Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Slumboy Millionaire | Amit Mishra @ iMocha
517 Plays2 years ago
Not every day do we come across entrepreneurs who’ve battled against all odds, challenged the status quo, and carved a space for themselves. Amit Mishra grew up lowest in the economic pyramid in India. From no shoes to wear till graduation to leading a global SaaS company that is on track to hit 10 mn ARR – his story will leave you spellbound.
Know about:-
- First job and learnings
- Origin story of iMocha
- Features of iMocha
- Staying relevant in the skill economy
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Unique Journey
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi all, I am Amit Mishra, co-founder and CEO of iMarka.
00:00:15
Speaker
I have interviewed more than 300 founders till date and let me tell you this. Real life rags to riches stories are extremely rare. Most founders come from reasonably good education background and middle class families with parents who really had a focus on helping them to move up in life.
00:00:32
Speaker
And this is what makes Amit's story really special.
Early Life and Career Beginnings
00:00:35
Speaker
Amit literally was raised in a slub. He never wore shoes until finishing his graduation. And today, Amit's business, iMoka, is a global SaaS company. They are on track to hit $10 million of PRL by the end of the year. And they raised about $15 million in their last fundraise. And most of their revenue comes from outside India. This phenomenal achievement was on the back of an extremely high amount of learning, orientation, and risk-taking ability that Amit developed.
00:01:01
Speaker
And in this conversation, he talks about that continuous journey of challenging status quo and moving up the value chain. He talks about skills, the future of skills, and how Al Mokha is disrupting the skills space by really being a partner for companies to help them be future ready in terms of their workforce. You're listening to the founder thesis podcast, and I'm your host, Akshay Dutta.
00:01:29
Speaker
Basically, I was born and brought up in slums. My family is well educated. My father is a journalist. My mother was a teacher. But because he opted to spend his life for the upliftment of these people, so he used to stay in a locality which is almost 7,000 people. And I would say, we are the only family who speaks English there.
00:01:46
Speaker
and I might be the only first engineer there. Like second, apart from my brother, students didn't used to come to school then because slum people typically was to work at their childhood and according to their caste, they do work. So there are around 10 to 8 caste of all different sorts.
00:02:02
Speaker
And my family never stopped me from mingling with them. So I born and got off with them. And so I wore my shoes only after my engineering. I never wear my shoes, wear any shoes in my life before my engineering. It was all sleepers. And though my family is well educated, my father is a journalist, my mother was a teacher, but my
00:02:24
Speaker
elder brother forced me to take computer engineering from the day one because it was a local government college it's a very repeated one but I belong to the slums there so everybody never took bragging of me and that time and all so everybody from the day one was frightened that a person from Pelpur has come don't get wrong with him it was a notorious area and
00:02:45
Speaker
And I was the only one. Even in 11th and 12th, after 10th, getting a great percentage, in 11th and 12th, I went to the number one college of who I'm robbing, okay? And one of the teachers just asked, we were three guys who reached there, from Westwood. The teacher asked, why did you go to New High School? Why did you go to Westwood? And he on the first day said, why did you go to Westwood? And then after you finished your engineering, did you opt for campus placement?
00:03:14
Speaker
So, when I passed out in 2000, I got a placement at a very small company in Pune. This was a software company in Pune? Yeah, a software company in Pune. And what were you doing? Like coding basically, like front-end, back-end work. So that day, the technology name was Lotus Domino. It's IBM technology, middleware. And I used to code.
00:03:35
Speaker
When I started my career and then quickly after working there, I got a chance as the first person to fly to Japan from that company. So I was into Tokyo for six months. It was the first on-site experience in that company. And luckily in eight months, I was able to prove I'm better than okay, my worth. Then I got to Japan, came back, handle a small payment, then quickly got to IBF, software app. IBF was in Pune only.
00:04:00
Speaker
IBM was in Pune, okay? And I was into IBM software lab, not in services, the product division of IBM, okay? And I got there. I was not fascinated with IBM. It was only salary that excited me. It was almost two and a half types. Now that was a motivation with IBM. And again, I liked IBM very much because work for home was there. Then also, I was a team leader there.
