Tag: SaaS Startups

  • Everything You Need to Know About Zoho Mafia

    Zoho mafia refers to the group of companies that were founded by former Zoho employees. Zoho was founded in the year 1996 by Sridhar Vembu and Tony Thomas in Pleasanton, California; it was initially known as Advent Inc. and later renamed Zoho Corporation in the year 2009.

    Vembu began his entrepreneurial venture from a small apartment room in Chennai, partnering with Tony Thomas, who specialized in Network Management. Zoho’s headquarters in Perungudi, Chennai, began its journey by building software products in the 1990s. The company focuses on building web-based applications and software products.

    Here are some of the companies founded by Ex-Zoho employees or Zoho Mafia:

    Company Name Founder
    Freshworks Girish Mathrubootham
    Chargebee Krish Subramanian
    Hippo Video Karthi Mariappan S
    Facilio Prabhu Ramachandran, Rajavel Subramanian,
    Krishnamoorthi Rangasamy, and Yogendra Babu
    Survey Sparrow Shihab Muhammed
    ULektz Dr. Sadiq Sait M.S
    B2Brain Sridhar Ranganathan and Karthik Mahadevan
    Bizapp Hasnol Mizam
    Edmingle Gaurav Doshi
    Securden Bala Venkatramani
    Voonik Sujayath Ali
    Delegate.ai Sachin Dev Duggal
    Hexnode Apu Pavithran
    StartPix Mathys van Abbe
    Bevywise Ranjith Kumar Diraviyam
    Tart Labs Gowtham Raj
    Testsigma Rukmangada Kandyala
    BrandMaxima Vignesh Annamalai
    Smackcoders Fenzik Joseph
    LogFuze Venkadesan Velu
    Daacoworks Gomanthisankar S.
    Docupilot Aravind S
    Quartrdesign Vigneshwaran Pitchai
    Yaali Appadurai A N, Karthi Mariappan S
    Spikra Radha Rengachari

    What does Zoho do?
    What is Zoho Mafia?
    Top Companies Founded by Zoho Mafia

    What does Zoho do?

    Sridhar Venmbhu | Founder of Zoho
    Sridhar Venmbhu | Founder of Zoho

    Zoho is an Indian multinational company that specializes in software development, cloud computing, and web-based business tools. Their first and most successful product is Zoho CRM, launched in 2005. Since then, Zoho CRM has reached its 1 million user milestone in the year 2008. The company has grown to become a leader in the SaaS industry and has over 100 million users globally. On Republic Day, celebrated on January 26th,2021, Sridhar Venmbhu was granted the Padma Shri Award for his contributions to Zoho and Atmanirbhar Bharat campaign. According to Forbes, Sridhar Vembu’s net worth of $3.75 billion makes him the 55th richest person in India.


    Challenges faced by SaaS Startups
    The SaaS [/tag/saas/] business model has been making a lot of traction over thelast few years. Stratospheric success of many companies built around SaaS (like Dropbox [/tag/dropbox/] or Slack) and seemingly effortless disruption of theexisting market landscapes they managed to achieve made this m…


    What is Zoho Mafia?

    The term ‘Zoho mafia’ has to do with the former employees of Zoho who began their entrepreneurial journey after working at Zoho. Zoho mafia is an outfit that creates jobs directly and indirectly in Chennai. It is a vital part of the Indian software industry as it not only creates jobs but also inspires future entrepreneurs.

    With revenue of more than $153.55 Mn in Q3-2023, this outfit is quickly turning Chennai into a breeding ground for deep-tech startups, said Girish Mathrubootham, a former Zoho employee who quit Zoho to start his venture called Freshworks in 2010. Since its inception, Freshworks has grown to become a global leader in software products built for small and medium-scale businesses for cloud-based business software, earning a majority of the revenue in North American and European markets. It generated $545 million in revenue in 2023.

    Freshworks Annual Revenue
    Freshworks Annual Revenue

    Freshworks is the first Indian SaaS company listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange. The growth of Freshworks has been exponential. The market capitalization of the company in 2023 is $5.38 Billion. The company launched Freshdesk in 2010 to engage customers with customer support and sales. It then rebranded to Freshdesk to launch other SaaS tools like Freshmarketer, Freshsales, etc., which help entrepreneurs in Customer Relationship Management.


