Jagat Iyer - Founder and CEO - Vidphone

[00:00:00] Welcome to follow.us start-ups, your exclusive gateway to the world of early stage start-up founders. This is your front-row seat to dive headfirst into their business pitches and stay updated with their business updates. Let's go!

[00:00:30] Vidphone is the first of its kind hybrid work-speed platform to unlock the power of video commerce. They help businesses start and grow exponentially by leveraging video commerce. Welcome to follow.us start-ups, I'm your host Ankita Pawar and today we are joined by Jagat

[00:00:43] Iyer, founder and CEO at Vidphone. With a background in social commerce, enterprise digital transformation and extensive experience in the video communication and commerce space, Jagat is a dynamic entrepreneur leading the chart for businesses to flourish in the hybrid world through Vidphone. Hi Jagat, welcome to follow.us start-ups.

[00:01:02] Thanks for having me and big hello to all the viewers and I'm happy to be here. Thank you. It's great to have you here. So, to kick things off, could you please introduce yourself and share a little bit about your journey that led you to found Vidphone?

[00:01:16] So, I'm an NIT grad, NIT Prayagraj. Back in the day 2010, I started my entrepreneurial journey, social commerce in 2010. I would say that was quite early but spent couple of years doing that then the next four years with four or five years digital transformation with some of the largest

[00:01:35] enterprises in the world. I learned a lot. 2016 onwards, it's been all about video and I'm very happy to kind of be in this space and like you can see on this platform, we have a lot of wonderful folks in this industry so it's great.

[00:01:50] I mean that's a quick intro about me apart from work. I also am a guitarist, I'm a sure golfer. Wow. I play cricket. I'm a former state level cricketer and yeah, I also play, I play guitars as well so those are my interests.

[00:02:05] We're a Bangalore based company, proud Bangalore boy. Thank you so much for sharing that. So now I'm really curious about understanding how Vidphone is not just another video conferencing platform. So tell us what is Vidphone all about and what are the key problems that we

[00:02:19] are trying to solve? Great question. So as I said, my work, our work with video really started in 2016. We launched India's first video chat app and probably this was well before some of our larger competition were on the Play Store as well.

[00:02:32] We launched well ahead of most of them. Then it was about what we do now here, which is video chat and for a while, you know, even after pandemic, it was about video and video meetings. So we launched the browser based meetings well before the larger

[00:02:49] competition from here in Bangalore. But as I keep saying, there's always evolution and what we try to solve in 2020, 2021, we cannot look at the same tools to solve the problems of today. And I think today video communications has become default compared to 2019.

[00:03:09] 2019, you know, very few people were on video. And one of the great things that's happened in industry is that, you know, almost everybody today is on video. But video communications is not enough. We always believe in what's next beyond this, which is definitely video

[00:03:24] commerce. Already it's like a five billion dollar industry. The whole conferencing industry, video conferencing industry is like anywhere between 10 to 50 billion dollars globally, like depending on which research you look at. But video commerce is already a five billion dollar industry

[00:03:39] and it's going to be a two point eight, two point nine trillion dollar economy in the next few years. So for us, it's really about taking those who are already on these platforms and giving them tools to do what's next, which is to do business,

[00:03:52] which is to drive customers to do marketing, sales support all in one platform. So the simple way to say, you know, and because we're always compared with our larger competition and I'm very happy about that. It's very nice to be spoken of in the same sentence.

[00:04:05] But frankly speaking, we take video conferencing of this to be assumed. And what's beyond this? We look at how can we help entrepreneurs and businesses gain customers and provide a superior employee experience? So we're very focused on that.

[00:04:18] I always say, you know, back in the day, I don't know how old you are. I'm like, you know, going to be 40, 39. I don't look 39, but we used to have PCO boots. We used to have those phone boots.

[00:04:30] And that was a time when none of us had phone numbers. Very few houses had landlines in India, you know, the dialing landline and video conferencing like this, like we had rejoined 40 minutes and all this stuff. It's very much like those phone booths.

[00:04:42] You don't have your own number. You need to go and, you know, keep extending. So to me, we are in that space, you know, and what's next? Everyone had their own phone number. Not only could people on one platform call on the same platform,

[00:04:54] but they could call if you're an air tell. You're not only calling air tell users, you're calling Jio, you're calling Vodafone. So that's the evolution that's going to happen in video. So it all starts with your video identity.