00:04:29
Speaker
There is a movie event from Abhishek Bachchan, Bhol Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan and Ajay Devgir, Good Convusing Power and Chalta Punjab. So IBM appreciated and wanted me to shift to Asti, where
00:04:41
Speaker
We had like a nap, but I was very reluctant to shift to any foreign country. So I didn't show the other. And then I joined a small street at HSBC Technical Division, GFT. I asked them, I won't shift to any foreign country. They said yes. And I got a customer, HSBC, from Geneva. It's a local international customer. Again, looking at my talkative and attitude, they wanted me to shift to Geneva.
00:05:10
Speaker
Okay, so I left HSBC because they wanted to put me shoes. Then they wanted to come at nine o'clock. Otherwise, three days late, half day cut and all.
Entrepreneurial Journey Begins
00:05:21
Speaker
And I never wanted to follow all those rules. And her thing was, they wanted to shift me with Geneva. That was unacceptable at that time. And that time I was about to get married. It's a low marriage. So I was able to get married in two states. She's from Varanasi, I'm from Maharashtra.
00:05:38
Speaker
Okay, her father was in Air Force there, settled in Jogbu. Without thinking what to do next. And started my first company, which was ID Services there. How did you get customers for it? Were you looking at domestic customers, foreign customers? Exactly. I gave that trainer when we are authorized trainer. Okay. And I used to conduct training myself.
00:06:05
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.
00:06:29
Speaker
I am here to create a company. And they realized I did great jobs. That was what I wanted. Then got my first customer just training with something or other.
00:06:47
Speaker
customers, like very local customers. And then got a German company, which is local in Forney, a Swedish company, which is local manufacturing, got their project, a small project for Mecca. And why did I get it was because I was sound with Lotus Domino.
00:07:03
Speaker
And Lotus Domino is a very niche skin. Hardly you will find companies working on it. Apart from IBM and Biggies. He asked me the same question. Hey man, you left your job and starting company. How did you get your first project? I am about to get married and I have no option but to get a project. I don't know how I got it but I got it. And Visa was tamed.
00:07:42
Speaker
U.S. government. U.S. government.
00:07:55
Speaker
U.S. is the key to this, to meet customers, to find customers.
00:08:04
Speaker
and this is the way it goes on. So, we got our excellent life partner. Sujit is my business partner from the day one. Excellent friend and business partner and he continues now also as a performer. I was enjoying journey. I'm not sure about the destination, but our employee grew to 450 people. So, it is not 450 people company.
00:08:27
Speaker
80 people company but look short of the batches little bit. So he had chosen a good job. Yeah, that's how. Okay. Okay. And grew to a couple of million dollars. Charlie Scott. Okay. Charlie Scott. And you were essentially focused on Lotus notes dominantly. Lotus notes dominantly and later part of that business and Lotus notes dominantly to Microsoft SharePoint migration. You get that the whole Microsoft Java or hoplin or oga.
00:08:58
Speaker
And India is a middle-aged customer. I have a lot of customers in the US. I have a lot of business in this field. I was from IBM Software Labs. I have a lot of services. After every implementation, the equity used to go with the customer and what remains is case study only.
Challenges and Strategic Pivots
00:09:20
Speaker
Okay, so I thought they are in the air. We started creating a product. Whatever we used to earn from services, used to deploy it.
00:09:41
Speaker
I used to deploy in Prada. But the products are not based on anything, okay? Then realize that moonlighter doesn't work if you want to really make it. So moon is not sufficient for crops. It doesn't work. It is not sufficient for crops. It should be a sun, which starts a day at seven o'clock and sets up at seven o'clock. Then by that time, it will be a day when the sun will come up.
00:10:09
Speaker
But I just started and merged this company with another company. Okay. Like you got acquired the company or is that equal? Okay. But we got a great team. He is a very good guy.
00:10:30
Speaker
Was it new entity equitably or was it like cash buyout? The reason was, I wanted to create a product company.
00:10:51
Speaker
And I was thinking about solving an interview problem. I didn't thought of what to do and all. But the interview problem, I said, how do you do this? The interview problem, how do you identify? Did you relate with that problem in some way? So now the problems are far different. But when we were thinking about it, what is to happen? When we used to run our own company,
00:11:19
Speaker
A lot of hiring manager interviewers used to complain that the person who was there for interview they spent half an hour with them, offered him a coffee, he wet their head off, scheduling was done and he was not having a basic knowledge of what is supposed to be known.