    10 Best Sales Intelligence Tools in 2020 | Software | Marketing Solution
    Sales intelligence software helps companies [/tag/companies/] use internal andexternal data to increase sales and improve sales processes. Companies use bestsales intelligence software to improve the quality and quantity of sales leadsby using data to find new opportunities and provide sales peop…


    Top Companies Founded by Zoho Mafia

    Chargebee – Automated Billing Software

    Founders Krish Subramanian, Rajaraman Santhanam, Thiyagaranjan T, Saravanan Kp
    Founded in 2011
    Headquarters Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

    Krish Subramanian | Chargebee Co-Founder & CEO
    Krish Subramanian | Chargebee Co-Founder & CEO

    Chargebee is a SaaS subscription billing and revenue management software that powers end-to-end recurring billing services for subscription businesses. It helps in automating subscriptions, billing, invoicing, and payments, as well as provides other key metrics and insights into the subscription business.

    Hippo Video – Easy-To-Use Video Solution for All Your Business Needs

    Co-Founder & CEO Karthi Mariappan S, Nilamchand Jain
    Founded in 2017
    Headquarters Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

    Karthi Mariappan S | Hippo Video Co-Founder & CEO
    Karthi Mariappan S | Hippo Video Co-Founder & CEO

    Hippo Video is an online video recording tool that provides an easy-to-use video solution for all your business needs. With Hippo Video, you can capture, record, edit, share, and store screen captures. It lets us record video from the desktop screen or the webcam with a click of a button.

    Hippo Video lets you automate your entire sales process to send personalized videos at scale. It delivers customized email campaigns to help you get more leads, drive sales, improve customer retention, and expand your brand reach.

    Facilio – Changing the Way Buildings Are Managed

    Founders Prabhu Ramachandran, Rajavel Subramanian,
    Krishnamoorthi Rangasamy, and Yogendra Babu
    Founded in 2017
    Headquarters Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

    Facilio Founders
    Facilio Founders

    Facilio is an AI and ML-powered data-driven property operations software that helps real estate owners and operators get hard-to-access building data, optimize building performance, and build operations across real estate portfolios towards a data-centric and driven model of operation.

    Survey Sparrow – Turn Surveys Into Conversations

    Founder & CEO Shihab Muhammed
    Founded in 2017
    Headquarters Palo Alto, CA 94306, United States

     Shihab Muhammed | Survey Sparrow Founder & CEO
    Shihab Muhammed | Survey Sparrow Founder & CEO

    Survey Sparrow is an omnichannel experience management platform that helps drive employee engagement and customer experience through the use of surveys. A conversational interface helps you deliver surveys in a chat-like experience and increase completion rates by up to 40% with the use of a mobile-friendly and highly engaging experience.

    This omnidirectional approach helps you reach your audience faster. This platform delivers many solutions to measure the loyalty of your customers and employees alike through NPS surveys, 360 surveys, chat-like surveys, and classic surveys.

    Ulektz – Delivering a Digital Learning Experience

    Founder & CEO Dr. Sadiq Sait M.S
    Founded in 2016
    Headquarters Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

    Dr. Sadiq Sait M.S | ULektz Founder & CEO
    Dr. Sadiq Sait M.S | ULektz Founder & CEO 

    ULektz is an EdTech SaaS Startup founded in the year 2016; it provides a wide range of resources for education, employability, and employment opportunities to higher education students. ULektz offers an ecosystem to connect students, educators, and all other stakeholders of higher education and provide them with curated quality resources and services for enhancing education, skills, and careers.

    They also help drive a digital learning experience by providing mobile apps (Cloud-based educational ERP software) to help colleges and universities leverage innovative technologies.

    B2Brain – Offers Lead Intelligence Software

    Co-founders Sridhar Ranganathan and Karthik Mahadevan
    Founded in 2020
    Headquarters Wilmington, United States

    B2Brain Co-founder and CEO | Sridhar Ranganathan
    B2Brain Co-founder and CEO | Sridhar Ranganathan

    Founded in 2020, B2Brain is the sales team’s companion for automated account intelligence. You can automate account research to focus on opening accounts, building pipelines, and creating opportunities. You can get Intel, Talking Points, and Leads directly in your CRM/SEP. Using B2Brain, you can accelerate outbound sales with contextual information on your leads and accounts.

    It is trusted by enterprises such as Auditoria, Capillary, Evolv, Salesloft, Flutura, and others globally. It integrates with leading CRMs, SEPs, and Collaboration tools such as Salesforce, Salesloft, Slack, MS Teams, Freshworks, Zoho, and more.