[00:05:05] Vidphone.me slash Ankita Pahouais is how, you know, is what your address is. So once that happens, you begin to see a lot of other things happen. So we are about providing that secure video identity for people. So what are some of your core offerings?

[00:05:19] All of our offerings are around external communications and internal communications, two main things. Now, typically, what does a business want? The business wants to do marketing, which is to get the word out about the brand, get some leads, nurture those leads, get them into sales conversation,

[00:05:36] convert them, customers and then support that customer. So three big functions like marketing, sales and support. So we have tools that help you do that. And internal communications. We have advanced communication tools, not just scheduled video media, because everyone hates them.

[00:05:50] So we have basically a virtual HQ, which is like a it's like an office floor plan. Video enabled. So it's very much like you're all sitting in the same office and you have conversations. Happy to take you through a demo sometime.

[00:06:00] But, you know, we offer advanced tools on both customer and employee engagement. Interesting. OK. So I noticed that you recently introduced a video marketing automation tool in the dashboard. There was also something called VCRM. So we love if you could just walk us through some of these features

[00:06:18] and explain how they help businesses create seamless and those engaging customer journeys. That's a great observation. I really appreciate the fact that you actually went and observed these things. These are the advanced features we're talking about. So today, you know, webinars are the go to way

[00:06:33] to kind of drive awareness about your brand. When was the last time you saw YouTube that says, hey, welcome to my nine dollar nine rupees webinar? Right. So it's taken over the industry. It's taken over, in fact, the whole of advertising and marketing.

[00:06:45] But most people do webinars in a very sporadic manner. I ask people, what's your webinar conversion rate, which is really the only thing that matters. It's like out of 100 people or 1000 people attending my webinar, how many are actually buying? What's my percentage?

[00:06:57] So, for example, VCRM is the world's first video for CRM. So CRMs were built pre pandemic. You would meet someone at an event, take their card, they entered into your CRM and stuff like that. But today, this whole funnel is from webinars,

[00:07:12] nurturing those leads, getting them to a sales conversation and closing. And so VCRM is built specifically for that, for webinar funnels, for webinar campaigns. The video marketing automation is again what I call God mode. So basically you can architect customer journeys.

[00:07:28] Like you can say, guy registered for my webinar but did not attend, send this sequence if he's attended and he's attended like five minutes in this. If he's attended half an hour of my webinar, send him this. So you can really architect these customer journeys.

[00:07:42] You can also use video mail and some advanced tools. So that's these are the two things. One is marketing automation, video marketing automation, which I think is in fact is more, I would say productive than a chat GPT because you set it once it keeps on running.

[00:07:57] And VCRM is industry first video for CRM. So there are other tools as well, like some super awesome stuff that we have. I hope Vidphone may become the new normal soon, very soon. So Jagat, tell us who are the primary users of Vidphone?

[00:08:12] Is it mainly for startups and small businesses or do you also cater to large enterprises? During our journey and it's been it's not we're not an overnight company. We have been there for a while. So we really have customers across industries, across size, ranging from startups.

[00:08:28] We're at NASCOM startups and we're part of a lot of ecosystem. So a lot of our friends, other startups use it. We have a lot of SMBs like not necessarily, you would say, enterprises, but also mid-level companies. And of course, we have very large enterprises like Stellantis,

[00:08:43] one of the largest car companies in the world, be it the government of Karnataka. So it is like I ask the question, who needs the telephone? Everybody. So video and video commerce is like that. Everybody needs it. Right. It's like who needs email? Everybody needs it.

[00:08:58] So for now, our customers have been spread across all things. I think it's a good thing. But we have a very special focus towards our own ecosystem, which is the startup small businesses. We really want to empower them with these tools.

[00:09:10] So yeah, our dream would be to actually empower more on the SMB and startup side than just catering to enterprises. Because I think my enterprises have a lot of options that they think they have. But the small businesses need these kind of innovative tools.

[00:09:24] And that's what I think startups are about. So we are more happy to. We're focusing more on startups and SMBs. That's impressive, Jagat. And although you've named a few of your customers, I'm sure our viewers would love to hear about some of your other existing clients.

