you avoid them 

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Your visibility into the downside helps you avoid them 

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You’ll be able to get the best outcome in those situations if they were to happen

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You’ll be able to get the best outcome in those situations if they were to happen

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From my experience of running CanvasFlip, an on-cloud design collaboration tool for 4 years, raising funds, and selling it to Freshworks, I believe that failures (product, distribution, hiring, and strategic) generally show up at 4 stages of a startup:

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From my experience of running CanvasFlip, an on-cloud design collaboration tool for 4 years, raising funds, and selling it to Freshworks, I believe that failures (product, distribution, hiring, and strategic) generally show up at 4 stages of a startup:

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Failures at the idea stage

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Failures at the idea stage

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Failures at the product-building stage

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Failures at the product-building stage

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Failure at the GTM to PM fit stage

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Failure at the GTM to PM fit stage

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Failures at the growth stage 

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Failures at the growth stage 

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Idea stage

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Idea stage

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Can you guess what’s the top reason for startups to fail? Let me give you a hint - It’s not running out of money. Almost 42% of the time startups fail because no one needs what they have built.

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Can you guess what’s the top reason for startups to fail? Let me give you a hint - It’s not running out of money. Almost 42% of the time startups fail because no one needs what they have built.

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Let’s look at the top 2 causes of failure in this stage and the nuances that come with them

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Let’s look at the top 2 causes of failure in this stage and the nuances that come with them

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1. Not finding an actual problem to solve 

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1. Not finding an actual problem to solve 

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Believe it or not, most startups fail because their products don’t solve a pressing need and no one is willing to pay for them. An early sign for this failure is if you acquire most of your users through your personal connections.

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Believe it or not, most startups fail because their products don’t solve a pressing need and no one is willing to pay for them. An early sign for this failure is if you acquire most of your users through your personal connections.

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While this varies across startups, For under $5,000 ACV, at least 30% of your first 100 customers should find your product on the internet (Google Search, Facebook ads, influencer video/blog etc.) And for that to happen, your product needs to solve a relevant and core problem, and not just offer superficial benefits.

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While this varies across startups, For under $5,000 ACV, at least 30% of your first 100 customers should find your product on the internet (Google Search, Facebook ads, influencer video/blog etc.) And for that to happen, your product needs to solve a relevant and core problem, and not just offer superficial benefits.

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For example, I thought if I added analytics capabilities (video recording, heatmap, etc.) on top of my mock-up prototype, every designer would absolutely want to use my product. Well, they didn’t, because my product, as a whole, wasn’t solving a critical need of theirs.

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For example, I thought if I added analytics capabilities (video recording, heatmap, etc.) on top of my mock-up prototype, every designer would absolutely want to use my product. Well, they didn’t, because my product, as a whole, wasn’t solving a critical need of theirs.

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2. Not zeroing in on the user persona 

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2. Not zeroing in on the user persona 

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Another huge mistake early entrepreneurs make is the one-size-fits-all product approach. It is lucrative to acquire customers across different team sizes, stages of the customer company, SMB v/s MM v/s Enterprise. When in reality, it’s a trap.

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Another huge mistake early entrepreneurs make is the one-size-fits-all product approach. It is lucrative to acquire customers across different team sizes, stages of the customer company, SMB v/s MM v/s Enterprise. When in reality, it’s a trap.

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Here’s why it doesn't work - the expectation from the product, value discovery, distribution, and customer support varies significantly across user personas. At an early stage with limited resources and a small team, it is impossible to handle this.

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Here’s why it doesn't work - the expectation from the product, value discovery, distribution, and customer support varies significantly across user personas. At an early stage with limited resources and a small team, it is impossible to handle this.

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A good start is to list out all possible user personas and evaluate who will be the most benefited from your product, shows the fastest time to value discovery, and has a large segment size.

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A good start is to list out all possible user personas and evaluate who will be the most benefited from your product, shows the fastest time to value discovery, and has a large segment size.

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Example - At CanvasFlip, if we had focussed on users from mid-size design consulting teams using Invision/Figma prototypes - we’d have had fewer product efforts, large players as our partners, and lesser distribution costs - resulting in a higher chance of success and lower cost of failure. 

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Example - At CanvasFlip, if we had focussed on users from mid-size design consulting teams using Invision/Figma prototypes - we’d have had fewer product efforts, large players as our partners, and lesser distribution costs - resulting in a higher chance of success and lower cost of failure. 

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Don’t start building from the idea. Draw it on paper/Google Slide/mockups, get soft commitments from a few potential buyers and build with them. Iterate and narrow down as much as possible.

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Don’t start building from the idea. Draw it on paper/Google Slide/mockups, get soft commitments from a few potential buyers and build with them. Iterate and narrow down as much as possible.

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Product building stage 

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Product building stage 

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Once you have validated the idea, chances are that you have a good understanding of what to build and for whom. Now you have to build a product and try to float it in the market. That means you need a website, some branding, a price tag on your product etc.

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Once you have validated the idea, chances are that you have a good understanding of what to build and for whom. Now you have to build a product and try to float it in the market. That means you need a website, some branding, a price tag on your product etc.

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Here’s why most startups fail at this stage. 

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Here’s why most startups fail at this stage. 

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1. Distractions

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1. Distractions

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" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(11) "

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If you are “the idea” guy, you’d never be short of them. Thanks to the eureka moment, you’ll keep abandoning an idea with a much larger potential, for the next cool idea you just came up with. 

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If you are “the idea” guy, you’d never be short of them. Thanks to the eureka moment, you’ll keep abandoning an idea with a much larger potential, for the next cool idea you just came up with. 

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Create an experiment around the idea—for example, you need x sign-ups within 30 days on the dummy landing page—and don’t work on any new idea till that is completed.

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Create an experiment around the idea—for example, you need x sign-ups within 30 days on the dummy landing page—and don’t work on any new idea till that is completed.

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2. Ignoring early customers

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2. Ignoring early customers

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Don’t ignore the early users you got during the idea validation stage. Get them on a demo and try to get something in return from them in the meantime (introduction to more customers, promoting your product on social media, anything.)

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Don’t ignore the early users you got during the idea validation stage. Get them on a demo and try to get something in return from them in the meantime (introduction to more customers, promoting your product on social media, anything.)

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3. Not working with the right team

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3. Not working with the right team

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If you are doing it alone - you are probably doing it wrong. Sooner or later, you’ll need more people to help you build your product, sales motion, and other functions. In fact, most of your success will depend on your ability to build the right team.

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If you are doing it alone - you are probably doing it wrong. Sooner or later, you’ll need more people to help you build your product, sales motion, and other functions. In fact, most of your success will depend on your ability to build the right team.

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If you have a team, make sure they are aligned with your plans and timelines. Hire people for their competency, contribution, and commitment. Avoid the mistake of hiring people for the sake of it.

Also, remember to regularly treat the team to a pizza. :)

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If you have a team, make sure they are aligned with your plans and timelines. Hire people for their competency, contribution, and commitment. Avoid the mistake of hiring people for the sake of it.

Also, remember to regularly treat the team to a pizza. :)

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Early GTM to PM fit stage

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Early GTM to PM fit stage

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Most tech startup founders usually get past the idea and product-building stages, but crossing the go-to-market to product-market fit stage is a true trial by fire.

Here’s why most startups fail at GTM and are likely to die on their way to achieving PM fit.

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Most tech startup founders usually get past the idea and product-building stages, but crossing the go-to-market to product-market fit stage is a true trial by fire.

Here’s why most startups fail at GTM and are likely to die on their way to achieving PM fit.

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1. Low competitive advantage

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1. Low competitive advantage

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SaaS startups are largely product-driven. But even if you have narrowed down the problem and user persona enough, it is still super hard to build a product that is considerably better than the existing alternatives.

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SaaS startups are largely product-driven. But even if you have narrowed down the problem and user persona enough, it is still super hard to build a product that is considerably better than the existing alternatives.

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Example - CanvasFlip was much better and could help designers create prototypes faster, but that wasn’t enough for InVision users to switch to CanvasFlip.

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Example - CanvasFlip was much better and could help designers create prototypes faster, but that wasn’t enough for InVision users to switch to CanvasFlip.

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A great product alone isn’t enough to build a successful business. Find and build your unique moat - it could be anything from network effects to content to culture.

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A great product alone isn’t enough to build a successful business. Find and build your unique moat - it could be anything from network effects to content to culture.

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2. Not being able to find customers to sell to/validate the idea

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2. Not being able to find customers to sell to/validate the idea

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Even if you get the product right for your target persona, you have to attract and acquire more such customers. Most founders make the mistake of finding customers in their inner circle - friends, and acquaintances. It’s a trap!

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Even if you get the product right for your target persona, you have to attract and acquire more such customers. Most founders make the mistake of finding customers in their inner circle - friends, and acquaintances. It’s a trap!

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In SaaS, what really matters is that customers whom you don’t know are able to find your product, try it out, and pay for it.

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In SaaS, what really matters is that customers whom you don’t know are able to find your product, try it out, and pay for it.

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This, of course, changes with large ticket size, tech/integration-heavy companies - and even then, the top-of-funnel discovery has to be inbound/extremely low-touch.

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This, of course, changes with large ticket size, tech/integration-heavy companies - and even then, the top-of-funnel discovery has to be inbound/extremely low-touch.

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3. Business model/pricing failures

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3. Business model/pricing failures

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SaaS is usually a high-margin business (~80% is a good benchmark) which essentially limits how low you can go to attract customers.

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SaaS is usually a high-margin business (~80% is a good benchmark) which essentially limits how low you can go to attract customers.

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Most early-stage founders fail to assess the cost of long-term server infrastructure, customer support, re-engagement cost etc., and end up keeping the price too low.

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Most early-stage founders fail to assess the cost of long-term server infrastructure, customer support, re-engagement cost etc., and end up keeping the price too low.

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The thumb rule here is to keep the price high and then offer a discount if required, instead of lowballing the price.

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The thumb rule here is to keep the price high and then offer a discount if required, instead of lowballing the price.

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4. Pivot not taken/didn't work

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4. Pivot not taken/didn't work

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All the above points, product, marketing, and business model are usually iterative and take some time to get in sync with each other.

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All the above points, product, marketing, and business model are usually iterative and take some time to get in sync with each other.

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Most often than not, you may need to pivot midway - offer a different value proposition - to a different customer - at a different price point.

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Most often than not, you may need to pivot midway - offer a different value proposition - to a different customer - at a different price point.

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Not being able to strike the right balance between pivoting and being persistent is where most of the failures happen.

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Not being able to strike the right balance between pivoting and being persistent is where most of the failures happen.

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At CanvasFlip, we pivoted 4-times before we hit 50,000 customers for one of our popular website collaboration tools - Visual Inspector.

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At CanvasFlip, we pivoted 4-times before we hit 50,000 customers for one of our popular website collaboration tools - Visual Inspector.

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Running out of money

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Running out of money

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" ["innerContent"]=> array(3) { [0]=> string(15) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(6) "

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While pivoting does sound like a sure-shot way to get to success, you have limited resources and can only pivot and iterate so many times.

Raising investment may sound like an obvious choice here - but raising funds too early/late has also caused many startups to fail.

To avoid failing due to financial shortfall, iterate carefully with the above steps and make sure you have enough runway for all your experiments.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(439) "

While pivoting does sound like a sure-shot way to get to success, you have limited resources and can only pivot and iterate so many times.

Raising investment may sound like an obvious choice here - but raising funds too early/late has also caused many startups to fail.

To avoid failing due to financial shortfall, iterate carefully with the above steps and make sure you have enough runway for all your experiments.

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Growth stage

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Growth stage

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Once you’ve hit the product-market fit stage, chances are you are going to have a long-term stable business at hand. 

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Once you’ve hit the product-market fit stage, chances are you are going to have a long-term stable business at hand. 

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But that still doesn’t mean you’ll definitely get to the next level unless you avoid these failures.

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But that still doesn’t mean you’ll definitely get to the next level unless you avoid these failures.

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1. Not being able to hire at scale

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1. Not being able to hire at scale

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Hiring is hard, especially if you are a new kid on the block. You hire people from your inner circle and the first few reasonable applicants you get. And that is a big problem.

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Hiring is hard, especially if you are a new kid on the block. You hire people from your inner circle and the first few reasonable applicants you get. And that is a big problem.

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If you are a people person, only the first few key hires should come from you. Your CTO should be responsible for building the product/engineering team. Otherwise, the first hire should be an HR/consulting agency.

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If you are a people person, only the first few key hires should come from you. Your CTO should be responsible for building the product/engineering team. Otherwise, the first hire should be an HR/consulting agency.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(64) "

2. Bad business model

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2. Bad business model

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SaaS businesses are built for scale and typically scale with users/usage. But at times, we plan to build the data pool and try to make money out of it later on. Or, offer an extended freemium in hopes that eventually those customers would convert.

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SaaS businesses are built for scale and typically scale with users/usage. But at times, we plan to build the data pool and try to make money out of it later on. Or, offer an extended freemium in hopes that eventually those customers would convert.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(115) "

Have a good sense of value discovery/aha moments, and make sure you have control of the business at scale.

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Have a good sense of value discovery/aha moments, and make sure you have control of the business at scale.

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3. Legal/compliance challenges

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3. Legal/compliance challenges

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When you’re growing big, you start dealing with large customers - from around the world. Now, you need to adhere to certain security and compliance requirements. This is often missed at fast-growing startups and can result in major financial and existential crises.

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When you’re growing big, you start dealing with large customers - from around the world. Now, you need to adhere to certain security and compliance requirements. This is often missed at fast-growing startups and can result in major financial and existential crises.

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For example, HIPAA is a MUST-have for dealing with healthcare customers in the USA. PCI is a must-have for banking. The thumb rule is to clarify such compliance requirements before onboarding a large customer.

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For example, HIPAA is a MUST-have for dealing with healthcare customers in the USA. PCI is a must-have for banking. The thumb rule is to clarify such compliance requirements before onboarding a large customer.

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4. Bad culture

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4. Bad culture

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To grow fast, you need a lot of people and processes. You can’t have the same close touch with everyone, and you need to rely on a chain of commands. This is where cultural failures creep in.

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To grow fast, you need a lot of people and processes. You can’t have the same close touch with everyone, and you need to rely on a chain of commands. This is where cultural failures creep in.

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Culture often has a downward filtration effect - which means, you treat your reportees how your manager treats you.

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Culture often has a downward filtration effect - which means, you treat your reportees how your manager treats you.

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Set your company’s values and non-negotiables as early as you can.

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Set your company’s values and non-negotiables as early as you can.

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So, how not to fail

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So, how not to fail

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As you can imagine, this list of potential failures is not exhaustive and startups face new challenges every day. For example - even an early-stage small startup might have alignment issues among its members, and products can fail after PM fit. The idea here is to call out common challenges to keep an eye out for them at certain stages.

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As you can imagine, this list of potential failures is not exhaustive and startups face new challenges every day. For example - even an early-stage small startup might have alignment issues among its members, and products can fail after PM fit. The idea here is to call out common challenges to keep an eye out for them at certain stages.

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From talking to many successful founders, I’ve put together 3 simple thumb rules to avoid/overcome these failures.

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From talking to many successful founders, I’ve put together 3 simple thumb rules to avoid/overcome these failures.

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Keep the experiments as small and objective as possible

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Keep the experiments as small and objective as possible

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Be honest with the results

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Be honest with the results

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Don’t hesitate to course-correct 

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Don’t hesitate to course-correct 

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" ["innerContent"]=> array(7) { [0]=> string(5) "

" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(6) "

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Keep in mind that a failure in the journey will not necessarily mean the end of the startup. But not accepting them in time and course-correcting in a viable way, will sure do.

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Keep in mind that a failure in the journey will not necessarily mean the end of the startup. But not accepting them in time and course-correcting in a viable way, will sure do.

" } }

Announcing SaaSBoomi Fellowship Program — 2021

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SaaSBoomi Fellowship is a 12-month program for young professionals who aspire to make a positive impact in the mission of building India as a product nation. Apart from being a great opportunity to work with some of the best SaaS founders, the fellowship program offers a ringside view into all things SaaS — Helping the fellow get one step closer to the dream of building the next big product company.

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SaaSBoomi Fellowship is a 12-month program for young professionals who aspire to make a positive impact in the mission of building India as a product nation. Apart from being a great opportunity to work with some of the best SaaS founders, the fellowship program offers a ringside view into all things SaaS — Helping the fellow get one step closer to the dream of building the next big product company.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(1) { ["level"]=> int(3) } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(74) "

Who are we?

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Who are we?

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SaaSBoomi is a community of SaaS founders and product builders shaping India’s SaaS industry. We came together in the summer of 2015 as an informal group of SaaS founders looking to network and learn from each other. There was no looking back after that. Since then, India’s SaaS industry has grown to generate over $2.5 billion in annual revenues, with around 1,000 companies becoming an active part of the SaaSBoomi tribe.

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SaaSBoomi is a community of SaaS founders and product builders shaping India’s SaaS industry. We came together in the summer of 2015 as an informal group of SaaS founders looking to network and learn from each other. There was no looking back after that. Since then, India’s SaaS industry has grown to generate over $2.5 billion in annual revenues, with around 1,000 companies becoming an active part of the SaaSBoomi tribe.

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Why start a Fellowship?

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Why start a Fellowship?

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The SaaSBoomi Fellowship Program has been conceptualized with a vision to invite young and entrepreneurial minds to further strengthen the mission of enabling Indian SaaS founders to learn from each other’s journeys. The fast-paced nature of work requires people who can bring in fresh ideas, be open to experiment, engage the experts, and lead initiatives independently to ensure we deliver nothing short of the best.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(439) "

The SaaSBoomi Fellowship Program has been conceptualized with a vision to invite young and entrepreneurial minds to further strengthen the mission of enabling Indian SaaS founders to learn from each other’s journeys. The fast-paced nature of work requires people who can bring in fresh ideas, be open to experiment, engage the experts, and lead initiatives independently to ensure we deliver nothing short of the best.

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During the course of the fellowship, the fellows will develop stakeholder and project management skills, gain first-hand experience, and work on building and scaling SaaS companies and communities at a large scale. The first 4 weeks of the program will be spent on learning about the existing projects of the SaaSBoomi, identifying opportunities and conceptualizing new projects to accomplish the objectives of the Foundation. The next 11 months will be spent on executing independent strategic projects to success.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(534) "

During the course of the fellowship, the fellows will develop stakeholder and project management skills, gain first-hand experience, and work on building and scaling SaaS companies and communities at a large scale. The first 4 weeks of the program will be spent on learning about the existing projects of the SaaSBoomi, identifying opportunities and conceptualizing new projects to accomplish the objectives of the Foundation. The next 11 months will be spent on executing independent strategic projects to success.

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The Mountains You Will Move — Roles & Responsibilities:

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The Mountains You Will Move — Roles & Responsibilities:

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A Fellow will be an integral part of the SaaSBoomi, reporting directly to one of the board of directors on strategic engagements, and can expect significant interaction with external stakeholders.

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A Fellow will be an integral part of the SaaSBoomi, reporting directly to one of the board of directors on strategic engagements, and can expect significant interaction with external stakeholders.

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A Fellow’s role would be to:

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A Fellow’s role would be to:

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Take complete ownership of key projects from conceptualization to execution

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Take complete ownership of key projects from conceptualization to execution

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Work with Founders and Volunteers to engage the required expertise for any initiative

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Work with Founders and Volunteers to engage the required expertise for any initiative

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Drive decision-making through critical/thorough analysis

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Drive decision-making through critical/thorough analysis

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Add value to the SaaSBOOMi by conceptualizing innovative ideas

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Add value to the SaaSBOOMi by conceptualizing innovative ideas

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Deliver operational excellence by handling a-z of executing initiatives

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Deliver operational excellence by handling a-z of executing initiatives

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Support other fellows, volunteers, and founders to deliver success on SaaSBoomi initiatives

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Support other fellows, volunteers, and founders to deliver success on SaaSBoomi initiatives

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Super Powers we like in SaaSBoomi Fellows:

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Super Powers we like in SaaSBoomi Fellows:

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Tech Stack (Data analysis, Product Management)

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Tech Stack (Data analysis, Product Management)

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Marketing Stack (Social Media + Content Marketing — Blogs, Playbook, Podcast, Website, etc.)

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Marketing Stack (Social Media + Content Marketing — Blogs, Playbook, Podcast, Website, etc.)

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Community Manager (Slack Channel with 800+ founders divided into functional groups)

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Community Manager (Slack Channel with 800+ founders divided into functional groups)

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You should apply only if you:

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You should apply only if you:

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Are passionate about serving the community.

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Are passionate about serving the community.

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Working in a SaaS startup, taking a break in-between, and would like to learn more in and about SaaS.

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Working in a SaaS startup, taking a break in-between, and would like to learn more in and about SaaS.

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The one who has the hunger to start up in SaaS.

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The one who has the hunger to start up in SaaS.

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Have a bachelor’s degree in Arts/Commerce/Basic Sciences/Law/ Engineering.

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Have a bachelor’s degree in Arts/Commerce/Basic Sciences/Law/ Engineering.

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Have 2+ years of work experience in any sector. Experience in SaaS/Product firms is a bonus.

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Have 2+ years of work experience in any sector. Experience in SaaS/Product firms is a bonus.

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Are adept at managing/leading projects and have done it at the org/college level.

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Are adept at managing/leading projects and have done it at the org/college level.

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Believe in a collaborative mindset and have a knack for constantly learning; must be able to work and make decisions independently to drive projects.

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Believe in a collaborative mindset and have a knack for constantly learning; must be able to work and make decisions independently to drive projects.

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And, last but not the least, a doer.

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And, last but not the least, a doer.

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" ["innerContent"]=> array(17) { [0]=> string(5) "

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Important Dates:

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Important Dates:

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The last date to apply — 12 pm, 20th July 2021.

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The last date to apply — 12 pm, 20th July 2021.

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Date of announcement of shortlisted candidates — 10th Aug 2021.

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Date of announcement of shortlisted candidates — 10th Aug 2021.

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Date of Joining — 1st Oct 2021.

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Date of Joining — 1st Oct 2021.

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Save the Trouble — Your most important questions answered here!

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Save the Trouble — Your most important questions answered here!

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1. Is the fellowship restricted to Indian citizens?

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1. Is the fellowship restricted to Indian citizens?

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Yes, the fellowship is restricted to Indian citizens. Anybody above the age of 21 years and passionate to work for the community can apply.

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Yes, the fellowship is restricted to Indian citizens. Anybody above the age of 21 years and passionate to work for the community can apply.

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2. Is this a paid fellowship?

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2. Is this a paid fellowship?

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Yes. You will be rewarded suitably for your merit and expertise.

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Yes. You will be rewarded suitably for your merit and expertise.

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3. Is this a full-time position?

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3. Is this a full-time position?

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Yes. Helping India become a product nation requires your full-time focus.

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Yes. Helping India become a product nation requires your full-time focus.

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4. What is the work location? Is it remote / office-based?

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4. What is the work location? Is it remote / office-based?

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One can work from anywhere in India and work remotely until we revisit our policy post-COVID-19.

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One can work from anywhere in India and work remotely until we revisit our policy post-COVID-19.

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Apply now at Fellowship Application

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Apply now at Fellowship Application

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Interested candidates can apply by visiting www.saasboomi.org to know more about our programs

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Interested candidates can apply by visiting www.saasboomi.org to know more about our programs

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Have more questions? Write to us at [email protected]m

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Have more questions? Write to us at [email protected]m

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Special thanks to my colleagues, Gowthami, Sadhana & Varun for helping me working on this program

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Special thanks to my colleagues, Gowthami, Sadhana & Varun for helping me working on this program

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“Shaping India’s SaaS Landscape” – a $1-trillion tryst with destiny for Indian SaaS startups

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India could be on the cusp of unlocking a $1 trillion opportunity for SaaS companies, creating nearly half a million new jobs by 2030, according to the “Shaping India’s SaaS Landscape” report released today by SaaSBoomi, Asia’s largest community of SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) founders and product builders.

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India could be on the cusp of unlocking a $1 trillion opportunity for SaaS companies, creating nearly half a million new jobs by 2030, according to the “Shaping India’s SaaS Landscape” report released today by SaaSBoomi, Asia’s largest community of SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) founders and product builders.

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In 2015, a small group of startup founders and product builders started SaaSBoomi, a community to share learnings in an open and transparent manner with other SaaS startups in the country.

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In 2015, a small group of startup founders and product builders started SaaSBoomi, a community to share learnings in an open and transparent manner with other SaaS startups in the country.

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In the past six years, SaaS has grown into a global business and Indian SaaS companies have simultaneously grown as mainstream players.

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In the past six years, SaaS has grown into a global business and Indian SaaS companies have simultaneously grown as mainstream players.

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However, in many ways, this is only the beginning. What are the opportunities for SaaS in general over the next decade and for Indian SaaS startups in specific to stake a claim in the new normal? Are we on the Bright path? What challenges need to be overcome as a community to realize our full potential?

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However, in many ways, this is only the beginning. What are the opportunities for SaaS in general over the next decade and for Indian SaaS startups in specific to stake a claim in the new normal? Are we on the Bright path? What challenges need to be overcome as a community to realize our full potential?

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We adopted a disciplined approach to think through these aspects and worked on our analyses for many months to answer these questions in an objective and actionable manner.

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We adopted a disciplined approach to think through these aspects and worked on our analyses for many months to answer these questions in an objective and actionable manner.

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I am delighted to share a comprehensive report addressing these issues and setting up the challenges for the sector. We are confident that this fact-base will help Indian startups get a handle on the state of SaaS as it stands today and its potential reach over the next decade.

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I am delighted to share a comprehensive report addressing these issues and setting up the challenges for the sector. We are confident that this fact-base will help Indian startups get a handle on the state of SaaS as it stands today and its potential reach over the next decade.

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Key findings - An opportunity knocks

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Key findings - An opportunity knocks

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Our research shows that the global SaaS sector experienced unprecedented growth over the past year, as companies, universities and governments scrambled towards digital transformation in order to make their products and services available online and conduct business remotely during Covid-19.

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Our research shows that the global SaaS sector experienced unprecedented growth over the past year, as companies, universities and governments scrambled towards digital transformation in order to make their products and services available online and conduct business remotely during Covid-19.

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Software, including SaaS, now comprises $600 billion of the $3 trillion global enterprise IT and communications spending market. But with an 8% annual growth rate, its upward trajectory is almost twice the pace of the overall market. Should this remarkable growth continue, the SaaS market is expected to be worth about $1.3 trillion by 2030.

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Software, including SaaS, now comprises $600 billion of the $3 trillion global enterprise IT and communications spending market. But with an 8% annual growth rate, its upward trajectory is almost twice the pace of the overall market. Should this remarkable growth continue, the SaaS market is expected to be worth about $1.3 trillion by 2030.

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Indian SaaS companies have leveraged these tailwinds to reach new heights in terms of both scale and scope in this period. There are nearly one thousand funded SaaS companies in India, ten of them are valued at over a $1 billion to achieve unicorn status. The startups now generate $2-3 billion in total revenues and employ nearly 40,000 people.

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Indian SaaS companies have leveraged these tailwinds to reach new heights in terms of both scale and scope in this period. There are nearly one thousand funded SaaS companies in India, ten of them are valued at over a $1 billion to achieve unicorn status. The startups now generate $2-3 billion in total revenues and employ nearly 40,000 people.

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According to our findings, if Indian SaaS providers can execute to their full potential, they could potentially generate annual revenues of $50-$70 billion by 2030 and win 4-6% of the global SaaS market. This represents a value-creation opportunity up to $1 trillion.

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According to our findings, if Indian SaaS providers can execute to their full potential, they could potentially generate annual revenues of $50-$70 billion by 2030 and win 4-6% of the global SaaS market. This represents a value-creation opportunity up to $1 trillion.

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Today, 55-60% of global IT and operations workflows are delivered from India, which hosts 3 million developers, the world’s largest pool. This  deep talent pool and our right legacy of IT services bestows us with a strong foundation to target untapped potential in new segments. We see these markets are “India’s right to win”. Beyond our affinity to horizontal SaaS solutions, vertical SaaS and developer tools are two large sectors that lend themselves well to India’s strengths. 

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Today, 55-60% of global IT and operations workflows are delivered from India, which hosts 3 million developers, the world’s largest pool. This  deep talent pool and our right legacy of IT services bestows us with a strong foundation to target untapped potential in new segments. We see these markets are “India’s right to win”. Beyond our affinity to horizontal SaaS solutions, vertical SaaS and developer tools are two large sectors that lend themselves well to India’s strengths. 

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Vertical specific software needs deep domain expertise that our IT professionals have in spades. As the world moves from legacy on-premise software to SaaS, this opens up a large new vector for Indian companies to target. Today, SaaS accounts for 35% of the overall software pie but is poised to take a much larger slice over the next decade. Indian vertical SaaS startups such as Zenoti have already reached unicorn status and there are a number of other promising companies set to follow this lead.

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Vertical specific software needs deep domain expertise that our IT professionals have in spades. As the world moves from legacy on-premise software to SaaS, this opens up a large new vector for Indian companies to target. Today, SaaS accounts for 35% of the overall software pie but is poised to take a much larger slice over the next decade. Indian vertical SaaS startups such as Zenoti have already reached unicorn status and there are a number of other promising companies set to follow this lead.

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The other segment in which we have a beachhead advantage is developer tools and system infrastructure. Our large pool of developers not only gives us a ready domestic market, it also endows us with a deep understanding and an intimate first-hand experience of the problems to be solved. The pandemic has accelerated the shift to remote selling and the developer tools market lends itself very well to product-led growth motions that Indian SaaS companies can excel at as companies such as BrowserStack and Postman have already demonstrated.

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The other segment in which we have a beachhead advantage is developer tools and system infrastructure. Our large pool of developers not only gives us a ready domestic market, it also endows us with a deep understanding and an intimate first-hand experience of the problems to be solved. The pandemic has accelerated the shift to remote selling and the developer tools market lends itself very well to product-led growth motions that Indian SaaS companies can excel at as companies such as BrowserStack and Postman have already demonstrated.

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While these opportunities beckon, all stakeholders including startups, VCs, and ecosystem enablers, would need to work together to achieve these milestones.

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While these opportunities beckon, all stakeholders including startups, VCs, and ecosystem enablers, would need to work together to achieve these milestones.

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Scale matters for startup growth

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Scale matters for startup growth

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The biggest requirement for Indian SaaS startups would be to adopt a “growth-first” mindset. To reach the $ 1 trillion milestone, the Indian pure-play SaaS ecosystem needs to be six times larger than it is now. The report highlights five key areas where SaaS companies could improve to scale the industry.

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The biggest requirement for Indian SaaS startups would be to adopt a “growth-first” mindset. To reach the $ 1 trillion milestone, the Indian pure-play SaaS ecosystem needs to be six times larger than it is now. The report highlights five key areas where SaaS companies could improve to scale the industry.

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They need a razor-sharp focus on underpenetrated target domains, more powerful go-to-market strategies, an engine that continuously identifies and scales new businesses, more product differentiation and velocity, and a better and scaled-up talent pipeline.

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They need a razor-sharp focus on underpenetrated target domains, more powerful go-to-market strategies, an engine that continuously identifies and scales new businesses, more product differentiation and velocity, and a better and scaled-up talent pipeline.

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The report also shows that Indian SaaS companies are underinvesting in their go-to-market efforts: those with revenues under $5 million spend only about 25% of revenues on GTM compared to 80-90% spent by global leaders. Underinvestment may be causing Indian companies to miss important growth opportunities. Companies would need to learn to prioritize scale and long-term market leadership over near-term profitability and invest at the level of global peers in go-to-market and product

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The report also shows that Indian SaaS companies are underinvesting in their go-to-market efforts: those with revenues under $5 million spend only about 25% of revenues on GTM compared to 80-90% spent by global leaders. Underinvestment may be causing Indian companies to miss important growth opportunities. Companies would need to learn to prioritize scale and long-term market leadership over near-term profitability and invest at the level of global peers in go-to-market and product

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Need for more investment especially for seed and early-stage SaaS startups

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Need for more investment especially for seed and early-stage SaaS startups

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Investments are rising in the Indian SaaS industry, reaching about $1.5 billion in venture capital funding in 2020, but India would need to triple or quadruple funding to achieve its full potential. Specifically, there has to be an increased outlay for seed/early-stage companies - currently, this is only 25% of the total $1.5 billion invested in 2020 - the shape of this pyramid needs to change with this slice being much bigger.

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Investments are rising in the Indian SaaS industry, reaching about $1.5 billion in venture capital funding in 2020, but India would need to triple or quadruple funding to achieve its full potential. Specifically, there has to be an increased outlay for seed/early-stage companies - currently, this is only 25% of the total $1.5 billion invested in 2020 - the shape of this pyramid needs to change with this slice being much bigger.

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All stakeholders working in tandem to realize the Indian SaaS ecosystem’s full potential

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All stakeholders working in tandem to realize the Indian SaaS ecosystem’s full potential

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To thrive in the disruptions likely to play out in the next five years, the entire industry would need concerted and coordinated actions. Industry associations such as SaaSBoomi and NASSCOM, investors, corporate enterprises and the government could work together with startups to create an overarching entrepreneur-friendly environment that will help India emerge as a clear winner in SaaS.

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To thrive in the disruptions likely to play out in the next five years, the entire industry would need concerted and coordinated actions. Industry associations such as SaaSBoomi and NASSCOM, investors, corporate enterprises and the government could work together with startups to create an overarching entrepreneur-friendly environment that will help India emerge as a clear winner in SaaS.

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India has an exciting opportunity to be on the world stage as a SaaS force to be reckoned with. While there are challenges ahead, these are not insurmountable. We believe that the Indian SaaS community is well-placed to build on a strong foundation to make SaaS a pre-eminent industry that is a huge value creator contributing meaningfully to India’s GDP in terms of both revenue and employment.

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India has an exciting opportunity to be on the world stage as a SaaS force to be reckoned with. While there are challenges ahead, these are not insurmountable. We believe that the Indian SaaS community is well-placed to build on a strong foundation to make SaaS a pre-eminent industry that is a huge value creator contributing meaningfully to India’s GDP in terms of both revenue and employment.

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In many ways, this is our trillion-dollar tryst with destiny and we are determined to meet it by creating massive world-class products and platforms.

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In many ways, this is our trillion-dollar tryst with destiny and we are determined to meet it by creating massive world-class products and platforms.

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About the “Shaping India’s SaaS Landscape” Report

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About the “Shaping India’s SaaS Landscape” Report

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Anchored by Manav Garg, the founder and CEO of Eka, and aided by inputs from leading SaaS founders, VCs, and ecosystem enablers, “Shaping India’s SaaS Landscape” is a comprehensive report that captures and synthesizes information from over 40 Indian SaaS startups to throw light on the growth of SaaS startups in India, their growth potential, the Indian ecosystem’s role in it, and what these SaaS startups need to do to capture a greater share of the global market. 

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Anchored by Manav Garg, the founder and CEO of Eka, and aided by inputs from leading SaaS founders, VCs, and ecosystem enablers, “Shaping India’s SaaS Landscape” is a comprehensive report that captures and synthesizes information from over 40 Indian SaaS startups to throw light on the growth of SaaS startups in India, their growth potential, the Indian ecosystem’s role in it, and what these SaaS startups need to do to capture a greater share of the global market. 

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This report was developed by SaaSBoomi, which led a comprehensive two-month effort to build a perspective on the future of the SaaS landscape in India. McKinsey & Company as the knowledge partner helped with independent third-party research and analysis. NASSCOM as the supporting partner assisted with community outreach and expert analysis.

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This report was developed by SaaSBoomi, which led a comprehensive two-month effort to build a perspective on the future of the SaaS landscape in India. McKinsey & Company as the knowledge partner helped with independent third-party research and analysis. NASSCOM as the supporting partner assisted with community outreach and expert analysis.

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We are thankful for the support, guidance, and dedication of the SaaSBoomi Steering Committee and SaaSBoomi member companies. In particular, we would like to acknowledge the contributions of Girish Mathrubootham, Krish Subramanian, Mohit Bhatnagar, Sangeeta Gupta, and Shekhar Kirani. We would also like to thank Eight Roads, Sequoia, Nexus Venture Partners, B Capital Group, Accel Partners, Westbridge Capital, Tiger Global, and Microsoft for their valuable input.

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We are thankful for the support, guidance, and dedication of the SaaSBoomi Steering Committee and SaaSBoomi member companies. In particular, we would like to acknowledge the contributions of Girish Mathrubootham, Krish Subramanian, Mohit Bhatnagar, Sangeeta Gupta, and Shekhar Kirani. We would also like to thank Eight Roads, Sequoia, Nexus Venture Partners, B Capital Group, Accel Partners, Westbridge Capital, Tiger Global, and Microsoft for their valuable input.

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A special acknowledgment is due to Avinash Raghava and the entire SaaSBoomi team for their efforts and contributions.

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A special acknowledgment is due to Avinash Raghava and the entire SaaSBoomi team for their efforts and contributions.

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Special thanks
We would like to thank the following participants and founders for their valuable inputs and insights:

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Special thanks
We would like to thank the following participants and founders for their valuable inputs and insights:

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Aakash Tulsani - B Capital

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Aakash Tulsani - B Capital

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Abhinav Asthana - Postman

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Abhinav Asthana - Postman

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Anand Jain - Clevertap

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Anand Jain - Clevertap

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Aneesh Reddy - Capillary 

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Aneesh Reddy - Capillary 

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Arpit Maheshwari - Stellaris

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Arpit Maheshwari - Stellaris

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Ashwini Asokan - MadStreetDen

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Ashwini Asokan - MadStreetDen

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Bhanu Chopra - Rategain

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Bhanu Chopra - Rategain

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Dev Khare - LightSpeed 

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Dev Khare - LightSpeed 

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Dhruvil Sanghvi - Loginext

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Dhruvil Sanghvi - Loginext

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Monish Darda  - iCertis

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Monish Darda  - iCertis

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Pallav Nadhani - Charts.com

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Pallav Nadhani - Charts.com

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Prayank Swaroop - Accel

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Prayank Swaroop - Accel

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Praval Singh - Zoho

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Praval Singh - Zoho

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Rajaraman Santhanam - Chargebee

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Rajaraman Santhanam - Chargebee

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Rohit Chennamaneni - Darwinbox

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Rohit Chennamaneni - Darwinbox

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Rishit Desai - Westbridge Capital

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Rishit Desai - Westbridge Capital

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Sanjay Nath - Blume

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Sanjay Nath - Blume

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Shweta Bhatia - EightRoads

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Shweta Bhatia - EightRoads

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Sparsh Gupta - Wingify

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Sparsh Gupta - Wingify

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Suresh Sambandam - Kissflow

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Suresh Sambandam - Kissflow

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Sudheer Koneru - Zenoti

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Sudheer Koneru - Zenoti

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Varun Shoor - Ex-Kayako

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Varun Shoor - Ex-Kayako

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Yamini Bhat - Vymo

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Yamini Bhat - Vymo

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" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(2) " " [5]=> NULL [6]=> string(2) " " [7]=> NULL [8]=> string(2) " " [9]=> NULL [10]=> string(2) " " [11]=> NULL [12]=> string(2) " " [13]=> NULL [14]=> string(2) " " [15]=> NULL [16]=> string(2) " " [17]=> NULL [18]=> string(2) " " [19]=> NULL [20]=> string(2) " " [21]=> NULL [22]=> string(2) " " [23]=> NULL [24]=> string(2) " " [25]=> NULL [26]=> string(2) " " [27]=> NULL [28]=> string(2) " " [29]=> NULL [30]=> string(2) " " [31]=> NULL [32]=> string(2) " " [33]=> NULL [34]=> string(2) " " [35]=> NULL [36]=> string(2) " " [37]=> NULL [38]=> string(2) " " [39]=> NULL [40]=> string(2) " " [41]=> NULL [42]=> string(2) " " [43]=> NULL [44]=> string(2) " " [45]=> NULL [46]=> string(6) "

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And to 40+ Indian SaaS founders/ CEOs who participated in the SaaSradar benchmarking survey as part of this effort

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And to 40+ Indian SaaS founders/ CEOs who participated in the SaaSradar benchmarking survey as part of this effort

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How To Build A Meaningful Community — Lessons From India’s Best Community Leaders

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“How should we build a community?”

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“How should we build a community?”

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“I like how you have built this community, what should we do to make our community more active?”

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“I like how you have built this community, what should we do to make our community more active?”

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I have been getting more such questions recently, from founders and others. It is heartening to see this interest in community building, an area that I stumbled into 18 years ago, but one that has gone on to become the work I cherish. 

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I have been getting more such questions recently, from founders and others. It is heartening to see this interest in community building, an area that I stumbled into 18 years ago, but one that has gone on to become the work I cherish. 

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A post by Dharmesh Shah a few days back spoke about #CommunityLedGrowth and that got me thinking about my own community-building journey. Also, having a ‘community’ that is passionate about your product, or your startup, or your area of interest is increasingly becoming critical — which is why the rise in frequency of the questions being posed to me!

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A post by Dharmesh Shah a few days back spoke about #CommunityLedGrowth and that got me thinking about my own community-building journey. Also, having a ‘community’ that is passionate about your product, or your startup, or your area of interest is increasingly becoming critical — which is why the rise in frequency of the questions being posed to me!

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I have written multiple posts in the past that have touched upon various aspects of community building. But, I wanted to put together a comprehensive piece on the topic with insights from my peers — other community builders in our ecosystem who are doing really good work and have a wealth of practical knowledge that is of great use to others. This is the first time I have done a post like this and I am very grateful to all the community builders who have shared their learnings.

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I have written multiple posts in the past that have touched upon various aspects of community building. But, I wanted to put together a comprehensive piece on the topic with insights from my peers — other community builders in our ecosystem who are doing really good work and have a wealth of practical knowledge that is of great use to others. This is the first time I have done a post like this and I am very grateful to all the community builders who have shared their learnings.

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I wanted to write this post so that others, who are attempting to create, nurture and grow a community, do not have to start from scratch like I did or make the same mistakes.

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I wanted to write this post so that others, who are attempting to create, nurture and grow a community, do not have to start from scratch like I did or make the same mistakes.

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" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(125) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(441) "

I have shared this before and I say it again, that much of what I did in terms of fostering or nurturing a community was not based on thought-through theories or even philosophies. It was the happy result, many times, of good intentions meeting serendipity at the right time. With SaaSBoomi, I built up on my past experiences and learnings and it has proven to be a rewarding journey.

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I have shared this before and I say it again, that much of what I did in terms of fostering or nurturing a community was not based on thought-through theories or even philosophies. It was the happy result, many times, of good intentions meeting serendipity at the right time. With SaaSBoomi, I built up on my past experiences and learnings and it has proven to be a rewarding journey.

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There are few fundamental ingredients that go into building any community, but before I get into the details of the points that community designers and architects need to keep in mind, I want to underline the following three points. Keep them at the centre of your efforts at all times, and you will find they are the very essence of forging connections and building a community that truly cares:

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There are few fundamental ingredients that go into building any community, but before I get into the details of the points that community designers and architects need to keep in mind, I want to underline the following three points. Keep them at the centre of your efforts at all times, and you will find they are the very essence of forging connections and building a community that truly cares:

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☝️ First things first, building a #community begins with meeting people (one at a time) and forming meaningful relationships. Always try and help people first before asking for anything in return!

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☝️ First things first, building a #community begins with meeting people (one at a time) and forming meaningful relationships. Always try and help people first before asking for anything in return!

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Do not unplug your GIVER switch! 🔌 A #community is not built on the basis of expectations, so don’t help with the objective of getting something in return.

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Do not unplug your GIVER switch! 🔌 A #community is not built on the basis of expectations, so don’t help with the objective of getting something in return.

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Helping people make meaningful connections goes a loooong💨 way! However, always check before making connections and set the right context.

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Helping people make meaningful connections goes a loooong💨 way! However, always check before making connections and set the right context.

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" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(125) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(12) "core/heading" ["attrs"]=> array(1) { ["level"]=> int(3) } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(71) "

Authenticity & Values

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Authenticity & Values

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The community you find yourself surrounded by is a reflection of who you are and what you want to derive from it. You cannot base a community on a false projection of your organization or the people.

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The community you find yourself surrounded by is a reflection of who you are and what you want to derive from it. You cannot base a community on a false projection of your organization or the people.

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" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(194) "

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(10) "core/quote" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(1) { [0]=> array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(429) "

This true purpose is derived from the values of the organisation or community. I think Kevin William David, one of the best community leaders out there and who is also the #1 hunter at the global community for product startups, ProductHunt, and now is the Cofounder for CreatorStack, articulates this well.

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This true purpose is derived from the values of the organisation or community. I think Kevin William David, one of the best community leaders out there and who is also the #1 hunter at the global community for product startups, ProductHunt, and now is the Cofounder for CreatorStack, articulates this well.

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He says, “A great community is based around its values and what value (emphasis mine) it creates. Most communities get new members based on Value — that one single utility that is useful in solving a problem. But the community keeps them there based on Values — creating a sense of camaraderie that is formed from having shared beliefs and a shared mission. So in a sense the value is what the community uses to acquire new members and its values is what it uses to retain these members.”

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He says, “A great community is based around its values and what value (emphasis mine) it creates. Most communities get new members based on Value — that one single utility that is useful in solving a problem. But the community keeps them there based on Values — creating a sense of camaraderie that is formed from having shared beliefs and a shared mission. So in a sense the value is what the community uses to acquire new members and its values is what it uses to retain these members.”

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Aditya Kothari, Co-founder of short video app Chingari that has built a community of over six crore users, makes an important point on values. “While we build communities with various people in it, the community often gets derailed from the core purpose for which we were building the community, and hence I feel it’s very important to have rules and principle values, so that we can achieve the Goal for which we started the community,” says Aditya.

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Aditya Kothari, Co-founder of short video app Chingari that has built a community of over six crore users, makes an important point on values. “While we build communities with various people in it, the community often gets derailed from the core purpose for which we were building the community, and hence I feel it’s very important to have rules and principle values, so that we can achieve the Goal for which we started the community,” says Aditya.

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You need to be very clear about why you have started or why you are starting this community. What is it that you want to achieve, what will you focus on, how will it help community members, what is the value they will derive from it, what will you take from them? These are all questions to which you need honest answers when you start out.

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You need to be very clear about why you have started or why you are starting this community. What is it that you want to achieve, what will you focus on, how will it help community members, what is the value they will derive from it, what will you take from them? These are all questions to which you need honest answers when you start out.

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Also, be authentic in everything that you do. Aditya tells me, “I’ve learnt this (importance of being authentic) from all my offline experiences and observations. A society turns into a good community when the people in it are authentic to each other in their ‘asks’, needs and wants…We keep talking to our community and learn and ask them in order to build a good product that they would have the desire to use.”

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Also, be authentic in everything that you do. Aditya tells me, “I’ve learnt this (importance of being authentic) from all my offline experiences and observations. A society turns into a good community when the people in it are authentic to each other in their ‘asks’, needs and wants…We keep talking to our community and learn and ask them in order to build a good product that they would have the desire to use.”

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Interactions & Collisions

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Interactions & Collisions

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People become part of any form of community because of the interest they have in the purpose and values of that group and because of the opportunity to make meaningful connections with others who share their purpose.

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People become part of any form of community because of the interest they have in the purpose and values of that group and because of the opportunity to make meaningful connections with others who share their purpose.

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You can build a successful and engaged community only if it offers an opportunity to its members to make these connections.

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You can build a successful and engaged community only if it offers an opportunity to its members to make these connections.

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Amit Singh, who co-founded Headstart, one of the oldest communities that supports entrepreneurship and startups at a grassroots level, calls these ‘collisions’.

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Amit Singh, who co-founded Headstart, one of the oldest communities that supports entrepreneurship and startups at a grassroots level, calls these ‘collisions’.

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Amit says, “The main motivation in the early stages of a community is to enable collisions.”

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Amit says, “The main motivation in the early stages of a community is to enable collisions.”

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Pramod Rao is building a product called Threado, which integrates all the engagement tools people use for community management on a single dashboard. Before starting Threado, Pramod was VP Marketing at Zomato.

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Pramod Rao is building a product called Threado, which integrates all the engagement tools people use for community management on a single dashboard. Before starting Threado, Pramod was VP Marketing at Zomato.

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He also places a lot of importance on this aspect of connections. Pramod says, “The more open you are to connecting, helping, and sharing with the community, the more you set the community members up for serendipity. Our main role as community builders is to create opportunities and spaces for members to be themselves, connect with and help each other. You can add value by getting to know your community members 1:1, listening to them, and helping solve their problems (e.g. connecting them to someone relevant). Every interaction is an opportunity to add value and delight members.”

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He also places a lot of importance on this aspect of connections. Pramod says, “The more open you are to connecting, helping, and sharing with the community, the more you set the community members up for serendipity. Our main role as community builders is to create opportunities and spaces for members to be themselves, connect with and help each other. You can add value by getting to know your community members 1:1, listening to them, and helping solve their problems (e.g. connecting them to someone relevant). Every interaction is an opportunity to add value and delight members.”

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CreatorStack’s Kevin links adds to this. He says, “The superpower of a community is the interaction between its members — these exchanges are where value is created. The challenge with managing a community is fuelling and rewarding these interactions. You want community members to learn right from the start that the key to unlocking value for themselves is to create value for others. If new members aren’t motivated or don’t understand how to create value, they are likely to disengage and leave the community eventually.”

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CreatorStack’s Kevin links adds to this. He says, “The superpower of a community is the interaction between its members — these exchanges are where value is created. The challenge with managing a community is fuelling and rewarding these interactions. You want community members to learn right from the start that the key to unlocking value for themselves is to create value for others. If new members aren’t motivated or don’t understand how to create value, they are likely to disengage and leave the community eventually.”

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(You can read my thoughts on how sharing binds communities together here)

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(You can read my thoughts on how sharing binds communities together here)

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Kevin says when he first started out, he thought having a large number of members is what made a community successful. “But I was wrong. What’s more important is having a certain amount of engagement. A small number of highly engaged members is far more valuable than a large number of barely engaged members. Because engagement creates more engagement and eventually more members.”

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Kevin says when he first started out, he thought having a large number of members is what made a community successful. “But I was wrong. What’s more important is having a certain amount of engagement. A small number of highly engaged members is far more valuable than a large number of barely engaged members. Because engagement creates more engagement and eventually more members.”

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This, I believe, is an extremely important point because many of us equate big numbers with success. But in a community, it is engagement between members, the value they derive from each other, and the contributions they are able to make to others or to the community as a whole that leads to success. When you look for tools to evaluate the success of your community, use those that quantify engagement and value creation and not just absolute numbers.

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This, I believe, is an extremely important point because many of us equate big numbers with success. But in a community, it is engagement between members, the value they derive from each other, and the contributions they are able to make to others or to the community as a whole that leads to success. When you look for tools to evaluate the success of your community, use those that quantify engagement and value creation and not just absolute numbers.

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For high engagement and value creation knowing what the community needs is very important. “Keep your ears always open to what your community wants. A community is only as powerful as the network of its members. A community is more powerful when all the players work in collaboration and not competition,” says Deepika Jain, who is building the Community at Blume Ventures.

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For high engagement and value creation knowing what the community needs is very important. “Keep your ears always open to what your community wants. A community is only as powerful as the network of its members. A community is more powerful when all the players work in collaboration and not competition,” says Deepika Jain, who is building the Community at Blume Ventures.

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Long Term & Consistency

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Long Term & Consistency

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You cannot be impatient when you are building a community. It takes time and effort, it takes days and weeks of unglamourous grunt work to get a community going. But, no question that this work is highly rewarding.

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You cannot be impatient when you are building a community. It takes time and effort, it takes days and weeks of unglamourous grunt work to get a community going. But, no question that this work is highly rewarding.

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“Stay consistent and magic will happen. Usually, the first six months, it doesn’t feel like it’s worth it, and the effort-to-result ratio is pretty discouraging. Next six months, things start looking good, momentum picks up and the results are encouraging. Another six months of consistent activity riding the momentum often leads to Magic, where completely unbelievable results get produced. Replace six with three or 12 depending on your frequency of engagement and/or domain,” says Headstart’s Amit.

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“Stay consistent and magic will happen. Usually, the first six months, it doesn’t feel like it’s worth it, and the effort-to-result ratio is pretty discouraging. Next six months, things start looking good, momentum picks up and the results are encouraging. Another six months of consistent activity riding the momentum often leads to Magic, where completely unbelievable results get produced. Replace six with three or 12 depending on your frequency of engagement and/or domain,” says Headstart’s Amit.

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The key here is consistency. You cannot dream of building a highly engaged and effective community if you are not putting in the effort every day — introducing initiatives, meeting people, getting conversations going, and creating the collisions I mentioned earlier.

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The key here is consistency. You cannot dream of building a highly engaged and effective community if you are not putting in the effort every day — introducing initiatives, meeting people, getting conversations going, and creating the collisions I mentioned earlier.

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Priya Kale, who leads all community engagement initiatives at Elevation Capital, highlights the importance of consistency especially while using Content as a key driver.

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Priya Kale, who leads all community engagement initiatives at Elevation Capital, highlights the importance of consistency especially while using Content as a key driver.

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“If you’re out of sight, you’re out of mind,” she says. She adds a very important point about experimenting. Being consistent does not mean doing the same things over and over again. That is sure to cause fatigue among the members or users — your audience. “Don’t be scared of failure as they are an opportunity to learn and for you to be better in tune with what your audiences want. Don’t be scared to try out something new because you’ll never know whether it works till you try it out,” says Priya.

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“If you’re out of sight, you’re out of mind,” she says. She adds a very important point about experimenting. Being consistent does not mean doing the same things over and over again. That is sure to cause fatigue among the members or users — your audience. “Don’t be scared of failure as they are an opportunity to learn and for you to be better in tune with what your audiences want. Don’t be scared to try out something new because you’ll never know whether it works till you try it out,” says Priya.

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I have realized that personal touch and adding custom elements really help create deeper connections.

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I have realized that personal touch and adding custom elements really help create deeper connections.

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Threado’s Pramod says, “Communities go from 0 to 1 by doing things that don’t scale. Meeting users one-on-one over coffee, sending hand-written notes, foodie meetups, and ensuring every query was resolved at the earliest with a non-automated response were a few of the things that helped us shape the community during the formative years of Zomato.”

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Threado’s Pramod says, “Communities go from 0 to 1 by doing things that don’t scale. Meeting users one-on-one over coffee, sending hand-written notes, foodie meetups, and ensuring every query was resolved at the earliest with a non-automated response were a few of the things that helped us shape the community during the formative years of Zomato.”

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Such thoughtful gestures make a community member feel valued.

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Such thoughtful gestures make a community member feel valued.

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Another point many community builders concur on is sustainable building. Ritu Mukherjee, who is leading CommunityLedGrowth at LXME, an investment platform for women, shares this learning when it comes to building a community sustainably. 

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Another point many community builders concur on is sustainable building. Ritu Mukherjee, who is leading CommunityLedGrowth at LXME, an investment platform for women, shares this learning when it comes to building a community sustainably. 

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“Start slow but sure. Communities need to be built on a self sustainable model and require the early adopters and power users to be THE exact target audience or the ideal user persona for whom the community has been initiated for. Hence, acquire members selectively, which is a gradual process and slows down growth initially. These community members/users are critical to set the tone and culture of the community along with the community owner/manager/brand. These members will attract similar members to the community kickstarting the network effect at scale. They will influence the quality of conversations and intensity influencing newer members,” says Ritu.

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“Start slow but sure. Communities need to be built on a self sustainable model and require the early adopters and power users to be THE exact target audience or the ideal user persona for whom the community has been initiated for. Hence, acquire members selectively, which is a gradual process and slows down growth initially. These community members/users are critical to set the tone and culture of the community along with the community owner/manager/brand. These members will attract similar members to the community kickstarting the network effect at scale. They will influence the quality of conversations and intensity influencing newer members,” says Ritu.

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The focus needs to be to initiate the self-sustaining flywheel where community members and initiatives trigger network effects and add to growth.

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The focus needs to be to initiate the self-sustaining flywheel where community members and initiatives trigger network effects and add to growth.

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Zainab Bawa, who runs HasGeek, one of the largest communities for tech practitioners in India, says sustainable communities are those that stay relevant. This goes back to the point made by Priya on not being afraid to experiment. Your community members’ needs and wants will change and evolve over a period of time and so should your offerings for them. This ability to stay relevant over a period of time is what will keep bringing the members or users back to the community.

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Zainab Bawa, who runs HasGeek, one of the largest communities for tech practitioners in India, says sustainable communities are those that stay relevant. This goes back to the point made by Priya on not being afraid to experiment. Your community members’ needs and wants will change and evolve over a period of time and so should your offerings for them. This ability to stay relevant over a period of time is what will keep bringing the members or users back to the community.

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To ensure that you are building sustainably and staying relevant, you need to be thinking long term, as Vikas Malpani, Co-founder and CEO of new age audio and video discussions focused social network Leher, asserts. Vikas who is also Co-founder of Commonfloor, adds, “Have patience and keep Building. Money can’t build your core community. You have to care about the cause.”

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To ensure that you are building sustainably and staying relevant, you need to be thinking long term, as Vikas Malpani, Co-founder and CEO of new age audio and video discussions focused social network Leher, asserts. Vikas who is also Co-founder of Commonfloor, adds, “Have patience and keep Building. Money can’t build your core community. You have to care about the cause.”

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This is an important characteristic that people tend to forget. That throwing money can only do so much when it comes to building a community. There is no substitute for actual value creation.

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This is an important characteristic that people tend to forget. That throwing money can only do so much when it comes to building a community. There is no substitute for actual value creation.

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Expectations & Rules

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Expectations & Rules

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A community needs to be, at its core, a safe place for its members where they can be themselves and have open discussions free from judgement. But that does not mean a no-rules environment. On the contrary, clear-cut, well-articulated rules will go a long way in ensuring the community is equally accessible to all members. Expectation-setting is closely linked with rules, because a community does require guidance or it can get pulled in discordant directions.

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A community needs to be, at its core, a safe place for its members where they can be themselves and have open discussions free from judgement. But that does not mean a no-rules environment. On the contrary, clear-cut, well-articulated rules will go a long way in ensuring the community is equally accessible to all members. Expectation-setting is closely linked with rules, because a community does require guidance or it can get pulled in discordant directions.

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As Padmini Janaki, Co-founder and CEO of pregnancy tracking app and tracking guide Mind and Mom, says, “Listening to everyone will not take you anywhere. Now you need to take a side. My most extensive learning here is to make fair judgments and make decisions. Not all will like you, and that’s okay. As a community builder, you create rules, solve issues, and look like the best human.”

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As Padmini Janaki, Co-founder and CEO of pregnancy tracking app and tracking guide Mind and Mom, says, “Listening to everyone will not take you anywhere. Now you need to take a side. My most extensive learning here is to make fair judgments and make decisions. Not all will like you, and that’s okay. As a community builder, you create rules, solve issues, and look like the best human.”

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She makes other key points, especially on setting expectations. Everyone has expectations and each may be different. Those whose expectations are not aligned to your purpose might leave. Others may try to push the community in a different direction that is in line with their point of view. These are tough scenarios to handle especially in volunteer-driven organisations where people have volunteered their valuable time and effort.

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She makes other key points, especially on setting expectations. Everyone has expectations and each may be different. Those whose expectations are not aligned to your purpose might leave. Others may try to push the community in a different direction that is in line with their point of view. These are tough scenarios to handle especially in volunteer-driven organisations where people have volunteered their valuable time and effort.

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“In these areas, you may have to take a call and set the expectations and limits. These may make you a not-so-nice-person in the room, and you should be okay with that. However, practically when you’re running a community, some people will hate you, and you need to understand you cannot make everyone happy in a healthy community,”

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“In these areas, you may have to take a call and set the expectations and limits. These may make you a not-so-nice-person in the room, and you should be okay with that. However, practically when you’re running a community, some people will hate you, and you need to understand you cannot make everyone happy in a healthy community,”

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says Padmini.

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" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(2) " " [3]=> NULL [4]=> string(40) "says Padmini.

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(You can read my thoughts on building a volunteer-driven community here)

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(You can read my thoughts on building a volunteer-driven community here)

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This is why I stress the above point — defining who doesn’t belong is as important as understanding who belongs.

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This is why I stress the above point — defining who doesn’t belong is as important as understanding who belongs.

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Ensuring you have a core group of people who are willing to go over and above is critical. There is always the risk of fatigue or burn-out in those running the community or those doing the grunt work, especially in volunteer-driven groups. On the other hand, there is the real chance of the person who is most willing to put in time and effort dominating the group, even if it is to the detriment of the whole. This is why HasGeek’s Zainab suggests rotating stewardship.

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Ensuring you have a core group of people who are willing to go over and above is critical. There is always the risk of fatigue or burn-out in those running the community or those doing the grunt work, especially in volunteer-driven groups. On the other hand, there is the real chance of the person who is most willing to put in time and effort dominating the group, even if it is to the detriment of the whole. This is why HasGeek’s Zainab suggests rotating stewardship.

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Pramod says, “A community grows only when the members feel empowered and when you decentralise control. Distribute community responsibilities to most active contributors and remove yourself as the bottleneck.”

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Pramod says, “A community grows only when the members feel empowered and when you decentralise control. Distribute community responsibilities to most active contributors and remove yourself as the bottleneck.”

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Finally, you must keep in mind that there is never an end-point to building a community — it is always an ongoing process. You can never stop. The day you stop building the community, the community dies.

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Finally, you must keep in mind that there is never an end-point to building a community — it is always an ongoing process. You can never stop. The day you stop building the community, the community dies.

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We are excited to launch District52 — The Closest Network of Community Designers. If you know someone who could be a valuable member of this community or if you would like to share something with me, please share it with me at [email protected]

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We are excited to launch District52 — The Closest Network of Community Designers. If you know someone who could be a valuable member of this community or if you would like to share something with me, please share it with me at [email protected]

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Watch this space for more thoughts and insights around community building.
Thanks to Suhas Motwani and Deepika Jain for reviewing this piece.

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Watch this space for more thoughts and insights around community building.
Thanks to Suhas Motwani and Deepika Jain for reviewing this piece.

" } }

Serial entrepreneur Ankur Joshi on building a bootstrapped, sustainable and global SaaS startup

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Ankur Joshi had a treasure chest of entrepreneurial experience to dip into when he decided to start up again in 2018. He had run three ventures, notably a QSR chain RushHrs, and a B2B e-commerce marketplace Blaez, and had held a senior role at Tapzo. But when he launched Nuclei, which has gone on to develop digital solutions for banks, his focus was on the mistakes he had made and seen others making and on ensuring that he did not repeat them.

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Ankur Joshi had a treasure chest of entrepreneurial experience to dip into when he decided to start up again in 2018. He had run three ventures, notably a QSR chain RushHrs, and a B2B e-commerce marketplace Blaez, and had held a senior role at Tapzo. But when he launched Nuclei, which has gone on to develop digital solutions for banks, his focus was on the mistakes he had made and seen others making and on ensuring that he did not repeat them.

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This strategy has worked out well for Ankur and Nuclei. The bootstrapped company today counts 17 banks in India, Middle East and South East Asia as its clients and is at an ARR of $4 million. Nuclei, with an employee strength of 95, is targeting over 50% growth year-on-year. I spoke to Ankur about Nuclei, what he has done differently in his latest entrepreneurial Avatar and what next for the startup.

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This strategy has worked out well for Ankur and Nuclei. The bootstrapped company today counts 17 banks in India, Middle East and South East Asia as its clients and is at an ARR of $4 million. Nuclei, with an employee strength of 95, is targeting over 50% growth year-on-year. I spoke to Ankur about Nuclei, what he has done differently in his latest entrepreneurial Avatar and what next for the startup.

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Edited excerpts: 

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Edited excerpts: 

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Q: Ankur, what was different in your Nuclei startup journey compared to your previous entrepreneurial experiences?

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Q: Ankur, what was different in your Nuclei startup journey compared to your previous entrepreneurial experiences?

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Ankur: While we have built successful startups, we have also made a lot of mistakes during our previous startup journeys. We wanted to make sure that we didn't repeat those mistakes when we started up again. We realized, in hindsight, that with our earlier startups, we were not thinking big enough right from the start.

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Ankur: While we have built successful startups, we have also made a lot of mistakes during our previous startup journeys. We wanted to make sure that we didn't repeat those mistakes when we started up again. We realized, in hindsight, that with our earlier startups, we were not thinking big enough right from the start.

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Eventually, you would hit a ceiling and realize that you just never planned to grow beyond this point. When we started Nuclei we were very clear that we would build a product that is global in nature, and would cater to the global market and not just the India market. We were also sure we would diversify revenue streams. We had this mindset from Day One. Every decision we made, and every step we took, whether it was regarding building the team or building the product, was informed by this mindset of being global. 

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Eventually, you would hit a ceiling and realize that you just never planned to grow beyond this point. When we started Nuclei we were very clear that we would build a product that is global in nature, and would cater to the global market and not just the India market. We were also sure we would diversify revenue streams. We had this mindset from Day One. Every decision we made, and every step we took, whether it was regarding building the team or building the product, was informed by this mindset of being global. 

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We were also very clear that we wanted to build a sustainable business and not one where the idea from day one was to sell the business at some point of time. I was very clear that this time around I want to build a company not just a startup that we sell or flip in a few years. 

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We were also very clear that we wanted to build a sustainable business and not one where the idea from day one was to sell the business at some point of time. I was very clear that this time around I want to build a company not just a startup that we sell or flip in a few years. 

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Q. How did these decisions, to be global and to build sustainably, inform your strategy and ops?

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Q. How did these decisions, to be global and to build sustainably, inform your strategy and ops?

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Ankur: We wanted to build a long-term sustainable business and for that it was very important that we attain profitability from day one and not depend on external flow of capital. I was not looking at growing rapidly in two to three years and then exiting. I wanted to put the company at a steady state of growth that compounded year on year and essentially build the company over seven to eight years. Quite honestly a good business gets built over decades. 

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Ankur: We wanted to build a long-term sustainable business and for that it was very important that we attain profitability from day one and not depend on external flow of capital. I was not looking at growing rapidly in two to three years and then exiting. I wanted to put the company at a steady state of growth that compounded year on year and essentially build the company over seven to eight years. Quite honestly a good business gets built over decades. 

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This propelled us to not raise VC funds and to not think B2C, because the amount of marketing dollars required to build and scale a B2C startup is insane and that would have forced us to raise funds. This is why we went the B2B2C route, where the revenue would start flowing from day one. The customer acquisition cost would be at the business level and not at an individual level and that’s more rational and easier to absorb. So we build products used by the end user but distributed through businesses, which in our case is banks. 

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This propelled us to not raise VC funds and to not think B2C, because the amount of marketing dollars required to build and scale a B2C startup is insane and that would have forced us to raise funds. This is why we went the B2B2C route, where the revenue would start flowing from day one. The customer acquisition cost would be at the business level and not at an individual level and that’s more rational and easier to absorb. So we build products used by the end user but distributed through businesses, which in our case is banks. 

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Every decision was taken through this lens of long term sustainability and global market focus. It could be something as simple as deciding to build the product keeping in mind that it will eventually be multi currency and multi lingual. 

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Every decision was taken through this lens of long term sustainability and global market focus. It could be something as simple as deciding to build the product keeping in mind that it will eventually be multi currency and multi lingual. 

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Q: Did you zero in on banks as your focus right from the start?

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Q: Did you zero in on banks as your focus right from the start?

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Ankur: The focus was on how we get distribution and it was not just the banking vertical, we were also initially exploring others like telco and insurance. We roamed around Southeast Asia, Middle East, and India and met around 100 organisations over a period of about six months and eventually we settled on banks, because the distribution was easier and more engaging and it allowed us to be profitable and sustainable. In the future we might expand into other verticals. 

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Ankur: The focus was on how we get distribution and it was not just the banking vertical, we were also initially exploring others like telco and insurance. We roamed around Southeast Asia, Middle East, and India and met around 100 organisations over a period of about six months and eventually we settled on banks, because the distribution was easier and more engaging and it allowed us to be profitable and sustainable. In the future we might expand into other verticals. 

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Q: Do take us through how you came up with your core product.

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Q: Do take us through how you came up with your core product.

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Ankur: We had an inkling of the product we wanted to build when we started out on our market research but, as is the case with every startup, the initial idea and what came out in the market are two very different products. Our product was shaped as we conversed with one banker to the next. 

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Ankur: We had an inkling of the product we wanted to build when we started out on our market research but, as is the case with every startup, the initial idea and what came out in the market are two very different products. Our product was shaped as we conversed with one banker to the next. 

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Nuclei’s core product is essentially a marketplace where we have a platform that sits between a bank and any third party. Our platform integrates the APIs of any third party who wants to work with the bank. We also create the frontend customer experience for the bank in their look and feel and all this gets bundled into an SDK. 

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Nuclei’s core product is essentially a marketplace where we have a platform that sits between a bank and any third party. Our platform integrates the APIs of any third party who wants to work with the bank. We also create the frontend customer experience for the bank in their look and feel and all this gets bundled into an SDK. 

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The bank does not have to go through the whole integration process with each third party, or handle the partner management. They have to just license our platform and go live with those third parties, whom we have already integrated. These offerings could be recharges, mutual funds, digital gold, or even content for financial education. It is cheaper for the bank compared to if they build this out themselves. We launched the product in November 2019 and today we work with 17 banks across India, Middle East and Southeast Asia. 

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The bank does not have to go through the whole integration process with each third party, or handle the partner management. They have to just license our platform and go live with those third parties, whom we have already integrated. These offerings could be recharges, mutual funds, digital gold, or even content for financial education. It is cheaper for the bank compared to if they build this out themselves. We launched the product in November 2019 and today we work with 17 banks across India, Middle East and Southeast Asia. 

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We have also built a product around credit cards. This is a pure digital banking play where we see the credit card as a separate product that has a lot of potential. A number of banks have still not banked on the digital journeys of these credit cards and having a standard journey and a rich set of features is something we believe will be beneficial for the bank. For this we have partnered with Mastercard and together we are approaching banks for digitizing their complete credit card portfolio. This product went live just a couple of months back and we hope to go live with four to five more banks before the close of this financial year.

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We have also built a product around credit cards. This is a pure digital banking play where we see the credit card as a separate product that has a lot of potential. A number of banks have still not banked on the digital journeys of these credit cards and having a standard journey and a rich set of features is something we believe will be beneficial for the bank. For this we have partnered with Mastercard and together we are approaching banks for digitizing their complete credit card portfolio. This product went live just a couple of months back and we hope to go live with four to five more banks before the close of this financial year.

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Q. How did you go about cracking the global market?

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Q. How did you go about cracking the global market?

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Ankur: Like any other Enterprise SaaS company, for us too the sales cycles are longer but we cracked a few clients, like Federal Bank and ICICI Bank, very early. This helped us in the India market. Getting clients outside India has definitely been tougher and the pandemic has not made it easy. Over the past few months bankers have become comfortable doing business remotely. Even in the sales process we see this slow building of comfort and banks are purchasing products like ours through an entirely remote sales process. 

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Ankur: Like any other Enterprise SaaS company, for us too the sales cycles are longer but we cracked a few clients, like Federal Bank and ICICI Bank, very early. This helped us in the India market. Getting clients outside India has definitely been tougher and the pandemic has not made it easy. Over the past few months bankers have become comfortable doing business remotely. Even in the sales process we see this slow building of comfort and banks are purchasing products like ours through an entirely remote sales process. 

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More than the distance, for a young startup building trust is the biggest challenge. Here, partnerships have helped. We have partnerships with Mastercard, Microsoft and others and that has brought us trust and credibility and helped open doors. Also, our focus internally has been on making sure that the quality of the end product that we are releasing needs to be very high. This is what will ultimately build trust.

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More than the distance, for a young startup building trust is the biggest challenge. Here, partnerships have helped. We have partnerships with Mastercard, Microsoft and others and that has brought us trust and credibility and helped open doors. Also, our focus internally has been on making sure that the quality of the end product that we are releasing needs to be very high. This is what will ultimately build trust.

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Q: What are you focusing on next? 

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Q: What are you focusing on next? 

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Ankur: I keep saying this, but for me the product is not what we are building - the products are the outcome. Primarily for this year the objective is for us to level up 80% of our team. The next focus is to diversify our revenue stream across product lines. We want to ensure revenues come from four to five product lines and not just the current two. The third focus is on growth; we want to scale the number of banks we work with to 60 in the next two years and increase our geographical spread.

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Ankur: I keep saying this, but for me the product is not what we are building - the products are the outcome. Primarily for this year the objective is for us to level up 80% of our team. The next focus is to diversify our revenue stream across product lines. We want to ensure revenues come from four to five product lines and not just the current two. The third focus is on growth; we want to scale the number of banks we work with to 60 in the next two years and increase our geographical spread.

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Our team of 95 are all in India. We are a completely remote workplace and we have team members living in around 22 states. We will be hiring globally soon and across functions. We will be location-agnostic; as long as the person is a good fit and adds value the location they are in does not matter.

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Our team of 95 are all in India. We are a completely remote workplace and we have team members living in around 22 states. We will be hiring globally soon and across functions. We will be location-agnostic; as long as the person is a good fit and adds value the location they are in does not matter.

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Q. You mentioned building a long-term sustainable company as a goal of yours. What are the steps you are taking to achieve this goal? 

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Q. You mentioned building a long-term sustainable company as a goal of yours. What are the steps you are taking to achieve this goal? 

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Ankur: It is very clear to me that building a good culture is incredibly important. We know this cannot happen overnight and we have definitely made mistakes on the way. For instance, we have learned through experience that the right attitude in the team and team members is oftentimes more important than the right skill sets. We made that mistake a few times in terms of optimizing for the skill and not optimizing for the attitude and definitely burned our hands as a company. We have learned from those mistakes and are making sure that the culture of the company is right.

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Ankur: It is very clear to me that building a good culture is incredibly important. We know this cannot happen overnight and we have definitely made mistakes on the way. For instance, we have learned through experience that the right attitude in the team and team members is oftentimes more important than the right skill sets. We made that mistake a few times in terms of optimizing for the skill and not optimizing for the attitude and definitely burned our hands as a company. We have learned from those mistakes and are making sure that the culture of the company is right.

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(396) "

When we talk about long-term sustainability, an important component is ensuring that the team also gets to participate in the growth of the company. As a bootstrapped company, it should not just be the founders who generate wealth for themselves. Generally, startups, especially those that raise external funds, create a 10% ESOP pool. This is what we also did in our previous startups.

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When we talk about long-term sustainability, an important component is ensuring that the team also gets to participate in the growth of the company. As a bootstrapped company, it should not just be the founders who generate wealth for themselves. Generally, startups, especially those that raise external funds, create a 10% ESOP pool. This is what we also did in our previous startups.

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At Nuclei we created a 25% pool. Also, instead of ESOP we opted for SAR (Stock Appreciation Rights) to make it more accessible for employees. SAR is easier to manage. It does not have an annual vesting model; there isn’t any cliff. We have monthly vesting, starting from the month the employee joins the company. Since there are no external investors, there is no scope for frothy valuations of the company. The idea is that the valuation on paper is the actual valuation of the company if it is sold today. So we do not have problems that other startups face like liquidation preference that leads to value erosion for employees and even founders in some cases at other startups. 

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At Nuclei we created a 25% pool. Also, instead of ESOP we opted for SAR (Stock Appreciation Rights) to make it more accessible for employees. SAR is easier to manage. It does not have an annual vesting model; there isn’t any cliff. We have monthly vesting, starting from the month the employee joins the company. Since there are no external investors, there is no scope for frothy valuations of the company. The idea is that the valuation on paper is the actual valuation of the company if it is sold today. So we do not have problems that other startups face like liquidation preference that leads to value erosion for employees and even founders in some cases at other startups. 

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Also, since we are not looking at selling the company off, we have also kept aside money for buybacks. We want to open up a liquidity window every year, so employees can take advantage of that opportunity.

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Also, since we are not looking at selling the company off, we have also kept aside money for buybacks. We want to open up a liquidity window every year, so employees can take advantage of that opportunity.

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Why it is never too early to hire a marketer for your startup

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The internet is rife with advice on when startups must hire their first marketer. "When you have too many ideas and need an expert filter", "When you need to keep pace with your competitors" are some pieces of advice commonly given to startup founders who aren't necessarily marketing specialists.

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The internet is rife with advice on when startups must hire their first marketer. "When you have too many ideas and need an expert filter", "When you need to keep pace with your competitors" are some pieces of advice commonly given to startup founders who aren't necessarily marketing specialists.

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Fair advice, but a little dated.

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Fair advice, but a little dated.

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We know only too well that the B2B startup space has changed quite sharply over the last year or so, and it is time to move the pin ahead with the marketing niche as well.

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We know only too well that the B2B startup space has changed quite sharply over the last year or so, and it is time to move the pin ahead with the marketing niche as well.

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Earlier, building the product was the most significant piece of the startup journey. Founders spent time and energy on finding the right engineers and developers to build their products. In addition to all else, it was something that simply needed all hands on deck and a lot of time. Naturally, the first 20-odd employees were those with product expertise. Getting the product out first and marketing it later was what startups did, and rightly so.

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Earlier, building the product was the most significant piece of the startup journey. Founders spent time and energy on finding the right engineers and developers to build their products. In addition to all else, it was something that simply needed all hands on deck and a lot of time. Naturally, the first 20-odd employees were those with product expertise. Getting the product out first and marketing it later was what startups did, and rightly so.

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But today, building a product is easier than it was a decade ago, thanks to easy access to many advanced tools available in the market. Open-source products, out-of-the-box tools, DIY kits, open frameworks, and plug-and-play services have all made building software so much easier and quicker than before. Consequently, more startups are getting their product out to market faster and are getting on to the next phase of building their customer base, marketing their products, etc.

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But today, building a product is easier than it was a decade ago, thanks to easy access to many advanced tools available in the market. Open-source products, out-of-the-box tools, DIY kits, open frameworks, and plug-and-play services have all made building software so much easier and quicker than before. Consequently, more startups are getting their product out to market faster and are getting on to the next phase of building their customer base, marketing their products, etc.

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Here again, proven frameworks and playbooks have made the process easier for startups. Every startup has its newsletter, podcast, community, content engines, keyword strategy, and everything else that works for other companies and shows promise.

