568th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast with Abinash Saikia, EnCloudEn (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s talk about the acquisition itself. At what point did you start speaking with the acquirer? I introduced you to a whole bunch of people as well. We were working on getting you in front of people. Discuss when did you start this process and how you put one foot after the other.

Abinash Saikia: At our peak, we were close to a million dollars in revenue. Towards the end of the year, the pandemic hit and we were not able to close the deals, but we were in that range. When the pandemic hit, it was a very uncertain time. We knew that we had some backup in terms of funding but not a whole lot. We know that we’re going through a phase where sales would drop significantly.

Applying AI to Lead Generation: Rev CEO Jonathan Spier (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: How far did you take that company?

Jonathan Spier: We grew it for about seven and a half years. We had raised a little over $20 million, and we had an offer to sell into the nine figures from a major enterprise software company. One of the board members didn’t want to sell. They kept it private. The good news is it’s a good company. It’s still considered the leader in the enterprise analytics category.

Sramana Mitra: What is the name of the company?

568th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast with Abinash Saikia, EnCloudEn (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Total funding of under one million dollars and a little bit of government fund. Talk about the customer development process. Where did you get the customers from? What type of customers zeroed in on your value proposition?

Abinash Saikia: Before these guys put in money, we were able to acquire a reputable customer. You’ve probably heard of Biocon in India which is the largest biopharmaceutical company in India. I was working in strategy at Biocon. My manager connected me to the CIO at Biocon. I built a relationship with him over time. They became our first customers.

Applying AI to Lead Generation: Rev CEO Jonathan Spier (Part 1)

I did a startup in 1998 by applying AI to the lead generation and qualification problem. It was early. The data was not yet rich enough.

Now, the data is there. Can the problem finally be solved at the right level of sophistication?

Sramana Mitra: Let’s go to the very beginning of your journey. Where were you born and raised?

568th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast with Abinash Saikia, EnCloudEn (Part 1)

Abinash Saikia, Co-founder of EnCloudEn and former 1Mby1M Premium member, has successfully bootstrapped his venture to an exit and discusses the process in great depth.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as to the premise of EnCloudEn.

Abinash Saikia: I have had a pretty good education from IIT Chennai and, subsequently, an MBA from IIM Bangalore. I worked for a couple of years but the entrepreneurial bug was always there. I could not continue for much longer. I left my job and started a company called SmartBuildings. I was at that company for about three years. It was mostly an IoT-based energy conservation solution.

Building a Capital-Efficient Niche SaaS Startup from The Netherlands: Hatch CEO Joris Kroese (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Talk to me about the customer acquisition strategy. Beyond the partnerships through which you got to the first base, what did you do from a sales and marketing point of view that got you to the next level?

Joris Kroese: There are different phases there, but we started simply by appointing people who would use their own outreach techniques to prospect potential buyers. It was mainly one-on-one and not so much marketing yet.

Building a Capital-Efficient Niche SaaS Startup from The Netherlands: Hatch CEO Joris Kroese (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Business model is SaaS?

Joris Kroese: It’s SaaS. Our clients are the brands where we basically add these e-commerce capabilities on a fixed fee per month per country.

Sramana Mitra: It sounds like your primary channel was tagging along with the sales team of this content syndication company. Was that the only channel?

Joris Kroese: Initially yes.

Building a Capital-Efficient Niche SaaS Startup from The Netherlands: Hatch CEO Joris Kroese (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: How long did you do the IT services work?

Joris Kroese: For a year and a half, after which, I sold the company. I actually had a new business idea in my mind while I was still running the e-commerce business. We did a lot of turnovers. We were a much-appreciated business partner for business brands. All those brands, back then, had a dealer locator.