00:11:35
Speaker
And then when we tried digging out this, we realized that a recruiter judges a person on the page of resume. And candidates are getting lavish in writing resumes. If they have even attended a training of something, they make sure that it is a part of their resume. And the poor champ recruiter judges that candidate of resume and forward it further. And there are a lot of smart and within who make resume according to your job description. Okay.
00:11:57
Speaker
So a lot of times we still go in vain for interviewers when they should do delivery and project they should top all irrelevant candidates. And we thought if this and what happened India may have been you have asked somebody to come. Indian culture forces you to ask for a coffee. You are not the right guy, go back.
00:12:22
Speaker
I think it's important for us to know that our business is a part of this project. What is the Indian culture? I think it's a problem solving problem solving.
00:12:54
Speaker
So this was a video recording of this. Yes, a synchronous video recording.
00:13:16
Speaker
You were getting customers and then sharing that work with some sub contract.
00:13:27
Speaker
And then it's supported, right? And it's connected to the connection. Then you turn the solution into a different IP address. And try it again. And I always wonder why you're struggling with this problem. Oh, you're not going to do that again.
00:13:48
Speaker
I don't know what it means to be a woman. I don't know what it means to be a woman. I don't know what it means to be a woman. I don't know what it means to be a woman. I don't know what it means to be a woman.
00:14:06
Speaker
Now they are industry-based guys, I won't say. So happy about it. The thing that happened was, I heard of an accelerator startup accelerator by Reliance in Mumbai. That is called Gennext. Now it is called GeoGennext. And it was their first batch and it was powered by Microsoft Accelerator. So the premise and infrastructure was by Reliance and the guys who will run it from Microsoft, it was a product accelerator.
00:14:35
Speaker
Okay, so thought of trying our luck and went there and it was of 200, 300, 400 companies who applied. Somehow we got through and we went into first element and we rolled into that four months resident Mumbai startup program. Those four months may first day, though I was of good attitude and all,
00:14:59
Speaker
But I met a gentleman who was a CEO of Viteril Vetsal later in Dravidarya. He then helped the government of Killangan and all into the ecosystem. And on the very first day he told us something which I didn't understood fully then, but started practicing, still practice daily.
00:15:19
Speaker
and he shared a mantra that as an entrepreneur daily you will have two things ego or spirit and he said whatever stops you from doing right thing is your ego whatever encourages you to do right thing is your spirit if you understood something should be implemented but on the weekend you forgot it you never documented it so your lethargy your procrastination is your ego if you write it on Monday morning you took it your initiative taking ability is your head
00:15:46
Speaker
So he said, do it daily. Be a better person daily. Let your ego die daily. Let your spirits die daily. And you'll be better in this work. And in those four months, like I'm learning IT services, I'm learning SaaS, starting.
00:16:05
Speaker
like the services business was like washing dishes with all the respect to services industry to get this is what India needed that time and product industry is like creating a whim and washing dishes and creating whim is all to be the different mentality different mindset and
00:16:32
Speaker
So those four months were instrumental in doing IT services and learning SaaS. And then when I met my SaaS guru who is Prasanna Krishnamurti from OPECA. So he was a CTO in Residnet from Microsoft site.
00:16:47
Speaker
So, really, he's our investor even
Scaling and Market Focus
00:16:51
Speaker
now. And really, Jade fell with him. And luckily, that time, in 2015, SaaS movie, Joby SaaS movie was the biggest event in Asia for SaaS entrepreneurs to help each other.
00:17:15
Speaker
Headquarter in Chennai. Started with Girish, Grisha and others. It's like a networking event, basically. Just a startup event. Networking, no? It's a member of the SaaS MBA. But from the batch 1ing, Gen Next and batch 1 of SaaS Bumi.
00:17:31
Speaker
I really found this. Girish from fresh words and all. They were ahead. That's where we started. Charmin and my transformation was started. And Saz Bumi was there according to Saz Bumi. Saz Bumi is out there dating in a year. But I was able to make connection for everything.
00:17:51
Speaker
later on. And luckily, on a road trip of three hours, somehow through common friend, and I went there for my wife's business. I met a German gentleman in 2015 in Mars. And so we were two couples. Me, my friend, his wife, my wife, and he was German. He was English, Hindi, Marathi.
00:18:15
Speaker
combined. It was a three-hour journey. The gentleman's internment casually asked me, what do you do? I met him for the first time then. So thereafter, one and a half hour drive, I talked to him about what I'm trying to do, how I'm trying to run out. And when I landed back, he said, I'll just come to your office and we'll write the check. Tomorrow as an engineer, Mr. At this time, like interview Moka as a product was live, you were still in development phase.