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Here again, proven frameworks and playbooks have made the process easier for startups. Every startup has its newsletter, podcast, community, content engines, keyword strategy, and everything else that works for other companies and shows promise.

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So, what now? How can a startup differentiate itself?

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So, what now? How can a startup differentiate itself?

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With a solid, unique marketing strategy.

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With a solid, unique marketing strategy.

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What's becoming increasingly important for startups isn't building the product or generating leads, or getting to your first significant revenue milestone. It is predictability. And a solid marketing approach is essential to get that right.

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What's becoming increasingly important for startups isn't building the product or generating leads, or getting to your first significant revenue milestone. It is predictability. And a solid marketing approach is essential to get that right.

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Predictability involves the coming together of product, design, sales, and marketing. It isn’t enough to just have a saleable version of your product. You have to identify the ideal customer profile to figure out exactly what problems you will solve and who you will sell to. Once that’s done, you’ll have to figure out how to reach them, what channels you can use, and how you can bring leads in. And this is the challenge that marketing will solve and help with.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(479) "

Predictability involves the coming together of product, design, sales, and marketing. It isn’t enough to just have a saleable version of your product. You have to identify the ideal customer profile to figure out exactly what problems you will solve and who you will sell to. Once that’s done, you’ll have to figure out how to reach them, what channels you can use, and how you can bring leads in. And this is the challenge that marketing will solve and help with.

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Often, startup founders talk to me when they’re looking to make their first marketing hire, and it is invariably — we’ve started making revenues, and we need a marketer to help us scale our revenue. Most founders are quite hazy with their marketing hiring strategy and don’t always know what exactly they’re looking for from the marketer.

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Often, startup founders talk to me when they’re looking to make their first marketing hire, and it is invariably — we’ve started making revenues, and we need a marketer to help us scale our revenue. Most founders are quite hazy with their marketing hiring strategy and don’t always know what exactly they’re looking for from the marketer.

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It worries me that many people don’t see what marketing brings to the table and what kind of pain points marketing helps ease.

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It worries me that many people don’t see what marketing brings to the table and what kind of pain points marketing helps ease.

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It isn't just about hiring a marketer; it’s hiring a marketer at the right time for the right task that is going to make a difference.

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It isn't just about hiring a marketer; it’s hiring a marketer at the right time for the right task that is going to make a difference.

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We know that marketing includes multiple specializations and adds value at different points in the customer journey. So, figuring out where in this journey you're having trouble will transform your marketing.

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We know that marketing includes multiple specializations and adds value at different points in the customer journey. So, figuring out where in this journey you're having trouble will transform your marketing.

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Often, startup founders make the mistake of hiring one marketer and expect the person to handle everything to do with marketing. But just like how you can’t hire a backend engineer to handle all frontend engineering work, you can’t expect one marketer to perform all marketing tasks.

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Often, startup founders make the mistake of hiring one marketer and expect the person to handle everything to do with marketing. But just like how you can’t hire a backend engineer to handle all frontend engineering work, you can’t expect one marketer to perform all marketing tasks.

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Dissect your marketing journey and your strategy based on external factors, figure where you're doing well and where the pain points are, and you'll know what kind of marketer to hire and when exactly to.

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Dissect your marketing journey and your strategy based on external factors, figure where you're doing well and where the pain points are, and you'll know what kind of marketer to hire and when exactly to.

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At this juncture, whether at all to invest in a marketer at an early stage or simply work with freelancers or agencies is a question that many startups will dwell on.

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At this juncture, whether at all to invest in a marketer at an early stage or simply work with freelancers or agencies is a question that many startups will dwell on.

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While agencies have a significant role to play in the marketing journey that you’ll draw out for your company, they can’t do what an in-house marketer can.

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While agencies have a significant role to play in the marketing journey that you’ll draw out for your company, they can’t do what an in-house marketer can.

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The agency vs. in-house marketing debate has been raging for decades now. But I believe that both parties need to work together. Investing in an in-house marketer is critical to ensure that agencies deliver their best to the company.

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The agency vs. in-house marketing debate has been raging for decades now. But I believe that both parties need to work together. Investing in an in-house marketer is critical to ensure that agencies deliver their best to the company.

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Marketing is increasingly becoming a core function. It is essential to have someone in-house who is invested in the company’s growth, believes in its vision and culture to chart out the strategy, and executes brand and marketing operations that set the startup apart from the rest.

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Marketing is increasingly becoming a core function. It is essential to have someone in-house who is invested in the company’s growth, believes in its vision and culture to chart out the strategy, and executes brand and marketing operations that set the startup apart from the rest.

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Meet the Winners of the Inaugural SaaSBoomi 2020 Awards

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We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.

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We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.

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- Martin Luther King Jr.

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" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(62) " - Martin Luther King Jr.

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Startup founders are a curious breed. Even in the face of overwhelming odds, they can’t help but stay optimistic and ambitious—they are genetically programmed to suspend disbelief and see opportunity and a path to victory. At a time when the world is steeped in darkness and battles a devastating second wave of Covid-19, we could all take inspiration from startup founders and look towards the light.

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Startup founders are a curious breed. Even in the face of overwhelming odds, they can’t help but stay optimistic and ambitious—they are genetically programmed to suspend disbelief and see opportunity and a path to victory. At a time when the world is steeped in darkness and battles a devastating second wave of Covid-19, we could all take inspiration from startup founders and look towards the light.

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For, like the great American Civil Rights activist said, we must always hold on to hope. This is why even in the midst of a pandemic we at SaaSBoomi decided to announce the inaugural SaaSBoomi 2020 Awards last November. We knew we were setting an audacious task for ourselves, but we are a community of startup founders and we are used to dealing with challenges and adversities!

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For, like the great American Civil Rights activist said, we must always hold on to hope. This is why even in the midst of a pandemic we at SaaSBoomi decided to announce the inaugural SaaSBoomi 2020 Awards last November. We knew we were setting an audacious task for ourselves, but we are a community of startup founders and we are used to dealing with challenges and adversities!

" } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(2) " " ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(2) " " } } array(5) { ["blockName"]=> string(14) "core/paragraph" ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(49) "

But, why another set of awards?

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But, why another set of awards?

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The SaaSBoomi Awards is the first initiative in India that is completely community-driven. It is curated and judged by fellow SaaS founders—people who have built marquee companies that have scaled to thousands of employees and hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, people who have built hugely profitable companies without raising a rupee of investor capital, people who have set global standards in deep tech and cutting-edge innovation.

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The SaaSBoomi Awards is the first initiative in India that is completely community-driven. It is curated and judged by fellow SaaS founders—people who have built marquee companies that have scaled to thousands of employees and hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, people who have built hugely profitable companies without raising a rupee of investor capital, people who have set global standards in deep tech and cutting-edge innovation.

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As any founder will tell you, validation from their fellow founders is the ultimate badge of honor—a sign that your hard work and dedication have been recognized and appreciated. Towards this end, the SaaSBoomi Awards is an attempt to celebrate the best among us and we are confident that in the time to come, it will emerge as an exemplar for both SaaS startups as well as startup awards in the country.

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As any founder will tell you, validation from their fellow founders is the ultimate badge of honor—a sign that your hard work and dedication have been recognized and appreciated. Towards this end, the SaaSBoomi Awards is an attempt to celebrate the best among us and we are confident that in the time to come, it will emerge as an exemplar for both SaaS startups as well as startup awards in the country.

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Why now?

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Why now?

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Our hope is that these awards will demonstrate that great startups can be built at any time, even in environments that are extremely challenging in all respects. The winners who we are commending today are startups that have turned adversity into opportunity and built great brands and businesses that we are confident will stand the test of time. We are also hopeful that the success stories of these companies will serve as inspiration for other SaaS startups in the country and will launch a thousand new ventures in the future.

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Our hope is that these awards will demonstrate that great startups can be built at any time, even in environments that are extremely challenging in all respects. The winners who we are commending today are startups that have turned adversity into opportunity and built great brands and businesses that we are confident will stand the test of time. We are also hopeful that the success stories of these companies will serve as inspiration for other SaaS startups in the country and will launch a thousand new ventures in the future.

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The SaaSBoomi Awards Process

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The SaaSBoomi Awards Process

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When we called for applications we expected a good turnout and we were not disappointed! We received over 200 applications across the eight categories we announced. From this we shortlisted five companies per category. The shortlisting was done using an objective process with a scoring system that was based on different parameters and measured on quantitative metrics.  

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When we called for applications we expected a good turnout and we were not disappointed! We received over 200 applications across the eight categories we announced. From this we shortlisted five companies per category. The shortlisting was done using an objective process with a scoring system that was based on different parameters and measured on quantitative metrics.  

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Then came the jury’s turn. The jury consisted of Aneesh Reddy, Co-Founder and CEO at Capillary Technologies, Ashwini Asokan, Founder and CEO at MadStreetDen, Girish Mathrubootham, Founder and CEO at Freshworks, Krish Subramanian, Co-founder and CEO at Chargebee, Manav Garg, Founder and CEO at Eka Software, Suresh Sambandam, CEO at KissFlow and me (Pallav Nadhani, Co-founder and former CEO of FusionCharts).

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Then came the jury’s turn. The jury consisted of Aneesh Reddy, Co-Founder and CEO at Capillary Technologies, Ashwini Asokan, Founder and CEO at MadStreetDen, Girish Mathrubootham, Founder and CEO at Freshworks, Krish Subramanian, Co-founder and CEO at Chargebee, Manav Garg, Founder and CEO at Eka Software, Suresh Sambandam, CEO at KissFlow and me (Pallav Nadhani, Co-founder and former CEO of FusionCharts).

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For each category, three jury members with relevant domain expertise or informed opinions were tasked with deliberating upon the shortlisted candidates to decide on the winner. For two categories, SaaS Startup of the Year and Moonshot Startup of the Year, the entire jury chose the winner. The quality of applications was such that in many categories, the jury had a tough time picking just one winner. 

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For each category, three jury members with relevant domain expertise or informed opinions were tasked with deliberating upon the shortlisted candidates to decide on the winner. For two categories, SaaS Startup of the Year and Moonshot Startup of the Year, the entire jury chose the winner. The quality of applications was such that in many categories, the jury had a tough time picking just one winner. 

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Some aspects did stand out for me from the selection process. 

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Some aspects did stand out for me from the selection process. 

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For instance, for the Bootstrapped SaaS Startup of the Year category, we were looking for companies that have achieved a scale of around $10 million in revenue. We did receive many outstanding applications but were at a lower scale. We look forward to seeing these startups, who missed the cut, grow and win this category in the future. 

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For instance, for the Bootstrapped SaaS Startup of the Year category, we were looking for companies that have achieved a scale of around $10 million in revenue. We did receive many outstanding applications but were at a lower scale. We look forward to seeing these startups, who missed the cut, grow and win this category in the future. 

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The DeepTech Startup of the Year category was a particularly hotly contested one and we saw many innovative companies in the voice assistant and chatbot assistant space.

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The DeepTech Startup of the Year category was a particularly hotly contested one and we saw many innovative companies in the voice assistant and chatbot assistant space.

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Another highly competitive category was the Vertical SaaS Startup of the Year, with many applicants from a wide variety of verticals and industries. In the B2D SaaS Startup of the Year category, we saw amazing bottoms-up adoption numbers in a short period of time for a number of applicants. That was good to see.

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Another highly competitive category was the Vertical SaaS Startup of the Year, with many applicants from a wide variety of verticals and industries. In the B2D SaaS Startup of the Year category, we saw amazing bottoms-up adoption numbers in a short period of time for a number of applicants. That was good to see.

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For the Moonshot Startup of the Year category, we would love to see more founders and startups taking even more groundbreaking bets in the future. 

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For the Moonshot Startup of the Year category, we would love to see more founders and startups taking even more groundbreaking bets in the future. 

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A few of the winners were strong contenders in other categories too, which is a clear indicator of the quality of startups coming up in our ecosystem. 

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A few of the winners were strong contenders in other categories too, which is a clear indicator of the quality of startups coming up in our ecosystem. 

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Before I reveal the list of winners, I would like to say that we hope to receive a lot more applications from our wonderful and growing SaaS industry and community in the next edition of this Awards. We also hope that those who did not win this year will emerge as winners in the next year.

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Before I reveal the list of winners, I would like to say that we hope to receive a lot more applications from our wonderful and growing SaaS industry and community in the next edition of this Awards. We also hope that those who did not win this year will emerge as winners in the next year.

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Hope may be a dangerous thing but may we all be audacious when it comes to dreams, ambitions and hopes!

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Hope may be a dangerous thing but may we all be audacious when it comes to dreams, ambitions and hopes!

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The Winners 

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The Winners 

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Bootstrapped Startup of the Year - Kovai

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Bootstrapped Startup of the Year - Kovai

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Kovai.co is a multi-product enterprise SaaS company specializing in enterprise integration and knowledge management space based out of Coimbatore and London.

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Kovai.co is a multi-product enterprise SaaS company specializing in enterprise integration and knowledge management space based out of Coimbatore and London.

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Breakout Startup of the Year - Hubilo

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Breakout Startup of the Year - Hubilo

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Hubilo connects the world through events run on our intuitive platform, delivering deep analytics that yield masterful understandings of audiences and insights that drive meaningful ROI.

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Hubilo connects the world through events run on our intuitive platform, delivering deep analytics that yield masterful understandings of audiences and insights that drive meaningful ROI.

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Category Creator SaaS Startup of the Year - Accedata

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Category Creator SaaS Startup of the Year - Accedata

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Acceldata’s high-definition data observability platform provides enterprises the end-to-end visibility they need to build, operate, and scale mission-critical data, AI, and advanced analytics systems.

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Acceldata’s high-definition data observability platform provides enterprises the end-to-end visibility they need to build, operate, and scale mission-critical data, AI, and advanced analytics systems.

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DeepTech Sartup of the Year - Entropik

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DeepTech Sartup of the Year - Entropik

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Entropik Tech is a leader in Emotion AI enabling global brands to leverage actionable emotional insights to deliver superlative marketing, brand, and product experiences.

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Entropik Tech is a leader in Emotion AI enabling global brands to leverage actionable emotional insights to deliver superlative marketing, brand, and product experiences.

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DevTools (B2D) Startup of the Year - Hasura

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DevTools (B2D) Startup of the Year - Hasura

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Hasura is an open-source product that accelerates API development by 10x by giving you GraphQL or REST APIs with built-in authorization on your data, instantly.

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Hasura is an open-source product that accelerates API development by 10x by giving you GraphQL or REST APIs with built-in authorization on your data, instantly.

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Vertical SaaS Startup of the Year - Cardinality

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Vertical SaaS Startup of the Year - Cardinality

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Cardinality.ai is the modernization alternative that innovative states are using to better serve citizens. Their smart, configurable SaaS solutions are built specifically for health, workforce, and human services based on federal mandates and specifications, enabling operational capabilities fastest, with less implementation cost, and lower lifetime maintenance expense.

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Cardinality.ai is the modernization alternative that innovative states are using to better serve citizens. Their smart, configurable SaaS solutions are built specifically for health, workforce, and human services based on federal mandates and specifications, enabling operational capabilities fastest, with less implementation cost, and lower lifetime maintenance expense.

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With its purpose-built platform and suite of SaaS products, Cardinality.ai brings IT modernization to US government welfare agencies in the Health and Human Services space. More details at cardinality.ai

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With its purpose-built platform and suite of SaaS products, Cardinality.ai brings IT modernization to US government welfare agencies in the Health and Human Services space. More details at cardinality.ai

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Moonshot Startup of the Year - OkCredit

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Moonshot Startup of the Year - OkCredit

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OkCredit is India's favorite bookkeeping app that makes record-keeping hassle-free for SMBs. With in-built credit reminders, OkCredit is solving the crucial problem of buying and selling on credit for small merchants across India.

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OkCredit is India's favorite bookkeeping app that makes record-keeping hassle-free for SMBs. With in-built credit reminders, OkCredit is solving the crucial problem of buying and selling on credit for small merchants across India.

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SaaS Startup of the Year - Postman 

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SaaS Startup of the Year - Postman 

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Postman is the collaboration platform for API development. Postman simplifies each step of building an API and streamlines collaboration so you can create better APIs—faster.

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Postman is the collaboration platform for API development. Postman simplifies each step of building an API and streamlines collaboration so you can create better APIs—faster.

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We are reimagining SaaSBoomi Annual 2021

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The past couple of weeks have been difficult for our country. There has been a dramatic increase in COVID-19 cases across the country. This has upended our daily lives, as we’ve been busy helping our families, employees, and above all ourselves. 

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The past couple of weeks have been difficult for our country. There has been a dramatic increase in COVID-19 cases across the country. This has upended our daily lives, as we’ve been busy helping our families, employees, and above all ourselves. 

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As we write this, news has arrived that we are opening up vaccination for everyone above the age of 18+. The situation is expected to get even trickier over the next few weeks, but we are certain that we will all collectively fight and emerge stronger on the other side. 

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As we write this, news has arrived that we are opening up vaccination for everyone above the age of 18+. The situation is expected to get even trickier over the next few weeks, but we are certain that we will all collectively fight and emerge stronger on the other side. 

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Our volunteer team with over 30+ members—which also includes accomplished SaaS founders and leaders—has been deliberating over every single detail of the event, to make sure that we deliver the best experience we can to the community. 

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Our volunteer team with over 30+ members—which also includes accomplished SaaS founders and leaders—has been deliberating over every single detail of the event, to make sure that we deliver the best experience we can to the community. 

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But, in light of what is happening, we spent the last couple of days talking to numerous SaaS founders and realised that given the current circumstances, it would be challenging for everyone to commit to four consecutive days of intense workshops.

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But, in light of what is happening, we spent the last couple of days talking to numerous SaaS founders and realised that given the current circumstances, it would be challenging for everyone to commit to four consecutive days of intense workshops.

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True to the theme of SaaSBoomi Annual OnAir 2021, we are reimagining the conference format to make all the content and speakers accessible to you using this opportunity.

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True to the theme of SaaSBoomi Annual OnAir 2021, we are reimagining the conference format to make all the content and speakers accessible to you using this opportunity.

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This way, you have the breathing space to build the right mind frame before every session, dive deeper into them, and derive the most value from them. 

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This way, you have the breathing space to build the right mind frame before every session, dive deeper into them, and derive the most value from them. 

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SaaSBoomi 2021 will now be conducted as one workshop every Saturday, from 9 AM to 12 PM, starting May 1st, 2021, over a period of 12 weeks. 

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SaaSBoomi 2021 will now be conducted as one workshop every Saturday, from 9 AM to 12 PM, starting May 1st, 2021, over a period of 12 weeks. 

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Our aim is to cover all the workshops and talks presented on the original agenda over the duration of these 12 weeks.

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Our aim is to cover all the workshops and talks presented on the original agenda over the duration of these 12 weeks.

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Keep an eye out for weekly emails from us for updates on the schedule for each week.

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Keep an eye out for weekly emails from us for updates on the schedule for each week.

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So you’ll be settling in with your coffee or tea every Saturday morning from 9 am to 12 noon for the next 3 months!

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So you’ll be settling in with your coffee or tea every Saturday morning from 9 am to 12 noon for the next 3 months!

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The payment made will cover access to all of the sessions over the course of 12 weeks, starting May 1st. Plus, you also get to attend all the workshops, instead of having to choose between overlapping sessions, as was the case in the 4-day format. For those of you who have opted for VC Connect, we will have it on one of the weekends after May 1st. We will send you an email with further details very soon.

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The payment made will cover access to all of the sessions over the course of 12 weeks, starting May 1st. Plus, you also get to attend all the workshops, instead of having to choose between overlapping sessions, as was the case in the 4-day format. For those of you who have opted for VC Connect, we will have it on one of the weekends after May 1st. We will send you an email with further details very soon.

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We arrived at this decision after several hours of brainstorming ideas on how we can make SaaSBoomi Annual OnAir 2021 offer the most value to you, while being mindful of the community’s best interests.

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We arrived at this decision after several hours of brainstorming ideas on how we can make SaaSBoomi Annual OnAir 2021 offer the most value to you, while being mindful of the community’s best interests.

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If you have any suggestions, ideas, or inputs, we’d love to hear from you.

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If you have any suggestions, ideas, or inputs, we’d love to hear from you.

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Once again, thank you for your understanding and stay safe. Let’s emerge stronger together!

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Once again, thank you for your understanding and stay safe. Let’s emerge stronger together!

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SaaSBoomi Annual 2021 OnAir – Taking on the Impossible

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“This is going to be really hard. The whole idea of SaaSBoomi Annual is to provide founders a safe space where they can learn from each other. I don't think it's possible if we are doing an online event.”

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“This is going to be really hard. The whole idea of SaaSBoomi Annual is to provide founders a safe space where they can learn from each other. I don't think it's possible if we are doing an online event.”

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“I agree, we will have to tone down our expectations from the event.”

“A SaaSBoomi Annual easily scores 9 out of 10 in leaving the founders inspired after the event. I doubt if we can get it to even a 6 out of 10 in an online format.”

These were bits and pieces from a conversation within the Program team that was put together to design the content and format for SaaSBoomi Annual OnAir 2021. These are some of the prominent names in the SaaS Industry in India - founders, operators, mentors - and folks who are ardent believers in the Pay-It-Forward motto of SaaSBoomi.

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“I agree, we will have to tone down our expectations from the event.”

“A SaaSBoomi Annual easily scores 9 out of 10 in leaving the founders inspired after the event. I doubt if we can get it to even a 6 out of 10 in an online format.”

These were bits and pieces from a conversation within the Program team that was put together to design the content and format for SaaSBoomi Annual OnAir 2021. These are some of the prominent names in the SaaS Industry in India - founders, operators, mentors - and folks who are ardent believers in the Pay-It-Forward motto of SaaSBoomi.

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They’ve all given back to the community in their own ways and are what I’d like to call Rational Optimists. But this conversation seemed to be erring more on the rational side than on the optimism front. For a moment, as a SaaSBoomi volunteer I wondered if we are really going to have an Annual event in 2021. 

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They’ve all given back to the community in their own ways and are what I’d like to call Rational Optimists. But this conversation seemed to be erring more on the rational side than on the optimism front. For a moment, as a SaaSBoomi volunteer I wondered if we are really going to have an Annual event in 2021. 

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And then Krish, co-founder of Chargebee and SaaSBoomi broke the silence with a grin (that shows usually when he’s commenting with a mix of vulnerability and helplessness about things that are not in his control)

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And then Krish, co-founder of Chargebee and SaaSBoomi broke the silence with a grin (that shows usually when he’s commenting with a mix of vulnerability and helplessness about things that are not in his control)

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“Well, so what do we do? None of us are thinking of suspending the Annual for 2021 right?” There was silence, again.

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“Well, so what do we do? None of us are thinking of suspending the Annual for 2021 right?” There was silence, again.

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He continued, “All the concerns we’ve discussed are well founded. But as we all know, there are founders out there who are expecting us to rise up to the occasion and deliver. So let’s focus on how we can do that. Would that make sense?”

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He continued, “All the concerns we’ve discussed are well founded. But as we all know, there are founders out there who are expecting us to rise up to the occasion and deliver. So let’s focus on how we can do that. Would that make sense?”

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I don’t recall the Program team looking back again. SaaSBoomi Annual 2021 OnAir was on.  

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I don’t recall the Program team looking back again. SaaSBoomi Annual 2021 OnAir was on.  

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SaaSBoomi’s Journey from Annual 2020 to 2021

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SaaSBoomi’s Journey from Annual 2020 to 2021

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The apprehensions of conducting an online event cited by the Program team were valid, you see. I was one of the 1000+ startup founders who stood up and applauded when Girish Mathrubootham finished his keynote speech titled “All Constraints are Internal'' during SaaSBoomi Annual 2020.

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The apprehensions of conducting an online event cited by the Program team were valid, you see. I was one of the 1000+ startup founders who stood up and applauded when Girish Mathrubootham finished his keynote speech titled “All Constraints are Internal'' during SaaSBoomi Annual 2020.

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It was 30 mins of personal reflections by one of the flag bearers of the Indian Startup ecosystem and it was an authentic, vulnerable story relatable by all, maybe the reason why it left everyone in the room teary-eyed and with goosebumps. You could not have asked for a better ending to a 2 day event that was packed with learnings from the best SaaS practitioners in India.

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It was 30 mins of personal reflections by one of the flag bearers of the Indian Startup ecosystem and it was an authentic, vulnerable story relatable by all, maybe the reason why it left everyone in the room teary-eyed and with goosebumps. You could not have asked for a better ending to a 2 day event that was packed with learnings from the best SaaS practitioners in India.

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It was clear that it’s going to be impossible to recreate a similar experience in the online world. And if that’s so, it’s natural to feel like toning down the expectations from the Annual gathering this year that can only be conducted online because of the Covid-19 pandemic and rightly so. 

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It was clear that it’s going to be impossible to recreate a similar experience in the online world. And if that’s so, it’s natural to feel like toning down the expectations from the Annual gathering this year that can only be conducted online because of the Covid-19 pandemic and rightly so. 

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Except… except for one thing. And that would be how SaaSBoomi stepped up since March 2020 to fill up the role of a friend, mentor, counselor, and cheerleader for many of the SaaS startups in India. The organisation kept evolving into something big and large-hearted, more like the Genie from Aladdin.

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Except… except for one thing. And that would be how SaaSBoomi stepped up since March 2020 to fill up the role of a friend, mentor, counselor, and cheerleader for many of the SaaS startups in India. The organisation kept evolving into something big and large-hearted, more like the Genie from Aladdin.

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When there were growing concerns of startups struggling to pay their salaries, it introduced the Debt Fund that became a reliable avenue for many startups to find a bridge round of financing.

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When there were growing concerns of startups struggling to pay their salaries, it introduced the Debt Fund that became a reliable avenue for many startups to find a bridge round of financing.

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When it found many founders and startups struggling to cope up with the pressures of running the business through the difficult times, they started the Saathi Program. 

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When it found many founders and startups struggling to cope up with the pressures of running the business through the difficult times, they started the Saathi Program. 

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When it realised the need to help companies navigate through challenges in growth, the Growth program was put together. It attracted more than 250 founders and operators.

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When it realised the need to help companies navigate through challenges in growth, the Growth program was put together. It attracted more than 250 founders and operators.

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When it noticed the dearth of deep-dive learning in the ecosystem, it built the Playbook format and conducted a session every month to facilitate groups of 10 founders to learn from a mentor about a specific craft.

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When it noticed the dearth of deep-dive learning in the ecosystem, it built the Playbook format and conducted a session every month to facilitate groups of 10 founders to learn from a mentor about a specific craft.

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When it got to know about the plight of many startups that wished for an affordable insurance program for their team members, it went ahead and launched Suraksha.

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When it got to know about the plight of many startups that wished for an affordable insurance program for their team members, it went ahead and launched Suraksha.

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When it heard from startups about the need to learn from experts about product and growth, it formulated and kickstarted the Build and GrowthX projects respectively.

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When it heard from startups about the need to learn from experts about product and growth, it formulated and kickstarted the Build and GrowthX projects respectively.

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When it found the industry moving strongly towards Product-Led Growth, it put together Product, a program that’s designed to help startups become product-centric in their mindset.

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When it found the industry moving strongly towards Product-Led Growth, it put together Product, a program that’s designed to help startups become product-centric in their mindset.

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When it observed that founders wanted a safe space where they can talk to each other and learn from each other in a vulnerable manner, it set up the Indian SaaS Tribe, an online community that now has more than 670 active SaaS startup founders.

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When it observed that founders wanted a safe space where they can talk to each other and learn from each other in a vulnerable manner, it set up the Indian SaaS Tribe, an online community that now has more than 670 active SaaS startup founders.

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All of this was done in a timespan of less than 12 months. And that’s SaaSBoomi’s secret sauce - it has built a pay-it-forward community of SaaS founders and ecosystem enablers who have understood the power of achieving something bigger than the individual selves when together.

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All of this was done in a timespan of less than 12 months. And that’s SaaSBoomi’s secret sauce - it has built a pay-it-forward community of SaaS founders and ecosystem enablers who have understood the power of achieving something bigger than the individual selves when together.

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Now, why should you join us at SaaSBoomi Annual 2021 OnAir?

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Now, why should you join us at SaaSBoomi Annual 2021 OnAir?

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Because this event is put together by all of us together. Every person who has been instrumental in initiating those wonderful programs that I talked about in the previous section is coming together and joining hands to conduct the marquee event of SaaSBoomi, that is Annual. It’s designed by all the founders - Avinash Raghava, Girish Mathrubootham, Krish Subramanian, Manav Garg, and Suresh Sambandam - and has every volunteer working hard to deliver 4 days of inspired learning, from April 20 to April 23. 

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Because this event is put together by all of us together. Every person who has been instrumental in initiating those wonderful programs that I talked about in the previous section is coming together and joining hands to conduct the marquee event of SaaSBoomi, that is Annual. It’s designed by all the founders - Avinash Raghava, Girish Mathrubootham, Krish Subramanian, Manav Garg, and Suresh Sambandam - and has every volunteer working hard to deliver 4 days of inspired learning, from April 20 to April 23. 

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It’s designed to help Indian SaaS founders reimagine their vision, strategy, and execution, and create organisations that are “built to last”, and emerge stronger in the post-COVID era. The Program Team featuring Rajoshi Ghosh, Krish Subramanian, Vivek Khandelwal, Varun Shoor, Prasanna Krishamoorthy and Suresh Sambandam have spent weeks understanding the challenges faced by founders over the last year and have come up with a densely packed curriculum. It includes a wide range of topics including how to excel at remote sales, building distributed teams and leveraging community for growth. They’ve designed the programs to accommodate startups from all stages of the SaaS journey.  

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It’s designed to help Indian SaaS founders reimagine their vision, strategy, and execution, and create organisations that are “built to last”, and emerge stronger in the post-COVID era. The Program Team featuring Rajoshi Ghosh, Krish Subramanian, Vivek Khandelwal, Varun Shoor, Prasanna Krishamoorthy and Suresh Sambandam have spent weeks understanding the challenges faced by founders over the last year and have come up with a densely packed curriculum. It includes a wide range of topics including how to excel at remote sales, building distributed teams and leveraging community for growth. They’ve designed the programs to accommodate startups from all stages of the SaaS journey.  

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Adding to that, we are all set to unveil the think-tank collaboration SaaSBoomi had with McKinsey to understand the opportunities of SaaS in India during the Annual event. And we will also be launching the first edition of SaaSBoomi Awards honoring the champions in the Indian SaaS ecosystem. 

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Adding to that, we are all set to unveil the think-tank collaboration SaaSBoomi had with McKinsey to understand the opportunities of SaaS in India during the Annual event. And we will also be launching the first edition of SaaSBoomi Awards honoring the champions in the Indian SaaS ecosystem. 

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Come back to where we started, that is inspiring stories - we have Dheeraj Pandey, co-founder and ex-CEO of Nutanix join us at the Annual. He will be telling us the story of how he led the team to build a new category (hyper-converged) and establish Nutanix as the leader, a case study that has been sliced and diced in many startup circles across the World. And it’s not just Dheeraj, we have a star-studded line-up of founder speakers who are going to be there, telling their stories with the utmost vulnerability and transparency. 

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Come back to where we started, that is inspiring stories - we have Dheeraj Pandey, co-founder and ex-CEO of Nutanix join us at the Annual. He will be telling us the story of how he led the team to build a new category (hyper-converged) and establish Nutanix as the leader, a case study that has been sliced and diced in many startup circles across the World. And it’s not just Dheeraj, we have a star-studded line-up of founder speakers who are going to be there, telling their stories with the utmost vulnerability and transparency. 

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True to our conviction to “Reimagine” the status quo, the event will be packaged in a first-of-its-kind multi-faceted online experience that's accessible, safe, and inclusive. We are doing our best to ensure it will be an immersive experience that reflects all of the things that you’ve come to love about our previous Annual editions. 

So save the date, stay tuned, and get ready to reimagine and co-create Asia’s largest SaaS conference with us. :)

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True to our conviction to “Reimagine” the status quo, the event will be packaged in a first-of-its-kind multi-faceted online experience that's accessible, safe, and inclusive. We are doing our best to ensure it will be an immersive experience that reflects all of the things that you’ve come to love about our previous Annual editions. 

So save the date, stay tuned, and get ready to reimagine and co-create Asia’s largest SaaS conference with us. :)

" } }

AMA with Sakshi Tulsian: Growth strategies for your non-self-serve product

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Users nowadays want to be self-educated about products, so that they can explore, understand, purchase and use the self-serve product on their own. However, some products require human assistance at one or more of these stages. POSist is a cloud-based restaurant technology platform that falls in this category.

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Users nowadays want to be self-educated about products, so that they can explore, understand, purchase and use the self-serve product on their own. However, some products require human assistance at one or more of these stages. POSist is a cloud-based restaurant technology platform that falls in this category.

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Sakshi Tulsian, together with her co-founder Ashish Tulsian, has built and scaled POSist to 30 countries, serving 9,000+ locations. She has built sales teams across geographies and led POSist to high growth since its inception in 2011. Recently, she has been named #40under40 by Business World. 

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Sakshi Tulsian, together with her co-founder Ashish Tulsian, has built and scaled POSist to 30 countries, serving 9,000+ locations. She has built sales teams across geographies and led POSist to high growth since its inception in 2011. Recently, she has been named #40under40 by Business World. 

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In this AMA, Sakshi Tulsian, Co-Founder, POSist, talks about challenges faced in acquiring initial customers, building globally spread sales teams and transitioning to enterprise sales.

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In this AMA, Sakshi Tulsian, Co-Founder, POSist, talks about challenges faced in acquiring initial customers, building globally spread sales teams and transitioning to enterprise sales.

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Acquiring the first customers

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Acquiring the first customers

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There are multiple customer acquisition channels available. What you should start with – inbound, outbound, paid or even offline – is very subjective. Any channel can work for any product; each one needs to be tested to see what fits. As a founder it’s your call which channel you want to start with. Eventually you will be using all of them, but it makes sense to start with what you or your co-founders or other team members are strong in.

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There are multiple customer acquisition channels available. What you should start with – inbound, outbound, paid or even offline – is very subjective. Any channel can work for any product; each one needs to be tested to see what fits. As a founder it’s your call which channel you want to start with. Eventually you will be using all of them, but it makes sense to start with what you or your co-founders or other team members are strong in.

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Channels that worked for POSist

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Channels that worked for POSist

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For POSist, initial customers acquisition was largely inbound. Sakshi says, We figured early on that more than what we can sell, it is for restaurants to also buy from us. This led to focus on educating the industry rather than push sales. Inbound in Indian restaurant industry worked more than outbound and CAC was the lowest too.

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For POSist, initial customers acquisition was largely inbound. Sakshi says, We figured early on that more than what we can sell, it is for restaurants to also buy from us. This led to focus on educating the industry rather than push sales. Inbound in Indian restaurant industry worked more than outbound and CAC was the lowest too.

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Of course, you must remember that Sakshi is talking about the restaurant industry when she says that push sales didn’t work. 

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Of course, you must remember that Sakshi is talking about the restaurant industry when she says that push sales didn’t work. 

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After getting the leads, the inside sales team worked rigorously to convert them. This effort was especially challenging because they are not a self-service product. After the initial few customers, they focused on outbound too.

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After getting the leads, the inside sales team worked rigorously to convert them. This effort was especially challenging because they are not a self-service product. After the initial few customers, they focused on outbound too.

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Some of the channels that have worked for POSist include:

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Some of the channels that have worked for POSist include:

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Content marketing – POSist runs an online publication The Restaurant Times to educate their target customers how they can overcome challenges to grow their business.

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Content marketing – POSist runs an online publication The Restaurant Times to educate their target customers how they can overcome challenges to grow their business.

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Newsletters – Their newsletter has 100k subscribers and still counting.

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Newsletters – Their newsletter has 100k subscribers and still counting.

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PPC – POSist does this as a part of keyword and market discovery, and they are not really bullish on spending on ads as a primary or even secondary source.

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PPC – POSist does this as a part of keyword and market discovery, and they are not really bullish on spending on ads as a primary or even secondary source.

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As for offline channels, here is what Sakshi has to say: Trade shows, conferences and curated events worked wonders for us both in short-term lead gen and long-term brand building.

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As for offline channels, here is what Sakshi has to say: Trade shows, conferences and curated events worked wonders for us both in short-term lead gen and long-term brand building.

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Controlling Customer Acquisition Costs

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Controlling Customer Acquisition Costs

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The customer acquisition costs for products that are not fully self-serve can go through the roof if not done correctly. You must consider onboarding and support as part of the core product and price accordingly. Whether you are new or established, customers pay for what they feel adds value. Of course, it’s your responsibility to display the value provided by the support teams.

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The customer acquisition costs for products that are not fully self-serve can go through the roof if not done correctly. You must consider onboarding and support as part of the core product and price accordingly. Whether you are new or established, customers pay for what they feel adds value. Of course, it’s your responsibility to display the value provided by the support teams.

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"I feel bad when start-ups look at support services as an unnecessary cost center and neither factor for it nor charge."

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"I feel bad when start-ups look at support services as an unnecessary cost center and neither factor for it nor charge."

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Sakshi

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" [1]=> NULL [2]=> string(33) "Sakshi

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Following this principle, POSist was able to make customer acquisition viable since the beginning.

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Following this principle, POSist was able to make customer acquisition viable since the beginning.

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Putting together a sales team

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Putting together a sales team

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Initial sales strategy at POSist was founder-led and Ashish was the organizational face for the customers. But soon they realised that as founder Ashish should get more time to provide leadership and make product decisions rather than be involved in day-to-day operations of any single team, however critical. As soon as the decision was made, they hired an external sales lead and a non-founder-led sales engine was built.

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Initial sales strategy at POSist was founder-led and Ashish was the organizational face for the customers. But soon they realised that as founder Ashish should get more time to provide leadership and make product decisions rather than be involved in day-to-day operations of any single team, however critical. As soon as the decision was made, they hired an external sales lead and a non-founder-led sales engine was built.

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Selling from India

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Selling from India

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Whether you need a local sales team or not depends on who you are selling to. If your customer is an advanced internet user and already uses platforms like VWO or HubSpot, you can do the entire cycle sitting in India and have a local team for ACV of $250k and above. But if your target group is not tech first, selling even for a $50k ACV needs someone to show up in person.

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Whether you need a local sales team or not depends on who you are selling to. If your customer is an advanced internet user and already uses platforms like VWO or HubSpot, you can do the entire cycle sitting in India and have a local team for ACV of $250k and above. But if your target group is not tech first, selling even for a $50k ACV needs someone to show up in person.

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POSist has a sales team based in 5 countries apart from India; mostly 2-4 people teams on ground. They are supported by inside sales team based in India. Sakshi feels that this model works the best for them.

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POSist has a sales team based in 5 countries apart from India; mostly 2-4 people teams on ground. They are supported by inside sales team based in India. Sakshi feels that this model works the best for them.

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Hiring for MENA or West is different

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Hiring for MENA or West is different

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Hiring for sales teams in India is very different to hiring teams to sell in the West or MENA. Sharing some broad geo-neutral sales lessons from POSist playbook, Sakshi says that people who can sell services may not be the ones who can sell a product. In services you get paid for saying yes to customer’s demands and figuring out what the right price would be. But for products, you are required to say no to so many of custom demands and still manage to sell. You need to hire people who can command the conversation, understand customers problems in their own unique ways and then sell. 

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Hiring for sales teams in India is very different to hiring teams to sell in the West or MENA. Sharing some broad geo-neutral sales lessons from POSist playbook, Sakshi says that people who can sell services may not be the ones who can sell a product. In services you get paid for saying yes to customer’s demands and figuring out what the right price would be. But for products, you are required to say no to so many of custom demands and still manage to sell. You need to hire people who can command the conversation, understand customers problems in their own unique ways and then sell. 

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Do not assume people bringing in the rolodex will be able to convert business for you. Customers are smarter than that. Look for hustlers and not for name droppers in your industry.

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Do not assume people bringing in the rolodex will be able to convert business for you. Customers are smarter than that. Look for hustlers and not for name droppers in your industry.

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In India, sales happen on the back of relationships and convincing skills. But when it comes to MENA or the West, product demo and experience of the prospect with your entire process is primary. So, when building a sales team for MENA or the West, hire for attitude and process adherence, not for smooth talk.

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In India, sales happen on the back of relationships and convincing skills. But when it comes to MENA or the West, product demo and experience of the prospect with your entire process is primary. So, when building a sales team for MENA or the West, hire for attitude and process adherence, not for smooth talk.

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Sakshi adds, Make sure you have a cut off for the ones who are not able to bring in monies. There is no other truth to building a sales team. For each rockstar in my sales team, I hired at least 7!

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Sakshi adds, Make sure you have a cut off for the ones who are not able to bring in monies. There is no other truth to building a sales team. For each rockstar in my sales team, I hired at least 7!

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Additionally, in MENA, a lot of Indian companies have spread bad reputation by selling low quality and cheap products as well as not fulfilling promises.

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Additionally, in MENA, a lot of Indian companies have spread bad reputation by selling low quality and cheap products as well as not fulfilling promises.

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Here is Sakshi’s advice to counter this: While recruiting, you should take care not to have sales people who come from companies that have not been a part of such wars. Good buyers are sensitive to that.

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Here is Sakshi’s advice to counter this: While recruiting, you should take care not to have sales people who come from companies that have not been a part of such wars. Good buyers are sensitive to that.

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How good are reseller partners and affiliates initially?

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How good are reseller partners and affiliates initially?

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It did not work out very well for POSist for many years. Sakshi attributes it to two reasons. One, as Sakshi learnt to her considerable loss, resellers and partners are not there to help you. Contrary to the popular belief, they want the company to help them. They want products that can sell themselves. So, resellers are a bad primary strategy for products that are new and do not have much demand. Once the demand for the product and brand happens, you can rely on resellers and affiliates to scale up.

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It did not work out very well for POSist for many years. Sakshi attributes it to two reasons. One, as Sakshi learnt to her considerable loss, resellers and partners are not there to help you. Contrary to the popular belief, they want the company to help them. They want products that can sell themselves. So, resellers are a bad primary strategy for products that are new and do not have much demand. Once the demand for the product and brand happens, you can rely on resellers and affiliates to scale up.

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Two, most resellers and partners look for fast moving commodity. They are not interested in solutions that solve complex problems because that requires much more hard work to get sales. Unless you have a commoditised product, resellers are a bad bet. They can be part of the ecosystem later when the brand identity is established, demand is there and strategic partnerships are in place.

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Two, most resellers and partners look for fast moving commodity. They are not interested in solutions that solve complex problems because that requires much more hard work to get sales. Unless you have a commoditised product, resellers are a bad bet. They can be part of the ecosystem later when the brand identity is established, demand is there and strategic partnerships are in place.

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Parading product pricing to the world

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Parading product pricing to the world

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Jury is still out on whether you should display product pricing on your website or not. It depends on your target market; how receptive they are to upfront pricing and what are their purchase triggers. Also, you need to be clear about what you want out of your sales process.

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Jury is still out on whether you should display product pricing on your website or not. It depends on your target market; how receptive they are to upfront pricing and what are their purchase triggers. Also, you need to be clear about what you want out of your sales process.

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POSist had a pricing page with a clear mention of costs per year per store for the first three years. That helped in setting the expectations of a buyer and weaning out unqualified leads. However, when they started targeting mid-market and enterprise customers, they removed the pricing page as the offering was much more complex and they needed to understand the customer's expectations and budget before quoting. It again helped in qualifying who is our customer and who isn’t. 

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POSist had a pricing page with a clear mention of costs per year per store for the first three years. That helped in setting the expectations of a buyer and weaning out unqualified leads. However, when they started targeting mid-market and enterprise customers, they removed the pricing page as the offering was much more complex and they needed to understand the customer's expectations and budget before quoting. It again helped in qualifying who is our customer and who isn’t. 

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Transitioning from SMBs to Enterprise

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Transitioning from SMBs to Enterprise

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POSist was not selling to enterprises in the early days. They were focused on Indian SMB in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities, and that too narrowed down to QSRs and casual dine-ins. They stayed away from fine dines and restro-bars by design. They started enterprise sales around 2016. The biggest challenge in transitioning to enterprise sales is the product itself. In the case of POSist, they re-wrote the whole software from scratch.

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POSist was not selling to enterprises in the early days. They were focused on Indian SMB in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities, and that too narrowed down to QSRs and casual dine-ins. They stayed away from fine dines and restro-bars by design. They started enterprise sales around 2016. The biggest challenge in transitioning to enterprise sales is the product itself. In the case of POSist, they re-wrote the whole software from scratch.

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Sakshi says, "It was difficult but was needed as the value of your product lies in its architecture. That helped us scale to the enterprise without SMB baggage."

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Sakshi says, "It was difficult but was needed as the value of your product lies in its architecture. That helped us scale to the enterprise without SMB baggage."

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Overcoming challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic

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Overcoming challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic

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No discussion in the post-pandemic era can be complete without talking about the challenges faced by leaders. Sakshi and her team has a very optimistic outlook and that was what helped them keep sane during the initial days of the lockdown. It continues to be difficult for the restaurant industry and here are some tips for you:

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No discussion in the post-pandemic era can be complete without talking about the challenges faced by leaders. Sakshi and her team has a very optimistic outlook and that was what helped them keep sane during the initial days of the lockdown. It continues to be difficult for the restaurant industry and here are some tips for you:

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Keep in touch with your customers and team members. Continuous communication is a real motivation and you will also feel less anxious around them.

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Keep in touch with your customers and team members. Continuous communication is a real motivation and you will also feel less anxious around them.

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Keep your tribe of entrepreneurs around you and spend time with them. The journey of entrepreneurship is lonely and isolation can aggravate it. It’s your choice to be isolated or amidst your tribe.

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Keep your tribe of entrepreneurs around you and spend time with them. The journey of entrepreneurship is lonely and isolation can aggravate it. It’s your choice to be isolated or amidst your tribe.

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Look for mentors and advisors. When you seek their time in good days, they will give you time in bad days on priority.

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Look for mentors and advisors. When you seek their time in good days, they will give you time in bad days on priority.

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" } }

Demystifying the evaluation process

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As an investor, what do we look for and how do we evaluate new SaaS opportunities?

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As an investor, what do we look for and how do we evaluate new SaaS opportunities?

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The Indian SaaS industry has seen tremendous growth over the past decade and is uniquely positioned to take advantage of the multi-billion-dollar global opportunity leveraging its wide base of skilled engineering talent and capital efficiency in product development and sales. We have had the privilege of being investors in enterprise technology globally over the last two decades. The time we’ve spent in the ecosystem has strengthened our conviction on the India SaaS opportunity.

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The Indian SaaS industry has seen tremendous growth over the past decade and is uniquely positioned to take advantage of the multi-billion-dollar global opportunity leveraging its wide base of skilled engineering talent and capital efficiency in product development and sales. We have had the privilege of being investors in enterprise technology globally over the last two decades. The time we’ve spent in the ecosystem has strengthened our conviction on the India SaaS opportunity.

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Given the ecosystem is seeing an increasing number of new SaaS companies and several first-time founders entering the market, our attempt in this blog is to share our view of the key tenets of evaluating a SaaS opportunity as an investor. While the exact investment philosophy and relative importance of different questions may vary across funds and stages of the company, we believe the fundamentals of evaluating a SaaS company broadly remain the same.

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Given the ecosystem is seeing an increasing number of new SaaS companies and several first-time founders entering the market, our attempt in this blog is to share our view of the key tenets of evaluating a SaaS opportunity as an investor. While the exact investment philosophy and relative importance of different questions may vary across funds and stages of the company, we believe the fundamentals of evaluating a SaaS company broadly remain the same.

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When evaluating a SaaS opportunity, we try and answer four key questions:

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When evaluating a SaaS opportunity, we try and answer four key questions:

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Has strong product market fit been achieved in a large addressable market?

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Has strong product market fit been achieved in a large addressable market?

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Is there potential to differentiate and build a moat in the long run?

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Is there potential to differentiate and build a moat in the long run?

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Can the company scale sustainably with the proposed go-to-market strategy?

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Can the company scale sustainably with the proposed go-to-market strategy?

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Is the founding/management team well-placed to scale the company?

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Is the founding/management team well-placed to scale the company?

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We will dig a bit deeper into each of these questions, including outlining the most relevant metrics evaluated in each step (from the bewildering array of metrics publicly available!)

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We will dig a bit deeper into each of these questions, including outlining the most relevant metrics evaluated in each step (from the bewildering array of metrics publicly available!)

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1. Has strong product market fit been achieved in a large addressable market?

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1. Has strong product market fit been achieved in a large addressable market?

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The first step is to evaluate the total addressable market opportunity for the product which istypically estimated basis the expected software spends for the key use case in the relevanttarget set (across SMB/Mid market/Enterprise). This exact process and dynamics can varysignificantly depending on whether the opportunity is brownfield or greenfield. Amongstother things, achieving a strong product market fit is a function of:

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The first step is to evaluate the total addressable market opportunity for the product which istypically estimated basis the expected software spends for the key use case in the relevanttarget set (across SMB/Mid market/Enterprise). This exact process and dynamics can varysignificantly depending on whether the opportunity is brownfield or greenfield. Amongstother things, achieving a strong product market fit is a function of:

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i) how strong is the value proposition,

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i) how strong is the value proposition,

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ii) how low is the friction involved in buying; and

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ii) how low is the friction involved in buying; and

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iii) how institutionalized is the selling process, in the sense that sales has evolved beyond soft sales to known customers led by the founder

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iii) how institutionalized is the selling process, in the sense that sales has evolved beyond soft sales to known customers led by the founder

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Once the addressable opportunity is established as large, product market fit is deemed strong, we look for metrics in three broad areas - Growth, Customer Engagement and Retention.

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Once the addressable opportunity is established as large, product market fit is deemed strong, we look for metrics in three broad areas - Growth, Customer Engagement and Retention.

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	Key metrics
Growth	Growth in new bookings, Revenue Growth from existing customers
	New monthly recurring revenue (MRR) added/month
	Average contract size
Customer engagement	Relevant metrics depending on type of business (e.g DAU, MAU, # of files shared, # of queries raised etc.)
	Net Promoter score
Retention	Gross churn= MRR lost in a given period/MRR at the beginning of a given period
	Account churn= Customers lost in a given period/Customers at the beginning of a given period
	Net churn= MRR lost – MRR from upsells/ MRR at the beginning of a given period

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	Key metrics
Growth	Growth in new bookings, Revenue Growth from existing customers
	New monthly recurring revenue (MRR) added/month
	Average contract size
Customer engagement	Relevant metrics depending on type of business (e.g DAU, MAU, # of files shared, # of queries raised etc.)
	Net Promoter score
Retention	Gross churn= MRR lost in a given period/MRR at the beginning of a given period
	Account churn= Customers lost in a given period/Customers at the beginning of a given period
	Net churn= MRR lost – MRR from upsells/ MRR at the beginning of a given period

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Specifically, for the retention metrics outlined above, we are sharing a few best-in-classbenchmarks (for companies that are sub $15M ARR). These benchmarks, however, can varybasis the exact nature and stage of the business and hence should be adjusted accordingly.

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Specifically, for the retention metrics outlined above, we are sharing a few best-in-classbenchmarks (for companies that are sub $15M ARR). These benchmarks, however, can varybasis the exact nature and stage of the business and hence should be adjusted accordingly.

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Key metrics		Industry benchmarks		
		SMB	Midmarket	Enterprise
Growth	Time from $1M to $10M ARR		2-3 years	
	Average ACV	<$12k	$12-50k	$50k+
Customer engagement	Net promoter score		45%+	
Retention	Gross churn (%)	20-30%	10-20%	<10%
	Net churn (%)	10% to 0%	10% to -10%	10% to -10%

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(819) "

Key metrics		Industry benchmarks		
		SMB	Midmarket	Enterprise
Growth	Time from $1M to $10M ARR		2-3 years	
	Average ACV	<$12k	$12-50k	$50k+
Customer engagement	Net promoter score		45%+	
Retention	Gross churn (%)	20-30%	10-20%	<10%
	Net churn (%)	10% to 0%	10% to -10%	10% to -10%

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Source: Bessemer State of the Cloud report- 2019, ERV portfolio analysis

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Source: Bessemer State of the Cloud report- 2019, ERV portfolio analysis

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In addition to the quantitative metrics, conversations with both existing and churned customers to understand the key pain points, drivers of adoption, product experience, features comparison vs peers and reasons for churn, gives further clarity on the extent of product-market fit.

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In addition to the quantitative metrics, conversations with both existing and churned customers to understand the key pain points, drivers of adoption, product experience, features comparison vs peers and reasons for churn, gives further clarity on the extent of product-market fit.

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2. Is there potential to differentiate and build a moat in the long run?

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2. Is there potential to differentiate and build a moat in the long run?

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Given the rapid growth of vertical specific SaaS companies, increasing competition from newwell-funded start-ups and large established players, this question has started becoming critical for us over the past few years. While there is no perfect way of establishing the ability to build a moat, given both the product and vision of the team evolves significantly over the growth journey, there are few lead indicators that help give a glimpse of how the future could potentially turn out. There are four key points on which we try and dig deeper to build comfort on the long-term sustainability of the product. These include:

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Given the rapid growth of vertical specific SaaS companies, increasing competition from newwell-funded start-ups and large established players, this question has started becoming critical for us over the past few years. While there is no perfect way of establishing the ability to build a moat, given both the product and vision of the team evolves significantly over the growth journey, there are few lead indicators that help give a glimpse of how the future could potentially turn out. There are four key points on which we try and dig deeper to build comfort on the long-term sustainability of the product. These include:

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How complex is the product from an engineering point of view? Is there any proprietary IP/technology involved?

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How complex is the product from an engineering point of view? Is there any proprietary IP/technology involved?

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How many existing software and tools does the product integrate within the customer’s tech? ecosystem? What is the quality and depth of integrations?

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How many existing software and tools does the product integrate within the customer’s tech? ecosystem? What is the quality and depth of integrations?

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What are the typical implementation/replacement timelines for the product and how complex is the process?

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What are the typical implementation/replacement timelines for the product and how complex is the process?

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Does the value of a product to the customer increase over time driven by the use of AI/ML on the platform data, increasing customization or improved team productivity?

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Does the value of a product to the customer increase over time driven by the use of AI/ML on the platform data, increasing customization or improved team productivity?

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The answers to the above questions help us understand the stickiness of the product which is an early indicator of the product having a strong core, thus giving it the ability to retain customers and grow share of wallet with them over time. 

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The answers to the above questions help us understand the stickiness of the product which is an early indicator of the product having a strong core, thus giving it the ability to retain customers and grow share of wallet with them over time. 

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3. Can the company scale sustainably with the proposed go-to-market strategy?

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3. Can the company scale sustainably with the proposed go-to-market strategy?

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For the long-term economic sustainability of the business, we evaluate the core profitability of the business (gross margins) along with the sales efficiency metrics which is estimated differently basis the go-to-market strategy of the company. While the current state of the metrics is a good starting point, we also evaluate the potential levers that can be explored over time to improve the sales efficiency and build a steady state view of the metrics. The comparison of these metrics with typical benchmarks gives an insight into the scalability, viability and efficiency of the company.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(610) "

For the long-term economic sustainability of the business, we evaluate the core profitability of the business (gross margins) along with the sales efficiency metrics which is estimated differently basis the go-to-market strategy of the company. While the current state of the metrics is a good starting point, we also evaluate the potential levers that can be explored over time to improve the sales efficiency and build a steady state view of the metrics. The comparison of these metrics with typical benchmarks gives an insight into the scalability, viability and efficiency of the company.

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Key metrics	Industry Benchmarks
Long term profitability	Gross Margins	80%+
	LTV/CAC= Long term value of the customer/ Customer acquisition  LTV is calculated as Average revenue per customer * gross margin * customer lifetime CAC is calculated as Paid S&M costs/# of new customers	Greater than 3-4x (While this ratio is expected to dip in the near term if Companies over invest into scaling GTM, we adjust for the same (e.g. new sales reps firing below their quotas, optimization of marketing machinery etc.)

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(737) "

Key metrics	Industry Benchmarks
Long term profitability	Gross Margins	80%+
	LTV/CAC= Long term value of the customer/ Customer acquisition  LTV is calculated as Average revenue per customer * gross margin * customer lifetime CAC is calculated as Paid S&M costs/# of new customers	Greater than 3-4x (While this ratio is expected to dip in the near term if Companies over invest into scaling GTM, we adjust for the same (e.g. new sales reps firing below their quotas, optimization of marketing machinery etc.)

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4. Is the founding/management team well-placed to scale the company?

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4. Is the founding/management team well-placed to scale the company?

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The specifics of how a team is evaluated changes significantly based on the stage of the company. In the early stages, the focus remains more on the founding team, their vision, understanding of key customer needs, business acumen and their personal ability to scale from managing a small team to a large organization. Even at early stages, in select cases we have seen founders being able to attract talent, selling the vision of the company, which is a strong indicator of future success.

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The specifics of how a team is evaluated changes significantly based on the stage of the company. In the early stages, the focus remains more on the founding team, their vision, understanding of key customer needs, business acumen and their personal ability to scale from managing a small team to a large organization. Even at early stages, in select cases we have seen founders being able to attract talent, selling the vision of the company, which is a strong indicator of future success.

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In the growth stage, there is additional focus on few key roles in the organization including head of engineering, head of product, head of customer success, head of sales (not exhaustive) which become extremely critical as the company aims to scale aggressively and replicate the product market fit in its core across a much larger base of clients in multiple geographies. There should be strong resonance between the founders, key management team and the company on challenges that lie before it and overall business strategy. It is also critical that the management has a nuanced understanding of both the customers and sales process across different target markets and has a tailor-made approach depending on the specifics of each geography.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(763) "

In the growth stage, there is additional focus on few key roles in the organization including head of engineering, head of product, head of customer success, head of sales (not exhaustive) which become extremely critical as the company aims to scale aggressively and replicate the product market fit in its core across a much larger base of clients in multiple geographies. There should be strong resonance between the founders, key management team and the company on challenges that lie before it and overall business strategy. It is also critical that the management has a nuanced understanding of both the customers and sales process across different target markets and has a tailor-made approach depending on the specifics of each geography.

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Last, but not least, in the growth stage, as companies scale beyond the founding team and core management, having a strong organizational culture becomes critical in attracting and retaining talent, and improving productivity and motivation levels. Since startups are often run by small mission-focused teams, their “culture” is usually a reflection of the founder or founding team's personality and passions. We have seen seasoned founders focus on culture from the word “go” instead of relegating it as an afterthought which becomes very evident during conversations with both current and ex-employees. 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(623) "

Last, but not least, in the growth stage, as companies scale beyond the founding team and core management, having a strong organizational culture becomes critical in attracting and retaining talent, and improving productivity and motivation levels. Since startups are often run by small mission-focused teams, their “culture” is usually a reflection of the founder or founding team's personality and passions. We have seen seasoned founders focus on culture from the word “go” instead of relegating it as an afterthought which becomes very evident during conversations with both current and ex-employees. 

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While the above is not exhaustive, we hope this blog helps provide first-time and seasoned entrepreneurs a look into how investors evaluate SaaS opportunities and gives clarity on the key metrics to measure and track to determine the health of the business. We would love to hear from folks in the ecosystem for any feedback or additional inputs.

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While the above is not exhaustive, we hope this blog helps provide first-time and seasoned entrepreneurs a look into how investors evaluate SaaS opportunities and gives clarity on the key metrics to measure and track to determine the health of the business. We would love to hear from folks in the ecosystem for any feedback or additional inputs.

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Maneesh Menon and Aditya Systla are investors at Eight Roads Ventures India. The views in this article are their own.

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Maneesh Menon and Aditya Systla are investors at Eight Roads Ventures India. The views in this article are their own.

" } }

Announcing the SaaSBoomi Annual edition, 20-23rd April OnAir

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It’s that time of the year again when the entire volunteer community starts meeting on a regular basis. After waiting and debating for the last few months, we are finally pleased to announce the OnAir version of the annual edition of the SaaSBoomi conference. 

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It’s that time of the year again when the entire volunteer community starts meeting on a regular basis. After waiting and debating for the last few months, we are finally pleased to announce the OnAir version of the annual edition of the SaaSBoomi conference. 

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Some of you might be aware that we were initially planning to do a hybrid version of the conference, where you would have had the option to attend the conference either from the comfort of your homes or physically in your city and network with your friends, etc. 

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Some of you might be aware that we were initially planning to do a hybrid version of the conference, where you would have had the option to attend the conference either from the comfort of your homes or physically in your city and network with your friends, etc. 

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However, signs of worry started emerging as India's daily COVID-19 cases went back to level 2, and so we decided to play it safe and continue with a virtual-only edition. Hopefully, we’d be able to organise a networking event for all the attendees in your city, once things go back to normal. 

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However, signs of worry started emerging as India's daily COVID-19 cases went back to level 2, and so we decided to play it safe and continue with a virtual-only edition. Hopefully, we’d be able to organise a networking event for all the attendees in your city, once things go back to normal. 

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So what can you expect from SaaSBoomi Annual OnAir?

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So what can you expect from SaaSBoomi Annual OnAir?

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We received feedback from many of our attendees from the past editions, that sitting in front of the computer the entire day was a bit tricky and listening to the speakers back-to-back was very tough. So this time, we are breaking up the entire conference into multiple days. 

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We received feedback from many of our attendees from the past editions, that sitting in front of the computer the entire day was a bit tricky and listening to the speakers back-to-back was very tough. So this time, we are breaking up the entire conference into multiple days. 

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So we start on the 20th of April with a supercharged keynote address and follow it up with a few workshops in the morning for about 2-3 hours. We follow the same format for 21st and 22nd April. On the 23rd, we will have a host of inspiring sessions from Founders and Leaders. After a short lunch break, we will continue with the VC 1-to-1 meetings. 

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So we start on the 20th of April with a supercharged keynote address and follow it up with a few workshops in the morning for about 2-3 hours. We follow the same format for 21st and 22nd April. On the 23rd, we will have a host of inspiring sessions from Founders and Leaders. After a short lunch break, we will continue with the VC 1-to-1 meetings. 

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In essence, you’ll be consuming 15-16 hours worth of content, distributed across 4 days. Stay tuned to receive the final agenda. 

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In essence, you’ll be consuming 15-16 hours worth of content, distributed across 4 days. Stay tuned to receive the final agenda. 

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But here’s a sneak peek into some of the topics* that would get covered at the conference:

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But here’s a sneak peek into some of the topics* that would get covered at the conference:

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B2D: How to get to your first $100K ARR and then scale [workshop]

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B2D: How to get to your first $100K ARR and then scale [workshop]

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Global SMB: Pricing for profit and growth [workshop]

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Global SMB: Pricing for profit and growth [workshop]

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Enterprise: Marketing and selling large deals to global enterprise completely remotely [workshop]

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Enterprise: Marketing and selling large deals to global enterprise completely remotely [workshop]

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Getting Unstuck: Going from sub-10% growth to 10Mn [workshop]

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Getting Unstuck: Going from sub-10% growth to 10Mn [workshop]

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Horizontal: Tax, Cross border, Compliance [workshop]

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Horizontal: Tax, Cross border, Compliance [workshop]

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Horizontal: 10K-100K - Getting ICP right by the time you get to 100K [workshop]

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Horizontal: 10K-100K - Getting ICP right by the time you get to 100K [workshop]

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Vertical SaaS: Marketing for vertical SaaS [workshop]

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Vertical SaaS: Marketing for vertical SaaS [workshop]

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Org Design for Growth [workshop] 

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Org Design for Growth [workshop] 

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Shaping India’s SaaS Landscape - [SaaSBoomi - McKinsey Report launch]

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Shaping India’s SaaS Landscape - [SaaSBoomi - McKinsey Report launch]

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Services -> SaaS transformation [Talk]

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Services -> SaaS transformation [Talk]

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Success in SE Asia SaaS [Talk]

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Success in SE Asia SaaS [Talk]

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Getting out of India after the first $1Mn [Talk]

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Getting out of India after the first $1Mn [Talk]

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Adding a services moat after $500K [Talk]

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Adding a services moat after $500K [Talk]

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Closing a $1Mn deal fully remotely [Talk]

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Closing a $1Mn deal fully remotely [Talk]

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Building products that sell themselves from Bhopal -> Boston [Talk]

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Building products that sell themselves from Bhopal -> Boston [Talk]

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https://www.youtube.com/embed/nxBBxQM9if8

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https://www.youtube.com/embed/nxBBxQM9if8

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I’d like to dive a bit deeper into two new, ambitious initiatives that we’ll be launching at SaaSBoomi Annual OnAir.

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I’d like to dive a bit deeper into two new, ambitious initiatives that we’ll be launching at SaaSBoomi Annual OnAir.

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Over the last couple of months, we have been jointly working with McKinsey towards 

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Over the last couple of months, we have been jointly working with McKinsey towards 

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" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(9) "

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Shaping India’s SaaS landscape

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Shaping India’s SaaS landscape

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We’ve prepared a research report on the opportunities for the SaaS landscape in India through two lenses: Microscopic (12-18 month view) and Telescopic (3-5 year view).

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We’ve prepared a research report on the opportunities for the SaaS landscape in India through two lenses: Microscopic (12-18 month view) and Telescopic (3-5 year view).

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As a part of this study, we:

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As a part of this study, we:

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Benchmark the performance of Indian SaaS companies across 30+ key operational and financial metrics with their global peers

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Benchmark the performance of Indian SaaS companies across 30+ key operational and financial metrics with their global peers

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Discover key insights on the strengths and development areas for the Indian SaaS ecosystem

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Discover key insights on the strengths and development areas for the Indian SaaS ecosystem

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We will be leveraging McKinsey’s SaaSRadar database for this effort, which contains benchmarks on key growth, margin, and investment topics across 300+ pre-IPO SaaS companies globally.

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We will be leveraging McKinsey’s SaaSRadar database for this effort, which contains benchmarks on key growth, margin, and investment topics across 300+ pre-IPO SaaS companies globally.

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The second initiative that I’m excited about is the SaaSBoomi Awards, where we’ll be recognising the most deserving Indian SaaS companies for their achievements. We’re grateful for the sheer number of nominations we’ve received from you, making it all the more difficult for our jury to pick the awardees. We are just as eager as you are to know about the winners.

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The second initiative that I’m excited about is the SaaSBoomi Awards, where we’ll be recognising the most deserving Indian SaaS companies for their achievements. We’re grateful for the sheer number of nominations we’ve received from you, making it all the more difficult for our jury to pick the awardees. We are just as eager as you are to know about the winners.

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Lead Without Barriers

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Lead Without Barriers

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We have taken it upon ourselves to make conscious efforts to drive diversity and equal representation of women in SaaS, for SaaSBoomi Annual OnAir. 

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We have taken it upon ourselves to make conscious efforts to drive diversity and equal representation of women in SaaS, for SaaSBoomi Annual OnAir. 

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Our current objective is to secure at least 20% of participation by women in the event, and have women speakers in each session. This isn’t a quota per se, these targets are to hold ourselves accountable to find and promote SaaS leaders who are women.

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Our current objective is to secure at least 20% of participation by women in the event, and have women speakers in each session. This isn’t a quota per se, these targets are to hold ourselves accountable to find and promote SaaS leaders who are women.

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We have a dedicated Diversity and Inclusion team working on this project. This is a small step that we have taken towards creating more awareness and building a focussed outreach for empowering women in SaaS. Our ultimate goal is to achieve diversity across all spectrums and spheres of the SaaS ecosystem.

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We have a dedicated Diversity and Inclusion team working on this project. This is a small step that we have taken towards creating more awareness and building a focussed outreach for empowering women in SaaS. Our ultimate goal is to achieve diversity across all spectrums and spheres of the SaaS ecosystem.

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The Pay it Forward movement

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The Pay it Forward movement

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The entire SaaSBOOMi platform is built on the philosophy of paying it forward. SaaSBoomi Annual is our flagship, exclusive, founder-centric event created by the country’s most successful SaaS leaders, who’ll also be transparently sharing their playbooks with the community.

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The entire SaaSBOOMi platform is built on the philosophy of paying it forward. SaaSBoomi Annual is our flagship, exclusive, founder-centric event created by the country’s most successful SaaS leaders, who’ll also be transparently sharing their playbooks with the community.

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A zero-fluff conference for SaaS founders, packed with deep-dive workshops and learnings. With close to 550+ attendees and an NPS score of 85+, SaaSBoomi 2020 proved to be a phenomenal hit. And this time, it is only going to get bigger and better.

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A zero-fluff conference for SaaS founders, packed with deep-dive workshops and learnings. With close to 550+ attendees and an NPS score of 85+, SaaSBoomi 2020 proved to be a phenomenal hit. And this time, it is only going to get bigger and better.

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SaaSBoomi 2021 will be a must-attend event for SaaS founders who want to join a thriving community of industry leaders for a two-day immersive and enriching learning experience.

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SaaSBoomi 2021 will be a must-attend event for SaaS founders who want to join a thriving community of industry leaders for a two-day immersive and enriching learning experience.

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We have close to 500+ founders in our Slack community and many of the topics are created based on the discussions out there...so we know exactly what you are looking for and where you need help. Save the date, stay tuned, and get ready to reimagine and co-create Asia’s largest SaaS conference with us.

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We have close to 500+ founders in our Slack community and many of the topics are created based on the discussions out there...so we know exactly what you are looking for and where you need help. Save the date, stay tuned, and get ready to reimagine and co-create Asia’s largest SaaS conference with us.

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If you are someone who is keen to help us with logistics or marketing, do reach out to us, we will try and take your help.

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If you are someone who is keen to help us with logistics or marketing, do reach out to us, we will try and take your help.

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This is Avinash Raghava, signing out on behalf of the SaaSBoomi community.

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This is Avinash Raghava, signing out on behalf of the SaaSBoomi community.

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Meet the volunteer team who puts together the event!

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Meet the volunteer team who puts together the event!

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How to structure your engineering-product org for faster delivery

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(9378) "How to structure your engineering-product org for faster delivery Would you spend 25% of your first fundraise on one hire?  How about returning your first cheque from your first client just because you know they do not fit your product? And when that cheque is for $100,000?  These are just some of the high-risk but, in hindsight, right bets that Shruti Ghatge placed when she was initially building her SaaS startup Zomentum. Zomentum, which offers a sales acceleration platform for IT Channel Partners is just three years old.  And they just announced their Series A funding of $13 million from Elevation Capital, Accel, Greenoaks Capital and Eight Roads Ventures. Facing the risk I operate from a place where if the payoff from the bet is disproportionate, I will take it. I would rather face the risk than regret not doing it,” says Shruti, who was a former analyst at Accel. In fact, her startup journey began with a calculated risk: Not building a product at all for over a year and instead speaking to potential customers. Shruti credits her experience in the venture capital world—she was with Exfinity Venture Partners before Accel—for this and other key decisions she made as she started-up Zomentum with Rahil Shah. 

Distribution trumps product

When she was starting up she was clear she wanted to build a SaaS company offering technology for SMEs. It was a $600 billion market. The questions that remained were what and how.  To get to these answers, Shruti started out with an assumption—distribution trumps product. Her VC experience informed these critical assumptions. Shruti says. “I was meeting a lot of startups on a daily basis and realised that building products today is not the hard part. Engineering today is almost a commodity and cloud has brought down costs for building new products. I realised that the best products don't necessarily win, the ones with the best distribution win. So the thesis we started off at the time was, is there a way to build this whole Go To Market (GTM) engine or distribution specifically for SMB.” She and Rahil decided not to focus on building a product first, but just speak to potential customers.  “It's very easy to build. Once you start writing code, then you have the whole baggage of ‘I have to stick with this and I have to find people who are facing this problem because I've already built it’. But imagine that after six months of building, the product goes nowhere. That failure is bigger,” says Shruti. A few months into this customer research journey, they zeroed in on their distribution thesis.

Finding the buyer persona

SMEs, especially in developed markets, need to use multiple software products to run their business and most are not tech savvy enough to make their tech decisions on their own. Having a dedicated tech support employee is an unnecessary and high expense for such businesses. So most SMBs use IT Channel Partners or Managed Service Providers (MSP) as their trusted tech advisor to make their tech decisions. So it made sense to target these advisors.  “We realised if you had to go to the end SMB, you had to go via their trusted adviser, and the question was how do we do that? The answer was to become the champion of that trusted adviser or the IT partner, by making their life easy so they are able to build or give best of breed products for their SMB clients,” says Shruti. That is how they zeroed in on their product—a sales acceleration platform built for IT Channel Partners. Shweta Bhatia, Partner and Head of Technology Investments, at ‎Eight Roads Ventures India., says it was the clarity of vision that Shruti had that led the venture fund to invest in Zomentum.  “It is a big vision—she wants to really influence in a big way how SMEs purchase software. Plus, she has a very clear roadmap on how she wants to get there. She's identified the Managed Service Provider (MSP), or the IT partner, as the key influencer of the $150 billion+ spend that SMEs incur on IT,” says Shweta.  She adds that when targeting this set, most SaaS companies go at it the traditional way of building a product for the SMB customer, and then selling to the SMB customer directly through marketing and sales activities. It is also after reaching some meaningful scale that they think about getting acceptance by a partner channel.  “Shruti is interestingly taking a 20,000 foot view and saying ‘instead of SaaS solutions getting to tap channel partners only eventually, how do I get great products to tap the channel right at the start by plugging into the Zomentum network’. Most SaaS founders take a few years to identify and get traction with channel partners after already having invested in building their own sales and marketing motions. Shruti has identified this pain point from the get go.” 

Customer Research = GTM Strategy

Shruti realised that to meet and speak with her potential customers, she needed to go where they congregated, as email outreach and other such forms of communication were not working. The key people in the IT Channel Partner ecosystem hung out in groups online and offline. So that’s where she went. Shruti found the community to be receptive, especially when they realised she was attempting to solve a challenge of theirs. At this early stage Zomentum was not yet focusing on the US market. It was during these initial months, when there was no real product, that Shruti took a booth at a conference in Singapore and found the startup’s first paying customer. With a cheque of $100,000 in hand things should have been great. But, as the startup began working on understanding that customer’s problems and building a solution for them, Shruti realised that there was no potential for repeatability in Southeast Asia. At the same time, the conversations in the US were going great and ticked the scale and repeatability boxes. Which is when Shruti decided to return the cheque, turn down the customer and focus on the US. With a clear market focus and the beginnings of the product, Shruti took the decision to spend 25% of her angel round of funding on one hire. This was because something interesting had happened along the way. While doing the customer research, she had discovered her GTM strategy. Since the target customers hung out in certain online and offline communities and conferences, it made the most sense to do marketing outreach in these settings. “Ours is a very unconventional way (of outreach). It's not digital marketing, it's actually finding the right communities that these guys hung out in,” says Shruti. Having a voice trusted by this community to speak about Zomentum and the newly developed product became crucial. This was that early hire—someone whose words would be valued by the customers. Also, Zomentum’s first 100 customers came from the pool of people and companies Shruti and Rahil interacted with during the research phase.  Zomentum launched its beta product in late-2019 and monetised it in January 2020. Today, Shruti has built a cross border team of over 60 and hundreds of businesses as clients. The pandemic, in fact, saw SMBs increasingly opting for technology, which helped IT Channel Partners and that in turn propelled Zomentum’s growth. Shruti also concluded their two rounds of funding in the midst of the pandemic. The goal remains offering solutions to SMBs. So while the team continues to focus on bettering and deepening their sales acceleration product for IT Channel Partners, it is also working on the adjacent products for the same customer persona. The next module is expected this quarter. Shruti credits Zomentum’s growth to the time spent on talking to customers, finding the pain point that the customer wanted help with, and building that solution. “We saw great growth and adoption after our product launched and that's because we did the groundwork. Nobody realises that one and a half years of struggle. I don't want to romanticise it. They were tough days, because there was nothing we could measure. Have we made progress? There were many low days, days of not knowing what we were doing. But the growth we're seeing now is because we spent those one to two years just figuring it out”, she says." ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(9378) "How to structure your engineering-product org for faster delivery Would you spend 25% of your first fundraise on one hire?  How about returning your first cheque from your first client just because you know they do not fit your product? And when that cheque is for $100,000?  These are just some of the high-risk but, in hindsight, right bets that Shruti Ghatge placed when she was initially building her SaaS startup Zomentum. Zomentum, which offers a sales acceleration platform for IT Channel Partners is just three years old.  And they just announced their Series A funding of $13 million from Elevation Capital, Accel, Greenoaks Capital and Eight Roads Ventures. Facing the risk I operate from a place where if the payoff from the bet is disproportionate, I will take it. I would rather face the risk than regret not doing it,” says Shruti, who was a former analyst at Accel. In fact, her startup journey began with a calculated risk: Not building a product at all for over a year and instead speaking to potential customers. Shruti credits her experience in the venture capital world—she was with Exfinity Venture Partners before Accel—for this and other key decisions she made as she started-up Zomentum with Rahil Shah. 

Distribution trumps product

When she was starting up she was clear she wanted to build a SaaS company offering technology for SMEs. It was a $600 billion market. The questions that remained were what and how.  To get to these answers, Shruti started out with an assumption—distribution trumps product. Her VC experience informed these critical assumptions. Shruti says. “I was meeting a lot of startups on a daily basis and realised that building products today is not the hard part. Engineering today is almost a commodity and cloud has brought down costs for building new products. I realised that the best products don't necessarily win, the ones with the best distribution win. So the thesis we started off at the time was, is there a way to build this whole Go To Market (GTM) engine or distribution specifically for SMB.” She and Rahil decided not to focus on building a product first, but just speak to potential customers.  “It's very easy to build. Once you start writing code, then you have the whole baggage of ‘I have to stick with this and I have to find people who are facing this problem because I've already built it’. But imagine that after six months of building, the product goes nowhere. That failure is bigger,” says Shruti. A few months into this customer research journey, they zeroed in on their distribution thesis.