    Edmingle – Build Your Online Teaching Empire

    Founders Gaurav Doshi, Harshit Sharaff
    Founded in 2016
    Headquarters Bengaluru, Karnataka

    Gaurav Doshi | Edmingle Founder & CEO
    Gaurav Doshi | Edmingle Founder & CEO

    Edmingle is a SaaS-based LMS platform for educators, colleges, and coaching institutes. It allows educators to design personalized courses, create exams, quizzes, exercises, and assignments, have conversations, and track student performance across subjects and courses. Teachers and administrators can send real-time notifications to students and parents for real-time monitoring and feedback. It also has marketing capabilities built in to boost student registrations and marketing for coaching institutes. It has an app for both Android and iOS devices.

    Tart Labs – Crafting Innovative Software Solutions

    Founder Gowtham Raj
    Founded in 2014
    Headquarters Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu

    Gowtham Raj | Tart Labs Founder
    Gowtham Raj | Tart Labs Founder

    Tart Labs is a leading software development company headquartered in Coimbatore, India. The company was founded in 2014 with a vision to revolutionize the software industry. Since then, Tart Labs has grown exponentially and has become a trusted partner for businesses of all sizes across the globe.

    Tart Labs offers various services, including mobile and web application design and development, enterprise applications, cloud consulting, and cybersecurity solutions. The company’s team of experienced and skilled professionals is passionate about creating innovative and user-friendly software solutions that meet the specific needs of their clients.

    Voonik – Fashion for Every Woman

    Founder Sujayath Ali and Navaneetha Krishnan
    Founded in 2013
    Headquarters Bengaluru, Karnataka

    Sujayath Ali and Navaneetha Krishnan | Voonik Founders
    Sujayath Ali and Navaneetha Krishnan | Voonik Founders

    Voonik is an online marketplace for women’s fashion. It offers a wide range of products from over 10,000 brands, including apparel, footwear, accessories, and beauty products.

    Voonik’s mission is to make fashion accessible and affordable for every woman. The company uses technology to provide its customers with a personalized shopping experience. Customers can create profiles and specify their style, size, budget, and preferences. Voonik then uses this information to recommend products that are likely to interest the customer. The company has been growing rapidly in recent years. 2017, the company raised $20 million in funding from RB Investments. Voonik is now one of India’s leading online marketplaces for women’s fashion.

    Securden – Secure Your Privileged Access, Protect Your Most Critical Assets

    Founders Balasubramanian Venkataramani, Kumaran Balan
    Founded in 2018
    Headquarters Newark, United States

    Balasubramanian Venkataramani, Kumaran Balan | Securden Founders
    Balasubramanian Venkataramani, Kumaran Balan | Securden Founders

    Securden is a leading provider of privileged access management (PAM) solutions. PAM is a critical security discipline that helps organizations protect their most sensitive data and systems from unauthorized access. Securden’s solutions provide comprehensive features to help organizations manage and control their privileged accounts and passwords, monitor and control privileged access to systems and applications, and assess and mitigate the risks associated with privileged accounts.

    Startpix – Fueling Digital Transformation With Content and Personalized Commerce

    Founders Mohammed Yasar Ibrahim
    Founded in 2018
    Headquarters Chennai, Tamil Nadu

    Mohammed Yasar Ibrahim | StartPix Technologies Founder
    Mohammed Yasar Ibrahim | StartPix Technologies Founder

    StartPix Technologies is a Chennai-based digital transformation company that delivers content and personalized commerce solutions, fueling the transformation in digital experiences.

    StartPix Technologies offers a wide range of services, including digital commerce, content management, customer relationship management (CRM), and enterprise resource planning (ERP). The company helps businesses to build and manage their online stores, create and manage their content across all digital channels, implement and manage CRM systems to improve customer engagement and loyalty and implement and manage ERP systems to streamline their operations and improve efficiency.

    Docupilot – Automate Your Documents to Grow Your Business

    Founders Aravind S, Rohit Reddy Abbadi
    Founded in 2018
    Headquarters Newark, Delaware, United States

    Aravind S, Rohit Reddy Abbadi | Docupilot Founders
    Aravind S, Rohit Reddy Abbadi | Docupilot Founders

    DocuPilot is a document automation and generation software that helps businesses create and manage documents more efficiently. It allows users to create dynamic documents from intelligent templates and data and send the created documents as email or to their favorite apps like DocuSign, Dropbox, Zapier, etc. DocuPilot can generate PDF or Word documents from Google Forms response, Google Sheets, Jotform, NinjaForms, Salesforce Leads, and other sources.

