235: Mastering SaaS by Building a multi-product company! | Gaurav Sharma(Founder, SAASLabs)

[00:00:00] I can create this tool, there are so many people, I will make X money in one year that never works.

[00:00:07] Anything which got started with the true sort of interest, passion, idea which is not allowing you to sleep they will always work.

[00:00:15] Tinkering should never stop by the way.

[00:00:17] Like I've built like hundreds of product tools in my sort of free time even today like I'm coding on sometimes I'm coding on the weekends.

[00:00:26] So Tinkering should never stop otherwise you will learn out of ideas.

[00:00:30] Most of us even don't know how to reply when someone compliments you.

[00:00:34] If I tell you like here shirt is good and you won't have the answer.

[00:00:37] That's where the international market and the India products differ.

[00:00:41] You always talk about teachers, you never talk about solutions.

[00:00:45] So we always try to solve problems with money but it's never that.

[00:00:51] It will take the human hours, it will take the human emotions to play the actual role.

[00:00:57] Hello and welcome to another episode of The Startup Operator Podcast. I'm Roshan Karepa.

[00:01:01] My guest today is Gaurav Sharma who is the founder and CEO of SAS Labs.

[00:01:05] Gaurav is an experienced entrepreneur he has been building for about 15 plus years.

[00:01:10] He's had a couple of exits before and in this conversation I talked to him about building and scaling a SAS company.

[00:01:16] So we split this conversation into four different parts.

[00:01:19] The first part we talk about is ambition of building a hundred million dollar plus company.

[00:01:23] And what efforts and investments go into that.

[00:01:27] The second we talk about product, how to build a successful product, what frameworks or principles you should use.

[00:01:35] The third is what he calls a distribution first mindset, what channels work when and how.

[00:01:41] And the fourth is the people and the personal aspect of things, how he's managing across functional, cross-border team at this point of time.

[00:01:49] And what are those things he is learning for the next leg of the journey?

[00:01:54] This was a fascinating conversation with a very experienced entrepreneur and I'm sure that there are lot of insights in here that could be useful to you.

[00:02:01] So let's get started on this episode of the startup operator podcast with Gaurav Sharma.

[00:02:14] Hey Gaurav, thank you so much for making the time. I really appreciate it. Welcome to the startup operator podcast.

[00:02:20] Thanks man. Thanks for having me here.

[00:02:22] Awesome.

[00:02:24] So we got talking at Upeka and one thing that kind of intrigued me is that you've been a builder for the last maybe like 15 years, right?

[00:02:31] I mean right out of college you've been building stuff B2C B2B, so on and so forth.

[00:02:37] And I think there are a couple of different types of builders mindset.

[00:02:41] One is the pinker like Karkya Dektaam in Kyaoga.

[00:02:46] And the second is like the most strategic picker market, picker problem, picker specific role and kind of solve for that.

[00:02:54] Figure out the distribution first before actually doing anything. I think you've done both.

[00:02:59] Perhaps I mean evolved from one to another.

[00:03:03] If you can talk about both these types of mindsets of building and where you are at this point.

[00:03:08] Sure.

[00:03:10] I started building when I was I think in ninth standard in school.

[00:03:14] That's when I picked up programming.

[00:03:17] And that's when the whole tinkering piece started.

[00:03:20] There were a few stories I've all written about this thing a lot of times which is like Sabir Bhatiya story inspired,

[00:03:26] like I've inspired by like Sabir Bhatiya selling his company for Insyan Mono money which I didn't know how much it is.

[00:03:32] What about 400 million?

[00:03:34] 400 million.

[00:03:35] Oh gosh.

[00:03:36] So that's actually paid at that time.

[00:03:39] And it was just a one year old company.

[00:03:42] Obviously at that age I didn't know how much 400 million means but it was definitely huge amount of money right because my dad was an a force.

[00:03:49] You know staying in this whole a force quarters and all that I've not seen that kind of.

[00:03:54] Yeah.

[00:03:55] I didn't know even know that that much money been existing the world right?

[00:03:59] That was out my I was but I picked up programming because of that and I started tinkering.

[00:04:04] I also want to do this thing.

[00:04:05] I also want to make money and have a good life or exercise.

[00:04:09] Because that's how you start normally when you start as a kid.

[00:04:12] Started with blogging, SEO everything possible so that I can make some as Google ads and money made some money.

[00:04:19] So that was a validation my parents started accepting me okay like this guy is like spending whole his whole night till morning 6 am doing something on computer.

[00:04:28] So check started coming in.

[00:04:29] Okay he's doing something fine is not the fistings time on internet like you know when you grow up you start doing so yeah so that started happening and then I think first legit.

[00:04:41] mindset of building something long term as a business business I mean that actually happened during college.

[00:04:50] I started a virtual software and we got a customer in US a blogger a financial blogger he paid us like two lakh rupees to run a banner on our sort of this software that we built.

[00:05:05] And two lakh rupees for a lot of calls yeah that's that's a lot of money and I still remember how I sold him this whole ad add thing on our sort of platform.

[00:05:15] It was G chatting with him G talk used to happen that yeah so I was G chatting with him right do like we are getting 80,000 students playing this every day they'll go to your blog expires you I just did sold it on the G chat sent him the paper ID he sent me the money.

[00:05:30] It was it was crazy right and that gave me this confidence that after after getting a job in investment banking after college I was confident enough to leave that job in three months.

[00:05:43] Move to Bangalore and take that you know fully as a full-time thing so I think that was first time I thought about something as a full-time more planned we are doing it over time you build muscle.

[00:05:57] Tinkering should never stop by the way like I've built like hundreds of product tools in my sort of free time even today like I'm coding on sometimes I'm coding on the weekends.

[00:06:08] So tinkering should never stop otherwise you'll learn out of ideas yeah no I mean I find actually sadly that there's a lot less tinkering these days right because I think people are more sophisticated they start like figuring out the money before they start building which is a good thing overall but that tinkering right I think that is you know essential so we had.

[00:06:32] The Vimal who is the founder of just pay on the podcast and you know there's a very popular app in Bangalore called Nama which helps book auto rights right and they're doing a lot of rights right I mean they're probably doing what was it I think 10,000 rights or something or day probably more right and it was built as a side project exactly right so yeah absolutely I think I think money can be a superficial reason for some of the people even for me if I sort of dig deep.

[00:07:01] I think that whole that whole magic that you should see when you're coding something yeah and someone who doesn't know you is start using it in US somewhere right and that's the real magic that's where the thrill comes from yeah and I think this whole money piece the fame piece and everything is all by product so as soon as so any single product or project that I started with with a money plan in my mind that never worked.

[00:07:26] I can create this tool there's so many people I'll make X money in one year that never worked anything which got started with the true sort of interest passion idea which which is not allowing you to sleep they will always work given that the market is there an XYZ but I think that purity of thought when you're starting something yeah it's it's mandatory yeah no I think that's like something that what you're doing is not going to be a good thing.

[00:07:56] But this guy recruitment he's a producer right he says the same thing that I when I'm composing music or whatever I just make for myself yeah it's an audience of one if I'm completely kicked about something it finds an audience it becomes a hit or whatever right I mean I don't start with a TZ in mind and start planning backwards.

[00:08:15] And then there is this whole dichotomy of like okay should you bootstrap should you go for a you know racing venture capital so on and so forth.

[00:08:25] Again in the old days I don't think venture was so much of an option right from there to you know now right I mean now maybe after correction it's been a little more tempered but then you know there was a time in 21 or something where people were first thinking of like how do I raise money.

[00:08:42] Right before I even like look at product or distribution any of those things yeah right but do you see that as a dichotomy or do you see that like each has its own place depending on what the what the market is.

[00:08:56] I mean it depends on the founder but I think what I've learned or this is something I tell every single person even if some so a lot of people reach out to me for angel investment and everything my first answer normally is that don't raise the money.

[00:09:08] Especially when you're doing software business right obviously setting a factory then you need money but let's talk about we are talking about software software here and I'm a very strong believer and I always tell people that if raising money is the way for your business to sustain or remain alive then there's no point doing it.

[00:09:26] I always tell people to bootstrap as much as possible and you should you should raise money only once you have a machine they can put a dollar and that machine generates more dollar for you if you don't have that machine that engine then raising money will be very cool for next couple of days you'll be on tech runs and XYZ but that pressure of money won't be good.

[00:09:53] And also the whole delusion piece why to dilute your equity it's so important to continue to carry your equity with you because in our case life example in Satsangab's case we waited till five six million dollars there and because of that we were able to raise 56 plus million dollars with very little dilution.

[00:10:16] So I'm still a majority owner of the business I still own majority seats on the board so as a founder as a product thinker as a main product person of the company I still have that independence that fund or going to work every day and doing what I like the best right.

[00:10:34] So I think now it's becoming more now people are getting it a bit here and there because media is talking about it's here and there that funding is not that cool but earlier I think it was a period of what 2015 to 2021 22 when it was everything was a funding.