Finding the buyer persona

SMEs, especially in developed markets, need to use multiple software products to run their business and most are not tech savvy enough to make their tech decisions on their own. Having a dedicated tech support employee is an unnecessary and high expense for such businesses. So most SMBs use IT Channel Partners or Managed Service Providers (MSP) as their trusted tech advisor to make their tech decisions. So it made sense to target these advisors.  “We realised if you had to go to the end SMB, you had to go via their trusted adviser, and the question was how do we do that? The answer was to become the champion of that trusted adviser or the IT partner, by making their life easy so they are able to build or give best of breed products for their SMB clients,” says Shruti. That is how they zeroed in on their product—a sales acceleration platform built for IT Channel Partners. Shweta Bhatia, Partner and Head of Technology Investments, at ‎Eight Roads Ventures India., says it was the clarity of vision that Shruti had that led the venture fund to invest in Zomentum.  “It is a big vision—she wants to really influence in a big way how SMEs purchase software. Plus, she has a very clear roadmap on how she wants to get there. She's identified the Managed Service Provider (MSP), or the IT partner, as the key influencer of the $150 billion+ spend that SMEs incur on IT,” says Shweta.  She adds that when targeting this set, most SaaS companies go at it the traditional way of building a product for the SMB customer, and then selling to the SMB customer directly through marketing and sales activities. It is also after reaching some meaningful scale that they think about getting acceptance by a partner channel.  “Shruti is interestingly taking a 20,000 foot view and saying ‘instead of SaaS solutions getting to tap channel partners only eventually, how do I get great products to tap the channel right at the start by plugging into the Zomentum network’. Most SaaS founders take a few years to identify and get traction with channel partners after already having invested in building their own sales and marketing motions. Shruti has identified this pain point from the get go.” 

Customer Research = GTM Strategy

Shruti realised that to meet and speak with her potential customers, she needed to go where they congregated, as email outreach and other such forms of communication were not working. The key people in the IT Channel Partner ecosystem hung out in groups online and offline. So that’s where she went. Shruti found the community to be receptive, especially when they realised she was attempting to solve a challenge of theirs. At this early stage Zomentum was not yet focusing on the US market. It was during these initial months, when there was no real product, that Shruti took a booth at a conference in Singapore and found the startup’s first paying customer. With a cheque of $100,000 in hand things should have been great. But, as the startup began working on understanding that customer’s problems and building a solution for them, Shruti realised that there was no potential for repeatability in Southeast Asia. At the same time, the conversations in the US were going great and ticked the scale and repeatability boxes. Which is when Shruti decided to return the cheque, turn down the customer and focus on the US. With a clear market focus and the beginnings of the product, Shruti took the decision to spend 25% of her angel round of funding on one hire. This was because something interesting had happened along the way. While doing the customer research, she had discovered her GTM strategy. Since the target customers hung out in certain online and offline communities and conferences, it made the most sense to do marketing outreach in these settings. “Ours is a very unconventional way (of outreach). It's not digital marketing, it's actually finding the right communities that these guys hung out in,” says Shruti. Having a voice trusted by this community to speak about Zomentum and the newly developed product became crucial. This was that early hire—someone whose words would be valued by the customers. Also, Zomentum’s first 100 customers came from the pool of people and companies Shruti and Rahil interacted with during the research phase.  Zomentum launched its beta product in late-2019 and monetised it in January 2020. Today, Shruti has built a cross border team of over 60 and hundreds of businesses as clients. The pandemic, in fact, saw SMBs increasingly opting for technology, which helped IT Channel Partners and that in turn propelled Zomentum’s growth. Shruti also concluded their two rounds of funding in the midst of the pandemic. The goal remains offering solutions to SMBs. So while the team continues to focus on bettering and deepening their sales acceleration product for IT Channel Partners, it is also working on the adjacent products for the same customer persona. The next module is expected this quarter. Shruti credits Zomentum’s growth to the time spent on talking to customers, finding the pain point that the customer wanted help with, and building that solution. “We saw great growth and adoption after our product launched and that's because we did the groundwork. Nobody realises that one and a half years of struggle. I don't want to romanticise it. They were tough days, because there was nothing we could measure. Have we made progress? There were many low days, days of not knowing what we were doing. But the growth we're seeing now is because we spent those one to two years just figuring it out”, she says." } }

The 3 mistakes of my startup, with Srikrishnan Ganesan of Rocketlane

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(6307) "This is the first of a series of interviews we are doing for SaaSBoomi.  The premise is simple: We ask some of our most successful entrepreneurs the three mistakes they made when starting up—the ones they would like to revisit and perhaps change. The intent is to learn from the mistakes our successful entrepreneurs have made, so we can avoid them and, maybe, make new ones.

Welcome to the 3 mistakes of my startup. 

This first interview is with Srikrishnan Ganesan, co-founder of collaborative customer on-boarding startup Rocketlane. His first startup, user-engagement platform Konotor, was acquired by Freshworks in 2015.

This gave me an opportunity to ask another question: How is he making sure he’s not making the same mistake again? Here we go then, edition one of the three mistakes of my startup.  Over to Srikrishnan. Answers were edited and structured for effect.

Mistake 1

Srikrishnan: When we launched in 2012, we got into a market that just wasn’t big enough, and also did not have momentum with it at the time.  We had to ‘will’ traction into happening, and that is always difficult to do. Part of the reason this happened was that we fooled ourselves about the real size of the market. The question you have to answer is who will pay for this, and not who will need this. We also were very rigid about what we were building, versus what problem we were solving, and for who. This time, we are much more conscious of market size. The initial wedge that we are taking into the market may be small today, but there’s good momentum behind it. And we already know the direction we are taking to expand the market.

Mistake 2

Srikrishnan: We hired people too late.  We were just three people in the company for the first two years, and this held us back. We had Fortune 50 customers, and 16 million active users on our platform—all of this driven by three people. This meant a lot of stress and needless exertion. Even when we knew we had money coming in, we waited till the money was actually literally hitting the bank to make our hires.This definitely affected our ability to invest energy into figuring the right growth path.  Rocketlane is already 18 people. Even in the year of the pandemic, we were ready to invest in talent, and we spent a lot of effort getting this right early.

Mistake 3

Srikrishnan: We ignored insights offered by our customers and salespersons.  When customers told us they needed our product for the web (it was built for mobile), we were too idealistic. We would respond that the customer expectations and engagement style on mobile and web are different, and hence it doesn't make sense to use one tool for both.  While there was some truth to that—they wanted to have just one team engage with customers both on web and mobile, and hence wanted one tool. We didn’t think about the practicality of what the customers wanted —that they did not need two or more tools—and the opportunity that gave us.  We should have built for the web as well, and made it infinitely easier to go-live.  I also noticed our salesperson was calling us a "notification platform" and getting us customer meetings. I was upset as that was just one of our features, not realizing this was a foot in the door, and that we could later upsell our whole inbox and message to them. Instead, I would correct him and make him say ‘we are a mobile customer engagement platform’ and explain that it had messaging, notifications, and other features.  I wanted customers to buy into our vision, but it might have been easier to chase the momentum that notifications had at the time. Of course, my bigger vision also complicated the deal as it now needed multiple stakeholders to buy into it. This time, we aren’t taking any chances. We are clear: problem > product, and are recording every conversation with customers, figuring out their problems and goals, understanding intent, and trying to solve for those, whether via product or even otherwise.

Last word 

We didn’t realise it as we built it, but in the end we had a product that needed to involve multiple stakeholders in the buying decision. This meant multiple buyer personas, which became a problem.   We would easily convince the product team, and marketing would understand the benefit, but we would stall at getting support to adopt it. If we started with support, we would still need to be prioritized by-product to be on the product roadmap. Everyone needed to be convinced, and that became a problem in larger deals. This time, we thought early about this problem.  Do we need buy-in from multiple stakeholders or do we need to convince  just one team? Other products in our space were selling to multiple teams, but we decided to stick to solving the problem for one specific team.  And yes, this means you should be thinking about your buyer persona even as you are building the product." ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(6307) "This is the first of a series of interviews we are doing for SaaSBoomi.  The premise is simple: We ask some of our most successful entrepreneurs the three mistakes they made when starting up—the ones they would like to revisit and perhaps change. The intent is to learn from the mistakes our successful entrepreneurs have made, so we can avoid them and, maybe, make new ones.

Welcome to the 3 mistakes of my startup. 

This first interview is with Srikrishnan Ganesan, co-founder of collaborative customer on-boarding startup Rocketlane. His first startup, user-engagement platform Konotor, was acquired by Freshworks in 2015.

This gave me an opportunity to ask another question: How is he making sure he’s not making the same mistake again? Here we go then, edition one of the three mistakes of my startup.  Over to Srikrishnan. Answers were edited and structured for effect.

Mistake 1

Srikrishnan: When we launched in 2012, we got into a market that just wasn’t big enough, and also did not have momentum with it at the time.  We had to ‘will’ traction into happening, and that is always difficult to do. Part of the reason this happened was that we fooled ourselves about the real size of the market. The question you have to answer is who will pay for this, and not who will need this. We also were very rigid about what we were building, versus what problem we were solving, and for who. This time, we are much more conscious of market size. The initial wedge that we are taking into the market may be small today, but there’s good momentum behind it. And we already know the direction we are taking to expand the market.

Mistake 2

Srikrishnan: We hired people too late.  We were just three people in the company for the first two years, and this held us back. We had Fortune 50 customers, and 16 million active users on our platform—all of this driven by three people. This meant a lot of stress and needless exertion. Even when we knew we had money coming in, we waited till the money was actually literally hitting the bank to make our hires.This definitely affected our ability to invest energy into figuring the right growth path.  Rocketlane is already 18 people. Even in the year of the pandemic, we were ready to invest in talent, and we spent a lot of effort getting this right early.

Mistake 3

Srikrishnan: We ignored insights offered by our customers and salespersons.  When customers told us they needed our product for the web (it was built for mobile), we were too idealistic. We would respond that the customer expectations and engagement style on mobile and web are different, and hence it doesn't make sense to use one tool for both.  While there was some truth to that—they wanted to have just one team engage with customers both on web and mobile, and hence wanted one tool. We didn’t think about the practicality of what the customers wanted —that they did not need two or more tools—and the opportunity that gave us.  We should have built for the web as well, and made it infinitely easier to go-live.  I also noticed our salesperson was calling us a "notification platform" and getting us customer meetings. I was upset as that was just one of our features, not realizing this was a foot in the door, and that we could later upsell our whole inbox and message to them. Instead, I would correct him and make him say ‘we are a mobile customer engagement platform’ and explain that it had messaging, notifications, and other features.  I wanted customers to buy into our vision, but it might have been easier to chase the momentum that notifications had at the time. Of course, my bigger vision also complicated the deal as it now needed multiple stakeholders to buy into it. This time, we aren’t taking any chances. We are clear: problem > product, and are recording every conversation with customers, figuring out their problems and goals, understanding intent, and trying to solve for those, whether via product or even otherwise.

Last word 

We didn’t realise it as we built it, but in the end we had a product that needed to involve multiple stakeholders in the buying decision. This meant multiple buyer personas, which became a problem.   We would easily convince the product team, and marketing would understand the benefit, but we would stall at getting support to adopt it. If we started with support, we would still need to be prioritized by-product to be on the product roadmap. Everyone needed to be convinced, and that became a problem in larger deals. This time, we thought early about this problem.  Do we need buy-in from multiple stakeholders or do we need to convince  just one team? Other products in our space were selling to multiple teams, but we decided to stick to solving the problem for one specific team.  And yes, this means you should be thinking about your buyer persona even as you are building the product." } }

AMA with Sparsh Gupta: Crafting Success with New SaaS Product Category

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(16243) "Sparsh Gupta is the co-founder at Wingify, a SaaS-based A/B testing company. Its flagship product is the VWO (Visual Website Optimizer), used by 4K+ clients spread across 90 countries. Together with Paras Chopra, Sparsh founded Wingify in 2009 and has bootstrapped it to $23 million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR). With Wingify, Sparsh and Paras crafted a new category. When the company launched, A/B testing was in its infancy; not many businesses had heard of it and even fewer had tried it. The two of them essentially created a market for their product, educated the prospects, and then converted them to customers.  In this AMA, Sparsh Gupta answers questions about content marketing, organizational structure, hiring and retaining talent, and balancing the roles of co-founders. If have a SaaS startup idea or have already launched one, dive straight in, especially if you are targeting a new category.

Content marketing is the way to go

At Wingify, the focus was always inbound marketing and the main lever was content; there was no offline marketing, trade shows, paid marketing, or outbound. Sparsh says,

Historically we never focused on outbound. Even now, nearly 99% of Wingify’s revenue is inbound, so it was certainly not cold reach outs.

What they mainly focused on was content marketing. Creating content to grow the A/B testing market itself as it was a new segment. In 2010-11, when VWO (Visual Website Optimizer) was launched, the A/B testing market was new. They focused on producing lots of educational content that made the potential customers realize this pain and the potential solution to it. As it was non-marketing content about A/B testing and not specific to VWO, a lot of forums picked it up. The Wingify team also pushed it across channels and over time, there started a flow of inbound leads/demand). Converting those visitors into customers was easy because they were already highly qualified. As the value prop and ROI were already part of the educative material they had been through, they were primed for conversion. To get an idea about how valuable the content produced by Wingify was, go read this ultimate guide to A/B testing published in Smashing Magazine. Published 10 years ago, people still find it useful; check comment dates if you don’t believe me! As they were not marketing VWO but the concepts of A/B testing, people took it more positively. When they wanted to know more, people went to them for help and started using their offerings.  The intent must be to care about what customers want, not what you want. This will change the message to be about helping them and not selling your solution. When you are open about all players/products in the market and their pros/cons, as Wingify did, you are treated as the influencer and the go-to person for solving the pain points. Which, to be honest, was your motive to start with? Thus, producing honest, informative, and problem-solving content eventually establishes you as the leader in your industry.

Should you pay for content or branding marketing?

Creating content for the sake of content achieves nothing. If you write one good piece, it can continue to generate leads for years. Quality over quantity is what B2B customers want today; try putting out one valuable piece of content per month rather than one every day. Sparsh is of the opinion that no one has enough context of the market, industry, and customer needs to write something that adds value. The ideal case is where the founders write themselves. He adds,

We were lucky that Paras (my co-founder) writes beautifully and loves writing. He did almost all the initial content himself, and he still writes regularly. Good content writers are hard to find.

But then, SEO alone is not what gets you results; there should be a lot of customer advocacy and branding at play. Paid marketing is also an inbound channel in Wingify’s books (almost 40%) though people often debate this. Sparsh feels that paid is a very important channel. However, if the market saturates the CPCs get crazy. It is difficult to differentiate between brand and content marketing. Because brand is an outcome of everything you do, including content. As you grow, brand marketing starts taking more space and you must focus on that more.

Hiring right & retaining talent

Hiring the right person is one of the biggest levers of success and hence you should do whatever it takes to get the best person in your team. Sparsh is of the opinion that this is not something you can easily outsource. Initially, he was driving all hiring at Wingify, so he spent a good time on it – sometimes as much as 50% of the total working hours in a day – depending upon the criticality of the hire.  He still takes 3-4 interviews a week across roles and departments, though they have a dedicated team to source and filter candidates. If they are hiring a leader or a senior person, he will spend more time on it. It is challenging to attract and retain the right talent when the lure of top-funded startups is so high, right in Bangalore, where Wingify is based. Salary cannot be the differentiating factor here. Someone will always be willing to pay more. As Sparsh honestly puts it,

Salaries is one thing which we place ourselves at around 85 percentile in the market (using some reports from public surveys). It’s impossible to be the highest paymaster in the industry as someone else will certainly pay good talent more.  I have seen growth of an individual, work he is doing, and colleagues he is working with end up being bigger motivators.

Sparsh also feels that motivation for diverse teams and diverse talent can be varied. You need to treat an engineer differently from a sales guy because their professional needs and parameters of success are different.

Building the right organizational structure

Building the right team, be it product, sales, marketing or customer support, is a constant work in progress. The structure should evolve to pre-empt the roadblocks to your growth and solve the problems.  Here’s a sneak peek into how the Wingify team took shape.

Sales team at Wingify

To start with, they hired a sales rep just to give product demos. They had inbound demand and a recorded demo, but many people wanted personalized ones. The sales rep handled in-person demos. From that one sales rep, the team has grown into a 40-people team spread globally. When they were $3-5 million MRR, they had 5-6 AMs (no ADMs), across regions, catering to inbound leads end to end.

Hiring the first product manager

Any business needs a well-balanced team to grow. Hiring the first product manager (PM) depends completely on organizational needs.  Ideally, a PM must understand a customer's pain points well, envision a potential solution to those problems, get quick proof of concept (POC), validate them, and then scale them over time. Someone in the team has to be doing this since inception. At Wingify, Sparsh and his co-founder Paras Chopra were the initial PMs and continued to lead the product for the first 5 years. The first PM was hired in 2015. Currently, Wingify has a team of 5 PMs in a 250+ strong team. For a SaaS start-up product is the most important component. If you (and your co-founders) have more expertise on the sales side, you need to hire a PM sooner. On the other hand, if you focus more on the product, you need to hire a sales team first. 

Ideal marketing team structure

Sparsh feels there is no perfect structure for the marketing team. It should depend on your marketing goals. As he puts it,

The structure keeps changing time and again, and as I speak here, we are evolving a bit and changing the structure. Very broadly, we have someone owning organic side of marketing (and focus on SEO, Content, and all experiments around it), we have an owner for Paid marketing, and there are teams around product marketing, customer marketing. And a backend team of engineers, designers, content writers to support all teams.

Customer Success & Support team

For a product that is self-serving, like most SaaS products are, the role of customer success and support teams is to fill product gaps. Though ideally, for a product organization, there should be no need for customer support and service. But at times, the product may require some tech integration during onboarding. In such a scenario, it is important to get clarity on what customers want.   If you are building a customer support team from scratch, it’s best to get it straight from the horse’s mouth. Setting up something theoretical won’t solve customer's pain points. If customers are looking for tech help, get some engineers to dedicate time to do support, which was how the customer support team at Wingify started. If customers have generic needs explaining the product and onboarding process can help, get people for that.  Over time, some will gravitate more towards talking to customers and solving their issues while others will focus on the core product. And voila, you have your customer success team ready, where everyone is doing what they love and are an expert at. Wingify has multiple teams within their Customer Support & Success team:

• Customer Success – It focuses on ensuring the customer is getting the value they expect from VWO and that we are successfully solving their pain points.
• Product Success – They have three teams:
  • Product Support for all inbound support requests. They have a tech support group and a non-tech support group, though everyone is expected to take care of basic support needs.
  • Product Consultation for solution needs. They are the technical support people who come up with solutions if there is a specific requirement like integration. They understand the customers’ problems and solve it, using VWO or otherwise.
  • Product Implementation for writing code. They implemented the solution proposed by the Product Consultation team.
• CRO Success – The team focuses on educating people on A/B testing and Conversion Rate Optimization.

Other teams like Documentation, Training, etc. work with these three teams to ensure customers get everything they need. Sparsh emphasizes that building the right team structure takes time.

These structures evolved over time, initially all this was done by a single person (our first hire) and it evolved gradually as more sophisticated unit. This is how I started. We did a lot of support and we hired our first employee to do support as we were not getting any time to do development.

Buy or build – the most common problem for tech investors

Build vs. Buy is probably the most important decision for any startup. Sparsh advises that everything should not be built just because you can. This is the biggest mistake tech founders make; there is no need to reinvent each cycle. The way you should evaluate the need to build or buy is this. If something is core to what you do and impacts your customers then build it. Else buy it. In the long term, this pays off immensely.  Wingify built its own A/B framework for testing and measuring landing pages. Sparsh treats it as their biggest mistake at that time. But then, the year was 2008. There were hardly any tools in India and the international ones were very steeply-priced for Indian markets. For instance, Omniture was the big player then but quite expensive.  Sparsh says, Being engineers we made the mistake of investing internally. This was one of the learnings. The team should focus every second on doing what customers want and need. Any time spent outside on what the company needs is cost and non-value added. And then, lots of startups don’t need sophisticated Martech tools. You can start with a spreadsheet and some cheap $10 products that will do what you want. Start with the basics; you don’t need Intercom to provide chat and bot, and you don't need Marketo or Hubspot for collecting databases and sending emails. You can add these tools to your stack when you grow big. As it is, while starting out, one doesn’t need 80% of the features that come with a big tool; having clarity there will help you find the right product at affordable rates. Sparsh is a big fan of Excel; he feels it can do most of the jobs if used well.

Final thoughts

Balancing roles and responsibilities in a team of founders must be done skillfully. The ideal is to have complementary skills so that together you can take care of all aspects of the business. For instance, at Wingify, Sparsh is more involved in Sales & Customer Success whereas Paras drives the marketing. However, the product is where both of them focus, which again underlines the importance of product for a SaaS company.  If you don’t have particular skills, hire as fast as you can. As the company grows, you should have leaders for everything; scaling up is not possible if the founders are driving everything on a day-to-day basis. They must be available to jump in wherever they can add value and provide the much-needed leadership." ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(16243) "Sparsh Gupta is the co-founder at Wingify, a SaaS-based A/B testing company. Its flagship product is the VWO (Visual Website Optimizer), used by 4K+ clients spread across 90 countries. Together with Paras Chopra, Sparsh founded Wingify in 2009 and has bootstrapped it to $23 million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR). With Wingify, Sparsh and Paras crafted a new category. When the company launched, A/B testing was in its infancy; not many businesses had heard of it and even fewer had tried it. The two of them essentially created a market for their product, educated the prospects, and then converted them to customers.  In this AMA, Sparsh Gupta answers questions about content marketing, organizational structure, hiring and retaining talent, and balancing the roles of co-founders. If have a SaaS startup idea or have already launched one, dive straight in, especially if you are targeting a new category.

Content marketing is the way to go

At Wingify, the focus was always inbound marketing and the main lever was content; there was no offline marketing, trade shows, paid marketing, or outbound. Sparsh says,

Historically we never focused on outbound. Even now, nearly 99% of Wingify’s revenue is inbound, so it was certainly not cold reach outs.

What they mainly focused on was content marketing. Creating content to grow the A/B testing market itself as it was a new segment. In 2010-11, when VWO (Visual Website Optimizer) was launched, the A/B testing market was new. They focused on producing lots of educational content that made the potential customers realize this pain and the potential solution to it. As it was non-marketing content about A/B testing and not specific to VWO, a lot of forums picked it up. The Wingify team also pushed it across channels and over time, there started a flow of inbound leads/demand). Converting those visitors into customers was easy because they were already highly qualified. As the value prop and ROI were already part of the educative material they had been through, they were primed for conversion. To get an idea about how valuable the content produced by Wingify was, go read this ultimate guide to A/B testing published in Smashing Magazine. Published 10 years ago, people still find it useful; check comment dates if you don’t believe me! As they were not marketing VWO but the concepts of A/B testing, people took it more positively. When they wanted to know more, people went to them for help and started using their offerings.  The intent must be to care about what customers want, not what you want. This will change the message to be about helping them and not selling your solution. When you are open about all players/products in the market and their pros/cons, as Wingify did, you are treated as the influencer and the go-to person for solving the pain points. Which, to be honest, was your motive to start with? Thus, producing honest, informative, and problem-solving content eventually establishes you as the leader in your industry.

Should you pay for content or branding marketing?

Creating content for the sake of content achieves nothing. If you write one good piece, it can continue to generate leads for years. Quality over quantity is what B2B customers want today; try putting out one valuable piece of content per month rather than one every day. Sparsh is of the opinion that no one has enough context of the market, industry, and customer needs to write something that adds value. The ideal case is where the founders write themselves. He adds,

We were lucky that Paras (my co-founder) writes beautifully and loves writing. He did almost all the initial content himself, and he still writes regularly. Good content writers are hard to find.

But then, SEO alone is not what gets you results; there should be a lot of customer advocacy and branding at play. Paid marketing is also an inbound channel in Wingify’s books (almost 40%) though people often debate this. Sparsh feels that paid is a very important channel. However, if the market saturates the CPCs get crazy. It is difficult to differentiate between brand and content marketing. Because brand is an outcome of everything you do, including content. As you grow, brand marketing starts taking more space and you must focus on that more.

Hiring right & retaining talent

Hiring the right person is one of the biggest levers of success and hence you should do whatever it takes to get the best person in your team. Sparsh is of the opinion that this is not something you can easily outsource. Initially, he was driving all hiring at Wingify, so he spent a good time on it – sometimes as much as 50% of the total working hours in a day – depending upon the criticality of the hire.  He still takes 3-4 interviews a week across roles and departments, though they have a dedicated team to source and filter candidates. If they are hiring a leader or a senior person, he will spend more time on it. It is challenging to attract and retain the right talent when the lure of top-funded startups is so high, right in Bangalore, where Wingify is based. Salary cannot be the differentiating factor here. Someone will always be willing to pay more. As Sparsh honestly puts it,

Salaries is one thing which we place ourselves at around 85 percentile in the market (using some reports from public surveys). It’s impossible to be the highest paymaster in the industry as someone else will certainly pay good talent more.  I have seen growth of an individual, work he is doing, and colleagues he is working with end up being bigger motivators.

Sparsh also feels that motivation for diverse teams and diverse talent can be varied. You need to treat an engineer differently from a sales guy because their professional needs and parameters of success are different.

Building the right organizational structure

Building the right team, be it product, sales, marketing or customer support, is a constant work in progress. The structure should evolve to pre-empt the roadblocks to your growth and solve the problems.  Here’s a sneak peek into how the Wingify team took shape.

Sales team at Wingify

To start with, they hired a sales rep just to give product demos. They had inbound demand and a recorded demo, but many people wanted personalized ones. The sales rep handled in-person demos. From that one sales rep, the team has grown into a 40-people team spread globally. When they were $3-5 million MRR, they had 5-6 AMs (no ADMs), across regions, catering to inbound leads end to end.

Hiring the first product manager

Any business needs a well-balanced team to grow. Hiring the first product manager (PM) depends completely on organizational needs.  Ideally, a PM must understand a customer's pain points well, envision a potential solution to those problems, get quick proof of concept (POC), validate them, and then scale them over time. Someone in the team has to be doing this since inception. At Wingify, Sparsh and his co-founder Paras Chopra were the initial PMs and continued to lead the product for the first 5 years. The first PM was hired in 2015. Currently, Wingify has a team of 5 PMs in a 250+ strong team. For a SaaS start-up product is the most important component. If you (and your co-founders) have more expertise on the sales side, you need to hire a PM sooner. On the other hand, if you focus more on the product, you need to hire a sales team first. 

Ideal marketing team structure

Sparsh feels there is no perfect structure for the marketing team. It should depend on your marketing goals. As he puts it,

The structure keeps changing time and again, and as I speak here, we are evolving a bit and changing the structure. Very broadly, we have someone owning organic side of marketing (and focus on SEO, Content, and all experiments around it), we have an owner for Paid marketing, and there are teams around product marketing, customer marketing. And a backend team of engineers, designers, content writers to support all teams.

Customer Success & Support team

For a product that is self-serving, like most SaaS products are, the role of customer success and support teams is to fill product gaps. Though ideally, for a product organization, there should be no need for customer support and service. But at times, the product may require some tech integration during onboarding. In such a scenario, it is important to get clarity on what customers want.   If you are building a customer support team from scratch, it’s best to get it straight from the horse’s mouth. Setting up something theoretical won’t solve customer's pain points. If customers are looking for tech help, get some engineers to dedicate time to do support, which was how the customer support team at Wingify started. If customers have generic needs explaining the product and onboarding process can help, get people for that.  Over time, some will gravitate more towards talking to customers and solving their issues while others will focus on the core product. And voila, you have your customer success team ready, where everyone is doing what they love and are an expert at. Wingify has multiple teams within their Customer Support & Success team:

• Customer Success – It focuses on ensuring the customer is getting the value they expect from VWO and that we are successfully solving their pain points.
• Product Success – They have three teams:
  • Product Support for all inbound support requests. They have a tech support group and a non-tech support group, though everyone is expected to take care of basic support needs.
  • Product Consultation for solution needs. They are the technical support people who come up with solutions if there is a specific requirement like integration. They understand the customers’ problems and solve it, using VWO or otherwise.
  • Product Implementation for writing code. They implemented the solution proposed by the Product Consultation team.
• CRO Success – The team focuses on educating people on A/B testing and Conversion Rate Optimization.

Other teams like Documentation, Training, etc. work with these three teams to ensure customers get everything they need. Sparsh emphasizes that building the right team structure takes time.

These structures evolved over time, initially all this was done by a single person (our first hire) and it evolved gradually as more sophisticated unit. This is how I started. We did a lot of support and we hired our first employee to do support as we were not getting any time to do development.

Buy or build – the most common problem for tech investors

Build vs. Buy is probably the most important decision for any startup. Sparsh advises that everything should not be built just because you can. This is the biggest mistake tech founders make; there is no need to reinvent each cycle. The way you should evaluate the need to build or buy is this. If something is core to what you do and impacts your customers then build it. Else buy it. In the long term, this pays off immensely.  Wingify built its own A/B framework for testing and measuring landing pages. Sparsh treats it as their biggest mistake at that time. But then, the year was 2008. There were hardly any tools in India and the international ones were very steeply-priced for Indian markets. For instance, Omniture was the big player then but quite expensive.  Sparsh says, Being engineers we made the mistake of investing internally. This was one of the learnings. The team should focus every second on doing what customers want and need. Any time spent outside on what the company needs is cost and non-value added. And then, lots of startups don’t need sophisticated Martech tools. You can start with a spreadsheet and some cheap $10 products that will do what you want. Start with the basics; you don’t need Intercom to provide chat and bot, and you don't need Marketo or Hubspot for collecting databases and sending emails. You can add these tools to your stack when you grow big. As it is, while starting out, one doesn’t need 80% of the features that come with a big tool; having clarity there will help you find the right product at affordable rates. Sparsh is a big fan of Excel; he feels it can do most of the jobs if used well.

Final thoughts

Balancing roles and responsibilities in a team of founders must be done skillfully. The ideal is to have complementary skills so that together you can take care of all aspects of the business. For instance, at Wingify, Sparsh is more involved in Sales & Customer Success whereas Paras drives the marketing. However, the product is where both of them focus, which again underlines the importance of product for a SaaS company.  If you don’t have particular skills, hire as fast as you can. As the company grows, you should have leaders for everything; scaling up is not possible if the founders are driving everything on a day-to-day basis. They must be available to jump in wherever they can add value and provide the much-needed leadership." } }

#SaaSBooMi Enterprise – A Guide to Demystify Hyperscale for Enterprise Software Startups

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The second edition of the much-awaited Bootcamp for Indian Enterprise SaaS Startups is back this year scheduled for 30th August in Bangalore.

SaaSBoomi Enterprise is here and we couldn’t be more excited. SaaSBoomi Enterprise (earlier known as SaaSe) is a one-day, invite-only bootcamp for promising enterprise software businesses with $1M ARR, who aspire to reach the $25 M milestone in the next 2 to 3 years.

The bootcamp will continue to focus on decoding nitty-gritties of achieving hyper-growth and building category-leading SaaS companies. This year’s agenda has been specially curated to provide attendees with power-packed sessions with actionable learnings from some of the best SaaS minds in India.

We have seen plenty of instances when a budding startup post experiencing growth in the initial years start getting stagnant. Despite good rounds of funding, scaling their business into category-leading SaaS companies seems to be an esoteric goal for our Indian SaaS startups. Should you add more features? Should you hire more people? Or should you change your go-to-marketing strategy?… are some of the questions they continue to struggle with.

Well, we will hopefully provide you with answers to some of your questions at the event.

SaaSe is now #SaaSBoomi enterprise — Why the name change?

“There were two teams working individually on these events earlier, albeit towards the same goal. After taking into our account the overwhelmingly positive response to SaaSBoomi held earlier in Chennai this year and our growing community of SaaSpreneurs, we want to consolidate our efforts in building India as global SaaS leaders and be recognized under one aegis.”

Event theme

This year’s event is themed around ‘Demystifying Hyperscale,’ where we intend to help Indian SaaSpreneurs scale faster by providing them with a ready and practical reckoner with solid insights.

“SaaSBoomi is a unique, one-day intensive bootcamp brought to you by Indian SaaS founders, who have been there and done that, to help promising enterprise software startups demystify the next steps of achieving hyperscale.”

Epic Sessions

We believe we have what it takes to make India a global SaaS leader in the next couple of years. And, as a consortium formed by SaaSpreneurs, we want to help speed that up by providing detailed and practical reckoners to the next generation of SaaSpreneurs and help them navigate the entire value chain of building a company of scale. The intensive sessions will focus on three key aspects of achieving hyperscale — Understanding the Market, Getting the Sales Strategy Right and Ensuring Customer Success.

• Understanding the Market: What is product-market fit? How do you find it? How do you go about it? These are some of the questions our speakers will dwell into during the session.
• Sales Strategy: As part of this topic our speakers will deep-dive into the challenges of selling to enterprises and take attendees through strategies they adopted to crack this.
• Ensuring Customer Success: Done right customer success could be the strongest pillar of growth. Understand what it takes to get this right — from onboarding, communication, nurturing, retention and advocacy to exit feedbacks.

While the sessions are a key feature of the event, we want to make sure all attendees get ample room to probe into minds of speakers — and their experience — for insights that can be applied to their own business model. It is also the reason why this Bootcamp is limited to 35 participants (more than one representative can attend from each participating company). Last year we hosted the first edition of SaaSBoomi enterprise, where Aneesh Reddy, Co-founder and CEO Capillary Technologies, along with his key team members from sales provided all participants a rare, insider’s view into how Capillary went from $5 million to $50 million in revenues. In the last couple of years, Capillary perfected the art of mid-market enterprise sales and added $3 million to $4 million in revenue every year. This feat was not without its challenges and it took Aneesh several hits and misses to finally arrive at a playbook for enterprise sales that they now follow. And believe it or not, true to the event’s spirit, Aneesh and his team opened up this playbook and shared their templates on market and sales strategy, customer success and more with all participants for them to adapt as per their requirements. [caption id="attachment_14338" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Startups who attended the event last year[/caption]

Startups who attended the event last year.

One size doesn’t fit all. What worked for one startup doesn’t necessarily have to work for the other. While our speakers from established SaaS businesses are opening up their playbooks it is really up to the entrepreneurs how they mold these learnings in a way that works best for them. The agenda is going to be out soon and we have room for only 35 startups. So, get in touch with us right away!

How to participate?

• This event is primarily for enterprise startups with $1 Mn revenue
• Get referred through an organizing team member of #SaaSBoomi Enterprise
• Fill up the form here and mention who can refer you

[caption id="attachment_14339" align="aligncenter" width="1280"] The team behind the SaaSBoomi Enterprise edition[/caption]

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(9470) "

The second edition of the much-awaited Bootcamp for Indian Enterprise SaaS Startups is back this year scheduled for 30th August in Bangalore.

SaaSBoomi Enterprise is here and we couldn’t be more excited. SaaSBoomi Enterprise (earlier known as SaaSe) is a one-day, invite-only bootcamp for promising enterprise software businesses with $1M ARR, who aspire to reach the $25 M milestone in the next 2 to 3 years.

The bootcamp will continue to focus on decoding nitty-gritties of achieving hyper-growth and building category-leading SaaS companies. This year’s agenda has been specially curated to provide attendees with power-packed sessions with actionable learnings from some of the best SaaS minds in India.

We have seen plenty of instances when a budding startup post experiencing growth in the initial years start getting stagnant. Despite good rounds of funding, scaling their business into category-leading SaaS companies seems to be an esoteric goal for our Indian SaaS startups. Should you add more features? Should you hire more people? Or should you change your go-to-marketing strategy?… are some of the questions they continue to struggle with.

Well, we will hopefully provide you with answers to some of your questions at the event.

SaaSe is now #SaaSBoomi enterprise — Why the name change?

“There were two teams working individually on these events earlier, albeit towards the same goal. After taking into our account the overwhelmingly positive response to SaaSBoomi held earlier in Chennai this year and our growing community of SaaSpreneurs, we want to consolidate our efforts in building India as global SaaS leaders and be recognized under one aegis.”

Event theme

This year’s event is themed around ‘Demystifying Hyperscale,’ where we intend to help Indian SaaSpreneurs scale faster by providing them with a ready and practical reckoner with solid insights.

“SaaSBoomi is a unique, one-day intensive bootcamp brought to you by Indian SaaS founders, who have been there and done that, to help promising enterprise software startups demystify the next steps of achieving hyperscale.”

Epic Sessions

We believe we have what it takes to make India a global SaaS leader in the next couple of years. And, as a consortium formed by SaaSpreneurs, we want to help speed that up by providing detailed and practical reckoners to the next generation of SaaSpreneurs and help them navigate the entire value chain of building a company of scale. The intensive sessions will focus on three key aspects of achieving hyperscale — Understanding the Market, Getting the Sales Strategy Right and Ensuring Customer Success.

• Understanding the Market: What is product-market fit? How do you find it? How do you go about it? These are some of the questions our speakers will dwell into during the session.
• Sales Strategy: As part of this topic our speakers will deep-dive into the challenges of selling to enterprises and take attendees through strategies they adopted to crack this.
• Ensuring Customer Success: Done right customer success could be the strongest pillar of growth. Understand what it takes to get this right — from onboarding, communication, nurturing, retention and advocacy to exit feedbacks.

While the sessions are a key feature of the event, we want to make sure all attendees get ample room to probe into minds of speakers — and their experience — for insights that can be applied to their own business model. It is also the reason why this Bootcamp is limited to 35 participants (more than one representative can attend from each participating company). Last year we hosted the first edition of SaaSBoomi enterprise, where Aneesh Reddy, Co-founder and CEO Capillary Technologies, along with his key team members from sales provided all participants a rare, insider’s view into how Capillary went from $5 million to $50 million in revenues. In the last couple of years, Capillary perfected the art of mid-market enterprise sales and added $3 million to $4 million in revenue every year. This feat was not without its challenges and it took Aneesh several hits and misses to finally arrive at a playbook for enterprise sales that they now follow. And believe it or not, true to the event’s spirit, Aneesh and his team opened up this playbook and shared their templates on market and sales strategy, customer success and more with all participants for them to adapt as per their requirements. [caption id="attachment_14338" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Startups who attended the event last year[/caption]

Startups who attended the event last year.

One size doesn’t fit all. What worked for one startup doesn’t necessarily have to work for the other. While our speakers from established SaaS businesses are opening up their playbooks it is really up to the entrepreneurs how they mold these learnings in a way that works best for them. The agenda is going to be out soon and we have room for only 35 startups. So, get in touch with us right away!

How to participate?

• This event is primarily for enterprise startups with $1 Mn revenue
• Get referred through an organizing team member of #SaaSBoomi Enterprise
• Fill up the form here and mention who can refer you

[caption id="attachment_14339" align="aligncenter" width="1280"] The team behind the SaaSBoomi Enterprise edition[/caption]

" } }

Sales <> Marketing: Let There Be Conflict

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Lockdown, webinars, virtual meetings, and boredom by metrics. That’s what the last 56 days have been for me. Amid all this, I have also been enjoying solving jigsaw puzzles and getting acquainted with Peppa Pig and her family with my daughter, and not to forget adding the disinfectant to the water while mopping the floor! There was a sense of FOMO when Instagram was filled with my colleagues’ culinary trial runs, but after a couple of mishaps, there was certainly a JOMO (Joy of Missing Out) so I decided to stick to just playing to my strengths.

Talk about a new normal, and the routine that got set, I was also missing interacting with a large set of folks, until Sachin from Ameyo and I interacted to understand what it takes for sales and marketing to be in sync. Well, that’s certainly an oxymoron and every CEO’s unfulfilled dream. It certainly made for a great topic at SaaSBoomi’s Growth edition where over 200 participants attended coming from over 75 startups (from an application of 300 startups that had to be curated for restricted entry). He told me about the panel he was going to moderate, and I was like “Let’s do this!” (virtually though)

I spoke about the Sales and Marketing love in the SMB world, while Almitra from CleverTap articulated it beautifully from an enterprise perspective while Rajesh (Whatfix) and Naven KY (Chargebee) were Sales ops strikers who nailed the importance of Brahma having the last word. Brahma? Yes, I’ll come to that in a few paragraphs from now.

Let’s just put it out there. Marketing folks are more data-driven, are highly analytical, and campaigns always looking to plan for the future. Sales on the other hand work with different kinds of customers and switch gears between being emotional and rational based on customer’s needs, and their only aim is to close, thereby living in the present. It is just impossible to get them to work together. But it is certainly possible to lay some ground rules and keep the objective very clear- Revenue.

So, what does it take for an SMB marketing team to tango with the Sales team? First, let’s look at how sales and marketing in the SMB world have evolved over a period of time. Our session also aimed at answering the “Where should the SDR / BDR report be? Should it evolve over time?

Marketing and Sales Team Structures

Sales: It’s always easy, you grow a sales team as and when we have the opportunity to extract more from a sales territory. You end up slicing the cake vertically for deeper focus as against covering a larger area when you are starting off. As you grow your business, you also have to have hunters and farmers to successfully execute a land and expand strategy.

Marketing: For the rest of the blog, I shall talk about marketing only in the context of lead gen and growth marketing. To have a better sync, for SMB marketing to be successful, it is best to mimic a sales org, but that’s not going to be possible instantly as you start off. As you start off the business of lead gen, your only aim is to generate leads, and there are 2 important teams- Digital marketing (if you are in the business of inbound marketing, wanting to scale your share in your business category) comprising of SEO teams (you don’t want to burn money from Day1) and a paid marketing team to accentuate your SEO efforts. As you grow your business, it’s best suited for BDRs in the SDR org to be a part of marketing. More about it soon down.

Sales and marketing Performance Indicators don’t change

“Revenue solves all known problems” — Eric Smith

Sales: It’s all about MRR in an inbound SMB business. The teams are measured monthly on the $$ that they bring to the bank and the number of logos acquired. As you acquire more logos, you also have an opportunity to cross-sell and upsell subscriptions of your product(s).

Marketing: We were very clear on what a North Star metric for for marketing — Free Trials. Choose your North Star metric that propels your sales. It could be demos, or someone filling up the contact us form- but that should be the sacrosanct metric every marketer should be measured against. The point of conflict been sales and marketing is always the differentiation in success metrics. To speak the common language, make sure your marketing has a good understanding of revenue, and so tag revenue as a soft metric of measurement in the marketing camp as well. It works!

Complexity in Targets matures as you grow older

It’s never easy to get sales and marketing to speak the same dialect, but the language is the same.

When I joined Freshdesk then in 2015, we had the sales and marketing interlock session on the 25th of December to discuss the 2016 plans. As facile as it may sound, the sales multiplied the no. of sales folks with the leads per person (approx 350- free trials then), and arrived at the leads to be generated for 2016. We (marketing) negotiated that based on a couple of year’s history of lead-gen and arrived at a “mutually agreeable” leads to be generated, but as you are experimenting, and setting up systems, such planning is thrown out of the window. When the planned revenue is achieved, everything may sound “well planned”. As we grew in our 10th year of operation,

Sales: continue to plan for monthly revenue, but the complexity added are by:

• Product
• Geo
• New Revenue
• Farming
• Employee. size

Marketing: has got to sing the same song. So the cookie crumbles by:

• MQL’s
• Demo requests
• White paper downloads
• CPLs
• English vs Language websites’ inbound interests

Inbound Marketing Sales & Marketing funnel

The traditional marketing funnel has evolved from companies finding customers and running mass media campaigns to generate awareness and interest to customers finding companies through search and other means. In other words, the role of marketing in B2B SaaS has evolved from being responsible to create awareness and interest to now going a couple of steps deeper in the funnel to become a demand center that’s good at inbound marketing.

So, where does that “hand-shake” happen?

Earlier, it was the job of the marketing to fill the top of the funnel- create awareness, and pique the interests of a larger audience, and those interested will automatically go down the funnel. SaaS marketing has changed. It is now the responsibility of the marketing to take this lower down the funnel by doing enough research on the prospect, and after an evaluation, an SQL is born. It is here when the sales team shakes hands with the marketing team. Hence, as you may have noticed, the BDR’s belonging to an SDR team report to the marketing team, and not the sales, as this also enables proper marketing attribution- which in itself is a separate topic of discussion.

Read more about this here.

Ares of conflict between sales and Marketing

A relationship without conflicts is a farce, and sales and marketing teams are no different.

As you may see from the above illustration, these are the most common areas of conflict between sales and marketing. These conflicts are great to have, don’t even try to put a full stop to end these conflicts. The day when your sales leader says he/she’s happy with the leads, or when your marketing feels that there is no other opportunity to expand campaigns, let me tell you the business is not in the right hands. But till then, please feel free to introduce your Bhrama (sales/ revenue ops)- a CEO’s trustworthy aide who does a great balancing act. As a startup CEO, you are often caught up between sales & marketing conflicts and lean towards the sales (and rightly so, as revenue is a north star indicator of success), but the marketing folks may be doing a great job of targeting the right audiences through the funnel.

As Naven (the Brahma of Chargebee) aptly put it, a cadence between Sales & Marketing is successful when discussing the rule of three. (Slides borrowed from Naven KY):

Source: Role of Sales Ops by Naven KY

And, finally,

It takes eons to get a sign-off between Sales and Marketing, and we have so far been successful by doing a both- top-down and bottom-up approach to our annual operating plans (AOP). There is always an opportunity to grow XX times YoY, but there are also constraints. A well-executed AOP takes into account all the constraints while still looking at doubling down on areas of opportunity.

A successful sign-off has the following ingredients well-cooked:

• Clear definition of new revenue to be achieved
• Geographies that business thinks it needs to double down on based on opportunity
• All products cannot grow at the same rate. APRA’s have to.
• Revenue broken down by hunting and farming
• Revenue per lead. It is important to define what a lead is, and look at historical trends of this metric along with the website conversion rate.
• Defining the sales conversion rate by every geography
• Differentiation between marketing channels that drive direct leads versus channels that may assist conversions.

And yes, Brahma is the owner of the process after listening to both sales and marketing. He always has the last word, and that defines your sign-off!

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Lockdown, webinars, virtual meetings, and boredom by metrics. That’s what the last 56 days have been for me. Amid all this, I have also been enjoying solving jigsaw puzzles and getting acquainted with Peppa Pig and her family with my daughter, and not to forget adding the disinfectant to the water while mopping the floor! There was a sense of FOMO when Instagram was filled with my colleagues’ culinary trial runs, but after a couple of mishaps, there was certainly a JOMO (Joy of Missing Out) so I decided to stick to just playing to my strengths.

Talk about a new normal, and the routine that got set, I was also missing interacting with a large set of folks, until Sachin from Ameyo and I interacted to understand what it takes for sales and marketing to be in sync. Well, that’s certainly an oxymoron and every CEO’s unfulfilled dream. It certainly made for a great topic at SaaSBoomi’s Growth edition where over 200 participants attended coming from over 75 startups (from an application of 300 startups that had to be curated for restricted entry). He told me about the panel he was going to moderate, and I was like “Let’s do this!” (virtually though)

I spoke about the Sales and Marketing love in the SMB world, while Almitra from CleverTap articulated it beautifully from an enterprise perspective while Rajesh (Whatfix) and Naven KY (Chargebee) were Sales ops strikers who nailed the importance of Brahma having the last word. Brahma? Yes, I’ll come to that in a few paragraphs from now.

Let’s just put it out there. Marketing folks are more data-driven, are highly analytical, and campaigns always looking to plan for the future. Sales on the other hand work with different kinds of customers and switch gears between being emotional and rational based on customer’s needs, and their only aim is to close, thereby living in the present. It is just impossible to get them to work together. But it is certainly possible to lay some ground rules and keep the objective very clear- Revenue.

So, what does it take for an SMB marketing team to tango with the Sales team? First, let’s look at how sales and marketing in the SMB world have evolved over a period of time. Our session also aimed at answering the “Where should the SDR / BDR report be? Should it evolve over time?

Marketing and Sales Team Structures

Sales: It’s always easy, you grow a sales team as and when we have the opportunity to extract more from a sales territory. You end up slicing the cake vertically for deeper focus as against covering a larger area when you are starting off. As you grow your business, you also have to have hunters and farmers to successfully execute a land and expand strategy.

Marketing: For the rest of the blog, I shall talk about marketing only in the context of lead gen and growth marketing. To have a better sync, for SMB marketing to be successful, it is best to mimic a sales org, but that’s not going to be possible instantly as you start off. As you start off the business of lead gen, your only aim is to generate leads, and there are 2 important teams- Digital marketing (if you are in the business of inbound marketing, wanting to scale your share in your business category) comprising of SEO teams (you don’t want to burn money from Day1) and a paid marketing team to accentuate your SEO efforts. As you grow your business, it’s best suited for BDRs in the SDR org to be a part of marketing. More about it soon down.

Sales and marketing Performance Indicators don’t change

“Revenue solves all known problems” — Eric Smith

Sales: It’s all about MRR in an inbound SMB business. The teams are measured monthly on the $$ that they bring to the bank and the number of logos acquired. As you acquire more logos, you also have an opportunity to cross-sell and upsell subscriptions of your product(s).

Marketing: We were very clear on what a North Star metric for for marketing — Free Trials. Choose your North Star metric that propels your sales. It could be demos, or someone filling up the contact us form- but that should be the sacrosanct metric every marketer should be measured against. The point of conflict been sales and marketing is always the differentiation in success metrics. To speak the common language, make sure your marketing has a good understanding of revenue, and so tag revenue as a soft metric of measurement in the marketing camp as well. It works!

Complexity in Targets matures as you grow older

It’s never easy to get sales and marketing to speak the same dialect, but the language is the same.

When I joined Freshdesk then in 2015, we had the sales and marketing interlock session on the 25th of December to discuss the 2016 plans. As facile as it may sound, the sales multiplied the no. of sales folks with the leads per person (approx 350- free trials then), and arrived at the leads to be generated for 2016. We (marketing) negotiated that based on a couple of year’s history of lead-gen and arrived at a “mutually agreeable” leads to be generated, but as you are experimenting, and setting up systems, such planning is thrown out of the window. When the planned revenue is achieved, everything may sound “well planned”. As we grew in our 10th year of operation,

Sales: continue to plan for monthly revenue, but the complexity added are by:

• Product
• Geo
• New Revenue
• Farming
• Employee. size

Marketing: has got to sing the same song. So the cookie crumbles by:

• MQL’s
• Demo requests
• White paper downloads
• CPLs
• English vs Language websites’ inbound interests

Inbound Marketing Sales & Marketing funnel

The traditional marketing funnel has evolved from companies finding customers and running mass media campaigns to generate awareness and interest to customers finding companies through search and other means. In other words, the role of marketing in B2B SaaS has evolved from being responsible to create awareness and interest to now going a couple of steps deeper in the funnel to become a demand center that’s good at inbound marketing.

So, where does that “hand-shake” happen?

Earlier, it was the job of the marketing to fill the top of the funnel- create awareness, and pique the interests of a larger audience, and those interested will automatically go down the funnel. SaaS marketing has changed. It is now the responsibility of the marketing to take this lower down the funnel by doing enough research on the prospect, and after an evaluation, an SQL is born. It is here when the sales team shakes hands with the marketing team. Hence, as you may have noticed, the BDR’s belonging to an SDR team report to the marketing team, and not the sales, as this also enables proper marketing attribution- which in itself is a separate topic of discussion.

Read more about this here.

Ares of conflict between sales and Marketing

A relationship without conflicts is a farce, and sales and marketing teams are no different.

As you may see from the above illustration, these are the most common areas of conflict between sales and marketing. These conflicts are great to have, don’t even try to put a full stop to end these conflicts. The day when your sales leader says he/she’s happy with the leads, or when your marketing feels that there is no other opportunity to expand campaigns, let me tell you the business is not in the right hands. But till then, please feel free to introduce your Bhrama (sales/ revenue ops)- a CEO’s trustworthy aide who does a great balancing act. As a startup CEO, you are often caught up between sales & marketing conflicts and lean towards the sales (and rightly so, as revenue is a north star indicator of success), but the marketing folks may be doing a great job of targeting the right audiences through the funnel.

As Naven (the Brahma of Chargebee) aptly put it, a cadence between Sales & Marketing is successful when discussing the rule of three. (Slides borrowed from Naven KY):

Source: Role of Sales Ops by Naven KY

And, finally,

It takes eons to get a sign-off between Sales and Marketing, and we have so far been successful by doing a both- top-down and bottom-up approach to our annual operating plans (AOP). There is always an opportunity to grow XX times YoY, but there are also constraints. A well-executed AOP takes into account all the constraints while still looking at doubling down on areas of opportunity.

A successful sign-off has the following ingredients well-cooked:

• Clear definition of new revenue to be achieved
• Geographies that business thinks it needs to double down on based on opportunity
• All products cannot grow at the same rate. APRA’s have to.
• Revenue broken down by hunting and farming
• Revenue per lead. It is important to define what a lead is, and look at historical trends of this metric along with the website conversion rate.
• Defining the sales conversion rate by every geography
• Differentiation between marketing channels that drive direct leads versus channels that may assist conversions.

And yes, Brahma is the owner of the process after listening to both sales and marketing. He always has the last word, and that defines your sign-off!

" } }

What Can I Expect From SaaSBoomi Growth

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SaaSBoomi, A Pay-it-forward community for SaaS founders has announced its first virtual summit — #SaaSBoomi Growth, to be held on 9th May 2020. While all of the previous SaaSBoomi events have usually been centred around a customer category (Enterprise, SMB etc) or a region (Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad etc), this time we realised that neither of these classifications would work and coming up with the premier edition of #SaaSBoomi Growth.

We got a phenomenal response with 220+ startups applying to be a part of the conference. Curation has done a fantastic job in shortlisting around 50+ startups. We have been able to line up some of the best speakers and onboarded equally strong teams from 50+ companies that are in the range of $200k ARR to $2mn ARR. Staying true to its meaning, we have decided to permit up to *three people per company* to attend the sessions.

Note: Here is the first and foremost important thing to do before diving into the program. Please submit the details of your colleagues attending #SaaSBoomi Growth before 5th May, 6 PM as we will be sending an invite link to join the online conference. Our suggestion is to nominate marketing and sales leads from your startups.

8:45 AM — SaaSBoomi Growth Tracks Open! With attendees joining the session for networking

9:00 AM — 9:15 AM Welcome Note by Mrigank Tripathi — PeopleStrong

9:15 AM — 10 AM State of Union: Marketing in this New World Order

Speakers: Armando Mann (Ex SalesForce)

Session Outcomes:

• What comes first? BD in Early Stage — Sales vs Marketing
• COVID Context — Navigating Sales and Marketing in Covid Times
• Early Stage Sales

10:05 AM — 10:55 AM - Marketing For Category Creators vs Followers

Speakers: Aswin (Syncup), Varun Shoor (Ex Kayako)

Session Outcomes:

• How do you identify whether you are a category creator or a follower
• Getting Validation From All Stakeholders
• How Go-to-Market differs for Category Followers vs Category Creator
• 4. Building The Category Itself — The ecosystem of partners who are fighting against the common enemy

10:55 AM — 11:10 AM Tea Break

11:10 AM — 12:00 PM Demand Gen: Your Safety Net to Catch those Whales and Sharks!

Speakers: Seth Nesbitt (Icertis), Rashmica Rajendran (Mad Street Den)

Session Outcomes

• Prospecting (best ways to identify the relevant prospects, effective ways to reach out to them)
• Account-Based Marketing (what does it mean? What is the best way of setting up ABM from scratch, in particular, understand the effective marketing tools to drive ABM)
• Acquisition channels (How best to identify the acquisition channels that may work for a SaaS firm? How to optimize the mix? What acquisition channels are best strengthened through marketing efforts)

12:05 PM — 12:50 PM Structuring and Growing Your Marketing Team

‍Speakers: Prukalpa Sankar (Atlan), Vikram Bhaskaran (Chargebee)

Session Outcomes

• The thought process behind how marketing team has been structured Chargebee (the 5 objectives of marketing)
• How we built flexibility into our pipeline strategy (3 Assumptions to model in)
• How we planned and are executing for contingencies in the face of COVID (indicator>trigger>response model & budget allocation framework)
• How we created a structure of rapid execution (strategic corporal, individual ownership & operational rigor)

12:50 PM — 1:45 PM Lunch Break

1:45 PM Second Half Tracks Open — Networking

Parallel Track 1: 2:00 PM — 2:50 PM Building The Early Stage Marketing Stack

‍‍Speakers: Niraj Ranjan (Hiver)

Session Outcomes:

What all is included In a marketing stack? How is it different for a sales stack?

How the stack can be different for outbound heavy teams vs inbound heavy teams?

Who runs and owns the marketing stack?

How can you build feedback loops from sales + feedback loops for the product team?

How relevant is product usage data for marketing automation and must be pushed in your marketing stack?

How incremental changes compound — Examples?

How to select your tools while building your stack?

Parallel Track 2: 2:00 PM — 2:50 PM Setting up Your Marketing Stack (More than 500K ARR)

‍Speakers: Aniruddh Jain (Independent Growth Consultant)

Session Outcomes:

• Learning about building a marketing stack from first principles
• Avoiding common pitfalls while designing a marketing stack
• Ensuring your marketing stack gives you best bang for your budget
• Learning how to identify key jobs that one requires from their marketing stack
• How to make sure your marketing stack evolves with time

3:00 PM — 4:00 PM Five Growth Hacks For Your Marketing Engine To Take Off Without Buying Rocket Fuel

‍Speakers: Sairam Krishnan( Interview Mocha), Nivas Ravichandran (Freshworks), Shri Mithran( Chargebee), Anshuk Agarwal (AdYogi), Ankit Oberoi (AdPushup).

Session Outcomes:

Growth Hacks on

• Content Marketing
• Virtual Events
• Google Adwords
• Leveraging Covid for Lead Gen
• Audience Retargetting

4:00 PM — 4:15 PM Tea Break

4:15 PM — 5:15 PM Two to Tango — Sales and Marketing Alignment

Moderator: Sachin Bhatia (Ameyo)

Speakers: Rajesh Bhattad (Whatfix), Naven KY (Chargebee), Ramesh Ravishankar (Freshworks), Almitra Karnik (CleverTap)

Session Outcomes:

• Layout team structures [Why it was decided that way / what were the considerations]
• Key KPIs and how they flow to sales
• Key agreements/conflicts at Annual / Quarterly level [SQLs, SALs, Funnel, etc] How have they changed over time [and why?]
• Real examples and sharing some numbers [From planning / Team structure / SLAs]

5:20 PM — 5:50 PM

Light at the End of COVID19

‍Speakers: Pankaj Bansal — PeopleStrong

5:50 PM

Closing Note by Ashish Tulsian (POSist)

Thanks to the power-packed volunteers for making a musing a reality by being both Session Managers and Organisers for the #SBGrowth.

[caption id="attachment_14328" align="aligncenter" width="1178"] SaaSBoomi Growth Organizing Team[/caption]

And that concludes the virtual simulation of a day-long conference and enriching learning experience at the premiere edition of #SaaSBoomi Growth

If you have any doubts or clarifications, please send us an email to [email protected]

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SaaSBoomi, A Pay-it-forward community for SaaS founders has announced its first virtual summit — #SaaSBoomi Growth, to be held on 9th May 2020. While all of the previous SaaSBoomi events have usually been centred around a customer category (Enterprise, SMB etc) or a region (Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad etc), this time we realised that neither of these classifications would work and coming up with the premier edition of #SaaSBoomi Growth.

We got a phenomenal response with 220+ startups applying to be a part of the conference. Curation has done a fantastic job in shortlisting around 50+ startups. We have been able to line up some of the best speakers and onboarded equally strong teams from 50+ companies that are in the range of $200k ARR to $2mn ARR. Staying true to its meaning, we have decided to permit up to *three people per company* to attend the sessions.

Note: Here is the first and foremost important thing to do before diving into the program. Please submit the details of your colleagues attending #SaaSBoomi Growth before 5th May, 6 PM as we will be sending an invite link to join the online conference. Our suggestion is to nominate marketing and sales leads from your startups.

8:45 AM — SaaSBoomi Growth Tracks Open! With attendees joining the session for networking

9:00 AM — 9:15 AM Welcome Note by Mrigank Tripathi — PeopleStrong

9:15 AM — 10 AM State of Union: Marketing in this New World Order

Speakers: Armando Mann (Ex SalesForce)

Session Outcomes:

• What comes first? BD in Early Stage — Sales vs Marketing
• COVID Context — Navigating Sales and Marketing in Covid Times
• Early Stage Sales

10:05 AM — 10:55 AM - Marketing For Category Creators vs Followers

Speakers: Aswin (Syncup), Varun Shoor (Ex Kayako)

Session Outcomes:

• How do you identify whether you are a category creator or a follower
• Getting Validation From All Stakeholders
• How Go-to-Market differs for Category Followers vs Category Creator
• 4. Building The Category Itself — The ecosystem of partners who are fighting against the common enemy

10:55 AM — 11:10 AM Tea Break

11:10 AM — 12:00 PM Demand Gen: Your Safety Net to Catch those Whales and Sharks!

Speakers: Seth Nesbitt (Icertis), Rashmica Rajendran (Mad Street Den)

Session Outcomes

• Prospecting (best ways to identify the relevant prospects, effective ways to reach out to them)
• Account-Based Marketing (what does it mean? What is the best way of setting up ABM from scratch, in particular, understand the effective marketing tools to drive ABM)
• Acquisition channels (How best to identify the acquisition channels that may work for a SaaS firm? How to optimize the mix? What acquisition channels are best strengthened through marketing efforts)

12:05 PM — 12:50 PM Structuring and Growing Your Marketing Team

‍Speakers: Prukalpa Sankar (Atlan), Vikram Bhaskaran (Chargebee)

Session Outcomes

• The thought process behind how marketing team has been structured Chargebee (the 5 objectives of marketing)
• How we built flexibility into our pipeline strategy (3 Assumptions to model in)
• How we planned and are executing for contingencies in the face of COVID (indicator>trigger>response model & budget allocation framework)
• How we created a structure of rapid execution (strategic corporal, individual ownership & operational rigor)

12:50 PM — 1:45 PM Lunch Break

1:45 PM Second Half Tracks Open — Networking

Parallel Track 1: 2:00 PM — 2:50 PM Building The Early Stage Marketing Stack

‍‍Speakers: Niraj Ranjan (Hiver)

Session Outcomes:

What all is included In a marketing stack? How is it different for a sales stack?

How the stack can be different for outbound heavy teams vs inbound heavy teams?

Who runs and owns the marketing stack?

How can you build feedback loops from sales + feedback loops for the product team?

How relevant is product usage data for marketing automation and must be pushed in your marketing stack?

How incremental changes compound — Examples?

How to select your tools while building your stack?

Parallel Track 2: 2:00 PM — 2:50 PM Setting up Your Marketing Stack (More than 500K ARR)

‍Speakers: Aniruddh Jain (Independent Growth Consultant)

Session Outcomes:

• Learning about building a marketing stack from first principles
• Avoiding common pitfalls while designing a marketing stack
• Ensuring your marketing stack gives you best bang for your budget
• Learning how to identify key jobs that one requires from their marketing stack
• How to make sure your marketing stack evolves with time

3:00 PM — 4:00 PM Five Growth Hacks For Your Marketing Engine To Take Off Without Buying Rocket Fuel

‍Speakers: Sairam Krishnan( Interview Mocha), Nivas Ravichandran (Freshworks), Shri Mithran( Chargebee), Anshuk Agarwal (AdYogi), Ankit Oberoi (AdPushup).

Session Outcomes:

Growth Hacks on

• Content Marketing
• Virtual Events
• Google Adwords
• Leveraging Covid for Lead Gen
• Audience Retargetting

4:00 PM — 4:15 PM Tea Break

4:15 PM — 5:15 PM Two to Tango — Sales and Marketing Alignment

Moderator: Sachin Bhatia (Ameyo)

Speakers: Rajesh Bhattad (Whatfix), Naven KY (Chargebee), Ramesh Ravishankar (Freshworks), Almitra Karnik (CleverTap)

Session Outcomes:

• Layout team structures [Why it was decided that way / what were the considerations]
• Key KPIs and how they flow to sales
• Key agreements/conflicts at Annual / Quarterly level [SQLs, SALs, Funnel, etc] How have they changed over time [and why?]
• Real examples and sharing some numbers [From planning / Team structure / SLAs]

5:20 PM — 5:50 PM

Light at the End of COVID19

‍Speakers: Pankaj Bansal — PeopleStrong

5:50 PM

Closing Note by Ashish Tulsian (POSist)

Thanks to the power-packed volunteers for making a musing a reality by being both Session Managers and Organisers for the #SBGrowth.

[caption id="attachment_14328" align="aligncenter" width="1178"] SaaSBoomi Growth Organizing Team[/caption]

And that concludes the virtual simulation of a day-long conference and enriching learning experience at the premiere edition of #SaaSBoomi Growth

If you have any doubts or clarifications, please send us an email to [email protected]

" } }

How #SaaSBoomi Growth Got off the Ground

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At one of the tea breaks of the Bangalore edition of SaaSBoomi Enterprise. I bumped into Vivek of iZooto, and he started complaining. Nor did he mince any words. “Boss! Why does everything happen only in Bangalore? Why is nothing happening in Delhi?” I said, “Boss! You know, I am just a facilitator. If you tell me to do it in Delhi, we’ll do it. But you have to get the audience, you have to get the core team organized. Then we can do it.”

He immediately said, “I know many founders in Delhi. Let’s create a group now!” Vivek was driven and persistent, and he suggested a few names. I already had some 8 to 10 names. Suddenly we were all set with 14 or 15 people, the group was done and I posted a message saying, “Hey! we’re done with SaaSBoomi Enterprise in Bangalore, Here’s the next one. We want to do it in Delhi, who wants to raise your hand I am happy to support it, but someone has to lead it. I don’t want to drive it.”

And immediately a few of them said they are happy to contribute and support.

Two months went by, but nothing moved! We were getting ready for the annual edition then, so we couldn’t really get this thing started. At that time, everyone was proposing September or October for the Delhi edition. I knew we had a very short time to do it, and that would probably not have the bandwidth to do another edition. I suggested May or June because that’s when we will be from this Annual conference, I thought.

The conversation ended there, and I even forgot about it a bit.

But the moment I was through with the annual edition, there were these two-three folks who reached out to me, almost immediately. Dhruvil from Loginext wanted a SaasBoomi Mumbai. Pune folks wanted help building the ecosystem in Pune too. While these two are also cooking up, I thought let me post a message on the Delhi/NCR group too. Luckily, seven or eight people came forward and we started iterating.

This is when I suggested that we not follow how SaaSBoomi Chennai/Hyderabad’s structure, and build something really unique. After a couple of conversations, it gravitated towards Growth. And since I’d been wanting to do something around Marketing and Growth for so long, it resonated immediately. We also felt that the curated format was really good as it ensured quality and exclusivity.

[caption id="attachment_14332" align="aligncenter" width="1400"] Collaborating for the sessions on Google docs[/caption]

We had decided on having 50 companies for the conference. We also figure out the stage of the company, i.e. 500K — 2M ARR. And then we started looking for venue options, and that’s when things started getting really strange.

“SaaS community with ingredients, recipe and also a taster of success directly from the top chefs.” — Punit (CustomerSuccessBox)

The COVID-19 debacle

As the coronavirus spread throughout India, we decided to wait for two weeks and then decide on the way forward. But after two weeks, the situation had not improved.

This is when we decided on doing this online and changed the date from 8th May (Friday) to 9th May (Saturday). We formed three teams, one team to decide the logistics (platform, registrations), the second one to focus on the marketing of the event, and the third was the curation team. So everyone sort-of took on roles, and we had an eight-member core team.

I requested Ashish (Posist), Sparsh (Wingify), & Ankit (AdPushup) to lead the curation part.

[caption id="attachment_14333" align="aligncenter" width="1280"] Happy smiles from organising team after the event[/caption]

The team and the program

This was indeed a weekend project because we only huddled on Sundays. Each founder actually put a lot in; they talked about the challenges that were faced in their own organizations, and how we could use that as a guide for the sessions.

As we arrived at a few topics, everyone volunteered to take up one. The goal was to have conversations with a few people in our ecosystem, and then arrive at who would be the best to articulate that specific topic.

The session managers were briefed about their role, and they put a lot of effort into curating the conference, making sure that takeaways were clear for each talk. I remember a couple of dry runs for the sessions by Mrigank & Kapil! Mrigank was up till 11 pm a day before the conference just to do the mock with Armando, the keynote speaker for the conf. Kapil was still nervous till the last minute because he had put in a lot of effort to get speakers on board. He had spoken to four or five people before he got the right speakers for his session.

Speakers were mostly nominated through references based on their familiarity with someone’s work. Ideally, we’d have wanted speakers from more companies to feature to share diverse playbooks, and that is an area for improvement. Curating the audience & curating the sessions are two significant things we do at SaaSBoomi. And that really helps us to bring out the best in these people itself because once we do this, then everything else will follow. But if the content is not good, it’s like, you know, you’ve gone to a nice restaurant, but the food is not good. The packaging of the restaurant might not be really good, but if the food gives you a ‘wow’ feeling: well, that’s what we were aiming for.

“Rarely have seen such honest and transparent giveaways. Could clearly see the steps that need to be taken which if taken correctly will definitely make us build a sizeable SaaS product.” — Manisha (SuperProcure)

What was unique about SaaSBoomi

Growth

1. One of the things was the theme itself: Growth. But the other notable thing is it did not feature the likes of Suresh, Krish, Girish & Manav. For the first time, we actually discovered a lot of people who are under the hood, by which I mean the second layers of leaders in the organization. So most of the speakers were speaking for the first time in a SaaSBoomi conference. Except for Niraj of HiverHQ, Ashwin of Synup, Varun of Kayako, and few other founders, 60 to 70% of the conference was led by Growth & Marketing leaders. We haven’t seen them in any of the SaaSBoomi events which I feel is a big achievement for us!

2. The other unique part was, most of the founders involved here were not really very active in any of the conferences of SaaSBoomi. Founders like Vivek(iZooto), Sachin(Ameyo), Kapil(UniCommerce), Sparsh(Wingify), Arpit(SplashLearn), Prukalpa(Atlan) & Mrigank(PeopleStrong) have also started taking the lead in organizing SaaSBoomi events and we are thrilled! We get many requests from people who really want to contribute. Still, a lot of times we don’t really get the opportunity to take their help. This time we were able to. This was the second unique thing about SaaSBoomi Growth.

3. In many ways, this is also turning out to be the SaaS leadership academy, where growth leaders are now opening up their own playbooks! Some of the best people in SaaS came forward and spoke, which is why the conference was so interactive, and we got an excellent feedback. Each session had an NPS of 8.5 to 9, only two sessions had a lower NPS. This is quite similar to what we’ve done for other SaaSBoomi conferences.

The only thing which we could not really do over here was to enable networking. We really wanted to use Airmeet because we felt it would allow people to network, and have informal conversations. But unfortunately, we couldn’t. We will definitely use them next time.

It was also fascinating to see people like Sai, Ankit, and Nivas who started as volunteers become speakers for the growth conference and share their insights, as they are all now serious professionals in their own right. That was also a very good feeling for me!

[caption id="attachment_14334" align="aligncenter" width="1400"] A Snap from the event[/caption]

“SaaSBoomi is the most important community which we as SaaS Founders must be connected with. Its community to find very clear actionables for the challenges and opportunities we will encounter in our entrepreneurial journey…” — Sushil (ExtraEdge)

What did we learn about doing a virtual conference?

1. We made the conference interactive by introducing Polls & Q&A in a manner that people’s minds don’t wander off.

2. We did the digital backdrops with a real conference experience with the conference branding. 3. For peers to be able to engage with each other, we asked attendees to rename themselves to First Name (Real Name) followed by Second Name (Startup Name). For, e.g. Ankit (AdPushup). This helped others identify your company for better interaction during Q&A and Chat.

4. In between every session, while the silence was there, we had music, just to make sure that we provided good experience to attendees.

5. We had extensive preparation on the online front, multiple iterations on the testing off the floor, mock runs with speakers and so on — it all actually worked out well. It was very smooth experience from a delegate perspective, or at least that’s the idea we got.

And yes, we will continue to do growth! With the post COVID world moving towards virtual/online, we are sort of geared up for it. And hopefully, you’ll see many more platforms from SaaSBoomi on this front!

SaaSBOOMi Growth 2020 Retrospective from Tarun Kumar Davuluri

The Way Forward for SaaSBoomi Growth:

1. We would want to take this engagement forward and come up with SaaSBoomi Playbooks: Pro-bono, closed, invite-only sessions aimed at helping SaaS teams get equipped with real insights of running a SaaS Business. These long-format sessions require teams to come prepared, to be open to learning and unlearning, and to share your context within a trusted environment. The idea is to conduct one playbook every month!
2. Well curated blogs for SaaS founders & teams. We are already working on this.
3. A WhatsApp group for all the Growth/Marketing teams to be connected and share their learnings.
4. And lastly, while we wanted to accommodate everyone, we had to refuse many founders as this format required and necessitated curation.

To bridge this gap, we are coming up with SB Kickstart this July, an early-stage founder conference from SB community for startups below 1 Mn ARR.

Please subscribe to our newsletter for more updates, and we’ll announce this nice and early.

With inputs from Tarun Davuluri who really made the experience smooth for all delegates and is a big support to all of us. Special thanks to Sai for editing this and adding his magic 🙂

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At one of the tea breaks of the Bangalore edition of SaaSBoomi Enterprise. I bumped into Vivek of iZooto, and he started complaining. Nor did he mince any words. “Boss! Why does everything happen only in Bangalore? Why is nothing happening in Delhi?” I said, “Boss! You know, I am just a facilitator. If you tell me to do it in Delhi, we’ll do it. But you have to get the audience, you have to get the core team organized. Then we can do it.”

He immediately said, “I know many founders in Delhi. Let’s create a group now!” Vivek was driven and persistent, and he suggested a few names. I already had some 8 to 10 names. Suddenly we were all set with 14 or 15 people, the group was done and I posted a message saying, “Hey! we’re done with SaaSBoomi Enterprise in Bangalore, Here’s the next one. We want to do it in Delhi, who wants to raise your hand I am happy to support it, but someone has to lead it. I don’t want to drive it.”

And immediately a few of them said they are happy to contribute and support.

Two months went by, but nothing moved! We were getting ready for the annual edition then, so we couldn’t really get this thing started. At that time, everyone was proposing September or October for the Delhi edition. I knew we had a very short time to do it, and that would probably not have the bandwidth to do another edition. I suggested May or June because that’s when we will be from this Annual conference, I thought.

The conversation ended there, and I even forgot about it a bit.

But the moment I was through with the annual edition, there were these two-three folks who reached out to me, almost immediately. Dhruvil from Loginext wanted a SaasBoomi Mumbai. Pune folks wanted help building the ecosystem in Pune too. While these two are also cooking up, I thought let me post a message on the Delhi/NCR group too. Luckily, seven or eight people came forward and we started iterating.

This is when I suggested that we not follow how SaaSBoomi Chennai/Hyderabad’s structure, and build something really unique. After a couple of conversations, it gravitated towards Growth. And since I’d been wanting to do something around Marketing and Growth for so long, it resonated immediately. We also felt that the curated format was really good as it ensured quality and exclusivity.

[caption id="attachment_14332" align="aligncenter" width="1400"] Collaborating for the sessions on Google docs[/caption]

We had decided on having 50 companies for the conference. We also figure out the stage of the company, i.e. 500K — 2M ARR. And then we started looking for venue options, and that’s when things started getting really strange.

“SaaS community with ingredients, recipe and also a taster of success directly from the top chefs.” — Punit (CustomerSuccessBox)

The COVID-19 debacle

As the coronavirus spread throughout India, we decided to wait for two weeks and then decide on the way forward. But after two weeks, the situation had not improved.

This is when we decided on doing this online and changed the date from 8th May (Friday) to 9th May (Saturday). We formed three teams, one team to decide the logistics (platform, registrations), the second one to focus on the marketing of the event, and the third was the curation team. So everyone sort-of took on roles, and we had an eight-member core team.

I requested Ashish (Posist), Sparsh (Wingify), & Ankit (AdPushup) to lead the curation part.

[caption id="attachment_14333" align="aligncenter" width="1280"] Happy smiles from organising team after the event[/caption]

The team and the program

This was indeed a weekend project because we only huddled on Sundays. Each founder actually put a lot in; they talked about the challenges that were faced in their own organizations, and how we could use that as a guide for the sessions.

As we arrived at a few topics, everyone volunteered to take up one. The goal was to have conversations with a few people in our ecosystem, and then arrive at who would be the best to articulate that specific topic.

The session managers were briefed about their role, and they put a lot of effort into curating the conference, making sure that takeaways were clear for each talk. I remember a couple of dry runs for the sessions by Mrigank & Kapil! Mrigank was up till 11 pm a day before the conference just to do the mock with Armando, the keynote speaker for the conf. Kapil was still nervous till the last minute because he had put in a lot of effort to get speakers on board. He had spoken to four or five people before he got the right speakers for his session.

Speakers were mostly nominated through references based on their familiarity with someone’s work. Ideally, we’d have wanted speakers from more companies to feature to share diverse playbooks, and that is an area for improvement. Curating the audience & curating the sessions are two significant things we do at SaaSBoomi. And that really helps us to bring out the best in these people itself because once we do this, then everything else will follow. But if the content is not good, it’s like, you know, you’ve gone to a nice restaurant, but the food is not good. The packaging of the restaurant might not be really good, but if the food gives you a ‘wow’ feeling: well, that’s what we were aiming for.

“Rarely have seen such honest and transparent giveaways. Could clearly see the steps that need to be taken which if taken correctly will definitely make us build a sizeable SaaS product.” — Manisha (SuperProcure)

What was unique about SaaSBoomi

Growth

1. One of the things was the theme itself: Growth. But the other notable thing is it did not feature the likes of Suresh, Krish, Girish & Manav. For the first time, we actually discovered a lot of people who are under the hood, by which I mean the second layers of leaders in the organization. So most of the speakers were speaking for the first time in a SaaSBoomi conference. Except for Niraj of HiverHQ, Ashwin of Synup, Varun of Kayako, and few other founders, 60 to 70% of the conference was led by Growth & Marketing leaders. We haven’t seen them in any of the SaaSBoomi events which I feel is a big achievement for us!

2. The other unique part was, most of the founders involved here were not really very active in any of the conferences of SaaSBoomi. Founders like Vivek(iZooto), Sachin(Ameyo), Kapil(UniCommerce), Sparsh(Wingify), Arpit(SplashLearn), Prukalpa(Atlan) & Mrigank(PeopleStrong) have also started taking the lead in organizing SaaSBoomi events and we are thrilled! We get many requests from people who really want to contribute. Still, a lot of times we don’t really get the opportunity to take their help. This time we were able to. This was the second unique thing about SaaSBoomi Growth.