[00:09:37] So could you share the names of a few and tell us about the use cases, specific use cases of it for that they are particularly fond of? Sure. So, you know, I think many of you may know of a brand called Citron,

[00:09:48] which is like a car company, the Citron C3, the C5 Aircross. So this is one of my dream kind of engagements because we were selling during the pandemic, we were selling cars on video chat, which is unbelievable. Like you're talking over 30 lakh transaction on video chat.

[00:10:03] And most times I ask people, what's the maximum ticket size you do on online? The maximum you would do is probably a MacBook Pro. You know, you would buy on Amazon. It's like three lakhs something. So I'm talking over 30 lakh product. Soon we are looking at real estate.

[00:10:16] We have certain partners and looking at names. Okay, you know, so Thai Bangalore has been a customer. Thai Bangalore is one of the largest networking and business communities, business groups, I think you'll know. So, you know, happy to power their hybrid events.

[00:10:29] They also had other tools, but they see how much advancement we bring into the game where you can take in-app payments. You could basically, you know, you could do a lot of things. You could basically a lot of advanced features. And that was also an all women event.

[00:10:45] I was very happy to power that because, you know, hybrid work I always think is a leveler for women. I think it's a big advantage the fact that they can stay at home and they can, you know, during the maternity side.

[00:10:56] So all of these things are very important and this had to happen anyway. So, you know, that was a great initiative. Thai women, which we did Thai Bangalore. The government of Karnataka, you know, it's called Know Your Startup. It's basically the Karnataka government where they, you know,

[00:11:11] engage with about 12 different departments in the state government. And then basically taking out the message of what they have done, what's the update on the startups. It's like a webinar series with different departments. So that was great to see.

[00:11:22] A law firm in Chennai, you know, issuers, you know, law firm. One of the best stories because we have a tool called the Virtual HQ. And before like Slack and people, some people use Slack and all these tools, but when you look at other firms,

[00:11:35] they typically are just like doing scheduled video meetings. And they use our office. One person from that firm started using our product, you know, and within about a week, there were over 25 people from that organization checking in three times a day at nine, at one, at five.

[00:11:52] And that was brilliant to watch because it just showed like how wonderful that's. You know, New Genomics, another friend of mine, they're basically into the predictive healthcare space. They raised funding as well. So they've used our platform extensively for reaching out to their own audiences,

[00:12:10] genetics and predictive healthcare. These are some of the school called Diksha. Diksha Learning was one of the larger, you know, higher education schools here in Bangalore. They extensively used our product. They also had other tools, but they kind of very quickly migrated.

[00:12:27] So yeah, these are some of them I could go on and on, but there have been some really, really good and wonderful stories, not just for communicating. I keep saying that it's not just about communication. It's about what you enable happen through that.

[00:12:39] So like I keep saying, it doesn't matter whether you're on a Geo call or Airtel call. Like it doesn't matter. It's just a call. You know, the same thing today is with what's happening. And we are able to provide that advancement towards their goals.

[00:12:52] You know, that's exciting to us. So it really doesn't matter if it's a small company, large company, like you see, like we have startups, we have SMBs, we have enterprises, governments. So yeah, we're just happy to see the smile on the face of our customers

[00:13:04] when they achieve their goals. That's what matters. That's amazing. So Jagat, if I ask you to define the current stage of your business, what will that be? Yeah, I mean, in case of a venture, yes, we are profitable. We are, you know, post-revenue, well-post-revenue.

[00:13:21] We already done angel rounds. So, you know, yeah, probably four years from going public maybe. So how much capital have you raised so far? Yeah, we don't talk much about our fundraising, but you know, we've done an angel round,

[00:13:33] you know, with some people from Harvard, Google, KPMG, EY, etc. So nice angel round there. We also got some grants from governments, etc. So, you know, these are the kind of external and we do a fair amount on our revenue as well.

[00:13:44] So a mix of these is, you know, is what keeps our balance sheet looking okay. Are you still in the process of raising more funds? We always raising. We have, you see the kind of competition we have. So we have no choice. We always are raising.

[00:13:56] When I started in 2010, we were not looking to start a company to raise money. We started a company to do business. But now it's become like you do a startup, you got to raise money. And there are different ways to raise money.