[00:10:53] Yeah, I think what you spoke about is so important right which is founders retaining some amount of optionality as you scale yeah red because I think people have this bizarre notion that you know if I raise like 30 million it's going to come and sit in my bank and you know I'm going to become rich the next day but

[00:11:12] it is not at all like that I mean yes there are some second reason everything but those are only you know when you raise growth rounds yeah right and you really have to earn this as well right so

[00:11:25] you know being sensible about how much you raise when you raise and how much you dilute is you know make up yeah no I can tell you a couple of stories there like

[00:11:34] I mean if you want to be rich I think bootstrapping is best if you really want to be like liquid rich rich yeah I want a net cash yeah like so that you can live a good life and that was happening with me also

[00:11:47] and there was one of the triggers for me to raise capital actually because we were making so much money we were like 50% profitable at 5 6 million ARR and I was in Noida for a Noida 100% owner of the business right with the farmers with all the cars I want right and everything I

[00:12:03] felt that now that now we are at a position where I think I will become complacent with all this thing coming in and I'll sort of lose my track of taking this company public and XYZ that was a trigger for us to raise our first

[00:12:17] owner capital and that's when I replied to one of the pitches that we were getting for VCs that okay let's talk and we started getting a lot of acquisition offers and I didn't want

[00:12:26] to sell so that's a different thing altogether so yeah so whenever I mean again like whenever a first time founder approaches me that hey what should I do bootstrapped or not

[00:12:35] to bootstrapped my first question like what's what's what are you optimizing for like you want to make 30 40 crores in your life and chill and give you

[00:12:45] a sentence and partner everyone good life bootstrapped take it to two three million dollars slog for next four years five years and you get the outcome

[00:12:54] but if you really want to do something really big big you can go we see funding but only if you have the engine first day

[00:13:04] think cannot be fundraising it cannot be it's always going to backfire so what is your current motivation you want to build a large company

[00:13:13] right but what kind of companies that going to be and sure you know do you have some benchmarks in mind

[00:13:18] I want it to be like it so white yeah so yeah I think in my case like I built in soul two companies before

[00:13:26] SAS labs right so when I saw when I was starting SAS labs it was never about money per se it was more about

[00:13:34] few things on my checklist like I really want to build something that I'm not going to sell I really

[00:13:39] want to build and see how it it is to take a public so all those big sort of goals I in mind because I am committing 30 40 years

[00:13:47] to it like I've already sold to companies and I really want to see the magic of compounding

[00:13:52] and if you look at the role models are like from the product side of things from this product strategy and industry

[00:13:59] strategic side Adobe at last year or some of these companies that I really admire and this is where this is how we started

[00:14:04] our whole product strategy and everything from longevity and the business point of view I think I mean

[00:14:10] SDFC started falling these days but normally when we started as DFC was like one of those things like compounding

[00:14:16] I think build something for example in four edge right knock it out come yeah when public at 860 crores

[00:14:22] and now it's about 60,000 crores right I mean that's amazing story yeah you make a lot of people money

[00:14:28] I think that's so important yeah I tell you another so again I was telling you about the digging deep

[00:14:33] and finding the real reason so when I moved to US 2011 2012 and sold a company and built another company

[00:14:40] sold it again you know what the biggest change that came to my my family's life or my life

[00:14:46] it was like me myself or my parents started buying things without looking at price tags like buying clothes

[00:14:54] this such a small middle class to decent middle class sort of jump just so subtle but it's so important

[00:15:01] so when I was moving back from US to India I was carrying this sort of idea or dream that can I repeat this for next 20, 30, 40 people

[00:15:09] right everything other than that like Atlassian SDFC I mean this is all wrapper on top of it

[00:15:16] I think the underlying core passion pieces that how can I make same stories with other people as well

[00:15:24] so I think that was a pretty important drawing factor again this is something I found out when I started digging deep

[00:15:29] why I'm doing this thing right at times it happens to found it all the time you're always kind of lonely

[00:15:35] you start thinking these things at times so there's one day I was thinking why I'm doing this thing

[00:15:40] so that's how it came to me

[00:15:43] No I think not a lot of founders spend time thinking about that right I mean you're an experienced guy

[00:15:50] I mean you've had a couple of exits before but not a lot of people think about their intrinsic motivation

[00:15:55] why start up, why do any of these things

[00:15:59] it's pretty much like the classic case of okay you found a problem to solve

[00:16:03] you go and solve build something for it

[00:16:05] you realize you have people around you have a company and then you have to manage the absolute hell that comes with that

[00:16:12] It's not easy

[00:16:14] yeah it's crazy

[00:16:16] I was thinking like at 14 so we were bootstrap company hiring freshers from college and everything

[00:16:23] then we got like 14 million then we got 42 million dollars

[00:16:27] and with every step I was like okay now we are 20 million dollar company

[00:16:31] now we are x million dollar company and now we have these leaders coming in

[00:16:35] probably my life will be easier I would never get easier it never ever gets easier

[00:16:40] yeah

[00:16:41] and that's a fun part like not everyone can be entrepreneur obviously for the same reason

[00:16:46] yeah and what's really important for everyone trying to get into entrepreneurship is to understand and buy that

[00:16:54] this is going to happen I'm not talking that hey you have to give up your work life balance

[00:17:00] I'm totally in favor of that but I think it's always front loaded

[00:17:05] the whole work piece is very front loaded

[00:17:09] and it's now your job as a founder or a CEO of the company to make sure how you take your outside of the business

[00:17:15] how can you work on the business rather than in the business

[00:17:18] so that's one of those I mean it's off topic but I really want to do just bring that point forward

[00:17:23] no that's interesting you know we had a whole debate recently about this

[00:17:27] Mr Naran Murthy is 20 hours and so on right

[00:17:31] and I was like look I mean if that is your life then you pick that

[00:17:36] yeah you can't get the world to bend to your lifestyle and work life balance and what not

[00:17:42] the world is what it is right and you pick the path you want to kind of pursue

[00:17:46] I mean if you ask my colleagues or family members I mean they'll say yes I also do the same

[00:17:54] but I think this okay so if you're putting in 70 hours a week then also make sure that those 70 hours are making some different quality

[00:18:03] right yeah if those 70 hours are making some difference moving you know moving your company forward

[00:18:09] bringing some momentum and improving your time creating opportunities for your business

[00:18:14] and you're also not feeling the burn of it you're enjoying it you're not doing it just because you have to do

[00:18:20] because there's so many fires to fight then it's I think it's fine

[00:18:24] yeah I mean it's but he was logging just for the sake of it

[00:18:29] just and nothing is moving then then you have to just take a break yeah figure out the strategy

[00:18:36] and then go back again maybe work a bit less and figure out how can I work less

[00:18:40] yeah that'll give the answers yeah no I think if you're not motivated by the work

[00:18:45] and if more importantly if you don't have skin in the game right then obviously the figure out the strategy

[00:18:51] to work the least amount of hours and get the most done right that's that what should optimize for

[00:18:57] absolutely I tell everyone who is for example I mean your job is to kill your job basically

[00:19:02] right for example I tell my customer support folks as well like your job is to kill your job

[00:19:08] product people your job is to kill customer supports job right make such an amazing product

[00:19:14] that you don't get any tickets right so for every leader I mean figure out how can you remove

[00:19:20] yourself from the from the job itself right and that will help you enable you

[00:19:25] to run the business better and the function better right one of the consequences

[00:19:32] of the motivation that you have which is to build a large company right that could potentially list

[00:19:38] and so on is the fact that you are multi product right now I mean that's like on paper

[00:19:45] it looks really interesting and it looks simple right I won't say easy but it looks simple for sure

[00:19:51] right I mean you take different markets different products you hedge on what works and so on

[00:19:56] we double down on your winners and you have a way of like figuring out what works across

[00:20:00] you share teams and all of that but I'm sure it is absolutely not that it's not easy to execute

[00:20:07] absolutely but I just want to you know take a step back and think about how you structured the company

[00:20:13] to sort of enable that vision right like a multi product company wish so how do you start

[00:20:18] putting that pieces together yeah so I'll do like why the multi product thing came in first place

[00:20:23] right so whenever starting sass labs I again one of those things thinking about things

[00:20:30] I figured that I get bored very easily and probably that's what I'm selling the companies

[00:20:34] like I'm always writing code building you think there's so many ideas I have

[00:20:38] so I really wanted to have a single so if I want to build something which is long term

[00:20:42] I have to also make sure and optimize for my boredom as well like I should not get bored

[00:20:47] right and I will not get bored if I'm doing a lot of new things now I've obviously matured

[00:20:52] over a period of time but that time is like how can I not get bored let's build a lot

[00:20:57] of stuff in the same same house so there was a first starting point like okay we'll build

[00:21:02] a lot of products and also in the early days I was pretty sure that we're not going

[00:21:07] to raise money and one of the things was like okay let's create a company now where

[00:21:12] normally we see never like multi product companies you know like so say well I okay

[00:21:17] so these are these two things are solving my problems I don't want to raise money

[00:21:20] and I would you want to get bored so there was a multi product play that's how it happened

[00:21:25] but eventually like we started liking it and I think like how to organize

[00:21:34] so we basically so you always have to have a very a start product with you that's

[00:21:41] very important which is a cash cow and then we had something like a Y combinator

[00:21:45] like program within our company where we used to give 20 thousand thirty thousand