    DocuPilot is a cloud-based solution, so it is accessible from anywhere with an internet connection. It is also easy to use, with a drag-and-drop interface and pre-built templates for common documents. DocuPilot is affordable and offers a free trial, so businesses of all sizes can try it before they buy it.

    Conclusion

    In conclusion, there are various companies founded by former Zoho employees. With experience working in Zoho combined with their engineering knowledge, they have developed many successful products hailing both Indian and Overseas markets in the niche technology segment of cloud-based applications across various industry verticals. They also help each other to thrive in the SaaS marketplace by providing their services to one another.

    FAQs

    What does Zoho do?

    Zoho is a web-based online office suite containing word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, note-taking, wikis, web conferencing, customer relationship management (CRM), project management, invoicing, and other applications. Specific needs of the businesses can be met through Zoho.

    Who is the founder of Zoho?

    Sridhar Vembu is the founder and CEO of Zoho.

    When was Zoho founded?

    Zoho was founded in 1996 by Sridhar Vembu and Tony Thomas.

    What are the companies founded by Zoho Mafia?

    • Freshworks
    • Chargebee
    • Hippo Video
    • Facilio
    • Survey Sparrow
    • ULektz
    • B2Brain
    • Bizapp
    • Edmingle
    • Securden
    • Voonik
    • Delegate.ai
    • Hexnode
    • StartPix
    • Bevywise
    • Tart Labs
    • Testsigma
    • BrandMaxima
    • Smackcoders
    • LogFuze
    • Daacoworks
    • Docupilot
    • Quartrdesign
  • SupplyNote Success Story: Helping Food & Beverage Businesses Automate Their Supply Chain Entirely

    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by SupplyNote.

    The global food and beverages market grew from $6,729.54 billion in 2022 to $7,221.73 billion in 2023 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.3%. In businesses specific to the F&B industry, customer service is of the utmost importance. And to offer highly valued services, the F&B industry needs to strengthen its supply chain networks. Thus, there is an upsurge in demand for supply chain management in the F&B industry. Along with advances in technology, the supply chain industry is evolving.

    SupplyNote provides a full-stack platform for the entire supply chain management process. It helps Food and beverage businesses with inventory management, vendor management, and logistics supply chain needs.

    SupplyNote – Company Highlights

    Startup Name SupplyNote
    Headquarters Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India
    Industry SaaS, E-Commerce Platform for Food Businesses
    Founder Kushang, Nitin Prakash, Harshit Mittal, and Abhishek Verma
    Founded 2019
    Website supplynote.in

    SupplyNote – About
    SupplyNote – Industry
    SupplyNote – Founders and Team
    SupplyNote – Idea and Startup Story
    SupplyNote – Name, Tagline, and Logo
    SupplyNote – Products and Services
    SupplyNote – USP
    SupplyNote – Business Model and Revenue Model
    SupplyNote – Acquiring Clients
    SupplyNote – Challenges Faced
    SupplyNote – Growth
    SupplyNote – Funding
    SupplyNote – Advisors and mentors
    SupplyNote – Tools Used in The Company
    SupplyNote – Future plans

    About SupplyNote 

    SupplyNote – About

    SupplyNote is a B2B SAAS platform for F&B businesses that provides a platform for end-to-end management of supply chains with an integrated marketplace.

    Talking about the long-term vision of the company, its aim is to become the backbone of the F&B supply chain by evolving into a one-stop solution for all supply chain needs – software, service, and marketplace.

    In the short term, the idea is to provide a marketplace where merchants can discover suppliers for their raw materials and transact with them, orders from which will be fulfilled by SupplyNote.

    SupplyNote – Industry

    The global food and beverages market is projected to reach $9,225.37 billion in 2027, experiencing a CAGR of 6.3% from 2023.

    The industry has been operating its supply chain using traditional methods (pen and paper) and needs a digital transformation, which SupplyNote intends to bring in. Every F&B outlet suffers noticeable losses due to inventory mismanagement, procurement flaws, etc. For a business that runs on major fixed costs, it becomes more important than ever to maintain the margins. Following the major blow from the pandemic, they observed an accelerated tech disruption in the industry. Therefore, they believe that five years down the line, the industry will be completely digitized in terms of operations.