00:18:43
Speaker
Our total sale for four months was $40,000. That's right. Okay. This was this asynchronous video interview product only. Asynchronous video. And the basic was that you will save time.
00:19:28
Speaker
And this was 2015 when you got this check.
00:19:32
Speaker
We started in March 2015 like properly. I come full-time as the first person. But they learned quickly. It's like green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color, green color,
00:20:02
Speaker
I'd say, okay, take care. And this was Indian customers here in global? No, no, I don't know. Customer from 60 plus countries. So, if you're on the blog, you can see the website, when I chat with the team team, and $49 to $99 for $99 month was planned. $4.99 month was a big deal, support zero, support zero, support zero.
00:20:25
Speaker
Abhi, Abhi, Abhi, I have a couple of customers who have paid me half a million in the book. We started it two and a half years, got a customer. But so, I pursued my personal mind better. Thinking was, he says, must the office be paid to get online? So, he said, online, not for the Chinese. He said, I don't want to have customers. He said, I don't want to have customers.
00:20:55
Speaker
And a few hundred customers paying a $49 journey, never used to track a lot of metrics and all that. Okay.
00:21:12
Speaker
In one of the SAS movies, I narrated this story to a person who was at almost $10 million a year or then. I said, we have a 16K MRR with customers from 60 countries and 300 customers. So he straightly asked me, are you feeling shameful about it or are you feeling proud about it? That you have
00:21:32
Speaker
50,000 countries and 30,000 countries. How do you focus on one or two countries where the majority of revenue comes from? Yes, I thought yes. That is once we need to learn something more now. And then again, Jannej, we were the first batch. We were among the first attendants. And thereafter, Presenter opted to leave Microsoft Excel and started his own Excel.
00:22:04
Speaker
Let's get into Prasanna. Again, first company there. Prasanna is a great company. Okay. And then we got into Pekka. Two and a half years ago, 15 KMR, 600 customers, 60 countries. Then Pekka joined Kebab and a variety of forces there. Okay. By the time that ego and spirit was faster than ever. Learning was very fast. What's happening? What's happening? What's happening? They decided upon
00:22:31
Speaker
five formula given by Shekhar from Excel. The profound, I would say, investor in India. In one of the stock I heard that if you would like to create a big company, you should run into five parameters. Big market, differentiated category, frequency of usage should be daily weekly, max weekly, daily secondary hour amenities, fine. It should have the duration should be three or five years at the least and should support expansion potential.
00:22:59
Speaker
So I applied these five parameters to whatever customers we had that time and then understood that we are a solution primarily for medium segment enterprises and list for Soho VSB and SMB customer. Soho is what a small office home office.
00:23:14
Speaker
Right, so fill next two and a half years May from 15 KMR to 83 KMR with less Soho, less VSB, few SMBs and a couple of enterprises and few medium segment companies. And I would say not a couple of enterprises, almost 10 enterprises, spank smaller than Sandho and reached a billion in ARR.
00:23:36
Speaker
And Esme, how did you change the customer
Product Development and Innovations
00:23:39
Speaker
profile? Did you start doing online marketing to target them? Or did you do sales calls? What customer profile changed your career? So, customer profile will change. We are still an inbound, first focus company.
00:23:56
Speaker
We never used to bucket them. I never used to wear that spits of enterprises and look at them.
00:24:25
Speaker
But you started building more features based on what they were telling you.
00:24:30
Speaker
It is not about features. We started understanding them. But, we have to understand them. So, we identified them. Entering Mokase is a transition that we understood. It is not an interview which world needs. It is the skill matrix of the entire world is changing and there is a bigger need. So, we've devoted to skill, talent as a pivot and everything around it. So, we have to make the customers feel better.
00:24:56
Speaker
There is a huge gap in the market, wide space in the market, which we can address. And we are already ahead in it. By the time we reach a million, we understood it. We got a DNA, which matters to a certain set of world, and which is a big postcard. So, we thought of getting into an angel investment series. Where did you hit 1 million euros?
00:25:25
Speaker
like 17 years plus.