[00:21:49] dollars of a grant to our senior engineer to work on different ideas something

[00:21:54] like Google where you can work on different things on the side and you can use that

[00:21:57] 20 thousand thirty dollars for that product whatever you're building so it can be a CEO

[00:22:02] it can be designed XYZ 20 thousand dollars is a game so that the as a program

[00:22:07] we started running so our first product which sort of picked up and become

[00:22:11] million dollars or product the second product help wise that came through that

[00:22:15] program so what happened help wise became a profitable business itself so he so

[00:22:20] today it's doing roughly something around million dollars but it's like

[00:22:25] through and through profitable it has a team of about 12 people engineers one

[00:22:31] product shared design Ankita is running that product she's part of the CEO's

[00:22:37] office so again kind of a shared CEO also has some other stuff but she's kind of

[00:22:42] running the show there at the help wise so so some of the the functioning of

[00:22:47] your team in your business work like agencies for example your CEO's office

[00:22:51] like a strategy kind of agencies like a kind of an internal mechanism for you

[00:22:55] where it can help solve different problems similarly marketing and be that agency

[00:22:59] like it can help you with content it can help you XYZ stuff was really important

[00:23:03] is that how can you put boundaries on the kind of time you have to invest for

[00:23:08] example just call our first main product which is doing tens of millions of

[00:23:12] dollars 90 percent of the human source goes towards just call and 10 percent

[00:23:17] goes to the other sort of places right so it's a function of opportunity and

[00:23:24] where these businesses are right sharing can only happen with certain functions

[00:23:29] for example hiring right I mean hiring is a shared function again like people

[00:23:33] will hire for help wise they'll hire for just call so that's a shared resource

[00:23:37] again so yeah so you have these bunch of functions which are shared and then you've

[00:23:42] dedicated for example engineers they're dedicated if we need some bandwidth

[00:23:47] it's like AWS I can get more engineers for couple of days from just call and use

[00:23:51] it on help wise that can work out interesting you mentioned CEO's office right

[00:23:56] and I think that's I mean I think over the last four or five years it's become

[00:24:01] a little more common to see a founder of this to hire a chief of staff

[00:24:05] and so on and so forth right but I mean when you started building this out

[00:24:10] what was the thought process and how do you hire these folks what did they do today

[00:24:14] yeah no I think I definitely cannot I mean I thank the CEO's office big time

[00:24:20] for all the growth you have seen over a period of time so we started the

[00:24:27] CEO's office just after a series A funding funny story there like so when

[00:24:32] you move from bootstrap to fund aid company you have this whole due diligence

[00:24:36] that happens during fundraise and it's like I open up for me like do like you have to

[00:24:40] have what is my ass like what are all those things right there's so many

[00:24:43] compliances have to follow there's so many things I didn't know even today

[00:24:47] I know I don't know a lot of things so I wanted to firstly plug that I

[00:24:53] wanted to make sure that if you're if I'm raising money from someone the company

[00:24:56] should be absolutely compliant and absolutely greatly great with investor relations

[00:25:01] so one was that the second was like I know like I'm more of a more of a

[00:25:07] hunch based creative impulsive program programmer kind of person I hate Excel

[00:25:12] myself so I but but the business is growing and someone has to have control over

[00:25:18] numbers someone has to give me should challenge me on some of those things

[00:25:22] where I'm just taking hunch based decisions the business is becoming bigger I

[00:25:26] am not the risks I'm taking will come at a higher cost now so I wanted a

[00:25:32] muscle where people are good with numbers people are good with the

[00:25:36] analysis and I'm not spending my time there and that's not my strength

[00:25:40] area anyways so I figured that these are some of these things which we'll stop

[00:25:43] the company from from having that capabilities which I don't have so I figured

[00:25:50] some of these things and that's why how we started hiring people in our

[00:25:53] in our sales office nice so now we have like the whole data the whole my

[00:25:58] sp's strategy piece M and a piece a lot of special projects for example if

[00:26:04] you're building something if a leader is leaving you off of some function then

[00:26:07] someone from sales office can cover up for that person they'll be hired

[00:26:11] someone else so it's like a Swiss knife kind of team with which is great at

[00:26:17] numbers and it's a very neutral team so the job of the sales offices to be

[00:26:22] very neutral you cannot favor anyone it's all numbers it's all proper

[00:26:28] analysis so if a functional leader is telling me that I am wrong then that's

[00:26:35] fine and if CEO of his backing that then that's fine that's what brings

[00:26:39] that neutrality in in the whole company and that sort of keeps things balanced yeah

[00:26:43] I think what I've realized especially over the last maybe three years is how

[00:26:49] much of operational rigor there is to actually running a business right because we

[00:26:53] start off as product guys and you know we just like hey you know customer seem

[00:26:57] to be happy they seem to be paying us I mean what else is there to really bother

[00:27:01] about but then there is someone looking at you know all these margins and where

[00:27:06] we are investing engineers and so on and so exactly and quantifying the

[00:27:09] shit out of everything yeah which is like a huge value I think yeah and especially

[00:27:13] to balance that product mindset which you said like I mean just run with

[00:27:17] your intuition and hunch yeah yeah no I think that's a big difference I mean

[00:27:23] there's a big difference between spending and expenses versus investment because

[00:27:29] most of us founders come from a middle class background without any even

[00:27:32] credit cards or any risk taken ever in our life financially yeah which is

[00:27:37] kind of different in US people take risks and everything from the early age

[00:27:41] itself are are relation with money is always not that great like you're

[00:27:46] like on the value of 100 to $1 you cannot take big risk with that right so

[00:27:52] and when you're coming from a bootstrap mentality where you're like very profitable

[00:27:56] and XYZ and then you're coming to a fund fundate company where you have to

[00:27:59] pedal press the pedal and grow faster you have to build a very special

[00:28:03] muscle called investment how to look at expenses as investment how to differentiate

[00:28:08] between the two because at times my fear at times I mean these days is that we are

[00:28:13] we are profitable again so we are generating a lot of cash we already have the

[00:28:17] series B money in the bank so we have a lot of money with us to to invest

[00:28:21] so at times my fear is that am I under investing some places that's one

[00:28:27] of my fears these days like what are some of those places I'm under investing

[00:28:30] asking questions in the team itself so I think building that muscle of

[00:28:37] investment looking spending money as investment is very important which some

[00:28:43] founders pick it up really well which can't make the difference here

[00:28:47] should be between expenses and investments and they sort of a lot of money so

[00:28:52] I think that's something I'm obviously trying to learn right but you talked about

[00:28:57] operational peace right I'll tell you when we bootstrap in the business

[00:29:01] we didn't even have a finance person full time we had my CA used to do all these

[00:29:05] things because my understanding was that in SaaS business you have like four expense items

[00:29:09] like server costs salaries office and striped peace you know these are four

[00:29:15] expenses and there is this one income and that's it but but now at this scale

[00:29:21] yeah I mean we have like six seven people in finance team we have a proper

[00:29:24] ops team for different functions manage is difficult it's not easy so I salute

[00:29:29] all the operators out there yeah we're killing it with all the ops work

[00:29:33] even with all of this set up right balancing you know new ideas right or R&D

[00:29:40] let's call it yeah and you know expanding yeah going deep within whatever is already

[00:29:45] working yeah it must not be a straightforward thing right so do have like

[00:29:49] a framework or some set of principles that helps you decide what to do and when

[00:29:53] yeah I mean that's that's a very important job of a CEO or the person who's running

[00:29:59] the company to never earn out of money to keep on increasing the time of the

[00:30:05] business to keep on talking to the customers I think that's very important

[00:30:11] from the ideas perspective like I think talking to customers is really important

[00:30:15] because customers going to tell you like what's happening for example this AI thing right

[00:30:18] I mean I started so he started building this whole AI suite three years back before

[00:30:22] this whole judgey BTPs right and recently I started talking to a lot of our

[00:30:27] founder see as a far out of our customers and for some of the most of the

[00:30:32] customers AI steal a form of peace right and we all of the SaaS companies are

[00:30:37] building things around AI plugging in doing all that stuff but all the

[00:30:42] customers ready yet what kind of things they're looking for what are their

[00:30:46] expectations on AI so I think so taking our time for customers is very important

[00:30:53] because in the early days you have less customers you can take our time and

[00:30:56] that's how you grow from zero to one but what's important is like once your

[00:31:01] own company that's when it's very important to talk to a customer so I think

[00:31:05] that's one R&D peace it's also your role to tell your

[00:31:14] leaders or have this culture of innovation and failing fast and so

[00:31:19] to fail and all that thing and pushing people to think out of the box is

[00:31:23] really important keep on telling that I think one biggest learning for me

[00:31:27] over the period of time as we have grown from me single person opening the

[00:31:31] office to almost 300 plus people now is like how important communication is

[00:31:35] how to keep on communicating again and again that hey we cannot just be

[00:31:40] a table stake matching features product we have to have some magic in our

[00:31:44] products you have to keep on telling that you have to review you have to show

[00:31:48] interest in a product with your engineering team you have so every month I go

[00:31:53] in the night time I go on customer support chats like at least once a month

[00:31:58] just to understand what people are complaining about and I ask every single