    SupplyNote – Founders and Team

    Kushang - Co-founder and CEO of SupplyNote
    Kushang – Co-founder and CEO of SupplyNote

    The founding team has Kushang (CEO), Nitin Prakash (CPO), Harshit Mittal (CTO), and Abhishek Verma (COO). They are a bold, intrepid, highly passionate group of tech-loving geeks, foodies, change-makers, doers, and entrepreneurs who are committed to empowering F&B businesses with technology & innovation.

    Four friends from IIT Kanpur came together to build SupplyNote, with Kushang leading the idea, Harshit Mittal leading the technological development, Abhishek Verma leading the Business Operations, and Nitin Prakash leading the Product. During the final year, Adcount Technologies Pvt Ltd was incepted (parent company of SupplyNote).

    The company currently has a strength of 75, and they believe in flexible work culture. More than the hours spent in the office, they care about making progress toward the goal. They work as hard as they play. They like people who like to take on challenges and ownership, who are competitive and yet they care about nature. Most of the team comprises foodies. And they love sports.

    SupplyNote – Idea and Startup Story

    SupplyNote was formerly known as Adurcup. AdCount Technologies was originally founded in 2015 by IIT-Kanpur alumni Kushang, Abhishek Verma, Harshit Mittal, and Nitin Prakash with the idea of monetizing paper cups. Over the period, the company built its network of merchants and started dealing in a variety of supplies. The company was using its own software, which was developed in-house, for managing its supply chain, when a client discussed the requirement of such a solution for their inventory management purpose. The team customized the software as per the client’s requirement, and that gave birth to SupplyNote in 2019, a platform that is actively being used across not less than 2000 outlets today.

    SupplyNote Logo
    SupplyNote Logo

    The name itself is made up of two words, Supply-Note, which essentially means noting down the supply. They discovered that inventory management isn’t digitized yet in a major part of the F&B industry in India. As they started the mission of digitizing the supply chain, they came up with the name that means recording the inventory data—SupplyNote, for short.

    The logo of SupplyNote might look like an arrow pointing towards the top (that signifies growth), but it’s more than that. That arrow is made up of two letters, S and N, which are the initials of Supply-Note.

    The tagline of SupplyNote is ‘Fix Your Supply Chain,’ enabling companies to expand into new geographies faster by eliminating the hassle of building supply chains or discovering suppliers. SupplyNote has already solved those challenges for them, making it much easier for companies to scale and explore markets. Hence, the logo represents growth—in numbers, in business, in every aspect.

    SupplyNote – Products and Services

    SupplyNote is an ecosystem of software and services for the management of Supply Chain for F&B businesses. It has 4 products under its umbrella:

    1. The Point of Sale Solution: Having an exclusive strategic partnership with Posify, SupplyNote offers its customers a platform for the management of sales, such as billing, kitchen management, table management, rider tracking, web ordering, and more.
    2. The Inventory Management / Supply Chain Management Software: Integrated with Point of Sale, SupplyNote IMS takes in the data of sales, and its advanced algorithms break down the sold items into the raw material that has been consumed and updates the inventory in real-time. It also helps with the management of suppliers, the generation of purchase orders, sales orders, and more.
    3. The Fulfilment Services: SupplyNote helps merchants and vendors transact with each other without worrying about operational challenges, as SupplyNote offers warehousing and logistic services (dry and cold) to fulfill supply chain needs.
    4. The Marketplace: A product of SupplyNote that helps merchants discover suppliers and transact with them, getting more options and flexibility on price, payment terms, quality options, and more.

    SupplyNote – USP

    SupplyNote is the only full-stack platform for supply chain management, as all the other companies are only solving a part of the supply chain and not the entire supply chain.


    How does Amazon Manage its Supply Chain and Logistics? | Supply chain management of Amazon
    Amazon is one of the top ecommerce store which is known for its complex yet efficient supply chain. Lets understand in detail the supply chain management of Amazon.


    SupplyNote – Business Model and Revenue Model

    The clients pay a subscription fee for using the SAAS, while they pay per usage for their fulfillment services. In the marketplace model, they only charge for the fulfillment of delivery (storage and transport) currently and do not charge any commissions from either party.