00:25:27
Speaker
Piladizer 15k, so 18th at 15k, 21,000,000, 20,000, late May, almost 50,000 back, 15,000, 18,000 back. Just Karuna didn't pay. Karuna just bought us a bus. So in 2020, it was just asynchronous interview? Your product is a wall wall? Like... It's synchronous, but it's Piladizer only. So it was like 17th. 17th, but it's a model.
00:25:56
Speaker
Then what does it mean to realize? Now, it means that we have to take care of the customers, the professionals, and the industry professionals. So if you see the banking organization, any banking organization across the world, you have to take care of the job. And millions will be there. Okay. Now that job has been replaced largely by ATMs, mobile apps, internet banking. I'll give you an example of that too. Tools and pathways coming.
00:26:23
Speaker
India is a country, which is a developing country, a developing nation. We are faster than Africa. So worldwide, millions of these jobs have gone to technology, RFID, CCTV, and all. I've got to retain the Walmart against Amazon. I need two organizations doing the same purpose, but Amazon has affiliates, Amazon has design guys, they have robots, they have inventories, differently. So, these are the skill benefits that we have to get from this sample that we pass out to others.
00:26:51
Speaker
computer engineer can do any option. Java, .NET, mainframes, Oracle, or testing.
00:27:08
Speaker
So from those few handfuls skills, I'll be to ocean of skills, Amazon of skills. And the skill economy has changed the world. And while skill economy is changing,
00:27:26
Speaker
The company which is surviving, staying relevant and growing are the only companies who are just a telecom level. The companies who would like to survive and thrive and grow are the only companies who will invest in talent, who will invest in skill, who will acquire right skill, who will train right skill or job fitness would matter to them. Our skills are not changing at all. It is the IT in a part of our skills.
00:27:52
Speaker
I have against only 300 skills of 15 years back. So we thought, let's create the largest inventory of skill banks and started doing it in an over way where the skill creation is external. So it's a crowd source. Fortunately, we are at 3000 skills.
00:28:13
Speaker
Yeah, we have 17 maps in this pivot, like from video to skill. We have 3000 plus calibrated skills, which is 3x bigger than any other nearest competition. For talent acquisition, we are one of the prominent players. For talent development, we are the only player.
00:28:34
Speaker
As far as skill assessment is concerned, 8 fortune 500 companies, 20 global enterprises, when I say global enterprises, 10 billion developers revenue are using us now, happily, they can't. I want to understand your Uber approach for crowdsourcing that assessment. What did that mean? Like you told the customer, what is your assessment engine? What is your question set?
00:29:01
Speaker
Yeah, like the internal solution, we have a platform, assessment platform, which is very sophisticated, has a lot of simulators, 14 simulator, AI logic box and interview simulator and many simulators. So yeah, what technology, the questions are the skills, skill bands that are created.
00:29:19
Speaker
Our team, there is a small six, eight people team, we have a maker checker model, which we go through markets, relancing markets. Find out the effort, get the question done and deliver it to the customers. For customer, it's a cakewalk. They do not do anything. They just buy the software, we mix and match. It's a customer success driven model. Mix and match and test is ready for them. And good thing is, on this 3000 scales, 100,000 plus questions,
00:29:44
Speaker
are which calibrated over a population which is relevant across. Now if some competition even starts creating this test, they build up two years to create these skills and calibration they won't get crowded worldwide. And now we have 500 plus subject matter experts who creates it worldwide.
00:30:00
Speaker
Essentially, a customer was still paying subscription fees, but based on what that customer needs, Apple assessment freelancers get through. You would make it available for customers. That was the approach.
00:30:16
Speaker
That right there. Okay. And that inventory of tests which are available that kept increasing. Until today, now you don't need to get a new test made. 99% we already have. I said technology will keep on coming. But the good thing is, we have the majority of the base. And plus, we have to make sure that it is efficient and up to the date, up to the month.
00:30:43
Speaker
What are these algorithms that you're using? And so you are saying that these are calibrated. What does that mean? Let me give you two examples. There is something called as question discrimination index. So for example, one question is asked to 100 population, real world population, and with four choices. And this question is answered almost 90% correctly by everyone. So first of all, this question is not serving the purpose at all.
00:31:08
Speaker
There are a few questions which 50% of the population are solving it right. But this is not the population who is going through the interval. So this is not relevant for this test. And there are some questions who answered rightly. And these are the guys who are excelling in further rooms. So I say we got some meat, a bucket, and the shuffling happens every now and then. So we decide upon complexity.