3. In many ways, this is also turning out to be the SaaS leadership academy, where growth leaders are now opening up their own playbooks! Some of the best people in SaaS came forward and spoke, which is why the conference was so interactive, and we got an excellent feedback. Each session had an NPS of 8.5 to 9, only two sessions had a lower NPS. This is quite similar to what we’ve done for other SaaSBoomi conferences.

The only thing which we could not really do over here was to enable networking. We really wanted to use Airmeet because we felt it would allow people to network, and have informal conversations. But unfortunately, we couldn’t. We will definitely use them next time.

It was also fascinating to see people like Sai, Ankit, and Nivas who started as volunteers become speakers for the growth conference and share their insights, as they are all now serious professionals in their own right. That was also a very good feeling for me!

[caption id="attachment_14334" align="aligncenter" width="1400"] A Snap from the event[/caption]

“SaaSBoomi is the most important community which we as SaaS Founders must be connected with. Its community to find very clear actionables for the challenges and opportunities we will encounter in our entrepreneurial journey…” — Sushil (ExtraEdge)

What did we learn about doing a virtual conference?

1. We made the conference interactive by introducing Polls & Q&A in a manner that people’s minds don’t wander off.

2. We did the digital backdrops with a real conference experience with the conference branding. 3. For peers to be able to engage with each other, we asked attendees to rename themselves to First Name (Real Name) followed by Second Name (Startup Name). For, e.g. Ankit (AdPushup). This helped others identify your company for better interaction during Q&A and Chat.

4. In between every session, while the silence was there, we had music, just to make sure that we provided good experience to attendees.

5. We had extensive preparation on the online front, multiple iterations on the testing off the floor, mock runs with speakers and so on — it all actually worked out well. It was very smooth experience from a delegate perspective, or at least that’s the idea we got.

And yes, we will continue to do growth! With the post COVID world moving towards virtual/online, we are sort of geared up for it. And hopefully, you’ll see many more platforms from SaaSBoomi on this front!

SaaSBOOMi Growth 2020 Retrospective from Tarun Kumar Davuluri

The Way Forward for SaaSBoomi Growth:

1. We would want to take this engagement forward and come up with SaaSBoomi Playbooks: Pro-bono, closed, invite-only sessions aimed at helping SaaS teams get equipped with real insights of running a SaaS Business. These long-format sessions require teams to come prepared, to be open to learning and unlearning, and to share your context within a trusted environment. The idea is to conduct one playbook every month!
2. Well curated blogs for SaaS founders & teams. We are already working on this.
3. A WhatsApp group for all the Growth/Marketing teams to be connected and share their learnings.
4. And lastly, while we wanted to accommodate everyone, we had to refuse many founders as this format required and necessitated curation.

To bridge this gap, we are coming up with SB Kickstart this July, an early-stage founder conference from SB community for startups below 1 Mn ARR.

Please subscribe to our newsletter for more updates, and we’ll announce this nice and early.

With inputs from Tarun Davuluri who really made the experience smooth for all delegates and is a big support to all of us. Special thanks to Sai for editing this and adding his magic 🙂

" } }

Inaugurating SaaSBoomi 2020 Awards

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There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come” If the software has been eating the world, SaaS is now eating software. While pre-covid seems like a different era altogether now, India was already on a path to becoming one of the most important SaaS hubs of the world. With over $2 Billion in combined annual recurring revenue, consisting of 10,000+ companies (including many unicorns), and thousands more created each year, India has been a thriving ecosystem for SaaS companies and founders. The confluence of great engineering and product talent, the availability of venture capital, the hunger of founders to go global and make a mark, and shared playbooks from successful companies have culminated in a perfect storm for Indian SaaS companies to make a mark globally. Indian SaaS companies like Freshworks, Zoho, Postman, and Druva have already made their mark all over the world and are poised for titanic growth in the coming years. Innumerable founders in India are hoping to follow the path forged by these SaaS giants, and further carve their own. According to a recent report by Google and Accel, Indian SaaS is on the way to hitting the $10 billion revenue milestone by 2025. While many individual SaaS companies have been doing very well on their own, one thing that was perhaps a gap was a strong connective tissue that could weave all these companies together and transform the collective from a bunch of companies to a single unified community. SaaSBoomi was started two years ago as our humble attempt to forge that connection. Today we are taking the next step in our efforts to build the SaaS community in India by launching the inaugural edition of SaaSBoomi Awards

Why are we doing this?

Awards are expected to bring name and fame – SaaSBoomi Awards will deliver those in spades but that is not the most important reason why you should consider participating. SaaSBoomi Awards is the first awards program in India that is shaped and judged entirely by the community. You will be judged and recognized not by corporate sponsors or VC investors but by your peers in the Indian SaaS community. By folks who have walked in your shoes but have strode to great heights – community members who have taken their companies to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, who have bootstrapped their startups to profitability at scale with hundreds of team members, who have set global standards in deep tech and cutting-edge innovation. The first SaaSBoomi Awards program is designed to recognize a select set of exemplary startups along a thoughtfully constructed set of categories that will in essence serve as a proxy for the entire Indian SaaS industry. Our aspiration is that in the years to come, the  SaaSBoomi Awards will emerge as the exemplar for startup awards in the country and specifically as a badge of honor for Indian SaaS startups. Winning an award here in the first year is all but guaranteed to give you and your startup enduring recognition and respect – all done by the community, for the community. For SaaSBoomi Awards 2020, we’re inviting applications for the following award categories:

• SaaS startup of the year – For the best SaaS startup of India, which has achieved great heights at a global level and serves as a lighthouse for all other SaaS entrepreneurs in India. This will be selected by the jury members among all the SaaS startups in India.
• Breakout SaaS startup of the year – For startups that have achieved phenomenal traction or recognition in the recent past, whether through a paradigm shift or through focussed execution.
• Bootstrapped SaaS startup of the year – For startups that have scaled without raising any institutional money (over $100K) and only rely on revenue to fund and grow their operations.
• Deep tech startup of the year – For startups that are solving deep technical problems through extensive R&D, which they intend to commercialize or have already commercialized.
• Category creator SaaS startup of the year – For startups solving a completely new pain point for their customers, and having created a category out of that, where other startups now play within that category globally.
• Vertical SaaS startup of the year – For startups that play in a vertical domain and have achieved phenomenal traction within that domain, be it in terms of revenue or customers.
• Moonshot startup of the year – For the most ambitious startup idea, trying to do something that has been done or can be done by very few. Can be an early-stage startup too.
• B2D SaaS startup of the year – For startups building tools, libraries, or systems for developers and selling to a global audience, having received critical acclaim from their users.

So if you’re a SaaS startup or know someone who you think deserves to be recognized, head straight to this link. Applications are open till Dec 25, 2020. 

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(8192) "

There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come” If the software has been eating the world, SaaS is now eating software. While pre-covid seems like a different era altogether now, India was already on a path to becoming one of the most important SaaS hubs of the world. With over $2 Billion in combined annual recurring revenue, consisting of 10,000+ companies (including many unicorns), and thousands more created each year, India has been a thriving ecosystem for SaaS companies and founders. The confluence of great engineering and product talent, the availability of venture capital, the hunger of founders to go global and make a mark, and shared playbooks from successful companies have culminated in a perfect storm for Indian SaaS companies to make a mark globally. Indian SaaS companies like Freshworks, Zoho, Postman, and Druva have already made their mark all over the world and are poised for titanic growth in the coming years. Innumerable founders in India are hoping to follow the path forged by these SaaS giants, and further carve their own. According to a recent report by Google and Accel, Indian SaaS is on the way to hitting the $10 billion revenue milestone by 2025. While many individual SaaS companies have been doing very well on their own, one thing that was perhaps a gap was a strong connective tissue that could weave all these companies together and transform the collective from a bunch of companies to a single unified community. SaaSBoomi was started two years ago as our humble attempt to forge that connection. Today we are taking the next step in our efforts to build the SaaS community in India by launching the inaugural edition of SaaSBoomi Awards

Why are we doing this?

Awards are expected to bring name and fame – SaaSBoomi Awards will deliver those in spades but that is not the most important reason why you should consider participating. SaaSBoomi Awards is the first awards program in India that is shaped and judged entirely by the community. You will be judged and recognized not by corporate sponsors or VC investors but by your peers in the Indian SaaS community. By folks who have walked in your shoes but have strode to great heights – community members who have taken their companies to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, who have bootstrapped their startups to profitability at scale with hundreds of team members, who have set global standards in deep tech and cutting-edge innovation. The first SaaSBoomi Awards program is designed to recognize a select set of exemplary startups along a thoughtfully constructed set of categories that will in essence serve as a proxy for the entire Indian SaaS industry. Our aspiration is that in the years to come, the  SaaSBoomi Awards will emerge as the exemplar for startup awards in the country and specifically as a badge of honor for Indian SaaS startups. Winning an award here in the first year is all but guaranteed to give you and your startup enduring recognition and respect – all done by the community, for the community. For SaaSBoomi Awards 2020, we’re inviting applications for the following award categories:

• SaaS startup of the year – For the best SaaS startup of India, which has achieved great heights at a global level and serves as a lighthouse for all other SaaS entrepreneurs in India. This will be selected by the jury members among all the SaaS startups in India.
• Breakout SaaS startup of the year – For startups that have achieved phenomenal traction or recognition in the recent past, whether through a paradigm shift or through focussed execution.
• Bootstrapped SaaS startup of the year – For startups that have scaled without raising any institutional money (over $100K) and only rely on revenue to fund and grow their operations.
• Deep tech startup of the year – For startups that are solving deep technical problems through extensive R&D, which they intend to commercialize or have already commercialized.
• Category creator SaaS startup of the year – For startups solving a completely new pain point for their customers, and having created a category out of that, where other startups now play within that category globally.
• Vertical SaaS startup of the year – For startups that play in a vertical domain and have achieved phenomenal traction within that domain, be it in terms of revenue or customers.
• Moonshot startup of the year – For the most ambitious startup idea, trying to do something that has been done or can be done by very few. Can be an early-stage startup too.
• B2D SaaS startup of the year – For startups building tools, libraries, or systems for developers and selling to a global audience, having received critical acclaim from their users.

So if you’re a SaaS startup or know someone who you think deserves to be recognized, head straight to this link. Applications are open till Dec 25, 2020. 

" } }

How to Build Your Marketing Stack — A Primer from #SaaSBOOMi Growth

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This highly interactive session was conducted virtually at SaaSBoomi Growth and covered all the concern areas about how to build a Marketing Stack. I am a volunteer, and I have tried to capture the leading thoughts.

In the year 2011, there were 150 Marketing tools available from which a user could buy. Cut to 2019 and we had 7040 — almost a 47X growth in numbers. Spoilt for choices as we are in every aspect of life today but this kind of an expanse can also be bewildering. Questions such as, “Which CRM tool should I buy” can have multiple responses and leave one even more perplexed than when they started. To cut through this haze, we had Aniruddh Jain, a Growth Marketing Consultant to do a session on What it takes to set up a Marketing Stack. He looked at companies in the range of 500K dollars which are on a path to reach 2–5 million.

At the very outset, he was emphatic about choosing the right tools because not doing so can lead to disastrous consequences. Far too often, we have seen companies being saddled with expensive tools that are not put to use adequately or have poor ROI. “You don’t want to get into this situation,” said Aniruddh rather gravely. That is why generic queries such as the one mentioned above don’t get you the desired results. To make things clearer, he took us through the First Principles to derive the answer.

A virtual survey revealed that on average, the participants used less than 10 marketing tools which was pretty much on cue. It has been observed that growth-stage companies used between 10–20 (such) tools and the more mature companies can go even 3–4 times higher.

Aniruddh gave the example of a car. What is its basic function? It takes an individual from Point A to Point B. But it shouldn’t be that you sell your house to buy a Ferrari when your needs could have been met by a Honda City. Your marketing technology spend has to be aligned with your goal and budget. The keyword here is optimization. He jokingly said, “Killer apps can kill you, just ask around.” One can also do a Google search — “Best cheap top CRM tool for hyper-fast growth”, he added on a lighter vein.

What are the factors that need to be considered while building a Marketing Stack?

• Company budget, primary.
• Company goals now and in the next 3 years.
• Business model, you are in
• Socio-political environment, an area that has increasingly become influential in decision-making.

There’s a whole list of company goals to choose from: Creating brand awareness, increasing qualified leads, improving conversion ratio, increasing retention, bringing down the cost per lead, hiring better marketeers, making marketing more efficient, operationally, etc. While these are some prescient examples a company needs to be clear — now and 3 years down the line, what the goals will be.

Goals give rise to jobs. Building a Marketing Stack is a lot like building a product. You start by researching the required features, map your resources accordingly, and build the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) to test the hypothesis. And, iterate, to get the best fit. Similarly, in building a Marketing Stack, one buys tools off the shelf from vendors and the approach remains similar.

A good Marketing Stack should have these functionalities:

• Scalability — both upscaling & downscaling, if required. If we want to replace one tool, we should be able to do so without disrupting the entire stack.
• Interoperability — there will be diverse tools and they should be able to work in unison.
• Advanced Reporting through data-driven marketing campaigns.
• Data security & transparency, and as Anirudh says, “You don’t want to be sued into bankruptcy.
• Advanced Reporting through data-driven marketing campaigns.

In the next stage, AI and personalization tools will have a major influence on decision-making.

Building Marketing Tools Using JTBD — Jobs To Be Done

It’s part of the First Principles Approach to a business that breaks down large problems into more manageable ones. Clayton Christensen, the legendary figure from Harvard was a proponent of this approach. He believed, jobs remained relatively stable over a period of time. And, we hire (not buy) products to do specific jobs.

Let’s look at the example of the music industry. It started with records, then came cassette tapes, CDs, music on app, and now music being streamed. How about music streaming? Well, it does various “jobs” for the individual such as provide entertainment, helps increase focus, maintains calm, etc. Each job is specific.

Going back to our original question — Which CRM tool should I buy? This question will need several considerations — the market that you operate in, other tools that are being used, and how does your sales process work? They can be viewed as micro jobs and unless I have answers to these, I cannot get a complete picture of the macro job which is, suggesting a CRM tool. This, Anirudh emphasized, requires a mindset shift. In essence, it’s not about seeking the right answers as much as seeking the right questions. It may lead to an advanced set of questions such as — does the CRM tool support a thousand monthly workflows?

A “job” has action, a metric, and an objective. The outcome can be tangible or intangible. And, there’s a job executor who is accountable.

Here’s another example.

Macro Job: Increase conversions from the landing page.

Micro Jobs: Get relevant traffic; improve the user experience of the landing page; improve usability; ease of form collection, etc.

Every micro job can be seen through a pyramid structure, starting from the tip and going up to the base 1–5:

1. Evangelization — turning customers into evangelists.
2. Increase customer retention.
3. Acquisition — increase leads to customer ratio
4. Increase product consideration
5. Awareness — attracting relevant traffic.

It should be read 5–1, upwards. And, under the overarching umbrella of:

1. A. Operations & Analytics
2. B. Content design leading to convincing messaging
3. C. Engineering — smooth function of technical assets.

Let’s revisit the process:

• Step 1 — Identify the goals of the company.
• Step 2 — Assign weights to them based on their importance.
• Step 3 — For each goal identify the macro job.
• Step 5 — List down micro-jobs for each macro.
• Step 6 — Calculate the pro-rata amt for each micro job based on its corresponding macro and overall company goal. This will determine the relative importance of each micro.

When you add it all up, it’ll lead to budgetary allocation, in essence. How much should you be spending for each macro job (adding the job executor’s salary OH cost)? The product you select should be less than or equal to the cost of the macro job.

Research Methodologies — Selection of the right tools

• Asking friends — SaaSBOOMi is doing a fabulous job in connecting people.
• Snoop around competitors — see what they are doing.
• Review Sites such as Trust Pilot, Trust Radius, Capterra. Customer reviews are the most effective.
• Wildcards — new players offer you good products at competitive prices. They also require validation so it’s a win-win situation.

Caveats

• The tool should fulfill your requirements — now and three years down the line.
• It should be within the budget.
• Easy-to-use.
• The process of decision-making has to be decentralized. The executor of the job must be engaged with.
• Siloed or all-in-one? If the macro job contributes 50% or more to the company goal then it’s best to go for the market leader.

Closing Thoughts

• Think of your Marketing Stack as a living, breathing system — it has to be nurtured continually. So, keep reviewing the outcome. It requires a lot of patience too. Too many people give in to frustration and abort mid-way.
• The whole is greater than the sum of parts. So, we need to consider other aspects of the business, consumer behavior, and the socio-political environment.
• If you face a challenge, then categorize them as either people-related, process-related, or the product per se.
• Just as it is for building products, aim for an MVP with your Marketing Stack.
• It’s better to err on the side of over-investing than not.
• Greatly improved productivity pays rich dividends and becomes your competitive advantage.
• Macro jobs if executed well, leads to the fulfillment of company goals.
• The art of perfecting is an iterative process — build, adjust, test-use, and review.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(19724) "

This highly interactive session was conducted virtually at SaaSBoomi Growth and covered all the concern areas about how to build a Marketing Stack. I am a volunteer, and I have tried to capture the leading thoughts.

In the year 2011, there were 150 Marketing tools available from which a user could buy. Cut to 2019 and we had 7040 — almost a 47X growth in numbers. Spoilt for choices as we are in every aspect of life today but this kind of an expanse can also be bewildering. Questions such as, “Which CRM tool should I buy” can have multiple responses and leave one even more perplexed than when they started. To cut through this haze, we had Aniruddh Jain, a Growth Marketing Consultant to do a session on What it takes to set up a Marketing Stack. He looked at companies in the range of 500K dollars which are on a path to reach 2–5 million.

At the very outset, he was emphatic about choosing the right tools because not doing so can lead to disastrous consequences. Far too often, we have seen companies being saddled with expensive tools that are not put to use adequately or have poor ROI. “You don’t want to get into this situation,” said Aniruddh rather gravely. That is why generic queries such as the one mentioned above don’t get you the desired results. To make things clearer, he took us through the First Principles to derive the answer.

A virtual survey revealed that on average, the participants used less than 10 marketing tools which was pretty much on cue. It has been observed that growth-stage companies used between 10–20 (such) tools and the more mature companies can go even 3–4 times higher.

Aniruddh gave the example of a car. What is its basic function? It takes an individual from Point A to Point B. But it shouldn’t be that you sell your house to buy a Ferrari when your needs could have been met by a Honda City. Your marketing technology spend has to be aligned with your goal and budget. The keyword here is optimization. He jokingly said, “Killer apps can kill you, just ask around.” One can also do a Google search — “Best cheap top CRM tool for hyper-fast growth”, he added on a lighter vein.

What are the factors that need to be considered while building a Marketing Stack?

• Company budget, primary.
• Company goals now and in the next 3 years.
• Business model, you are in
• Socio-political environment, an area that has increasingly become influential in decision-making.

There’s a whole list of company goals to choose from: Creating brand awareness, increasing qualified leads, improving conversion ratio, increasing retention, bringing down the cost per lead, hiring better marketeers, making marketing more efficient, operationally, etc. While these are some prescient examples a company needs to be clear — now and 3 years down the line, what the goals will be.

Goals give rise to jobs. Building a Marketing Stack is a lot like building a product. You start by researching the required features, map your resources accordingly, and build the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) to test the hypothesis. And, iterate, to get the best fit. Similarly, in building a Marketing Stack, one buys tools off the shelf from vendors and the approach remains similar.

A good Marketing Stack should have these functionalities:

• Scalability — both upscaling & downscaling, if required. If we want to replace one tool, we should be able to do so without disrupting the entire stack.
• Interoperability — there will be diverse tools and they should be able to work in unison.
• Advanced Reporting through data-driven marketing campaigns.
• Data security & transparency, and as Anirudh says, “You don’t want to be sued into bankruptcy.
• Advanced Reporting through data-driven marketing campaigns.

In the next stage, AI and personalization tools will have a major influence on decision-making.

Building Marketing Tools Using JTBD — Jobs To Be Done

It’s part of the First Principles Approach to a business that breaks down large problems into more manageable ones. Clayton Christensen, the legendary figure from Harvard was a proponent of this approach. He believed, jobs remained relatively stable over a period of time. And, we hire (not buy) products to do specific jobs.

Let’s look at the example of the music industry. It started with records, then came cassette tapes, CDs, music on app, and now music being streamed. How about music streaming? Well, it does various “jobs” for the individual such as provide entertainment, helps increase focus, maintains calm, etc. Each job is specific.

Going back to our original question — Which CRM tool should I buy? This question will need several considerations — the market that you operate in, other tools that are being used, and how does your sales process work? They can be viewed as micro jobs and unless I have answers to these, I cannot get a complete picture of the macro job which is, suggesting a CRM tool. This, Anirudh emphasized, requires a mindset shift. In essence, it’s not about seeking the right answers as much as seeking the right questions. It may lead to an advanced set of questions such as — does the CRM tool support a thousand monthly workflows?

A “job” has action, a metric, and an objective. The outcome can be tangible or intangible. And, there’s a job executor who is accountable.

Here’s another example.

Macro Job: Increase conversions from the landing page.

Micro Jobs: Get relevant traffic; improve the user experience of the landing page; improve usability; ease of form collection, etc.

Every micro job can be seen through a pyramid structure, starting from the tip and going up to the base 1–5:

1. Evangelization — turning customers into evangelists.
2. Increase customer retention.
3. Acquisition — increase leads to customer ratio
4. Increase product consideration
5. Awareness — attracting relevant traffic.

It should be read 5–1, upwards. And, under the overarching umbrella of:

1. A. Operations & Analytics
2. B. Content design leading to convincing messaging
3. C. Engineering — smooth function of technical assets.

Let’s revisit the process:

• Step 1 — Identify the goals of the company.
• Step 2 — Assign weights to them based on their importance.
• Step 3 — For each goal identify the macro job.
• Step 5 — List down micro-jobs for each macro.
• Step 6 — Calculate the pro-rata amt for each micro job based on its corresponding macro and overall company goal. This will determine the relative importance of each micro.

When you add it all up, it’ll lead to budgetary allocation, in essence. How much should you be spending for each macro job (adding the job executor’s salary OH cost)? The product you select should be less than or equal to the cost of the macro job.

Research Methodologies — Selection of the right tools

• Asking friends — SaaSBOOMi is doing a fabulous job in connecting people.
• Snoop around competitors — see what they are doing.
• Review Sites such as Trust Pilot, Trust Radius, Capterra. Customer reviews are the most effective.
• Wildcards — new players offer you good products at competitive prices. They also require validation so it’s a win-win situation.

Caveats

• The tool should fulfill your requirements — now and three years down the line.
• It should be within the budget.
• Easy-to-use.
• The process of decision-making has to be decentralized. The executor of the job must be engaged with.
• Siloed or all-in-one? If the macro job contributes 50% or more to the company goal then it’s best to go for the market leader.

Closing Thoughts

• Think of your Marketing Stack as a living, breathing system — it has to be nurtured continually. So, keep reviewing the outcome. It requires a lot of patience too. Too many people give in to frustration and abort mid-way.
• The whole is greater than the sum of parts. So, we need to consider other aspects of the business, consumer behavior, and the socio-political environment.
• If you face a challenge, then categorize them as either people-related, process-related, or the product per se.
• Just as it is for building products, aim for an MVP with your Marketing Stack.
• It’s better to err on the side of over-investing than not.
• Greatly improved productivity pays rich dividends and becomes your competitive advantage.
• Macro jobs if executed well, leads to the fulfillment of company goals.
• The art of perfecting is an iterative process — build, adjust, test-use, and review.

" } }

Returning To Our Offices — the New Normal: Opening-Up 1.0

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The extended lockdown imposed by governments worldwide has birthed the idea of working remotely or commonly called — the Work From Home (WFH) model. A New Normal has been established and the adaption has been remarkably fast for employees and their employers. Now, with the lockdown being lifted in a staggered manner, depending on the geography, the road to recovery is being paved with a high degree of uncertainty.

Companies are opening up too, and doing so with great caution. The question arises — What Next? Understandably, there is a flurry of concerns and mixed reactions, as we grapple with the twin objectives of saving lives and livelihoods. How will it be at the workplace and are we going back to the “old normal” anytime soon? To answer these concerns, Freshworks hosted a panel on May 20th which had a stellar line of speakers sharing their insights. At the behest of SaasBoomi, I have tried to capture the leading messages.

“Zoom is to virtual communication today what Xerox is to photocopying”

If not, it’s surely galloping there. Other tools such as Google Meet has also registered 15 million downloads — precipitating the theory that our work life has completely changed to now establish the cliché, NEW NORMAL.

Work-life balance too has acquired a new meaning with the line blurring between office time and personal, but obviously with a lot of flexibility thrown in as well. That, we have adapted so well is evident — our virtual coffee chats have trumped the real thing — at least for now. Well, almost. Be that as it may, it cannot be denied that most people are missing the office environment as one was used to. The growing restlessness is goading people to ask — how long will it last?

To take a deep dive and address these issues, we had the ever-so-vivacious Suman Gopalan, the CHRO of Freshworks engage with a stellar panel of Founder CEOs from SaaS-based companies, comprising:

1. Krish Subramanian, Founder & CEO, Chargebee. It is a subscription billing solution company for online businesses.

2. Suresh Sambandam, CEO, Kissflow — a cloud-based process management software company.

3. Girish Mathrubootham, Founder & CEO, Freshworks, a SaaS Unicorn valued at 3.5 billion USD.

Business Continuity, Employee Morale, and Productivity During These Times

Our panelists’ companies have a global presence so they could see the lockdown coming but of course, no one had imagined this extended period back in the second week of March. Given their experience in other countries, they used it to transition quickly to WFH model even before the Indian government had mandated the lockdown on the 24th of March, thus buying some additional time. Inasmuch, having a SaaS model, made it easier for them to shift work remotely in comparison to other sectors that are heavily reliant on on-premise software, and not geared for this kind of a massive shift in such a short time.

In the early days, most didn’t realize that the pandemic would be so devastating. But very quickly, the message hit hard. As Suresh Sambandam says, “Earlier we were working from 13 offices and now we have 3000”, referring to each employee’s remote work location as an office and emphasizing on business continuity. Wherever required, companies have invested significantly to spruce up the home infrastructure for their employees to enable remote working. Freshworks, as part of their No-one Left Behind strategy, has also been supporting their vendors — 350 of them during this crisis.

The panelists also underscored the importance of communication from the CEO during a crisis. It’s better to err on the side of over-communication than not, they averred. Suresh Sambandam, despite the overwhelming challenges, sees this as an opportunity to realign and re-engineer business processes — output-based model to an outcome-based one is one example — which may not have been possible earlier. Keeping employee morale high and ensuring that there’s no significant drop in productivity, are the topmost concerns for all.

The other critical aspect is, constantly looking after the mental well-being of employees. Along with virtual Town Halls, meetings, and hackathons, the fun element through online connects aimed at team-bonding, also came out strongly during the discussion — DJs, yoga & meditation classes, fitness competitions, 21-day lockdown challenge, etc.

Opening Up — how?

It is dependent on geographies. Nations are in different stages from a COVID impact standpoint, right now. Our panelists are of the opinion that employees’ well-being is a primary concern and they aren’t in a tearing hurry to open up. The remote working model has worked well and caution should be thrown to the wind. Our industry is fortunate that remote working is possible for a greater part of the workforce, unlike some others where physical presence on sites can’t be avoided.

Krish Subramanian was forthright —

“We’ve had a distributed architecture even before COVID struck but we weren’t too big on the WFH model. We would like to open up but with a great deal of caution. A Hybrid model is what we are considering from a long-term standpoint where coming to the office on a regular basis, could be made optional”.

As Girish Mathrubootham says,

“There are two kinds of employees — those who can work remotely in the long run and save on long commuting time, and others, who can’t due to infrastructural challenges.”

Looking at distributed smaller offices is a powerful idea that resonates strongly.

Suresh Sambandam calls it —

“Work From Anywhere. If this becomes an industry-wide trend then the commercial real estate sector will be severely impacted. We don’t know yet how it will play out”

When companies do open, all necessary precautions will have to be taken, such as sanitization, contactless sanitized meeting rooms, thermal screening, re-worked floor plan to enable social distancing norms, provision for personal protective gear, and putting limitations on face-face meetings, etc. We also need an extensive playbook on workplace and workforce readiness. Near-shoring to Central America is an idea they are toying with to do away with the rigour of night shifts. Of course, existing talent will be given the option to relocate if it materializes. Several angles are being considered right now keeping employees’ well-being in mind.

For the hybrid model to work out smoothly and from a long-term standpoint, both the considerations are equally important — the organizations’ and the employees’. But what really stands out is that office plays such a vital role in culture formation. The craving for the “old normal” is surely not to be missed.

Tech Solutions to Acclimatize With the New Normal

The idea of a digital workplace had already picked up even before the pandemic struck. Existing tools were being put in place and now things are happening at a much quicker pace. There’s a whole range of applications being deployed to do with measuring productivity, mental well-being, team bonding and even assessing employee health, without of course breaching on privacy — a critical aspect.

If the traditional model changes forever and there’s a strong possibility it will, then the way we value time will also need to evolve. We can’t be sucked into endless virtual meetings and we have to be sensitized about the difference between being busy and being productive.

Culture is one aspect that will evolve in a virtual environment. While hiring can be done easily, but onboarding recruits and getting them to imbibe the organizational culture would not be easy. Then again, in a Work From Anywhere model, companies will get access to a wider talent pool — especially women and those people who can’t move out of their hometowns in Tier 2 & 3 locations. Physical location will cease to matter.

Krish Subramanian had an interesting point of view. He spoke about the Lifetime Value of the Employee on the lines of what organizations do for customers. We should be looking at optimizing value from a long-term standpoint. And for it to be sustainable, employees will need flexibility in working hours without a sense of guilt weighing them down. This pandemic has busted many myths, the chief among them being about swiping cards and registering attendance. In an outcome-based environment, frankly, it should matter very little.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(13789) "

The extended lockdown imposed by governments worldwide has birthed the idea of working remotely or commonly called — the Work From Home (WFH) model. A New Normal has been established and the adaption has been remarkably fast for employees and their employers. Now, with the lockdown being lifted in a staggered manner, depending on the geography, the road to recovery is being paved with a high degree of uncertainty.

Companies are opening up too, and doing so with great caution. The question arises — What Next? Understandably, there is a flurry of concerns and mixed reactions, as we grapple with the twin objectives of saving lives and livelihoods. How will it be at the workplace and are we going back to the “old normal” anytime soon? To answer these concerns, Freshworks hosted a panel on May 20th which had a stellar line of speakers sharing their insights. At the behest of SaasBoomi, I have tried to capture the leading messages.

“Zoom is to virtual communication today what Xerox is to photocopying”

If not, it’s surely galloping there. Other tools such as Google Meet has also registered 15 million downloads — precipitating the theory that our work life has completely changed to now establish the cliché, NEW NORMAL.

Work-life balance too has acquired a new meaning with the line blurring between office time and personal, but obviously with a lot of flexibility thrown in as well. That, we have adapted so well is evident — our virtual coffee chats have trumped the real thing — at least for now. Well, almost. Be that as it may, it cannot be denied that most people are missing the office environment as one was used to. The growing restlessness is goading people to ask — how long will it last?

To take a deep dive and address these issues, we had the ever-so-vivacious Suman Gopalan, the CHRO of Freshworks engage with a stellar panel of Founder CEOs from SaaS-based companies, comprising:

1. Krish Subramanian, Founder & CEO, Chargebee. It is a subscription billing solution company for online businesses.

2. Suresh Sambandam, CEO, Kissflow — a cloud-based process management software company.

3. Girish Mathrubootham, Founder & CEO, Freshworks, a SaaS Unicorn valued at 3.5 billion USD.

Business Continuity, Employee Morale, and Productivity During These Times

Our panelists’ companies have a global presence so they could see the lockdown coming but of course, no one had imagined this extended period back in the second week of March. Given their experience in other countries, they used it to transition quickly to WFH model even before the Indian government had mandated the lockdown on the 24th of March, thus buying some additional time. Inasmuch, having a SaaS model, made it easier for them to shift work remotely in comparison to other sectors that are heavily reliant on on-premise software, and not geared for this kind of a massive shift in such a short time.

In the early days, most didn’t realize that the pandemic would be so devastating. But very quickly, the message hit hard. As Suresh Sambandam says, “Earlier we were working from 13 offices and now we have 3000”, referring to each employee’s remote work location as an office and emphasizing on business continuity. Wherever required, companies have invested significantly to spruce up the home infrastructure for their employees to enable remote working. Freshworks, as part of their No-one Left Behind strategy, has also been supporting their vendors — 350 of them during this crisis.

The panelists also underscored the importance of communication from the CEO during a crisis. It’s better to err on the side of over-communication than not, they averred. Suresh Sambandam, despite the overwhelming challenges, sees this as an opportunity to realign and re-engineer business processes — output-based model to an outcome-based one is one example — which may not have been possible earlier. Keeping employee morale high and ensuring that there’s no significant drop in productivity, are the topmost concerns for all.

The other critical aspect is, constantly looking after the mental well-being of employees. Along with virtual Town Halls, meetings, and hackathons, the fun element through online connects aimed at team-bonding, also came out strongly during the discussion — DJs, yoga & meditation classes, fitness competitions, 21-day lockdown challenge, etc.

Opening Up — how?

It is dependent on geographies. Nations are in different stages from a COVID impact standpoint, right now. Our panelists are of the opinion that employees’ well-being is a primary concern and they aren’t in a tearing hurry to open up. The remote working model has worked well and caution should be thrown to the wind. Our industry is fortunate that remote working is possible for a greater part of the workforce, unlike some others where physical presence on sites can’t be avoided.

Krish Subramanian was forthright —

“We’ve had a distributed architecture even before COVID struck but we weren’t too big on the WFH model. We would like to open up but with a great deal of caution. A Hybrid model is what we are considering from a long-term standpoint where coming to the office on a regular basis, could be made optional”.

As Girish Mathrubootham says,

“There are two kinds of employees — those who can work remotely in the long run and save on long commuting time, and others, who can’t due to infrastructural challenges.”

Looking at distributed smaller offices is a powerful idea that resonates strongly.

Suresh Sambandam calls it —

“Work From Anywhere. If this becomes an industry-wide trend then the commercial real estate sector will be severely impacted. We don’t know yet how it will play out”

When companies do open, all necessary precautions will have to be taken, such as sanitization, contactless sanitized meeting rooms, thermal screening, re-worked floor plan to enable social distancing norms, provision for personal protective gear, and putting limitations on face-face meetings, etc. We also need an extensive playbook on workplace and workforce readiness. Near-shoring to Central America is an idea they are toying with to do away with the rigour of night shifts. Of course, existing talent will be given the option to relocate if it materializes. Several angles are being considered right now keeping employees’ well-being in mind.

For the hybrid model to work out smoothly and from a long-term standpoint, both the considerations are equally important — the organizations’ and the employees’. But what really stands out is that office plays such a vital role in culture formation. The craving for the “old normal” is surely not to be missed.

Tech Solutions to Acclimatize With the New Normal

The idea of a digital workplace had already picked up even before the pandemic struck. Existing tools were being put in place and now things are happening at a much quicker pace. There’s a whole range of applications being deployed to do with measuring productivity, mental well-being, team bonding and even assessing employee health, without of course breaching on privacy — a critical aspect.

If the traditional model changes forever and there’s a strong possibility it will, then the way we value time will also need to evolve. We can’t be sucked into endless virtual meetings and we have to be sensitized about the difference between being busy and being productive.

Culture is one aspect that will evolve in a virtual environment. While hiring can be done easily, but onboarding recruits and getting them to imbibe the organizational culture would not be easy. Then again, in a Work From Anywhere model, companies will get access to a wider talent pool — especially women and those people who can’t move out of their hometowns in Tier 2 & 3 locations. Physical location will cease to matter.

Krish Subramanian had an interesting point of view. He spoke about the Lifetime Value of the Employee on the lines of what organizations do for customers. We should be looking at optimizing value from a long-term standpoint. And for it to be sustainable, employees will need flexibility in working hours without a sense of guilt weighing them down. This pandemic has busted many myths, the chief among them being about swiping cards and registering attendance. In an outcome-based environment, frankly, it should matter very little.

" } }

Best Practices for Setting Customer Success in your SaaS start-up

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Not just the burgeoning opportunity, Indian SaaS stands apart from other industries in another aspect: a close-knit founders community with successful founders proactively trying to help the upcoming founders by guiding them, sharing their playbooks etc.

Samit (Co-founder of SalesPanda) posted in the SaaSBoomi Founders Tribe Whatsapp group on best practices to set-up customer success

In the true spirit of SaaSBoomi, Krish (ChargeBee co-founder) immediately responded and offered help. This led to a very insightful session by Arundhati on Customer Success for 100+ founders!

Heading Customer Success of a fast-growing SaaS company like Chargebee can be very demanding, and in spite of her hectic schedule, Arundhati was generous enough to spend her Sunday morning helping SaaS founders like me!

Here are some of the key takeaways from the session

1. Customer success shouldn’t be looked as a mere extension of Customer Support. Customer Support primarily needs a reactive mindset — responding to the technical issues and support tickets, which CS is playing a proactive consultant role (driving product adoption, doing QBR’s, understanding customer needs etc). So, one shouldn’t expect the support agents to set-up the success function as they are fundamentally different and needs a lot of unlearning!
2. Another much-needed mindset change — Customer Success shouldn’t be seen as a cost-center but as a revenue organization! Net Expansion revenue should become a critical part of your revenue strategy and CS plays a primary role in driving that!

3. Irrespective of the size and stage of the company, the CS leader should prioritize data first, then processes and then people, in that order. Unless you gather data about your customers, you will not be able to know them deep enough to derive actionable insights. For example, do exit interview with every churn customer and categorize them as unavoidable churn (Not an ICP customer, going out of business etc) or avoidable churn (low product adoption) etc. Unless you have this data, you will not know what to optimize!

4. Spend time on your customer segmentation and it’s critical to build a scalable engagement model and to prevent some early churn!

5. Onboarding is another key process you need to optimize to prevent early churn. You can use Onboarding Turn Around Time and % of Customers Onboarding) as leading indicators to measure your onboarding

6. Churn is a lagging indicator. Finalize and set-up leading indicators to identify high-risk customers upfront so that you have time to work on preventing churn!

7. Invest in tools and automation, and especially focus on integration between our CRM/CS tool and HelpDesk Software as it’s critical to get 360 degree overview of your customer

8. CSM role falls in between sales and services, and here are some of the traits you can look for while recruiting for a CSM

I

just highlighted some of the key insights, and here is the presentation

Hope you find this helpful. If you need specific help/advice w.r.t to customer success, reach out to Arundhati. Please go through the above recording first to avoid questions already answered and be gentle on her time!

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(11835) "

Not just the burgeoning opportunity, Indian SaaS stands apart from other industries in another aspect: a close-knit founders community with successful founders proactively trying to help the upcoming founders by guiding them, sharing their playbooks etc.

Samit (Co-founder of SalesPanda) posted in the SaaSBoomi Founders Tribe Whatsapp group on best practices to set-up customer success

In the true spirit of SaaSBoomi, Krish (ChargeBee co-founder) immediately responded and offered help. This led to a very insightful session by Arundhati on Customer Success for 100+ founders!

Heading Customer Success of a fast-growing SaaS company like Chargebee can be very demanding, and in spite of her hectic schedule, Arundhati was generous enough to spend her Sunday morning helping SaaS founders like me!

Here are some of the key takeaways from the session

1. Customer success shouldn’t be looked as a mere extension of Customer Support. Customer Support primarily needs a reactive mindset — responding to the technical issues and support tickets, which CS is playing a proactive consultant role (driving product adoption, doing QBR’s, understanding customer needs etc). So, one shouldn’t expect the support agents to set-up the success function as they are fundamentally different and needs a lot of unlearning!
2. Another much-needed mindset change — Customer Success shouldn’t be seen as a cost-center but as a revenue organization! Net Expansion revenue should become a critical part of your revenue strategy and CS plays a primary role in driving that!

3. Irrespective of the size and stage of the company, the CS leader should prioritize data first, then processes and then people, in that order. Unless you gather data about your customers, you will not be able to know them deep enough to derive actionable insights. For example, do exit interview with every churn customer and categorize them as unavoidable churn (Not an ICP customer, going out of business etc) or avoidable churn (low product adoption) etc. Unless you have this data, you will not know what to optimize!

4. Spend time on your customer segmentation and it’s critical to build a scalable engagement model and to prevent some early churn!

5. Onboarding is another key process you need to optimize to prevent early churn. You can use Onboarding Turn Around Time and % of Customers Onboarding) as leading indicators to measure your onboarding

6. Churn is a lagging indicator. Finalize and set-up leading indicators to identify high-risk customers upfront so that you have time to work on preventing churn!

7. Invest in tools and automation, and especially focus on integration between our CRM/CS tool and HelpDesk Software as it’s critical to get 360 degree overview of your customer

8. CSM role falls in between sales and services, and here are some of the traits you can look for while recruiting for a CSM

I

just highlighted some of the key insights, and here is the presentation

Hope you find this helpful. If you need specific help/advice w.r.t to customer success, reach out to Arundhati. Please go through the above recording first to avoid questions already answered and be gentle on her time!

" } }

Our SaaS Stack and how we got almost every tool for free

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We are a six-people company, and we use more than Forty different SaaS tools.

For a new startup in the startup desert landscape, funds are like water — they’re essential commodities which must not be used until you get to the next oasis. Everything you do to conserve your funds increases your chances of getting to the next stop, while not optimizing them can lead to an early end.

Our goal is to put every dollar to work for us. Startup spending should be budgeted, controlled, and, if possible, reduced as much as possible, often by being creative.

You will be surprised how many software tools you can get for free especially in the early days of your company.

Here’s our story on how we did that for all our SaaS and infrastructure expenses.

We started by making a list of all the software tools we were using and would be using and looked for the following attributes:

1. Cost: Do they offer credits as part of a plan? If yes, can we get discounts?
2. Flexible Billing: We love monthly billing with a discount offered for an annual commitment.
3. Ease of Use: We didn’t want to waste time in managing and deploying the tools.
4. Lock-in: We wanted to ensure business continuity without any worry of getting locked into a vendor.

Here are the startup programs that offer discounts on the tools.

1. Microsoft Startup Program: No matter where your company is located, if you are a funded startup, we suggest you sign up MS Startup Program. You get access to Azure cloud deals, Visual Studio license, and Office 365 subscription.
2. AWS Activate: With AWS Activate, you can get $100,000 for the first year if you are a part of a reputed accelerator or backed by a VC firm.
3. YC Startup School: This is probably the best deal for any startup. You don’t need to be part of any accelerator program.
4. Segment Startup Program: Ideal for companies that are less than two years old or have received less than $5 million of funding, Segment offers two years of free services and a host of deals from Intercom, Customer.io, and Mode.
5. Google Cloud for Startups: You need to be part of an accelerator or a venture-backed company. If you are incorporated in the US, you can also get access to six months of GSuite.
6. And, obviously, our own SaaSBoomi, if you are a SaaS Startup.

We also found programs that offer a combination of discounts and credits:

1. The Founder Club : ($750 to get in, but we can give you a 50% off promo code)
2. The Secret: a free Europe-based startup that offers deals to new small businesses who pass their application. No accelerator or VC backing required.

And here’s our list of preferred SaaS tools which we almost managed to get for free.

1. Mail Client and Office Suite

• Office 365: (25 seats worth $7500 via Microsoft Startup Program)
• GSuite: Post the acceptance at Google Cloud Platform, you’ll need to email them with a request for a discount.

2. Team Collaboration Stack

• Airtable: We manage all our customer interactions and CRM activities in Airtable. ($2,000 worth of credit via “The Secret”)
• Notion: ‘Notion for Startups” with $1000 of free credits if you are part of their partner accelerator or VC Firm. if not, you can get the same offer by purchasing at Product Hunt Founder’s Club. ($1,000 worth of credit via Founder’s Club)
• Slack: We wrote to Slack Sales team asking for free licenses being an early-stage startup, and they were kind enough to offer us.

3. Engineering Stack

• Github Enterprise Cloud: (40 seats worth $24000 via Microsoft Startup Program)
• Visual Studio: (License worth $5400 via Microsoft Startup Program)
• Linear: We moved from Jira to a swift developer ticketing tool Linear, which is free for now.
• Sentry: ($960 for 1 year)

4. Cloud Infrastructure

• Amazon Web Services: (Credits worth $105,000 via SaaSBOOMi, $5000 via YC Startup School)
• Microsoft Azure Services: (Credits worth $150,000 via SaaSBOOMi)
• Heroku: ($20,000 via YC Startup School)
• Google Cloud Platform: ($20,000 via a direct application)
• Digital Ocean: (Credits worth $10,000 via YC Startup School)

For infrastructure tools, we suggest you space out your activation of accounts. It will give you enough room to experiment with every infrastructure provider out there.

5. Analytics Stack

• Segment: (Credits worth $50,000 via SaaSBOOMi)
• Power BI Pro: (License worth $2340 via Microsoft Startup Program)

6. Compliances and Security

• Iubenda: Iubenda is an excellent service to make sure your website is compliant. ($600 via “Founders Club”)
• 1Password: For sharing passwords with internal teams. ($2000 via “Founders Club” or six months free)

7. Communication

• OpenPhone: OpenPhone is a new age cloud telephony service. It gives you unlimited incoming and outgoing calls to the US and Canada. ($200 via “Founders Club”)

We were able to get the above tools for free by asking nicely and also using the self-hosted version, which is not advertised.

We got a combined savings of $406,210 over two years with the ability to test and experiment as much as we need without the constraint of spending.

While no living document like this is ever perfect, this is currently the best collection of resources we have used lately. I’m sharing it so that others may benefit from it. If you have any suggestions, please email me. I will add them to the list.

Although it sounds unbelievable, a leaky credit card expense can cause a serious dent in your funds. Watch your cash flow obsessively.

My Co-founder Shoaib Khan is the genius behind this. He is an expert in sourcing almost everything for a deal. In our next article, we will also cover how we sourced top furniture for our office for a fraction of the cost.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(17441) "

We are a six-people company, and we use more than Forty different SaaS tools.

For a new startup in the startup desert landscape, funds are like water — they’re essential commodities which must not be used until you get to the next oasis. Everything you do to conserve your funds increases your chances of getting to the next stop, while not optimizing them can lead to an early end.

Our goal is to put every dollar to work for us. Startup spending should be budgeted, controlled, and, if possible, reduced as much as possible, often by being creative.

You will be surprised how many software tools you can get for free especially in the early days of your company.

Here’s our story on how we did that for all our SaaS and infrastructure expenses.

We started by making a list of all the software tools we were using and would be using and looked for the following attributes:

1. Cost: Do they offer credits as part of a plan? If yes, can we get discounts?
2. Flexible Billing: We love monthly billing with a discount offered for an annual commitment.
3. Ease of Use: We didn’t want to waste time in managing and deploying the tools.
4. Lock-in: We wanted to ensure business continuity without any worry of getting locked into a vendor.

Here are the startup programs that offer discounts on the tools.

1. Microsoft Startup Program: No matter where your company is located, if you are a funded startup, we suggest you sign up MS Startup Program. You get access to Azure cloud deals, Visual Studio license, and Office 365 subscription.
2. AWS Activate: With AWS Activate, you can get $100,000 for the first year if you are a part of a reputed accelerator or backed by a VC firm.
3. YC Startup School: This is probably the best deal for any startup. You don’t need to be part of any accelerator program.
4. Segment Startup Program: Ideal for companies that are less than two years old or have received less than $5 million of funding, Segment offers two years of free services and a host of deals from Intercom, Customer.io, and Mode.
5. Google Cloud for Startups: You need to be part of an accelerator or a venture-backed company. If you are incorporated in the US, you can also get access to six months of GSuite.
6. And, obviously, our own SaaSBoomi, if you are a SaaS Startup.

We also found programs that offer a combination of discounts and credits:

1. The Founder Club : ($750 to get in, but we can give you a 50% off promo code)
2. The Secret: a free Europe-based startup that offers deals to new small businesses who pass their application. No accelerator or VC backing required.

And here’s our list of preferred SaaS tools which we almost managed to get for free.

1. Mail Client and Office Suite

• Office 365: (25 seats worth $7500 via Microsoft Startup Program)
• GSuite: Post the acceptance at Google Cloud Platform, you’ll need to email them with a request for a discount.

2. Team Collaboration Stack

• Airtable: We manage all our customer interactions and CRM activities in Airtable. ($2,000 worth of credit via “The Secret”)
• Notion: ‘Notion for Startups” with $1000 of free credits if you are part of their partner accelerator or VC Firm. if not, you can get the same offer by purchasing at Product Hunt Founder’s Club. ($1,000 worth of credit via Founder’s Club)
• Slack: We wrote to Slack Sales team asking for free licenses being an early-stage startup, and they were kind enough to offer us.

3. Engineering Stack

• Github Enterprise Cloud: (40 seats worth $24000 via Microsoft Startup Program)
• Visual Studio: (License worth $5400 via Microsoft Startup Program)
• Linear: We moved from Jira to a swift developer ticketing tool Linear, which is free for now.
• Sentry: ($960 for 1 year)

4. Cloud Infrastructure

• Amazon Web Services: (Credits worth $105,000 via SaaSBOOMi, $5000 via YC Startup School)
• Microsoft Azure Services: (Credits worth $150,000 via SaaSBOOMi)
• Heroku: ($20,000 via YC Startup School)
• Google Cloud Platform: ($20,000 via a direct application)
• Digital Ocean: (Credits worth $10,000 via YC Startup School)

For infrastructure tools, we suggest you space out your activation of accounts. It will give you enough room to experiment with every infrastructure provider out there.

5. Analytics Stack

• Segment: (Credits worth $50,000 via SaaSBOOMi)
• Power BI Pro: (License worth $2340 via Microsoft Startup Program)

6. Compliances and Security

• Iubenda: Iubenda is an excellent service to make sure your website is compliant. ($600 via “Founders Club”)
• 1Password: For sharing passwords with internal teams. ($2000 via “Founders Club” or six months free)

7. Communication

• OpenPhone: OpenPhone is a new age cloud telephony service. It gives you unlimited incoming and outgoing calls to the US and Canada. ($200 via “Founders Club”)

We were able to get the above tools for free by asking nicely and also using the self-hosted version, which is not advertised.

We got a combined savings of $406,210 over two years with the ability to test and experiment as much as we need without the constraint of spending.

While no living document like this is ever perfect, this is currently the best collection of resources we have used lately. I’m sharing it so that others may benefit from it. If you have any suggestions, please email me. I will add them to the list.

Although it sounds unbelievable, a leaky credit card expense can cause a serious dent in your funds. Watch your cash flow obsessively.

My Co-founder Shoaib Khan is the genius behind this. He is an expert in sourcing almost everything for a deal. In our next article, we will also cover how we sourced top furniture for our office for a fraction of the cost.

" } }

Hit the Reset Button and Activate Survival Mode

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(11954) "When the bottom got unhinged during the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 (GFC), a new framework saw the light of day, and the acronym VUCA rapidly gained currency to punctuate business conversations. And now, “we have a VUCA Playbook”, as Girish Mathrubootham, the Founder & CEO of Freshworks says during his tete-a- tete (read Outliers Podcast) with Pankaj Mishra, the CEO of Factor Daily. This is a fresh season and yes, you guessed right — the season of RESILIENCE! If there’s great anxiety right now then it’s understandable — the unanswered questions are piling up by the hour and all we see are nervous looks cast sideways. And, we needed somebody of the stature of Girish Mathruboothan to put our nervousness to rest. He is highly respected in the tech industry and it’s not only because his company, a SaaS-based one, is a Unicorn, there’s also great foresight in the man and it goes beyond business circles. He believes, and he is so right, that we are the fortunate ones. Migrant workers and the unemployed lot had a raw deal when the pandemic struck, and they continue to remain vulnerable, whereas many in the industry are lamenting about diminishing revenue growth. While the situations may be vastly dissimilar, but the plight of millions of people the world over is heart-rending. That, in itself, should give us a deep sense of gratitude and courage to face a topsy-turvy world. We’ve seen crisis before — dot com bust, GFC, et al — but never have we experienced global supply chains being crippled to this extent. The severity of impact back then had remained limited to certain geographies or it affected only a certain kind of people. This is the first time when all the 190-odd nations have been impacted in varying degrees. The virus is not likely to go away anytime soon and the galloping count of infected people is putting immense pressure on a crumbling healthcare system in most countries. It brings immense relief to know that the curve is flattening in some geographies, but as Girish says, “Founders have to prepare for very difficult times ahead”. The strains of this virus are unpredictable.

How to Address an Existential Crisis?

Unarguably, the last big recession that we saw was the 2008 GFC and though the situation is vastly different today, our learnings are borrowed from what we figured out in hindsight, back then. There are great uncertainties and ambiguities on how Q2 FY 21 will play out. Between what we can intelligently predict now, vis-a-vis the outcome, we can expect massive volatility as well. “We are living in a situation where we don’t know enough about it, and we also don’t know what action will drive what kind of results”, says Girish animatedly. “We mustn’t get carried away, and we should focus on the controllable factors — spending, in these times”, he adds thoughtfully. It is often said that some great companies were built during a recession, but it’s important to know what exactly they did to achieve greatness. For the last ten years, we’ve seen bullish sentiments all-round, symptomatic of hyper-growth trends, massive funding rounds, and a sense of positivity in general which can have a lulling effect on the senses. To reset this high-growth mindset to one of survival is the need of the hour, but it’s very difficult to make such a quick revision when in the last 10 years one has not experienced a recession. A lot of founders continue to live in the past (read growth mindset) and are yet to transition to survival mode, living on hope that things will pick up soon. For them, Girish has a piece of advice — please do so RIGHT NOW! Admittedly, startups cannot be bucketed as one massive monolithic structure as they are all in different stages, but SURVIVAL is paramount for each one. At this point, it’s NOT about aiming or revenue growth and hiring great talent - the very same priorities which may have been on the calling cards four months back. Once he addressed the “What” it was time to look at the “How to” aspect of it. ”Make a detailed survival plan for 24 months (if possible)”, he advises. “How do you protect your existing revenue streams, knowing that cash collection will be challenging? The most important thing to do right now”, and he minces no words, “is to get out of the fantasy of a growth world and adapt quickly to a survival mindset.”

Is This The Time To Throw in the Towel — Strugglers & Newbies?

Some people may have been struggling greatly even before the pandemic struck, while there may be others who’ve just started and can see little hope with no definitive list of prospects. Should they call it quits? Girish insists that to answer this question he needs to know the exact fund position. Be that as it may, he’s willing to offer a generic view. “Now is not a great time to sell your company”, he asserts. The pride of a successful founder gleaming in his eyes. He proffers a simple logic — who would want to buy now, and valuations are going to be very low, even if one finds a buyer. Why not wait for a bigger exit? Having said that, he also lends a helping hand. If one has the money to survive then that should be the only focus and it should continue until better times are back. No one could have foreseen this situation 6 months back and based on the market conditions then, a hiring spree may have resulted. Today with rapidly diminishing revenue, organizations may be straddled with excess manpower and it’s always very painful to let go of talent. Right-sizing is a traumatic experience, but that call has to be taken right now and one shouldn’t be under the illusion that things will look up in June, July, or August, etc. It’ll be simply great (for all of us) if it does — but what if it doesn’t? By then it may be too late to save the company. “Hope for the best but prepare for the worst” is his candid rejoinder. We have no clarity whatsoever on the virus — whether we are likely to see successive waves, etc. We don’t know what kind of impact it may have on business sentiments, so we must prepare for the worst to the extent possible. The company has to survive — that’s it!

Survival Strategy

It’s decided we’re going to survive, no question about that. How do we go about it, then? The priority should be to have a runway for at least the next 18–24 months or to the extent possible. Not too many VCs are investing right now. Whatever you see around are mostly about meeting earlier commitments, made just before COVID struck. You may be feeling cornered now in the final stages of negotiation where the VC is playing hard and insists on a Board seat. “Give it to them”, says Girish rather magnanimously. In dire conditions where one may not have more than 3–4 months of cash left, this is the best bet. Once again, he remains emphatic about the company’s survival over everything else. There are market feelers that valuations may drop rapidly. VCs are not necessarily an opportunistic breed always, and like everyone else, they have to stay afloat too. The question is who blinks first? To make the framework easier he created two buckets for very early startups — one for those which are in the pre-revenue stage and others with revenue. For the first category, he has a simple piece of advice — do whatever it takes but use the next 6–8 months to build the platform/product as best as you can with the resources available. Having a very small team and foregoing salary, are all part of the deal. But there may be early startups that have a high cash burn rate and are heavily reliant on VC money right now. They have to figure out how to stay afloat with a skeletal team, based on the funds available.The second category must focus on protecting their existing revenue streams and be cognizant of the fact that there may yet be significant leakage that has to be factored in. Once again — focus on survival. In new deals too, expect cancellations, so it’s critical to identify the pockets where customers are still buying, and go about obsessively, to service them.

Freshworks at War

The crux of it, is in his own words: “How do you throw away your old plan and quickly re-orient the entire company with a new one? That’s a hard problem”. When the year started (Jan), an annual operating plan was sketched out, based on a healthy growth rate. Naturally, additional talent requirement was also factored in. In their case, it was to be 900–1000 additional people. Till March, no one had any clue about the devastating impact that the pandemic would cause, so they went ahead and hired 300–400 people. 470-odd positions are still vacant and hiring has frozen for now, except for some of the key positions. In November last year, they had closed a healthy round of funding valued at 150 million dollars so the cash position is safe. Even then, the team went into overdrive with the Founder CEO at the forefront communicating over Zoom to all 3000 employees that the old plan was no more tenable. A new plan was worked out — the topmost priority was about saving every single job and even those of the outsourced staff (350) who were dependent on Freshworks’ businesses for their livelihoods. It’s almost akin to a Duckworth-Lewis kind of a situation in Cricket. Even though you were cruising earlier, but the new run-rate has completely overturned the earlier plan. They cut down on spending drastically including travel costs, field marketing expenses, digital marketing spends, etc. Hiring was paused and so were the merit increases. Again to take a lesson from a very healthy company with an adequate cash reserve — when revenue is on a slippery slope then focus on survival and slash away costs proportionately. A war-room was set up and the real-time data was monitored ruthlessly by a team of experts, to chart out the next course of action. The good old gut-feel was encouraged too, simply because the data points were changing drastically and one had to rely on experience as well. The other thing they continue to do very well is to be on a constant lookout for positive momentum. Continue to focus on areas where you see traction and take them to a level to create a differentiated strategy by the time the crisis is over.

On Culture

One has to realize that it’s a humanitarian crisis. No one is at fault here. It is the time to stay together and leaders must use this opportunity to reach out to their teams and communicate with a great deal of empathy. Diverse teams may have a different set of challenges and only when you talk to them do you realize the full impact of it. That’s the first step towards building positivity. Many companies use this time to tighten the belt and minimize wastage. As Girish says, “Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional.” The only thing that Founders have to always bear in mind is the detailed survival plan. Without it, nothing will work. An honest intent is always recognized, appreciated, and supported across the organization. There is no other way to make it easy than being truthful. In reality, managing a high-growth phase can also be incredibly stressful especially when one has to right-size. These conversations can never be comforting and yet, leaders have to do it. Always remember, the company is bigger than individuals, even the CEO. The challenges in a growth phase may be different but no less consuming. “Staying sane is a decision,” says Girish. The time saved in commuting or business travel can be effectively used today to do so many other things that one loves. As individuals, we have to find our reasons to stay positive and be happy." ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(11954) "When the bottom got unhinged during the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 (GFC), a new framework saw the light of day, and the acronym VUCA rapidly gained currency to punctuate business conversations. And now, “we have a VUCA Playbook”, as Girish Mathrubootham, the Founder & CEO of Freshworks says during his tete-a- tete (read Outliers Podcast) with Pankaj Mishra, the CEO of Factor Daily. This is a fresh season and yes, you guessed right — the season of RESILIENCE! If there’s great anxiety right now then it’s understandable — the unanswered questions are piling up by the hour and all we see are nervous looks cast sideways. And, we needed somebody of the stature of Girish Mathruboothan to put our nervousness to rest. He is highly respected in the tech industry and it’s not only because his company, a SaaS-based one, is a Unicorn, there’s also great foresight in the man and it goes beyond business circles. He believes, and he is so right, that we are the fortunate ones. Migrant workers and the unemployed lot had a raw deal when the pandemic struck, and they continue to remain vulnerable, whereas many in the industry are lamenting about diminishing revenue growth. While the situations may be vastly dissimilar, but the plight of millions of people the world over is heart-rending. That, in itself, should give us a deep sense of gratitude and courage to face a topsy-turvy world. We’ve seen crisis before — dot com bust, GFC, et al — but never have we experienced global supply chains being crippled to this extent. The severity of impact back then had remained limited to certain geographies or it affected only a certain kind of people. This is the first time when all the 190-odd nations have been impacted in varying degrees. The virus is not likely to go away anytime soon and the galloping count of infected people is putting immense pressure on a crumbling healthcare system in most countries. It brings immense relief to know that the curve is flattening in some geographies, but as Girish says, “Founders have to prepare for very difficult times ahead”. The strains of this virus are unpredictable.

How to Address an Existential Crisis?

Unarguably, the last big recession that we saw was the 2008 GFC and though the situation is vastly different today, our learnings are borrowed from what we figured out in hindsight, back then. There are great uncertainties and ambiguities on how Q2 FY 21 will play out. Between what we can intelligently predict now, vis-a-vis the outcome, we can expect massive volatility as well. “We are living in a situation where we don’t know enough about it, and we also don’t know what action will drive what kind of results”, says Girish animatedly. “We mustn’t get carried away, and we should focus on the controllable factors — spending, in these times”, he adds thoughtfully. It is often said that some great companies were built during a recession, but it’s important to know what exactly they did to achieve greatness. For the last ten years, we’ve seen bullish sentiments all-round, symptomatic of hyper-growth trends, massive funding rounds, and a sense of positivity in general which can have a lulling effect on the senses. To reset this high-growth mindset to one of survival is the need of the hour, but it’s very difficult to make such a quick revision when in the last 10 years one has not experienced a recession. A lot of founders continue to live in the past (read growth mindset) and are yet to transition to survival mode, living on hope that things will pick up soon. For them, Girish has a piece of advice — please do so RIGHT NOW! Admittedly, startups cannot be bucketed as one massive monolithic structure as they are all in different stages, but SURVIVAL is paramount for each one. At this point, it’s NOT about aiming or revenue growth and hiring great talent - the very same priorities which may have been on the calling cards four months back. Once he addressed the “What” it was time to look at the “How to” aspect of it. ”Make a detailed survival plan for 24 months (if possible)”, he advises. “How do you protect your existing revenue streams, knowing that cash collection will be challenging? The most important thing to do right now”, and he minces no words, “is to get out of the fantasy of a growth world and adapt quickly to a survival mindset.”

Is This The Time To Throw in the Towel — Strugglers & Newbies?

Some people may have been struggling greatly even before the pandemic struck, while there may be others who’ve just started and can see little hope with no definitive list of prospects. Should they call it quits? Girish insists that to answer this question he needs to know the exact fund position. Be that as it may, he’s willing to offer a generic view. “Now is not a great time to sell your company”, he asserts. The pride of a successful founder gleaming in his eyes. He proffers a simple logic — who would want to buy now, and valuations are going to be very low, even if one finds a buyer. Why not wait for a bigger exit? Having said that, he also lends a helping hand. If one has the money to survive then that should be the only focus and it should continue until better times are back. No one could have foreseen this situation 6 months back and based on the market conditions then, a hiring spree may have resulted. Today with rapidly diminishing revenue, organizations may be straddled with excess manpower and it’s always very painful to let go of talent. Right-sizing is a traumatic experience, but that call has to be taken right now and one shouldn’t be under the illusion that things will look up in June, July, or August, etc. It’ll be simply great (for all of us) if it does — but what if it doesn’t? By then it may be too late to save the company. “Hope for the best but prepare for the worst” is his candid rejoinder. We have no clarity whatsoever on the virus — whether we are likely to see successive waves, etc. We don’t know what kind of impact it may have on business sentiments, so we must prepare for the worst to the extent possible. The company has to survive — that’s it!

Survival Strategy

It’s decided we’re going to survive, no question about that. How do we go about it, then? The priority should be to have a runway for at least the next 18–24 months or to the extent possible. Not too many VCs are investing right now. Whatever you see around are mostly about meeting earlier commitments, made just before COVID struck. You may be feeling cornered now in the final stages of negotiation where the VC is playing hard and insists on a Board seat. “Give it to them”, says Girish rather magnanimously. In dire conditions where one may not have more than 3–4 months of cash left, this is the best bet. Once again, he remains emphatic about the company’s survival over everything else. There are market feelers that valuations may drop rapidly. VCs are not necessarily an opportunistic breed always, and like everyone else, they have to stay afloat too. The question is who blinks first? To make the framework easier he created two buckets for very early startups — one for those which are in the pre-revenue stage and others with revenue. For the first category, he has a simple piece of advice — do whatever it takes but use the next 6–8 months to build the platform/product as best as you can with the resources available. Having a very small team and foregoing salary, are all part of the deal. But there may be early startups that have a high cash burn rate and are heavily reliant on VC money right now. They have to figure out how to stay afloat with a skeletal team, based on the funds available.The second category must focus on protecting their existing revenue streams and be cognizant of the fact that there may yet be significant leakage that has to be factored in. Once again — focus on survival. In new deals too, expect cancellations, so it’s critical to identify the pockets where customers are still buying, and go about obsessively, to service them.

Freshworks at War

The crux of it, is in his own words: “How do you throw away your old plan and quickly re-orient the entire company with a new one? That’s a hard problem”. When the year started (Jan), an annual operating plan was sketched out, based on a healthy growth rate. Naturally, additional talent requirement was also factored in. In their case, it was to be 900–1000 additional people. Till March, no one had any clue about the devastating impact that the pandemic would cause, so they went ahead and hired 300–400 people. 470-odd positions are still vacant and hiring has frozen for now, except for some of the key positions. In November last year, they had closed a healthy round of funding valued at 150 million dollars so the cash position is safe. Even then, the team went into overdrive with the Founder CEO at the forefront communicating over Zoom to all 3000 employees that the old plan was no more tenable. A new plan was worked out — the topmost priority was about saving every single job and even those of the outsourced staff (350) who were dependent on Freshworks’ businesses for their livelihoods. It’s almost akin to a Duckworth-Lewis kind of a situation in Cricket. Even though you were cruising earlier, but the new run-rate has completely overturned the earlier plan. They cut down on spending drastically including travel costs, field marketing expenses, digital marketing spends, etc. Hiring was paused and so were the merit increases. Again to take a lesson from a very healthy company with an adequate cash reserve — when revenue is on a slippery slope then focus on survival and slash away costs proportionately. A war-room was set up and the real-time data was monitored ruthlessly by a team of experts, to chart out the next course of action. The good old gut-feel was encouraged too, simply because the data points were changing drastically and one had to rely on experience as well. The other thing they continue to do very well is to be on a constant lookout for positive momentum. Continue to focus on areas where you see traction and take them to a level to create a differentiated strategy by the time the crisis is over.

On Culture

One has to realize that it’s a humanitarian crisis. No one is at fault here. It is the time to stay together and leaders must use this opportunity to reach out to their teams and communicate with a great deal of empathy. Diverse teams may have a different set of challenges and only when you talk to them do you realize the full impact of it. That’s the first step towards building positivity. Many companies use this time to tighten the belt and minimize wastage. As Girish says, “Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional.” The only thing that Founders have to always bear in mind is the detailed survival plan. Without it, nothing will work. An honest intent is always recognized, appreciated, and supported across the organization. There is no other way to make it easy than being truthful. In reality, managing a high-growth phase can also be incredibly stressful especially when one has to right-size. These conversations can never be comforting and yet, leaders have to do it. Always remember, the company is bigger than individuals, even the CEO. The challenges in a growth phase may be different but no less consuming. “Staying sane is a decision,” says Girish. The time saved in commuting or business travel can be effectively used today to do so many other things that one loves. As individuals, we have to find our reasons to stay positive and be happy." } }

Winning the new normal: Armando Mann

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A few weeks after Covid19 was declared a pandemic, as part of the SaaSBoomi initiative, some of India’s top SaaS entrepreneurs got together to discuss strategies for companies to steer through the crisis. A few weeks further in, at the SaaSBoomii growth summit, we got together to discuss how to thrive in the new world, notwithstanding the pandemic.

“SaaS companies need not play defense. We can go on the offense. In fact, we’re better off than most others,” Armando Mann, formerly of Salesforce, Dropbox, Google, and an investor in several startups said during his keynote at the SaaSBoomi growth summit.

Edited excerpts from the keynote.

The world is changing very rapidly and every week we’re learning new things. The only thing we know for certain is absolutely nothing. We don’t know when the pandemic will finish. We don’t know how deep the economy is going to be hit in different countries. We don’t know how to recover. We know we don’t know which sectors and which way things are going to go. We’re deep into a health crisis. We’re nowhere close to the end of the crisis. In the US, for instance, one out of five is unemployed. In India 120 million are unemployed.

So the main skills that we need to develop and exercise is to be fast at learning and decisive as leaders. In practice, this means adapting in three areas. Firstly, adapt your product to the current environment. The second is your customers and how we engage with your customers. And the third is your team.

Before we dive into those three areas: what are the constraints of the new normal? As many of you know we’re working from home. There are social distancing norms. We’re only going to travel when it is truly necessary. Schools are closed around the world. Events are being canceled or going online. Budgets are tighter.

The good part is that several tech companies enabling people in the new environment are doing well. Zoom, for example, has gone from 10 million daily participants to over 300 million daily participants since the crisis erupted. That’s a 30 X growth.

Doximity, a telehealth company that used to take 1 million calls a month now takes a million calls a day. E-learning is also growing tremendously. Collaboration tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams are doubling in numbers. And of course, Netflix, Disney Hotstar and Prime usage is exploding.

SaaS companies don’t necessarily need to play defense. We are in a position to play offense. And let me walk you through why I think that’s true. Our privileged position comes from our business model in contrast to a lot of other sectors. For example, last month, some of the largest chains in the world had negative revenue. That means they had to reimburse their customers more money than the money they made from bookings. In our case, we get recurring revenue. Many of us have collected payments for services in advance.

Airlines, of course, cannot get rid of their planes. We know their demand is going to change. But there’s nothing they can do about their capacity. We can turn servers on and off. We’re very asset-light and that’s a fantastic characteristic of our business.

Hair salons, movie theaters, all sorts of businesses can not go remote whereas most of our employees can go back home and do their jobs from home.

The auto industry is not only getting decimated in demand, but they don’t have margins to play with. As a software business, our margins are between 50 and 80%. That gives us a lot of wiggle room.

Office rentals: Think of WeWork. They are empty. There’s nobody there. Complete ghost towns. In comparison, our apps are still being used.

And lastly, you’re all aware of what’s happening in the oil industry. Demand is collapsing. There’s a massive surplus such that they can pump out oil but have to pay people to take it off their hands. At the same time, demand for SaaS businesses is going up because they’re enabling digital transformation.

We have this incredible opportunity. But we need to adapt. We cannot continue to do things the way we’re doing them a month or two ago. So let me start with your products. The customer used to have a problem that you’re trying to solve. But that might have changed in the last few months. So you have to listen very carefully.

Let me give an example. I was talking to a CIO of a Fortune 500 company. It used to be that his whole priority was how to enable innovation. Now his priority is cost reduction, driving efficiency, and rationalizing spend. Your tool might still be the right solution for that CIO. But you have to listen carefully to what is it that they are prioritizing now and how you frame the conversation. And how you show your product to address today’s concerns.

That also goes to talk about the ideal customer profile. So we all know what our perfect customer is like. But that will also be changing. I was talking to a few companies that do the bottoms up adoption of the products. That’s all good when you have time to deploy the product, people try it out, and then eventually you go upmarket. Now some of these companies are saying we’re changing our roadmap and moving upmarket sooner because those are real revenues. So you might want to think on similar lines.

Once you understand your target customer’s needs, think about your roadmap. You might have to shift things back and forth. That doesn’t mean you have to change your mission. But just reprioritize things based on what their new reality is. For instance, Ford and GM — not your typical tech companies — realized they were not going to be selling cars anytime soon. But there is a huge demand for respirators. So they are opening abandoned plants to build respirators.

Something closer to where many of you are is Reduct, a startup in Mountain View, California. Their main goal was to create tools to edit videos that came from user research interviews. With the explosion of online events like this one, they realized that their technology can be used to transcribe and edit. They’re doing really well with that. So they haven’t changed the product but they changed the use case and the framing and they’re having success with that.

You also want to adapt your go to market. The reality of your buyer has changed. And they need you to sell them in a different way. So let me tell you how reality has changed. To talk about a new initiative, your customer earlier would have gone to the office, gotten the team together, explained why they wanted to implement your product and worked with your team to implement it. Now, this is her reality: She’s at home with the kids and it’s total and utter chaos. At least that’s my case in the day. So think about how you can adapt to your buyer’s reality with a new buying process.

So how should the sales motion adapt? We’re in the early days of this crisis but I’m seeing that lead volume is actually stable. SaaS companies are still getting leads coming in the door, but the sales cycles are longer. We’re seeing lower close rates, especially for new logos.

The best companies I know are investing in product-led sales motions. So we used to go and talk about the value prop and about proof of concept and a bunch of things. But now companies are saying let’s make our demos and pre-trials exceptionally good so people can get value and see value from our products really quickly. I’m seeing a lot of sales teams become best friends with customer success. Not that they weren’t before. But customer success right now is in dire need of help to prevent churn.

That’s where a lot of the sales teams are finding their best opportunities to expand. Your customers will thank you. Because right now, they have to decide if they want to solve problems going after an unknown new vendor or with you, who they already know. So if you can say, hey, we’re doing this for you but we can also do this thing for you in a relevant context, that’s going to be really powerful. I’m seeing a lot of folks reducing the number of tools to consolidate around fewer vendors.

Sales teams that realize sales cycles are longer so in some cases they have more time than they had before for that follow-up. They are not commuting, they are at home all day and in some cases are working all day. So they’re using that extra time they have with customers to build deeper customer relationships and that will pay off in the future. So if you’re seeing your sales cycle extend and taking more conversations, make that investment and build those stronger relationships that will deliver exponentially in the long term.

Now this applies to most companies in different sales motions. But there are nuances whether you are an inside sales team or you’re an outside sales mid-market enterprise team. The inside sales teams are lucky. You have the right tools, you have the right processes, you’re used to selling over Zoom, you’re used to never meeting folks. You’re in a great place in terms of processes and tools. Now think about the buyer at home. Give them more flexibility when scheduling. Meetings don’t need to be an hour.

Don’t need to be exactly 30 minutes or exactly when it’s scheduled. Because right now they don’t have total control of their agenda as they were when they were at the office. They have other unexpected events during the day. Also, address the elephant in the room. Talk to your customers about what has changed. Is there a different decision-making process? Have there been layoffs? Is there a new person to make decisions? Is the CFO now lowering the threshold for purchases? Like, how are things changing inside your company due to the environment? Assume change. So if you’ve done a discovery call in February and you think you understand what the customer needs because of the conversation had in February, redo that discovery call. You will learn new things and be open to that change.

For mid-market and enterprise, the core of the job is still the same. The best practices are still the same. You need to do deep discoveries, account planning, value selling, you need to be thoughtful about the deal and the deal process.

What’s new to enterprise teams in many cases is the tech stack the Inside Sales uses. So get familiar with how the Inside Sales teams use tech to do things better. You’ll have to do more follow-ups. It’s much harder to build relationships over video than in person. With many of you, I’ll never meet in person. And that five-minute conversation during a coffee break is hard to replicate it over Zoom. You need to figure out how to do that over video. More than that, in many enterprise buying situations, you have a group that has to make a decision. You get them in a room and you’ve mastered managing the room and have that conversation. But now the dynamic of a Zoom meeting with a bunch of participants is very different. So you need to develop a playbook and figure out how to run effective group meetings over video.

The superpower that you need to defeat this crisis is an incredible clarity in your message. So marketing is to clarify what’s the messaging, positioning, who you’re going after, and your segmentation. If you’re changing that, spend the time to clarify that. And then rethink pricing. If your pricing was geared towards all or nothing big deals, this is a good time to rethink your pricing so you can start small and grow over time with accounts that you never spend time with.

So the second thing that marketing needs to deliver today is leads. It was always important but sales have always the opportunity to go on cold calls, go to events, work the room, and some conferences. Now that is gone. So we rely completely on leads from marketing. Paid media is now surprisingly cheaper than ever because a lot of companies are not spending on advertising. So figure out if this is the time for you to go in when everybody’s going away.

Your content strategy is key. People are at home, consuming tons of content. If you make things that are relevant to the new context of your buyer you might have better success than you would have in the past. And then social media is a tool also that SaaS founders don’t necessarily invest as much energy on. Because the buyers are not necessarily there searching for their products. But now they are. If you were talking about how you helped Burger King expand, now you have to talk about how you helped them become more efficient.

The interview playbooks are also changing if you’re going into an industry with a certain mindset and you’re sending your reps with a mindset. Now, that has to change. It has to be updated at a minimum. And the other thing is that many of the ROI calculators that are out there were based on how much more you were going to sell. It was all tied to revenue. But now cost savings are also a factor. Great marketing teams are stepping up at a time when sales teams have fewer resources and materials.

The last area where you need to challenge yourself is your team. Your team is going through a hard time and it’s hard to share over Zoom in every conversation. But people are nervous about their health, their family’s health, their parents, their grandparents their uncles and aunties. With kids at home, you’re also homeschooling. Some people are by themselves at home. They are bored and restless. And that’s also a tricky place to be in if you are a social person.

Many of you have never seen people getting laid off for no reason other than the company had to lay of. They’re worried about their job. There’s no more funding. I know we lose money. What’s going on? I haven’t heard what the plan is? Should I be looking for a job? Care genuinely about your team, but also communicate clearly and often. What that means is when you have those conversations try to get to how they’re truly feeling. And make sure you listen to the same way you listen to your customers to understand how their life has changed.

