From Developer to Cyber Security Entrepreneur with $10M Revenue and $18M Funding: LoginRadius CEO Deepak Gupta (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What did you get done in those few months when you still had the job?

Deepak Gupta: At the beginning, there was a little hesitation whether the product was going to work. As soon as we launched, we started getting customers. Customers started asking questions. In those few months, I saw that there is a big need for this product.

Sramana Mitra: You validated. How long did it take you to build the first version of the product that started getting you those customers?

Deepak Gupta: It took less than a month.

Sramana Mitra: So in a month, you put together an MVP and put it out there while you still had your job?

Deepak Gupta: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: How did these hundreds of customers find your product?

Deepak Gupta: We did SEO and content marketing. One of the things that we did differently is, we created some turnkey plugins for some of these marketplaces like Drupal WordPress. That’s how they found us.

Sramana Mitra: It was the Drupal marketplace where you found your first customers?

Deepak Gupta: In the beginning, yes.

Sramana Mitra: These were not paying customers?

Deepak Gupta: Initially, it was free.

Sramana Mitra: When you started talking to customers, what were they telling you?

Deepak Gupta: They were looking for something that was easy to use. They also had a problem of customers asking questions about password resets. They really loved the idea that users don’t have to create another user name and they have less queries around passwords.

Sramana Mitra: Did you ask them how much they were willing to pay?

Deepak Gupta: Yes. Two customers told me that they wanted to pay for the product. They probably knew that we would eventually charge and it’s going to be expensive for them. They wanted to lock in a rate. They started paying a small amount of money.

Sramana Mitra: How much?

Deepak Gupta: A few hundred dollars a year.

Sramana Mitra: This was happening while you were at your job?

Deepak Gupta: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: This gave you the confidence to quit your job?

Deepak Gupta: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: Rakesh also quit his job?

Deepak Gupta: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: It was just the two of you?

Deepak Gupta: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: So how did the business move after you quit your jobs?

Deepak Gupta: That’s when the challenges began. We started talking more to customers. Some of the large companies started reaching out to us. We got into the process where we had to talk to customers and show them the product. We started a sales process. We hired a couple of people. It was hard to transition to the sales aspect.

At that time, we joined an accelerator program in Montreal. We wanted to learn a bit more about how things work business-wise. The product development was okay, but we still wanted to see how other companies work. After joining, that’s where we learned about sales and marketing. That’s where we started building the team and recruiting more people.

Sramana Mitra: How long did it take you to hit the one million ARR milestone?

Deepak Gupta: Around two years or so.

This segment is part 2 in the series : From Developer to Cyber Security Entrepreneur with $10M Revenue and $18M Funding: LoginRadius CEO Deepak Gupta
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