Bootstrapping a Technology Product Company from India: Sachin Bhatia, Founder of Ameyo (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: The thing that strikes me from a methodology point of view is that you didn’t validate the second business. You had validated the first business that was scaling, but you didn’t validate the second business, but you tried to grow it.

Sachin Bhatia: Yes, it was too fast. I knew that the product validation was there. I remember the beginning of this company. It had been growing positively. The moment that we sold to our customers, we were making money. It was a bit of a hurry on our part when we were doing our planning.

Bootstrapping a Technology Product Company from India: Sachin Bhatia, Founder of Ameyo (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What was the average deal size in the enterprise product? 

Sachin Bhatia: At the time, it was around $25,000 to $50,000. Today, It’s a much different story. We have micro-segments, large segments, and extra-large segments. The deal size now is from $50,000 to $250,000. Our typical model was after you enter, there’s a maintaining cost.  

Bootstrapping a Technology Product Company from India: Sachin Bhatia, Founder of Ameyo (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Now we are in 2006. What happens next?

Sachin Bhatia: We went to the Philippines in 2006. By 2017, the Philippines was a repeatable market for us. We hired a local team there. Things were going well and we were growing. For the first time, we met with industry leaders.

I remember having a conversation with the founder of DAX, which later sold to IBM. They later became a VC. They have been a guiding force for us, but they never invested. BPO is a small market. The tank is really small. All our business has been on BPO. Why would we want to diversify at this stage when it’s growing so well?

Bootstrapping a Technology Product Company from India: Sachin Bhatia, Founder of Ameyo (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Who was the first customer who validated the contact center idea.

Sachin Bhatia: She used to run a BPO in New Delhi. She is a very good friend now. I remember my meeting with my three colleagues. We were trying to decide who was going to pick up sales. I was chosen to do it because I talk better than the others. I went ahead and had a meeting and understood the problem.

Bootstrapping a Technology Product Company from India: Sachin Bhatia, Founder of Ameyo (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

Some of us have worked relentlessly for decades to bring about the change in India from a largely services-driven technology industry to one that today produces credible products sold all over the world.

Ameyo is one of the early examples of this shift, and Sachin, an early visionary in this journey.

Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship to $30 Million from India: Ankit Oberoi, CEO of AdPushup (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: Talk to me about cracking into the larger publishers from a go-to-market standpoint. How did you get your first larger publisher to buy the product? How did that evolve?

Ankit Oberoi: I think the first five or ten was still easy because we were so connected in the ecosystem and had so many great investors who were connected. The first ten was easy, because we would just get them through introductions.

Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship to $30 Million from India: Ankit Oberoi, CEO of AdPushup (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Did you bring in not just Google’s ad server but also other vertical ad servers? Were you also running an auction on your end across all those different ad networks?

Ankit Oberoi: Not only did we bring in those ad networks but we also brought in those ad networks on different ad demands which a publisher could now source. They could also control how the auction was happening using a simple visual platform, which they couldn’t do in the past.

Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship to $30 Million from India: Ankit Oberoi, CEO of AdPushup (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: How did you course correct from there?

Ankit Oberoi: It took much longer than we anticipated. We had to first understand the fundamentals. We spent six months doing that. We didn’t shut down the business. We had started making $50,000 to $60,000 a month.