[00:32:04] team member in the company to have access to the customers so I think that's

[00:32:09] really important from the R&D sort of peace listening to the customers yeah it's

[00:32:14] amazing right like how much of your product roadmap could actually be defined by

[00:32:18] your customer absolutely I mean they'll just tell you what you need to build

[00:32:22] tell you what will what they'll pay for and still you see so little of that

[00:32:27] in the market out there in some sense right and when you listen to them

[00:32:32] often enough that's when I think you earn the right to take that next leap also

[00:32:35] in terms of your product thinking itself yeah and building that that thing

[00:32:39] could be like a you know like a highlight feature or a highlight product

[00:32:45] as such so let's talk about your process of going from idea to product

[00:32:52] to like you know again skilled market as such I mean you like to build around

[00:32:57] the job function a job role yeah so sales for example you build you know call

[00:33:02] like you and so on and so forth right is that thinking on a continue and also

[00:33:07] like what are some pros and cons of doing that one thing is you mentioned

[00:33:11] increasing time right I think it's a lot more straightforward when you're

[00:33:14] doing that you just basically look at that person and just like try to automate

[00:33:18] or streamline everything that they do in their work day yeah that is one easy way

[00:33:23] of like thinking about it but any other nuances that you can talk about sure

[00:33:28] yeah I think the first first one is very important the whole focus on the job

[00:33:33] role or a persona I can say like I now normally call it job role so that it

[00:33:38] becomes more focused like I know like what an SDR will do what a BDR will do

[00:33:42] or AE will do or a customer support person so our strategy basically is like

[00:33:48] so let's so this is how I think about it like to reach $100 million we need

[00:33:56] to have about 80,000 agents paying us about $100 a month each right today

[00:34:02] let's say we have about 30,000 40,000 agents and they're paying us about $70

[00:34:06] $80 so I have to increase my number of agents and I have to increase per

[00:34:10] seat amount that they pay me right so that's a fundamental thinking like

[00:34:14] that's how the math work for $100 million so and they're again on the

[00:34:19] product thinking there are three ways to think about it one is like what can I

[00:34:24] do from the product side so that I can acquire more customers what can I do

[00:34:27] from the product side so that I can retain and expand my customers and

[00:34:31] third is what can I do from the innovation point of view like what how can

[00:34:35] I bring differentiator in the market so that people sort of stay with us

[00:34:40] and then goes to and then there's a whole repository of customer requests

[00:34:46] right so we do a lot of brainstorming around customer request customer

[00:34:53] team also gives us a download on like what are the top queries or requests for

[00:34:58] the week for the month and all those things right so I think that's that's one

[00:35:03] I strongly believe that in product you should not be 100% focused on metrics

[00:35:11] and numbers and all those things that that whole creativity and magic piece is

[00:35:17] very very important for example what happens like when you're comparing yourself

[00:35:22] to your product with some other competitor you'd be like this person gives

[00:35:25] that feature so I should also have this feature and we just call it inspired or

[00:35:29] just copy like we just make the same right what we do internally is we push

[00:35:34] our folks to rethink the solution once is there a different way we can do

[00:35:39] this solution because we have seen like a lot of these magic that we have created

[00:35:46] in our product those are one of those retention drivers for us for some of our

[00:35:50] products I mean that brings them differentiator that brings those things right

[00:35:54] to other things that I think about so I think about

[00:35:57] this is something I was actually writing a post on like it is about like

[00:36:03] two types of mode for retaining a customer from the product side one is called

[00:36:09] I call it citizenship one I call religion right citizenship is like for example

[00:36:15] you know it charges you for every single activity that you're doing and that's an

[00:36:20] amazing product model product feature product functionality and pricing model

[00:36:27] right so you can you can build a product which can plug into your customers use

[00:36:31] case and they get charge only when they're making something so if you can

[00:36:35] think about doing something around your product from that functionality you will

[00:36:38] make money and also they won't get sort of feel bad about it the other one

[00:36:44] is called religion where they just trust you like anything so you have to

[00:36:49] figure out what is that religion piece that you bring into it for example

[00:36:53] Amazon versus Flipkart like I even if Flipkart gives me 50% discount on Apple

[00:36:59] iPhone I mean I still go to Amazon right so what can you do from the trust

[00:37:04] building point of view a lot of time a lot of John happens or a lot of people

[00:37:10] leave your business because of the perception around your product so we always

[00:37:15] think a lot about trust building and perception building yeah around the

[00:37:19] product there some of these buckets where we look at I think you know we forget

[00:37:24] how much of an emotional decision even buying sases it is why you buy one thing

[00:37:29] versus another yeah I mean we can do all of the tables and like put the pros

[00:37:34] and cons on you know either side from each of these things but you kind of go

[00:37:38] with whatever you have a comfort feeling yeah right ultimately and this is

[00:37:43] you know what whether why you use slack versus teams or whether you use any

[00:37:48] of these things yeah right no I'm very particular about the copy yeah of the

[00:37:53] buttons of the banners of the other messages I normally tell people that

[00:37:57] product should behave rather than work it should behave I mean the human

[00:38:03] is using that so it should like an extension to that your extension right so the

[00:38:08] the for example next next next button right like so I'm very particular to copy

[00:38:13] and I've seen in my previous sort of things that have done copy has made a

[00:38:18] lot of difference for me be the product going viral or anything happening or

[00:38:22] word of mouth yeah that copy of the email the CTA I'm so particular about that

[00:38:28] I don't know a lot of people it mean why come in for that maybe I keep on

[00:38:32] nagging people for that I don't know if you remember the early days of rails

[00:38:36] right yeah you know Twitter Twitter was one of the first few platforms

[00:38:40] that was on rails and you remember the fail well fail well yeah I mean people

[00:38:44] would put up with that stuff because I mean hey I mean it looked cute and

[00:38:47] I mean of course I mean I'm going after a while but then I mean that became a

[00:38:51] thing right yeah versus just seeing you know a city bearer or whatever it

[00:38:55] is yeah I mean it's a yeah I mean copy I think copy an in general communication

[00:39:01] yeah you can just never underestimate the power of it yeah a lot of people

[00:39:06] write in their footer like made with love in LA Delhi whatever yeah but

[00:39:11] majority don't majority people don't build those things with love they build

[00:39:15] through PRDs and stuff it should be built with love yeah they should think how

[00:39:22] can I make this person's life more easier let's click yeah he feels the he or she

[00:39:28] feels good about the button even like the whole message of the button yeah you

[00:39:32] know so when I get confused about like what should the button text be like

[00:39:36] get started now for free free trial try me now for free I all those things

[00:39:42] like this so and maybe testing is not the answer to that you should also

[00:39:46] feel it so yeah man it's very interesting okay we've spoken about investment in

[00:39:54] in resources right where you allocate your resources we've spoken fair bit

[00:39:58] over the product side of things let's talk about distribution yeah one of the

[00:40:01] things you mentioned is that you have a distribution first mindset now at

[00:40:05] least yeah in terms of okay what do you think is that what do you think will be the

[00:40:10] channel where I can acquire users for this now in the early days you could perhaps

[00:40:14] you know considering that you have a zero dollar budget you could work the SEO

[00:40:18] and then wait three months or four months before it really started like giving you

[00:40:21] some inbound and so on and so forth right but now obviously you have money

[00:40:26] and you have people and I think you have a greater intuition on where the product

[00:40:30] and market is yeah so how has that distribution thing evolved what are your

[00:40:36] principles on distribution right now yeah well I think distribution is super

[00:40:40] super super super to put important like I'm a big fan of narcos and these these

[00:40:44] shows right and the and their distribution was amazing right Mexico to US

[00:40:48] there's a tunnel and I even sell anything you want you want to sell powder you want

[00:40:52] to sell vegetables you can use that tunnel right so you build that distribution

[00:40:56] it's so important yeah and you're in the bootstrapping bootstrapping days

[00:41:00] actually that worked out really well for us that we didn't have the money

[00:41:04] so we started integrating with other software tools and we knew that all those other

[00:41:10] players I have spot pipeline to come all those players are growing companies

[00:41:14] and they already have customers so why not just write the tide and just use

[00:41:18] their popularity to get popularity for us and make them our sort of banner holders

[00:41:24] for us right so we doubled and triple down on integrating with hundreds of tools

[00:41:28] in the early days and we again bringing in human factor into it like

[00:41:34] I myself some of our engineers started building relationship with people who are

[00:41:38] running the marketplaces there so if Jack is running a hub spot marketplace

[00:41:44] I used to ping him like we just build this amazing feature

[00:41:48] we already given a landing page a health guide on a video can you list us on your marketplace cool

[00:41:54] we got listed then hey man we are getting 10 plus we have 20 new people now common users now can we do

[00:42:02] a webinar together and after that five five ten days after hey we just launch

[00:42:08] a new SMS integration with our spot would you like to sort of put it somewhere

[00:42:14] or be like hey you you know put our company to somewhere on the top in some list

[00:42:20] like why I know love for us and then they did like three list where we was on the top you know

[00:42:26] so having that human thing that I think is one better it's a moot it's a moot