It is harder because you’re not in the office anymore. You cannot have the one on one conversation. You cannot feel the room. Some people are also extremely lonely. Say I’m an engineer. I have my work, I know what I need to do for the week I had my stand up at the beginning of the week and then I joined some group calls where I don’t participate. I don’t talk to anybody, maybe for a whole week. So I’m not forced to talk to people in the office because I don’t have to go to lunch with them. So some people are extremely lonely. So thought. Think about each of your employees and your teammates.

Team meetings have also changed. Now folks that were shy in meetings in person. They can hide in a Zoom call. The whole meeting can go through without them speaking up. So be cognizant of that dynamic and go and look for those opinions of people that don’t participate as proactive as others in those Zoom meetings.

If you used to have all hands every quarter make them once a month. If you used to have them once a month, make it once a week. People need to hear from you and the leadership about what’s happening because things are changing dramatically. Things are completely different from seven days ago. Amp the frequency of all-hands meetings.

Lastly, focus on written communication. It’s harder to communicate over Zoom. A lot gets lost. So get in the habit of writing things down and sending things in writing for your team to read and read again. And that’s something we didn’t have to do before.

Hiring and onboarding have changed as well. Prepare to hire over Zoom. There are no more dinners to convince the candidate that you’re the best startup in Chennai. Onboarding also needs to be highly documented. Zapier is a great example. They’ve been fully remote with over 300 employees. And they’re onboarding documentation is at least 10 times what it is we do. They write everything down.

There’s an opportunity for you to raise the bar with respect to hiring. There are a lot of companies that are firing great talent. Not because they’re not good. Just because they don’t have worked for them. So this is an opportunity for you if you’re hiring. Go for the best possible talent.

So lastly, collaboration is very different when you’re working from home and you were working at the office. A lot of the dysfunction comes from how decisions are made. So to avoid this function codify how decisions are being made. Once you make a decision, share the decision clearly and in writing and also explain the reasoning behind it.

And last, Slack is great. But it doesn’t cut it for all types of collaboration. So think about what tools you have for asynchronous communication. Where decisions need to be made. People need to comment throughout the day and they are not there live on Slack and they’re going to get to the document at different points in time.

Above all, you have to reinforce your culture and value. Now you need to find ways to reinvigorate and reinforce your values and the culture that you want for your company, even if you’re not in the office. It’s hard to do, but many great companies are doing it successfully. So think hard about keeping those core values and culture front and center.

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A few weeks after Covid19 was declared a pandemic, as part of the SaaSBoomi initiative, some of India’s top SaaS entrepreneurs got together to discuss strategies for companies to steer through the crisis. A few weeks further in, at the SaaSBoomii growth summit, we got together to discuss how to thrive in the new world, notwithstanding the pandemic.

“SaaS companies need not play defense. We can go on the offense. In fact, we’re better off than most others,” Armando Mann, formerly of Salesforce, Dropbox, Google, and an investor in several startups said during his keynote at the SaaSBoomi growth summit.

Edited excerpts from the keynote.

The world is changing very rapidly and every week we’re learning new things. The only thing we know for certain is absolutely nothing. We don’t know when the pandemic will finish. We don’t know how deep the economy is going to be hit in different countries. We don’t know how to recover. We know we don’t know which sectors and which way things are going to go. We’re deep into a health crisis. We’re nowhere close to the end of the crisis. In the US, for instance, one out of five is unemployed. In India 120 million are unemployed.

So the main skills that we need to develop and exercise is to be fast at learning and decisive as leaders. In practice, this means adapting in three areas. Firstly, adapt your product to the current environment. The second is your customers and how we engage with your customers. And the third is your team.

Before we dive into those three areas: what are the constraints of the new normal? As many of you know we’re working from home. There are social distancing norms. We’re only going to travel when it is truly necessary. Schools are closed around the world. Events are being canceled or going online. Budgets are tighter.

The good part is that several tech companies enabling people in the new environment are doing well. Zoom, for example, has gone from 10 million daily participants to over 300 million daily participants since the crisis erupted. That’s a 30 X growth.

Doximity, a telehealth company that used to take 1 million calls a month now takes a million calls a day. E-learning is also growing tremendously. Collaboration tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams are doubling in numbers. And of course, Netflix, Disney Hotstar and Prime usage is exploding.

SaaS companies don’t necessarily need to play defense. We are in a position to play offense. And let me walk you through why I think that’s true. Our privileged position comes from our business model in contrast to a lot of other sectors. For example, last month, some of the largest chains in the world had negative revenue. That means they had to reimburse their customers more money than the money they made from bookings. In our case, we get recurring revenue. Many of us have collected payments for services in advance.

Airlines, of course, cannot get rid of their planes. We know their demand is going to change. But there’s nothing they can do about their capacity. We can turn servers on and off. We’re very asset-light and that’s a fantastic characteristic of our business.

Hair salons, movie theaters, all sorts of businesses can not go remote whereas most of our employees can go back home and do their jobs from home.

The auto industry is not only getting decimated in demand, but they don’t have margins to play with. As a software business, our margins are between 50 and 80%. That gives us a lot of wiggle room.

Office rentals: Think of WeWork. They are empty. There’s nobody there. Complete ghost towns. In comparison, our apps are still being used.

And lastly, you’re all aware of what’s happening in the oil industry. Demand is collapsing. There’s a massive surplus such that they can pump out oil but have to pay people to take it off their hands. At the same time, demand for SaaS businesses is going up because they’re enabling digital transformation.

We have this incredible opportunity. But we need to adapt. We cannot continue to do things the way we’re doing them a month or two ago. So let me start with your products. The customer used to have a problem that you’re trying to solve. But that might have changed in the last few months. So you have to listen very carefully.

Let me give an example. I was talking to a CIO of a Fortune 500 company. It used to be that his whole priority was how to enable innovation. Now his priority is cost reduction, driving efficiency, and rationalizing spend. Your tool might still be the right solution for that CIO. But you have to listen carefully to what is it that they are prioritizing now and how you frame the conversation. And how you show your product to address today’s concerns.

That also goes to talk about the ideal customer profile. So we all know what our perfect customer is like. But that will also be changing. I was talking to a few companies that do the bottoms up adoption of the products. That’s all good when you have time to deploy the product, people try it out, and then eventually you go upmarket. Now some of these companies are saying we’re changing our roadmap and moving upmarket sooner because those are real revenues. So you might want to think on similar lines.

Once you understand your target customer’s needs, think about your roadmap. You might have to shift things back and forth. That doesn’t mean you have to change your mission. But just reprioritize things based on what their new reality is. For instance, Ford and GM — not your typical tech companies — realized they were not going to be selling cars anytime soon. But there is a huge demand for respirators. So they are opening abandoned plants to build respirators.

Something closer to where many of you are is Reduct, a startup in Mountain View, California. Their main goal was to create tools to edit videos that came from user research interviews. With the explosion of online events like this one, they realized that their technology can be used to transcribe and edit. They’re doing really well with that. So they haven’t changed the product but they changed the use case and the framing and they’re having success with that.

You also want to adapt your go to market. The reality of your buyer has changed. And they need you to sell them in a different way. So let me tell you how reality has changed. To talk about a new initiative, your customer earlier would have gone to the office, gotten the team together, explained why they wanted to implement your product and worked with your team to implement it. Now, this is her reality: She’s at home with the kids and it’s total and utter chaos. At least that’s my case in the day. So think about how you can adapt to your buyer’s reality with a new buying process.

So how should the sales motion adapt? We’re in the early days of this crisis but I’m seeing that lead volume is actually stable. SaaS companies are still getting leads coming in the door, but the sales cycles are longer. We’re seeing lower close rates, especially for new logos.

The best companies I know are investing in product-led sales motions. So we used to go and talk about the value prop and about proof of concept and a bunch of things. But now companies are saying let’s make our demos and pre-trials exceptionally good so people can get value and see value from our products really quickly. I’m seeing a lot of sales teams become best friends with customer success. Not that they weren’t before. But customer success right now is in dire need of help to prevent churn.

That’s where a lot of the sales teams are finding their best opportunities to expand. Your customers will thank you. Because right now, they have to decide if they want to solve problems going after an unknown new vendor or with you, who they already know. So if you can say, hey, we’re doing this for you but we can also do this thing for you in a relevant context, that’s going to be really powerful. I’m seeing a lot of folks reducing the number of tools to consolidate around fewer vendors.

Sales teams that realize sales cycles are longer so in some cases they have more time than they had before for that follow-up. They are not commuting, they are at home all day and in some cases are working all day. So they’re using that extra time they have with customers to build deeper customer relationships and that will pay off in the future. So if you’re seeing your sales cycle extend and taking more conversations, make that investment and build those stronger relationships that will deliver exponentially in the long term.

Now this applies to most companies in different sales motions. But there are nuances whether you are an inside sales team or you’re an outside sales mid-market enterprise team. The inside sales teams are lucky. You have the right tools, you have the right processes, you’re used to selling over Zoom, you’re used to never meeting folks. You’re in a great place in terms of processes and tools. Now think about the buyer at home. Give them more flexibility when scheduling. Meetings don’t need to be an hour.

Don’t need to be exactly 30 minutes or exactly when it’s scheduled. Because right now they don’t have total control of their agenda as they were when they were at the office. They have other unexpected events during the day. Also, address the elephant in the room. Talk to your customers about what has changed. Is there a different decision-making process? Have there been layoffs? Is there a new person to make decisions? Is the CFO now lowering the threshold for purchases? Like, how are things changing inside your company due to the environment? Assume change. So if you’ve done a discovery call in February and you think you understand what the customer needs because of the conversation had in February, redo that discovery call. You will learn new things and be open to that change.

For mid-market and enterprise, the core of the job is still the same. The best practices are still the same. You need to do deep discoveries, account planning, value selling, you need to be thoughtful about the deal and the deal process.

What’s new to enterprise teams in many cases is the tech stack the Inside Sales uses. So get familiar with how the Inside Sales teams use tech to do things better. You’ll have to do more follow-ups. It’s much harder to build relationships over video than in person. With many of you, I’ll never meet in person. And that five-minute conversation during a coffee break is hard to replicate it over Zoom. You need to figure out how to do that over video. More than that, in many enterprise buying situations, you have a group that has to make a decision. You get them in a room and you’ve mastered managing the room and have that conversation. But now the dynamic of a Zoom meeting with a bunch of participants is very different. So you need to develop a playbook and figure out how to run effective group meetings over video.

The superpower that you need to defeat this crisis is an incredible clarity in your message. So marketing is to clarify what’s the messaging, positioning, who you’re going after, and your segmentation. If you’re changing that, spend the time to clarify that. And then rethink pricing. If your pricing was geared towards all or nothing big deals, this is a good time to rethink your pricing so you can start small and grow over time with accounts that you never spend time with.

So the second thing that marketing needs to deliver today is leads. It was always important but sales have always the opportunity to go on cold calls, go to events, work the room, and some conferences. Now that is gone. So we rely completely on leads from marketing. Paid media is now surprisingly cheaper than ever because a lot of companies are not spending on advertising. So figure out if this is the time for you to go in when everybody’s going away.

Your content strategy is key. People are at home, consuming tons of content. If you make things that are relevant to the new context of your buyer you might have better success than you would have in the past. And then social media is a tool also that SaaS founders don’t necessarily invest as much energy on. Because the buyers are not necessarily there searching for their products. But now they are. If you were talking about how you helped Burger King expand, now you have to talk about how you helped them become more efficient.

The interview playbooks are also changing if you’re going into an industry with a certain mindset and you’re sending your reps with a mindset. Now, that has to change. It has to be updated at a minimum. And the other thing is that many of the ROI calculators that are out there were based on how much more you were going to sell. It was all tied to revenue. But now cost savings are also a factor. Great marketing teams are stepping up at a time when sales teams have fewer resources and materials.

The last area where you need to challenge yourself is your team. Your team is going through a hard time and it’s hard to share over Zoom in every conversation. But people are nervous about their health, their family’s health, their parents, their grandparents their uncles and aunties. With kids at home, you’re also homeschooling. Some people are by themselves at home. They are bored and restless. And that’s also a tricky place to be in if you are a social person.

Many of you have never seen people getting laid off for no reason other than the company had to lay of. They’re worried about their job. There’s no more funding. I know we lose money. What’s going on? I haven’t heard what the plan is? Should I be looking for a job? Care genuinely about your team, but also communicate clearly and often. What that means is when you have those conversations try to get to how they’re truly feeling. And make sure you listen to the same way you listen to your customers to understand how their life has changed.

It is harder because you’re not in the office anymore. You cannot have the one on one conversation. You cannot feel the room. Some people are also extremely lonely. Say I’m an engineer. I have my work, I know what I need to do for the week I had my stand up at the beginning of the week and then I joined some group calls where I don’t participate. I don’t talk to anybody, maybe for a whole week. So I’m not forced to talk to people in the office because I don’t have to go to lunch with them. So some people are extremely lonely. So thought. Think about each of your employees and your teammates.

Team meetings have also changed. Now folks that were shy in meetings in person. They can hide in a Zoom call. The whole meeting can go through without them speaking up. So be cognizant of that dynamic and go and look for those opinions of people that don’t participate as proactive as others in those Zoom meetings.

If you used to have all hands every quarter make them once a month. If you used to have them once a month, make it once a week. People need to hear from you and the leadership about what’s happening because things are changing dramatically. Things are completely different from seven days ago. Amp the frequency of all-hands meetings.

Lastly, focus on written communication. It’s harder to communicate over Zoom. A lot gets lost. So get in the habit of writing things down and sending things in writing for your team to read and read again. And that’s something we didn’t have to do before.

Hiring and onboarding have changed as well. Prepare to hire over Zoom. There are no more dinners to convince the candidate that you’re the best startup in Chennai. Onboarding also needs to be highly documented. Zapier is a great example. They’ve been fully remote with over 300 employees. And they’re onboarding documentation is at least 10 times what it is we do. They write everything down.

There’s an opportunity for you to raise the bar with respect to hiring. There are a lot of companies that are firing great talent. Not because they’re not good. Just because they don’t have worked for them. So this is an opportunity for you if you’re hiring. Go for the best possible talent.

So lastly, collaboration is very different when you’re working from home and you were working at the office. A lot of the dysfunction comes from how decisions are made. So to avoid this function codify how decisions are being made. Once you make a decision, share the decision clearly and in writing and also explain the reasoning behind it.

And last, Slack is great. But it doesn’t cut it for all types of collaboration. So think about what tools you have for asynchronous communication. Where decisions need to be made. People need to comment throughout the day and they are not there live on Slack and they’re going to get to the document at different points in time.

Above all, you have to reinforce your culture and value. Now you need to find ways to reinvigorate and reinforce your values and the culture that you want for your company, even if you’re not in the office. It’s hard to do, but many great companies are doing it successfully. So think hard about keeping those core values and culture front and center.

" } }

What every startup founder needs to learn from Star Trek?

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A stoic, calm, logical, level-headed character, seldom shaken by emotions… working with a charismatic, headstrong, passionate, emotional character wildly popular among his folk…

It doesn’t require genius to guess that I’m describing the iconic duo Spock and Captain Kirk.

For the uninitiated, these two are protagonists of Star Trek, one of the most culturally-influential media franchises in history.

The fictional character James T Kirk appears in the series as a captain aboard a spaceship he and his crew use on their intergalactic explorations. Fans love Kirk for his leadership skills, ability to navigate tough situations diplomatically, his drive for knowledge, among other things.

S’chn T’gai Spock, a part-human Vulcan humanoid is another central character from the science fiction TV series, much loved for his rational thinking and use of logic.

Together, they explore worlds where no man has gone before.

Spock and Kirk’s shenanigans don’t just make for gripping television content. They have also been serving as great lessons in management, team building and so much more over the last few decades.

A startup founder has to just peer beyond the obvious to see how Spock and Kirk make for splendid teammates.

The various pieces of the puzzle

With their diametrically opposed but complementary personalities, Kirk and Spock show you how it takes people and personalities of all kinds to make a successful team.

That one person can’t singlehandedly run a successful startup or mission is common knowledge, so entrepreneurs should consciously work on this while building their founding teams.

You should start with identifying what your strengths are, and what you might probably require assistance or expertise on.

And this goes beyond just the technical skills.

An entrepreneur who’s an expert at identifying business opportunities, attracting customers, and making noise about his product would certainly need a partner who brings the technical skills to build the product.

But there’s so much more to a partnership than just a good confluence of technical skills.

The yin to the yang

I’m, of course, pointing to the more intangible skills such as decision-making, team-management, or nurturing company culture.

In any successful partnership, you’ll find one person who puts head over the heart, and the other that goes with the heart more often, when in a dilemma.

“Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end.” Spock

In a business setting at a startup, it could be someone taking a decision on a marketing campaign based on data, projections, and logic or a decision driven by gut and supplemented by rational thinking.

There is of course no right or wrong here, and there is no one code to success. With the same set of people, one project might be a phenomenal hit and another could fall quite flat.

But what’s important is that all aspects of a point are considered before a decision is taken.

“Insufficient facts always invite danger.” — Spock

For which you’d need people of complementing personality types, i.e., you need a Kirk and a Spock.

Moreso when it comes to the cofounder of your startup.

The all-crucial cofounder

Take any successful company and you’ll find that the co-founders are diverse, in their technical skills and their personalities, each playing off of the other’s strengths.

But the cofounder relationship is tricky business.

There’s a fine line between having someone with the same wavelength and having a ‘yes man’, as they say.

The two partners should have the same amount of passion, determination, grit, and other such qualities required of an entrepreneur, but should also differ from each other on certain aspects. That way, both partners are able to challenge and push each other to solve problems.

The two should be able to voice their disagreements, but should respect each other enough to know that when one takes the final call, it is in the best interest of both of them and the company on the whole.

“The prejudices people feel about each other disappear when they get to know each other.” — Kirk

The two should ideally come with complementary personality types — one who goes with the heart and the other who goes with the head — because only then does the startup get both and is able to succeed. Simply put, you need elements of Kirk and Spock.

There are, of course, exceptions where people who are gifted enough to have both, and do everything.

When this isn’t the case, you can’t really go actively looking for your Spock or your Kirk with a checklist in hand. You have to be conscious of these characteristics and requirements when you’re mentally scoping your network out for a solid cofounder, and things will fall into place.

At SuperOps, I’m the Kirk — I’m the GTM person, with a creative bent of mind, and when I absolutely have to choose between the head and the heart, I pick the heart.

And that meant that my cofounder would ideally have to be someone who puts logic ahead of gut.

I’m lucky to have found my Spock, and one who brings with him 20 years of experience building SaaS applications in IT & Big Data. I’m thrilled to introduce to you all the cofounder and CTO of SuperOps, Jayakumar Karambasalam.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(11181) "

A stoic, calm, logical, level-headed character, seldom shaken by emotions… working with a charismatic, headstrong, passionate, emotional character wildly popular among his folk…

It doesn’t require genius to guess that I’m describing the iconic duo Spock and Captain Kirk.

For the uninitiated, these two are protagonists of Star Trek, one of the most culturally-influential media franchises in history.

The fictional character James T Kirk appears in the series as a captain aboard a spaceship he and his crew use on their intergalactic explorations. Fans love Kirk for his leadership skills, ability to navigate tough situations diplomatically, his drive for knowledge, among other things.

S’chn T’gai Spock, a part-human Vulcan humanoid is another central character from the science fiction TV series, much loved for his rational thinking and use of logic.

Together, they explore worlds where no man has gone before.

Spock and Kirk’s shenanigans don’t just make for gripping television content. They have also been serving as great lessons in management, team building and so much more over the last few decades.

A startup founder has to just peer beyond the obvious to see how Spock and Kirk make for splendid teammates.

The various pieces of the puzzle

With their diametrically opposed but complementary personalities, Kirk and Spock show you how it takes people and personalities of all kinds to make a successful team.

That one person can’t singlehandedly run a successful startup or mission is common knowledge, so entrepreneurs should consciously work on this while building their founding teams.

You should start with identifying what your strengths are, and what you might probably require assistance or expertise on.

And this goes beyond just the technical skills.

An entrepreneur who’s an expert at identifying business opportunities, attracting customers, and making noise about his product would certainly need a partner who brings the technical skills to build the product.

But there’s so much more to a partnership than just a good confluence of technical skills.

The yin to the yang

I’m, of course, pointing to the more intangible skills such as decision-making, team-management, or nurturing company culture.

In any successful partnership, you’ll find one person who puts head over the heart, and the other that goes with the heart more often, when in a dilemma.

“Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end.” Spock

In a business setting at a startup, it could be someone taking a decision on a marketing campaign based on data, projections, and logic or a decision driven by gut and supplemented by rational thinking.

There is of course no right or wrong here, and there is no one code to success. With the same set of people, one project might be a phenomenal hit and another could fall quite flat.

But what’s important is that all aspects of a point are considered before a decision is taken.

“Insufficient facts always invite danger.” — Spock

For which you’d need people of complementing personality types, i.e., you need a Kirk and a Spock.

Moreso when it comes to the cofounder of your startup.

The all-crucial cofounder

Take any successful company and you’ll find that the co-founders are diverse, in their technical skills and their personalities, each playing off of the other’s strengths.

But the cofounder relationship is tricky business.

There’s a fine line between having someone with the same wavelength and having a ‘yes man’, as they say.

The two partners should have the same amount of passion, determination, grit, and other such qualities required of an entrepreneur, but should also differ from each other on certain aspects. That way, both partners are able to challenge and push each other to solve problems.

The two should be able to voice their disagreements, but should respect each other enough to know that when one takes the final call, it is in the best interest of both of them and the company on the whole.

“The prejudices people feel about each other disappear when they get to know each other.” — Kirk

The two should ideally come with complementary personality types — one who goes with the heart and the other who goes with the head — because only then does the startup get both and is able to succeed. Simply put, you need elements of Kirk and Spock.

There are, of course, exceptions where people who are gifted enough to have both, and do everything.

When this isn’t the case, you can’t really go actively looking for your Spock or your Kirk with a checklist in hand. You have to be conscious of these characteristics and requirements when you’re mentally scoping your network out for a solid cofounder, and things will fall into place.

At SuperOps, I’m the Kirk — I’m the GTM person, with a creative bent of mind, and when I absolutely have to choose between the head and the heart, I pick the heart.

And that meant that my cofounder would ideally have to be someone who puts logic ahead of gut.

I’m lucky to have found my Spock, and one who brings with him 20 years of experience building SaaS applications in IT & Big Data. I’m thrilled to introduce to you all the cofounder and CTO of SuperOps, Jayakumar Karambasalam.

" } }

All Set to Build Better — What Not to Miss @SaaSBoomi Build on July 25th

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This July 25th, SaasBoomi is all set to host the first edition of Build — a specially curated forum for founders, product and engineering leaders. What started as a Hyderabad forum for SaaS founders (SaaSt) evolved into a whole new version designed to help us build globally winning products from India.

As we head towards the first-of-its-kind virtual event that is going to host 250+ SaaS product and engineering leaders and 80+ fast-growing SaaS startups, here’s a virtual walkthrough of everything that’s in store and how you can prep yourself to make the most of it.

Passion for Products — What is Build?

Creating and scaling products that solve customer needs is at the true core of SaaS. While a million conversations on the internet lead us to resources on sales, GTM strategy and customer retention etc, there is very little said about what goes into building a product that can win the markets and customers hands down. Hence #SaaSBoomi Build.

Read more about build from this blog by nutanc.

Connect. Share. Learn - Join 80+ fast-growing SaaS Startups

Firstly, thank you to everyone of the 200+ startups who expressed interest and registered for the event. While we would have wanted to host all, it is important that we focused on a segment of the audience to make the sessions relevant and offer real takeaways. So, the organizing team has curated and filtered 80+ fast-growing startups (those with $1M — $5M ARR or have a substantial size of product and engineering team). The event is not just for founders but for product and engineering leaders as well, and hence each selected company can have up to 3 attendees.

The event is a virtual day long conference, but unlike the webinars most of us have experienced this one will have everyone join as participants in a zoom meeting. This is to enable attendees to be an active part of the conversation, find your fellow SaaS founders and teams and also connect with the speakers during and beyond the sessions.

9 handpicked Sessions, 12+ Speakers — What to expect?

Coming to what matters the most and what was debated the most in the process of organizing the event — the agenda. Every session and speaker have been identified to solve for a specific challenge that SaaS founders most often encounter. And we are most thankful to the speakers for accepting our request and for agreeing to share their playbooks, best practices and learnings from even failed experiments.

Here’s a snapshot of the agenda and a quick insight into what the sessions will help you deep-dive into:

[caption id="attachment_1215" align="aligncenter" width="525"] SaaSBoomi Build 2020 Agenda[/caption]

What goes behind the scenes

A pay-it-forward spirit of volunteering

I have always had so much to learn from every SaaSBoomi forum that I could be a participant of. And everytime it was not just answers but actionable takeaways that played a strong role in our growth story at Darwinbox. Our sales cadence that works beautifully for us today was built after learning from Capillary’s session at SaaSBoomi enterprise and our marketing team structure, and KPIs took a good turn after Chargebee’s session at SaaSBoomi Growth this year.

While I have always appreciated what I could get from the forum, it is for the first time, as a volunteer of SaaSBOOMi, that I have witnessed the real effort and willingness that goes into enabling all of this. An organizing team of founders who always have more than enough on their plate to dedicate a significant amount of time to ideate, curate, and bring us the best playbooks in SaaS.

All of this because they know that it takes a village to raise a successful company and they have on many occasions benefited from peers who went through the pain of solving a problem before them and shared how-to or how-not-to.

For the last 12 weeks, I have been in awe of the efforts that each of the organizing team members Sreedhar Peddineni, Kiran Darisi, Mrityunjay Kumar, Rohit Chennamaneni, nutanc, Raghu Ravinutala and Ashok Varma and Volunteers Sangeeta Bavi, Manish & Tarun Davuluri, Avinash Raghava and speakers STS Prasad, Soham Mazumdar, Monish Darda, Milind Borate, Deepak Diwakar, Bharath Balasubramanian, Anjali Kumari, Dinesh Varadharajan & Ankit Sobti have put into making SaaSBoomi build to deliver the best learning experience.

Look forward to hosting all the founders, product and engineer leaders!

If you are keen on participating in this edition of SaaSBoomi Build, visit SaasBoomi Build.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(12444) "

This July 25th, SaasBoomi is all set to host the first edition of Build — a specially curated forum for founders, product and engineering leaders. What started as a Hyderabad forum for SaaS founders (SaaSt) evolved into a whole new version designed to help us build globally winning products from India.

As we head towards the first-of-its-kind virtual event that is going to host 250+ SaaS product and engineering leaders and 80+ fast-growing SaaS startups, here’s a virtual walkthrough of everything that’s in store and how you can prep yourself to make the most of it.

Passion for Products — What is Build?

Creating and scaling products that solve customer needs is at the true core of SaaS. While a million conversations on the internet lead us to resources on sales, GTM strategy and customer retention etc, there is very little said about what goes into building a product that can win the markets and customers hands down. Hence #SaaSBoomi Build.

Read more about build from this blog by nutanc.

Connect. Share. Learn - Join 80+ fast-growing SaaS Startups

Firstly, thank you to everyone of the 200+ startups who expressed interest and registered for the event. While we would have wanted to host all, it is important that we focused on a segment of the audience to make the sessions relevant and offer real takeaways. So, the organizing team has curated and filtered 80+ fast-growing startups (those with $1M — $5M ARR or have a substantial size of product and engineering team). The event is not just for founders but for product and engineering leaders as well, and hence each selected company can have up to 3 attendees.

The event is a virtual day long conference, but unlike the webinars most of us have experienced this one will have everyone join as participants in a zoom meeting. This is to enable attendees to be an active part of the conversation, find your fellow SaaS founders and teams and also connect with the speakers during and beyond the sessions.

9 handpicked Sessions, 12+ Speakers — What to expect?

Coming to what matters the most and what was debated the most in the process of organizing the event — the agenda. Every session and speaker have been identified to solve for a specific challenge that SaaS founders most often encounter. And we are most thankful to the speakers for accepting our request and for agreeing to share their playbooks, best practices and learnings from even failed experiments.

Here’s a snapshot of the agenda and a quick insight into what the sessions will help you deep-dive into:

[caption id="attachment_1215" align="aligncenter" width="525"] SaaSBoomi Build 2020 Agenda[/caption]

What goes behind the scenes

A pay-it-forward spirit of volunteering

I have always had so much to learn from every SaaSBoomi forum that I could be a participant of. And everytime it was not just answers but actionable takeaways that played a strong role in our growth story at Darwinbox. Our sales cadence that works beautifully for us today was built after learning from Capillary’s session at SaaSBoomi enterprise and our marketing team structure, and KPIs took a good turn after Chargebee’s session at SaaSBoomi Growth this year.

While I have always appreciated what I could get from the forum, it is for the first time, as a volunteer of SaaSBOOMi, that I have witnessed the real effort and willingness that goes into enabling all of this. An organizing team of founders who always have more than enough on their plate to dedicate a significant amount of time to ideate, curate, and bring us the best playbooks in SaaS.

All of this because they know that it takes a village to raise a successful company and they have on many occasions benefited from peers who went through the pain of solving a problem before them and shared how-to or how-not-to.

For the last 12 weeks, I have been in awe of the efforts that each of the organizing team members Sreedhar Peddineni, Kiran Darisi, Mrityunjay Kumar, Rohit Chennamaneni, nutanc, Raghu Ravinutala and Ashok Varma and Volunteers Sangeeta Bavi, Manish & Tarun Davuluri, Avinash Raghava and speakers STS Prasad, Soham Mazumdar, Monish Darda, Milind Borate, Deepak Diwakar, Bharath Balasubramanian, Anjali Kumari, Dinesh Varadharajan & Ankit Sobti have put into making SaaSBoomi build to deliver the best learning experience.

Look forward to hosting all the founders, product and engineer leaders!

If you are keen on participating in this edition of SaaSBoomi Build, visit SaasBoomi Build.

" } }

The Rise of Indian SaaS — Wired for Growth

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The building blocks of a good software product and an ecosystem that works, are quite similar; both need different pieces to come together and deliver results, no matter how diverse their backgrounds are.

The foundation of India’s SaaS industry has been a combination of software products, platforms, combined with the transcending power of delivering software from the cloud, from anywhere.

Where are the software products? This question has been asked again and again over the past few decades.

The Indian SaaS industry is uniquely positioned to take advantage of this $400Bn untapped opportunity given the competitive edge it gained organically for a number of reasons — the IT Services boom that lead to the development of an in-depth understanding of technology that goes into building great products, a highly skilled workforce and of course, the English-speaking proposition.

The rate at which the Indian SaaS industry has evolved, the $100 Mn ARR may not be an elusive goal for many for long. With rapid adoption, opportunity and funding, there is little doubt the current crop of SaaS startups will outperform the companies that came before them — despite the recent circumstances.

Having demonstrated our ability to build and sell software products from India, it is time we studied the makings of a scalable SaaS company.

With newer opportunities come newer challenges

The quest to achieve sustainable and profitable growth often comes with its own share of competition and unfamiliar but common challenges that we see time and again. With collective insights and awareness, we believe these challenges can be addressed proactively.

To this end, NASSCOM and SaaSBoomi have come together and published an in-depth research study of this rapidly growing Indian SaaS ecosystem, its key players, market trends and more, while identifying gaps for the Indian SaaS industry to explore.

SaaS the new normal

For an entrepreneur looking at growing their start-up into a global powerhouse, you’re probably wondering if it makes sense to think about growth at times like this when the focus this year seems to be only on keeping the business afloat. This study indicates that if anything, the pandemic is reshaping priorities and accelerating digital consumption — making SaaS the new normal.

Takeaway from the takeaways

The recommendations in this report have been carefully curated with key insights from some of the best brains in the Indian SaaS industry. In this report we intend to decode growth for the Indian SaaS industry with strategies focused on product, pricing, and GTM that could be adopted to help address multiple growth objectives — be it market access, talent, entrepreneurship, intellectual property or situational collaborations.

Some of the insights in the study are based on previously overlooked aspects of the larger ecosystem that go a long way in establishing a sustained route toward ensuring continued growth. It could be market access, intellectual property, situational collaborations, and more.

This is no ‘playbook’

While it’s not an easy task encapsulating all the deep learnings and insights collected in one report, we certainly hope that this report proves to be a step in the right direction and it helps shine some much-needed light on overcoming the challenge of scaling a SaaS business.

Having said that, businesses are not very different from people, no two are alike. There are several variables involved, and it’s entirely up to businesses how they take the learnings and mould them as per their industry and growth objectives.

It’s never the right time. Carpe Diem.

As I write this, millions of children are learning math with games, some of the biggest Fortune 500 companies are managing their contracts and making sense of their data, reimagining their supply chains, and so on — all powered by India’s SaaS products.

“Today, from Zoho to Freshworks, BrowserStack, Postman, Druva to Eka, and so on, India has enough software products that are the building blocks of a new industry built on products that rival the world’s best. And, the success of Indian SaaS industry is rooted in how we continue to share, pivot, and innovate which will be key to our ability to build a stronger product nation in the future. This report sets out really well where we are in the present, and where we are going to be very soon. The distance between this present and that future will be covered by the work we do. I hope this report serves as a manifesto to get started.”

Shout-out to the presentations.ai team who helped us make this wonderful presentation.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(8706) "

The building blocks of a good software product and an ecosystem that works, are quite similar; both need different pieces to come together and deliver results, no matter how diverse their backgrounds are.

The foundation of India’s SaaS industry has been a combination of software products, platforms, combined with the transcending power of delivering software from the cloud, from anywhere.

Where are the software products? This question has been asked again and again over the past few decades.

The Indian SaaS industry is uniquely positioned to take advantage of this $400Bn untapped opportunity given the competitive edge it gained organically for a number of reasons — the IT Services boom that lead to the development of an in-depth understanding of technology that goes into building great products, a highly skilled workforce and of course, the English-speaking proposition.

The rate at which the Indian SaaS industry has evolved, the $100 Mn ARR may not be an elusive goal for many for long. With rapid adoption, opportunity and funding, there is little doubt the current crop of SaaS startups will outperform the companies that came before them — despite the recent circumstances.

Having demonstrated our ability to build and sell software products from India, it is time we studied the makings of a scalable SaaS company.

With newer opportunities come newer challenges

The quest to achieve sustainable and profitable growth often comes with its own share of competition and unfamiliar but common challenges that we see time and again. With collective insights and awareness, we believe these challenges can be addressed proactively.

To this end, NASSCOM and SaaSBoomi have come together and published an in-depth research study of this rapidly growing Indian SaaS ecosystem, its key players, market trends and more, while identifying gaps for the Indian SaaS industry to explore.

SaaS the new normal

For an entrepreneur looking at growing their start-up into a global powerhouse, you’re probably wondering if it makes sense to think about growth at times like this when the focus this year seems to be only on keeping the business afloat. This study indicates that if anything, the pandemic is reshaping priorities and accelerating digital consumption — making SaaS the new normal.

Takeaway from the takeaways

The recommendations in this report have been carefully curated with key insights from some of the best brains in the Indian SaaS industry. In this report we intend to decode growth for the Indian SaaS industry with strategies focused on product, pricing, and GTM that could be adopted to help address multiple growth objectives — be it market access, talent, entrepreneurship, intellectual property or situational collaborations.

Some of the insights in the study are based on previously overlooked aspects of the larger ecosystem that go a long way in establishing a sustained route toward ensuring continued growth. It could be market access, intellectual property, situational collaborations, and more.

This is no ‘playbook’

While it’s not an easy task encapsulating all the deep learnings and insights collected in one report, we certainly hope that this report proves to be a step in the right direction and it helps shine some much-needed light on overcoming the challenge of scaling a SaaS business.

Having said that, businesses are not very different from people, no two are alike. There are several variables involved, and it’s entirely up to businesses how they take the learnings and mould them as per their industry and growth objectives.

It’s never the right time. Carpe Diem.

As I write this, millions of children are learning math with games, some of the biggest Fortune 500 companies are managing their contracts and making sense of their data, reimagining their supply chains, and so on — all powered by India’s SaaS products.

“Today, from Zoho to Freshworks, BrowserStack, Postman, Druva to Eka, and so on, India has enough software products that are the building blocks of a new industry built on products that rival the world’s best. And, the success of Indian SaaS industry is rooted in how we continue to share, pivot, and innovate which will be key to our ability to build a stronger product nation in the future. This report sets out really well where we are in the present, and where we are going to be very soon. The distance between this present and that future will be covered by the work we do. I hope this report serves as a manifesto to get started.”

Shout-out to the presentations.ai team who helped us make this wonderful presentation.

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Our lessons from the COVID crisis at Capillary

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An abridged version of COVID Reflections — a three-part series by Aneesh Reddy, co-founder of Capillary.

The Flipside of Turning Cash Positive

FY20 (April 2019 — March 2020) has been a monumental year for us. We went from a ~40% EBITDA loss/ Negative cash flows in Q4FY19 to our first ever EBITDA and Cash Positive Quarter in Q4FY20 (JFM). We were cash positive even after paying Venture debt principal and interest and working capital costs as well — cash positive to the dot.

Given we were turning cash-positive, we were comfortable with our cash reserves as our burn rate was consistently coming down. We were also working with our banking partners to extend our India working capital limits to cover our international receivables.

Apart from this, we were in the process of raising another $10mn of debt to further create a cash buffer. We had received term sheets for both and were a week away from a big four auditor team putting the final touches to their diligence report.

And then the lockdowns started

Things were going well for us until the mid of March, and then Covid-19 happened and one country after another went into lockdown.

We prepared for a crunch in cash flow without any visibility on the kind of churn we would see. Would some of our customers go bankrupt? Would we have big write-offs? We spoke to many people but no one had seen a nosedive like this ever.

When you make a plan, you keep a 10% — 15% buffer to compensate for the misses and plan for that much extra cash. However, in the worst case when the 10% cash burn climbs to 75%, it spells disaster for the business.

For instance, if you had a runway of 12 months at 10% burn, you would have less than 2 months at 75% burn! (Looking back now, our cash flows in the 6 weeks from March 15th to May 1st fell by ~75%).

So we had just 2 months of runway in the new 75% burn world, and I pinned my hopes on the working capital extension and the $10mn debt coming in as both were a week away from closure.

I called Rajan, and he advised against assuming any of that debt coming in and put sense in me to take the hard calls and take them in one go. As you would have guessed by now — after dragging the decision to mid-April — neither the working capital extension nor the $10mn of debt came through.

In moments of crisis, it’s important for businesses to assume the worst and take hard calls rather than hold onto false hopes.

A sure way to take a company down (besides running out of money), is to run out of energy. And one thing which would have definitely depleted energy and team morale is taking small cuts every week as bad news trickled in. We definitely didn’t want this to happen and hence decided to take the hard calls in one go.

Taking the Hard Calls

We got help from Saiki at xto10x to put together a worst-case plan to help us cut costs by a large percentage, so we could extend the runway to 3–4 quarters with our existing cash reserves.

We had three options :

1. Take an outsized salary cut — ask vendors to take an outsized cut, and wait for things to recover
2. Take a sustainable ~25% salary cut, put a large percentage of the team on furlough/ leave without pay and take them back when things recovered
3. Take the hard calls now — take salary cuts to a level that is reversible if business recovered to 75%+ levels, and get the rest of the savings from letting go of employees and vendors you couldn’t afford.

After some serious thinking, we decided to go with Option 3, which meant we needed to take the hard calls now.

Our decision was made based on the analysis of current market scenarios and probable recovery period :

1. Our higher exposure to offline retail and to markets like India and the Middle East which weren’t in the pink of health even before Covid-19 hit. Early recovery in these markets seemed highly unlikely.
2. If we had gone with Option 1 or 2, this delayed recovery would have resulted in a lot of employees going without pay or having deep pay cuts for an extended period of time without any clarity on when things will get back to normal.
3. If we choose Option 3 and retrenched early, it would give our affected team members the highest chance to get placed in other companies and access to any remaining jobs, before other companies reacted and started laying off. I had a hunch that we could leverage the goodwill Capillary had in the B2B SaaS ecosystem and run a successful outplacement process to help the affected folks.

Luckily for us, we had the support of our existing investors Warburg Pincus, Sequoia Capital, Avataar Venture Partners, Qualcomm Ventures along with some of our early angels Venkat Tadanki and Steffen Naumann. They set aside all other fund life considerations and decided to back us up with an interim-funding round — all committed in 1 week. Our Venture debt backers Innoven also agreed to our request to reduce our principal repayments by half for the next few months, until things recovered.

With a 17% average salary cut (no cuts for the entry salary tier, 15% for the mid-tier, 25% for the management tier and me going on no pay) and a low double-digit percentage of team retrenchment, we would be able to tide through a worst-case scenario and have money for at least the next 12–18 months.

We decided to act and took the cuts on March 27th.

The retrenchment

Given the lockdown, we had to do the retrenching remotely through video calls. There was a lot playing on our minds. Most of the impacted folks would have been confined to their homes, nowhere to vent, no friends to meet, and face the discomfort of telling their parents or families that they were let go. We had to let go of quite a few folks — some of whom have been with us for more than 10 years — and we had to do this over a video call during a lockdown.

I would not have signed up to be a founder or starting up if I had the foreknowledge of a day where I’ll have to do something like this.

Those four weeks have been the hardest of my life, and I have woken up with nightmares on several days during that month. We decided to do this in the most humane way possible and leave no stone unturned in supporting the affected folks.

Here is what we did :

1. For the employees being retrenched, we decided to make sure they would be financially supported at least in the near term. We paid the annual bonus, encashed leaves and gave a minimum notice of 2 months, even for contractors. The average employee got a 4-month notice pay and folks who were with us longer got 7 months of pay. We actually didn’t have the cash so we decided to pay the notice as 4 months of salary over 4 months. Some of the folks we retained complained that the folks being let go were being treated better!
2. We extended insurance till the end of H1 (September for everyone) and set aside INR 1Cr for any medical emergencies which the insurance might not fully cover.
3. We brought on board YourDOST to coach the 30 teams that were going to run the exit process. The script for the exit meeting, the wording and the FAQs were closely scrutinized by them to make sure there was no word which was used that would make it harder for the impacted folks than it already was. YourDOST further trained the 30 teams on how to look for any clues of emotional vulnerability. We created a WhatsApp group where a panel member could send out a message if a conversation wasn’t going as expected and we would have the YourDOST team and someone from the senior management reach out to the employee immediately. The respective team manager would then be asked to keep in constant touch with these employees for the next few weeks, we also fast-tracked their outplacement.
4. We further retained YourDOST to call up each impacted employee at least 2–3 times over the next few weeks. The impacted employees could reach out to the YourDOST team and get counselling sessions in case they were feeling low. A lot of impacted employees later wrote back to us acknowledging the support they got from YourDOST.

We then had the hard task of running an outplacement service. We chose 6 folks to form a dedicated team to run an outplacement service. Every leadership team member contributed by getting companies to participate. I personally wrote to over 50 founders, basically anyone who has ever reached out for advice on participating in the outplacement.

The Leadership Team and the Outplacement Team probably spent the next 8 weeks and weekends doing all they could to make this project successful. It was nothing less than running a well-oiled campus placement cell. We got 102 companies to participate, sourced 600+ open positions, and enabled over 2500 interviews.

We matched profiles and sent CVs for 99% of impacted employees; 80% of the folks had at least one interview opportunity and more than 60% had at least two interview opportunities, a few had 35 interview opportunities.

By end-April — mid-May, new openings/ pace of hiring really slowed down. Thankfully, we had a head start, and as of mid-June, more than 60% of the impacted folks have already joined new companies. In hindsight, I think our hunch of moving early definitely worked out. For folks who are yet to be placed, we have offered to fund 75% of the fee for any online upskilling courses they want to take up.

In times like these, it’s vital to be humane in your dealings, over-communicate, and do the right thing for everyone involved with your company.

Doing the Right Thing for All Stakeholders

Let me wrap this post up by sharing some of the things that leaders can do, to ensure everyone involved with the business is treated well.

Keeping your team going

It is important to have constant communication with the team and give them updates about the company and the overall business outlook.

We have run 50+ all hands, one every week for the whole company and an all-hands with me in smaller groups of 15–20 Captains over the last 3 months. On Zoom, we have had a 75%+ attendance on an average for the all-hands, we never saw such high attendance even during the physical town halls. We have had the pleasure of having Rajan, Alok and KK addressing the teams over the weeks and sharing their experiences from past recessions and what the breakout companies did differently.

We did an employee NPS survey in Jan and another one at the end of April — to our surprise, our rating was better in April than in Jan! It’s been amazing to see everyone rally together to navigate these tough times.

We also enforced a no-meeting lunch hour, remind people they can take leaves and decline meetings during WFH. We even announced a 4-day company-wide shut down from July 2nd to July 5th to give everyone some forced downtime.

Doing the right thing for your customers

We offered a 4-week fee waiver spread over the year to all customers who were impacted by the lockdowns. We have spoken to every customer at least twice a month, shared data on our learnings from China and built a WhatApp CRM-Commerce product similar to WeChat CRM-Commerce that worked in China even during the lockdown.

We are currently charging for this solution on an outcome linked basis. We have extended payment terms for every customer. We have also offered some of our other products (especially our e-commerce stack) on an outcome linked pricing and are helping customers to go-live with an online store in about 4 weeks.

Treating vendors well

When the crisis started in March, our first response was to hold back payments and we did; it’s not something I am happy about but I don’t think we had an option. In April we prioritized clearing the payments for all our smaller vendors. The larger vendors were paid in May and June as our cash flows improved and the funding also came in.

We are now at a normal to slightly stretched 60-day cycle. I must thank our cloud providers, system integration partners and SMS providers for being patient with us. Again, I think it’s important to have honest and transparent conversations with vendors and give them clarity on whether you can pay or not.

The worst thing to do is give wrong payment dates and upset their cash flow planning or worse, just avoid taking their calls.

Where are we now?

It’s been good to see things coming back to normal. On average, most of our customers are at ~50% YoY, our Chinese customers are at 95%+ YoY. While the data is optimistic, I still believe that the new normal on an average across Asia is probably going to be 85%.

Our May and June cash flows have been at 80% of normal, and we have decided to pay out the FY20 employee bonuses with the June salaries. We hope to reverse the pay-cuts in the July quarter as well. We are likely to sign-up as much new business in this quarter as we signed up in OND 2019, and we are taking as many customers Live as we normally did. Considering the ground we have covered, I also feel Capillary stands a good chance at being cash positive for the remaining three quarters of FY21 as well.

I think it would be prudent to wait for another quarter before saying that we are out of the woods, but I think we can all safely say the worst of Covid-19 is behind Capillary.

I definitely think we have been fortunate to have avoided descending into the downward spiral of doom, but as the adage goes — fortune favours the brave.

One post facto realization — it’s better to take the hard calls early and prepare for a worst-case scenario in unpredictable times, rather than living in constant stress and uncertainty and reacting to every negative news.

I feel you think with more clarity when you have a reset and not stressed about every negative trend that comes out. I think we moved fast and moved hard and it helped us to channelize our efforts in doing the best we could for our past and current employees as well as our customers.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(24846) "

An abridged version of COVID Reflections — a three-part series by Aneesh Reddy, co-founder of Capillary.

The Flipside of Turning Cash Positive

FY20 (April 2019 — March 2020) has been a monumental year for us. We went from a ~40% EBITDA loss/ Negative cash flows in Q4FY19 to our first ever EBITDA and Cash Positive Quarter in Q4FY20 (JFM). We were cash positive even after paying Venture debt principal and interest and working capital costs as well — cash positive to the dot.

Given we were turning cash-positive, we were comfortable with our cash reserves as our burn rate was consistently coming down. We were also working with our banking partners to extend our India working capital limits to cover our international receivables.

Apart from this, we were in the process of raising another $10mn of debt to further create a cash buffer. We had received term sheets for both and were a week away from a big four auditor team putting the final touches to their diligence report.

And then the lockdowns started

Things were going well for us until the mid of March, and then Covid-19 happened and one country after another went into lockdown.

We prepared for a crunch in cash flow without any visibility on the kind of churn we would see. Would some of our customers go bankrupt? Would we have big write-offs? We spoke to many people but no one had seen a nosedive like this ever.

When you make a plan, you keep a 10% — 15% buffer to compensate for the misses and plan for that much extra cash. However, in the worst case when the 10% cash burn climbs to 75%, it spells disaster for the business.

For instance, if you had a runway of 12 months at 10% burn, you would have less than 2 months at 75% burn! (Looking back now, our cash flows in the 6 weeks from March 15th to May 1st fell by ~75%).

So we had just 2 months of runway in the new 75% burn world, and I pinned my hopes on the working capital extension and the $10mn debt coming in as both were a week away from closure.

I called Rajan, and he advised against assuming any of that debt coming in and put sense in me to take the hard calls and take them in one go. As you would have guessed by now — after dragging the decision to mid-April — neither the working capital extension nor the $10mn of debt came through.

In moments of crisis, it’s important for businesses to assume the worst and take hard calls rather than hold onto false hopes.

A sure way to take a company down (besides running out of money), is to run out of energy. And one thing which would have definitely depleted energy and team morale is taking small cuts every week as bad news trickled in. We definitely didn’t want this to happen and hence decided to take the hard calls in one go.

Taking the Hard Calls

We got help from Saiki at xto10x to put together a worst-case plan to help us cut costs by a large percentage, so we could extend the runway to 3–4 quarters with our existing cash reserves.

We had three options :

1. Take an outsized salary cut — ask vendors to take an outsized cut, and wait for things to recover
2. Take a sustainable ~25% salary cut, put a large percentage of the team on furlough/ leave without pay and take them back when things recovered
3. Take the hard calls now — take salary cuts to a level that is reversible if business recovered to 75%+ levels, and get the rest of the savings from letting go of employees and vendors you couldn’t afford.

After some serious thinking, we decided to go with Option 3, which meant we needed to take the hard calls now.

Our decision was made based on the analysis of current market scenarios and probable recovery period :

1. Our higher exposure to offline retail and to markets like India and the Middle East which weren’t in the pink of health even before Covid-19 hit. Early recovery in these markets seemed highly unlikely.
2. If we had gone with Option 1 or 2, this delayed recovery would have resulted in a lot of employees going without pay or having deep pay cuts for an extended period of time without any clarity on when things will get back to normal.
3. If we choose Option 3 and retrenched early, it would give our affected team members the highest chance to get placed in other companies and access to any remaining jobs, before other companies reacted and started laying off. I had a hunch that we could leverage the goodwill Capillary had in the B2B SaaS ecosystem and run a successful outplacement process to help the affected folks.

Luckily for us, we had the support of our existing investors Warburg Pincus, Sequoia Capital, Avataar Venture Partners, Qualcomm Ventures along with some of our early angels Venkat Tadanki and Steffen Naumann. They set aside all other fund life considerations and decided to back us up with an interim-funding round — all committed in 1 week. Our Venture debt backers Innoven also agreed to our request to reduce our principal repayments by half for the next few months, until things recovered.

With a 17% average salary cut (no cuts for the entry salary tier, 15% for the mid-tier, 25% for the management tier and me going on no pay) and a low double-digit percentage of team retrenchment, we would be able to tide through a worst-case scenario and have money for at least the next 12–18 months.

We decided to act and took the cuts on March 27th.

The retrenchment

Given the lockdown, we had to do the retrenching remotely through video calls. There was a lot playing on our minds. Most of the impacted folks would have been confined to their homes, nowhere to vent, no friends to meet, and face the discomfort of telling their parents or families that they were let go. We had to let go of quite a few folks — some of whom have been with us for more than 10 years — and we had to do this over a video call during a lockdown.

I would not have signed up to be a founder or starting up if I had the foreknowledge of a day where I’ll have to do something like this.

Those four weeks have been the hardest of my life, and I have woken up with nightmares on several days during that month. We decided to do this in the most humane way possible and leave no stone unturned in supporting the affected folks.

Here is what we did :

1. For the employees being retrenched, we decided to make sure they would be financially supported at least in the near term. We paid the annual bonus, encashed leaves and gave a minimum notice of 2 months, even for contractors. The average employee got a 4-month notice pay and folks who were with us longer got 7 months of pay. We actually didn’t have the cash so we decided to pay the notice as 4 months of salary over 4 months. Some of the folks we retained complained that the folks being let go were being treated better!
2. We extended insurance till the end of H1 (September for everyone) and set aside INR 1Cr for any medical emergencies which the insurance might not fully cover.
3. We brought on board YourDOST to coach the 30 teams that were going to run the exit process. The script for the exit meeting, the wording and the FAQs were closely scrutinized by them to make sure there was no word which was used that would make it harder for the impacted folks than it already was. YourDOST further trained the 30 teams on how to look for any clues of emotional vulnerability. We created a WhatsApp group where a panel member could send out a message if a conversation wasn’t going as expected and we would have the YourDOST team and someone from the senior management reach out to the employee immediately. The respective team manager would then be asked to keep in constant touch with these employees for the next few weeks, we also fast-tracked their outplacement.
4. We further retained YourDOST to call up each impacted employee at least 2–3 times over the next few weeks. The impacted employees could reach out to the YourDOST team and get counselling sessions in case they were feeling low. A lot of impacted employees later wrote back to us acknowledging the support they got from YourDOST.

We then had the hard task of running an outplacement service. We chose 6 folks to form a dedicated team to run an outplacement service. Every leadership team member contributed by getting companies to participate. I personally wrote to over 50 founders, basically anyone who has ever reached out for advice on participating in the outplacement.

The Leadership Team and the Outplacement Team probably spent the next 8 weeks and weekends doing all they could to make this project successful. It was nothing less than running a well-oiled campus placement cell. We got 102 companies to participate, sourced 600+ open positions, and enabled over 2500 interviews.

We matched profiles and sent CVs for 99% of impacted employees; 80% of the folks had at least one interview opportunity and more than 60% had at least two interview opportunities, a few had 35 interview opportunities.

By end-April — mid-May, new openings/ pace of hiring really slowed down. Thankfully, we had a head start, and as of mid-June, more than 60% of the impacted folks have already joined new companies. In hindsight, I think our hunch of moving early definitely worked out. For folks who are yet to be placed, we have offered to fund 75% of the fee for any online upskilling courses they want to take up.

In times like these, it’s vital to be humane in your dealings, over-communicate, and do the right thing for everyone involved with your company.

Doing the Right Thing for All Stakeholders

Let me wrap this post up by sharing some of the things that leaders can do, to ensure everyone involved with the business is treated well.

Keeping your team going

It is important to have constant communication with the team and give them updates about the company and the overall business outlook.

We have run 50+ all hands, one every week for the whole company and an all-hands with me in smaller groups of 15–20 Captains over the last 3 months. On Zoom, we have had a 75%+ attendance on an average for the all-hands, we never saw such high attendance even during the physical town halls. We have had the pleasure of having Rajan, Alok and KK addressing the teams over the weeks and sharing their experiences from past recessions and what the breakout companies did differently.

We did an employee NPS survey in Jan and another one at the end of April — to our surprise, our rating was better in April than in Jan! It’s been amazing to see everyone rally together to navigate these tough times.

We also enforced a no-meeting lunch hour, remind people they can take leaves and decline meetings during WFH. We even announced a 4-day company-wide shut down from July 2nd to July 5th to give everyone some forced downtime.

Doing the right thing for your customers

We offered a 4-week fee waiver spread over the year to all customers who were impacted by the lockdowns. We have spoken to every customer at least twice a month, shared data on our learnings from China and built a WhatApp CRM-Commerce product similar to WeChat CRM-Commerce that worked in China even during the lockdown.

We are currently charging for this solution on an outcome linked basis. We have extended payment terms for every customer. We have also offered some of our other products (especially our e-commerce stack) on an outcome linked pricing and are helping customers to go-live with an online store in about 4 weeks.

Treating vendors well

When the crisis started in March, our first response was to hold back payments and we did; it’s not something I am happy about but I don’t think we had an option. In April we prioritized clearing the payments for all our smaller vendors. The larger vendors were paid in May and June as our cash flows improved and the funding also came in.

We are now at a normal to slightly stretched 60-day cycle. I must thank our cloud providers, system integration partners and SMS providers for being patient with us. Again, I think it’s important to have honest and transparent conversations with vendors and give them clarity on whether you can pay or not.

The worst thing to do is give wrong payment dates and upset their cash flow planning or worse, just avoid taking their calls.

Where are we now?

It’s been good to see things coming back to normal. On average, most of our customers are at ~50% YoY, our Chinese customers are at 95%+ YoY. While the data is optimistic, I still believe that the new normal on an average across Asia is probably going to be 85%.

Our May and June cash flows have been at 80% of normal, and we have decided to pay out the FY20 employee bonuses with the June salaries. We hope to reverse the pay-cuts in the July quarter as well. We are likely to sign-up as much new business in this quarter as we signed up in OND 2019, and we are taking as many customers Live as we normally did. Considering the ground we have covered, I also feel Capillary stands a good chance at being cash positive for the remaining three quarters of FY21 as well.

I think it would be prudent to wait for another quarter before saying that we are out of the woods, but I think we can all safely say the worst of Covid-19 is behind Capillary.

I definitely think we have been fortunate to have avoided descending into the downward spiral of doom, but as the adage goes — fortune favours the brave.

One post facto realization — it’s better to take the hard calls early and prepare for a worst-case scenario in unpredictable times, rather than living in constant stress and uncertainty and reacting to every negative news.

I feel you think with more clarity when you have a reset and not stressed about every negative trend that comes out. I think we moved fast and moved hard and it helped us to channelize our efforts in doing the best we could for our past and current employees as well as our customers.

" } }

Building winning teams.

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People ask me to predict the future, when all I want to do is prevent it. Better yet, build it. Predicting the future is much too easy, anyway. You look at the people around you, the street you stand on, the visible air you breathe, and predict more of the same. To hell with more. I want better.” ~ Ray Bradbury, from Beyond 1984: The People Machines

Ray Bradbury one of the greatest science fiction writers of all times was absolutely right. We need to collectively build the future. I often have found listening to the leaders, managers & folks who have been building startups, been there, done that, and crossed the chasm immensely cathartic. It's like the Netflix gem Dark, wherein you are looking at our best version in the future who embodies the wisdom & traits of these leaders of today. That’s my feeling listening to the early warm morning on Saturday, 24th July to STS Prasad.

So, SaaSBoomi Build definitely started with a bang. It was the first session kicked off by STS Prasad — SVP @ Freshworks. Looking at his LinkedIn profile is a dream career for every technical leader in making. With VP & CTO level stints at Walmart Labs, Kosmix, Aventeon & now leading engineering teams at Freshworks, it seems he has built & run engineering teams in major part of his career as an engineering leader.

As heading Product Innovation & Engineering myself at a fast-growing startup I take this opportunity to distil my thoughts from this 45 minutes of pure bliss.

Here are my list of the top 8 key takeaways from the session titled — Building Winning Teams by STS Prasad.

1/8 — Setting the context of the session

The core objective of the session was to deep dive into the minds of a savant engineering leader who built one of the largest SaaS engineering teams. More to understand what goes into building a product-focused team, guiding mental models for decisions, the ideal team structure at scale, hiring hacks for building your engineering leadership.

2/8 The Journey to the future

STS kicked off by painting the journey for all those present. He showed the audience the importance of different engineering motions during the journey of building the company as a function of the SaaS revenue. The groundwork starts as its inception.

The mental frameworks, product needs, engineering capabilities & build to scale starts at an early stage when the SaaS startup has proven product-market fit.

More about Product Market Fit here

3/8 The daunting present challenges us

STS started laying out the current state of majority SaaS engineering teams. He mentioned that more than often in the early days, the customer segments pull the engineering motions & priorities in different directions. This then further leads to recurring customer issues surfacing like a hydra. Teams face non-functional challenges of performance & reliability often overlooked while writing code. Like a domino effect this leads to unpredictable releases & fragmented developer time.

The teams want to move fast & break things! However, they can’t do this systematically. This is not how it manifests as teams are mostly functional silos of the front end, back end, QA & Dev-Ops etc.

According to STS this status quo is a familiar story at most of the early & mid stage SaaS engineering teams so a self reflection was the first thing STS did to set the stage.

4/8 Enter culture, committing to the business strategy & looking beyond engineering

Simon Sinek would have been proud. In his seminal book Start with Why Sinek argues that inspiration is the more powerful and sustainable than manipulation.

People & teams are inspired by a sense of purpose (or “Why”), and that this should come first when communicating, before “How” and “What”. Its like this triad the golden circle, a diagram of a bullseye (or concentric circles or onion diagram) with “Why” in the innermost circle.

STS mentioned that staying true to your SaaS product identity is supercritical & should be over-communicated to the entire team so they understand the purpose.

For engineering leaders, a SaaS multi-tenant architecture is not only an engineering decision but also a business strategy call. Think about all the big enterprise deal which warrants an on-premise deployment we all get lured to. STS emphasized on 3 key cultural principles :

1. Define what are the guiding principles for decisions? Think all tactical & strategic decisions.
2. What should an engineer expect when they join you? Think ramp-up.
3. What has brought you to where you are today? Think to move from old debt-ridden codebase to new frameworks.

According to STS once the team embodies these core cultural tenets, strategy & decision frameworks they are ready for growth.

5/8 Planning, Sizing & getting the right team mix

We all were hungry for ratios & numbers. How big should be our engineering team? Are we overstaffed or understaffed? STS did not disappoint us. He clearly laid out a heuristic of how to think about the size of your teams as a function of your stage.

An important point to note was that STS was being prescriptive on the number of engineers/ratios. This was not a rule but a way to think about the balance.

1. At $1M ARR — 15–18 is a good engineering team strength
2. Making sure its a combination of not only engineering but also Product Management & UX design is supercritical.
3. For every 6 engineers have 1 product manager & UX each. That’s the sweet spot.
4. At $10M ARR — Aiming to be at ~80 members is a good balance.
5. Never underestimate the importance of QA hiring, a good balance is 1 QA for every 3 Devs. This helps to avoid technical debt at an early stage.

According to STS one of the key things to look as an engineering leader was be wary of over-specialisation. You need flexibility, ability to wear multiple hats & be thriving amidst change constantly.

6/8 Hiring for the long term — The Achilles heal

STS started this topic by mentioning that every engineer you ever hire should have something special about themselves. Think of being of a hacker mentality, participation in code contests & hacker ranks, credible GitHub contributions & moreover bundled with enthusiasm.

He emphasised on a balance between curiosity to learn new technologies along with empathy for the end-users. This empathy drives solving customer issues which even demands to burn the midnight oil consistently during the early days.

STS mentioned that optimising for energy, technical curiosity & making sure that soft areas like scalability, performance & infrastructure are also embedded as core non-functional areas should be part of the on boarding, training & code practices.

7/8 Building the Future — Playbooks for Engineering Leaders

STS emphasised on the fact that one of the most important aspects for the success of engineering leaders in a SaaS product set-up is their camaraderie with their product counterparts.

It takes two to tango, product managers & engineering leaders synergise to deliver product value at scale. Few key traits of good engineering leaders are:

1. Hands-on — are builders & coders. They write test cases, solve problems, code & lead by example
2. Take quick decisions & are cognizant of technical debt quotient. Work with constraints and push the boundary of quality & scalability.
3. They are true team players, avoid being territorial and handling group dynamics well.
4. Consistently focus on hiring & retaining good talent
5. Own the ever-evolving robust & scalable technical architecture.

STS made clear that one of the traits that separates the boys from the men was the innate ability of engineering leaders to coach & be players at the same time.

8/8 Final Words: Start building your future today

It was a revelatory 45 minutes of pure engineering bliss. The words & themes of Culture, Business, Empathy, Curiosity, Quality, Engineering Chops, Scalable Architecture & Coaching resonated with all the engineering leaders present.

I for one was glued to my screens for the 45 mins.

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People ask me to predict the future, when all I want to do is prevent it. Better yet, build it. Predicting the future is much too easy, anyway. You look at the people around you, the street you stand on, the visible air you breathe, and predict more of the same. To hell with more. I want better.” ~ Ray Bradbury, from Beyond 1984: The People Machines

Ray Bradbury one of the greatest science fiction writers of all times was absolutely right. We need to collectively build the future. I often have found listening to the leaders, managers & folks who have been building startups, been there, done that, and crossed the chasm immensely cathartic. It's like the Netflix gem Dark, wherein you are looking at our best version in the future who embodies the wisdom & traits of these leaders of today. That’s my feeling listening to the early warm morning on Saturday, 24th July to STS Prasad.

So, SaaSBoomi Build definitely started with a bang. It was the first session kicked off by STS Prasad — SVP @ Freshworks. Looking at his LinkedIn profile is a dream career for every technical leader in making. With VP & CTO level stints at Walmart Labs, Kosmix, Aventeon & now leading engineering teams at Freshworks, it seems he has built & run engineering teams in major part of his career as an engineering leader.

As heading Product Innovation & Engineering myself at a fast-growing startup I take this opportunity to distil my thoughts from this 45 minutes of pure bliss.

Here are my list of the top 8 key takeaways from the session titled — Building Winning Teams by STS Prasad.

1/8 — Setting the context of the session

The core objective of the session was to deep dive into the minds of a savant engineering leader who built one of the largest SaaS engineering teams. More to understand what goes into building a product-focused team, guiding mental models for decisions, the ideal team structure at scale, hiring hacks for building your engineering leadership.

2/8 The Journey to the future

STS kicked off by painting the journey for all those present. He showed the audience the importance of different engineering motions during the journey of building the company as a function of the SaaS revenue. The groundwork starts as its inception.

The mental frameworks, product needs, engineering capabilities & build to scale starts at an early stage when the SaaS startup has proven product-market fit.

More about Product Market Fit here

3/8 The daunting present challenges us

STS started laying out the current state of majority SaaS engineering teams. He mentioned that more than often in the early days, the customer segments pull the engineering motions & priorities in different directions. This then further leads to recurring customer issues surfacing like a hydra. Teams face non-functional challenges of performance & reliability often overlooked while writing code. Like a domino effect this leads to unpredictable releases & fragmented developer time.

The teams want to move fast & break things! However, they can’t do this systematically. This is not how it manifests as teams are mostly functional silos of the front end, back end, QA & Dev-Ops etc.

According to STS this status quo is a familiar story at most of the early & mid stage SaaS engineering teams so a self reflection was the first thing STS did to set the stage.

4/8 Enter culture, committing to the business strategy & looking beyond engineering

Simon Sinek would have been proud. In his seminal book Start with Why Sinek argues that inspiration is the more powerful and sustainable than manipulation.

People & teams are inspired by a sense of purpose (or “Why”), and that this should come first when communicating, before “How” and “What”. Its like this triad the golden circle, a diagram of a bullseye (or concentric circles or onion diagram) with “Why” in the innermost circle.

STS mentioned that staying true to your SaaS product identity is supercritical & should be over-communicated to the entire team so they understand the purpose.

For engineering leaders, a SaaS multi-tenant architecture is not only an engineering decision but also a business strategy call. Think about all the big enterprise deal which warrants an on-premise deployment we all get lured to. STS emphasized on 3 key cultural principles :

1. Define what are the guiding principles for decisions? Think all tactical & strategic decisions.
2. What should an engineer expect when they join you? Think ramp-up.
3. What has brought you to where you are today? Think to move from old debt-ridden codebase to new frameworks.

According to STS once the team embodies these core cultural tenets, strategy & decision frameworks they are ready for growth.

5/8 Planning, Sizing & getting the right team mix

We all were hungry for ratios & numbers. How big should be our engineering team? Are we overstaffed or understaffed? STS did not disappoint us. He clearly laid out a heuristic of how to think about the size of your teams as a function of your stage.

An important point to note was that STS was being prescriptive on the number of engineers/ratios. This was not a rule but a way to think about the balance.

1. At $1M ARR — 15–18 is a good engineering team strength
2. Making sure its a combination of not only engineering but also Product Management & UX design is supercritical.
3. For every 6 engineers have 1 product manager & UX each. That’s the sweet spot.
4. At $10M ARR — Aiming to be at ~80 members is a good balance.
5. Never underestimate the importance of QA hiring, a good balance is 1 QA for every 3 Devs. This helps to avoid technical debt at an early stage.

According to STS one of the key things to look as an engineering leader was be wary of over-specialisation. You need flexibility, ability to wear multiple hats & be thriving amidst change constantly.

6/8 Hiring for the long term — The Achilles heal

STS started this topic by mentioning that every engineer you ever hire should have something special about themselves. Think of being of a hacker mentality, participation in code contests & hacker ranks, credible GitHub contributions & moreover bundled with enthusiasm.

He emphasised on a balance between curiosity to learn new technologies along with empathy for the end-users. This empathy drives solving customer issues which even demands to burn the midnight oil consistently during the early days.

STS mentioned that optimising for energy, technical curiosity & making sure that soft areas like scalability, performance & infrastructure are also embedded as core non-functional areas should be part of the on boarding, training & code practices.

7/8 Building the Future — Playbooks for Engineering Leaders

STS emphasised on the fact that one of the most important aspects for the success of engineering leaders in a SaaS product set-up is their camaraderie with their product counterparts.

It takes two to tango, product managers & engineering leaders synergise to deliver product value at scale. Few key traits of good engineering leaders are:

1. Hands-on — are builders & coders. They write test cases, solve problems, code & lead by example
2. Take quick decisions & are cognizant of technical debt quotient. Work with constraints and push the boundary of quality & scalability.
3. They are true team players, avoid being territorial and handling group dynamics well.
4. Consistently focus on hiring & retaining good talent
5. Own the ever-evolving robust & scalable technical architecture.

STS made clear that one of the traits that separates the boys from the men was the innate ability of engineering leaders to coach & be players at the same time.

8/8 Final Words: Start building your future today

It was a revelatory 45 minutes of pure engineering bliss. The words & themes of Culture, Business, Empathy, Curiosity, Quality, Engineering Chops, Scalable Architecture & Coaching resonated with all the engineering leaders present.

I for one was glued to my screens for the 45 mins.

" } }

A Mind Map & Key Learnings From SaaSBoomi Build

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It’s important to follow your dreams and heart. Do something that excites you — Sundar Pichai — CEO Alphabet

True to Sundar Pichai’s words Saturday the 25th of July 2020 was a day of doers. It was a day for those who followed their passion and gave their blood and sweat to realise their dreams. It was a conglomeration of some of the best minds in the realm of SaaS in India. The first edition of SaaSBoomi Build a virtual event conducted by SaaSBoomi gave its participants umpteen “aha” moments and a plethora of thoughts to ponder.

As a participant, I too had those wonderful moments which I thought should be articulated and through this blog I have made an attempt to capture some of my key learnings. I am also sharing a detailed mind map at the end which would give you an idea of the vast explicit and tacit knowledge shared by the doers of Indian SaaS ecosystem.

The clock struck 9.00 am and the participants began to assemble in Zoom punctually on a Saturday morning. STS Prasad of Freshworks facilitated the 1st session and gave us a fresh perspective of what goes behind building successful engineering teams. Prasad’s story struck the right chords with the participants and Rohit who moderated the session kept it very lively and picked the right questions. Prasad spoke on a variety of topics and stressed on the fact that “ There should be something special about every engineer in your team”. Quoting Prasad to win in SaaS we have to stay true to our multi-tenant model.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="782"] Engineering leaders[/caption]

After laying a very strong foundation on how to build engineering teams the event took switched gears to the world of best-in-class engineering practices that were a result of years of taking baby steps in the right direction and nurturing talent along the way. Soham Mazumdar of Rubrik a leader in data centre backup and recovery solutions facilitated the next session on first steps to building an enterprise SaaS product for rapid scale. The session was curated by Raghu and it was very interesting to see Soham give a ration of 20:20:20 % for the first 20 engineers and how the ratio is split across experts, leads and perfectionists.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="770"] Ideal Profile of Early Customer[/caption]

Monish Darda Cofounder and CTO of Icertis walked us through what it is to think in the platform and not a product from the start and what is innovation-led quality, security and performance in Icertis. What is agile and not so agile about it was covered and Chaitanya C moderated the session with full energy and enthusiasm. The approach to customer advocacy and involving senior people to work with iconic customers and even saying “NO” to some of their requirements is something well done and thought through in Icertis.

The Evolution of Icertis

Building Enterprise SaaS on Public Cloud involves scale, cogs, security and telling the right story and keeping your armoury with the right set of tools. Thats the story of Milind Borate and team Druva who goes all lengths to keep data always on and always safe. Kiran who was quoted as the latest superstar to Hyderabad SaaS system curated this wonderful session.

The last session before the lunch is always a challenge but seeing the energy of Deepak Diwakar of Mindtickle one could say no challenge is big enough. Deepak spoke on “Aligning the Trio — Product, UX, Engineering to Deliver a World Class Experience”. The session was curated by Chaitanya and we could not agree more with Deepak’s thoughts on Purpose, Operational Readiness and Catalyst which is a backbone for true north alignment of the trio.

Thinking is the capital, Enterprise is the way, Hardwork is the solution — APJ Abdul Kalam — Former President of India

SaaSBoomi Build is probably one of those rare events where all participants were equally active post-lunch. Thanks to a guided 15-minute meditation session brilliantly facilitated by Svati Patangay, Chief wellness Officer at Zenoti.

Design is everyone's responsibility what a simple yet powerful statement. This was backed by awesome slides& thoughts around UI&UX from Bharath Balasubramanian of Freshworks. The audience knew the post-lunch sessions have started with a bang. Bharath’s thoughts on hiring a product designer and designing your product’s website resonated well with all of us. Gowthami who curated the session only wished the session could have been even longer.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="738"] Hiring the right Product Designer[/caption]

Standing ovation and claps yes you read it right. We the audience were transferred to the world of Zeone.Ai. Sreedhar Peddineni, Rohit and Mrityunjay Kumar facilitated an awesome live workshop on the Product roadmap and the Catch 22. We could literally feel for Sreedhar who played the role of head of products, As a PM, I even wanted to give him a hug and say I am with you. David Epstein in his book Range speaks on how having wide interests in life makes one better and how generalists triumph in a world of specialisation. There is one thing we all know for sure these leaders who facilitated the session displayed range and they can also easily give the movie stars a run for their money.

Its always a challenge to facilitate a session after a brilliant live workshop but Anjali from Thoughtspot and Dinesh from Kissflow gave us great insights on what does it take to prioritise features in Enterprise and SMB scale. There was a beautiful dichotomy between the highly data-driven way of prioritisation vs WINES framework followed in Kissflow. Like all of us, I am sure Raghu R who facilitated this session enjoyed this dichotomy.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="812"] WINES framework in Kissflow[/caption]

Ankit Sobti of Postman is the Mahendra Singh Dhoni of SaaSBOOMi Build. What a finish he gave to the event. Should I mention the books he referred to? Or should I mention the philosophies he spoke? Or his thoughts on vision? OKR, Inverse convey manoeuvre .oh so many “aha” moments. Attendees even wanted access to his personal library and his favourite books. I am sure that will be a good session.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="1621"] Mind Map of SaaSBoomi Build 2020[/caption]

The world as we know of it has taken a U-Turn over the last 2 quarters and Covid’s forcing organisations to think differently and run better. Indian SaaS is young, hungry and has a will to achieve more and SaaSBoomi Build has just opened the doors and got us a step closer to the future by curating the best learnings from those who travelled the past. The excitement to attend the next edition of Build is already buzzing as sooner or later Indian SaaS firms are going to rewrite the technology story of the world.

Printf( ”Hello world are you listening”)

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It’s important to follow your dreams and heart. Do something that excites you — Sundar Pichai — CEO Alphabet

True to Sundar Pichai’s words Saturday the 25th of July 2020 was a day of doers. It was a day for those who followed their passion and gave their blood and sweat to realise their dreams. It was a conglomeration of some of the best minds in the realm of SaaS in India. The first edition of SaaSBoomi Build a virtual event conducted by SaaSBoomi gave its participants umpteen “aha” moments and a plethora of thoughts to ponder.

As a participant, I too had those wonderful moments which I thought should be articulated and through this blog I have made an attempt to capture some of my key learnings. I am also sharing a detailed mind map at the end which would give you an idea of the vast explicit and tacit knowledge shared by the doers of Indian SaaS ecosystem.

The clock struck 9.00 am and the participants began to assemble in Zoom punctually on a Saturday morning. STS Prasad of Freshworks facilitated the 1st session and gave us a fresh perspective of what goes behind building successful engineering teams. Prasad’s story struck the right chords with the participants and Rohit who moderated the session kept it very lively and picked the right questions. Prasad spoke on a variety of topics and stressed on the fact that “ There should be something special about every engineer in your team”. Quoting Prasad to win in SaaS we have to stay true to our multi-tenant model.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="782"] Engineering leaders[/caption]

After laying a very strong foundation on how to build engineering teams the event took switched gears to the world of best-in-class engineering practices that were a result of years of taking baby steps in the right direction and nurturing talent along the way. Soham Mazumdar of Rubrik a leader in data centre backup and recovery solutions facilitated the next session on first steps to building an enterprise SaaS product for rapid scale. The session was curated by Raghu and it was very interesting to see Soham give a ration of 20:20:20 % for the first 20 engineers and how the ratio is split across experts, leads and perfectionists.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="770"] Ideal Profile of Early Customer[/caption]

Monish Darda Cofounder and CTO of Icertis walked us through what it is to think in the platform and not a product from the start and what is innovation-led quality, security and performance in Icertis. What is agile and not so agile about it was covered and Chaitanya C moderated the session with full energy and enthusiasm. The approach to customer advocacy and involving senior people to work with iconic customers and even saying “NO” to some of their requirements is something well done and thought through in Icertis.

The Evolution of Icertis

Building Enterprise SaaS on Public Cloud involves scale, cogs, security and telling the right story and keeping your armoury with the right set of tools. Thats the story of Milind Borate and team Druva who goes all lengths to keep data always on and always safe. Kiran who was quoted as the latest superstar to Hyderabad SaaS system curated this wonderful session.

The last session before the lunch is always a challenge but seeing the energy of Deepak Diwakar of Mindtickle one could say no challenge is big enough. Deepak spoke on “Aligning the Trio — Product, UX, Engineering to Deliver a World Class Experience”. The session was curated by Chaitanya and we could not agree more with Deepak’s thoughts on Purpose, Operational Readiness and Catalyst which is a backbone for true north alignment of the trio.