00:31:37
Speaker
And over a period of time, complexity will differ. Some complex questions might be simple for Google and complex for, say, I suppose, the company profiles. So all those algorithms are simulation, bots are a simulator, bots are a question of Amazon or Skillshare, A2Z or Skillshare.
00:31:54
Speaker
Okay. So instead of asking you a multiple-choice question, you will be given a challenge and an environment to work on that challenge. And you'll go and we'll figure out a lot of parameters. So it's a real-time simulation of your work environment. Almost 40 coding languages, IDs, integrated development environments.
00:32:17
Speaker
So it's not a question which is simple. It's a simulated question actually. For example, what are simulators? What are simulators? What are simulators? Was it off the shelf available or you had to build? There are OEMs who has the technology but on the top of it we don't know.
00:32:44
Speaker
What does that mean? What did the OEM provide and what did you build on top of that?
00:32:48
Speaker
So, for example, the compiler doesn't need to be used. The compiler doesn't need to be used. The compiler doesn't need to be used. The compiler doesn't need to be used. The compiler doesn't need to be used. The compiler doesn't need to be used. The compiler doesn't need to be used. The compiler doesn't need to be used. The compiler doesn't need to be used.
00:33:18
Speaker
A person has to write a software in which the software will give a response whether a number which is inputted by a user is prime or is orderly. And not only auto-validate for the completion but auto-validate for the
00:33:37
Speaker
complexity, auto-value it for the efficiency, auto-value it for the memory usage, auto-value it for the efficiency of that code, both are easy to use. There are technical people will understand it. Okay, how do you evaluate efficiency of code? Like number of lines used? Number of lines used, memory used, execution type used, there are certain parameters. And like the focus, why did the focus become software? Like why not sales, customer service and these kind of roles?
00:34:05
Speaker
I think it's a problem for many of you. I think bank is the job of IT. Online banking is the ATM. Those are the purpose of the job of IT. Now, no company in the world, which is a global enterprise, can say, I do not have IT.
00:34:24
Speaker
IT is an intrinsic and technology is an intrinsic part of every business. We are talking, you are non-technical, but still you are using Zencast, which is again an IT. You are using a head forward, which is an IT. So, IT is a scaling organization inside your product. What is becoming digital through technology? So, technology is the first choice.
00:34:50
Speaker
Okay, and was there also a better demand for a more people companies willing to pay more money for it? I'm guessing like
00:34:58
Speaker
We want to see, first of all, on credit, 90% credit goes to customers. We had some customers, they were kind enough to co-create few things with us, they were giving their product, it's a fly away. So, see Amazon is more product, there is more customers are attracted towards them, more customers are attracted towards them, that is the people who more products are there. The same way, we had enterprises demanding more skills, we were creating more skills, and more enterprises needed it.
00:35:26
Speaker
So that slide will start it and now we are at a private where it is moving fast. And so you said that your algorithm gets smarter by saying, are you just a testing platform or do people also use you to manage the hiring life cycle?
00:35:57
Speaker
And when did this ATS integration happen?
00:36:11
Speaker
Very static, customer driven, we started it in 2017. Now we have a couple of dozens, 30 integrations already in place. Okay, which all Indian ATS is also like India. So I think RMSE Anna has an ATS.
COVID-19 Impact and Growth Strategies
00:36:27
Speaker
So what else in terms of product evolution from 17 to 20? So one is simulators focus on technical scale assessment and ATS integration by evolutionary product.
00:36:45
Speaker
So, first is variety of scales. We are the most cooperative scale libraries in the world. Second is simulation. Third one is ATS integration. Fourth one is enterprise readiness. Enterprise readiness is a hammer-press signal sign-on line on variety of platforms. You need not switch the windows and put your login.
00:37:11
Speaker
For the candidate, he can give the test or the employer because now it's not just for hiring focus.
00:37:28
Speaker
In fact, our bigger market is talent development now. Microsoft Teams integration, then signal sign-on, then security kick-off certifications, then collaboration and role-based access control length, full-fledged access control length, like within organization of bigger, there are different set of roles, ESF, FEAR, Air Logic Box, which is a patented simulator, only of that kind in the world.
00:37:54
Speaker
which helps you evaluate not technical things where online companies are not available. For example, take example of Lotus dominant share points. If your compiler is new, MC2 doesn't serve the purpose. So we have a logic box which is a pseudo coding platform, homemade. And we have got three patents out there in US and India. Now we have live coding interview.