    SupplyNote – Acquiring Clients

    Back in 2015 when the company was incepted, the strategy for the acquisition of clients was Feet-on-Street. The team went from door to door, proposing the offerings of the company at that time and built its network of clients. Later, they got great clients who gave us referrals for other clients and word on the streets picked up gradually. Further, in 2019 when SupplyNote was launched, they already were doing business with over 300 clients that showed interest in the software and some of them even turned out to be the first users.

    SupplyNote is solving various challenges related to the supply chain and they reach out to every F&B business to discuss the problems they are facing, further contemplating how SupplyNote can solve it for them.

    For 100 to 1000, their approach was more linear, with their teammates reaching out to all businesses in the nearby area and pitching them with their propositions. However, as it reached the mark of 1000, they started marketing and taking up branding initiatives, spreading awareness around the significance of digitizing the supply chain, the cost that a good Inventory management software can save, and much more. They are also tying up with companies to provide multiple value propositions to their clients to retain them longer.

    SupplyNote – Challenges Faced

    One of the earlier products of AdCount Technologies Pvt. Ltd. was Adurcup, an e-commerce platform that was supplying various raw materials to F&B businesses. The challenge was the disorganization of the entire F&B industry at the time, and digitization was yet a foreign concept within the Industry. That is why they decided on solving that challenge, and discovering a bigger opportunity.

    SupplyNote – Growth

    Since April 2020, the company has grown 12X in GMV and has become the second-largest F&B Supply Chain Company in India (By GMV).

    SupplyNote – Funding

    SupplyNote has successfully raised a total of $4.7 million in funding across seven rounds from a diverse group of investors. Among the recent investors are Cogniphy and DSP Family Office, and other notable investors include LetsVenture, SucSEED Indovation, Soonicorn Ventures, Venture Catalysts, SOSV, Artesian VC, and more.

    Here are the details of SupplyNote’s funding rounds:

    Date Funding Round Amount Lead Investors
    July 12, 2023 Series A $2.3 million Artesian VC, Venture Catalysts
    October 20, 2022 Series A
    October 28, 2021 Seed Round $1.2 million Venture Catalysts
    October 21, 2021 Seed Round $667K
    September 10, 2021 Convertible Note
    October 21, 2020 Seed Round $600K Artesian VC, SOSV, Venture Catalysts
    February 22, 2020 Seed Round MOX (now Orbit Startups)

    SupplyNote – Advisors and mentors

    SupplyNote Advisors and Mentors
    SupplyNote Advisors and Mentors

    Yogesh Bellani, William Bao Bean, Vikram Upadhaya, and Apporv Ranjan Sharma are the mentors and advisors of SupplyNote.

    SupplyNote – Tools Used in The Company

    They use many tools within the company like- Zira, Asana, and Slack to manage work, and Google Suite for emails, meetings, calendars, docs, slides, and sheets. They use Figma for designing, Hubspot as their CRM, MixPanel, and Google Analytics for data analytics and insights, and more.

    SupplyNote – Future plans

    They are planning to launch a new kind of marketplace in Delhi NCR which they will be expanding across the country shortly.

    FAQs

    What is SupplyNote?

    SupplyNote is a B2B SAAS platform for Food & Beverage businesses that provides a platform for end-to-end management of the supply chain.

    Who is the founder of SupplyNote?

    Kushang, Nitin Prakash, Harshit Mittal, and Abhishek Verma are the founders of SupplyNote.

    When was SupplyNote founded?

    SupplyNote was founded in 2019.

    What is AdUrCup?

    SupplyNote was formerly known as Adurcup – one of the earlier products of AdCount Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

  • How to a Build Small Business Operation Area and Reputation in Us

    Small business owners play an important role in the U.S. economy. They provide many of the goods and services that consumers rely on, and they also create jobs. Small businesses are typically defined as having fewer than 500 employees, and they can range from sole proprietorships to large corporations. The benefits of small businesses include flexibility, innovation, and responsiveness to local needs. Small business owners are often more willing to take risks and try new ideas than large corporations, leading to greater innovation. Additionally, small businesses are often more connected to the local community and may provide better customer service than larger firms. Small businesses can help to create a vibrant and diverse economy, and in many cases, they can provide jobs and other economic opportunities for people in underserved communities.