Thinking is the capital, Enterprise is the way, Hardwork is the solution — APJ Abdul Kalam — Former President of India

SaaSBoomi Build is probably one of those rare events where all participants were equally active post-lunch. Thanks to a guided 15-minute meditation session brilliantly facilitated by Svati Patangay, Chief wellness Officer at Zenoti.

Design is everyone's responsibility what a simple yet powerful statement. This was backed by awesome slides& thoughts around UI&UX from Bharath Balasubramanian of Freshworks. The audience knew the post-lunch sessions have started with a bang. Bharath’s thoughts on hiring a product designer and designing your product’s website resonated well with all of us. Gowthami who curated the session only wished the session could have been even longer.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="738"] Hiring the right Product Designer[/caption]

Standing ovation and claps yes you read it right. We the audience were transferred to the world of Zeone.Ai. Sreedhar Peddineni, Rohit and Mrityunjay Kumar facilitated an awesome live workshop on the Product roadmap and the Catch 22. We could literally feel for Sreedhar who played the role of head of products, As a PM, I even wanted to give him a hug and say I am with you. David Epstein in his book Range speaks on how having wide interests in life makes one better and how generalists triumph in a world of specialisation. There is one thing we all know for sure these leaders who facilitated the session displayed range and they can also easily give the movie stars a run for their money.

Its always a challenge to facilitate a session after a brilliant live workshop but Anjali from Thoughtspot and Dinesh from Kissflow gave us great insights on what does it take to prioritise features in Enterprise and SMB scale. There was a beautiful dichotomy between the highly data-driven way of prioritisation vs WINES framework followed in Kissflow. Like all of us, I am sure Raghu R who facilitated this session enjoyed this dichotomy.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="812"] WINES framework in Kissflow[/caption]

Ankit Sobti of Postman is the Mahendra Singh Dhoni of SaaSBOOMi Build. What a finish he gave to the event. Should I mention the books he referred to? Or should I mention the philosophies he spoke? Or his thoughts on vision? OKR, Inverse convey manoeuvre .oh so many “aha” moments. Attendees even wanted access to his personal library and his favourite books. I am sure that will be a good session.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="1621"] Mind Map of SaaSBoomi Build 2020[/caption]

The world as we know of it has taken a U-Turn over the last 2 quarters and Covid’s forcing organisations to think differently and run better. Indian SaaS is young, hungry and has a will to achieve more and SaaSBoomi Build has just opened the doors and got us a step closer to the future by curating the best learnings from those who travelled the past. The excitement to attend the next edition of Build is already buzzing as sooner or later Indian SaaS firms are going to rewrite the technology story of the world.

Printf( ”Hello world are you listening”)

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The making of the product-tech backbone of a SaaS start-up

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(26883) "From guarding the mindspace of developers against the harsh realities of a cash-strapped world to giving brilliant jerks a polite go-by, the dos and don’ts for a surging start-up are one too many. At SaaSBoomi Build, builders of great products and developers of sparkling tech had much to say.

In the hustle-filled early days of SaaS unicorn Postman, an office tour would end barely a minute after it began.

It was a one-bedroom apartment that Ankit Sobti, Abhijit Kane, and Abhinav Asthana had rented out and repurposed as their office. There, bookshelves doubled up as workstations, and one didn’t need to “holler” for a meeting–a mere mumble would do.

It was in that cramped workplace that one of the fundamental discoveries that had an overarching impact on the journey of the start-up was made. The postman had been trying to simplify their microservices architecture around the turn of 2018, trying out a lot of technological solutions to the design problem. In this milieu, the founders moved to a larger apartment (office), and, to their utter disbelief, the architecture they were trying to redesign mirrored the change in the layout. “It was a fundamental eye-opener for us. When we moved from a single bedroom apartment to a four-bedroomed one, we could see how the code was evolving based on how we were interacting in the new office. Office layout and code decisions!” Sobti exclaimed, the unfinished sentence expression of sheer incredulity.

What Sobti and the other founders saw in action was the postulations of a research paper by computer scientist Mel Conway in Datamation magazine well over five decades ago, that an organization would produce a system (defined broadly) whose structure is a copy of the organization’s communication structure. Once aware of this, the founders wondered if the inverse was true: if they communicated differently, would the system they were building change commensurately? It did.

The realization that struck the team was further reinforced by the writings of software development guru Eric Evans and Throughtworks Chief Scientist Martin Fowler, a loud-mouthed pundit on software, particularly enterprise applications. Postman parlayed what it had learnt into real-world applications for its design, enabling it to make efficient systems and serve its customers better.

In its most recent fund-raise, Postman was valued at $2 billion. But all the glitz of blitzscaling aside, it would not work without a “strong foundation of values,” said Sobti, narrating his way into the crux of the nine-speaker virtual event organised by the Pay-it-Forward SaaS community SaaSBoomi. The SaaSBoomi Build was a series of talks to set entrepreneurs and leaders up for product-tech success.

Invariably, most speakers eventually gravitated toward values and the importance of evolving culture codes quite early in the development of products and subsequent scale-up of business in the company.

Inculcate product thinking right from the beginning

STS Prasad, Freshworks’s Senior Vice-President of Engineering, has witnessed from close quarters its much-storied growth spurt over the past four years. Through such a steep trajectory, a start-up should not lose focus on its “product thinking,” advised Prasad. By that, he meant clarity over what a start-up wants to deliver to the identified market and enabling engineers to develop the ability to think long-term: “They’re not just thinking about ‘What do I need to build this week or this month?’ but are certainly able to think about the architecture, the overall technology investment that they need to make to keep themselves aligned with the product and business strategy of the company.”

It is also in the $1–10 m ARR phase that your engineering teams get pulled in different directions. Their time could get taken over by customer issues and bug fixing, making software development just another contender for their mindspace. As you scale up, what should the ideal size of your engineering team be? Prasad had some suggestions:

One of the fundamental focus areas, also one of the trickiest in terms of execution, is hiring. Start-ups across the globe have evolved their own styles of recruitment; some have boldly experimented with unorthodox methods that have upended established notions about the ideal candidate. Prasad urged recruiters to hire candidates who are willing to push their own boundaries; it’s an intangible, and sometimes elusive, trait, but, nevertheless, worth pursuing.

At the same time, never compromise on the basics: “We do sometimes tend to get carried away by educational background or which college the engineer went to, or which company the engineer had worked at, to keep track of, maybe, some specific expertise. But by and large, I would ask you to really focus on the eagerness of your engineers to be able to learn new technologies, learn new engineering skills, be flexible to take on whatever needs to be done.”

Prasad underscored his suggestions with his own experience building out Freshrelease, an agile software project management product from the Freshworks stable. It was built by a team of 10 engineers, the majority of who had less than two years of work experience, and who do not belong to the Ivy League grad category:

“We were able to replace Jira [Atlassian’s workflow management tool] with Freshrelease in a kind of an internal pilot. The key takeaway is that the things to look for in an engineer are eagerness to learn and hunger to win.”

Take your time defining your viable product

What Prasad came to know by experience building products are learnings that, not surprisingly, one can find codified in the hiring practices of some other start-ups, too. Speaking immediately after Prasad at the SaaSBoomi summit was Soham Mazumdar, co-founder at Rubrik. The 6-year-old Palo Alto-based company is into ensuring business continuity, solving problems related to data security, backup, disaster recovery and cybersecurity for its customers.

Rubrik’s line of business demands a direct understanding of the customer. The selling is enterprise-grade, customer support is high-touch, and the average ticket size of sales is “pretty high,” in the words of Mazumdar.

“We are going after the replacement market, meaning there have been many products that cater to the same market. This is very much an established market.”

In such a highly competitive business, Mazumdar, too, emphasizes the importance of defining product utility down to the last word, making it crystal clear to founders themselves as to what it does for the targeted market. By doing that at Rubrik, it became clear to the founders whom they should go for during hiring drives: “We realized that our minimum viable product was as much about monitoring the system as it was about just the basic act of data protection. Once we were clear on that, we knew whom to hire.”

Rubrik soon realized that effectively managing/storing data was the key requirement. Mazumdar remembers that the founders all looked at each other after this realization dawned upon them, and came to the conclusion that they would have to make a key hire.

“We all had strengths but this particular area was not the strength of any of us…”

Once a start-up’s founders have crystallized their product idea, the hiring of the first twenty engineers is crucial. Mazumdar suggests an even mix and warns against not hiring specialists and perfectionists, for some of them go on to become great technical leaders and code reviewers in the future. And, of course, life is too short for “brilliant jerks.”

Design is not art but an arty craft of cutting churn

Design is as much a product function as it is a marketing tool. The design aimed at making lives easier for customers and users is essential to the success of any software company and its products. It isn’t just about making products look great.

“To design a chair, you need to understand how it will be used, whom it is meant for, where it will be kept,” said Bharath Balasubramanian, senior director of design at Freshworks. “Design is all about creating something that your users will love to use.”

Bharath’s post-lunch session was an instructional journey into the design process and its central role in building and scaling an enterprise start-up. He packed it with guidelines and dos and don’ts that can make the difference between success and failure.

Talking about website design, for example, Bharath emphasized the need to convey the message in the first fold of the webpage so visitors would explore further.

“The first step in a company’s customer journey is the website. It is where most customers would first experience your brand. The website is your storefront. It needs to instil trust and draw in your customers. So build it with care.”

But how do you ensure effective design? According to Bharath, the solution lies in talking to customers and understanding their needs in the early stages of the design process. “Try to deliver as much delight as possible with your features. Delight helps reduce churn,” he said.

Now, design of the kind Bharath talks about cannot be an afterthought. It needs to be an integral part of a product company’s DNA. Which also means a product startup needs a designer from Day 1. A designer who understands business problems and focuses on delivering solutions to fix those problems.

“As soon as you start the product definition, you need to have a designer,” he said. “You cannot take shortcuts.”

Facing the headwinds in enterprise SaaS on the public cloud

The differences between on-premise software and software-as-a-service provided over the public cloud can be categorized under three primary buckets — scale, cost, and security, explained Milind Borate, setting the stage for his session.

The SaaS model allows optimizing for economies of scale. But because of multiple cost factors, gross margins tend to be smaller than for on-premise software, said Milind, co-founder and CTO at backup-as-a-service provider Druva. “Gross margin still needs to be above 70%,” he said, delving into the intricacies of building enterprise SaaS on the public cloud.

Security, he added, is a challenge because enterprise customers are finicky about it and demand certifications that validate the robustness of the SaaS solution. “Third-party security audits and certifications are a minimum requirement,” he said.

On the architecture for public SaaS, compute, storage, and network are the key parameters, said Milind. He emphasized on systems being resilient enough to handle varying loads, efficient use of resources, and capacity planning — all of which also help optimize costs.

As for storage, Milind suggested that, depending on the scale of operations, companies could begin with a relational database and switch to a distributed database later. “You will go through multiple cycles as the software evolves and you get more customers. So there will be a chance to switch to a more distributed architecture on storage,” he said.

And finally, on the network, Milind said companies should ensure that the network-heavy components of their architecture such as API gateways and HA proxies are scaled out separately versus their compute instances.

Milind’s learnings on the difficult tradeoffs and the areas of cutting edge in the SaaS model are complemented by those of Monish Darda, co-founder and CTO of Icertis, scaling his company in the tricky dimension of enterprise SaaS.

With Microsoft as its first customer, Icertis has been able to widen its contract management platform within a short time: the company moved from two engineers to over a hundred within a span of 7–8 months, according to Darda.

One of the unique things about Icertis’s platform is that it has undergone three refactorings in its history. It holds a lesson for founders trying to accelerate platform development with a robust engineering team and how to be agile while doing it. “Those refactorings have become re-writes. Probably not many companies can claim that. If there is a new proposal, say, a new library, or database, we have a completely new way of approving it quickly, depending on its impact,” he said. Today, Icertis has a set apparatus to decide what surfaces to senior leadership, and how to ensure decisions are taken fast.

Darda’s notes from his experience of refactoring his platform received a rousing reception at the virtual summit, which had yet another informative session by Anjali Kumari, India product head at ThoughtSpot, and Dinesh Varadharajan, vice-president of product management at Kissflow, who engaged participants on prioritizing the product roadmap through the enterprise and SMB lenses.

That was right after a virtual interactive workshop on planning the product roadmap. The interactive workshop required participants to make tough choices on the critical trade-offs in roadmap planning.

How to get the right mix?

All said, setting yourself up for product success is somewhat similar to working on the right brew: too much Robusta will make it bitter while no one can stand an excess of the sickly sweet Arabica. Just like coffee, the manner of combining inputs matters a lot in delivering a great product experience to customers.

“One objective that keeps us up in the night as founders or leaders is, ‘Can we build this great product with world-class user experience (UX) and deliver it in time in the market?’ That’s what we always strive for,” said Deepak Diwakar, co-founder at sales enablement platform MindTickle, as he began his session on ‘Aligning the trio of product, UX, and engineering to deliver a world-class experience.’

MindTickle’s approach, he said, derives from three primary ingredients — purpose, operating readiness, and catalyst.

Let’s begin with a purpose. “There’s a big difference between purpose and objective. The objective is driven by your goal, but both of these can keep changing. Purpose gives the ‘what’ and ‘how’, not ‘when’, because that too can change,” Deepak said. “Once you align with the purpose, even if you need to change direction, your product, UX and engineering teams will understand why that decision was made.”

Purpose needs to be accompanied by a high-level operating framework for your teams to work with. The framework is important for teams to align with the company’s growth plans. “When you are inching toward $4 million or $5 million ARR, you begin to get some sort of rhythm and at that point of time you need to have a framework,” Deepak said, adding that it’s okay to have a framework for six months or a year so long as it gives you a broad alignment for operating readiness.

For the third ingredient, catalyst, Deepak employed the analogy of a credit card — you need to have it but you must figure out when and where it should be used. “The catalyst can take different forms and shapes. It could be an object, an event, or people’s persona that would help in particular situations,” he said.

Special thanks to Freshworks’ Feroze Jamal, Kingston David, Joseph Milind, and SaaSBoomi's Tarun Davuluri.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(26883) "From guarding the mindspace of developers against the harsh realities of a cash-strapped world to giving brilliant jerks a polite go-by, the dos and don’ts for a surging start-up are one too many. At SaaSBoomi Build, builders of great products and developers of sparkling tech had much to say.

In the hustle-filled early days of SaaS unicorn Postman, an office tour would end barely a minute after it began.

It was a one-bedroom apartment that Ankit Sobti, Abhijit Kane, and Abhinav Asthana had rented out and repurposed as their office. There, bookshelves doubled up as workstations, and one didn’t need to “holler” for a meeting–a mere mumble would do.

It was in that cramped workplace that one of the fundamental discoveries that had an overarching impact on the journey of the start-up was made. The postman had been trying to simplify their microservices architecture around the turn of 2018, trying out a lot of technological solutions to the design problem. In this milieu, the founders moved to a larger apartment (office), and, to their utter disbelief, the architecture they were trying to redesign mirrored the change in the layout. “It was a fundamental eye-opener for us. When we moved from a single bedroom apartment to a four-bedroomed one, we could see how the code was evolving based on how we were interacting in the new office. Office layout and code decisions!” Sobti exclaimed, the unfinished sentence expression of sheer incredulity.

What Sobti and the other founders saw in action was the postulations of a research paper by computer scientist Mel Conway in Datamation magazine well over five decades ago, that an organization would produce a system (defined broadly) whose structure is a copy of the organization’s communication structure. Once aware of this, the founders wondered if the inverse was true: if they communicated differently, would the system they were building change commensurately? It did.

The realization that struck the team was further reinforced by the writings of software development guru Eric Evans and Throughtworks Chief Scientist Martin Fowler, a loud-mouthed pundit on software, particularly enterprise applications. Postman parlayed what it had learnt into real-world applications for its design, enabling it to make efficient systems and serve its customers better.

In its most recent fund-raise, Postman was valued at $2 billion. But all the glitz of blitzscaling aside, it would not work without a “strong foundation of values,” said Sobti, narrating his way into the crux of the nine-speaker virtual event organised by the Pay-it-Forward SaaS community SaaSBoomi. The SaaSBoomi Build was a series of talks to set entrepreneurs and leaders up for product-tech success.

Invariably, most speakers eventually gravitated toward values and the importance of evolving culture codes quite early in the development of products and subsequent scale-up of business in the company.

Inculcate product thinking right from the beginning

STS Prasad, Freshworks’s Senior Vice-President of Engineering, has witnessed from close quarters its much-storied growth spurt over the past four years. Through such a steep trajectory, a start-up should not lose focus on its “product thinking,” advised Prasad. By that, he meant clarity over what a start-up wants to deliver to the identified market and enabling engineers to develop the ability to think long-term: “They’re not just thinking about ‘What do I need to build this week or this month?’ but are certainly able to think about the architecture, the overall technology investment that they need to make to keep themselves aligned with the product and business strategy of the company.”

It is also in the $1–10 m ARR phase that your engineering teams get pulled in different directions. Their time could get taken over by customer issues and bug fixing, making software development just another contender for their mindspace. As you scale up, what should the ideal size of your engineering team be? Prasad had some suggestions:

One of the fundamental focus areas, also one of the trickiest in terms of execution, is hiring. Start-ups across the globe have evolved their own styles of recruitment; some have boldly experimented with unorthodox methods that have upended established notions about the ideal candidate. Prasad urged recruiters to hire candidates who are willing to push their own boundaries; it’s an intangible, and sometimes elusive, trait, but, nevertheless, worth pursuing.

At the same time, never compromise on the basics: “We do sometimes tend to get carried away by educational background or which college the engineer went to, or which company the engineer had worked at, to keep track of, maybe, some specific expertise. But by and large, I would ask you to really focus on the eagerness of your engineers to be able to learn new technologies, learn new engineering skills, be flexible to take on whatever needs to be done.”

Prasad underscored his suggestions with his own experience building out Freshrelease, an agile software project management product from the Freshworks stable. It was built by a team of 10 engineers, the majority of who had less than two years of work experience, and who do not belong to the Ivy League grad category:

“We were able to replace Jira [Atlassian’s workflow management tool] with Freshrelease in a kind of an internal pilot. The key takeaway is that the things to look for in an engineer are eagerness to learn and hunger to win.”

Take your time defining your viable product

What Prasad came to know by experience building products are learnings that, not surprisingly, one can find codified in the hiring practices of some other start-ups, too. Speaking immediately after Prasad at the SaaSBoomi summit was Soham Mazumdar, co-founder at Rubrik. The 6-year-old Palo Alto-based company is into ensuring business continuity, solving problems related to data security, backup, disaster recovery and cybersecurity for its customers.

Rubrik’s line of business demands a direct understanding of the customer. The selling is enterprise-grade, customer support is high-touch, and the average ticket size of sales is “pretty high,” in the words of Mazumdar.

“We are going after the replacement market, meaning there have been many products that cater to the same market. This is very much an established market.”

In such a highly competitive business, Mazumdar, too, emphasizes the importance of defining product utility down to the last word, making it crystal clear to founders themselves as to what it does for the targeted market. By doing that at Rubrik, it became clear to the founders whom they should go for during hiring drives: “We realized that our minimum viable product was as much about monitoring the system as it was about just the basic act of data protection. Once we were clear on that, we knew whom to hire.”

Rubrik soon realized that effectively managing/storing data was the key requirement. Mazumdar remembers that the founders all looked at each other after this realization dawned upon them, and came to the conclusion that they would have to make a key hire.

“We all had strengths but this particular area was not the strength of any of us…”

Once a start-up’s founders have crystallized their product idea, the hiring of the first twenty engineers is crucial. Mazumdar suggests an even mix and warns against not hiring specialists and perfectionists, for some of them go on to become great technical leaders and code reviewers in the future. And, of course, life is too short for “brilliant jerks.”

Design is not art but an arty craft of cutting churn

Design is as much a product function as it is a marketing tool. The design aimed at making lives easier for customers and users is essential to the success of any software company and its products. It isn’t just about making products look great.

“To design a chair, you need to understand how it will be used, whom it is meant for, where it will be kept,” said Bharath Balasubramanian, senior director of design at Freshworks. “Design is all about creating something that your users will love to use.”

Bharath’s post-lunch session was an instructional journey into the design process and its central role in building and scaling an enterprise start-up. He packed it with guidelines and dos and don’ts that can make the difference between success and failure.

Talking about website design, for example, Bharath emphasized the need to convey the message in the first fold of the webpage so visitors would explore further.

“The first step in a company’s customer journey is the website. It is where most customers would first experience your brand. The website is your storefront. It needs to instil trust and draw in your customers. So build it with care.”

But how do you ensure effective design? According to Bharath, the solution lies in talking to customers and understanding their needs in the early stages of the design process. “Try to deliver as much delight as possible with your features. Delight helps reduce churn,” he said.

Now, design of the kind Bharath talks about cannot be an afterthought. It needs to be an integral part of a product company’s DNA. Which also means a product startup needs a designer from Day 1. A designer who understands business problems and focuses on delivering solutions to fix those problems.

“As soon as you start the product definition, you need to have a designer,” he said. “You cannot take shortcuts.”

Facing the headwinds in enterprise SaaS on the public cloud

The differences between on-premise software and software-as-a-service provided over the public cloud can be categorized under three primary buckets — scale, cost, and security, explained Milind Borate, setting the stage for his session.

The SaaS model allows optimizing for economies of scale. But because of multiple cost factors, gross margins tend to be smaller than for on-premise software, said Milind, co-founder and CTO at backup-as-a-service provider Druva. “Gross margin still needs to be above 70%,” he said, delving into the intricacies of building enterprise SaaS on the public cloud.

Security, he added, is a challenge because enterprise customers are finicky about it and demand certifications that validate the robustness of the SaaS solution. “Third-party security audits and certifications are a minimum requirement,” he said.

On the architecture for public SaaS, compute, storage, and network are the key parameters, said Milind. He emphasized on systems being resilient enough to handle varying loads, efficient use of resources, and capacity planning — all of which also help optimize costs.

As for storage, Milind suggested that, depending on the scale of operations, companies could begin with a relational database and switch to a distributed database later. “You will go through multiple cycles as the software evolves and you get more customers. So there will be a chance to switch to a more distributed architecture on storage,” he said.

And finally, on the network, Milind said companies should ensure that the network-heavy components of their architecture such as API gateways and HA proxies are scaled out separately versus their compute instances.

Milind’s learnings on the difficult tradeoffs and the areas of cutting edge in the SaaS model are complemented by those of Monish Darda, co-founder and CTO of Icertis, scaling his company in the tricky dimension of enterprise SaaS.

With Microsoft as its first customer, Icertis has been able to widen its contract management platform within a short time: the company moved from two engineers to over a hundred within a span of 7–8 months, according to Darda.

One of the unique things about Icertis’s platform is that it has undergone three refactorings in its history. It holds a lesson for founders trying to accelerate platform development with a robust engineering team and how to be agile while doing it. “Those refactorings have become re-writes. Probably not many companies can claim that. If there is a new proposal, say, a new library, or database, we have a completely new way of approving it quickly, depending on its impact,” he said. Today, Icertis has a set apparatus to decide what surfaces to senior leadership, and how to ensure decisions are taken fast.

Darda’s notes from his experience of refactoring his platform received a rousing reception at the virtual summit, which had yet another informative session by Anjali Kumari, India product head at ThoughtSpot, and Dinesh Varadharajan, vice-president of product management at Kissflow, who engaged participants on prioritizing the product roadmap through the enterprise and SMB lenses.

That was right after a virtual interactive workshop on planning the product roadmap. The interactive workshop required participants to make tough choices on the critical trade-offs in roadmap planning.

How to get the right mix?

All said, setting yourself up for product success is somewhat similar to working on the right brew: too much Robusta will make it bitter while no one can stand an excess of the sickly sweet Arabica. Just like coffee, the manner of combining inputs matters a lot in delivering a great product experience to customers.

“One objective that keeps us up in the night as founders or leaders is, ‘Can we build this great product with world-class user experience (UX) and deliver it in time in the market?’ That’s what we always strive for,” said Deepak Diwakar, co-founder at sales enablement platform MindTickle, as he began his session on ‘Aligning the trio of product, UX, and engineering to deliver a world-class experience.’

MindTickle’s approach, he said, derives from three primary ingredients — purpose, operating readiness, and catalyst.

Let’s begin with a purpose. “There’s a big difference between purpose and objective. The objective is driven by your goal, but both of these can keep changing. Purpose gives the ‘what’ and ‘how’, not ‘when’, because that too can change,” Deepak said. “Once you align with the purpose, even if you need to change direction, your product, UX and engineering teams will understand why that decision was made.”

Purpose needs to be accompanied by a high-level operating framework for your teams to work with. The framework is important for teams to align with the company’s growth plans. “When you are inching toward $4 million or $5 million ARR, you begin to get some sort of rhythm and at that point of time you need to have a framework,” Deepak said, adding that it’s okay to have a framework for six months or a year so long as it gives you a broad alignment for operating readiness.

For the third ingredient, catalyst, Deepak employed the analogy of a credit card — you need to have it but you must figure out when and where it should be used. “The catalyst can take different forms and shapes. It could be an object, an event, or people’s persona that would help in particular situations,” he said.

Special thanks to Freshworks’ Feroze Jamal, Kingston David, Joseph Milind, and SaaSBoomi's Tarun Davuluri.

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How to build a super cool startup – A five-pronged playbook to get the hype machine started

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I was hosting a session on branding for the startup accelerator Uppekha when I had the conversation that made me write this essay.

“How many of you are using Notion mainly for writing and sharing documents?” I’d asked. Quite a few founders said they were. “And how many of you use Dropbox to store things?” I’d continued. A good number said they were, again.

But, I had countered, if that’s what you are using Notion for, why not just use Dropbox Paper, an elegant product in its own right, and much easier to sync across devices because you already use Dropbox?

I didn’t get an answer, until one of the founders said that his younger team preferred Notion because it was, as he said, the hip product.

That stopped me cold.

The point I was trying to make was actually about brand perception: How Notion’s clear positioning was setting it apart from Dropbox’s slightly confused array of products.

But the answer I got explained it a whole lot better.

In an essay published last month, Matthew Guay, founding editor of the software community Capiche explained a kind of product he called positional software:

The best tools signify the value a craftsperson places on time and efficiency.

They’re emblematic of the role that craftsperson holds, signify their status and skill. And they’re honed over time to be best for that role.

Today’s positional software does the same. Its best tools, designed for specific roles, are carefully designed to make craftspeople better at their digital work. It is software that positions you as an expert. It is priced at a premium, and worth paying for — by those who need their features, and by those who want the status those features convey. They’re spread as digital artisans work in public, share their work, talk about their tools.

I’ll reiterate a point: They are spread, Guay says, as working on this new kind of software is shared in public, and it gives rise to a perceived elite, those who want the status that the tools convey.

Isn’t Notion a great example of what is being discussed? A product with superior design and clear positioning, very popular among the Silicon Valley crowd, and therefore conducive to signalling? Wasn’t Medium’s fiery early growth built on this? Isn’t Substack’s?

Hip, in the way the founder meant the word, posited that Notion was the in thing: It was cool, Dropbox Paper was not.

As a marketer, I’m very interested in that coolness, and in what it means. Is it something we can define and deconstruct? And if we can, can we harness it to aid our growth and marketing?

A few Indian product companies have already done so, but definitely not as many as we’d want. More importantly, is there a playbook to get to being a super cool startup?

I think there is: A five-pronged playbook the tactics of which will complement each other, compounding into a perfect storm of-sorts that will keep growth going.

I have tried as much as I can, within this narrative framework, to give examples from within the Indian ecosystem. When I have not, well, that’s the point.

Let’s dig in.

Storytelling

In western Wales, there’s a sleepy town called Cardigan. It has a population of 4000 people. From the outside, there seems to be nothing going on here, like the numerous other lovely towns and villages along the Welsh coast.

You’ll have to look closer.

A small factory in Cardigan makes the cult jeans brand Hiut, beloved and extolled by the fashion elite all over the world.

Now imagine that for a second. A small factory in the middle of nowhere, competing with with the big brands that we all know — Levi’s, Wrangler, Lee, Pepe, Armani — and giving them a run for their money.

What’s happening here? I’ll tell you: On their website, they have a section called our story. This is what it says:

Cardigan is a small town of 4,000 good people. 400 of them used to make jeans.

They made 35,000 pairs a week. For three decades.Then one day the factory closed. It left town. But all that skill and knowhow remained. Without any way of showing the world what they could do.

That’s why we have started The Hiut Denim Company. To bring manufacturing back home. To use all that skill on our doorstep. And to breathe new life into our town.

So yes, our town is going to make jeans again.

Whoa! With a story like that, hell, I would import those jeans to India, and happily pay whatever silly taxes I have to.

But this is how they carved out a niche for themselves in a market worth more than $100 billion worldwide. They told a story.

They cracked open a highly competitive, highly brand conscious, almost saturated market with a story that made them unique. Isn’t that what we all want to do too, especially as SaaS becomes more and more competitive?

Software is not jeans, you say? That’s just a lazy excuse. If Drift can take something as ubiquitous as live chat, tell a story about conversational marketing, write a book that propagates that idea, and build a content engine on it, why can’t you? Remember Groove? If they could differentiate their startup in as crowded a space as customer support by telling a story about transparency, supported by content, why can’t you?

Why can’t we? I don’t know. But I do know that if we are going to make the startups we build cool enough to compete in the global market, the first thing we have to do is tell a great story.

Content

Notion’s head of marketing Camille Ricketts was on Pankaj Mishra’s Outliers podcast a few weeks ago. And as I listened, I found myself scribbling notes furiously. There’s one exchange that I underlined twice.

Pankaj: “Camille, what do you think are Notion’s first principles when it comes to marketing?” Camille: “Oh, storytelling and distribution.”

It was the clarity and the simplicity in that answer that really impressed me. If you are able to tell great stories about your product, and distribute them to the audience you are aiming for, your job is done, isn’t it? I have been struggling for years to find a good way to articulate this, and there it was.

But that clarity did not come out of thin air. Before coming to Notion, Camille ran one of the most well-regarded content marketing programs in the world. And she did it in a very, very competitive space — Venture Capital.

Entrepreneurs today are very smart about venture capital. They know the kind of partner they want, the kind of firm they want to be associated with. They are doing the homework, and they are discerning. VC firms have to stand apart, signal who they are, what they stand for, and give founders a reason to approach them.

And as one popular marketing website puts it, Camille’s work at First Round Capital’s blog, First Round Review, “revolutionised content marketing for the Venture Capital industry.”

The Review needs no introduction, all of us in the industry have read it at some point.

If we break the content down along Camille’s ideas of storytelling and distribution, we understand what went into making it such a success — the storytelling is superlative, almost every article is a deep dive. The titles tell us all we need to know, there’s no clickbait. The design is superior, encouraging us to read. And there are no overt CTAs — First Round is educating, not selling. But it is also signalling. And when your content is just so ahead of everyone else, distribution takes care of itself.

This is First Round’s unfair advantage, making it look and feel premium, a word I’m using interchangeably with cool in this context. And Camille is adapting the same playbook at Notion, telling user stories in a way that makes me want to immediately sign up and use Notion, even though I have no real need for it.

Good content marketing is tough to do. Great content marketing, like what First Round have done, is even tougher. It takes time and resources, and startups don’t have the patience. Therefore, it is an opportunity for someone who does, and is willing to put in the long term investment into great content.

The resources to do this exist, in abundance, in our ecosystem. It’s the vision that’s missing.

PR

Martech startup Zarget was founded in 2015 by former Zoho executives Arvind Parthiban, Naveen Venkat, and Santosh Kumar. It was acquired in 2017 by Freshworks, making it one of the fastest high profile SaaS exits in our ecosystem.

We all know this. Zarget’s story is fascinating.

But to a marketer, Zarget was even more interesting. It was one of the startups that understood coolness, understood the glamour of being a startup with a story, and they used it. Since the time they began, they always seemed to be in the news. This was refreshing, because our startups are not necessarily good at PR. Zarget was. There can be many arguments why, but I bet having a marketer in the founding team (Arvind) had something to do with it.

One particular campaign I want to highlight is something they called Respect Startups, a platform where, as the Economic Times put it, “..startups and large companies can come together to offer budding startups assistance in the form of free trials for products, access to services, and office space, among others.”

In other words, it was a glorified exchange program for startups to barter products and services. Haven’t these things existed before, you ask? Yes, they have, and much bigger ones too.

But what was Zarget doing then?

I’ll tell you. It was telling a story around itself.

As Arvind put it, “When we started Zarget, we went through a phase where we required a lot of software tools to build our product. It’s difficult to spend too much money on buying licensed products when you are starting a bootstrapped company. Zarget, fortunately bagged early funding making things easier in terms of spending. However, to build a solid ecosystem there was a need for a community to help startups in need.”

It was brilliant marketing.

Here was a story, primed for press and tech blog attention, aided by a young startup and supported by other young founders praising it. Any publication would want to run it. And they did. I don’t know if it helped startups do what it was supposed to, but I know it got Zarget a lot of great press.

Zarget did a lot of other things at that time, especially around events, but I draw attention to this particular story because of the sheer ingenuity of it, its clear target — getting press, and also to demonstrate what’s possible.

Admittedly, Indian startups are getting better at this particular tactic, but there’s still lots of room for improvement. And we need to fill in that room if we are to compete with the world’s best.

Events and offline marketing

In 2018, Freshworks had a problem, of the ‘good to have’ variety.

Most products were hits, pitches were landing well, and the company was cracking large deals. Growth was strong.

But sales teams sometimes had problems with brand recognition in really large deal discussions in the US and Europe. Freshworks’ strong brand in Asia had not really penetrated deep enough into the west to allow them automatic brand recall. And this was starting to be a problem when sales was competing with big, homegrown brands.

This was one of the starting points for Freshworks’ Failsforce campaign, when the company hijacked Dreamforce by flying a blimp around Salesforce Towers. It caused a sensation on that first day, when all of tech looked up and saw an Indian startup making a statement. Salesforce did not respond, but even if they had, it would have played right into Freshworks’ hands.

How do I know all of this? Well, I was part of the team that executed this campaign, offline and online, and it was a blast. The idea was that we could increase aided recall (as opposed to unaided recall) by doing this. And by following that up with a concerted PR and content effort, we would increase brand recognition in these geographies.

And it worked. Both as a campaign and as a branding exercise, Failsforce was a massive success, earning us press and social media buzz.

But — and this was something I learnt then— another important part of a campaign like this is also signalling. The Failsforce campaign signalled that Freshworks was a company bold enough to do such audacious things, and this meant, in a very tech company-way, that it was cool enough for you to pay attention.

Now I know what you are thinking: How can you replicate something that probably took a million dollars or more to do? You need money to do things like this, no?

I don’t think so. Consider this — you are an Indian startup competing with Salesforce or some other valley behemoth. What is stopping you from paying a little Indian restaurant down the street to fill up a cart with tea and samosas, go stand in the corner, and give it away for free? All you have to do is brand the cart with your company colours and logo. This will mean that the next time they see your brand, they remember that you are an Indian company who once made them really delicious chai.

Won’t that work? I think it will. But I’ll tell you what it won’t cost.

A million dollars.

Social Media

Have you heard of the one-click-checkout startup Fast?

If you have not, then I can confirm that you’ve been living under a rock. Because if you are on social media and in technology, you cannot have missed them.

The founders Domm Holland and Allison Barr Allen met on Twitter. They raised a large round from Stripe, the certificate of fintech legitimacy if ever there was one. And they also hired Matthew Kobach, the former social media manager at the New York Stock Exchange and popular social media personality, to lead their content marketing.

How do I know all of this? Because I went and did some deep research? Nope. They told me all this, on social media; I was just there. And am I in any way interested in what Fast does? Not really, except that they are in tech too. But by talking about themselves, telling their story, they got my attention, and I read about them.

Fast is one of the new breed of super-social startups who are constructing world class brands by what they call ‘building in public’: Being open about what’s going on in the company, talking through their strategies, being responsive, and generally being super friendly to everybody. They run great campaigns (like this one), and celebrate recruits publicly.

If any startup is cool at this point in time, they are.

Fast also seem to prove the validity of the idea that the personal brand is as important, if not more important than the company brand, at least on social media. And they are doing a great job at executing on this, in the way its people are amplifying their company’s stories and messages.

How do we know it’s working, though?

Well, we are talking about them, are we not?

This is a strategy being employed by a lot of other startups in the valley, too. But not here in India, not yet. Does such kind of talent not exist? Of course it does. And we all know it. But our founders still languish far behind in using social media to create or support marketing efforts.

And if we are to build the kind of startups that make us go wow, we have to invest in social media from the get-go. It has to be part of the marketing strategy, not an afterthought as it is today.

So there you are, these are what I think we need to make cool, buzzy, news-worthy companies that sell themselves, and show the rest of us how marketing can really be done.

Also, please note that these are not standalone components. Each of the above tactics complement each other. For example, a great story automatically feeds great content, which helps the social media strategy, which attracts mentions and press attention, and so on.

Nor do you have to do all of them at once. You will have to start by getting the story right, of course. That is non-negotiable. But after that, it is all up to you. The playbook is right here, the strategy is for you to choose and execute.

And when done together, in smart permutations and combinations, they will feed into each other to create a flywheel of coolness, a perpetual motion machine of marketing.

Which is the dream, isn’t it?

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Sadhana Balaji for helping edit this, to Avinash Raghava for giving me early feedback on this idea and encouraging me to write it down, and to Tarun Davuluri for everything you do at SaaSBOOMi.

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I was hosting a session on branding for the startup accelerator Uppekha when I had the conversation that made me write this essay.

“How many of you are using Notion mainly for writing and sharing documents?” I’d asked. Quite a few founders said they were. “And how many of you use Dropbox to store things?” I’d continued. A good number said they were, again.

But, I had countered, if that’s what you are using Notion for, why not just use Dropbox Paper, an elegant product in its own right, and much easier to sync across devices because you already use Dropbox?

I didn’t get an answer, until one of the founders said that his younger team preferred Notion because it was, as he said, the hip product.

That stopped me cold.

The point I was trying to make was actually about brand perception: How Notion’s clear positioning was setting it apart from Dropbox’s slightly confused array of products.

But the answer I got explained it a whole lot better.

In an essay published last month, Matthew Guay, founding editor of the software community Capiche explained a kind of product he called positional software:

The best tools signify the value a craftsperson places on time and efficiency.

They’re emblematic of the role that craftsperson holds, signify their status and skill. And they’re honed over time to be best for that role.

Today’s positional software does the same. Its best tools, designed for specific roles, are carefully designed to make craftspeople better at their digital work. It is software that positions you as an expert. It is priced at a premium, and worth paying for — by those who need their features, and by those who want the status those features convey. They’re spread as digital artisans work in public, share their work, talk about their tools.

I’ll reiterate a point: They are spread, Guay says, as working on this new kind of software is shared in public, and it gives rise to a perceived elite, those who want the status that the tools convey.

Isn’t Notion a great example of what is being discussed? A product with superior design and clear positioning, very popular among the Silicon Valley crowd, and therefore conducive to signalling? Wasn’t Medium’s fiery early growth built on this? Isn’t Substack’s?

Hip, in the way the founder meant the word, posited that Notion was the in thing: It was cool, Dropbox Paper was not.

As a marketer, I’m very interested in that coolness, and in what it means. Is it something we can define and deconstruct? And if we can, can we harness it to aid our growth and marketing?

A few Indian product companies have already done so, but definitely not as many as we’d want. More importantly, is there a playbook to get to being a super cool startup?

I think there is: A five-pronged playbook the tactics of which will complement each other, compounding into a perfect storm of-sorts that will keep growth going.

I have tried as much as I can, within this narrative framework, to give examples from within the Indian ecosystem. When I have not, well, that’s the point.

Let’s dig in.

Storytelling

In western Wales, there’s a sleepy town called Cardigan. It has a population of 4000 people. From the outside, there seems to be nothing going on here, like the numerous other lovely towns and villages along the Welsh coast.

You’ll have to look closer.

A small factory in Cardigan makes the cult jeans brand Hiut, beloved and extolled by the fashion elite all over the world.

Now imagine that for a second. A small factory in the middle of nowhere, competing with with the big brands that we all know — Levi’s, Wrangler, Lee, Pepe, Armani — and giving them a run for their money.

What’s happening here? I’ll tell you: On their website, they have a section called our story. This is what it says:

Cardigan is a small town of 4,000 good people. 400 of them used to make jeans.

They made 35,000 pairs a week. For three decades.Then one day the factory closed. It left town. But all that skill and knowhow remained. Without any way of showing the world what they could do.

That’s why we have started The Hiut Denim Company. To bring manufacturing back home. To use all that skill on our doorstep. And to breathe new life into our town.

So yes, our town is going to make jeans again.

Whoa! With a story like that, hell, I would import those jeans to India, and happily pay whatever silly taxes I have to.

But this is how they carved out a niche for themselves in a market worth more than $100 billion worldwide. They told a story.

They cracked open a highly competitive, highly brand conscious, almost saturated market with a story that made them unique. Isn’t that what we all want to do too, especially as SaaS becomes more and more competitive?

Software is not jeans, you say? That’s just a lazy excuse. If Drift can take something as ubiquitous as live chat, tell a story about conversational marketing, write a book that propagates that idea, and build a content engine on it, why can’t you? Remember Groove? If they could differentiate their startup in as crowded a space as customer support by telling a story about transparency, supported by content, why can’t you?

Why can’t we? I don’t know. But I do know that if we are going to make the startups we build cool enough to compete in the global market, the first thing we have to do is tell a great story.

Content

Notion’s head of marketing Camille Ricketts was on Pankaj Mishra’s Outliers podcast a few weeks ago. And as I listened, I found myself scribbling notes furiously. There’s one exchange that I underlined twice.

Pankaj: “Camille, what do you think are Notion’s first principles when it comes to marketing?” Camille: “Oh, storytelling and distribution.”

It was the clarity and the simplicity in that answer that really impressed me. If you are able to tell great stories about your product, and distribute them to the audience you are aiming for, your job is done, isn’t it? I have been struggling for years to find a good way to articulate this, and there it was.

But that clarity did not come out of thin air. Before coming to Notion, Camille ran one of the most well-regarded content marketing programs in the world. And she did it in a very, very competitive space — Venture Capital.

Entrepreneurs today are very smart about venture capital. They know the kind of partner they want, the kind of firm they want to be associated with. They are doing the homework, and they are discerning. VC firms have to stand apart, signal who they are, what they stand for, and give founders a reason to approach them.

And as one popular marketing website puts it, Camille’s work at First Round Capital’s blog, First Round Review, “revolutionised content marketing for the Venture Capital industry.”

The Review needs no introduction, all of us in the industry have read it at some point.

If we break the content down along Camille’s ideas of storytelling and distribution, we understand what went into making it such a success — the storytelling is superlative, almost every article is a deep dive. The titles tell us all we need to know, there’s no clickbait. The design is superior, encouraging us to read. And there are no overt CTAs — First Round is educating, not selling. But it is also signalling. And when your content is just so ahead of everyone else, distribution takes care of itself.

This is First Round’s unfair advantage, making it look and feel premium, a word I’m using interchangeably with cool in this context. And Camille is adapting the same playbook at Notion, telling user stories in a way that makes me want to immediately sign up and use Notion, even though I have no real need for it.

Good content marketing is tough to do. Great content marketing, like what First Round have done, is even tougher. It takes time and resources, and startups don’t have the patience. Therefore, it is an opportunity for someone who does, and is willing to put in the long term investment into great content.

The resources to do this exist, in abundance, in our ecosystem. It’s the vision that’s missing.

PR

Martech startup Zarget was founded in 2015 by former Zoho executives Arvind Parthiban, Naveen Venkat, and Santosh Kumar. It was acquired in 2017 by Freshworks, making it one of the fastest high profile SaaS exits in our ecosystem.

We all know this. Zarget’s story is fascinating.

But to a marketer, Zarget was even more interesting. It was one of the startups that understood coolness, understood the glamour of being a startup with a story, and they used it. Since the time they began, they always seemed to be in the news. This was refreshing, because our startups are not necessarily good at PR. Zarget was. There can be many arguments why, but I bet having a marketer in the founding team (Arvind) had something to do with it.

One particular campaign I want to highlight is something they called Respect Startups, a platform where, as the Economic Times put it, “..startups and large companies can come together to offer budding startups assistance in the form of free trials for products, access to services, and office space, among others.”

In other words, it was a glorified exchange program for startups to barter products and services. Haven’t these things existed before, you ask? Yes, they have, and much bigger ones too.

But what was Zarget doing then?

I’ll tell you. It was telling a story around itself.

As Arvind put it, “When we started Zarget, we went through a phase where we required a lot of software tools to build our product. It’s difficult to spend too much money on buying licensed products when you are starting a bootstrapped company. Zarget, fortunately bagged early funding making things easier in terms of spending. However, to build a solid ecosystem there was a need for a community to help startups in need.”

It was brilliant marketing.

Here was a story, primed for press and tech blog attention, aided by a young startup and supported by other young founders praising it. Any publication would want to run it. And they did. I don’t know if it helped startups do what it was supposed to, but I know it got Zarget a lot of great press.

Zarget did a lot of other things at that time, especially around events, but I draw attention to this particular story because of the sheer ingenuity of it, its clear target — getting press, and also to demonstrate what’s possible.

Admittedly, Indian startups are getting better at this particular tactic, but there’s still lots of room for improvement. And we need to fill in that room if we are to compete with the world’s best.

Events and offline marketing

In 2018, Freshworks had a problem, of the ‘good to have’ variety.

Most products were hits, pitches were landing well, and the company was cracking large deals. Growth was strong.

But sales teams sometimes had problems with brand recognition in really large deal discussions in the US and Europe. Freshworks’ strong brand in Asia had not really penetrated deep enough into the west to allow them automatic brand recall. And this was starting to be a problem when sales was competing with big, homegrown brands.

This was one of the starting points for Freshworks’ Failsforce campaign, when the company hijacked Dreamforce by flying a blimp around Salesforce Towers. It caused a sensation on that first day, when all of tech looked up and saw an Indian startup making a statement. Salesforce did not respond, but even if they had, it would have played right into Freshworks’ hands.

How do I know all of this? Well, I was part of the team that executed this campaign, offline and online, and it was a blast. The idea was that we could increase aided recall (as opposed to unaided recall) by doing this. And by following that up with a concerted PR and content effort, we would increase brand recognition in these geographies.

And it worked. Both as a campaign and as a branding exercise, Failsforce was a massive success, earning us press and social media buzz.

But — and this was something I learnt then— another important part of a campaign like this is also signalling. The Failsforce campaign signalled that Freshworks was a company bold enough to do such audacious things, and this meant, in a very tech company-way, that it was cool enough for you to pay attention.

Now I know what you are thinking: How can you replicate something that probably took a million dollars or more to do? You need money to do things like this, no?

I don’t think so. Consider this — you are an Indian startup competing with Salesforce or some other valley behemoth. What is stopping you from paying a little Indian restaurant down the street to fill up a cart with tea and samosas, go stand in the corner, and give it away for free? All you have to do is brand the cart with your company colours and logo. This will mean that the next time they see your brand, they remember that you are an Indian company who once made them really delicious chai.

Won’t that work? I think it will. But I’ll tell you what it won’t cost.

A million dollars.

Social Media

Have you heard of the one-click-checkout startup Fast?

If you have not, then I can confirm that you’ve been living under a rock. Because if you are on social media and in technology, you cannot have missed them.

The founders Domm Holland and Allison Barr Allen met on Twitter. They raised a large round from Stripe, the certificate of fintech legitimacy if ever there was one. And they also hired Matthew Kobach, the former social media manager at the New York Stock Exchange and popular social media personality, to lead their content marketing.

How do I know all of this? Because I went and did some deep research? Nope. They told me all this, on social media; I was just there. And am I in any way interested in what Fast does? Not really, except that they are in tech too. But by talking about themselves, telling their story, they got my attention, and I read about them.

Fast is one of the new breed of super-social startups who are constructing world class brands by what they call ‘building in public’: Being open about what’s going on in the company, talking through their strategies, being responsive, and generally being super friendly to everybody. They run great campaigns (like this one), and celebrate recruits publicly.

If any startup is cool at this point in time, they are.

Fast also seem to prove the validity of the idea that the personal brand is as important, if not more important than the company brand, at least on social media. And they are doing a great job at executing on this, in the way its people are amplifying their company’s stories and messages.

How do we know it’s working, though?

Well, we are talking about them, are we not?

This is a strategy being employed by a lot of other startups in the valley, too. But not here in India, not yet. Does such kind of talent not exist? Of course it does. And we all know it. But our founders still languish far behind in using social media to create or support marketing efforts.

And if we are to build the kind of startups that make us go wow, we have to invest in social media from the get-go. It has to be part of the marketing strategy, not an afterthought as it is today.

So there you are, these are what I think we need to make cool, buzzy, news-worthy companies that sell themselves, and show the rest of us how marketing can really be done.

Also, please note that these are not standalone components. Each of the above tactics complement each other. For example, a great story automatically feeds great content, which helps the social media strategy, which attracts mentions and press attention, and so on.

Nor do you have to do all of them at once. You will have to start by getting the story right, of course. That is non-negotiable. But after that, it is all up to you. The playbook is right here, the strategy is for you to choose and execute.

And when done together, in smart permutations and combinations, they will feed into each other to create a flywheel of coolness, a perpetual motion machine of marketing.

Which is the dream, isn’t it?

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Sadhana Balaji for helping edit this, to Avinash Raghava for giving me early feedback on this idea and encouraging me to write it down, and to Tarun Davuluri for everything you do at SaaSBOOMi.

" } }

Designing Your Organization for 10x Impact

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"We cannot build our own future without helping others to build theirs."  — Bill Clinton

Once maybe in a lifetime comes across a company that has build something that impacts mostly everyone in their industry. Think of say Office365, StackOverflow, Gmail, DropBox which becomes a verb due to its sheer relevance & meaning in our lives.

Postman is a verb today. Period. Anyone today building, publishing & sharing API’s (Application Programming Interface ) are doing this on Postman. If not, they are doing it wrong. What Ankit, Abhinav & Abhijeet have build today is being used by millions of developers everyday across the globe. As if, it always existed in the first place. I being a programmer myself always have a Postman collection always open on my desktop. Bill Clinton will certainly be proud as Postman is building in real sense the future interface & plumbing of software systems.

0/11 — Setting the Context of the session

So, SaaSBoomi Build definitely ended with a bang. It was the last session kicked off by Founder & CTO of Postman — Ankit Sobti. Looking at his LinkedIn profile he had stints at Yahoo!, Adobe, Media.net in various engineering & product roles. The session titled “Designing your Organization for 10x Impact” was focused on two rules :

• Rule #1: Build a proprietary technology that is 10x better. (we all know this)
• Rule #0: Design an organisation that can build 10x better technology.

Here are my list of the top 11 key takeaways from the Ankit’s session titled

1/11 — Postman — The billion dollar unicorn story from India

Ankit started by sharing in a nutshell the story of Postman. The early days from founders building something they wanted to raising money, growing their team & expanding at a blitzkrieg speed. Today Postman stands with 10M+ loyal users, has been adopted by 500K+ organisations & with a jaw dropping 2.5M+ Monthly Active Users ( MAUs).

They have broken all the myths & playbooks and rewritten many rules for the next generation product companies that are getting build today.

Moreover, to the founders present in the session Postman gave us the courage to dream big.

2/11 — Thinking organisation as a product : 0–1, 1–10, 10–100 & Beyond

Ankit started by giving us a mental model to think about building our organisation for 10x impact. His analogy was simple & elegant — think about your organisation as a living product. Every phase of your company needs to be designed by choice & not left to chance. As in writing code — you choose between an elegant design & bad design. There’s no middle ground, its a binary choice to orchester your organisation for tremendous impact.

The legendary & late Clayton Christensen — Jobs to be Done frameworks was mentioned by Ankit while thinking about building teams, products & orgs. Your Customer Needs a Nail in the Wall, Not a Hammer.

Key takeaways emerged for Product, People & Organisations :

• Products : Designed to make better users, not better products
• People : Designed to put the right people in the right place, with the problem statements that are challenge at the right level
• Organisation : Designed to make Employees more effective at their Job

3/11 — Designing your Organisation for success is an Art

Ankit moved on to the building blocks of designing the organisation for impact. He mentioned that there are 2 key considerations :

• Strategic Design Elements
• Tactical Design Elements

What followed next 30 mins blew most of us apart. It was practicality weaved with philosophy. Building from first principles at its best.

4/11 — Strategic Design : Values & Communication as a force multiplier

Ankit started talking about the importance of Core Values. He mentioned the values are a reflection of the founding team’s mindset & beliefs. This seeps in across teams top-down & binds the organisation as a glue through good, bad & tough times.

He mentioned about a sync between values, communication structures & therefore the intended design of your organisation.

The legendary Mythical Man Month’s — Inverse Conway Maneuver was mentioned making the tech geeks like us present proud & smiling. What he said & recommended that every founder should make a conscious effort to evolve their team(s) and organizational structure to promote their desired architecture. Ideally any technology architecture will display isomorphism with their business architecture.

5/11 — Strategic Design : Domain Driven Design as a philosophy to build

This was a sweet dance of software design methodologies being applied beautifully to designing winning organisations.

What Ankit mentioned was bringing the 3 forces together :

1. Bounded Context : Teams understand their roles but are bounded to each other complimenting & feeding off each other’s success.
2. Ubiquitous Language : A language blended in the culture & values. Clear, consistent & ubiquitous.
3. Context Mapping : The glue allowing the teams to integrate, align & define their inter relationships with precision.

I for one felt that Ankit was giving the 3 Tier Architecture for building teams at scale. He mentioned some guiding behaviours here :

• Boundaries created based on “business”, not technical concerns
• Aligned around generating value to the consumer
• Who is facing this set of problems? Why?
• How do they currently solve these problems?
• You as a company intend to solve these problems
• How do you go about doing that?

6/11 — Strategic Design : Squads build to execute like soldiers

Ankit mentioned about the psyche of cross-functional teams. The perfect analogy was of a soldier in a regiment with aligned goals, common codified values, accountable for end objective & always in auto-pilot.

He mentioned that these Squads are an outcome of a well-designed organisation. Stating these 9 core characteristics of a well build Squad.

1. Cross-Functional Mission Driven Teams

2. Squads are required to Own and Deliver

3. Squads are isomorphic with the Business Domain

4. Squads communicate using the same Ubiquitous Language

5. Squads are autonomous

6. Reduce cross team collaboration

7. Responsible for End user experience

8. Squads Win Together

9. Wouldn’t work without our Values.

7/11 — Tactical Design : OKRs, Strategy & Visions as an alignment tool

Ankit moved promptly to the tactical aspects of designing the organisation for 10x impact. He spoke passionately about the importance of alignment of teams with the over arching goals of the organisation.

3 key themes & toolkits emerged here :

OKR as a tooklit for alignment : A Tool to create alignment and engagement around measurable and ambitious goals. They are frequently set, tracked and re-evaluated — usually quarterly. OKRs are bidirectional — allow for top-down strategic goals to align with bottom-up tactical objectives

Championed by legendary John Doerr and build on top of Andy Grove’s bible on management. ( Read High Output Management ) it gives fast moving organisation alignment to the goals at hand.

Strategy Document as an approach to organisational problem solving : A theory describing the nature of the challenge & then identify policies that’ll be applied to address the challenge. Any strategy must be accompanied a set of specific actions directed by guiding policy to address challenges. A strategy is only meaningful if it leads to aligned action

Vision Document as the BHAG ( big hairy audacious goal ) : 1–2 sentence aspirational and inspirational statement. How will you be valuable to your users and your company? How will you make them better at their Job? What constraints are you limited by today? & the Future: what do you expect to be constrained by in the future?

He finally emphasized the founders present to deeply introspect on these 3 themes & toolkits to seek true alignment & lead teams towards consistent wins.

8/11 — Tactical Design : The Hiring Conundrum

This was one of the most awaited of the parts of the talk which baffles every founder night & day. How do we find the right fit. He again in a true software methodology parlance gave the 4 stages of the teams. It was like Crossing the Chasm but meant for building teams. Geoff Moore would have been proud.

As teams move from falling behind to finally innovating. He reminded us that maybe each team may go through this chasm but founders need to super cognisant that their design impact should make sure this transition happens with time. Leading indicators need to be carefully monitored for long term success.

9/11 — Tactical Design : How does a winning team looks like

Ankit spoke about the “Scope of Influence” as in how career progression of teams should automatically mimic these 3 characteristics :

As folks advance in their careers, their duties should encompass:

1. Complexity: a higher degree of complexity
2. Influence: the scope of their influence should expand
3. Impact: the contributions should become more impactful

He mentioned that it is important and a leaders’s job to define and make explicit the expected behaviors within the scope of influence for any given level

10/11 — Tactical Design : A culture of learning & experimentation

Finally, Ankit touched upon that self-motivated winning team constantly keep learning, run experiments & measure it dispassionately.

At Postman he reflected 4 core skills takes precedence :

1. Product Thinking
2. Analytical Thinking
3. Systems Thinking
4. Cognitive Psychology

A culture that celebrates failure, solving the problem from the first principles, building continuous feedback loops of improvement & constantly shipping

11/11 — Closing Thoughts : Embrace Constraints everyday

I am just going to verbatim state what Ankit says rather than interpreting it. That will be the perfect justice to his inspiring talk

1. Don’t replicate the what and how, without understanding the why
2. Embrace Constraints. Problem + Constraints → Solution
3. Experiment, measure, iterate.
4. Identify your unique context and your unique solution
5. Do not assume that you will get the same results with your different cultural foundation.
6. Systems survive one to two orders’ magnitude of growth. Identify the inflection points and be willing & ready to evolve.
7. Create with Curiosity and reward diversity and innovation.
8. Love the problem, not the solution.

Final Thoughts — Take a bow Postman!

The legendary Paul Graham in his seminal essay “How to Get Startup Ideas” which has now become a folklore legend for entrepreneurs across the world says that.

“The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas. It’s to look for problems, preferably problems you have yourself…”

Ankit & the team at Postman starting solving a problem they had. Sharing & Building API’s was super hard. They just fixed it & Postman built an enterprise API platform leading to June’20 when they entered the pantheon of Unicorn club — all during a pandemic.

Postman — you will be celebrated, studied & quoted. In the words of J.R.R. Tokien you folks have opened a secret gate which many more will take the courage to open & walk.

That’s in a nutshell is the essence of designing your organisations for 10x impact !

All great books mentioned during the talk a consolidated list :

1. Start with Why — Simon Sinek
2. Building Microservices — Sam Newman
3. The Mythical Man Month — Brooks Jr.
4. Domain Driven Design — Eric Evans
5. High Output Management — Andy Grove
6. Measure what matters — John Doerr
7. Good Strategy Bad Strategy — Richard Rumelt
8. Inspired — Marty Cagan
9. Web Analytics 2.0 — Avinash Kaushik
10. Thinking in Systems — Donella Meadows
11. Thinking Fast Thinking Slow — Daniel Kahneman

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"We cannot build our own future without helping others to build theirs."  — Bill Clinton

Once maybe in a lifetime comes across a company that has build something that impacts mostly everyone in their industry. Think of say Office365, StackOverflow, Gmail, DropBox which becomes a verb due to its sheer relevance & meaning in our lives.

Postman is a verb today. Period. Anyone today building, publishing & sharing API’s (Application Programming Interface ) are doing this on Postman. If not, they are doing it wrong. What Ankit, Abhinav & Abhijeet have build today is being used by millions of developers everyday across the globe. As if, it always existed in the first place. I being a programmer myself always have a Postman collection always open on my desktop. Bill Clinton will certainly be proud as Postman is building in real sense the future interface & plumbing of software systems.

0/11 — Setting the Context of the session

So, SaaSBoomi Build definitely ended with a bang. It was the last session kicked off by Founder & CTO of Postman — Ankit Sobti. Looking at his LinkedIn profile he had stints at Yahoo!, Adobe, Media.net in various engineering & product roles. The session titled “Designing your Organization for 10x Impact” was focused on two rules :

• Rule #1: Build a proprietary technology that is 10x better. (we all know this)
• Rule #0: Design an organisation that can build 10x better technology.

Here are my list of the top 11 key takeaways from the Ankit’s session titled

1/11 — Postman — The billion dollar unicorn story from India

Ankit started by sharing in a nutshell the story of Postman. The early days from founders building something they wanted to raising money, growing their team & expanding at a blitzkrieg speed. Today Postman stands with 10M+ loyal users, has been adopted by 500K+ organisations & with a jaw dropping 2.5M+ Monthly Active Users ( MAUs).

They have broken all the myths & playbooks and rewritten many rules for the next generation product companies that are getting build today.

Moreover, to the founders present in the session Postman gave us the courage to dream big.

2/11 — Thinking organisation as a product : 0–1, 1–10, 10–100 & Beyond

Ankit started by giving us a mental model to think about building our organisation for 10x impact. His analogy was simple & elegant — think about your organisation as a living product. Every phase of your company needs to be designed by choice & not left to chance. As in writing code — you choose between an elegant design & bad design. There’s no middle ground, its a binary choice to orchester your organisation for tremendous impact.

The legendary & late Clayton Christensen — Jobs to be Done frameworks was mentioned by Ankit while thinking about building teams, products & orgs. Your Customer Needs a Nail in the Wall, Not a Hammer.

Key takeaways emerged for Product, People & Organisations :

• Products : Designed to make better users, not better products
• People : Designed to put the right people in the right place, with the problem statements that are challenge at the right level
• Organisation : Designed to make Employees more effective at their Job

3/11 — Designing your Organisation for success is an Art

Ankit moved on to the building blocks of designing the organisation for impact. He mentioned that there are 2 key considerations :

• Strategic Design Elements
• Tactical Design Elements

What followed next 30 mins blew most of us apart. It was practicality weaved with philosophy. Building from first principles at its best.

4/11 — Strategic Design : Values & Communication as a force multiplier

Ankit started talking about the importance of Core Values. He mentioned the values are a reflection of the founding team’s mindset & beliefs. This seeps in across teams top-down & binds the organisation as a glue through good, bad & tough times.

He mentioned about a sync between values, communication structures & therefore the intended design of your organisation.

The legendary Mythical Man Month’s — Inverse Conway Maneuver was mentioned making the tech geeks like us present proud & smiling. What he said & recommended that every founder should make a conscious effort to evolve their team(s) and organizational structure to promote their desired architecture. Ideally any technology architecture will display isomorphism with their business architecture.

5/11 — Strategic Design : Domain Driven Design as a philosophy to build

This was a sweet dance of software design methodologies being applied beautifully to designing winning organisations.

What Ankit mentioned was bringing the 3 forces together :

1. Bounded Context : Teams understand their roles but are bounded to each other complimenting & feeding off each other’s success.
2. Ubiquitous Language : A language blended in the culture & values. Clear, consistent & ubiquitous.
3. Context Mapping : The glue allowing the teams to integrate, align & define their inter relationships with precision.

I for one felt that Ankit was giving the 3 Tier Architecture for building teams at scale. He mentioned some guiding behaviours here :

• Boundaries created based on “business”, not technical concerns
• Aligned around generating value to the consumer
• Who is facing this set of problems? Why?
• How do they currently solve these problems?
• You as a company intend to solve these problems
• How do you go about doing that?

6/11 — Strategic Design : Squads build to execute like soldiers

Ankit mentioned about the psyche of cross-functional teams. The perfect analogy was of a soldier in a regiment with aligned goals, common codified values, accountable for end objective & always in auto-pilot.

He mentioned that these Squads are an outcome of a well-designed organisation. Stating these 9 core characteristics of a well build Squad.

1. Cross-Functional Mission Driven Teams

2. Squads are required to Own and Deliver

3. Squads are isomorphic with the Business Domain

4. Squads communicate using the same Ubiquitous Language

5. Squads are autonomous

6. Reduce cross team collaboration

7. Responsible for End user experience

8. Squads Win Together

9. Wouldn’t work without our Values.

7/11 — Tactical Design : OKRs, Strategy & Visions as an alignment tool

Ankit moved promptly to the tactical aspects of designing the organisation for 10x impact. He spoke passionately about the importance of alignment of teams with the over arching goals of the organisation.

3 key themes & toolkits emerged here :

OKR as a tooklit for alignment : A Tool to create alignment and engagement around measurable and ambitious goals. They are frequently set, tracked and re-evaluated — usually quarterly. OKRs are bidirectional — allow for top-down strategic goals to align with bottom-up tactical objectives

Championed by legendary John Doerr and build on top of Andy Grove’s bible on management. ( Read High Output Management ) it gives fast moving organisation alignment to the goals at hand.

Strategy Document as an approach to organisational problem solving : A theory describing the nature of the challenge & then identify policies that’ll be applied to address the challenge. Any strategy must be accompanied a set of specific actions directed by guiding policy to address challenges. A strategy is only meaningful if it leads to aligned action

Vision Document as the BHAG ( big hairy audacious goal ) : 1–2 sentence aspirational and inspirational statement. How will you be valuable to your users and your company? How will you make them better at their Job? What constraints are you limited by today? & the Future: what do you expect to be constrained by in the future?

He finally emphasized the founders present to deeply introspect on these 3 themes & toolkits to seek true alignment & lead teams towards consistent wins.

8/11 — Tactical Design : The Hiring Conundrum

This was one of the most awaited of the parts of the talk which baffles every founder night & day. How do we find the right fit. He again in a true software methodology parlance gave the 4 stages of the teams. It was like Crossing the Chasm but meant for building teams. Geoff Moore would have been proud.

As teams move from falling behind to finally innovating. He reminded us that maybe each team may go through this chasm but founders need to super cognisant that their design impact should make sure this transition happens with time. Leading indicators need to be carefully monitored for long term success.

9/11 — Tactical Design : How does a winning team looks like

Ankit spoke about the “Scope of Influence” as in how career progression of teams should automatically mimic these 3 characteristics :

As folks advance in their careers, their duties should encompass:

1. Complexity: a higher degree of complexity
2. Influence: the scope of their influence should expand
3. Impact: the contributions should become more impactful

He mentioned that it is important and a leaders’s job to define and make explicit the expected behaviors within the scope of influence for any given level

10/11 — Tactical Design : A culture of learning & experimentation

Finally, Ankit touched upon that self-motivated winning team constantly keep learning, run experiments & measure it dispassionately.

At Postman he reflected 4 core skills takes precedence :

1. Product Thinking
2. Analytical Thinking
3. Systems Thinking
4. Cognitive Psychology

A culture that celebrates failure, solving the problem from the first principles, building continuous feedback loops of improvement & constantly shipping

11/11 — Closing Thoughts : Embrace Constraints everyday

I am just going to verbatim state what Ankit says rather than interpreting it. That will be the perfect justice to his inspiring talk

1. Don’t replicate the what and how, without understanding the why
2. Embrace Constraints. Problem + Constraints → Solution
3. Experiment, measure, iterate.
4. Identify your unique context and your unique solution
5. Do not assume that you will get the same results with your different cultural foundation.
6. Systems survive one to two orders’ magnitude of growth. Identify the inflection points and be willing & ready to evolve.
7. Create with Curiosity and reward diversity and innovation.
8. Love the problem, not the solution.

Final Thoughts — Take a bow Postman!

The legendary Paul Graham in his seminal essay “How to Get Startup Ideas” which has now become a folklore legend for entrepreneurs across the world says that.

“The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas. It’s to look for problems, preferably problems you have yourself…”

Ankit & the team at Postman starting solving a problem they had. Sharing & Building API’s was super hard. They just fixed it & Postman built an enterprise API platform leading to June’20 when they entered the pantheon of Unicorn club — all during a pandemic.

Postman — you will be celebrated, studied & quoted. In the words of J.R.R. Tokien you folks have opened a secret gate which many more will take the courage to open & walk.

That’s in a nutshell is the essence of designing your organisations for 10x impact !

All great books mentioned during the talk a consolidated list :

1. Start with Why — Simon Sinek
2. Building Microservices — Sam Newman
3. The Mythical Man Month — Brooks Jr.
4. Domain Driven Design — Eric Evans
5. High Output Management — Andy Grove
6. Measure what matters — John Doerr
7. Good Strategy Bad Strategy — Richard Rumelt
8. Inspired — Marty Cagan
9. Web Analytics 2.0 — Avinash Kaushik
10. Thinking in Systems — Donella Meadows
11. Thinking Fast Thinking Slow — Daniel Kahneman

" } }

Tryst With Destiny: An Entrepreneurial Pledge

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We will, on August 15th 2020, be celebrating our 73rd Independence anniversary. Like every year, pious statements of intent will be made on eradicating poverty, emotional recallings of the lives and sacrifices of the many who brought us to the present and inspirational speeches will be made on our (continued) potential to become a world power this century. The tragedy is that this has largely become a ritual.

The fact that rhetoric without the concomitant instruments of hard work, will, commitment, investments, confidence, innovation, teamwork, research, capital, appropriate policies, laws and regulations, remains just rhetoric. While we have no doubt travelled afar from 1947, we remained constrained for long with a satisficing approach rather than maximising our potential. We shouldn’t be, indeed cannot afford to be, satisfied anymore with this satisficing approach; Dil maange more!

Today in 2020, with the benefit of hindsight and, hopefully, the foresight, we need to re-craft a 21st-century vision for India. One that is based on our talented entrepreneurs, rapidly changing digital infrastructure, our growing domestic market, global market opportunities, fast-growing capital availability and confidence and conviction. Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial thinking are the bedrock of transformative change. Wealth creation and societal impact is a result of a consistent, comprehensive, widespread application of entrepreneurial thinking. From Amul to Aadhaar, there are very many examples of how leaders with vision, curated innovative solutions keeping the end beneficiary in mind.

It is important for our entrepreneurs to demonstrate the building of organizations as opposed to just building a business. Why is this important? Entrepreneurial companies are the manifestations of the beliefs and convictions of the founding team. Entrepreneurs challenge the status quo, seize opportunities, and attempt to create value for themselves and others. Building a business is done by very many, from the small paan-shop owner to the largest companies. Building an organization however, is different.

An organization transcends the people, the time and place. An organization has a culture, a way of doing things, a way of thinking about things, a way of treating stakeholders, a way of executing projects. A culture that successfully and honestly triumphs over multiple “moments of truth” with every stakeholder, every single day is a culture worthy of emulation. This culture is rooted in ethics, a well thought through the doctrine of “right” and “wrong” behaviour, that is contextual, constrained by the law and appropriate for the situation.

As more and more Indian companies deliver solutions to customers and businesses around the world, it is important for them, and for the larger ecosystem from which they emerge, for them to be role models. Why? It is important for the simple reason that it is good for business. A company that is a role model generates sound financial performance, generates goodwill, satisfied customers, motivated employees, eager partners and smiling investors. But doing this consistently, over protracted periods of time, as the company scales and grows in scope, is a function of its culture. In other words, the “company” becomes an “organization” thanks to its culture.

Today, as technology and digital platforms cause enormous socio-economic disruptions around the world, and as Indian SaaS and other companies start making their mark on the world stage and attracting the attention of investors, it is important for entrepreneurs to think about the organizations they wish to create from the companies they founded. The creation of wealth, the creation of jobs, the creation of a new India are the larger downstream effects of creating successful organizations. It also brings responsibility and accountability. The ethics that hold these organizations together impact society through the transmission of values such as trust, integrity, of fairness, quality and respect.

The responsibilities are therefore profound. The onus of creating organizations is a challenge for entrepreneurs. For India to be a Global Saas hub it isn’t just sufficient to develop software, it is important that the culture of global business practices, including and especially ethics, become a part of this cultural DNA. Leadership needs to think deeply beyond the immediate and think of the legacy of their company as they transform into organizations.

Leaders need to worry about becoming the best leaders they can be while dealing with the uncertainty all around. Individuals need to deal with learning, coping with uncertainty, while becoming the best they can be. This transformation is not easy or even obvious. Evolving into a global class leader requires introspection, engagement with the external world, confronting troubling questions, managing oneself and others, across function, geographies, roles; demonstrate clarity of thought, all rooted too deep convictions about not just a mission that needs to be accomplished but about the way in which it would be accomplished. The world is changing, there is rising awareness about the role and impact of digital technology.

Silicon Valley that had for long arrogantly eschewed any contact with Washington DC politics is now deeply engaged. The Congressional hearings of the so-called Big Tech leaders is a case in point. Indian entrepreneurs need to realise that as they become organizations, they need to walk a path that is crowded with issues beyond just software. This path isn’t clear, there isn’t a playbook on the precise steps that need to be taken to achieve the goals. However, what is known is the mission and, hopefully, and however tacitly, the values that bind the mission.

On January 26th, 1930, a call for “Purna Swaraj” or complete self-rule for India as a republic, independent of the British Empire, was given in Lahore. No one knew how this would be actually accomplished, or what exact form this would take, or even the precise steps that needed to be taken to accomplish the Purna Swaraj. There was a sense of mission, an imagined possible end state, a set of possibilities, and the values that would buttress this goal, namely non-violence and Satyagraha movements. The goals of this Purna Swaraj were finally achieved only 17 years later! There were multiple paths and steps taken along the way but always, in general, hemmed by values.

Today, Indian SaaS and other entrepreneurs have to similarly think of a mission. A galvanizing mission, an inspired commitment, a profound commitment to values to make India a SaaSBOOMi; to create wealth and jobs, while solving business, consumer and societal problems. There are many serious problems and challenges to solve in India, across sectors and across functions.

From Agritech to EdTech to Fintech, from MSME credit to managing logistics, from security to analytics, there are enough and more challenges that offer valuable opportunities for the committed, deep thinking entrepreneur. As the Indian economy becomes formal, organized and integrated with the world, it is imperative for entrepreneurs to seize the moment to create global launchpads for themselves from their Indian hubs. And build organizations, not products, not businesses, not companies. That will be the real test.

For this, a 21st-century entrepreneurial version of the “tryst with destiny” is necessary. The question then is, are we ready to take the pledge this August 15th 2020?

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We will, on August 15th 2020, be celebrating our 73rd Independence anniversary. Like every year, pious statements of intent will be made on eradicating poverty, emotional recallings of the lives and sacrifices of the many who brought us to the present and inspirational speeches will be made on our (continued) potential to become a world power this century. The tragedy is that this has largely become a ritual.

The fact that rhetoric without the concomitant instruments of hard work, will, commitment, investments, confidence, innovation, teamwork, research, capital, appropriate policies, laws and regulations, remains just rhetoric. While we have no doubt travelled afar from 1947, we remained constrained for long with a satisficing approach rather than maximising our potential. We shouldn’t be, indeed cannot afford to be, satisfied anymore with this satisficing approach; Dil maange more!

Today in 2020, with the benefit of hindsight and, hopefully, the foresight, we need to re-craft a 21st-century vision for India. One that is based on our talented entrepreneurs, rapidly changing digital infrastructure, our growing domestic market, global market opportunities, fast-growing capital availability and confidence and conviction. Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial thinking are the bedrock of transformative change. Wealth creation and societal impact is a result of a consistent, comprehensive, widespread application of entrepreneurial thinking. From Amul to Aadhaar, there are very many examples of how leaders with vision, curated innovative solutions keeping the end beneficiary in mind.

It is important for our entrepreneurs to demonstrate the building of organizations as opposed to just building a business. Why is this important? Entrepreneurial companies are the manifestations of the beliefs and convictions of the founding team. Entrepreneurs challenge the status quo, seize opportunities, and attempt to create value for themselves and others. Building a business is done by very many, from the small paan-shop owner to the largest companies. Building an organization however, is different.

An organization transcends the people, the time and place. An organization has a culture, a way of doing things, a way of thinking about things, a way of treating stakeholders, a way of executing projects. A culture that successfully and honestly triumphs over multiple “moments of truth” with every stakeholder, every single day is a culture worthy of emulation. This culture is rooted in ethics, a well thought through the doctrine of “right” and “wrong” behaviour, that is contextual, constrained by the law and appropriate for the situation.

As more and more Indian companies deliver solutions to customers and businesses around the world, it is important for them, and for the larger ecosystem from which they emerge, for them to be role models. Why? It is important for the simple reason that it is good for business. A company that is a role model generates sound financial performance, generates goodwill, satisfied customers, motivated employees, eager partners and smiling investors. But doing this consistently, over protracted periods of time, as the company scales and grows in scope, is a function of its culture. In other words, the “company” becomes an “organization” thanks to its culture.

Today, as technology and digital platforms cause enormous socio-economic disruptions around the world, and as Indian SaaS and other companies start making their mark on the world stage and attracting the attention of investors, it is important for entrepreneurs to think about the organizations they wish to create from the companies they founded. The creation of wealth, the creation of jobs, the creation of a new India are the larger downstream effects of creating successful organizations. It also brings responsibility and accountability. The ethics that hold these organizations together impact society through the transmission of values such as trust, integrity, of fairness, quality and respect.

The responsibilities are therefore profound. The onus of creating organizations is a challenge for entrepreneurs. For India to be a Global Saas hub it isn’t just sufficient to develop software, it is important that the culture of global business practices, including and especially ethics, become a part of this cultural DNA. Leadership needs to think deeply beyond the immediate and think of the legacy of their company as they transform into organizations.

Leaders need to worry about becoming the best leaders they can be while dealing with the uncertainty all around. Individuals need to deal with learning, coping with uncertainty, while becoming the best they can be. This transformation is not easy or even obvious. Evolving into a global class leader requires introspection, engagement with the external world, confronting troubling questions, managing oneself and others, across function, geographies, roles; demonstrate clarity of thought, all rooted too deep convictions about not just a mission that needs to be accomplished but about the way in which it would be accomplished. The world is changing, there is rising awareness about the role and impact of digital technology.

Silicon Valley that had for long arrogantly eschewed any contact with Washington DC politics is now deeply engaged. The Congressional hearings of the so-called Big Tech leaders is a case in point. Indian entrepreneurs need to realise that as they become organizations, they need to walk a path that is crowded with issues beyond just software. This path isn’t clear, there isn’t a playbook on the precise steps that need to be taken to achieve the goals. However, what is known is the mission and, hopefully, and however tacitly, the values that bind the mission.