00:38:23
Speaker
What are the each of these? Like what is a live coding interview? Live coding interview is a coding interview in which say for example you are the candidate and there can be three four interview who can join.
00:38:36
Speaker
And there will be a coding simulation given on the platform. And the person will code in front of you. And you will be able to participate in that coding. Apart from this, our adoption of tests by candidate employs a problem. So we have solved that problem with a recruiter experience and employee experience model. Teams integration, UX and many other things.
00:39:02
Speaker
And yeah, pivot from hiring focus to talent development focus. How did you discover this?
00:39:08
Speaker
So if you want me, talent acquisition still continues. And we have two different products now. So from one product, we have a couple of multi-product company where 80% of the things are common. See, this problem is faced by the prices as an expansion potential. And they taught us that we need this even. And because we have the most comprehensive skill assessment, they chose us. And then we realized that we are the internship of this market, no other player, and we are ahead.
00:39:38
Speaker
And we started focusing proactively and now every month we get two enterprises for talent development. So talent development, essentially, it will tell the company that the software team has a lot of strengths, weaknesses and training.
00:39:56
Speaker
We help L&D team talent development team in ROI of the training efforts. And what can be the training efforts? For example, you have got a batch of rations and you have given them the training and onboarded them. So is that onboarding happens successfully? Measuring that can happen throughout the test. If you would like to reskill your 2G people on 5G?
00:40:20
Speaker
Okay, what level they are at? Are they re-scaling? So it's a program device, something or other. Okay, so it's upscaling, it's a re-scaling, it's a planned deployment, it's pre-training, post-training. So we are the ROI layer of all training efforts, all other ecosystem players, that is it working? So we are a diagnostic lab here.
00:40:40
Speaker
When a doctor performs a surgery, they will test it, they will test it to see if there are any symptoms or if there are any. So that is the same thing here.
00:40:58
Speaker
So, by 2020, we've covered that journey. You hit 1 million ARR and product misery improvements. So then, when COVID hit, did it help you grow faster because more things would be happening digital?
00:41:23
Speaker
But we understood that digital adoption is faster.
00:41:29
Speaker
By little bit problem, there is no option but to get on an interview solution or a skill assessment solution. So that adoption helped us accelerating fully industry collaboration to go digital and we are a digital solution. And what about fundraising? Then what did I do?
00:41:46
Speaker
in 2020 when we hit a million dollar, I bought a PR of future, how we should look after 18 months, but from here to onwards how it should be played. And then I realized that if in 18 months we should look like this, then we must raise funds.
00:42:01
Speaker
Why is that? Just help me understand the summary of that. The accelerating growth is the first thing. Then we wanted to sole-fledgedly track talent development as a use case. So when you become a bank product company, you need to put more forces. Because we were moving from SMB to enterprises, investment into events and investment into US payroll and stuff is about to happen. Well, customer acquisition costs.
00:42:26
Speaker
Customer requisition is a longer sales cycle. Customer requisition is more than that. We have to take advantage of events and other things. We have to take advantage of the enterprise more. We have to take advantage of the successful market transition at that time. Moreover, my opinion is that the company is more than the company's company's company.
00:42:46
Speaker
With talent development in place, we understood that we can create a very big company. We wanted to take a calculated risk. We wanted to take a calculated risk. We wanted to take a calculated risk.
00:43:08
Speaker
So you can say that there are four or five unicorn sash cus, who is on my cap table, as an angel, like just after COVID. And how much did you raise in that round? That time 600. So you talk out for money that it was for their support and
00:43:26
Speaker
So I wanted to structure them that I could repay them much. And I was dear that I created a big company now along with my team. They decided it took that a million dollar, grew up in two and a half weeks in 12 months. I liked it more. I had raised a series then after some time. Keep comfortable.
00:43:44
Speaker
That was the 15 million dollars. That was your series.
Future Aspirations and Market Expansion
00:43:48
Speaker
14. 14 million dollars. Okay. And two and a half times means you're now like 2.5 million. Yeah. By the end of this financial year, okay.
00:44:09
Speaker
8 to 10, somewhere in... 8 to 10 million. Amazing. How big is this market of talent development assessment? What is the long-term potential of what you're building? In its current shape, it is close to a little more than billion. In current shape, with the expansion possibilities into different industries, different verticals, different use cases, it would be six inches bigger.