[00:42:32] it's a moot I know for our first 10 20 integrations

[00:42:36] I know everyone who is running the marketplace

[00:42:38] so be it hiring if I have to hire someone for partnership I know who to hire

[00:42:42] even from the just getting a push for example pipe drive CRM company right

[00:42:50] we became one of their founding partners for some of their new products that they built

[00:42:56] and launched recently we replaced their own in dialer within pipe drive itself

[00:43:00] and that all happened because people know us there because their relationship

[00:43:05] these people helped answered queries from our VCs when they were evaluating our company right

[00:43:11] these people went on calls with our VCs to tell them how amazing just what integration is

[00:43:17] so we always try to solve problems with money but it's never that

[00:43:23] it will take the human hours it will take the human emotions to play the actual role

[00:43:29] we should never leave the human part of the business I mean I always whenever

[00:43:33] I write messages to our team members as a whole I'm like we are in business humans

[00:43:37] humans making products human making selling, delying supporting product

[00:43:43] and all those things are like buy products yeah so we can you and that's the moot

[00:43:51] yeah no I think partnerships right such a I think underrated channel

[00:43:57] I would say because a lot of the times when I talk to founders they think that

[00:44:00] I mean I will hit like X or Y million dollars

[00:44:04] then probably think about partnerships right I mean but if you are executing in a space

[00:44:08] there's 100% legacy company right that has maybe like 1000 times more distribution than you

[00:44:16] it absolutely makes sense to talk to them and perhaps list them

[00:44:20] list on their marketplace or not even the marketplace just talk to the partnerships guy

[00:44:24] I remember early days we got at the very least we got a PR release from some SVP at Salesforce

[00:44:31] makes a difference yeah it really makes a difference right and when we started the

[00:44:35] podcast it's funny okay I mean I wrote to like I called reached out to some 7 or 8 people

[00:44:41] from the Apple team on who runs podcasts exactly have we got featured on the Apple

[00:44:47] podcast page right money money is not going to solve that yeah we see funding not going to solve

[00:44:51] that yeah unless you sort of send that and so the thing is like the funny thing is like

[00:44:55] six of them said six of them didn't say anything maybe like three or four connected

[00:44:59] and then one person was actually helpful same thing on Spotify also right

[00:45:03] and yeah I mean it doesn't cost us anything literally like a few minutes of

[00:45:07] few hours this work some persistent follow up right but

[00:45:11] in the case of SaaS it's almost having like an extended sales team

[00:45:15] exactly for example affiliate marketing right yeah we have about 700 800 affiliate partners

[00:45:21] with us so the beauty of that is like when you're sleeping they're selling for you

[00:45:25] right and there's seven or eight people spread across 40 countries I mean

[00:45:29] there was one affiliate partner who was getting his dentists in Italy

[00:45:33] I mean we would have never spent any single dollar on Google or whatever ads

[00:45:37] in Italy to target dentists right there was this partner in Canada

[00:45:41] he was getting us all the investor relations teams we never thought

[00:45:45] investors can also buy our software yeah right and there was this partner in Australia

[00:45:49] I was getting us a lot of big customers from solar industry

[00:45:53] from Australia so no I think this is one of those things which are like again

[00:45:57] this is one of those investment thinking piece right because this partnership

[00:46:01] will start slow and yeah

[00:46:05] all effort is front loaded you have to do a lot of effort you have to wait

[00:46:09] you have to patient and you have to give a lot of value first and then sort of expect

[00:46:13] something but then the whole snowball effect sort of comes in absolutely

[00:46:17] compounding like you start with one then two then four then eight and all that

[00:46:21] stuff happens right so I mean for example in our case I've laid

[00:46:25] marketing itself generates almost 10% revenue for us

[00:46:31] and it's all know effort I mean that'll do to cack on this will be like what 5 is

[00:46:35] to 1 because we give 20% commission

[00:46:37] so it's the best revenue that we are earning basic

[00:46:41] yeah and just to have like a diversified channel for growth

[00:46:45] I mean exactly you're not like bloody playing these

[00:46:49] LinkedIn's and Google's all of those dollars which I absolutely hate okay

[00:46:53] I mean I think so two years back I set a target for us that you know we should

[00:46:57] reduce our paid campaign to zero I mean obviously it's not going to happen

[00:47:01] but that's the way it has to trend right I tell you like

[00:47:05] we saved almost three million dollars wow by cutting our

[00:47:09] paid acquisition spending

[00:47:13] hardly 7% impact on our leads no impact on our sales

[00:47:17] wow crazy yeah three million dollars in the bank

[00:47:21] from half a million dollars to we went from half a million dollars of

[00:47:25] spending to almost quarter million nothing changed

[00:47:29] wow yeah it's pretty amazing I think we do a lot of

[00:47:33] these things I think we do it because we do it right

[00:47:37] Airbnb for instance I think in 2021 or sometimes they

[00:47:41] post the IPO is suppose they decided to cut all paid

[00:47:45] acquisition they said we're going to spend all our

[00:47:47] passion brand that's it right and they've not seen a impact

[00:47:51] and I used to think that okay maybe it kind of works for

[00:47:53] an Airbnb type of a company which is sort of ubiquitous

[00:47:57] has spent a lot of money and so on but yeah it could also work

[00:48:01] on a dollar scale yeah I think it also forces you to think of

[00:48:05] other channels right and really work your

[00:48:07] myself if you're not spending on paid

[00:48:09] campaigns that much and if you don't have the regular inflow of leads

[00:48:13] then perhaps someone you'll do better on your copy on your website

[00:48:15] yeah a lot of debate is happening around the brand

[00:48:17] world campaigns right and I was talking to a

[00:48:21] CMO at a pretty big company

[00:48:25] SaaS company and they said that they just stopped

[00:48:29] spending money on the brand words and nothing happened

[00:48:31] so you don't do that now

[00:48:33] so I cut our budget further yeah right

[00:48:37] but I think marketing again marketing is something

[00:48:41] I've been making my sort of opinion around marketing

[00:48:43] at least looking at the India scene and

[00:48:47] you also mentioned that selling building in India

[00:48:50] selling across the world right I think marketing is something we

[00:48:53] haven't played well even us and all majority of the

[00:48:57] companies in India and I'm growing

[00:49:01] ingly I'm sort of figuring out that marketing is

[00:49:03] nothing but creating a religion so for example

[00:49:07] in our case there are 600,000 businesses who

[00:49:11] fit our ICP and we just need 30,000 businesses

[00:49:15] to swear by you to follow my religion my

[00:49:19] teachings and for that I've or it something very similar to

[00:49:23] running election also and that's what politicians do

[00:49:25] they come with an opinion to which certain people

[00:49:29] subscribe and vote for the politician even the election

[00:49:33] you say certain things with some people like some don't

[00:49:37] which is fine and it's so important to understand that you cannot sell to every single

[00:49:41] lead which is coming in absolutely

[00:49:43] and you know this is connected to ops and operations also

[00:49:47] what lead you are rejecting what not rejecting

[00:49:51] so all those things are so connected and unless

[00:49:53] you're a mental model or understanding of letting go

[00:49:57] of things which are not the right ICP for you that's important

[00:50:01] creating an opinion around your brand is also important

[00:50:05] for example just call what does just call stand for one of our main products

[00:50:09] what does just call stand for what's the opinion about let's say

[00:50:13] will AI kill jobs or will it make people richer

[00:50:17] we should have an opinion right so this is something we are practicing now

[00:50:21] set aside 30 40,000 businesses who subscribe to our opinion

[00:50:25] and that's how we'll be reaching a hundred million

[00:50:29] above sort of goals so I just wanted to say a few things about marketing

[00:50:33] that's something being miles of learning over a period of time

[00:50:37] yeah definitely interesting right I mean in the early days you're out to qualify