On January 26th, 1930, a call for “Purna Swaraj” or complete self-rule for India as a republic, independent of the British Empire, was given in Lahore. No one knew how this would be actually accomplished, or what exact form this would take, or even the precise steps that needed to be taken to accomplish the Purna Swaraj. There was a sense of mission, an imagined possible end state, a set of possibilities, and the values that would buttress this goal, namely non-violence and Satyagraha movements. The goals of this Purna Swaraj were finally achieved only 17 years later! There were multiple paths and steps taken along the way but always, in general, hemmed by values.

Today, Indian SaaS and other entrepreneurs have to similarly think of a mission. A galvanizing mission, an inspired commitment, a profound commitment to values to make India a SaaSBOOMi; to create wealth and jobs, while solving business, consumer and societal problems. There are many serious problems and challenges to solve in India, across sectors and across functions.

From Agritech to EdTech to Fintech, from MSME credit to managing logistics, from security to analytics, there are enough and more challenges that offer valuable opportunities for the committed, deep thinking entrepreneur. As the Indian economy becomes formal, organized and integrated with the world, it is imperative for entrepreneurs to seize the moment to create global launchpads for themselves from their Indian hubs. And build organizations, not products, not businesses, not companies. That will be the real test.

For this, a 21st-century entrepreneurial version of the “tryst with destiny” is necessary. The question then is, are we ready to take the pledge this August 15th 2020?

" } }

Scaling New Heights: The Rebrand Story of SaaSBoomi

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In the summer of 2015, a group of SaaS founders came together to network, share, and learn from each other. Today, the group has grown into a massive community of SaaS founders, leading India’s SaaS ecosystem and being closer than ever to realizing their ambition of evolving India into a SaaS nation. Through our evolution as a SaaS community, we have constantly kept improving and adding new verticals/products in our quest.

We have introduced engaging podcasts and blogs in the learning hub. Insightful events like SaaSBOOMi Growth and SaaSBOOMi Build, each targeted to help founders and SaaS leaders at specific stages of their SaaS journeys, and our monthly meetups under SaaSBOOMi Playbook, have all added to our portfolio of activities. We have grown together as a brand and hence figured that it’s time our branding reflected that.

Adding more to our excitement, we onboarded an agency, Studio 318, which was tasked with rebranding the SaaSBOOMi community to reflect the global ambitions of the brand and to build a unified, cohesive, and consistent platform towards bringing the community and its various activities, events and initiatives under one roof.

The Essence of SaaSBOOMi

To understand the values that drive the spirit of SaaSBOOMi and the different ways the community symbolizes this concept, Studio 318 facilitated workshops, exercises, and numerous sessions with Avinash Raghava, Suresh Sambandam and myself until we were confident that we had absorbed the essence of what we were trying to recreate. The three main values of SaaSBOOMi that came out of these sessions were:

• Pay it forward — The philosophy at the core of the community
• Friendliness — The spirit of helping each other grow
• Uniqueness — The attitude of being a decentralized community in the ecosystem
• The Personification of SaaSBOOMi

Today’s brands are more than just static entities. They have a voice, a heart, and are more personally connected and communicative with their audience as an actual person would. So we set out to figure out who SaaSBOOMi is as a person and what the brand voice should be.

• Informal
• Friendly
• Positive

What is “Pay It Forward”

Like many things in life, paying it forward is easy to say but is pretty hard to be put into practice, and the SaaSBOOMi community does it effortlessly. But how does it do it? What is it about SaaSBOOMi that brings forth this noble ideology in all its members? After carefully studying all its activities, we identified what makes SaaSBOOMi special.

Reliability

SaaSBOOMi can be represented as a family or friend, someone you can rely on any time you need. Whether to share knowledge or help in finding resources, the community is always willing to “Pay-it-forward”.

Support

SaaSBOOMi can be represented as the support system for your business, held together by fellow founders and practitioners.

Knowledge you need

SaaSBOOMi can be represented as a learning ground among equals who are willing to share their knowledge towards achieving a common goal.

Giving back to the community

SaaSBOOMi is all about giving back more than we take. It can be represented as someone who helps nurture the SaaS community together with your fellow founders, share your knowledge, experiences, ideas, and learn together.

A Stronger Logo

To give structure and firmness to the logo, we moved from a circle to a rounded square to represent the intrinsic strength of the community. We established a hierarchy in font weights to enhance legibility. The dimensions of the wordmark are altered to fit into a golden ratio box for visual harmony.

Consistency Through Type

Okta Neue is an extensive typeface built for the web and app realm. The letters are geometric which are easy on the eye & legible in various sizes. The use of a single typeface across all brand touchpoints enhances brand recall and maintains consistency.

The Colors of Inclusivity

What makes a perfect ecosystem is a way it embraces the many, to become one. SaaSBOOMi is the coming together of many for the sake of a common goal. For a brand that stands as a SaaS ecosystem, the diverse colour palette represents the numerous aspects of the community while the primary colours (white and black) represent the unity and inclusivity of the community.

er SaaSBOOMi Playbook, have all added to our portfolio of activities. We have grown together as a brand and hence figured that it’s time our branding reflected that.

Adding more to our excitement, we onboarded an agency, Studio 318, which was tasked with rebranding the SaaSBOOMi community to reflect the global ambitions of the brand and to build a unified, cohesive, and consistent platform towards bringing the community and its various activities, events and initiatives under one roof.

The Essence of SaaSBOOMi

To understand the values that drive the spirit of SaaSBOOMi and the different ways the community symbolizes this concept, Studio 318 facilitated workshops, exercises, and numerous sessions with Avinash Raghava, Suresh Sambandam and myself until we were confident that we had absorbed the essence of what we were trying to recreate. The three main values of SaaSBOOMi that came out of these sessions were:

• Pay it forward — The philosophy at the core of the community
• Friendliness — The spirit of helping each other grow
• Uniqueness — The attitude of being a decentralized community in the ecosystem

The Personification of SaaSBOOMi

Today’s brands are more than just static entities. They have a voice, a heart, and are more personally connected and communicative with their audience as an actual person would. So we set out to figure out who SaaSBOOMi is as a person and what the brand voice should be.

• Informal
• Friendly
• Positive

What is “Pay It Forward”

Like many things in life, paying it forward is easy to say but is pretty hard to be put into practice, and the SaaSBOOMi community does it effortlessly. But how does it do it? What is it about SaaSBOOMi that brings forth this noble ideology in all its members? After carefully studying all its activities, we identified what makes SaaSBOOMi special.

Reliability

SaaSBOOMi can be represented as a family or friend, someone you can rely on any time you need. Whether to share knowledge or help in finding resources, the community is always willing to “Pay-it-forward”.

Support

SaaSBOOMi can be represented as the support system for your business, held together by fellow founders and practitioners.

Knowledge you need

SaaSBOOMi can be represented as a learning ground among equals who are willing to share their knowledge towards achieving a common goal.

Giving back to the community

SaaSBOOMi is all about giving back more than we take. It can be represented as someone who helps nurture the SaaS community together with your fellow founders, share your knowledge, experiences, ideas, and learn together.

A Stronger Logo

To give structure and firmness to the logo, we moved from a circle to a rounded square to represent the intrinsic strength of the community. We established a hierarchy in font weights to enhance legibility. The dimensions of the wordmark are altered to fit into a golden ratio box for visual harmony.

Consistency Through Type

Okta Neue is an extensive typeface built for the web and app realm. The letters are geometric which are easy on the eye & legible in various sizes. The use of a single typeface across all brand touchpoints enhances brand recall and maintains consistency.

The Colors of Inclusivity

What makes a perfect ecosystem is a way it embraces the many, to become one. SaaSBOOMi is the coming together of many for the sake of a common goal. For a brand that stands as a SaaS ecosystem, the diverse colour palette represents the numerous aspects of the community while the primary colours (white and black) represent the unity and inclusivity of the community.

Approachability Through Illustrations

Inspired by the unrefined first-thoughts that translated into global software, the language developed for the illustrations depicts the friendliness of the community. They are hand-drawn, rough, and all-humans with cloud-like heads. The idea behind introducing illustrations for the brand was to make it more approachable and fun.

Holistic, Thoughtful Design

Extending the brand identity to all the verticals, we designed a system that is infused with colours, illustrations, and elements in an attempt to bring new energy and positivity to the brand.

To A New Beginning!

The SaaSBOOMi community is no less than a family. It is an inclusive community where dialogue, ideas and support are strongly encouraged. It is a place where every SaaS founder can feel welcomed and safe. So at every stage of the design process, we tried to capture and reflect the spirit of the community. This wouldn’t have been possible without Avinash Raghava and Suresh Sambandam for always being available to answer our endless questions, as we dug deep into the core of the brand.

Rebranding is not a walk in the park. It is rather a marathon which needs heavy design thinking, logical reasoning and visual rationales that connect to human emotion. When we were starting this project, we had the option of going with the best design agencies possible but we went ahead with Studio 318, a team of 8 passionate designers trying to do something different. We felt that they had great potential and could deliver the best. We weren’t wrong! The Average age of our design & development team is 24, and these dreamers put-in their heart and soul in this process for creating something unique. We’re excited to see the growth of SaaSBOOMi and are glad to be a part of the journey. Let’s pay it forward!

Special thanks to Avinash Raghava, SreeVishnu Mallela, Sadhana Balaji and Varun for helping me put together this blog.

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In the summer of 2015, a group of SaaS founders came together to network, share, and learn from each other. Today, the group has grown into a massive community of SaaS founders, leading India’s SaaS ecosystem and being closer than ever to realizing their ambition of evolving India into a SaaS nation. Through our evolution as a SaaS community, we have constantly kept improving and adding new verticals/products in our quest.

We have introduced engaging podcasts and blogs in the learning hub. Insightful events like SaaSBOOMi Growth and SaaSBOOMi Build, each targeted to help founders and SaaS leaders at specific stages of their SaaS journeys, and our monthly meetups under SaaSBOOMi Playbook, have all added to our portfolio of activities. We have grown together as a brand and hence figured that it’s time our branding reflected that.

Adding more to our excitement, we onboarded an agency, Studio 318, which was tasked with rebranding the SaaSBOOMi community to reflect the global ambitions of the brand and to build a unified, cohesive, and consistent platform towards bringing the community and its various activities, events and initiatives under one roof.

The Essence of SaaSBOOMi

To understand the values that drive the spirit of SaaSBOOMi and the different ways the community symbolizes this concept, Studio 318 facilitated workshops, exercises, and numerous sessions with Avinash Raghava, Suresh Sambandam and myself until we were confident that we had absorbed the essence of what we were trying to recreate. The three main values of SaaSBOOMi that came out of these sessions were:

• Pay it forward — The philosophy at the core of the community
• Friendliness — The spirit of helping each other grow
• Uniqueness — The attitude of being a decentralized community in the ecosystem
• The Personification of SaaSBOOMi

Today’s brands are more than just static entities. They have a voice, a heart, and are more personally connected and communicative with their audience as an actual person would. So we set out to figure out who SaaSBOOMi is as a person and what the brand voice should be.

• Informal
• Friendly
• Positive

What is “Pay It Forward”

Like many things in life, paying it forward is easy to say but is pretty hard to be put into practice, and the SaaSBOOMi community does it effortlessly. But how does it do it? What is it about SaaSBOOMi that brings forth this noble ideology in all its members? After carefully studying all its activities, we identified what makes SaaSBOOMi special.

Reliability

SaaSBOOMi can be represented as a family or friend, someone you can rely on any time you need. Whether to share knowledge or help in finding resources, the community is always willing to “Pay-it-forward”.

Support

SaaSBOOMi can be represented as the support system for your business, held together by fellow founders and practitioners.

Knowledge you need

SaaSBOOMi can be represented as a learning ground among equals who are willing to share their knowledge towards achieving a common goal.

Giving back to the community

SaaSBOOMi is all about giving back more than we take. It can be represented as someone who helps nurture the SaaS community together with your fellow founders, share your knowledge, experiences, ideas, and learn together.

A Stronger Logo

To give structure and firmness to the logo, we moved from a circle to a rounded square to represent the intrinsic strength of the community. We established a hierarchy in font weights to enhance legibility. The dimensions of the wordmark are altered to fit into a golden ratio box for visual harmony.

Consistency Through Type

Okta Neue is an extensive typeface built for the web and app realm. The letters are geometric which are easy on the eye & legible in various sizes. The use of a single typeface across all brand touchpoints enhances brand recall and maintains consistency.

The Colors of Inclusivity

What makes a perfect ecosystem is a way it embraces the many, to become one. SaaSBOOMi is the coming together of many for the sake of a common goal. For a brand that stands as a SaaS ecosystem, the diverse colour palette represents the numerous aspects of the community while the primary colours (white and black) represent the unity and inclusivity of the community.

er SaaSBOOMi Playbook, have all added to our portfolio of activities. We have grown together as a brand and hence figured that it’s time our branding reflected that.

Adding more to our excitement, we onboarded an agency, Studio 318, which was tasked with rebranding the SaaSBOOMi community to reflect the global ambitions of the brand and to build a unified, cohesive, and consistent platform towards bringing the community and its various activities, events and initiatives under one roof.

The Essence of SaaSBOOMi

To understand the values that drive the spirit of SaaSBOOMi and the different ways the community symbolizes this concept, Studio 318 facilitated workshops, exercises, and numerous sessions with Avinash Raghava, Suresh Sambandam and myself until we were confident that we had absorbed the essence of what we were trying to recreate. The three main values of SaaSBOOMi that came out of these sessions were:

• Pay it forward — The philosophy at the core of the community
• Friendliness — The spirit of helping each other grow
• Uniqueness — The attitude of being a decentralized community in the ecosystem

The Personification of SaaSBOOMi

Today’s brands are more than just static entities. They have a voice, a heart, and are more personally connected and communicative with their audience as an actual person would. So we set out to figure out who SaaSBOOMi is as a person and what the brand voice should be.

• Informal
• Friendly
• Positive

What is “Pay It Forward”

Like many things in life, paying it forward is easy to say but is pretty hard to be put into practice, and the SaaSBOOMi community does it effortlessly. But how does it do it? What is it about SaaSBOOMi that brings forth this noble ideology in all its members? After carefully studying all its activities, we identified what makes SaaSBOOMi special.

Reliability

SaaSBOOMi can be represented as a family or friend, someone you can rely on any time you need. Whether to share knowledge or help in finding resources, the community is always willing to “Pay-it-forward”.

Support

SaaSBOOMi can be represented as the support system for your business, held together by fellow founders and practitioners.

Knowledge you need

SaaSBOOMi can be represented as a learning ground among equals who are willing to share their knowledge towards achieving a common goal.

Giving back to the community

SaaSBOOMi is all about giving back more than we take. It can be represented as someone who helps nurture the SaaS community together with your fellow founders, share your knowledge, experiences, ideas, and learn together.

A Stronger Logo

To give structure and firmness to the logo, we moved from a circle to a rounded square to represent the intrinsic strength of the community. We established a hierarchy in font weights to enhance legibility. The dimensions of the wordmark are altered to fit into a golden ratio box for visual harmony.

Consistency Through Type

Okta Neue is an extensive typeface built for the web and app realm. The letters are geometric which are easy on the eye & legible in various sizes. The use of a single typeface across all brand touchpoints enhances brand recall and maintains consistency.

The Colors of Inclusivity

What makes a perfect ecosystem is a way it embraces the many, to become one. SaaSBOOMi is the coming together of many for the sake of a common goal. For a brand that stands as a SaaS ecosystem, the diverse colour palette represents the numerous aspects of the community while the primary colours (white and black) represent the unity and inclusivity of the community.

Approachability Through Illustrations

Inspired by the unrefined first-thoughts that translated into global software, the language developed for the illustrations depicts the friendliness of the community. They are hand-drawn, rough, and all-humans with cloud-like heads. The idea behind introducing illustrations for the brand was to make it more approachable and fun.

Holistic, Thoughtful Design

Extending the brand identity to all the verticals, we designed a system that is infused with colours, illustrations, and elements in an attempt to bring new energy and positivity to the brand.

To A New Beginning!

The SaaSBOOMi community is no less than a family. It is an inclusive community where dialogue, ideas and support are strongly encouraged. It is a place where every SaaS founder can feel welcomed and safe. So at every stage of the design process, we tried to capture and reflect the spirit of the community. This wouldn’t have been possible without Avinash Raghava and Suresh Sambandam for always being available to answer our endless questions, as we dug deep into the core of the brand.

Rebranding is not a walk in the park. It is rather a marathon which needs heavy design thinking, logical reasoning and visual rationales that connect to human emotion. When we were starting this project, we had the option of going with the best design agencies possible but we went ahead with Studio 318, a team of 8 passionate designers trying to do something different. We felt that they had great potential and could deliver the best. We weren’t wrong! The Average age of our design & development team is 24, and these dreamers put-in their heart and soul in this process for creating something unique. We’re excited to see the growth of SaaSBOOMi and are glad to be a part of the journey. Let’s pay it forward!

Special thanks to Avinash Raghava, SreeVishnu Mallela, Sadhana Balaji and Varun for helping me put together this blog.

" } }

ESOPs 101 : Know your stocks

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The biggest challenge for a startup founder is hiring because your company is only as good as the people building it.

Since the size of the teams at startups is relatively small, any addition to your talent pool can potentially drive growth in the company or simply disrupt it. But that isn’t entirely the challenge when it comes to hiring.

It is one thing to find the right people for your startup. It’s a whole other thing to find the right people who understand unconventional compensation structure like ESOPs, and are willing to take the risk of joining an unproven business.

Don’t get me wrong. Startups are a great place to work. Think about the steep learning curve, the work culture, and the rush and joy of building something from scratch. It’s exciting and there is no substitute for that kind of experience. However, as a founder, I have faced this challenge at both Zarget and SuperOps.ai.

When it comes to hiring for a startup, the interview is a two-way process. The founder has to pitch the growth, the scope, and the opportunities that the company presents, to the interviewee. One of the questions that most founders struggle to answer is around startup compensation structures which involves ESOPs.

“Why should I accept an offer with ESOPs when there are well-established companies offering similar or more assured compensation in cash?”

I wouldn’t blame the interviewee. It’s a fair question because people in an emerging ecosystem like ours are less aware of the potential of stock options. If the founder answers this question appropriately, (s)he will have hired great talent. If not, (s)he loses a prospective hire.

Simply put, a job offer that comes packed with ESOPs is a great opportunity. I can share oodles of wisdom on why it is so. But I think it’s best you hear it from the expert — Vaidhyanathan, Director Finance at Zuora.

In this three-part interview, Vaidhy and I will discuss what ESOP is all about. Founders who are just starting out or looking to hire talent can use this as a playbook to educate uninitiated candidates on ESOP.

First things first. What are ESOPs?

ESOP is the abbreviation for Employee Stock Option Plan. These are stock options that companies give their employees as part of their compensation. You can exercise the ESOP after the vesting period, by paying the strike price and acquiring its equivalent in shares.

(I know that look! We promised to make it easy to understand ESOP and here we are throwing jargon at you.)

Let’s tackle a few terms you are bound to hear often, with the help of an example. Most of what we discuss here will apply to companies headquartered in the US, India, or Singapore unless it is specifically called out.

A company headquartered in the US with employees in India offers you an ESOP. They offer you 1000 units of stock at 1 USD exercise price each with a 4-year vesting period and a 1-year cliff. This means your employer is offering you the option to buy 1000 units of shares of the company at 1 USD provided you meet a few predefined terms and conditions.

What is an exercise price?

An exercise price is a price at which you can buy the shares in the future irrespective of what the true price of the share may be at any given point. At the time of offering the shares, the price was 1 USD. But after 4 years, even if the price of each share is 100 USD, you will only pay 1 USD to buy a share.

And this my friend, is the upside of the ESOPs.

What about vesting; what does it mean?

Vesting is essentially your right to buy company stocks provided you complete a certain number of years with the company. Usually, the vesting period is four years. This means you need to be an employee of the company for four years if you wish to buy all of those 100 shares.

And cliff?

The purpose of a cliff is to ensure that the employee stays longer with the company. The cliff is the duration of your stay with the company that qualifies you to receive the first part of your vesting. In the above-mentioned example, the cliff is 1 year. You need to be employed in the company for a year before you can get 25% of the shares. If you leave the organization after 11 months, you will get nothing.

Since we are on the topic of vesting and cliff, a ‘vesting schedule’ is a related term that you need to be aware of.

A vesting schedule lays out how your shares will be vested to you over the 4-year period. Commonly, the vesting schedule allows you to vest 25% of the shares every year with a 1-year cliff.

Are there exceptions to the rule?

Of course.

Now some companies follow a slightly different vesting mechanism. They may focus more on the second half of the vesting period instead of the first. For example, Amazon in the US follows a 5:15:40:40 vesting schedule. The employee gets 5% of the stock units for the first year, 15% for the second, 40% for the third and fourth years each. This again is a way to reward employees who stay longer with the organization.

You might also want to know whether the company has a monthly, quarterly, or half-yearly vesting after the cliff. Under monthly vesting, 1/48th of the shares are vested to you every month of your stay with the company. If you stay for 14 months, approximately 291 (1000*14/48) of the 1000 shares will be vested to you.

Under quarterly or half-yearly vesting, the vesting happens quarterly or half-yearly respectively. And should you decide to leave, you will be eligible to buy only those shares that were vested to you till the last quarter or half-year.

Another important thing we want to draw your attention to is the word ‘option’ in ESOP. This means as an employee you can choose to (or not to) buy the stocks in the future. If the company does well, you can buy the stocks. If it doesn’t, you lose nothing except the opportunity cost of working elsewhere.

Okay, so there’s the exercise price, vesting period, and cliff. Tell me, how do I benefit from ESOPs.

Surely, you must have heard stories of people who joined early-stage startups and became millionaires? Such success stories are aplenty. But there are many more stories of failure too.

With ESOPs, you can buy the shares of the company at the end of the vesting period or when you leave the company. The biggest benefit for an employee is the price that is determined at the time of granting the ESOP.

“If the company does well, the share prices will go up multiple times while the agreed price is much lower. You stand to make a huge profit. You don’t have to buy the shares if the company doesn’t do well. You stand to lose nothing.”

The general rule of thumb is 10 percent of startups succeed while the rest fail to scale. It’s sort of a gamble. If the startup succeeds, the value it creates for you is phenomenal. If it fails, you’d lose the years you worked there but gain experience.

“Given a choice, I’d choose stocks over cash. I still kick myself for not negotiating better in the earlier opportunities.”

Before you decide to join the startup, you need to consider the startup’s chance of succeeding, the founder’s record of building and scaling the business, and the strength of the investors. While personally, we would opt for more stock than cash, you need to decide what works for you.

“You need to exercise due diligence on the founder, the business model, and the viability of the company.”

Can I sell my shares?

Yes, you can sell your shares. But before we get into that, let’s first discuss how you can buy them.

You can buy the vested shares, provided the company allows you to buy all or a part of the vested shares while you are still employed with the company. A lot of companies don’t allow you to do that. It’s important that you get as much information as possible from your employer before joining the company.

Then, what’s the point of opting for ESOPs over cash?

That’s a million-dollar question.

Once you buy the shares, you own them. But there is a good chance that you won’t be able to sell them that easily. The shares you have received are ‘illiquid’.

“As the start-up grows the shares will increase in value but without a market to sell.”

There are four ways you can make money off ESOP.

#1 Secondaries

At the time of a funding round, the investors will buy a small portion of the vested common shares from founders and early employees. This is done to give them a partial exit and keep them motivated to scale the organization. The recent stories of secondaries in Razorpay, Zerodha, Paytm, and Ola are encouraging signs for employees.

#2 Acquisition

When the company gets acquired, the purchasing company will try to buy all the shares of the company for cash or in an exchange of their stock. There are exceptions to this. For example, when Walmart acquired Flipkart, it bought the shares of Flipkart’s founders and shares worth $100 million from employees.

#3 IPO

When the company lists itself in the stock exchange to sell its shares to the general public, you can sell your shares too. However, there will be a cooling down period for the employees and founders for 6 months. This means you need to wait for six months from the time the company goes public before you can start selling your shares.

“Since it usually takes at least 10–12 years for a startup to scale and go public, you need to be prepared for the long haul.”

#4 ESOP Trust

Companies that are growing at scale setup ESOP Trusts. This enables them to delay going IPO as much as possible because they want to grow furthermore before hitting the public markets. Companies such as Uber, Airbnb, and Stripe are a few notable examples.

The ESOP Trust helps companies manage their ESOP plan, the distribution of share options by working with the compensation committee. If you want, you can sell a part of your stock units to them at the current 409A price (which we’ll discuss in part two of this series). This allows you scope for liquidity.

But there’s a catch. The 409A price is much less than the price at the time of the last round of funding. Hence your profit margin too will be relatively less.

Let’s say I own shares at the company I am working for. I decide to leave. What happens to my shares?

Generally, you have 90 days to buy the vested shares. Once you buy them, your shares will remain with you until the company goes IPO, secures a round of funding, or gets acquired. If you don’t do so, all your vested share units will lapse. There will be nothing you can do about it.

There’s a catch here as well. Just like your favorite jar of peanut butter, your stock units have a shelf life which is usually 10 years from the date of purchase. If you buy the shares but the company doesn’t go public, secures the next round of funding, or gets acquired, your purchase options will expire. But most companies that are doing well get approval from the board to push the expiry by another year.

Let’s quickly recap what we’ve covered so far:

1. An ESOP is a compensation structure that startups adopt to find and retain great talent. It works as a great motivator for the startup and the employee. When you affect an ESOP offer, remember you are signing up for the long haul. The longer you stay, the higher the benefits you reap.
2. There are various clauses in an ESOP. It is important that you understand what you are signing up for. Don’t shy away from asking your employer questions about what the ESOP looks like for you. They will be happy to answer them for you.
3. It’s partly a gamble because you are investing your time in the company in exchange for a share(s) in the company. If the company grows, the value of your shares grows. If it doesn’t, then you lose nothing except for the years you spent with the company.

In the upcoming blog posts, we’ll cover a few other aspects of ESOPs such as 409A, planning for ESOP, valuation, tax implications, and the like. Meanwhile, if you have any burning questions about ESOP, drop them as comments here and we’ll answer them.

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The biggest challenge for a startup founder is hiring because your company is only as good as the people building it.

Since the size of the teams at startups is relatively small, any addition to your talent pool can potentially drive growth in the company or simply disrupt it. But that isn’t entirely the challenge when it comes to hiring.

It is one thing to find the right people for your startup. It’s a whole other thing to find the right people who understand unconventional compensation structure like ESOPs, and are willing to take the risk of joining an unproven business.

Don’t get me wrong. Startups are a great place to work. Think about the steep learning curve, the work culture, and the rush and joy of building something from scratch. It’s exciting and there is no substitute for that kind of experience. However, as a founder, I have faced this challenge at both Zarget and SuperOps.ai.

When it comes to hiring for a startup, the interview is a two-way process. The founder has to pitch the growth, the scope, and the opportunities that the company presents, to the interviewee. One of the questions that most founders struggle to answer is around startup compensation structures which involves ESOPs.

“Why should I accept an offer with ESOPs when there are well-established companies offering similar or more assured compensation in cash?”

I wouldn’t blame the interviewee. It’s a fair question because people in an emerging ecosystem like ours are less aware of the potential of stock options. If the founder answers this question appropriately, (s)he will have hired great talent. If not, (s)he loses a prospective hire.

Simply put, a job offer that comes packed with ESOPs is a great opportunity. I can share oodles of wisdom on why it is so. But I think it’s best you hear it from the expert — Vaidhyanathan, Director Finance at Zuora.

In this three-part interview, Vaidhy and I will discuss what ESOP is all about. Founders who are just starting out or looking to hire talent can use this as a playbook to educate uninitiated candidates on ESOP.

First things first. What are ESOPs?

ESOP is the abbreviation for Employee Stock Option Plan. These are stock options that companies give their employees as part of their compensation. You can exercise the ESOP after the vesting period, by paying the strike price and acquiring its equivalent in shares.

(I know that look! We promised to make it easy to understand ESOP and here we are throwing jargon at you.)

Let’s tackle a few terms you are bound to hear often, with the help of an example. Most of what we discuss here will apply to companies headquartered in the US, India, or Singapore unless it is specifically called out.

A company headquartered in the US with employees in India offers you an ESOP. They offer you 1000 units of stock at 1 USD exercise price each with a 4-year vesting period and a 1-year cliff. This means your employer is offering you the option to buy 1000 units of shares of the company at 1 USD provided you meet a few predefined terms and conditions.

What is an exercise price?

An exercise price is a price at which you can buy the shares in the future irrespective of what the true price of the share may be at any given point. At the time of offering the shares, the price was 1 USD. But after 4 years, even if the price of each share is 100 USD, you will only pay 1 USD to buy a share.

And this my friend, is the upside of the ESOPs.

What about vesting; what does it mean?

Vesting is essentially your right to buy company stocks provided you complete a certain number of years with the company. Usually, the vesting period is four years. This means you need to be an employee of the company for four years if you wish to buy all of those 100 shares.

And cliff?

The purpose of a cliff is to ensure that the employee stays longer with the company. The cliff is the duration of your stay with the company that qualifies you to receive the first part of your vesting. In the above-mentioned example, the cliff is 1 year. You need to be employed in the company for a year before you can get 25% of the shares. If you leave the organization after 11 months, you will get nothing.

Since we are on the topic of vesting and cliff, a ‘vesting schedule’ is a related term that you need to be aware of.

A vesting schedule lays out how your shares will be vested to you over the 4-year period. Commonly, the vesting schedule allows you to vest 25% of the shares every year with a 1-year cliff.

Are there exceptions to the rule?

Of course.

Now some companies follow a slightly different vesting mechanism. They may focus more on the second half of the vesting period instead of the first. For example, Amazon in the US follows a 5:15:40:40 vesting schedule. The employee gets 5% of the stock units for the first year, 15% for the second, 40% for the third and fourth years each. This again is a way to reward employees who stay longer with the organization.

You might also want to know whether the company has a monthly, quarterly, or half-yearly vesting after the cliff. Under monthly vesting, 1/48th of the shares are vested to you every month of your stay with the company. If you stay for 14 months, approximately 291 (1000*14/48) of the 1000 shares will be vested to you.

Under quarterly or half-yearly vesting, the vesting happens quarterly or half-yearly respectively. And should you decide to leave, you will be eligible to buy only those shares that were vested to you till the last quarter or half-year.

Another important thing we want to draw your attention to is the word ‘option’ in ESOP. This means as an employee you can choose to (or not to) buy the stocks in the future. If the company does well, you can buy the stocks. If it doesn’t, you lose nothing except the opportunity cost of working elsewhere.

Okay, so there’s the exercise price, vesting period, and cliff. Tell me, how do I benefit from ESOPs.

Surely, you must have heard stories of people who joined early-stage startups and became millionaires? Such success stories are aplenty. But there are many more stories of failure too.

With ESOPs, you can buy the shares of the company at the end of the vesting period or when you leave the company. The biggest benefit for an employee is the price that is determined at the time of granting the ESOP.

“If the company does well, the share prices will go up multiple times while the agreed price is much lower. You stand to make a huge profit. You don’t have to buy the shares if the company doesn’t do well. You stand to lose nothing.”

The general rule of thumb is 10 percent of startups succeed while the rest fail to scale. It’s sort of a gamble. If the startup succeeds, the value it creates for you is phenomenal. If it fails, you’d lose the years you worked there but gain experience.

“Given a choice, I’d choose stocks over cash. I still kick myself for not negotiating better in the earlier opportunities.”

Before you decide to join the startup, you need to consider the startup’s chance of succeeding, the founder’s record of building and scaling the business, and the strength of the investors. While personally, we would opt for more stock than cash, you need to decide what works for you.

“You need to exercise due diligence on the founder, the business model, and the viability of the company.”

Can I sell my shares?

Yes, you can sell your shares. But before we get into that, let’s first discuss how you can buy them.

You can buy the vested shares, provided the company allows you to buy all or a part of the vested shares while you are still employed with the company. A lot of companies don’t allow you to do that. It’s important that you get as much information as possible from your employer before joining the company.

Then, what’s the point of opting for ESOPs over cash?

That’s a million-dollar question.

Once you buy the shares, you own them. But there is a good chance that you won’t be able to sell them that easily. The shares you have received are ‘illiquid’.

“As the start-up grows the shares will increase in value but without a market to sell.”

There are four ways you can make money off ESOP.

#1 Secondaries

At the time of a funding round, the investors will buy a small portion of the vested common shares from founders and early employees. This is done to give them a partial exit and keep them motivated to scale the organization. The recent stories of secondaries in Razorpay, Zerodha, Paytm, and Ola are encouraging signs for employees.

#2 Acquisition

When the company gets acquired, the purchasing company will try to buy all the shares of the company for cash or in an exchange of their stock. There are exceptions to this. For example, when Walmart acquired Flipkart, it bought the shares of Flipkart’s founders and shares worth $100 million from employees.

#3 IPO

When the company lists itself in the stock exchange to sell its shares to the general public, you can sell your shares too. However, there will be a cooling down period for the employees and founders for 6 months. This means you need to wait for six months from the time the company goes public before you can start selling your shares.

“Since it usually takes at least 10–12 years for a startup to scale and go public, you need to be prepared for the long haul.”

#4 ESOP Trust

Companies that are growing at scale setup ESOP Trusts. This enables them to delay going IPO as much as possible because they want to grow furthermore before hitting the public markets. Companies such as Uber, Airbnb, and Stripe are a few notable examples.

The ESOP Trust helps companies manage their ESOP plan, the distribution of share options by working with the compensation committee. If you want, you can sell a part of your stock units to them at the current 409A price (which we’ll discuss in part two of this series). This allows you scope for liquidity.

But there’s a catch. The 409A price is much less than the price at the time of the last round of funding. Hence your profit margin too will be relatively less.

Let’s say I own shares at the company I am working for. I decide to leave. What happens to my shares?

Generally, you have 90 days to buy the vested shares. Once you buy them, your shares will remain with you until the company goes IPO, secures a round of funding, or gets acquired. If you don’t do so, all your vested share units will lapse. There will be nothing you can do about it.

There’s a catch here as well. Just like your favorite jar of peanut butter, your stock units have a shelf life which is usually 10 years from the date of purchase. If you buy the shares but the company doesn’t go public, secures the next round of funding, or gets acquired, your purchase options will expire. But most companies that are doing well get approval from the board to push the expiry by another year.

Let’s quickly recap what we’ve covered so far:

1. An ESOP is a compensation structure that startups adopt to find and retain great talent. It works as a great motivator for the startup and the employee. When you affect an ESOP offer, remember you are signing up for the long haul. The longer you stay, the higher the benefits you reap.
2. There are various clauses in an ESOP. It is important that you understand what you are signing up for. Don’t shy away from asking your employer questions about what the ESOP looks like for you. They will be happy to answer them for you.
3. It’s partly a gamble because you are investing your time in the company in exchange for a share(s) in the company. If the company grows, the value of your shares grows. If it doesn’t, then you lose nothing except for the years you spent with the company.

In the upcoming blog posts, we’ll cover a few other aspects of ESOPs such as 409A, planning for ESOP, valuation, tax implications, and the like. Meanwhile, if you have any burning questions about ESOP, drop them as comments here and we’ll answer them.

" } }

Why Start-ups will continue to “make the world a better place”

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I was recently chatting with one of my new team mates, Sudarsan (@artfuldev) at Rocketlane. We were discussing about how start-ups evolve, and eventually the conversation came to : Why does Atlassian say they “unleash the potential of every team”, or AirBnB say “we help create a world where you can belong anywhere”? It’s not like they were born with that being at the core of their idea?

Of course, we HAD TO then reminisce briefly about this episode from Silicon Valley:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8C5sjjhsso&feature=youtu.be

Sudarsan was curious. Why do companies that start off solving specific problems end up aggrandising their purpose?

To me it seemed natural. I always needed a “grand mission” or a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) to motivate me and make me proud of my work.

This may be straightforward for some, but I realise there are many who look at this and have some questions : “But why do they care to do this?” “Why backward fit a new mission for the company when it wasn’t this when you started building all this? Who are you fooling?” “And why do many start-ups do this so early? Before they’ve even gotten to somewhere!”

Well, it actually isn’t about saying we’re here to save the world. It’s mostly about 2 things.

1. Giving them a larger purpose helps team members find motivation and meaning in their work.

Back in 2017, I had the opportunity to work with Girish (Girish Mathrubootham) and Satya (satya padmanabham) on what would be a revised “vision” and “mission” for Freshworks — when we were over 1500 people. It was necessary, as we’d been acing all our “dreams” and “goals” as a company, and didn’t want our teams to rest on our laurels. We wanted everyone to look for our next big challenge, to grow and learn together.

Eventually, Girish came up with “we exist to help businesses wow their customers, and create customers for life”. If your existence is making other businesses more successful in delighting their customers and keeping them for life, that makes you proud! That makes you find that purpose from your work, and can change your attitude towards it — since you now know how you make a difference to your customers’ lives.

2. It helps your growing company align.

For you to grow and succeed, you need everyone on your team rowing in the same direction, and it’s hard to ensure that’s happening when you have over 1000 employees! The mission helps, to a great extent, to ensure you have a frame of reference to what that direction is.

I have a good example to illustrate the second one from personal experience. And why it may help to think about this early, not only after you scale.

When we built our last start-up, we were just 3 good friends working together on an idea. We had known each other for over a decade already, and we had great rapport and understanding.

Yet, when our initial voice messaging app (Phonon) did not have the growth we expected, we discovered something surprising.

While we had great alignment on the initial app and it’s features, we had no alignment on what our next experiments would be to get to PMF. I was looking at the product from the lens of it being a “utility” for communication — and hence wanted to see if we can make a version of our app for businesses. Vignesh looked at it as an engagement product, and wanted to create “rooms” for voice-based banter around recent sporting events, etc. Deepak looked at it as a social tool with friends at the centre of it, and suggested we make an app (called “Ten”) for you to stay in constant touch with just your ten best friends — everyone being one tap away on your screen.

While we initially shipped a good quality product that many of our friends loved, we didn’t have a common notion of what kind of product it was — utility, entertainment, or social.

Need I say more? If three friends for over a decade can have different ideas that could pull us in different directions, imagine what can happen when you have 500 people. You need to define who you are as a business, at a slightly higher plane (than just how your business makes money today), as early in the journey as you can. And you may need to do this again in the future when you’ve evolved to a new stage as a company.

It’s not about looking cool or saving the planet — it’s about helping your team find meaning and motivation to align with, and carry the business forward, together.

Thanks to Sudarsan Balaji and Shajahan Sheriff.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(7802) "

I was recently chatting with one of my new team mates, Sudarsan (@artfuldev) at Rocketlane. We were discussing about how start-ups evolve, and eventually the conversation came to : Why does Atlassian say they “unleash the potential of every team”, or AirBnB say “we help create a world where you can belong anywhere”? It’s not like they were born with that being at the core of their idea?

Of course, we HAD TO then reminisce briefly about this episode from Silicon Valley:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8C5sjjhsso&feature=youtu.be

Sudarsan was curious. Why do companies that start off solving specific problems end up aggrandising their purpose?

To me it seemed natural. I always needed a “grand mission” or a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) to motivate me and make me proud of my work.

This may be straightforward for some, but I realise there are many who look at this and have some questions : “But why do they care to do this?” “Why backward fit a new mission for the company when it wasn’t this when you started building all this? Who are you fooling?” “And why do many start-ups do this so early? Before they’ve even gotten to somewhere!”

Well, it actually isn’t about saying we’re here to save the world. It’s mostly about 2 things.

1. Giving them a larger purpose helps team members find motivation and meaning in their work.

Back in 2017, I had the opportunity to work with Girish (Girish Mathrubootham) and Satya (satya padmanabham) on what would be a revised “vision” and “mission” for Freshworks — when we were over 1500 people. It was necessary, as we’d been acing all our “dreams” and “goals” as a company, and didn’t want our teams to rest on our laurels. We wanted everyone to look for our next big challenge, to grow and learn together.

Eventually, Girish came up with “we exist to help businesses wow their customers, and create customers for life”. If your existence is making other businesses more successful in delighting their customers and keeping them for life, that makes you proud! That makes you find that purpose from your work, and can change your attitude towards it — since you now know how you make a difference to your customers’ lives.

2. It helps your growing company align.

For you to grow and succeed, you need everyone on your team rowing in the same direction, and it’s hard to ensure that’s happening when you have over 1000 employees! The mission helps, to a great extent, to ensure you have a frame of reference to what that direction is.

I have a good example to illustrate the second one from personal experience. And why it may help to think about this early, not only after you scale.

When we built our last start-up, we were just 3 good friends working together on an idea. We had known each other for over a decade already, and we had great rapport and understanding.

Yet, when our initial voice messaging app (Phonon) did not have the growth we expected, we discovered something surprising.

While we had great alignment on the initial app and it’s features, we had no alignment on what our next experiments would be to get to PMF. I was looking at the product from the lens of it being a “utility” for communication — and hence wanted to see if we can make a version of our app for businesses. Vignesh looked at it as an engagement product, and wanted to create “rooms” for voice-based banter around recent sporting events, etc. Deepak looked at it as a social tool with friends at the centre of it, and suggested we make an app (called “Ten”) for you to stay in constant touch with just your ten best friends — everyone being one tap away on your screen.

While we initially shipped a good quality product that many of our friends loved, we didn’t have a common notion of what kind of product it was — utility, entertainment, or social.

Need I say more? If three friends for over a decade can have different ideas that could pull us in different directions, imagine what can happen when you have 500 people. You need to define who you are as a business, at a slightly higher plane (than just how your business makes money today), as early in the journey as you can. And you may need to do this again in the future when you’ve evolved to a new stage as a company.

It’s not about looking cool or saving the planet — it’s about helping your team find meaning and motivation to align with, and carry the business forward, together.

Thanks to Sudarsan Balaji and Shajahan Sheriff.

" } }

Consumerization of B2B Design

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The fundamental law of economics dictates that the creation of similar products saturates the market. The producers would reduce the price to attract consumers and improve the business. There’s a need to stand out by creating differentiation. However, very few companies focus on design in creating a design as a USP and for a great consumer experience. Companies such as Apple, Braun, Tesla, etc. were able to thrive because of their brilliant and unique design strategies, which became an advantage and source of distinctiveness in the market. Good design brings added value and is taken into consideration in the development of a good business.

I realized the same about the SaaS products with the learnings from the session led by Mr. Bharath Balasubramanian, Sr Director of Design, Freshworks. In case you don’t know, Freshworks has reached the scale of a B2C with 40,000 customers and many million users. So, listening to Bharat’s session allowed me to reduce our experiments in design by tuning into his learnings.

As a marketer, who collaborates with the design and product team often, I take this opportunity to distill my learnings into ten parts of this 60 minutes super insightful session.

Design best practices across the Customer Lifecycle -

1/10 — The user journey — This session’s core objective was to dive deeply into the minds of a designer and product owners and enlighten the best practices of a design from a B2B context, recruiting designers, and design acting as a competitive advantage for a brand/product.

Bharath kicked off the session with emphasis on the user journey. He demystified the difference between Art Vs. Design. Business leaders should get their basics correct. Art is an expression of an individual that is subjective, but the design is functional, objective, and has a purpose.

“At high-level designers don’t design for B2B or B2C. They design for users’ needs.” — Bharath Balasubramanian.

2/10 — Building a seamless and an assertive website — Bharath taught us the importance of the website and its role as a gatekeeper. He mentioned that a website acts as a storefront; as a business owner, one should take enough care. As the saying goes, the first impression is the best; customers often form an opinion — good or bad — based on the website layout and the functionality as it promotes psychological trust.

Care to be taken while building a website :

• Website header/first fold: Vital to have a slick positioning statement and value proposition.
• Consistency: Creates trust and promotes oneness experience.
• Build a playbook: A standard set of design and content style guides is essential to develop consistent desktop and mobile websites.
• CMS tool: A CMS with components and page templates will ensure to churn consistent pages quickly.

Some of the best practices for graphic design include the following do’s and don’ts

3/10 — Building an effective signup form — Bharath stressed on the importance of signup page mentioning that creating a simple sign up helped increase the lead numbers. However, one might experience more junk signups. But that’s a small price one has to pay for higher lead numbers.

4/10 — User on-boarding — Bharath started this topic by mentioning about empowering the user via proper and effective onboarding using different methods. According to him, a good product experience starts with great on-boarding.

1. Getting started wizard — Use this method to teach users the most important features. It helps users configure some basic steps for the product to work effectively.
2. Demo Videos — Videos help orient users toward product adoption. It provides the value of each feature, product terminology, how to set up, etc. — thus making sure to make the set-up as DIY(Do-It-Yourself) as possible
3. Factory defaults — Factory default numbers demonstrate the usage of a product. Depending on the product’s context, representative data works like a charm.

5/10 — Product equal to marketing website — Bharath gave a new perception to product building by suggesting that a product can be seen as one more marketing website. Also, his pieces of advice were simple and pretty easy to follow with the following nuggets:

• Users learn by doing — Provide articles and contextual content to help users navigate the product usage.
• Guided walkthroughs — Provide a step by step navigational workflow.
• Video can speak a million words — Provide video snippets that help users get the gist of the feature quickly.

6/10 — Copywriting is design — As a product marketer, I understand the importance of language and words. However, the sweet surprise came when Bharath insisted on the language and the importance of good copywriting. You don’t often come across designers who emphasize and understand the importance of language. Here are some of the key takeaways -

1. Write a copy in a conversational language. Sometimes humor works too.
2. Be humble and friendly in language.
3. Don’t use technical jargon.
4. Write copy for users, not for the QA (Quality Analyst).
5. Be clear about the problem and the solution.

7/10 — Creating a delightful experience — Bharath mentioned that creating a product hook is supercritical & creates delight to the end-users with features that are built by understanding customer’s needs. The following golden guidelines apply to anyone interested in making a customer-friendly product.

1. Don’t get influenced by competition, build the right thing
2. Build engaging, habit-forming features
3. Delight helps reduce churn
4. Consistency reduces the learning curve
5. Provide component design guidelines

8/10 — Hiring the right product designer — Bharath started this topic by mentioning that every designer hire should have a sense of business and creative understanding. He emphasized to not fall for just some pretty mockups created by designers but look for a continuous flow that explains their business understanding.

Bharath mentioned that designers and product managers share a lot of responsibilities in common, so one needs to look for designers who can think like product managers, and at the same time look for product managers with design sensibilities.

Moreover, he shared a couple of good website sources such as Dribble, Behance, and LinkedIn to check for the designer portfolio and recruiting good designers.

9/10 — Setting up the right design culture — Bharath emphasized that one of the most important aspects of a product company’s success is in integrating design and designer in the initial stages of product building. It takes two to tango, product designers & product managers synergize to deliver product value at scale.

10/10 — Final Words — Start building your future today — It was a super insightful 60 minutes of pure learning. The words & themes of design, product, empathy, user, website, & team culture resonated with all the design and product leaders present.

In the words of Bharath — building a product involves designers, along with the product and engineering team. Designing a great product is the collective responsibility of everyone in the team.

In summary, that’s the essence of consumerizing a B2B SaaS product to win the customer hearts and market.

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The fundamental law of economics dictates that the creation of similar products saturates the market. The producers would reduce the price to attract consumers and improve the business. There’s a need to stand out by creating differentiation. However, very few companies focus on design in creating a design as a USP and for a great consumer experience. Companies such as Apple, Braun, Tesla, etc. were able to thrive because of their brilliant and unique design strategies, which became an advantage and source of distinctiveness in the market. Good design brings added value and is taken into consideration in the development of a good business.

I realized the same about the SaaS products with the learnings from the session led by Mr. Bharath Balasubramanian, Sr Director of Design, Freshworks. In case you don’t know, Freshworks has reached the scale of a B2C with 40,000 customers and many million users. So, listening to Bharat’s session allowed me to reduce our experiments in design by tuning into his learnings.

As a marketer, who collaborates with the design and product team often, I take this opportunity to distill my learnings into ten parts of this 60 minutes super insightful session.

Design best practices across the Customer Lifecycle -

1/10 — The user journey — This session’s core objective was to dive deeply into the minds of a designer and product owners and enlighten the best practices of a design from a B2B context, recruiting designers, and design acting as a competitive advantage for a brand/product.

Bharath kicked off the session with emphasis on the user journey. He demystified the difference between Art Vs. Design. Business leaders should get their basics correct. Art is an expression of an individual that is subjective, but the design is functional, objective, and has a purpose.

“At high-level designers don’t design for B2B or B2C. They design for users’ needs.” — Bharath Balasubramanian.

2/10 — Building a seamless and an assertive website — Bharath taught us the importance of the website and its role as a gatekeeper. He mentioned that a website acts as a storefront; as a business owner, one should take enough care. As the saying goes, the first impression is the best; customers often form an opinion — good or bad — based on the website layout and the functionality as it promotes psychological trust.

Care to be taken while building a website :

• Website header/first fold: Vital to have a slick positioning statement and value proposition.
• Consistency: Creates trust and promotes oneness experience.
• Build a playbook: A standard set of design and content style guides is essential to develop consistent desktop and mobile websites.
• CMS tool: A CMS with components and page templates will ensure to churn consistent pages quickly.

Some of the best practices for graphic design include the following do’s and don’ts

3/10 — Building an effective signup form — Bharath stressed on the importance of signup page mentioning that creating a simple sign up helped increase the lead numbers. However, one might experience more junk signups. But that’s a small price one has to pay for higher lead numbers.

4/10 — User on-boarding — Bharath started this topic by mentioning about empowering the user via proper and effective onboarding using different methods. According to him, a good product experience starts with great on-boarding.

1. Getting started wizard — Use this method to teach users the most important features. It helps users configure some basic steps for the product to work effectively.
2. Demo Videos — Videos help orient users toward product adoption. It provides the value of each feature, product terminology, how to set up, etc. — thus making sure to make the set-up as DIY(Do-It-Yourself) as possible
3. Factory defaults — Factory default numbers demonstrate the usage of a product. Depending on the product’s context, representative data works like a charm.

5/10 — Product equal to marketing website — Bharath gave a new perception to product building by suggesting that a product can be seen as one more marketing website. Also, his pieces of advice were simple and pretty easy to follow with the following nuggets:

• Users learn by doing — Provide articles and contextual content to help users navigate the product usage.
• Guided walkthroughs — Provide a step by step navigational workflow.
• Video can speak a million words — Provide video snippets that help users get the gist of the feature quickly.

6/10 — Copywriting is design — As a product marketer, I understand the importance of language and words. However, the sweet surprise came when Bharath insisted on the language and the importance of good copywriting. You don’t often come across designers who emphasize and understand the importance of language. Here are some of the key takeaways -

1. Write a copy in a conversational language. Sometimes humor works too.
2. Be humble and friendly in language.
3. Don’t use technical jargon.
4. Write copy for users, not for the QA (Quality Analyst).
5. Be clear about the problem and the solution.

7/10 — Creating a delightful experience — Bharath mentioned that creating a product hook is supercritical & creates delight to the end-users with features that are built by understanding customer’s needs. The following golden guidelines apply to anyone interested in making a customer-friendly product.

1. Don’t get influenced by competition, build the right thing
2. Build engaging, habit-forming features
3. Delight helps reduce churn
4. Consistency reduces the learning curve
5. Provide component design guidelines

8/10 — Hiring the right product designer — Bharath started this topic by mentioning that every designer hire should have a sense of business and creative understanding. He emphasized to not fall for just some pretty mockups created by designers but look for a continuous flow that explains their business understanding.

Bharath mentioned that designers and product managers share a lot of responsibilities in common, so one needs to look for designers who can think like product managers, and at the same time look for product managers with design sensibilities.

Moreover, he shared a couple of good website sources such as Dribble, Behance, and LinkedIn to check for the designer portfolio and recruiting good designers.

9/10 — Setting up the right design culture — Bharath emphasized that one of the most important aspects of a product company’s success is in integrating design and designer in the initial stages of product building. It takes two to tango, product designers & product managers synergize to deliver product value at scale.

10/10 — Final Words — Start building your future today — It was a super insightful 60 minutes of pure learning. The words & themes of design, product, empathy, user, website, & team culture resonated with all the design and product leaders present.

In the words of Bharath — building a product involves designers, along with the product and engineering team. Designing a great product is the collective responsibility of everyone in the team.

In summary, that’s the essence of consumerizing a B2B SaaS product to win the customer hearts and market.

" } }

Fundraising for SaaS: The essentials

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“SaaS has strong recurring revenue. SaaS has strong margins. Then why does SaaS need external money to grow?”

My dad asked me this when I was doing my first fundraise. While I know the answer I still have not been able to convince him (baap hai mera!).

Fundraising is a part of any fast-growth SaaS journey. The money raised can be invested in R&D for new products, new market expansion, sales team expansion, or any M&A. The fundamental premise being, if there is capital that we know where to deploy to grow faster, we should be able to raise the money and invest in the growth.

Keeping aside all the coolness attached to the fundraising announcements, the process itself is not so glamorous — it is inherently with a huge market asymmetry and a low probability of success.

My attempt in this post is to share some learnings from our journey which might help demystify some part of this process.

While the most significant reason to get to fundraising is the capital that the company needs, there is value in getting the right investor for the specific stage. As Jason Lemkin says, “There is only so much space on the cap table. Be sure of the names on it”.

The basic hygiene to check for is if the investor gets the business. And there is a huge upside if we also get lucky on multiple other elements like signalling, customer intros, advice, hiring, and Next Round.

The Process

While there are some specific nuances in each part of the fundraising process, the way to think about it as a founder is just like a sales process with different stages and probabilities. The only difference, in this case, is that you need to be successful and convert only once for the entire process to be a success. :)

There are basically 4 big parts to this (each of this can be a separate blog post but here is a quick primer on each of them).

1. Why are we raising and are we ready to raise?

We should raise because it helps us be visible in the press. NOT. At different stages, the reason to raise money will be different. But the simple (and basic) rule is to raise when you need the capital. Any capital (Equity/Debt) infused in the company expects a return and it is important to understand what that expectation is, so that we have the visibility to deliver on those expectations.

Readiness needs just a few things:

• Content — The story that you want to tell that will make investors want to invest in this business. Make sure you understand your audience (investors in this case — who are looking at a return) and make a sales pitch for them. There could be an impact-focussed investor who could be looking at how the problem you are solving is having an impact on the larger population or a hedge fund-like investor which is trying to find a seat on the next hyper-growth rocketship (and just wants to understand why this is a 100x story).
• Data — While I would over-invest in getting the story right, the data is supercritical to have a strong signal on your understanding of the business. Data includes all the relevant internal (all metrics) and external (market, competition, etc.) data that are relevant at the particular stage.
• Plan — Investors are always investing in the future. While the data and story build trust, the plan gives a sense of the potential. It’s important to iron out a plan (in terms of growth, spend planning, hiring, etc.) that will give a sense of how the company will look like in 1 to 3 years.

2. Who should we go to for raising our investment and how do we approach them?

Depending on the stage of the company there are 4 main kinds of investors:

• Strategic investors — Investors investing out of a balance sheet and a part of a larger business which could be aligned with your business
• Purely financial investors — These are generally growth-stage investors who would look at a purely financial investment (just like a public market investment) with very little involvement in the day-to-day activities
• General Venture Capital — These are the more prominent and visible VCs (specialising in different stages) that invest LP money into companies with a specific time horizon in mind. Most of them have a plan/structure in place to help the companies (as individuals or a fund) on a periodic basis and are present on the board
• Angel Investors — More relevant in early stages but they are individuals investing their personal money in expectation of a certain return

Approaching investors could be in multiple forms ranging from cold emails to warm connections with investor networks or other founder friends. Like in a typical sales process, it would always help to enter with a certain level of credibility/trust that you’ve built through your business or your connections.

There is another option of going with an investment banker who helps with raising money and is an expert at it. It also helps the founders to focus on the business while a lot of the leg work around planning and setup is done by the investment banker. While this is a common practice at late Series C+ stages, using a banker earlier is construed (not objectively) as a weakness/inability to raise on our own.

Additional note: It is important to understand how a fund works and the different roles of people within the fund (just like in a sales process), to understand who is a supporter/gatekeeper/influencer/sponsor etc.

3. What do investors look for?

Investors are strongly opinionated — while that seems contrary to the whole idea of investing in startups which are at the edge of the future technologies, every quality investor has a strong personal algorithm/formula/mnemonic on how to evaluate companies which come from the tonne of mistakes that they’ve made (remember we are talking about startups where the probability of success is less than 1%).

Here are a few things that I have seen investors talk about/look for/screen for:

• Team and Energy — How good is the founding and management team? Basically looking for Product — Market — Founder — Fit and a strong belief that the founders have the strongest correlation to the outcome.
• Data — What does the data say? Has the team displayed the ability ‘objectively’ to drive certain outcomes at the previous stage which they can do at scale in the future? Is the market large enough today or will it be large enough at a future period of time? Is the competitive intensity high and how has the company done against the competition in the past?
• Thematic — Which is the company out there that fits into our view on how the market is changing and is going to capitalise on that? Is there a structural advantage in this company that we have seen work in other companies in a similar/adjacent space?

4. How do I know what is the right valuation for my company?

Valuation (unlike popular knowledge) is driven by a lot more factors than what the public markets are doing at that point of time with SaaS companies. For the founder, it comes down to the money she wants to raise and the amount of dilution she is okay with.

While there is no real method to the madness, there are clear factors that influence it. Below is the map of the most common factors that influence valuation.

• Revenue: CARR, ARR, Revenue, Forward Revenue

Multiple:

• Intrinsic — GM, Sales Productivity, Growth Rate, Sales Efficiency (Revenue to Burn profile), Churn, Product Stickiness, Ability to Upsell. The usual LTV/CAC is an indicator for all the above
• Extrinsic — The Opportunity — Timing, Market Size (TAM Calculation), Competitive Intensity in the space.

The whole process doesn’t end with a term sheet. There are a lot of details that happen post this in a term sheet, SHA, SSA etc. which is a topic for another post. Here’s hoping 1000s of SaaS companies get funded in India and give excellent returns to investors.

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“SaaS has strong recurring revenue. SaaS has strong margins. Then why does SaaS need external money to grow?”

My dad asked me this when I was doing my first fundraise. While I know the answer I still have not been able to convince him (baap hai mera!).

Fundraising is a part of any fast-growth SaaS journey. The money raised can be invested in R&D for new products, new market expansion, sales team expansion, or any M&A. The fundamental premise being, if there is capital that we know where to deploy to grow faster, we should be able to raise the money and invest in the growth.

Keeping aside all the coolness attached to the fundraising announcements, the process itself is not so glamorous — it is inherently with a huge market asymmetry and a low probability of success.

My attempt in this post is to share some learnings from our journey which might help demystify some part of this process.

While the most significant reason to get to fundraising is the capital that the company needs, there is value in getting the right investor for the specific stage. As Jason Lemkin says, “There is only so much space on the cap table. Be sure of the names on it”.

The basic hygiene to check for is if the investor gets the business. And there is a huge upside if we also get lucky on multiple other elements like signalling, customer intros, advice, hiring, and Next Round.

The Process

While there are some specific nuances in each part of the fundraising process, the way to think about it as a founder is just like a sales process with different stages and probabilities. The only difference, in this case, is that you need to be successful and convert only once for the entire process to be a success. :)

There are basically 4 big parts to this (each of this can be a separate blog post but here is a quick primer on each of them).

1. Why are we raising and are we ready to raise?

We should raise because it helps us be visible in the press. NOT. At different stages, the reason to raise money will be different. But the simple (and basic) rule is to raise when you need the capital. Any capital (Equity/Debt) infused in the company expects a return and it is important to understand what that expectation is, so that we have the visibility to deliver on those expectations.

Readiness needs just a few things:

• Content — The story that you want to tell that will make investors want to invest in this business. Make sure you understand your audience (investors in this case — who are looking at a return) and make a sales pitch for them. There could be an impact-focussed investor who could be looking at how the problem you are solving is having an impact on the larger population or a hedge fund-like investor which is trying to find a seat on the next hyper-growth rocketship (and just wants to understand why this is a 100x story).
• Data — While I would over-invest in getting the story right, the data is supercritical to have a strong signal on your understanding of the business. Data includes all the relevant internal (all metrics) and external (market, competition, etc.) data that are relevant at the particular stage.
• Plan — Investors are always investing in the future. While the data and story build trust, the plan gives a sense of the potential. It’s important to iron out a plan (in terms of growth, spend planning, hiring, etc.) that will give a sense of how the company will look like in 1 to 3 years.

2. Who should we go to for raising our investment and how do we approach them?

Depending on the stage of the company there are 4 main kinds of investors:

• Strategic investors — Investors investing out of a balance sheet and a part of a larger business which could be aligned with your business
• Purely financial investors — These are generally growth-stage investors who would look at a purely financial investment (just like a public market investment) with very little involvement in the day-to-day activities
• General Venture Capital — These are the more prominent and visible VCs (specialising in different stages) that invest LP money into companies with a specific time horizon in mind. Most of them have a plan/structure in place to help the companies (as individuals or a fund) on a periodic basis and are present on the board
• Angel Investors — More relevant in early stages but they are individuals investing their personal money in expectation of a certain return

Approaching investors could be in multiple forms ranging from cold emails to warm connections with investor networks or other founder friends. Like in a typical sales process, it would always help to enter with a certain level of credibility/trust that you’ve built through your business or your connections.

There is another option of going with an investment banker who helps with raising money and is an expert at it. It also helps the founders to focus on the business while a lot of the leg work around planning and setup is done by the investment banker. While this is a common practice at late Series C+ stages, using a banker earlier is construed (not objectively) as a weakness/inability to raise on our own.

Additional note: It is important to understand how a fund works and the different roles of people within the fund (just like in a sales process), to understand who is a supporter/gatekeeper/influencer/sponsor etc.

3. What do investors look for?

Investors are strongly opinionated — while that seems contrary to the whole idea of investing in startups which are at the edge of the future technologies, every quality investor has a strong personal algorithm/formula/mnemonic on how to evaluate companies which come from the tonne of mistakes that they’ve made (remember we are talking about startups where the probability of success is less than 1%).

Here are a few things that I have seen investors talk about/look for/screen for:

• Team and Energy — How good is the founding and management team? Basically looking for Product — Market — Founder — Fit and a strong belief that the founders have the strongest correlation to the outcome.
• Data — What does the data say? Has the team displayed the ability ‘objectively’ to drive certain outcomes at the previous stage which they can do at scale in the future? Is the market large enough today or will it be large enough at a future period of time? Is the competitive intensity high and how has the company done against the competition in the past?
• Thematic — Which is the company out there that fits into our view on how the market is changing and is going to capitalise on that? Is there a structural advantage in this company that we have seen work in other companies in a similar/adjacent space?

4. How do I know what is the right valuation for my company?

Valuation (unlike popular knowledge) is driven by a lot more factors than what the public markets are doing at that point of time with SaaS companies. For the founder, it comes down to the money she wants to raise and the amount of dilution she is okay with.

While there is no real method to the madness, there are clear factors that influence it. Below is the map of the most common factors that influence valuation.

• Revenue: CARR, ARR, Revenue, Forward Revenue

Multiple:

• Intrinsic — GM, Sales Productivity, Growth Rate, Sales Efficiency (Revenue to Burn profile), Churn, Product Stickiness, Ability to Upsell. The usual LTV/CAC is an indicator for all the above
• Extrinsic — The Opportunity — Timing, Market Size (TAM Calculation), Competitive Intensity in the space.

The whole process doesn’t end with a term sheet. There are a lot of details that happen post this in a term sheet, SHA, SSA etc. which is a topic for another post. Here’s hoping 1000s of SaaS companies get funded in India and give excellent returns to investors.

" } }

Getting the Quotas Right for Your SaaS Sales Teams

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You are just out of your board meeting and ready to chase an ambitious ARR goal for the new year. You plan growth targets for your GTM teams top-down, which get translated into quotas (revenue targets) for sales reps. You hire the planned number of reps and look set. The year starts. Halfway in, things don’t look as rosy. You are not on track to your ARR goal. Even worse, the sales teams are super demotivated because they are way-off their quotas. They do not feel like pushing any further for the year. Ring a bell? Almost all founders and GTM leaders of fast-growing startups undergo this situation during the journey. The revenue growth goals always seem on shaky grounds. Also, there is this constant doubt on whether the quotas set for sales teams are ambitious, yet attainable.

Here are some learnings on sales quota setting back from my days managing Revenue Operations at Freshworks.

Caveat – The learnings are more suited to when you are $1M+ ARR and there is some product-market fit. Until then, quoting @Girish on something he said in a different context ‘Focus on income first, you can worry about income tax later’ 🙂

GTM Funnel – The Holy Grail

So you are past the $1M ARR mark and have historic data to analyze. The first place to look for is your GTM funnel. At a high-level, segregate the funnel by:

1. Lead source: inbound (SEO + SEM driven signups) vs outbound (SDR + Sales driven lead gen). Split partnerships-generated leads as well if that’s sizable
2. Deal Type: revenue from new logos vs expansion revenue from existing customers

If there is meaningful data, you can segregate further by

1. Geography (if you operate in multiple different geographies)
2. Customer segments (employee segments or other segments relevant to your business)
3. Product types (if you have more than one),

The key here is meaningful data. Early in the startup journey, you may not have enough data points, so don’t feel pressured to dissect data by each of these segments. You can always torture your data to tell you something, but that will almost always lead you in the wrong direction.

In this case, meaningful data could mean that for each segregated segment, you have data for at least a 12-month period that can fill the pipeline of at least 2 sales reps.

Base Metrics for Quota Setting

Now that you have pulled the data by segment, the next goal is to arrive at a benchmark for each of these funnel metrics a) No. of Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) b) Conversion rate from MQLs to Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) c) Conversion rate from SQLs to wins d) Average ACV for each of your new wins e) Average sales cycle time f) Average net revenue expansion at the end of 12 months of sales

Feed-in the benchmarks, and you have a reference benchmark by segment. Using this, you can arrive at the base quota-carrying capacity for your rep. Let’s take a simple example. Say you have 100 inbound MQLs a month in one segment and your MQL to SQL conversion is 40%. If the sales cycle is 1 month, at any point, there are 40 opportunities (SQLs) under conversation in parallel. So how many reps do you need to address this volume? You will probably consider the sales effort required for each opportunity, and support the reps receives on technical closure, assistance on sales enablement materials, etc. Accordingly, you may decide that a rep can handle 20 opportunities in parallel in a month and therefore you need 2 reps to support this funnel. Now say your SQL to wins is 25% for this segment. You expect to close about 10 deals (100 * 40% * 25%) overall. Now if the Annual Contract Value (ACV) was $4k, then revenue for the month is expected to be $40k in ARR from these 2 reps. The quota in a base case scenario would therefore have to be around $20k ARR/month for each of the reps. You can of course bump this a few notches if you see efficiency improvement opportunities on any of the metrics. Sounds reasonable right. But is that all there is?

Productive Sales Capacity – The Unknow Devil

Under-estimating sales ramp times and sales rep attrition is one of the most common mistakes that many founders and GTM leaders make. For a company that has a product-market fit, it is almost criminal to miss out on revenue goals because of a shortfall in the productive sales capacity. And yet, several fast-growing startups fall into this trap. For rep attrition, always gather historic data and categorize it by the tenure of the rep (number of months in the system). Ramp times are a little more difficult to estimate accurately. The thumb rule is that your ramp time = sales cycle time + training time period if the sales rep is fed with the required MQLs. If some portion of the MQLs need to be self -generated by the reps, then you need to allocate a larger ramp time proportionately.

Also, make sure you judiciously guide increases in quota % over the ramp time period. For example, if there is a 3-month sales cycle, giving a 50% ramping quota to a sales rep in the second month would mean that you transfer some warm SQLs to achieve this. Otherwise, the ramping quota % is just wishful thinking.

Managing Territories

If you have set similar quotas across different reps, then you need to ensure that the territories are split equally. This means that two different territories, in theory, lead to similar results when the GTM funnel metrics are applied. This is of course easier said than done and it’s a topic by itself. If there is one quick takeaway, be prepared to fine-tune territories quickly and periodically as you see new information.

Also, your growth trajectory depends on your ability to split territories constantly and still apply the same quota as the unified territory with each of the split territories. For example, this means that over a few years, you need to be able to split a single California state territory into 2 and then further into a bunch of counties and then down to pin codes. Similarly, in an inbound scenario, you might have to reduce your leads from 100 leads/month to 80 leads to 60 leads, all the while maintaining a similar quota for your rep. This can only be done if you have a good view of your GTM funnel metrics and identify areas of optimization potential.

Quota Time Frame

Let us say you did all this and came up with an overall quota or goal of say $360k ARR for your Asia/India rep selling globally. Now, how do you translate this into the frequency of quota? Should you do $30k ARR ($2.5k MRR/month) as quota or do $90k ARR ($7.5k MRR/quarter) as quota or do quota at a full year?

At a high-level, always keep quota period >= sales cycle period. For example, if your sales cycle is 90 days don’t keep your quota period for less than a quarter. In this case, that will mean keeping the targets at $7.5k MRR for the quarter.

Don’t Forget Seasonality

Budget for seasonality. There are geo-related seasonality impacts on quota such as summer holidays in Europe or Ramadan in the Middle East or year-end holidays globally. There may also be some impact specific to your business such as more purchase happening end of the fiscal year to accommodate exhausting annual budget for your customer teams. Be cognizant of this and plan accordingly.

How Do You Cross-verify the Quotas That You Have Set?

If you have reps co-located in the geographies that you are selling to, Quota to On-Target-Earnings (OTE) ratio is an important metric that you should use.Say if you have set $600k ACV as Quota, and the on-target earnings for the rep are $120k (earnings when they hit 100% quota), then the Quota to OTE ratio is 5 ($600k / $120k). If this metric can be pushed to 6 that is great, but below 4, know that you have a problem to solve. Also, be aware that the Quota/OTE ratio may not give you insights if you have reps in Asia/India selling to other geographies such as US/UK as there are other factors (additional marketing spend, etc.) to account for. In such scenarios, stick to conversion rates across the funnel and see if there are improvement opportunities between different segments. Another analysis that serves as a good heuristic is a histogram analysis on the quota attainment of your reps. There will be some reps who will be missing their goals. But if around 2/3rd of your reps fall in the 80 – 100% attainment category then consider the quota to be in the right range.

Also, remember, it’s okay to have your top reps exceed the set quota comfortably. In fact, that’s something that you should ensure happens, so that you align rewards with top performance.

Final Thoughts

There was a time in Freshworks history when we wanted to 3x our ARR in one particular year, after having done that successfully in the previous year. By then, we were already a decent-sized SaaS company and it was an ambitious goal in absolute revenue terms. We ended up doing 2.3x ARR that year. It was a phenomenal revenue growth considering our size. But our sales organization was absolutely gutted because they all missed their quotas. That’s certainly not how we wanted our teams to feel at the end of such a fantastic year for the company. We did the right thing and adjusted quotas and payouts at the end of that year. And we learned a lot from that.

It’s super important to be thoughtful about how revenue goals are planned and how you translate them into quotas for sales at the start of the year. Use this guide as a starting point to think about quota setting and apply intricacies specific to your business. Start building a strong ops team to plan this out and constantly measure areas of improvement. This will not only set you up for a successful year but also, importantly, keep sales teams happy and gunning in sync for success.

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You are just out of your board meeting and ready to chase an ambitious ARR goal for the new year. You plan growth targets for your GTM teams top-down, which get translated into quotas (revenue targets) for sales reps. You hire the planned number of reps and look set. The year starts. Halfway in, things don’t look as rosy. You are not on track to your ARR goal. Even worse, the sales teams are super demotivated because they are way-off their quotas. They do not feel like pushing any further for the year. Ring a bell? Almost all founders and GTM leaders of fast-growing startups undergo this situation during the journey. The revenue growth goals always seem on shaky grounds. Also, there is this constant doubt on whether the quotas set for sales teams are ambitious, yet attainable.

Here are some learnings on sales quota setting back from my days managing Revenue Operations at Freshworks.

Caveat – The learnings are more suited to when you are $1M+ ARR and there is some product-market fit. Until then, quoting @Girish on something he said in a different context ‘Focus on income first, you can worry about income tax later’ 🙂

GTM Funnel – The Holy Grail

So you are past the $1M ARR mark and have historic data to analyze. The first place to look for is your GTM funnel. At a high-level, segregate the funnel by:

1. Lead source: inbound (SEO + SEM driven signups) vs outbound (SDR + Sales driven lead gen). Split partnerships-generated leads as well if that’s sizable
2. Deal Type: revenue from new logos vs expansion revenue from existing customers

If there is meaningful data, you can segregate further by

1. Geography (if you operate in multiple different geographies)
2. Customer segments (employee segments or other segments relevant to your business)
3. Product types (if you have more than one),

The key here is meaningful data. Early in the startup journey, you may not have enough data points, so don’t feel pressured to dissect data by each of these segments. You can always torture your data to tell you something, but that will almost always lead you in the wrong direction.

In this case, meaningful data could mean that for each segregated segment, you have data for at least a 12-month period that can fill the pipeline of at least 2 sales reps.

Base Metrics for Quota Setting

Now that you have pulled the data by segment, the next goal is to arrive at a benchmark for each of these funnel metrics a) No. of Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) b) Conversion rate from MQLs to Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) c) Conversion rate from SQLs to wins d) Average ACV for each of your new wins e) Average sales cycle time f) Average net revenue expansion at the end of 12 months of sales

Feed-in the benchmarks, and you have a reference benchmark by segment. Using this, you can arrive at the base quota-carrying capacity for your rep. Let’s take a simple example. Say you have 100 inbound MQLs a month in one segment and your MQL to SQL conversion is 40%. If the sales cycle is 1 month, at any point, there are 40 opportunities (SQLs) under conversation in parallel. So how many reps do you need to address this volume? You will probably consider the sales effort required for each opportunity, and support the reps receives on technical closure, assistance on sales enablement materials, etc. Accordingly, you may decide that a rep can handle 20 opportunities in parallel in a month and therefore you need 2 reps to support this funnel. Now say your SQL to wins is 25% for this segment. You expect to close about 10 deals (100 * 40% * 25%) overall. Now if the Annual Contract Value (ACV) was $4k, then revenue for the month is expected to be $40k in ARR from these 2 reps. The quota in a base case scenario would therefore have to be around $20k ARR/month for each of the reps. You can of course bump this a few notches if you see efficiency improvement opportunities on any of the metrics. Sounds reasonable right. But is that all there is?

Productive Sales Capacity – The Unknow Devil

Under-estimating sales ramp times and sales rep attrition is one of the most common mistakes that many founders and GTM leaders make. For a company that has a product-market fit, it is almost criminal to miss out on revenue goals because of a shortfall in the productive sales capacity. And yet, several fast-growing startups fall into this trap. For rep attrition, always gather historic data and categorize it by the tenure of the rep (number of months in the system). Ramp times are a little more difficult to estimate accurately. The thumb rule is that your ramp time = sales cycle time + training time period if the sales rep is fed with the required MQLs. If some portion of the MQLs need to be self -generated by the reps, then you need to allocate a larger ramp time proportionately.

Also, make sure you judiciously guide increases in quota % over the ramp time period. For example, if there is a 3-month sales cycle, giving a 50% ramping quota to a sales rep in the second month would mean that you transfer some warm SQLs to achieve this. Otherwise, the ramping quota % is just wishful thinking.

Managing Territories

If you have set similar quotas across different reps, then you need to ensure that the territories are split equally. This means that two different territories, in theory, lead to similar results when the GTM funnel metrics are applied. This is of course easier said than done and it’s a topic by itself. If there is one quick takeaway, be prepared to fine-tune territories quickly and periodically as you see new information.

Also, your growth trajectory depends on your ability to split territories constantly and still apply the same quota as the unified territory with each of the split territories. For example, this means that over a few years, you need to be able to split a single California state territory into 2 and then further into a bunch of counties and then down to pin codes. Similarly, in an inbound scenario, you might have to reduce your leads from 100 leads/month to 80 leads to 60 leads, all the while maintaining a similar quota for your rep. This can only be done if you have a good view of your GTM funnel metrics and identify areas of optimization potential.

Quota Time Frame

Let us say you did all this and came up with an overall quota or goal of say $360k ARR for your Asia/India rep selling globally. Now, how do you translate this into the frequency of quota? Should you do $30k ARR ($2.5k MRR/month) as quota or do $90k ARR ($7.5k MRR/quarter) as quota or do quota at a full year?

At a high-level, always keep quota period >= sales cycle period. For example, if your sales cycle is 90 days don’t keep your quota period for less than a quarter. In this case, that will mean keeping the targets at $7.5k MRR for the quarter.

Don’t Forget Seasonality

Budget for seasonality. There are geo-related seasonality impacts on quota such as summer holidays in Europe or Ramadan in the Middle East or year-end holidays globally. There may also be some impact specific to your business such as more purchase happening end of the fiscal year to accommodate exhausting annual budget for your customer teams. Be cognizant of this and plan accordingly.

How Do You Cross-verify the Quotas That You Have Set?

If you have reps co-located in the geographies that you are selling to, Quota to On-Target-Earnings (OTE) ratio is an important metric that you should use.Say if you have set $600k ACV as Quota, and the on-target earnings for the rep are $120k (earnings when they hit 100% quota), then the Quota to OTE ratio is 5 ($600k / $120k). If this metric can be pushed to 6 that is great, but below 4, know that you have a problem to solve. Also, be aware that the Quota/OTE ratio may not give you insights if you have reps in Asia/India selling to other geographies such as US/UK as there are other factors (additional marketing spend, etc.) to account for. In such scenarios, stick to conversion rates across the funnel and see if there are improvement opportunities between different segments. Another analysis that serves as a good heuristic is a histogram analysis on the quota attainment of your reps. There will be some reps who will be missing their goals. But if around 2/3rd of your reps fall in the 80 – 100% attainment category then consider the quota to be in the right range.

Also, remember, it’s okay to have your top reps exceed the set quota comfortably. In fact, that’s something that you should ensure happens, so that you align rewards with top performance.

Final Thoughts

There was a time in Freshworks history when we wanted to 3x our ARR in one particular year, after having done that successfully in the previous year. By then, we were already a decent-sized SaaS company and it was an ambitious goal in absolute revenue terms. We ended up doing 2.3x ARR that year. It was a phenomenal revenue growth considering our size. But our sales organization was absolutely gutted because they all missed their quotas. That’s certainly not how we wanted our teams to feel at the end of such a fantastic year for the company. We did the right thing and adjusted quotas and payouts at the end of that year. And we learned a lot from that.