[00:14:08] Yes, we are looking at private, I mean, as adventure, but we are speaking to multiple, but it's not the only way. So we look at a combination of equity debt grants to kind of do that. This is very important.

[00:14:19] I want to convey that message to all other startups saying that, you know, you need to always have control of the company in the beginning stages, right? Yeah, just a tip out there to people. It may be useful. Like always look at all the options on the table.

[00:14:30] So are there any business metrics or any significant numbers that you are particularly proud of and would like to share with us? Look, I mean, of course, there are a bunch of metrics that we kind of keep our eye on all the time.

[00:14:42] And these are some things that most companies or most tech companies will do, which is like, you know, average revenue per user, like ACV, TAC, LTV, all of this stuff. But for me, it's more, I think many times it's a qualitative kind of feeling.

[00:14:58] I don't always look at only numbers sometimes. It's like, you know, I'm also a cricketer. You know, there are many times that you bowl very well and you get no wickets. And sometimes when you bowl a full toss or you bowl a short ball

[00:15:08] and suddenly you get three wickets and your stats look okay. So, but you're not actually bowled very well that day. So I don't really look at business purely from a quantitative. I think there's an over dependence on data and this kind of metrics. Metrics are great,

[00:15:21] but at a stage that we are at, I think we have to look at more the qualitative value that we bring. So I don't know what kind of metric it is to set when I sell a 30 lakh car on video. There's no benchmark to that.

[00:15:32] So, you know, it may not seem like any sense at all, but I know what that's impacting. So many of these things we look at, like I told you, like one of the things is virality. But how many people does one person bring into the platform?

[00:15:44] Because conferencing is like that. You send a link to me, automatically you're sharing it. So as I told you, like virtual HQ, one person brings 30 people in and then keeps them three times a day. That's, I think, a very important metric. It might just be like one person,

[00:15:58] but 30 is like 30X virality. But it's not just about 30X virality. It's the fact that they spend three times a day, they spend an hour each on it, which is, I think, even more. So yeah, combination of some standardized metrics. We don't look at any rocket science metrics,

[00:16:11] nothing, you know, to rocket science. Because we're very cautious about how we use the data that we get from our customers in any way. We are very, very cautious about that, simply because that's, you know, abusing data has become the order of the day, especially our competition.

[00:16:29] And it's known the way that's happening. So we take a conscious effort to respect our customers to kind of not be only a data-driven company. We are ultimately a people and an impact-driven company. So data is just one of those points.

[00:16:43] Next question, let's talk about your revenue model a little bit. So tell us how does Vidpone generate revenue and what is your approach to pricing your services? I would say in the premium space as an organization, as an offering, we are not here to say,

[00:17:02] okay, here's the free product, keep using it with these limited tools. Like I said, we like to enable very advanced capabilities for our clients. It could be on sales, it could be on marketing, it could be on support.

[00:17:13] So obviously our pricing, we do a combination of per month, SaaS kind of model. But typically these are enterprise deals that we do. We talk whether it's a large business or a smaller business. We don't just work on per user per month,

[00:17:27] because we're not just here to provide the tool. We provide you the services, the support, the consulting as well that you need to hit that goal. So typically these are custom deals, custom enterprise deals. But like all of our SaaS trends,

[00:17:40] we also offer a premium so you can join in free and upgrade. But yeah, typical ticket size would be about probably, I would say 5X of my competition typically. So yeah, about 99 to $100, about 7,000 a month per user is what we charge,

[00:17:58] which is I think multiple times more than what others are doing. And that's because it's about probably a fifth to one-tenth of the value we provide at the end of the day. So that's the way we price things. It is what you can call value-based pricing.

[00:18:13] Based on how my customers feel they're achieving the goals, we like to keep our pricing rational. I'm sure you have a solid team behind you Jagat. So could you also introduce us to your co-founder Mr. Akhil and tell us more about his role in shaping Vidphone?

[00:18:29] In shaping, Akhil and me, we built Vidphone together every single piece. So we've always kept our team very lean. Akhil joined us a few years back and just joined us as a developer, like a fresh developer. But over time he's actually earned completely his place

[00:18:44] as a director with me in the company and he's the CTO as well. So I think pound to pound, probably the number one WebRTC developer in the world. We're probably building WebRTC, not Zoom, but if you see the other people, they use core WebRTC technology.