[00:50:39] the hell out of everything

[00:50:41] everyone I'm going to put pride on everything because

[00:50:43] obviously you spent to cap

[00:50:45] so many useless features for non-ICP fits

[00:50:49] I mean we have done that

[00:50:51] so the faster you realize that

[00:50:53] I mean it's really important and again

[00:50:55] it's one of those things like

[00:50:57] the way you have to build muscle for investment

[00:50:59] understanding what expense and what's investment similar things like

[00:51:01] what's a fit what's not a fit

[00:51:03] is also very important

[00:51:05] it's very difficult to let go of lead which may pay you $1,000

[00:51:09] in the early days

[00:51:11] but you eventually have to build that muscle

[00:51:13] otherwise it will be difficult to scale

[00:51:15] yeah yeah

[00:51:17] I feel like as Indians right I mean we've learned

[00:51:21] how to build right

[00:51:23] if you look at the last 10 years

[00:51:25] I think the single biggest

[00:51:27] thing that changes our product thinking

[00:51:29] I mean I think today if you look at

[00:51:31] like an Indian made product versus a global product

[00:51:33] I think the UX is absolutely

[00:51:35] similar in some sense

[00:51:37] R is superior and on in some products that I've seen

[00:51:41] but one thing that we're still learning

[00:51:43] to sell and market

[00:51:45] and that's where I think

[00:51:47] building a brand and so on

[00:51:49] because on the marketing front

[00:51:51] I think we're damn good at acquisition

[00:51:53] we're really running the numbers

[00:51:55] it's very mathematical

[00:51:57] wow funnily you know how much to put in

[00:51:59] and so on and so forth

[00:52:01] but this whole brand thing

[00:52:03] is key to building

[00:52:05] $100 million companies

[00:52:07] is key to perhaps listing

[00:52:09] and so on

[00:52:11] and I think how are you thinking about this branding

[00:52:13] yeah no I think if you think about it

[00:52:15] like majority of us

[00:52:17] like our very as an Indian

[00:52:19] person like everyone most of us

[00:52:21] are like very humble

[00:52:23] kind of shy here and there

[00:52:25] like we are obviously very vocal among ourselves

[00:52:27] what on a global level

[00:52:29] we are very shy people in the Indian Journal

[00:52:31] right confidence levels also not up there

[00:52:33] and that shows up in your marketing

[00:52:35] normally your marketing should be speaking

[00:52:37] 3x what the product is doing

[00:52:39] we do the opposite

[00:52:41] we are such great feature factories

[00:52:43] will have more features than every other single product

[00:52:45] but we'll be doing half the marketing

[00:52:47] so if product is 1x

[00:52:49] we'll be doing 0.5x

[00:52:51] marketing as that this is what we do

[00:52:53] instead we should do 3x of what the product is

[00:52:55] and this is coming in from your inherent

[00:52:59] lower confidence

[00:53:01] and it's not like it's just built in our

[00:53:03] blood I mean that's it

[00:53:05] there's nothing wrong about it

[00:53:07] so you just have to bring you should have to just

[00:53:09] realize that okay I'm doing that

[00:53:11] so probably I have to come out a bit more

[00:53:13] to be a bit more aggressive

[00:53:15] I should talk highly of some of my features

[00:53:17] I should not talk about features actually

[00:53:19] I should talk about solutions

[00:53:21] that's where the international market

[00:53:23] and India products differ

[00:53:25] we always talk about features

[00:53:27] we never talk about solutions

[00:53:29] and to some extent it's also a difference

[00:53:31] of we never grew up there

[00:53:33] so we don't understand much of their sort of

[00:53:35] it's always been cost conscious and been

[00:53:37] measuring features

[00:53:39] so it's our upbringing I would say

[00:53:41] there's so much material online available now

[00:53:43] you just have to realize what you're missing

[00:53:45] and just fix that

[00:53:47] so you can start with

[00:53:49] talking more about

[00:53:51] and in a big manner about your features

[00:53:53] I think that's a very good start

[00:53:55] start giving some big name

[00:53:57] some of the hacks I'm talking about

[00:53:59] if you are doing

[00:54:01] social media studio you know something

[00:54:03] about like

[00:54:05] influence master or something

[00:54:07] grow your influenced index

[00:54:09] by automating your

[00:54:11] social publications

[00:54:13] whatever

[00:54:15] make it sound bigger than what it is

[00:54:17] because that's happening in the world

[00:54:19] is this nothing wrong with that

[00:54:21] so I think we can start with that practice

[00:54:23] and probably that's how we can sort of grow

[00:54:25] on top of it

[00:54:27] you hit it on the head right

[00:54:29] our intrinsic are so

[00:54:31] some do you speak too much

[00:54:33] be a little humble

[00:54:35] let your work speak for itself

[00:54:37] so on and so forth

[00:54:39] but a whole lot of people won't even discover you

[00:54:41] if you don't like

[00:54:43] stand on the rooftops and shout

[00:54:45] most of us even don't know how to

[00:54:47] reply when someone compliments you

[00:54:49] right if I tell you like here shirt is good

[00:54:51] you won't have the answer

[00:54:53] yeah so you have to learn that

[00:54:55] yeah

[00:54:57] the other interesting

[00:54:59] club is that you've picked

[00:55:01] the SMB market right

[00:55:03] you pick this

[00:55:05] market which is easy to acquire but also kind of easy to

[00:55:07] turn as well

[00:55:09] and it's a sort of a double edged sword

[00:55:11] you can see them coming in through the funnel

[00:55:13] and then you know

[00:55:15] leaving after three months or six months

[00:55:17] and sometimes you know there's a whole lot of effort

[00:55:19] that goes into converting from free to paid

[00:55:21] and so on and so forth

[00:55:23] what is your experience on building

[00:55:25] for this whole SMB persona

[00:55:27] and you've not been tempted to

[00:55:29] sort of go to mid market enterprise

[00:55:31] as such yeah no I mean to some extent like

[00:55:33] okay so SMB why SMB happened

[00:55:35] for the first reason right

[00:55:37] like when I moved to US for the first time

[00:55:39] like my couple of learnings were

[00:55:41] like firstly people pay for softer

[00:55:43] that was amazing being a programmer myself

[00:55:45] wow this is so amazing

[00:55:47] the second one is like SMB's are very

[00:55:49] underloved

[00:55:51] and also the agents form

[00:55:53] we are building up products

[00:55:55] that are very underloved

[00:55:57] so it actually became like a mission for us

[00:55:59] and it became like from day one

[00:56:01] we were talking about it

[00:56:03] like this will be the first line in our

[00:56:05] IPO prospectus that SMB's and mid market

[00:56:07] SMB's and the agents are

[00:56:09] underloved and underserved

[00:56:11] and we are solving for that

[00:56:13] so that became a mission for us

[00:56:15] and so you know market 70% of the whole

[00:56:17] dollar

[00:56:19] is actually an SMB mid market

[00:56:21] it's a difficult problem to solve

[00:56:23] from the economic side for the US

[00:56:25] or the European folks

[00:56:27] but that's where the India unfair

[00:56:29] on edge comes in

[00:56:31] I'm not talking about the arbitrage

[00:56:33] of the wage gap

[00:56:35] I'm actually talking about the speed at which we execute

[00:56:37] obviously there is arbitrage on the support

[00:56:39] cost

[00:56:41] but some of the arbitrage on building

[00:56:43] product has sort of minimized

[00:56:45] like it's not that much

[00:56:47] given the salaries and gone up

[00:56:49] it's more of the speed of execution

[00:56:51] so yeah

[00:56:53] so I think the urge is fine

[00:56:55] and it will happen

[00:56:57] but you cannot sublime

[00:56:59] from selling to very small

[00:57:01] business to enterprise

[00:57:03] I feel it's a mature

[00:57:05] it's a functional maturity of the business

[00:57:07] and the product

[00:57:09] for example our product can still handle

[00:57:11] real customers

[00:57:13] but we don't land them big yet

[00:57:15] so a lot of customers started with like two

[00:57:17] seats or three seats with us

[00:57:19] they're enterprise-y

[00:57:21] sort of customers for us

[00:57:23] but frankly

[00:57:25] it also comes with the founders

[00:57:29] mindset also

[00:57:31] I was always an introvert programmer

[00:57:33] who loved it when people

[00:57:35] used your product

[00:57:37] without even talking to you

[00:57:39] or they paid on the paper

[00:57:41] right away without even talking to you

[00:57:43] or just email, not a phone call

[00:57:45] so maybe it comes from there

[00:57:47] eventually with the maturity of the business

[00:57:49] I think till $100 million to

[00:57:51] $150 million I think

[00:57:53] against Telpul off with our

[00:57:55] SMB's

[00:57:57] what's small and medium by the way

[00:57:59] so I think we have enough

[00:58:01] depth in our market

[00:58:03] where we can pull off this

[00:58:05] game till $150 million easily

[00:58:07] I give you the equation for $100 million

[00:58:09] which is totally doable

[00:58:11] we are halfway almost there

[00:58:13] from the agents point of view

[00:58:15] I think if you look at

[00:58:17] HubSpot for example right

[00:58:19] there are also enterprises

[00:58:21] or fresh works

[00:58:23] tending towards mid-market

[00:58:25] at least

[00:58:27] I personally feel that

[00:58:29] you don't start off in the enterprise

[00:58:31] even if you do sell to large organizations

[00:58:33] maybe the scope of problem

[00:58:35] that you're solving on day one

[00:58:37] is very small

[00:58:39] you can't go and say that I'm going to replace your kitchen sink

[00:58:41] plus I don't come with an unfair

[00:58:43] I've never worked any

[00:58:45] I've worked in a company

[00:58:47] I've worked in 3 months

[00:58:49] which is a big herb

[00:58:51] that doesn't count