    So it is important that this lifeline of the economy lives on and flourishes in the future. If you see a business, you may notice that there always stands a pillar of risk associated with the business. In these scenarios, it is hard to develop the venture to greater heights. However, with the onset of the internet in every sector and using computers to automate processes, there has been some relief. This article deals with some related issues. Issues and resolutions on how to grow business online to increase customer base and sales.  a positive online reputation can be a key factor in their decision to do business with you.

    The US government has adopted a number of online businesses in recent years, including online payment and banking services, online shopping and e-commerce, telemedicine, online education, and cloud computing. The government has also taken steps to encourage businesses to use and adopt new technologies. The Small Business Administration (SBA) offers various grants and resources to help businesses launch and grow their online operations. Additionally, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has put in place net neutrality rules to ensure that all internet users have access to the same content and services. The US has also made efforts to promote the use of digital currency, such as Bitcoin.

    On the other hand, a negative online reputation can be damaging to a business. It can discourage potential customers from doing business with you and hurt your bottom line. That’s why it’s important to monitor and manage your online reputation and strive to maintain a positive image online.

    The Internet
    Internet and Its Relevancy to Business
    Ways to Use the Internet for Business
    Search Engine – Google
    How to Use Google for Business?
    How to Improve Online Reputation in Us?
    Build an Online Presence

    The Internet

    The Internet is a network of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. In short, the internet is something that has connected everyone in the world. This is a pretty amazing thing to see in our lifetimes. It makes everything more accessible.

    The internet has changed the way businesses operate on a global scale, allowing companies to reach a much wider audience, create new markets and streamline operations. It has allowed companies to communicate with customers and employees, purchase materials and services, advertise, and access data more quickly and easily.

    Internet and Its Relevancy to Business

    Well, it is the most relevant thing to the business world. There are endless ways how a business can use the internet to reach its customers and increase revenues. The internet has made it easier to do business than ever before. Business owners can now easily communicate with customers, suppliers, and partners, as well as advertise their products and services to a global audience. They can also quickly access customer and market data, allowing them to make informed decisions. Additionally, payment processing is faster and more secure than ever before, allowing for quick and easy transactions. Finally, the internet has opened up new opportunities for businesses, such as e-commerce, social media marketing, and digital advertising. Let us see how the Internet affects businesses.

    Increased Market Reach

    The internet allows businesses to reach a global audience, enabling them to expand their market and customer base. If you have more information or data, you can ride the customer’s tide, which is always beneficial to the overall business.

    Number of Small Businesses in US

    Lower Costs

    An internet business eliminates many of the costs associated with a traditional brick-and-mortar business, such as overhead expenses, rent, utility bills, and staffing. Lower costs help the business to earn more premiums and serve the customer in better places to increase customer loyalty.

    Increased Profits

    The ability to reach a global audience helps internet businesses generate higher profits than traditional businesses since sales can be made around the clock and to a larger customer base with significant margins, profits also rise.

    Increased Efficiency

    With the ability to automate many processes, an internet business can become more efficient and streamline operations, resulting in better customer service and increased profits. The Internet is efficient, even more, efficient than humans. Making the internet a great medium to use and utilise.

    Flexibility

    An internet business can be run from anywhere, allowing entrepreneurs to work from home or while travelling. This makes the physical problem of having a business disappear.

    Ways to Use the Internet for Business

    As mentioned before, there exist endless ways how you can use the Internet for your business. The internet has enabled businesses to collaborate with partners and customers in real-time, regardless of geographical location. Additionally, the internet has allowed companies to use social media platforms to interact with customers, build brand awareness, and increase sales. We are listing some of the most common stuff that you can do to go about it.

    Target Audience

    Before launching any online marketing campaigns, it’s important to understand the target audience and what their online behaviours are. The Internet offers great help to businesses to understand their audience. The reason we are calling this a great help is that once you get more understanding of your audience, you can tailor-make products and offers for them.

    Create a Website

    A website is the foundation of your online presence, and it’s important to create one that accurately reflects your brand and values. A website allows a business to reach a wider audience and increase visibility. It can be used to provide information about a business, such as products or services offered, contact information, and company history. A professional-looking website can help build trust with potential customers.

    Leverage Social Media

    Social media is one of the most effective and cost-efficient ways to reach your target audience and build relationships with them. Social media platforms allow businesses to reach a large audience and increase brand awareness. It allows businesses to interact with customers and respond to their questions and concerns in real time. It also can be used to build a community of engaged customers around a brand.

