1. How the career journey started? Or who inspired you to start business/ entrepreneurship?
I started my first business to build a Product when most companies were starting to build Services. Back in 1989, five of us quit from Infosys to start a company to build a mainframe product, to be sold in the US. We had a sixth partner – an American - who was to manage the sales and marketing in the US. While the product was being built, we undertook Services for some customers. And unfortunately lost sight of the Product along the way.
2. Share some info about your products and services here.
Our most recent start-up is a SaaS CRM company focused on non-Western geographies – India (of course), Africa, South America and Central Europe, mostly. We are completely a Product company, with no Services of the traditional kind.
3. What was the vision mission of the company? What exactly you wanted to do when you started your business?
I don’t believe we had a “vision”, other than to deliver software as a service (SaaS) in markets that are traditionally driven by in-premise software. With SaaS, companies of any size and kind can gain the benefit of software, particularly in a tech-starved nation like India. The IT explosion in India has actually HURT local companies in that software talent is very pricey and difficult to retain, when the IT business beckons so hard. Our objective was to give such companies access to very advanced technology at very affordable prices, supporting their growth.
4. What kind of difficulties you had faced while starting/doing business?
Having done this a few times before, I had a great team of people I’d worked with earlier, willing to work with me for a pittance in the hope of achieving larger objectives in the future. The problems were not operational either, since this team had built large teams and operated in multiple markets earlier. The biggest challenge was to understand the Indian market, something we’d not done in all our years in business. I personally had mostly sold in the US, Europe and Japan, so the Indian market and its dynamics were a challenge – and an education.
5. Share with our readers about discovery period when you were facing difficulties in your business?
Very quickly we discovered that Indian managers – at least the ones we pitched to – were much more willing to “test the waters” with our software than we thought they would be. A number of our preconceptions about how Indian companies would react to technology were upended as misconceptions, luckily. But we also recognized that there were significant challenges in some of the things we were planning – pricing, for example. While prospects did not expect free or cheap products, they did expect to see demonstrable value in ways we were not prepared for. We also realized that we should be segmenting the market different from what we were doing earlier – segments that typical marketing may not throw up. All that went into our product positioning, as a continuing effort.
6. Share with our readers about your experiment period after discovery period?
Over the last year or so, we have expanded from an ad-driven sales model to a marketing+ads model. We’ve strengthened our inside sales process, brought in stronger marketing skills and begun to engage with prospects and customers more effectively online via blogs and some social marketing. That has paid off in better realizations on our marketing and sales budgets and given us leads for larger deals.
The market is huge, but IMHO very different from the traditional segments that SaaS has seen in other countries. That's not because SaaS is somehow different in non-Western countries but because these economies themselves don’t conform. Growth in India, for example, is high in sectors like healthcare and financial services - sectors that see a lot of SME activity unlike in the West. So our approach to delivering value in these segments needs to be quite different from what one would read from the case-studies elsewhere. Further, business models in India are uniquely different from the West, thanks to regulatory frameworks or the lack of such things. Telecom retail, for example, is much more vibrant here because of the flexibility of regulation, unlike in countries where large providers control both operator-side and device-side economics. That gives us tremendous opportunities – but few models to follow. That’s the challenge - and the fun of it all!
7. What are your future plans? Or now what is your vision for next five years?
Over the next five years, we have the opportunity to become one of the largest players – if not the single largest player - in the CRM space worldwide. This is largely because of the markets we address, our approach to them and our technology. Our objective is to become that and, along the way, prove that the ability to build very large software companies is not restricted to the West.
8. What will be your advice/suggestion for new entrepreneurs for starting new business?
Just do it. There will always be arguments for or against starting a new business, chucking your job, losing the benefit of a salary, the fear of failure, the vagaries of the market and so on. But these things are all very personal and your own reaction to and ability to deal with them are completely driven by your own skills and thought processes. Rarely can someone predict how a start-up will work out – the VC business is witness to that. If you can afford to take the plunge, do it. Just make sure that, if you’re about to sink, you know enough to call out. And that there's a friend out there who’ll pull you out!
8. LinkedIn URL : http://in.linkedin.com/in/nmandyam
9. Twitter URL : http://twitter.com/nmandyam
10. Websites URL : http://www.impelcrm.in
11. Telephone : +91-80-30080000