[00:58:53] I was just an analyst

[00:58:55] your team is spread across

[00:58:57] multiple different continents

[00:58:59] geographies

[00:59:01] what are your thoughts on

[00:59:03] bringing all of these people together

[00:59:05] motivating them through a

[00:59:07] common mission

[00:59:09] and this thing they call culture

[00:59:11] is very different in Poland

[00:59:13] as you would have realized

[00:59:15] very different in US

[00:59:17] in fact I mean different in Noida versus Bangalore

[00:59:19] 100%

[00:59:21] so

[00:59:23] how do you sort of get all of these

[00:59:25] very different personalities

[00:59:27] running towards a common goal

[00:59:29] leverage each person's

[00:59:31] intrinsic

[00:59:33] and yet

[00:59:35] sort of have an idea of what

[00:59:37] Sasslabs is

[00:59:39] I mean

[00:59:41] normally I

[00:59:43] in any of our town halls

[00:59:45] or off sites

[00:59:47] and normally show them a picture

[00:59:49] of a boat

[00:59:51] people are going about

[00:59:53] that's where it starts from

[00:59:55] if you have to win

[00:59:57] you have to row up

[00:59:59] in the same direction

[01:00:01] that's where it starts

[01:00:03] very basic theory stuff

[01:00:05] I think what really matters is

[01:00:07] forever

[01:00:09] so there for every single year

[01:00:11] we have a lot of stories

[01:00:13] like 2016 we were on the words of

[01:00:15] closing down

[01:00:17] and then we sort of figured

[01:00:19] from there and we sort of

[01:00:21] started doing well

[01:00:23] so there's a story there

[01:00:25] everyone knows about that story

[01:00:27] every new person who comes in

[01:00:29] get to hear that story every time

[01:00:31] every team has different stories

[01:00:33] of wins, losses, whatever

[01:00:35] you want to say

[01:00:37] it's also a very

[01:00:39] important

[01:00:41] communication is very important

[01:00:43] what kind of person you are

[01:00:45] I think that's also important

[01:00:47] how you connect

[01:00:49] so if you have connected

[01:00:51] really well with your first 10-20-30 people

[01:00:53] and you gave them

[01:00:55] they agree with you

[01:00:57] they have to carry forward the same

[01:00:59] keep in touch with those 30-40 people

[01:01:01] obviously keep in touch with new people

[01:01:03] to take this culture forward

[01:01:05] spend time with them

[01:01:07] I think you cannot be like

[01:01:09] hey I'm a CEO so I won't talk to anyone

[01:01:11] have a very open doors or policy

[01:01:13] during COVID we have open chat policy

[01:01:15] you know like

[01:01:17] so when people start relating

[01:01:19] to you that okay this person is

[01:01:21] actually very motivated about the mission

[01:01:23] storytelling is on point

[01:01:25] we have not just things

[01:01:27] stories we have also done that

[01:01:29] award winning

[01:01:31] award and fastest growing companies

[01:01:33] XYZ that also has a lot

[01:01:35] it's a combination of that

[01:01:37] the one thing is like

[01:01:39] okay so what people really like about

[01:01:41] Sasa I can probably

[01:01:43] that will answer the question better

[01:01:45] we focus a lot on

[01:01:47] independence of thinking

[01:01:49] and like anyone can come with ideas

[01:01:51] I think that's really important

[01:01:53] we talk about one person growth

[01:01:55] I mean it's a simple

[01:01:57] compound interest formula like

[01:01:59] we have a lot of interest

[01:02:01] so focus a lot on that

[01:02:03] we focus a lot on multi-functional learning

[01:02:05] so if an engineer doesn't mean that you

[01:02:07] just have to quote he also

[01:02:09] have to understand the marketing

[01:02:11] piece also like

[01:02:13] if you're interested

[01:02:15] and also keeping

[01:02:17] sorry remember one of our engineers

[01:02:19] when we were adding this person from

[01:02:21] a campus recruitment this person

[01:02:23] asked me a really good question

[01:02:25] he's still with us five six years

[01:02:27] your customers will review your work

[01:02:29] you're a fresher but

[01:02:31] you'll be on the field day one

[01:02:33] and your customer is going to

[01:02:35] review your work

[01:02:37] and that guy obviously picked us

[01:02:39] as a company and still with us for last six years

[01:02:43] and that's what I realized that just by becoming

[01:02:45] very close to our customers

[01:02:47] the young folks one year to year

[01:02:49] old folks in our company

[01:02:51] they just love that

[01:02:53] that they're getting the challenges

[01:02:55] they're actually talking to these

[01:02:57] for example people coming from small towns

[01:02:59] just talking to a

[01:03:01] a US person

[01:03:03] itself is a great thing to talk about

[01:03:05] during dinner with your family

[01:03:07] yeah I had a chat with rich

[01:03:09] white whatever

[01:03:11] you know like something like that

[01:03:13] so I mean that's like

[01:03:15] such an amazing

[01:03:17] thing for

[01:03:19] and we started as a underdog story

[01:03:21] that also helped

[01:03:23] I do it like a bootstraid

[01:03:25] what you have to kill these US

[01:03:27] companies or beat these US

[01:03:29] companies this is all storytelling

[01:03:31] I should come

[01:03:33] from inside it should be sound real

[01:03:35] right yeah you cannot fake it

[01:03:37] you cannot fake it

[01:03:39] and I think stories are so important

[01:03:41] you know because as you scale

[01:03:43] people forget

[01:03:45] what you did to get that one big deal

[01:03:47] for instance being transparent

[01:03:49] is also very important

[01:03:51] as we think happened last year

[01:03:53] March

[01:03:55] we had all our money there

[01:03:57] it was such a bad weekend

[01:03:59] for all of us

[01:04:01] but the next on Monday

[01:04:03] or whatever Tuesday I actually wrote a whole post

[01:04:05] to the whole team telling them that

[01:04:07] this happened

[01:04:09] and these are kind of lessons

[01:04:11] for us like we cannot have a single point of failure

[01:04:13] by the way even after

[01:04:15] even the money went away but we had a plan

[01:04:17] to be profitable right away

[01:04:19] and we already had

[01:04:21] XYZ, debt line, create line

[01:04:23] lined up for us

[01:04:25] so you should not be worried

[01:04:27] something like that

[01:04:29] so be very transparent about the screw-ups

[01:04:31] I think that also helps in building a trust

[01:04:33] I mean it's just wild to me that

[01:04:35] you can't even take your deposits for granted

[01:04:37] 250 only happens

[01:04:39] and a lot of parties man

[01:04:41] that bonding stuff

[01:04:43] crazy stories come from there

[01:04:45] absolutely

[01:04:47] so 2122 was a kind of a different era

[01:04:49] I feel

[01:04:51] and this post zero interest rate

[01:04:53] yeah, era that we're living in

[01:04:55] 5%

[01:04:57] I mean it requires a different set of

[01:04:59] skills to sort of build us as company now

[01:05:03] it's not about raising funding

[01:05:05] and like the next round and optimizing

[01:05:07] for the round after that

[01:05:09] how can I build a business capital efficiently

[01:05:11] and how can I build this forever

[01:05:13] without an exit in mind

[01:05:15] as such

[01:05:17] can you give some advice on

[01:05:19] you know how

[01:05:21] what founders should do at this point

[01:05:23] some three point thing that they should prioritize

[01:05:25] so I think firstly is

[01:05:27] like looking at your costs obviously

[01:05:29] a lot of us

[01:05:31] like a lot of founders in India

[01:05:33] normally

[01:05:35] we had a lot of people actually

[01:05:37] more than we need

[01:05:39] so having a good eye on

[01:05:41] talking about SaaS here only

[01:05:43] thinking about like

[01:05:45] what's the dollar amount per FTE

[01:05:47] I think that's very important

[01:05:49] and that also helps us when we are growing as a bootstrap company

[01:05:51] even today

[01:05:53] so that's a very good metric for you

[01:05:55] to be in sort of control

[01:05:57] of not sort of

[01:05:59] having a lot of people

[01:06:01] so I think that's really important

[01:06:03] don't hire for very niche

[01:06:05] sort of functions if we're very small company

[01:06:07] secondly is like figure out

[01:06:09] like there are a lot of costs happening here and there

[01:06:11] it's okay to have a slower growth

[01:06:13] to start with

[01:06:15] when you're planning the whole thing

[01:06:17] like how to manage my money and all that

[01:06:19] first two quarters is fine

[01:06:21] to grow slowly

[01:06:23] and figure out what's the plan is

[01:06:25] but then also it's your job to figure out

[01:06:27] how to grow faster and now without spending much money

[01:06:29] partnership ship can be

[01:06:31] one of those examples

[01:06:33] the other thing is like

[01:06:35] creating a muscle of

[01:06:37] so there are few things like

[01:06:39] I also commented

[01:06:41] probably in the last two years

[01:06:43] is

[01:06:45] not thinking about some of the investments

[01:06:47] which will start generating returns for you

[01:06:49] in three six nine months

[01:06:51] so if for example if you have to grow

[01:06:53] to X number per month

[01:06:55] let's say we have to

[01:06:57] add $3 million a month new year

[01:06:59] or a quarter and we are at about

[01:07:01] let's say one million today

[01:07:03] so there's a delta of two million

[01:07:05] like how will that come

[01:07:07] and you have to take today

[01:07:09] so that that give start giving

[01:07:11] results nine months six months on the line

[01:07:13] so do you have those

[01:07:15] projects, those experiments

[01:07:17] lined up or not

[01:07:19] I think that's also important

[01:07:21] otherwise we'll start missing your numbers

[01:07:23] so having that

[01:07:25] understanding on the planning

[01:07:27] is also really important

[01:07:29] make sure you never run out of money

[01:07:31] like that's super important

[01:07:33] make sure you're parking your money