[00:19:02] I would say the number one WebRTC developer on the planet, very, very important and extremely nice guy. And so it's a privilege for me to have such a co-founder who is technical at the same time. We have humility and over time we understand each other.

[00:19:19] So yeah, it's wonderful to have someone like him. I keep telling him we always keep learning and we may have the maximum experience in this space, but every day it's like, we are just beginners and we both have that beginner's mindset.

[00:19:32] And I think these things are very important in our industry where we need to shun a lot of things that we do overnight and come up with new and better things. So yeah, he's a dream to work with so far. I hope it only gets better

[00:19:46] and I always wish only good things for him. So with the two of you, what's your total strength of the team? I mean, we're super small. We keep about five, six people and we've always kept it very low because we're a tech company and we only provide support.

[00:20:01] Like suppose we have a customer who requires human intervention, we're obviously engaging somebody there. But typically the platform is like all self-serve and our DevOps is great. So we don't need to do much. You know, these people just use the platform. But yeah, that being said,

[00:20:16] we have a large community of folks that we work with and even going forward, we don't see ourselves being like a construction company and hiring so many people and then laying them off tomorrow. We just don't believe in that culture.

[00:20:29] We've always believed in being what we call lean or to me, what is default in a tech company? So, you know, yeah, though we are very small as a company, as the employees, but I think what's important is that we have a large distributor and partner network

[00:20:44] which works for us in a big way. And that's something that that is the only thing that we believe in to grow more. So we're not a conventional organization want to increase head count in the company. We prefer to increase the partners and the distribution count.

[00:20:57] And I think that's what India needs, all the young students, a lot of people out of jobs. I think it's very, it's not today's mindset to think of normal org structure and kind of fill up bottom roles. I don't think a serious company today can build like that.

[00:21:12] We have to build more like very small core team and have relationships with varied, you know, stakeholders where all of them can plug into the company and make money. But at the same time, they can work elsewhere as well and they have the freedom.

[00:21:25] I think that's the way we want to build this place. We are almost towards the end of this episode, end of this conversation. So tell us, Jagat, looking ahead, what are your plans for the next six to 12 months and what's on priority?

[00:21:38] Well, do what we do every day. I mean, I really, you know, at least the past four years since 2020 where we've had, I would say personally as a founder, I probably had the most competition compared to anybody building a startup at any time.

[00:21:51] To be honest with you, nobody, when I was building 2018-19 video chat in India, I didn't expect the pandemic to happen and all of that. So I would say like for us, it's very crazy to set rules and we don't know what's going to happen,

[00:22:03] but important that we are better than yesterday and that's like the most important thing. We do that consistently, we'll be the best. And that's pretty much all we want to keep doing. As I said, like I've run the company, you know, for a while, run business.

[00:22:14] So I don't look at the next six or 12 months, anything different from, you know, the practice that we have that we want to just, you know, keep doing and get better. This is straight out of curiosity. Tell us what emerging trends

[00:22:30] do you anticipate shaping the future of video commerce and how is Vidphone adapting to capitalize on these trends maybe? It's a brilliant question. I think, you know, video was to happen long, long back the way it's happening now. It's very surprising that 2019

[00:22:45] we were all not on these kinds of calls. We may have been occasionally on a Skype call or Emo or whatever, but nothing like what it is today. And that kind of still shocks me, which is why I built it in 2016. And what I see trends going forward,

[00:22:57] I'm always a peer to peer guy. Like, you know, I think we're going to see a shift from a few organizations doing everything to a very decentralized or a distributed. I would use the word distributed more than decentralized. I think there's overt emphasis on this word decentralized,

[00:23:14] which is what this web three community is about. Talking about decentralization. I believe in distribution more. I always believe that the strategic and planning should happen centrally. The execution can happen decentralized. You cannot have strategy being done decentralized. So to me, that's not making sense.

[00:23:31] So I look at distributed and very specifically peer to peer technology is going to be the biggest thing. Forget about a big thing. It's going to power everything in the future, be it commerce, be it communication, be it logistics, finance, everything is going to be peer to peer.