It’s super important to be thoughtful about how revenue goals are planned and how you translate them into quotas for sales at the start of the year. Use this guide as a starting point to think about quota setting and apply intricacies specific to your business. Start building a strong ops team to plan this out and constantly measure areas of improvement. This will not only set you up for a successful year but also, importantly, keep sales teams happy and gunning in sync for success.

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Understanding the Fundamentals of Product Led Growth

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The Product-Led Growth conference was an eye-opening exploration of the concepts that fuel business success through a Product-Led growth strategy. The conference was split into segments featuring industry experts and tech leaders that are driving success through Product-centric Go-To-Market methods. Girish Mathrubootham, CEO and Founder of Freshworks, was introduced to share his insights on “The fundamentals of Product Led Growth” and kickstart the event. Strategic product execution and management is the key to facilitating Product-Led growth, Girish said. He built Freshworks to become a  powerhouse of innovation that continues to deliver exceptional products for workflow automation. The success of Freshworks is the basis upon which Girish kicked off the SaaSBOOMi conference, to educate the audience and his fellow associates on successful entrepreneurship. In this article, we have tried to break down the concept of Product-Led Growth into easily digestible nuggets.

What is Product Led Growth?

In conventional business strategy, sales and marketing teams work together in an enterprise to nurture and convert prospects into customers. Sales-Led Growth involves dedicated personnel constantly chasing after potential customers with a product. In this event, the customer doesn’t have direct access to the unique selling point of the product. A customer only knows what the sales representative is trying to sell. This is where Product-Led Growth can be leveraged to introduce a new solution to the customer’s need, in the form of a product that’s designed to be self-served in nature. Girish Mathrubootham states that Product-Led Growth utilizes the product as the marketing asset required to nudge prospects through the marketing funnel. Customers gain direct access to the features of a product and thereby make a more informed purchase decision. By eliminating cold calls and meetings, you can give customers hands-on access to the various features of your product. You can enable effective product execution in the market of your choice from there. The product design will determine whether the customer continues to use your product or not. The success of Freshworks was attributed to constantly nurturing the customer with product features. Businesses can gain a better grip on the user experience through a Product-Led growth approach. Girish implies that the application of Product-Led Growth is expansive, especially for start-ups with limited investment capital but a good product to offer. So how is the Product-Led Growth strategy employed?

How to use a product for every step of the marketing funnel?

If you can showcase your product’s features well, you will gather more interest in your brand. Product-Led Growth leverages internet services and remote marketing practices to generate leads. Girish Mathrubootham ornately ran through the conceptualization of business strategy in line with product management and execution of his company, Freshworks. He mentioned that today, it’s easier for teams to invest in an idea that they think is brilliant. You don’t have to go through the CEO to sell a product that helps customers. Building a SaaS product can be done from anywhere in the world. The approach of Product-ed Growth strategy caters to a unique segment within an enterprise. Online marketing has enabled access to this niche market and technology has automated many enterprise functions. With access to specific teams, Product-Led Growth strategy is more likely to reach your target market quicker than Sales-Led Growth that targets the decision-maker in a company. Girish went on to explore how Product-Led Growth benefits businesses and the end-consumers as well.

Identifying the niche within an organization

Product-Led Growth is a model of scaling your business by using the product across multiple business verticals. You pitch the product to a customer and analyze their response. Once they use your product, the chances of them doing business with you are higher. You can find out what’s lacking and how to improve along the way. A business can implement new features and configurations while the user is getting familiar with the software. Since the product is designed for a specific business function, the teams involved are the decision makers. Buyer power is translated to varying functions within the company and not just the management. For instance, the introduction of Freshdesk as a Free Helpdesk Ticketing system achieved massive success due to the clear identification of a team within a company that required a specific product. With the right niche on the horizon, it becomes easier to identify business demands as well. With the aim to resolve a problem that a specific end-consumer faces, businesses can create a product that delivers quality. This was the secret of Freshworks. Every product is hell-bent on customer experiences, and the quality it requires for the customers to become brand advocates. Targeting the team spirit of an enterprise proved more valuable than pitching an idea to the CEOs and board executives. Through increased familiarity with the product, the business nudges a user to take action and refer their colleagues. A business can then realize their ideal customer and pursue those leads with more valuable and contextual services.

Product management enabling increased connectivity

The biggest win for startups is when their product can enable increased connectivity. Girish Mathrubootham credits the growth of his product into a million-dollar revenue stream, to the product management of Freshworks. They pursued the team workflow automation with a vigorous inclusion of newer product features during the customer’s experience. With a clear understanding of customers requirements, you can tailor the features of your product to stand out and meet their exact demands. With an increasing number of companies and individuals adopting technology for improved workflow, product execution is crucial to their experiences. Businesses developing SaaS products should be aware of the multi-purpose functionality of Product-Led Growth. Another aspect of product management that the CEO of Freshworks explored was the pricing strategy. Without the correct pricing strategy, the product cannot be expressed well enough.

A winning pricing strategy!

The pricing strategy should reflect the ease of access your product enables for users. Making a free trial available can be used to introduce new features along the way. Users should recognize the value of the product step by step, until they reach a point where they become a customer. Freshworks made the product interface simple and attractive. When professionals were offered a free trial, they couldn’t get enough! When your product has the end-user in mind, you will think of increased connectivity. By making your product design focused on increased connectivity, you can cover more ground in the target market. The real power of Product-Led Growth is when more people collaborate on a product to make work easier. With a Product-Led Growth strategy, you can lead more people to collaborate with each other, utilizing your product and its many features as the bait.

Data-driven strategies for improved user-experiences

From the launch of any product, every aspect of user behavior should be thoroughly analyzed. This keen eye for detail revealed the leadership of Girish Mathrubootham’s success with Freshworks. At every point across a marketing plan, the company gained direct access to user data and user experiences. The users are kept in the loop with new features that make their lives easier. The goal of effective product management is to stay updated with every user’s experience and implement strategies that are specific to the user interest in your brand. Your product may start as a personal download and end up being used by an entire team. A team might adopt the product and inspire their colleagues to invest in the technology. This is what ensued with Freshworks when they introduced a simple workflow management system that evolved into a full-fledged CRM. In fact, the popularity of Freshworks and their products is taking the market by storm with an innovative Product-Led Growth strategy. Essentially, a great product design shows the understanding of user experiences. SaaS products should build value along the customer journey with unique and worthwhile features. According to the experts from the SaaSBOOMi conference, your goal as a SaaS entrepreneur is to maintain quality and generate favorability among users. Outline the objectives of your product execution and streamline the interface to suit user demand. Constantly improving the user experience will increase customer retention. The more that people want to interact with your product features, the more your product gains momentum in the market. Freshworks under the founding leadership of Girish Mathrubootham is a clear indication of the success that Product-Led Growth can enable businesses worldwide.

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The Product-Led Growth conference was an eye-opening exploration of the concepts that fuel business success through a Product-Led growth strategy. The conference was split into segments featuring industry experts and tech leaders that are driving success through Product-centric Go-To-Market methods. Girish Mathrubootham, CEO and Founder of Freshworks, was introduced to share his insights on “The fundamentals of Product Led Growth” and kickstart the event. Strategic product execution and management is the key to facilitating Product-Led growth, Girish said. He built Freshworks to become a  powerhouse of innovation that continues to deliver exceptional products for workflow automation. The success of Freshworks is the basis upon which Girish kicked off the SaaSBOOMi conference, to educate the audience and his fellow associates on successful entrepreneurship. In this article, we have tried to break down the concept of Product-Led Growth into easily digestible nuggets.

What is Product Led Growth?

In conventional business strategy, sales and marketing teams work together in an enterprise to nurture and convert prospects into customers. Sales-Led Growth involves dedicated personnel constantly chasing after potential customers with a product. In this event, the customer doesn’t have direct access to the unique selling point of the product. A customer only knows what the sales representative is trying to sell. This is where Product-Led Growth can be leveraged to introduce a new solution to the customer’s need, in the form of a product that’s designed to be self-served in nature. Girish Mathrubootham states that Product-Led Growth utilizes the product as the marketing asset required to nudge prospects through the marketing funnel. Customers gain direct access to the features of a product and thereby make a more informed purchase decision. By eliminating cold calls and meetings, you can give customers hands-on access to the various features of your product. You can enable effective product execution in the market of your choice from there. The product design will determine whether the customer continues to use your product or not. The success of Freshworks was attributed to constantly nurturing the customer with product features. Businesses can gain a better grip on the user experience through a Product-Led growth approach. Girish implies that the application of Product-Led Growth is expansive, especially for start-ups with limited investment capital but a good product to offer. So how is the Product-Led Growth strategy employed?

How to use a product for every step of the marketing funnel?

If you can showcase your product’s features well, you will gather more interest in your brand. Product-Led Growth leverages internet services and remote marketing practices to generate leads. Girish Mathrubootham ornately ran through the conceptualization of business strategy in line with product management and execution of his company, Freshworks. He mentioned that today, it’s easier for teams to invest in an idea that they think is brilliant. You don’t have to go through the CEO to sell a product that helps customers. Building a SaaS product can be done from anywhere in the world. The approach of Product-ed Growth strategy caters to a unique segment within an enterprise. Online marketing has enabled access to this niche market and technology has automated many enterprise functions. With access to specific teams, Product-Led Growth strategy is more likely to reach your target market quicker than Sales-Led Growth that targets the decision-maker in a company. Girish went on to explore how Product-Led Growth benefits businesses and the end-consumers as well.

Identifying the niche within an organization

Product-Led Growth is a model of scaling your business by using the product across multiple business verticals. You pitch the product to a customer and analyze their response. Once they use your product, the chances of them doing business with you are higher. You can find out what’s lacking and how to improve along the way. A business can implement new features and configurations while the user is getting familiar with the software. Since the product is designed for a specific business function, the teams involved are the decision makers. Buyer power is translated to varying functions within the company and not just the management. For instance, the introduction of Freshdesk as a Free Helpdesk Ticketing system achieved massive success due to the clear identification of a team within a company that required a specific product. With the right niche on the horizon, it becomes easier to identify business demands as well. With the aim to resolve a problem that a specific end-consumer faces, businesses can create a product that delivers quality. This was the secret of Freshworks. Every product is hell-bent on customer experiences, and the quality it requires for the customers to become brand advocates. Targeting the team spirit of an enterprise proved more valuable than pitching an idea to the CEOs and board executives. Through increased familiarity with the product, the business nudges a user to take action and refer their colleagues. A business can then realize their ideal customer and pursue those leads with more valuable and contextual services.

Product management enabling increased connectivity

The biggest win for startups is when their product can enable increased connectivity. Girish Mathrubootham credits the growth of his product into a million-dollar revenue stream, to the product management of Freshworks. They pursued the team workflow automation with a vigorous inclusion of newer product features during the customer’s experience. With a clear understanding of customers requirements, you can tailor the features of your product to stand out and meet their exact demands. With an increasing number of companies and individuals adopting technology for improved workflow, product execution is crucial to their experiences. Businesses developing SaaS products should be aware of the multi-purpose functionality of Product-Led Growth. Another aspect of product management that the CEO of Freshworks explored was the pricing strategy. Without the correct pricing strategy, the product cannot be expressed well enough.

A winning pricing strategy!

The pricing strategy should reflect the ease of access your product enables for users. Making a free trial available can be used to introduce new features along the way. Users should recognize the value of the product step by step, until they reach a point where they become a customer. Freshworks made the product interface simple and attractive. When professionals were offered a free trial, they couldn’t get enough! When your product has the end-user in mind, you will think of increased connectivity. By making your product design focused on increased connectivity, you can cover more ground in the target market. The real power of Product-Led Growth is when more people collaborate on a product to make work easier. With a Product-Led Growth strategy, you can lead more people to collaborate with each other, utilizing your product and its many features as the bait.

Data-driven strategies for improved user-experiences

From the launch of any product, every aspect of user behavior should be thoroughly analyzed. This keen eye for detail revealed the leadership of Girish Mathrubootham’s success with Freshworks. At every point across a marketing plan, the company gained direct access to user data and user experiences. The users are kept in the loop with new features that make their lives easier. The goal of effective product management is to stay updated with every user’s experience and implement strategies that are specific to the user interest in your brand. Your product may start as a personal download and end up being used by an entire team. A team might adopt the product and inspire their colleagues to invest in the technology. This is what ensued with Freshworks when they introduced a simple workflow management system that evolved into a full-fledged CRM. In fact, the popularity of Freshworks and their products is taking the market by storm with an innovative Product-Led Growth strategy. Essentially, a great product design shows the understanding of user experiences. SaaS products should build value along the customer journey with unique and worthwhile features. According to the experts from the SaaSBOOMi conference, your goal as a SaaS entrepreneur is to maintain quality and generate favorability among users. Outline the objectives of your product execution and streamline the interface to suit user demand. Constantly improving the user experience will increase customer retention. The more that people want to interact with your product features, the more your product gains momentum in the market. Freshworks under the founding leadership of Girish Mathrubootham is a clear indication of the success that Product-Led Growth can enable businesses worldwide.

" } }

Why founders and startups need to mindfully shape their org culture from Day Zero

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A group of people working together to assemble office furniture—a simple enough task, but when the group is the newly-forged team of a newly-launched startup, something as simple as putting together furniture gets infused with profound meaning. In fact, it can be the freshly sowed seeds of organisational culture—getting things done and not waiting around for others to do the task. As this ‘first principle’ gets reinforced over time in the seemingly small acts and decisions taken by founders, team leaders and others, it becomes a part of the company DNA, a part of how things are done here. When every action, decision, and choice that a founder takes right from the beginning of a startup’s journey directly or indirectly shapes the organisational culture, how can founders mindfully build it? Is that at all possible and is it important? That’s what I attempt to decipher here. The assembling-office-furniture anecdote is a real-life example that Anand Jain, Co-founder of SaaS-based customer lifecycle management and mobile marketing company CleverTap, shared with me. “In the early days we operated out of a two-bhk in Mumbai. When we ordered furniture, the furniture company slotted the assembly a week after delivery. But we, the early team members, wanted to do it then and so we assembled it all, tables, chairs and bookcases, ourselves. We loved it. We did it together. We had a sense of accomplishment. We didn’t wait around,” Anand recalled.

[caption id="attachment_1939" align="aligncenter" width="620"] Anand Jain, Co-founder at CleverTap[/caption]

This inclination to taking ownership and getting things done has remained with CleverTap even as it has scaled. Today, ‘be urgent and take initiative’ is one of the six values that CleverTap expects its team members to live by. What this example clearly illustrates is that a company’s values and culture get formed right from the start.

Culture = Performance

Every founder and HR head I speak to regarding culture agrees that an organisation’s culture has a direct impact on growth and business deliverables.

“At the end of the day, culture is all about how we work together. It has a very direct impact on performance. Culture is not just about how you treat people. It manifests itself in how you behave as a company. If you truly want to be a world-class company, culture needs to drive this,” says Suman Gopalan, Chief HR Officer at SaaS Unicorn Freshworks.

[caption id="attachment_1940" align="alignnone" width="1280"] Suman Gopalan, Chief HR Officer at Freshworks[/caption]

Most importantly an organisation’s culture sets the tone and pace of how employees there work together. We define certain companies as ‘aggressive’, others as ‘people-focused, and still others as ‘hierarchy-driven’. These descriptors are derived from the working style of an organisation, which is nothing but its culture.  But, why has organisational culture become such an important talking point for founders and HR functions now? Just think of how companies have changed and transformed over the years. In an earlier era and in more traditional industries, hierarchy, top-down decision making, and following set processes were valued. That’s not the case today. Tech companies thrive on innovation, on creatively using technology to solve challenges in ways that have not been done before. For that to happen the organisation of today needs to be very different from the models of the past. We have seen tech majors globally, like Apple and Google, making their ‘new style of working’ an important part of business strategy. A lot of this new style was a matter of happenstance and experimentation. Culture was considered as something that evolved organically over a few years, with the ‘pathways’ the founders, leaders and employees of a startup used most commonly to interact, to collaborate and to get work done becoming the only trodden ‘roads’. But, in recent years founders are flipping this. They are as mindful about culture as they are about product right from the start. Amit Mishra, Founder and CEO of skills assessment platform iMocha, in fact says culture is what is “most important”. He says if the right culture isn’t internalised “culture will eat strategy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

[caption id="attachment_1941" align="aligncenter" width="414"] Amit Mishra, Co-founder & CEO of iMocha[/caption]

There is a universality to the most desired features in today’s product-tech companies.  Openness, transparency, ownership, readily voicing opinions and ideas, working with full commitment towards common goals even in situations of disagreements, aggressiveness in terms of results, humility in interpersonal interactions—these are some of the oft-repeated values or principles, with minor variations, that we hear. The hope is that such a culture fosters innovation. But, how do companies ensure all employees imbibe these values? While each startup and founder has their own ‘methods’, I realised during my conversations with founders and HR professionals that a few common points stood out.

It all starts with the founder. A startup’s culture is a reflection of the founder’s personality. In the early days when the founder is the source code of everything to do with a startup, it isn’t surprising that the organisation almost becomes an extension of the founder(s).

“In the early stage, a company takes on the characteristics of the founders. If founders are slightly acerbic then the company culture becomes like that. As the leadership team evolves, so does the culture with the working styles of the new leaders also becoming a part of the culture,” says Niraj of Hiver.

[caption id="attachment_1942" align="aligncenter" width="459"] Niraj Ranjan Rout, Founder & CEO at Hiver[/caption]

Founders need to pay close attention to the values and principles they are projecting right from the early days. Further, founders need to consider the new working styles senior hires bring to the table. What works for the startup needs to be soaked up and what is detrimental needs to be cut down before it takes root. Even after a company scales and moves from the early-stage to growth stage and beyond, the behaviour of the Founder or CEO remains critical. “Culture starts with the Founder/CEO, because ultimately how you shape culture is how you shape behaviour. People look up to the leader and he or she is the biggest ambassador of culture. They have to live it and founders have to be mindful of it,” says Suman of Freshworks.

Define your values and principles

In the early days, as founders focus on product, market, customers, sales and strategy, culture gets put on the backburner. Or the thought is that the team will understand what behaviour is prized and what isn’t. But, between the focus on scale and rapid growth and the minutiae of daily micro-decisions, the values and first principles get forgotten or ignored, especially when they have never been articulated. If a new senior hire has a very different style of working from the norm, how do you decide whether it ‘fits’? To get this understanding—what works and what doesn’t—it is necessary for the founders to have a clear idea of what culture they definitely want to encourage. “In about 18 to 24 months our team grew from around 15 people to 100. It was at this stage, when we were going through team expansion, that we sat down and clearly defined what our culture stood for. We had this conversation on how conflict needs to be handled, how feedback should be given, especially how positivity needs to be used while providing feedback and other such points. These conversations are important,” says Niraj. Hiver has a clear set of values it lives by, but does not really have a document listing this out. Others like Freshworks and CleverTap have a set of values that are documented and reinforced in multiple ways, from being put on office walls to being part of training programmes. Whichever method you choose, saying out loud the principles on which the startup will be built is absolutely necessary. 

[caption id="attachment_1943" align="aligncenter" width="493"] The CleverTap team in the days before pandemic-led work-from-home[/caption]

To a certain extent, the company’s values or principles are a codification of the founder’s personality or what he/she prioritises. When founders cannot be part of every discussion or be in every meeting room, the values should stand in their stead and inform the employees on what is the right thing to do or the right way to achieve a task.

Culture is part of business

Culture is not about what employees do when they are not working. At the risk of repetition, it is about how employees get work done. It is in the day-to-day interactions and communication, it is in how decisions are made and communicated, it is in how a team member is hired or even let go, and it is in how critical feedback is provided.

[caption id="attachment_1944" align="aligncenter" width="489"] A meeting in progress at the Hiver office, in pre-Covid days[/caption]

Values or principles are not really about morals or even ethics. While they may be derived from ethics or morals, an organisation’s values and principles need to be linked to business. The values should be able to act as guides when an employee needs to make a business decision or a choice. For instance, one of the six values CleverTap extols is ‘be humble and seek to learn’. On its own, it may seem removed from business. But, the intent is to ground decision making and communication in humility. This helps minimise conflict. “We have been growing very fast and we are very aggressive in terms of growth and targets. But we are very humble in our day-to-day interactions. The message from the co-founders is clear, it is fine to be demanding performance, but no one has the right to not be humble,” says Prashant Parashar, Chief Human Resources Officer at CleverTap.

[caption id="attachment_1945" align="aligncenter" width="345"] Prashant Parashar, Chief Human Resources Officer at CleverTap[/caption]

It is particularly important, from the product-tech startup perspective, to link values to fostering product thinking and innovation. For instance, at Hiver, transparency is an important value. Niraj explains that it is expected that any employee should be able to explain why they took a specific decision. If a colleague had made a feature request on Slack and if that feature has not been included, then the Product head is expected to give clear reasoning on why that decision was taken. “When everyone is accountable, it leads to positivity and productivity. There is a visible and direct impact on the product, as what to build and what not to build is well thought out because we are all answerable,” says Niraj.

Culture needs constant tending

Putting up the stated values on the walls of the office is not enough. “Culture is not inherited, it is learnt. You consciously build and create culture. People come from different backgrounds, so what you consciously do, communicate and practise daily that is what becomes your culture,” says CleverTap’s Prashant. Anand adds that culture needs to be reinforced. The point is culture is almost invisible—culture is acted out and sometimes it is in the little things. Like, taking a team member aside to give negative sounding feedback in private and offering guidance and mentorship so they improve. Aakanksha Gaur, Senior Manager-People at Wingify whose flagship product is used to optimise digital customer experience, says that culture has a short-term memory. “Culture has to be supported by rituals. Culture is an emergent set of behaviours that arise out of people with a shared set of beliefs that are strengthened over time by repetition (rituals),” says Aakanksha, who is on a sabbatical right now.

[caption id="attachment_1946" align="aligncenter" width="459"] Snapshot from the Wingify team outing to Phuket in Thailand in 2019[/caption]

She explains how people are at the heart of Wingify and this is reflected in the company’s decisions. For instance, the company took the initial team of less than 10 people to an all-expenses-paid year-end trip to Goa. This ritual continued in 2019 even when the team grew to 200. Similarly, the company was among the first in the country to announce WFH when the first cases of Covid-19 were reported in the country in early-2020. It also announced a specific Covid-linked leave policy and an allowance to set up a work-from-home space. In fact, Wingify has also declared its intention to remain a remote-first organisation even after the pandemic. This need to keep reinforcing values is repeated by others. iMocha’s Amit shares that the company makes a conscious effort to ensure their culture of ‘work happy’ is being practised. “We have a fortnightly culture meeting named ‘mocha forum’ to discuss this openly and transparently…It (work happy) is a conscious choice. I strongly believe at iMocha, professional journey and destination both should be enjoyable, rewarding, and celebrative,” says Amit.

[caption id="attachment_1947" align="aligncenter" width="494"] iMocha employees taking part in Yoga Day[/caption]

Culture needs to be selective

When negative behaviours or character traits go hand in hand with bad performance the founders do not face any doubts on what to do. But what happens when a high performer who is getting results, at least in the short term, is exhibiting behaviours that do not fit the values of the company? This is one of the biggest challenges a founder will face—how does a startup deal with ‘brilliant jerks’.  The consensus, unsurprisingly, is that it is best to nip such behaviour in the bud. When such behaviours are tolerated or ignored, it causes friction in the short term and negative impact on business in the long term. What’s worse is this undesired behaviour can become part of the company culture if left unchecked. However, we have seen numerous instances of such individuals getting tolerated and even celebrated in many companies, which goes to show how tough a decision it is to rein in such behaviour. “I have learnt the hard way that cultural fit is more important than short term results. In the industry, brilliant jerks may bring results but they rub people the wrong way. When such behaviour is tolerated, it shows that culture is not as important for the company as is being said. That sends the wrong message. Culture is sacrosanct. I would let those guys go quickly. You are doing a disservice to your company by letting things slip or tolerating behaviour that does not meet your values. From a business perspective, it is important that the stars be team players,” says Anand of CleverTap. In the final analysis, culture should be as important as a business strategy right from the start. As Suman of Freshworks says, “Don’t let culture happen to you. It is not an aspirational poster. It is your DNA; it is how you work together and it manifests as behaviours and norms. Just like DNA is a part of you when you are born, culture starts from day zero.”

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A group of people working together to assemble office furniture—a simple enough task, but when the group is the newly-forged team of a newly-launched startup, something as simple as putting together furniture gets infused with profound meaning. In fact, it can be the freshly sowed seeds of organisational culture—getting things done and not waiting around for others to do the task. As this ‘first principle’ gets reinforced over time in the seemingly small acts and decisions taken by founders, team leaders and others, it becomes a part of the company DNA, a part of how things are done here. When every action, decision, and choice that a founder takes right from the beginning of a startup’s journey directly or indirectly shapes the organisational culture, how can founders mindfully build it? Is that at all possible and is it important? That’s what I attempt to decipher here. The assembling-office-furniture anecdote is a real-life example that Anand Jain, Co-founder of SaaS-based customer lifecycle management and mobile marketing company CleverTap, shared with me. “In the early days we operated out of a two-bhk in Mumbai. When we ordered furniture, the furniture company slotted the assembly a week after delivery. But we, the early team members, wanted to do it then and so we assembled it all, tables, chairs and bookcases, ourselves. We loved it. We did it together. We had a sense of accomplishment. We didn’t wait around,” Anand recalled.

[caption id="attachment_1939" align="aligncenter" width="620"] Anand Jain, Co-founder at CleverTap[/caption]

This inclination to taking ownership and getting things done has remained with CleverTap even as it has scaled. Today, ‘be urgent and take initiative’ is one of the six values that CleverTap expects its team members to live by. What this example clearly illustrates is that a company’s values and culture get formed right from the start.

Culture = Performance

Every founder and HR head I speak to regarding culture agrees that an organisation’s culture has a direct impact on growth and business deliverables.

“At the end of the day, culture is all about how we work together. It has a very direct impact on performance. Culture is not just about how you treat people. It manifests itself in how you behave as a company. If you truly want to be a world-class company, culture needs to drive this,” says Suman Gopalan, Chief HR Officer at SaaS Unicorn Freshworks.

[caption id="attachment_1940" align="alignnone" width="1280"] Suman Gopalan, Chief HR Officer at Freshworks[/caption]

Most importantly an organisation’s culture sets the tone and pace of how employees there work together. We define certain companies as ‘aggressive’, others as ‘people-focused, and still others as ‘hierarchy-driven’. These descriptors are derived from the working style of an organisation, which is nothing but its culture.  But, why has organisational culture become such an important talking point for founders and HR functions now? Just think of how companies have changed and transformed over the years. In an earlier era and in more traditional industries, hierarchy, top-down decision making, and following set processes were valued. That’s not the case today. Tech companies thrive on innovation, on creatively using technology to solve challenges in ways that have not been done before. For that to happen the organisation of today needs to be very different from the models of the past. We have seen tech majors globally, like Apple and Google, making their ‘new style of working’ an important part of business strategy. A lot of this new style was a matter of happenstance and experimentation. Culture was considered as something that evolved organically over a few years, with the ‘pathways’ the founders, leaders and employees of a startup used most commonly to interact, to collaborate and to get work done becoming the only trodden ‘roads’. But, in recent years founders are flipping this. They are as mindful about culture as they are about product right from the start. Amit Mishra, Founder and CEO of skills assessment platform iMocha, in fact says culture is what is “most important”. He says if the right culture isn’t internalised “culture will eat strategy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

[caption id="attachment_1941" align="aligncenter" width="414"] Amit Mishra, Co-founder & CEO of iMocha[/caption]

There is a universality to the most desired features in today’s product-tech companies.  Openness, transparency, ownership, readily voicing opinions and ideas, working with full commitment towards common goals even in situations of disagreements, aggressiveness in terms of results, humility in interpersonal interactions—these are some of the oft-repeated values or principles, with minor variations, that we hear. The hope is that such a culture fosters innovation. But, how do companies ensure all employees imbibe these values? While each startup and founder has their own ‘methods’, I realised during my conversations with founders and HR professionals that a few common points stood out.

It all starts with the founder. A startup’s culture is a reflection of the founder’s personality. In the early days when the founder is the source code of everything to do with a startup, it isn’t surprising that the organisation almost becomes an extension of the founder(s).

“In the early stage, a company takes on the characteristics of the founders. If founders are slightly acerbic then the company culture becomes like that. As the leadership team evolves, so does the culture with the working styles of the new leaders also becoming a part of the culture,” says Niraj of Hiver.

[caption id="attachment_1942" align="aligncenter" width="459"] Niraj Ranjan Rout, Founder & CEO at Hiver[/caption]

Founders need to pay close attention to the values and principles they are projecting right from the early days. Further, founders need to consider the new working styles senior hires bring to the table. What works for the startup needs to be soaked up and what is detrimental needs to be cut down before it takes root. Even after a company scales and moves from the early-stage to growth stage and beyond, the behaviour of the Founder or CEO remains critical. “Culture starts with the Founder/CEO, because ultimately how you shape culture is how you shape behaviour. People look up to the leader and he or she is the biggest ambassador of culture. They have to live it and founders have to be mindful of it,” says Suman of Freshworks.

Define your values and principles

In the early days, as founders focus on product, market, customers, sales and strategy, culture gets put on the backburner. Or the thought is that the team will understand what behaviour is prized and what isn’t. But, between the focus on scale and rapid growth and the minutiae of daily micro-decisions, the values and first principles get forgotten or ignored, especially when they have never been articulated. If a new senior hire has a very different style of working from the norm, how do you decide whether it ‘fits’? To get this understanding—what works and what doesn’t—it is necessary for the founders to have a clear idea of what culture they definitely want to encourage. “In about 18 to 24 months our team grew from around 15 people to 100. It was at this stage, when we were going through team expansion, that we sat down and clearly defined what our culture stood for. We had this conversation on how conflict needs to be handled, how feedback should be given, especially how positivity needs to be used while providing feedback and other such points. These conversations are important,” says Niraj. Hiver has a clear set of values it lives by, but does not really have a document listing this out. Others like Freshworks and CleverTap have a set of values that are documented and reinforced in multiple ways, from being put on office walls to being part of training programmes. Whichever method you choose, saying out loud the principles on which the startup will be built is absolutely necessary. 

[caption id="attachment_1943" align="aligncenter" width="493"] The CleverTap team in the days before pandemic-led work-from-home[/caption]

To a certain extent, the company’s values or principles are a codification of the founder’s personality or what he/she prioritises. When founders cannot be part of every discussion or be in every meeting room, the values should stand in their stead and inform the employees on what is the right thing to do or the right way to achieve a task.

Culture is part of business

Culture is not about what employees do when they are not working. At the risk of repetition, it is about how employees get work done. It is in the day-to-day interactions and communication, it is in how decisions are made and communicated, it is in how a team member is hired or even let go, and it is in how critical feedback is provided.

[caption id="attachment_1944" align="aligncenter" width="489"] A meeting in progress at the Hiver office, in pre-Covid days[/caption]

Values or principles are not really about morals or even ethics. While they may be derived from ethics or morals, an organisation’s values and principles need to be linked to business. The values should be able to act as guides when an employee needs to make a business decision or a choice. For instance, one of the six values CleverTap extols is ‘be humble and seek to learn’. On its own, it may seem removed from business. But, the intent is to ground decision making and communication in humility. This helps minimise conflict. “We have been growing very fast and we are very aggressive in terms of growth and targets. But we are very humble in our day-to-day interactions. The message from the co-founders is clear, it is fine to be demanding performance, but no one has the right to not be humble,” says Prashant Parashar, Chief Human Resources Officer at CleverTap.

[caption id="attachment_1945" align="aligncenter" width="345"] Prashant Parashar, Chief Human Resources Officer at CleverTap[/caption]

It is particularly important, from the product-tech startup perspective, to link values to fostering product thinking and innovation. For instance, at Hiver, transparency is an important value. Niraj explains that it is expected that any employee should be able to explain why they took a specific decision. If a colleague had made a feature request on Slack and if that feature has not been included, then the Product head is expected to give clear reasoning on why that decision was taken. “When everyone is accountable, it leads to positivity and productivity. There is a visible and direct impact on the product, as what to build and what not to build is well thought out because we are all answerable,” says Niraj.

Culture needs constant tending

Putting up the stated values on the walls of the office is not enough. “Culture is not inherited, it is learnt. You consciously build and create culture. People come from different backgrounds, so what you consciously do, communicate and practise daily that is what becomes your culture,” says CleverTap’s Prashant. Anand adds that culture needs to be reinforced. The point is culture is almost invisible—culture is acted out and sometimes it is in the little things. Like, taking a team member aside to give negative sounding feedback in private and offering guidance and mentorship so they improve. Aakanksha Gaur, Senior Manager-People at Wingify whose flagship product is used to optimise digital customer experience, says that culture has a short-term memory. “Culture has to be supported by rituals. Culture is an emergent set of behaviours that arise out of people with a shared set of beliefs that are strengthened over time by repetition (rituals),” says Aakanksha, who is on a sabbatical right now.

[caption id="attachment_1946" align="aligncenter" width="459"] Snapshot from the Wingify team outing to Phuket in Thailand in 2019[/caption]

She explains how people are at the heart of Wingify and this is reflected in the company’s decisions. For instance, the company took the initial team of less than 10 people to an all-expenses-paid year-end trip to Goa. This ritual continued in 2019 even when the team grew to 200. Similarly, the company was among the first in the country to announce WFH when the first cases of Covid-19 were reported in the country in early-2020. It also announced a specific Covid-linked leave policy and an allowance to set up a work-from-home space. In fact, Wingify has also declared its intention to remain a remote-first organisation even after the pandemic. This need to keep reinforcing values is repeated by others. iMocha’s Amit shares that the company makes a conscious effort to ensure their culture of ‘work happy’ is being practised. “We have a fortnightly culture meeting named ‘mocha forum’ to discuss this openly and transparently…It (work happy) is a conscious choice. I strongly believe at iMocha, professional journey and destination both should be enjoyable, rewarding, and celebrative,” says Amit.

[caption id="attachment_1947" align="aligncenter" width="494"] iMocha employees taking part in Yoga Day[/caption]

Culture needs to be selective

When negative behaviours or character traits go hand in hand with bad performance the founders do not face any doubts on what to do. But what happens when a high performer who is getting results, at least in the short term, is exhibiting behaviours that do not fit the values of the company? This is one of the biggest challenges a founder will face—how does a startup deal with ‘brilliant jerks’.  The consensus, unsurprisingly, is that it is best to nip such behaviour in the bud. When such behaviours are tolerated or ignored, it causes friction in the short term and negative impact on business in the long term. What’s worse is this undesired behaviour can become part of the company culture if left unchecked. However, we have seen numerous instances of such individuals getting tolerated and even celebrated in many companies, which goes to show how tough a decision it is to rein in such behaviour. “I have learnt the hard way that cultural fit is more important than short term results. In the industry, brilliant jerks may bring results but they rub people the wrong way. When such behaviour is tolerated, it shows that culture is not as important for the company as is being said. That sends the wrong message. Culture is sacrosanct. I would let those guys go quickly. You are doing a disservice to your company by letting things slip or tolerating behaviour that does not meet your values. From a business perspective, it is important that the stars be team players,” says Anand of CleverTap. In the final analysis, culture should be as important as a business strategy right from the start. As Suman of Freshworks says, “Don’t let culture happen to you. It is not an aspirational poster. It is your DNA; it is how you work together and it manifests as behaviours and norms. Just like DNA is a part of you when you are born, culture starts from day zero.”

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AMA with Varun Shoor: Bootstrapping Lessons for Startups

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Varun Shoor is the Founder of Kayako, a customer service software company based in London, United Kingdom. Varun started in 2001, bootstrapped the company, and exited in 2018. Kayako was acquired by ESW Capital. And this is how it all started. Varun came across a product called wonder desk and decided to make an open-source version. But then he saw the opportunity to build a company out of it and ended up doing just that. He chose to go with product-led growth (PLG), though that was not the term so prevalent in those days. He in fact has a running joke as part of SaasBoomi GrowthX that product led growth means that you don’t really know why you are growing. For him PLG led to SERP rankings, word of mouth and a bit of virality powered by links. But he got comfortable with his profits along the way and growth stagnated. Finally, he decided to shift base to the UK because his co-founder was there, it was closer and he feared the company would collapse if he was in a 12-hour time zone. Operating from the UK he could focus on India from 9AM to 1PM and US from 1PM to 6PM. This was a benefit of GMT he realised only when he started operating from there. Come 2018 and Kayako was acquired, and now he is ready to take a go at starting a new venture again. He is also associated with SaasBoomi GrowthX initiative, a unique personalised, 16-weeks coaching program for startups. In a SaasBoomi Slack Ask-Me-Anything session, he answered questions about product marketing, positioning, building teams and challenges faced by entrepreneurs and first-time founders. If you plan to bootstrap your latest SaaS idea or product, dive straight in.

Advice to new entrepreneurs

If you are building a product in a new category, get comfortable with making profits. Focus on the lead you have in the category because you are the first one. You will be able to build something much bigger than just a profit-making company. Most coder-entrepreneurs focus on the tech side of the venture, but that’s the biggest mistake. As the founder you must concentrate on the business side from day one. You cannot do everything yourself, so build a leadership team quickly. At the same time, however good the team, never abdicate leadership completely. It’s your baby and you must always be there to provide direction. Positioning is one of the single most important things that can make or break a startup. As an entrepreneur, you must learn all about positioning, pricing and messaging. That is something he does aggressively in the GrowthX program as well. If you get your product marketing right, it is possible to sell to mid-market even when your initial customers are enterprise. Zendesk is a good example here; it sells to both startups and enterprises with very crisp pricing and packaging. Reading and learning should be an important part of any entrepreneur’s journey. Some of the books he recommends, for both personal and business development, are 12 Rules for Life, Play Bigger, Positioning by Al Ries and Obviously Awesome. And these are things he wished someone had told him before starting out:

1. Every opportunity has a limited window. It opens and shuts. Don’t get lazy and assume the growth will continue or the channel that’s worked before will.
2. Life gives you more than one opportunity. So, if one has shut, the other one opens as long as you pursue it
3. Early success is a lousy teacher.
4. Build a tight ship from the beginning. Hire well and fire fast.
5. Don’t ignore the legal paperwork! Or you might just get the most expensive degree in law like me!!
6. Pursue growth. Growth hides all failure. Everything else is vanity.

Bootstrapped vs VC

The VC story is so enticing that one can get caught up in building a bootstrapped company like a VC one. This is the biggest mistake that bootstrapped companies can make, according to Varun. A bootstrapped company shouldn’t try to be a VC company and a VC company shouldn’t try to be bootstrapped. For bootstrapped companies the primary goal should be returns for the shareholders, i.e., the founders. In that case even exit won’t be necessary. However, entrepreneurs deserve financial security and independence, so keeping exit or cashing out (if bootstrapped) should be kept in mind.

Pull product vs push

Depending upon the existing market demand, there are two kinds of products – push products and pull products. Pull products are those where the market pulls the product from your hand and for push products you have to sell the problem. Obviously, having a pull product is a good place to be in.  Kayako was a pull product because the webhostingtalk.com community was eager to adopt the product. For it the growth just happened. The early adopters came in droves and volume had to be ignored. Push products require a more nuanced approach where at least one of the founders should have industry experience and market research should be proactive. Intercom is one of the SaaS companies he wished he had founded, because of the way they built their product. He says,

I am in awe of the machine that was built late into the story and executed to perfection.

After Kayako was acquired in 2018, Varun himself started work on building in an existing category and then became disillusioned really quickly. He realised that inventing things, spotting patterns in an industry and creating a pull-based product was what fascinated him and that is what he will probably do next.

Building a team for success

The team building must start with the founding team. In an ideal world you should have a product person, a tech person and a chief marketer (aka the CEO) in the founding team. Varun advises filling the tech role the first as knowledge handover becomes progressively difficult as the company ages. Next comes the marketing role and then product. Either of these can come before the other depending upon the strength of the other team members.

Team building mistakes to avoid

One should never hire friends and relatives, or just for the logo where they worked previously. A bigger mistake would be to keep them on even when they prove themselves to be a dud. Varun says:

Biggest mistakes bootstrapped companies make are in firing. I have noticed dead wood tends to accumulate more in bootstrapped vs funded as the accountability is lower and excuses more.

Building teams from within

Varun is a big fan of building teams from within. And probably that was the reason Kayako was such a success at creating a truly global company where continuous knowledge sharing happened. People in India learned from the best in the UK and US. They also regularly flew people around but from west to east and east to west. That culture was something really special and missed by those who moved on from Kayako. It also supported organic growth like nothing else. For instance, when they started no one knew what SaaS was, yet they figured out together.  Varun is proud of the team he nurtured because a lot of ex-Kayakers have gone on to do great things, with two companies – Customersuccessbox and Slintelbeing, both funded – founded by ex-Kayakers.

Typical challenges faced by a startup

Varun feels that all the top business challenges are internal to you – related to mindset and idea execution. But that’s fodder for discussion another day. Here he sets out two external challenges:

1. Setting a really high bar for execution: And being unable to meet them. This, he feels, is a real problem because founders tend to start big. Ideally, they should start small and the “big” place is where they eventually should be. Citing his own example, he shares that Kayako was out-executed by Zendesk and they struggled to get the same marketing and product machine going. Eventually Varun had to move to the UK to get things moving the way he envisaged.
2. Not knowing anything about marketing: Varun himself was a tech CEO who didn’t understand marketing. Changing his outlook to marketing and then aligning the company was very challenging. He feels that all founders must understand marketing before they start. Because as the founder their main objective should be to sell the product.

Selling globally from India

Varun shifted base to the UK as a result of what he calls a ‘Hail Mary’ decision. He spent five years there, which transformed him completely. But he feels moving base is a very personal decision and there’s no right or wrong to this. Being closer to customers always helps but it is possible to successfully sell globally from India. Appear international: Varun advises appearing international from the beginning. They should feel it’s a company in Austin or SF. This means your messaging should feel American, your photos should feel American, your design should feel American. This was the #1 transformation he took for PipeCandy.com when they joined GrowthX. He gave the company an American look and it worked; all major metrics accelerated. Build a truly international team: For building a truly international team, Varun advises account executives, content marketing and product marketing hires in the west. And keeping engineering, SDR/BDR, customer support and success in India. Price right: Since you now have a bigger playing field, pricing must be right, else it’s very easy for the prospects to move away. Get the TOFU right: If you focus on large lead volumes, without creating pressures for the visitors, you will almost always convert. It’s not rocket science; all you need is a bit of patience and willingness to experiment. Focus on PPC from the beginning: Varun feels that Kayako missed the boat on PPC because initially they were not spending on marketing. He strongly recommends all startups to get their PPC funnel going because with PPC there’s a small window of opportunity; once the keywords become expensive, it’s lost!

Acquisition Lessons

Varun had not started Kayako with an aim to cash out. It did not feature in his priorities very late in the journey, and this is what he really did about it: I decided to sell. Engaged a banker, SignalHill and now DCS Advisor…Got a few term sheets…Few were pulled at last minute and I took the only attractive one out of them…Was tired and wanted to move on. But this taught him many lessons:

1. You should always keep a data room always up to date
2. Run your business via spreadsheets to start with, and then an accounting software when you can afford!
3. As a founder, you must understand the function of P&L and cash flow. They are not just compliance statements but show the true picture of business.
4. You should start building relationships with the business development of your buyer universe years in advance. This is what is done really well in the west by quality entrepreneurs and we must learn from them. Even if it means regular steak dinners with biz dev folks to keep the relationship active!!

What next for Varun

Varun is itching to code again, and like before, start solo. Here’s what he says. Unabridged and straight from the horse’s mouth:

I did almost take a stab at starting up last year but for all the wrong reasons. I craved fame and glory so wanted to raise a massive round. I actually fell in love with the idea and the prospect of 2nd-time success more than the idea of product – then Covid hit and was a blessing in disguise.

He just wants to get to $100K ARR to start with!! Kayako was born out of serendipity, it was one of the few experiments I loved that clicked. So now I have a few ideas in mind that I just want to experiment with, treat the business as micro-SaaS, build on ideas that I love and to sustain just get to $100K ARR with me at the helm and then see what to do next.

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Varun Shoor is the Founder of Kayako, a customer service software company based in London, United Kingdom. Varun started in 2001, bootstrapped the company, and exited in 2018. Kayako was acquired by ESW Capital. And this is how it all started. Varun came across a product called wonder desk and decided to make an open-source version. But then he saw the opportunity to build a company out of it and ended up doing just that. He chose to go with product-led growth (PLG), though that was not the term so prevalent in those days. He in fact has a running joke as part of SaasBoomi GrowthX that product led growth means that you don’t really know why you are growing. For him PLG led to SERP rankings, word of mouth and a bit of virality powered by links. But he got comfortable with his profits along the way and growth stagnated. Finally, he decided to shift base to the UK because his co-founder was there, it was closer and he feared the company would collapse if he was in a 12-hour time zone. Operating from the UK he could focus on India from 9AM to 1PM and US from 1PM to 6PM. This was a benefit of GMT he realised only when he started operating from there. Come 2018 and Kayako was acquired, and now he is ready to take a go at starting a new venture again. He is also associated with SaasBoomi GrowthX initiative, a unique personalised, 16-weeks coaching program for startups. In a SaasBoomi Slack Ask-Me-Anything session, he answered questions about product marketing, positioning, building teams and challenges faced by entrepreneurs and first-time founders. If you plan to bootstrap your latest SaaS idea or product, dive straight in.

Advice to new entrepreneurs

If you are building a product in a new category, get comfortable with making profits. Focus on the lead you have in the category because you are the first one. You will be able to build something much bigger than just a profit-making company. Most coder-entrepreneurs focus on the tech side of the venture, but that’s the biggest mistake. As the founder you must concentrate on the business side from day one. You cannot do everything yourself, so build a leadership team quickly. At the same time, however good the team, never abdicate leadership completely. It’s your baby and you must always be there to provide direction. Positioning is one of the single most important things that can make or break a startup. As an entrepreneur, you must learn all about positioning, pricing and messaging. That is something he does aggressively in the GrowthX program as well. If you get your product marketing right, it is possible to sell to mid-market even when your initial customers are enterprise. Zendesk is a good example here; it sells to both startups and enterprises with very crisp pricing and packaging. Reading and learning should be an important part of any entrepreneur’s journey. Some of the books he recommends, for both personal and business development, are 12 Rules for Life, Play Bigger, Positioning by Al Ries and Obviously Awesome. And these are things he wished someone had told him before starting out:

1. Every opportunity has a limited window. It opens and shuts. Don’t get lazy and assume the growth will continue or the channel that’s worked before will.
2. Life gives you more than one opportunity. So, if one has shut, the other one opens as long as you pursue it
3. Early success is a lousy teacher.
4. Build a tight ship from the beginning. Hire well and fire fast.
5. Don’t ignore the legal paperwork! Or you might just get the most expensive degree in law like me!!
6. Pursue growth. Growth hides all failure. Everything else is vanity.

Bootstrapped vs VC

The VC story is so enticing that one can get caught up in building a bootstrapped company like a VC one. This is the biggest mistake that bootstrapped companies can make, according to Varun. A bootstrapped company shouldn’t try to be a VC company and a VC company shouldn’t try to be bootstrapped. For bootstrapped companies the primary goal should be returns for the shareholders, i.e., the founders. In that case even exit won’t be necessary. However, entrepreneurs deserve financial security and independence, so keeping exit or cashing out (if bootstrapped) should be kept in mind.

Pull product vs push

Depending upon the existing market demand, there are two kinds of products – push products and pull products. Pull products are those where the market pulls the product from your hand and for push products you have to sell the problem. Obviously, having a pull product is a good place to be in.  Kayako was a pull product because the webhostingtalk.com community was eager to adopt the product. For it the growth just happened. The early adopters came in droves and volume had to be ignored. Push products require a more nuanced approach where at least one of the founders should have industry experience and market research should be proactive. Intercom is one of the SaaS companies he wished he had founded, because of the way they built their product. He says,

I am in awe of the machine that was built late into the story and executed to perfection.

After Kayako was acquired in 2018, Varun himself started work on building in an existing category and then became disillusioned really quickly. He realised that inventing things, spotting patterns in an industry and creating a pull-based product was what fascinated him and that is what he will probably do next.

Building a team for success

The team building must start with the founding team. In an ideal world you should have a product person, a tech person and a chief marketer (aka the CEO) in the founding team. Varun advises filling the tech role the first as knowledge handover becomes progressively difficult as the company ages. Next comes the marketing role and then product. Either of these can come before the other depending upon the strength of the other team members.

Team building mistakes to avoid

One should never hire friends and relatives, or just for the logo where they worked previously. A bigger mistake would be to keep them on even when they prove themselves to be a dud. Varun says:

Biggest mistakes bootstrapped companies make are in firing. I have noticed dead wood tends to accumulate more in bootstrapped vs funded as the accountability is lower and excuses more.

Building teams from within

Varun is a big fan of building teams from within. And probably that was the reason Kayako was such a success at creating a truly global company where continuous knowledge sharing happened. People in India learned from the best in the UK and US. They also regularly flew people around but from west to east and east to west. That culture was something really special and missed by those who moved on from Kayako. It also supported organic growth like nothing else. For instance, when they started no one knew what SaaS was, yet they figured out together.  Varun is proud of the team he nurtured because a lot of ex-Kayakers have gone on to do great things, with two companies – Customersuccessbox and Slintelbeing, both funded – founded by ex-Kayakers.

Typical challenges faced by a startup

Varun feels that all the top business challenges are internal to you – related to mindset and idea execution. But that’s fodder for discussion another day. Here he sets out two external challenges:

1. Setting a really high bar for execution: And being unable to meet them. This, he feels, is a real problem because founders tend to start big. Ideally, they should start small and the “big” place is where they eventually should be. Citing his own example, he shares that Kayako was out-executed by Zendesk and they struggled to get the same marketing and product machine going. Eventually Varun had to move to the UK to get things moving the way he envisaged.
2. Not knowing anything about marketing: Varun himself was a tech CEO who didn’t understand marketing. Changing his outlook to marketing and then aligning the company was very challenging. He feels that all founders must understand marketing before they start. Because as the founder their main objective should be to sell the product.

Selling globally from India

Varun shifted base to the UK as a result of what he calls a ‘Hail Mary’ decision. He spent five years there, which transformed him completely. But he feels moving base is a very personal decision and there’s no right or wrong to this. Being closer to customers always helps but it is possible to successfully sell globally from India. Appear international: Varun advises appearing international from the beginning. They should feel it’s a company in Austin or SF. This means your messaging should feel American, your photos should feel American, your design should feel American. This was the #1 transformation he took for PipeCandy.com when they joined GrowthX. He gave the company an American look and it worked; all major metrics accelerated. Build a truly international team: For building a truly international team, Varun advises account executives, content marketing and product marketing hires in the west. And keeping engineering, SDR/BDR, customer support and success in India. Price right: Since you now have a bigger playing field, pricing must be right, else it’s very easy for the prospects to move away. Get the TOFU right: If you focus on large lead volumes, without creating pressures for the visitors, you will almost always convert. It’s not rocket science; all you need is a bit of patience and willingness to experiment. Focus on PPC from the beginning: Varun feels that Kayako missed the boat on PPC because initially they were not spending on marketing. He strongly recommends all startups to get their PPC funnel going because with PPC there’s a small window of opportunity; once the keywords become expensive, it’s lost!

Acquisition Lessons

Varun had not started Kayako with an aim to cash out. It did not feature in his priorities very late in the journey, and this is what he really did about it: I decided to sell. Engaged a banker, SignalHill and now DCS Advisor…Got a few term sheets…Few were pulled at last minute and I took the only attractive one out of them…Was tired and wanted to move on. But this taught him many lessons:

1. You should always keep a data room always up to date
2. Run your business via spreadsheets to start with, and then an accounting software when you can afford!
3. As a founder, you must understand the function of P&L and cash flow. They are not just compliance statements but show the true picture of business.
4. You should start building relationships with the business development of your buyer universe years in advance. This is what is done really well in the west by quality entrepreneurs and we must learn from them. Even if it means regular steak dinners with biz dev folks to keep the relationship active!!

What next for Varun

Varun is itching to code again, and like before, start solo. Here’s what he says. Unabridged and straight from the horse’s mouth:

I did almost take a stab at starting up last year but for all the wrong reasons. I craved fame and glory so wanted to raise a massive round. I actually fell in love with the idea and the prospect of 2nd-time success more than the idea of product – then Covid hit and was a blessing in disguise.

He just wants to get to $100K ARR to start with!! Kayako was born out of serendipity, it was one of the few experiments I loved that clicked. So now I have a few ideas in mind that I just want to experiment with, treat the business as micro-SaaS, build on ideas that I love and to sustain just get to $100K ARR with me at the helm and then see what to do next.

" } }

Celebrating 2 years of SaaSBoomi

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It was at the end of our 2020 edition that the moment that defines SaaSBoomi for me happened. This was before the pandemic, remember, and all of us were actually there, in person — founders, volunteers, everyone.

It was around 5 pm, and the evening breezes from the sea were just starting to arrive when Girish Mathrubootham took the stage

He started to talk about how all constraints that we have in the ecosystem are internal. Girish is a wonderful storyteller, and he had the audience spellbound with his experiences of building Freshworks. As he wound down his session, the last slide came up.

It was his father’s photograph.

Girish had lost his father just a few weeks back, and he told us, and the audience, about his childhood, his growing-up years, and how much his father believed in him. As he told us about how much of his success he owed to his father, he choked, unable to continue.

Suddenly a voice came from the audience — Girish, we love you — and the entire audience clapped and stood up in unison. Though it was tough, and he was in tears, the audience gave him enough strength to continue and complete his talk.

The ovation he got was something to behold.

It was a wonderful moment, like a great movie had come to an end, but one in which the audience did not want to leave the hall.

That evening was very special. Many folks had assembled at the Sheraton property at Mahabalipuram. Though many had to get to the airport or take a ride back to the city or head back to the station, everyone tried to stay as long as they could. People felt good, they felt like they belonged among this set of people and founders, and they wanted to help each other and enjoy what they had together: A community.

Here’s a beautiful blog by Krish on the spirit of #SaaSBoomi as a community and its purpose. It’s easy to read the passion and the ambition in it, in the idea of realizing India as a ProductNation.

What makes SaaSBoomi what it is

There are many people who bind this community together, like Girish, and who are willing to bare their hearts and minds to help the next generation of founders. Founders have opened their playbooks and even shared hard-won experience, as they want these learnings to be made available to the community to benefit from.

We are really happy with how far we have come together. On 24th November, it will be two years of a community that is changing the Indian SaaS ecosystem. There is still a long way to go, but this feels like a milestone to mark, so I’m marking it.

But all this did not happen automatically. To build a community of this scale means that there need to be many platforms you have to provide so that founders get comfortable: both offline and online. For us these things work amazingly and as we envisioned, a result of many years of building trust with founders and using their willingness to help other founders to great effect.

But it took years for this trust to develop, and it started, as it often does, before there was a term called SaaSBOOMi

The road to SaaSBoomi: How it all Began

It was under iSPIRT that the SaaS Founder ecosystem got together at Chennai for the first time, in March 2015. The event was called SaaSx. We had around 75–80 founders in Chennai, and about 30–35 founders came from Bangalore in a bus we had arranged. We called it the SaaSy bus (of course we did).

It was a tremendous success, the camaraderie and the feeling of not being alone that founders discovered that day was what kickstarted the movement that has got us here.

We had only 3 or 4 sessions that first time, and we only started the event by 3 pm so that the folks from Bangalore could reach. Though it was a roaring success, we could do 2 such events in a year, which gradually became 1. As time went on, the team struggled to put together the same kind of event, so we tried to change the format and do a few things differently. This included Playbooks and Round Tables that quickly became very popular. There was a lot of demand, and so much knowledge sharing that they quickly became synonymous with the Product Nation brand of iSPIRT.

It was a heady time.

And it was from the goodwill and friendships forged from that time and energy that SaaSBoomi came to be. I actually still remember the day when Girish and a few of his colleagues were sitting in the cafe of the Taj at Yeshwantpur ideating on the names. We had a few good options, but SaaSBoomi was easily the one that stuck.

Two years, then, and we wanted to put together a quick snapshot of what we achieved. This blog here captures well the journey of building SaaSX and my love for Chennai. With Chennai fast becoming the epicentre of Indian SaaS, this became important as we built SaaSBoomi.

What we are doing next

This is where it’s going to get really interesting.

Earlier, we focused most of our activities around founders, and we noticed that founders always wanted to bring their team members to learn too.

• We have facilitated that now. We will have a lot more playbooks and events focused on the second tier of leaders, so the ecosystem has another rung of knowledge to use.
• As part of this process, we are moving to a full-fledged community in the next few weeks. Powered by Kissflow, this will enable us to open up SaaSBoomi's space to many other founders and their leadership teams. This helps us go beyond the constraint of 256 members, a limitation of Whatsapp.
• We have an initiative around Diversity (Gender, Skills, Experience and other pivots) in SaaS companies, on which you’ll hear from us soon.
• We are sitting on a lot of data on Indian SaaS, and a team is right now working on finding usable patterns and simplifying them for founders and for industry watchers. We hate it when you have to provide your startup details again and again for every initiative.
• The community is also working on initiatives like Tear Down Sessions, Product Demos, and a lot more. We will be announcing them through our channels. Please follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
• We will be putting together playbooks in a more consumable format so that it becomes easier to read and share.

Recapping our mission

We are now the premier non-profit SaaS community globally.

In the next couple of years, we would want to be the go-to place for SaaS founders globally.

We want to be the number 1 destination for seed/early-stage SaaS startups to learn, grow, and engage with other startups like them.

With over $2 billion in combined annual recurring revenue, 1000+ companies, including 7 unicorns, and hundreds more being created every year, India is becoming a thriving ecosystem for SaaS companies and founders.

With SaaSBoomi, we want to build the platform that doubles down and makes sure that the best global SaaS companies of the next decades come from India.

We know it’s a lofty mission, but what other kinds are there?

Introducing the ecosystem partners for this mission

We just introduced our really ambitious mission, and on journeys like these, you need partners.

While many conferences and communities trade speaking slots & sponsorships, SaaSBoomi has actually not taken sponsorships from potential partners when one of their leadership team members was speaking.

We have been very careful about this. This is a neutral, safe space, and we want to keep it that way.

In line with this, we have taken support from these following partners for a year; we are grateful for the belief they have in us, and in their gesture to come forward to support the SaaSBoomi mission.

How you can contribute

SaaSBoomi will always be a movement led by founders for founders.

And as stated before, would like to go beyond the founder community. There are many folks who play a role in building a company and gradually we would like to cater to these more niche communities.

To do so, from time to time, we will make announcements on where we are looking for volunteers.

Today, there are more than 50 volunteers who make magic happen behind the scenes. If you have an initiative in mind and would like to contribute towards building it, we would be happy to work with you and bring it to life. Feel free to reach out to me or any of the volunteers.

Two more things

The pandemic has increased the importance for startups to provide health insurance to their employees. However early-stage startups with a lean employee count have a hard time getting insurance that is both comprehensive and affordable.

1. Suraksha is an initiative to help early-stage startups avail the best insurance coverage which is affordable. Suraksha plan will allow startups as small as 2 employees to get high-quality insurance for their teams and their family members. We will be sharing more details on this shortly.
2. We are also pleased to launch the SaaSBoomi Awards. There have been other startup awards in the country, but none that took the view of building the community and celebrating our smaller startups and unsung heroes. There is a blue-ocean opportunity here to institutionalize a new brand of awards that can represent the gold-standard of startup awards in India in the time to come.

Beyond becoming an aspirational goal for SaaS founders in the country, the proposed SaaSBoomi awards will try to deliver incremental value in multiple other ways. Do check more on this here.

If you have been part of the movement either as a giver or taker, do take time to join us on our social media channels on 24th November while we celebrate our 2nd anniversary.

Lastly, I want to take this opportunity to thank the volunteers, the founders and the ecosystem that makes up SaaSBoomi. The support, feedback, and goodwill has been the fuel for this engine of growth. It has been a long journey to get here, but every bit of it has been enjoyable and enervating.

As Nikki Banas writes in Walk The Earth, “You don’t need to have everything figured out today. You don’t need to conquer the entire mountain right now. The only possible way to climb a mountain is by doing one step at a time.”

Here’s to these 2 years of SaaSBoomi, and to the next step.

Edited by Sairam Krishnan and thanks to Tarun Davuluri and Sangeeta Bavi for reviewing and sharing their comments.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(23943) "

It was at the end of our 2020 edition that the moment that defines SaaSBoomi for me happened. This was before the pandemic, remember, and all of us were actually there, in person — founders, volunteers, everyone.

It was around 5 pm, and the evening breezes from the sea were just starting to arrive when Girish Mathrubootham took the stage

He started to talk about how all constraints that we have in the ecosystem are internal. Girish is a wonderful storyteller, and he had the audience spellbound with his experiences of building Freshworks. As he wound down his session, the last slide came up.

It was his father’s photograph.

Girish had lost his father just a few weeks back, and he told us, and the audience, about his childhood, his growing-up years, and how much his father believed in him. As he told us about how much of his success he owed to his father, he choked, unable to continue.

Suddenly a voice came from the audience — Girish, we love you — and the entire audience clapped and stood up in unison. Though it was tough, and he was in tears, the audience gave him enough strength to continue and complete his talk.

The ovation he got was something to behold.

It was a wonderful moment, like a great movie had come to an end, but one in which the audience did not want to leave the hall.

That evening was very special. Many folks had assembled at the Sheraton property at Mahabalipuram. Though many had to get to the airport or take a ride back to the city or head back to the station, everyone tried to stay as long as they could. People felt good, they felt like they belonged among this set of people and founders, and they wanted to help each other and enjoy what they had together: A community.

Here’s a beautiful blog by Krish on the spirit of #SaaSBoomi as a community and its purpose. It’s easy to read the passion and the ambition in it, in the idea of realizing India as a ProductNation.

What makes SaaSBoomi what it is

There are many people who bind this community together, like Girish, and who are willing to bare their hearts and minds to help the next generation of founders. Founders have opened their playbooks and even shared hard-won experience, as they want these learnings to be made available to the community to benefit from.

We are really happy with how far we have come together. On 24th November, it will be two years of a community that is changing the Indian SaaS ecosystem. There is still a long way to go, but this feels like a milestone to mark, so I’m marking it.

But all this did not happen automatically. To build a community of this scale means that there need to be many platforms you have to provide so that founders get comfortable: both offline and online. For us these things work amazingly and as we envisioned, a result of many years of building trust with founders and using their willingness to help other founders to great effect.

But it took years for this trust to develop, and it started, as it often does, before there was a term called SaaSBOOMi

The road to SaaSBoomi: How it all Began

It was under iSPIRT that the SaaS Founder ecosystem got together at Chennai for the first time, in March 2015. The event was called SaaSx. We had around 75–80 founders in Chennai, and about 30–35 founders came from Bangalore in a bus we had arranged. We called it the SaaSy bus (of course we did).

It was a tremendous success, the camaraderie and the feeling of not being alone that founders discovered that day was what kickstarted the movement that has got us here.

We had only 3 or 4 sessions that first time, and we only started the event by 3 pm so that the folks from Bangalore could reach. Though it was a roaring success, we could do 2 such events in a year, which gradually became 1. As time went on, the team struggled to put together the same kind of event, so we tried to change the format and do a few things differently. This included Playbooks and Round Tables that quickly became very popular. There was a lot of demand, and so much knowledge sharing that they quickly became synonymous with the Product Nation brand of iSPIRT.

It was a heady time.

And it was from the goodwill and friendships forged from that time and energy that SaaSBoomi came to be. I actually still remember the day when Girish and a few of his colleagues were sitting in the cafe of the Taj at Yeshwantpur ideating on the names. We had a few good options, but SaaSBoomi was easily the one that stuck.

Two years, then, and we wanted to put together a quick snapshot of what we achieved. This blog here captures well the journey of building SaaSX and my love for Chennai. With Chennai fast becoming the epicentre of Indian SaaS, this became important as we built SaaSBoomi.

What we are doing next

This is where it’s going to get really interesting.

Earlier, we focused most of our activities around founders, and we noticed that founders always wanted to bring their team members to learn too.

• We have facilitated that now. We will have a lot more playbooks and events focused on the second tier of leaders, so the ecosystem has another rung of knowledge to use.
• As part of this process, we are moving to a full-fledged community in the next few weeks. Powered by Kissflow, this will enable us to open up SaaSBoomi's space to many other founders and their leadership teams. This helps us go beyond the constraint of 256 members, a limitation of Whatsapp.
• We have an initiative around Diversity (Gender, Skills, Experience and other pivots) in SaaS companies, on which you’ll hear from us soon.
• We are sitting on a lot of data on Indian SaaS, and a team is right now working on finding usable patterns and simplifying them for founders and for industry watchers. We hate it when you have to provide your startup details again and again for every initiative.
• The community is also working on initiatives like Tear Down Sessions, Product Demos, and a lot more. We will be announcing them through our channels. Please follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
• We will be putting together playbooks in a more consumable format so that it becomes easier to read and share.

Recapping our mission

We are now the premier non-profit SaaS community globally.

In the next couple of years, we would want to be the go-to place for SaaS founders globally.

We want to be the number 1 destination for seed/early-stage SaaS startups to learn, grow, and engage with other startups like them.

With over $2 billion in combined annual recurring revenue, 1000+ companies, including 7 unicorns, and hundreds more being created every year, India is becoming a thriving ecosystem for SaaS companies and founders.

With SaaSBoomi, we want to build the platform that doubles down and makes sure that the best global SaaS companies of the next decades come from India.

We know it’s a lofty mission, but what other kinds are there?

Introducing the ecosystem partners for this mission

We just introduced our really ambitious mission, and on journeys like these, you need partners.

While many conferences and communities trade speaking slots & sponsorships, SaaSBoomi has actually not taken sponsorships from potential partners when one of their leadership team members was speaking.

We have been very careful about this. This is a neutral, safe space, and we want to keep it that way.

In line with this, we have taken support from these following partners for a year; we are grateful for the belief they have in us, and in their gesture to come forward to support the SaaSBoomi mission.

How you can contribute

SaaSBoomi will always be a movement led by founders for founders.

And as stated before, would like to go beyond the founder community. There are many folks who play a role in building a company and gradually we would like to cater to these more niche communities.

To do so, from time to time, we will make announcements on where we are looking for volunteers.

Today, there are more than 50 volunteers who make magic happen behind the scenes. If you have an initiative in mind and would like to contribute towards building it, we would be happy to work with you and bring it to life. Feel free to reach out to me or any of the volunteers.

Two more things

The pandemic has increased the importance for startups to provide health insurance to their employees. However early-stage startups with a lean employee count have a hard time getting insurance that is both comprehensive and affordable.

1. Suraksha is an initiative to help early-stage startups avail the best insurance coverage which is affordable. Suraksha plan will allow startups as small as 2 employees to get high-quality insurance for their teams and their family members. We will be sharing more details on this shortly.
2. We are also pleased to launch the SaaSBoomi Awards. There have been other startup awards in the country, but none that took the view of building the community and celebrating our smaller startups and unsung heroes. There is a blue-ocean opportunity here to institutionalize a new brand of awards that can represent the gold-standard of startup awards in India in the time to come.

Beyond becoming an aspirational goal for SaaS founders in the country, the proposed SaaSBoomi awards will try to deliver incremental value in multiple other ways. Do check more on this here.

If you have been part of the movement either as a giver or taker, do take time to join us on our social media channels on 24th November while we celebrate our 2nd anniversary.

Lastly, I want to take this opportunity to thank the volunteers, the founders and the ecosystem that makes up SaaSBoomi. The support, feedback, and goodwill has been the fuel for this engine of growth. It has been a long journey to get here, but every bit of it has been enjoyable and enervating.

As Nikki Banas writes in Walk The Earth, “You don’t need to have everything figured out today. You don’t need to conquer the entire mountain right now. The only possible way to climb a mountain is by doing one step at a time.”

Here’s to these 2 years of SaaSBoomi, and to the next step.

Edited by Sairam Krishnan and thanks to Tarun Davuluri and Sangeeta Bavi for reviewing and sharing their comments.

" } }

A SaaS Future with Product as the Epicentre

array(5) { ["blockName"]=> NULL ["attrs"]=> array(0) { } ["innerBlocks"]=> array(0) { } ["innerHTML"]=> string(9853) "Three men walk into a bar. The barman tells them, “If you can give me an idea that can drastically improve the odds of new breweries succeeding in India, I’ll give you free beer forever.”

The first man said, “Brewing chops is getting better in India, but most breweries are still struggling to land their first 10 customers by virtue of the beer. This is the pain point that, if solved, can bring a big change in the ecosystem — the beer itself can serve as a distribution channel.”

The second man thought about it, agreed with the first man’s idea, raised his hand for a refill of beer and said, “Well, we need to enable breweries to transform their thought process about growth. How about a way to enter a small settlement via an individual customer where the beer does a great job of impressing the individual but it doesn’t stop there. It enables that person to get more friends from the town to adopt the beer. If this type of beer sales thinking is made possible by breweries, we have a win.”

After a moment’s silence, the third man spoke, “I agree with both these fellas. So let me build on top of what’s already said. I think we need to help breweries and their owners make beer that sells itself. Beer experiences that speak for itself.”

They said in unison, “Beer-Led Growth.” And the legend has it that the barman had to agree to provide all three of them free beer forever.

This story is based on real events, just that we need to correct certain nuances. The first, second and third men were Shekhar Kirani, Girish Mathrubootham and Manav Garg respectively and the barman was Avinash Raghava — all of them core members of SaaSBOOMi. The conversation was not about breweries and beer, but about SaaS startups and how to build products that sell themselves. And of course, they didn’t meet in a bar. Very predictably, they were on a Zoom call and Avinash says that there’s no evidence stating that he offered free beer forever to his colleagues for their advice — this is still in contention.

But what matters is that this is how SaaSBOOMi Product was born as an idea and why we’ve decided to focus on enabling Indian startups and entrepreneurs to adopt Product-Led Growth as a philosophy.

Introducing SaaSBOOMi Product

SaaSBOOMi Product is an initiative to help SaaS startups from India develop product-first thinking, to help them build good quality software products that solve problems for their customers from around the world. As Shekhar put it well, we have seen very successful products come out of the Indian SaaS stable, but it’s important to acknowledge that they still remain the exception and not the norm. The key to the problem, we speculate, could be the dependence Indian entrepreneurs have on sales and customer acquisition processes with many human touch-points. This incentivises the startup to move away from a product-centric way of building a business, towards a philosophy of throwing human resources at most problems. While it worked well for the IT and BPO sectors that have contributed immensely to the country’s GDP in the past three decades, we feel the SaaS businesses today need an orientation that helps them put the product (or software) at the centre.

This would require the entire journey, market research -> building the minimum viable (or loveable) product -> acquiring your 10 early adopters -> getting your 1000 true fans, to be re-designed. It calls for the ability to identify customer pain points from the early days in the journey, iteratively build well-thought-out self-serving product experiences and consistently learn how your customers are adopting them. This would be philosophically opposite to the cognitively easier (but not scalable) means of building bespoke and tailor-made solutions for customers who want them.

As part of SaaSBOOMi Product, we will be launching numerous initiatives to inculcate and encourage product-centric thinking among SaaS startups in India. We understand and acknowledge that this is going to be hard and will take years of effort. But we believe this is the way to the future and we are motivated to commit our time to this powerful cause. Now let’s discuss the first initiative coming out of the Product track. 

Product-Led Growth Series

Product-Led Growth (PLG), in a line, can be termed as the philosophy of building a product that sells itself. PLG is being widely adopted by SaaS companies around the world to build and sell products in a manner that the product itself enables the customer to make substantial progress in the user journey and helps the customer make a buying decision without too many human touch-points.

Our objective with the SaaSBOOMi PLG Series is to introduce PLG to the Indian SaaS ecosystem, provide a platform for founders, product and growth practitioners from Indian SaaS startups to understand how PLG can be transformational for growth, and learn how to adopt and implement PLG by listening to the experts in the Industry.

We believe Indian SaaS startups can benefit tremendously from implementing PLG as a core product-growth strategy. It can lead to reduced cost in functions like support and sales (reduced human touch-points) while providing a superior experience for the users around the world. However, as of today, we have very few PLG practitioners in India. While sales and support pipeline frameworks have got massive adoption among startups here, there are very few companies that are implementing PLG in India. SaaSBOOMi wants to address this gap in the industry by building awareness and helping startups learn how to implement PLG. Here’s the team that’s organising the Product Led Growth series. The program would be structured as a series of events where we choose to address how the PLG philosophy can be leveraged by startups categorised by the industries they serve, customer persona they cater to, and the stage and status quo of how they run their business today. Next steps

We are curating the list of speakers and finalising the agenda for Chapter One of the PLG Series that will be happening on November 28th from 9:30 AM to 1:30 PM IST. The Series would be designed to help Startup founders learn how to:

a. Implement PLG to grow with favorable economics b. Integrate PLG with different functions of your business at different stages. c. Build your PLG team and how to do goal-setting for PLG efforts. d. Leverage PLG and the concept of product qualified leads to accelerate your sales performance.

If you think this initiative could benefit you, please apply here.

" ["innerContent"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(9853) "Three men walk into a bar. The barman tells them, “If you can give me an idea that can drastically improve the odds of new breweries succeeding in India, I’ll give you free beer forever.”

The first man said, “Brewing chops is getting better in India, but most breweries are still struggling to land their first 10 customers by virtue of the beer. This is the pain point that, if solved, can bring a big change in the ecosystem — the beer itself can serve as a distribution channel.”

The second man thought about it, agreed with the first man’s idea, raised his hand for a refill of beer and said, “Well, we need to enable breweries to transform their thought process about growth. How about a way to enter a small settlement via an individual customer where the beer does a great job of impressing the individual but it doesn’t stop there. It enables that person to get more friends from the town to adopt the beer. If this type of beer sales thinking is made possible by breweries, we have a win.”

After a moment’s silence, the third man spoke, “I agree with both these fellas. So let me build on top of what’s already said. I think we need to help breweries and their owners make beer that sells itself. Beer experiences that speak for itself.”

They said in unison, “Beer-Led Growth.” And the legend has it that the barman had to agree to provide all three of them free beer forever.

This story is based on real events, just that we need to correct certain nuances. The first, second and third men were Shekhar Kirani, Girish Mathrubootham and Manav Garg respectively and the barman was Avinash Raghava — all of them core members of SaaSBOOMi. The conversation was not about breweries and beer, but about SaaS startups and how to build products that sell themselves. And of course, they didn’t meet in a bar. Very predictably, they were on a Zoom call and Avinash says that there’s no evidence stating that he offered free beer forever to his colleagues for their advice — this is still in contention.

But what matters is that this is how SaaSBOOMi Product was born as an idea and why we’ve decided to focus on enabling Indian startups and entrepreneurs to adopt Product-Led Growth as a philosophy.

Introducing SaaSBOOMi Product

SaaSBOOMi Product is an initiative to help SaaS startups from India develop product-first thinking, to help them build good quality software products that solve problems for their customers from around the world. As Shekhar put it well, we have seen very successful products come out of the Indian SaaS stable, but it’s important to acknowledge that they still remain the exception and not the norm. The key to the problem, we speculate, could be the dependence Indian entrepreneurs have on sales and customer acquisition processes with many human touch-points. This incentivises the startup to move away from a product-centric way of building a business, towards a philosophy of throwing human resources at most problems. While it worked well for the IT and BPO sectors that have contributed immensely to the country’s GDP in the past three decades, we feel the SaaS businesses today need an orientation that helps them put the product (or software) at the centre.

This would require the entire journey, market research -> building the minimum viable (or loveable) product -> acquiring your 10 early adopters -> getting your 1000 true fans, to be re-designed. It calls for the ability to identify customer pain points from the early days in the journey, iteratively build well-thought-out self-serving product experiences and consistently learn how your customers are adopting them. This would be philosophically opposite to the cognitively easier (but not scalable) means of building bespoke and tailor-made solutions for customers who want them.

As part of SaaSBOOMi Product, we will be launching numerous initiatives to inculcate and encourage product-centric thinking among SaaS startups in India. We understand and acknowledge that this is going to be hard and will take years of effort. But we believe this is the way to the future and we are motivated to commit our time to this powerful cause. Now let’s discuss the first initiative coming out of the Product track. 

Product-Led Growth Series

Product-Led Growth (PLG), in a line, can be termed as the philosophy of building a product that sells itself. PLG is being widely adopted by SaaS companies around the world to build and sell products in a manner that the product itself enables the customer to make substantial progress in the user journey and helps the customer make a buying decision without too many human touch-points.

Our objective with the SaaSBOOMi PLG Series is to introduce PLG to the Indian SaaS ecosystem, provide a platform for founders, product and growth practitioners from Indian SaaS startups to understand how PLG can be transformational for growth, and learn how to adopt and implement PLG by listening to the experts in the Industry.

We believe Indian SaaS startups can benefit tremendously from implementing PLG as a core product-growth strategy. It can lead to reduced cost in functions like support and sales (reduced human touch-points) while providing a superior experience for the users around the world. However, as of today, we have very few PLG practitioners in India. While sales and support pipeline frameworks have got massive adoption among startups here, there are very few companies that are implementing PLG in India. SaaSBOOMi wants to address this gap in the industry by building awareness and helping startups learn how to implement PLG. Here’s the team that’s organising the Product Led Growth series. The program would be structured as a series of events where we choose to address how the PLG philosophy can be leveraged by startups categorised by the industries they serve, customer persona they cater to, and the stage and status quo of how they run their business today. Next steps

We are curating the list of speakers and finalising the agenda for Chapter One of the PLG Series that will be happening on November 28th from 9:30 AM to 1:30 PM IST. The Series would be designed to help Startup founders learn how to:

a. Implement PLG to grow with favorable economics b. Integrate PLG with different functions of your business at different stages. c. Build your PLG team and how to do goal-setting for PLG efforts. d. Leverage PLG and the concept of product qualified leads to accelerate your sales performance.

If you think this initiative could benefit you, please apply here.

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