00:44:39
Speaker
Okay, this you're talking only of the tech talent assessment.
00:44:54
Speaker
It's a $1,000,000 market currently. Who are the people who combined revenue 1 billion?
00:45:11
Speaker
In this market there are quite a few companies. I would say iMokan. The biggest competitor is HekaRang. And I would say there are dozens of me too of HekaRang.
00:45:39
Speaker
Hacker Earth, we could say that these are all like Me2s. And they are not getting into talent development. But like you said, 80% product is the same.
00:45:59
Speaker
Okay. I have 3000 skills. They have 500,000 skills max. So, and that too, their product, their skills are oriented towards job development. Mine is both. So it is 80% same for me, not for them. For them, it's a new product. Three years more. What about the non tech space? Is that a space that you want to get into or not right now?
00:46:27
Speaker
I already got into this quarter. We got into telecom. What skills are you assessing there? Say for example in telecom, apart from IT skills, 5G skills and IOT is 40% opinion. What is that? Is that like multiple choice questions?
00:46:50
Speaker
That came to our rescue. That's a pseudo compiler. What's with any technology? These are largely on the technical side only. What about something like, say, selling skills, customer service, finance and accounting. We have four customers where we are serving them, not only for IT, but in finance also.
00:47:16
Speaker
Like checking your double entry bookkeeping system. But yes, we already are into it.
00:47:31
Speaker
And how do you assess those, like through MCQs, through simulators? What is the way to do that? So we have a unique capability to combine MCQ, simulate us, and interview. To interview, you would have some ready-made questions that people can do, record their video answers.
00:47:47
Speaker
Yes, and that can be auto-enabled. How does that happen? What is supervised learning?
00:48:04
Speaker
There are chances of manual errors. So there are questions of stabilizing these candidates. Then there are questions of whether they can do that. Supervised learning. And what is the question to answer? Which is different from what we have put into the system? There is a question to answer. There is a question to answer.
00:48:29
Speaker
This is also right. Intudate. So what about these other Indian players like Metal, Jombe. How are you different from them? I think Jombe is also into talent development. So first of all, all of these days are my friends. Jombe is into psychometric, personal-ledgy behavior and a virtual-centred part more. So we don't cross the road. Soft skills.
00:48:55
Speaker
Soft skills are very good. Soft skills are very good. Soft skills are very good. Soft skills are very good. Soft skills are very good. Soft skills are very good. Soft skills are very good. Soft skills are very good. Soft skills are very good. Soft skills are very good. Soft skills are very good. Soft skills are very good. Soft skills are very good. Soft skills are very good. Soft skills are very good. Soft skills are very good. Soft skills are very good. Soft skills are very good. Soft skills are very good. Soft skills are very good. Soft skills are very good. Soft skills are very good. Soft skills are very good. Soft skills are very good.
00:49:23
Speaker
Thank you. Multiple choice question and grammar. So it's a combination of everything is automated. Okay. Well, almost I'll skip the driver. I'll schedule your test. Even you speak and it talks about your mother telling me. And again, more like through the AI logic box, that assessment is done, like you NLP. Okay. So you told me about job. Job is more personality and behavior. And what about metal?
00:49:53
Speaker
In India, we didn't face any major competition with metals. In India, we didn't face any major competition with metals. In India, there are quite a few players who are doing well. And they are one of the prominent players. What is the roadmap to becoming a unicorn? You said, what is the roadmap for that? What further evolution of the product is needed? What evolution of the company is needed?
00:50:34
Speaker
That is how it looks like when we will be there.
00:50:43
Speaker
As a plan to have Teensal Gaspas two to three years, maybe we should begin that. Okay. And how should we look like that? Teensal Gaspas global enterprises will not see it. Using this, 50 of them should use us globally for all their use cases.
00:50:58
Speaker
It's hard to predict. What revenue rate would you be? Like that three-year target. Next rough number, obviously it's hard to predict. $30-50,000. And are you planning more fund rates? Immediately, maybe next year, first quarter or second quarter, yes, we plan for it, small fund rates. To give strategically, we think we need to align more fund rates to us. So maybe how is the acquisition going to change?
00:51:26
Speaker
For example, a psychometric testing company, that could be an acquisition. But mostly, have you been buying something into a talent development place?