[01:07:35] bank

[01:07:37] that's so important

[01:07:39] for example in our case

[01:07:41] like getting five percent

[01:07:43] that's a way that money can be rooted

[01:07:45] to R&D

[01:07:47] you know without cost

[01:07:49] so a lot of my talk to the founders

[01:07:51] they have the money in the bank only

[01:07:53] do what's wrong

[01:07:55] so make most of that

[01:07:57] figure out ways to

[01:07:59] make money

[01:08:01] awesome

[01:08:03] at every leg of the journey

[01:08:05] I feel like the founder has to kind of

[01:08:07] reinvent themselves for the next leg

[01:08:09] and the leg afterwards

[01:08:11] maybe when you start out

[01:08:13] you are an engineer, a builder

[01:08:15] you had to pick up all of this

[01:08:17] nuances on the offset of things

[01:08:19] and the finance set of things

[01:08:21] here as of now

[01:08:23] what are you learning for yourself

[01:08:25] to be prepared for that next leg of

[01:08:27] journey

[01:08:29] yeah so I think some of those

[01:08:31] things that I've been talking about

[01:08:33] which is like

[01:08:35] your ramp up

[01:08:37] sort of investments

[01:08:39] my job today should be

[01:08:41] like what will the business be

[01:08:43] after one year, two year and five

[01:08:45] year

[01:08:47] I should be working on the top of the

[01:08:49] funnel or the business

[01:08:51] how can I increase my time

[01:08:53] how can I increase more

[01:08:55] opportunities for us

[01:08:57] how can I increase leads

[01:08:59] opportunities for us

[01:09:01] from the acquisition point of

[01:09:03] strategy point of view

[01:09:05] what are some of the places where we are not investing money

[01:09:07] now my job is to invest money

[01:09:09] basically

[01:09:11] how are you doing on the AI piece

[01:09:13] AI is a built-hairsk and

[01:09:15] an opportunity for us

[01:09:17] are we under investing there or

[01:09:19] over investing or whatever

[01:09:21] so my job is

[01:09:23] what are your thoughts on the fact

[01:09:25] I mean that a lot of people believe that

[01:09:27] AI will kill sass

[01:09:29] I mean I have a sort of a different

[01:09:31] opinion on that front

[01:09:33] but a lot of people do believe that AI

[01:09:35] will kill sass

[01:09:37] and that sass will get commoditized

[01:09:39] completely and of course I mean the

[01:09:41] kind of margins that we've seen before

[01:09:43] will get like increasingly

[01:09:45] difficult to garner going forward

[01:09:47] so this whole AI sass piece

[01:09:49] if you can

[01:09:51] give some comments on that

[01:09:53] no

[01:09:55] like through

[01:09:57] these products only

[01:09:59] like you know just call will become

[01:10:01] just call AI

[01:10:03] you'll still be doing the same

[01:10:05] majority of the same stuff

[01:10:07] I think what's fundamental

[01:10:09] that's going to

[01:10:11] changes the pricing model

[01:10:13] of sass

[01:10:15] like subscription will probably go

[01:10:17] away

[01:10:19] to large extent it will be

[01:10:21] rather sass was always about

[01:10:23] productivity and AI is all about selling the work itself. Right? So that's the fundamental difference. So am I making my agent 20% better? I'm just making an agent.

[01:10:24] That's the difference right or I'm making a partial agent for myself. So it's selling the work. So when you're selling the work

[01:10:30] you are

[01:10:32] getting a portion of that work

[01:10:34] sass was always about getting a portion

[01:10:36] of the outcome. I'm creating the productivity increase so I used to get a 10%

[01:10:40] portion of that as a subscription fees. AI is actually doing the work

[01:10:44] so I should get the wage

[01:10:46] that AI is doing, you know that work

[01:10:48] so that fundamental model, pricing model will change

[01:10:50] it will be I mean I think you've already seen a lot of companies doing that for example intercom

[01:10:54] is doing a 19% per successful result query or something of that.

[01:11:00] So all these zapp here

[01:11:02] change their pricing model

[01:11:04] the broadened tasks as the I think variable

[01:11:06] so I think a pricing model will change for sure. So a lot of sass communities

[01:11:10] have to sort of move there if they're implementing AI.

[01:11:14] The way they consume the product will also change like

[01:11:16] it will be more UX driven more UI less

[01:11:20] chat I'm not sure like how much will that

[01:11:24] be adopted in a enterprise level sort of business level

[01:11:28] but I think fundamentally less pages, less sections

[01:11:32] more query based. You know basically the apps will become smaller

[01:11:36] they won't be like 20 pages settings page and you know

[01:11:40] change password page you know it'll be slightly more easier

[01:11:44] to use this app. I think

[01:11:48] but I still have doubts around the proper enterprise adoption of AI is

[01:11:54] if that's close yet because of the whole

[01:11:58] compliance issues but that also gives two opportunities in the market to build businesses

[01:12:02] one is the whole compliance around AI

[01:12:04] like AI things can also be one of those things you have an

[01:12:08] API that can wrap around the outcomes of AI

[01:12:12] create business if someone wants to make 50-60

[01:12:16] growth today like just build that and sell flip the company

[01:12:20] or there are a lot of MLLM ops

[01:12:24] products which are already in the market. So Chamaat tweeted

[01:12:28] this sometime back saying that he's starting something called 80-90

[01:12:32] where he'll build 80% of the features of that enterprise

[01:12:36] and less. But I feel like

[01:12:40] the way enterprises consume software is not

[01:12:44] like that. The last 20% of features is what takes a lot of the time

[01:12:48] they don't buy off the shelf and there's a whole lot of solution in consulting

[01:12:54] one has to do to serve the outcomes. They don't buy basis features

[01:13:00] so I personally feel this it's a trend obviously

[01:13:04] we're seeing that more and more of the code

[01:13:08] will be AI enabled. We're probably not shipping

[01:13:12] production ready code at this point of time but obviously the developers' prominence

[01:13:16] in shipping some of these things will get less and less

[01:13:20] but I think we will still evolve to different pricing models

[01:13:24] as you mentioned but SaaS as itself will not like go away tomorrow

[01:13:28] No, I think if you're evolving with the trend then obviously

[01:13:32] will go away. But I still feel like the adoption of

[01:13:36] the AI or even the request of AI is still pretty far away

[01:13:40] from the customer base point of view right? I think so what's really important is

[01:13:44] like you start embedding AI into your product rather than

[01:13:48] selling it as a separate unit altogether. I mean we did have a mistake last year

[01:13:52] like we were just selling separate IQ as offering but now it's embedded in the business

[01:13:56] itself. It's one of those things like when Amazon sort of came out

[01:14:00] this is an internet commerce company, no one talks about

[01:14:04] internet. Similarly AI will as a word will sort of go away

[01:14:08] yeah that'll become natural. Like for example SaaS

[01:14:12] like it's a cloud-based thing. It's a cloud-based

[01:14:16] software. The cloud-based thing went away it just became SaaS

[01:14:20] Similarly AI will go away because that's very obvious. Just as

[01:14:24] internet-powered and everything is SaaS-powered, it will become AI-powered.

[01:14:28] I agree with that. I know you're a voracious reader

[01:14:32] so if I were to ask you like recommend some books for audience

[01:14:36] what are your top recommendations? Yeah, I mean

[01:14:40] if your programmer kind of person became CEO and founder

[01:14:44] from whom running a team or operations

[01:14:48] is a pain I think Ampita is a really nice book

[01:14:52] that was like a snowflake guy. Yes, so that gave me the pump

[01:14:58] because operating a business is not easy

[01:15:04] when you have people more experience than you

[01:15:08] in the business running the show for you and all that stuff

[01:15:10] So I think Ampita will give you an Ampita

[01:15:13] basically right? Another interesting book I read

[01:15:16] and that was again a game changer for me from the

[01:15:18] as a leading as a becoming as a leader or

[01:15:22] as a CEO was built to sell. Although I didn't want to sell

[01:15:26] but that book really helped me because that book talks about

[01:15:30] how to not work in the business but on the business

[01:15:34] So there's something we just started earlier which is

[01:15:38] how can you make sure that the business doesn't require you

[01:15:42] Only then you'll have free time to think about

[01:15:46] the next game. Yeah, you know, to increase the time and

[01:15:50] XYZ opportunities for you. So it's really important that you're not

[01:15:52] working on the bottom of the funnel. You're working on the top of the funnel.

[01:15:54] That's really important so that book was a real real game changer

[01:15:58] and the third one would be like once you have about 30, 40,

[01:16:02] 100 people team, five dysfunctions of team. I think that's a

[01:16:06] really good book that will help you manage your leadership

[01:16:10] better and they'll further manage people better

[01:16:14] So I think these three books definitely are good enough

[01:16:18] to be a good decent CEO. Hey, this was an awesome chat

[01:16:22] got plenty of I think insights that you know

[01:16:26] I certainly will be reflecting upon and useful for anyone who wants to build

[01:16:30] and scale our SaaS business. So thanks so much for making time for us. Thanks for

[01:16:34] having me, man. It's awesome. Super. Alright folks, thanks so much for joining us on this

[01:16:38] episode of the startup operator. I'll see you on another one. If you like this

[01:16:42] don't forget to like share subscribe and all of the other great stuff.

[01:16:46] Right? So see you soon.