[00:23:46] But for that, we need everyone's devices or phones and laptops to behave almost like servers. Like nodes in between a server and client. So I see that happening. That's the only trend I see. Of course, you have all of your AI and AR

[00:24:00] and VR and all of those alphabets together. It's always been there. All of these will be parts of this, but the core internet infrastructure will become more decentralized peer to peer as opposed to now IETF, W3C, and ICANN all in the US defining what's a URL,

[00:24:18] what are the rules, who is there. So I see this peer to peer is going to be a big trend and it's going to help video commerce in a big way. Yeah, direct customer relationships. So Jagat, we do have plans to promote this conversation,

[00:24:31] this video to large enterprises, investors, tech giants, and a broader startup ecosystem. Is there anything specific that you'd like to mention that could help you find any external support that you require? Please let us know. And this is your opportunity to ask for support.

[00:24:47] No, no, and I've been doing this for a while. We are probably today the only real video conferencing or video communications company in the country. They're very respectful of having very serious competition. I think it's wonderful because it gets the best out of us.

[00:25:04] And this is not about choosing X over Y or Z. This is about collectively building out what's next. I always believe that the customers must have choice. If you already have something in your house, very rarely you're going to replace that with something.

[00:25:19] And what's very important is that people, the customer needs to have and explore options beyond what they see every day. And so we just want to shout out and look for partners who will do this. Of course, we're not saying there's a small company

[00:25:34] help us and stuff like that. It's all about business as well. I think every company and you need the kind of stakeholders we have, be it our customers, be it STPI, which is part of the government of India, who's a shareholder in my company.

[00:25:47] We have angels from the best organizations. The government gives us grants. So we are here to provide value. We have proven record of doing that. So I'm always open for conversations with other smart folks and entities who want to deliver something superior to the audiences,

[00:26:01] which I think they rightly deserve. So yeah, we're always here. Hit me up. Great. Thank you so much. But before we conclude this, we have a quick rapid fire round of five questions. Are you ready? I'll get that delivered. Yes. Okay. Question number one,

[00:26:21] a book that you would like to recommend to the youth that has greatly influenced your career journey. The Godfather by Mario Puzo. Okay. Question number two, which productivity tool or app do you find most helpful in your daily work? With phone.me. I saw that coming.

[00:26:38] Question number three, a fun fact about you that most people don't know yet. Cross dominant, which means I do something with my right hand, something is my left hand. Interesting. Question number four. So there's a saying that don't tell me who you are,

[00:26:52] just tell me what brands you use. So decide yourself using just the names of three brands. Okay. I use Versace. What else do I have? Of course, Nike. And yeah, I like Kenneth Cole. Philippine as well. So yeah, Philippine, Kenneth Cole, Versace. I like these brands.

[00:27:12] Okay. Last question. What is your one piece of advice for the young audience watching this? Never listen to advice. I'm just joking. You know, on a serious note, I'd say the only thing that really matters is to have a curious mind

[00:27:27] and be realistic about goal setting and stuff like this. I would say have a curious learning mindset. That makes sense. Okay. So now I just want you to make a wish for your starter one last time before you leave this conversation and make a wish out loud.

[00:27:44] They say it doesn't happen if you wish it out loud. Okay. It'll happen. It'll happen. Now that you've said that, I think we want to be the largest. I keep saying like people tell me is Google, Microsoft? No, to me, the role model company is the Tartus.

[00:27:59] Even for us as a company, like I want to be known as the guy who started the company that does the most CSR in the world. It's always been how I started company. I think corporates are great. Corporates need to exist for social good.

[00:28:12] I think it's very important. We want to be known as the biggest CSR donor on the planet. I think that's if I die with that, I'll be very happy. Well, here's to with phone unlocking the power of video commerce. And thank you so much.

[00:28:25] I hope this was worthy of your time, Jagat. It was. Thank you so much. So if you'd like to stay updated with the latest development and business insights from Vidphone, make sure to follow their channel on follow.us slash start up.

[00:28:37] Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one. Thank you for tuning in. If you want to listen to more such interviews with innovative new founders, don't forget to visit www.follow.us slash start ups. And if you want to showcase your startup,

[00:28:56] feel free to drop me a note at ankita.pahava at the red follow.us. We'd love to hear your story.