    Utilise Online Advertising

    Online advertising can be an effective way to reach potential customers who may not otherwise find your business. Online advertising is a form of marketing that uses the internet to deliver promotional messages to a target audience. Utilizing online advertising can help increase brand awareness and drive website traffic.

    Invest in SEO

    Search engine optimization (SEO) is an important tool for driving organic traffic to your website. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility and ranking of a website or a web page in search engine results pages (SERPs) through organic (non-paid) means. Investing in SEO can help increase the visibility of your website and drive more traffic to your site.

    Average Business Owner Salary in US

    Monitor and Analyze Data

    It’s important to keep track of the performance of your online marketing campaigns and adjust your strategies accordingly. Monitoring and analyzing data is an important step in understanding the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and making informed decisions about future strategies.

    Leverage Email Marketing

    Email marketing is a great way to stay in touch with customers and generate leads. It is a cost-effective way to reach and engage with customers and prospects. It involves sending targeted, personalized messages to a list of subscribers via email. Some strategies for leveraging email marketing include

    Leverage Content Marketing

    Content marketing is an effective way to boost brand awareness, build relationships, and drive conversions. Content marketing strategy involves creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and engage a clearly defined audience with the goal of driving profitable customer action

    Search Engine – Google

    It is impossible to not talk about google when talking about the internet. Google is the website that makes all the information in the world accessible to each and every one. The good part is that It also helps businesses grow their online presence.

    Let us see how? Google helps online businesses build their presence, reach new customers, and generate more sales. Businesses can use Google’s suite of products and services to create an online presence, advertise to potential customers, and track their performance. Google Ads gives businesses the ability to create and manage campaigns to reach potential customers searching for the products and services they offer. Google Analytics allows businesses to track how their website performs, so they can make changes to improve their website and increase sales. Google My Business helps businesses create a profile for their business and manage their online presence across Google. Businesses can use Google Search Console to optimise their website for search engine rankings, and Google Tag Manager to track user interactions on their website. Finally, businesses can use Google Reviews to interact with customers and get feedback to improve their products and services.

    How to Use Google for Business?

    This point is not an easy task but it is simple. You should know that Google employs some of the best in class tech to help its business friends. There are many ways you can use to make your business skyrocket with the internet. Here we are listing some of the most thought-out ways of doing so –

    Google Ads is an effective way to reach potential customers in the US. Advertisers can target customers in specific geographic areas, as well as by interests, demographics, and more. Google Ads can be tailored to different budgets, and you can measure the success of your campaigns with detailed reporting.

    Utilise Google My Business

    Google My Business is a free tool that allows businesses to manage their presence on Google Search and Maps. By setting up a profile, you can provide potential customers with information about your business, such as hours, location, and contact information.

    Optimise Your Website for SEO

    Optimising your website for search engine optimization (SEO) can help improve your rankings in Google Search. This includes optimising content and metadata, as well as building backlinks from other websites.

    Google Trends is a great tool to help understand what people are searching for in the US. You can use this information to create content that resonates with customers, as well as to identify emerging trends.

    Use Google Analytics

    Google Analytics is a powerful tool that can help you understand how people interact with your website. You can use this data to optimise your website and improve your sales.

    How to Improve Online Reputation in Us?

    Online reputation refers to the perception of a business or person’s character and trustworthiness based on their online presence. This can include things like their website, social media accounts, and customer reviews. Having a positive online reputation is important for businesses because it can help in lead generation and establish trust and credibility. In today’s digital age, many people turn to the internet to research businesses before making a purchase, and a positive online reputation can be a key factor in their decision to do business with you.

    On the other hand, a negative online reputation can be damaging to a business. It can discourage potential customers from doing business with you and hurt your bottom line. That’s why it’s important to monitor and manage your online reputation and strive to maintain a positive image online. Let us see some suggestions that we can utilise to improve our online business perception in the US and elsewhere.

    1. Monitor your online presence regularly and respond to any negative reviews or comments promptly and professionally. This shows that you care about your customers and are willing to address any issues they may have.
    2. Encourage satisfied customers to leave positive reviews on your website and on popular review websites like Yelp and Google My Business. This can help to balance out any negative reviews and show potential customers that your business is trustworthy.
    3. Make sure that your website is up-to-date and easy to use. This will help to create a good first impression with potential customers and make it easy for them to find the information they need.
    4. Be active on social media and engage with your customers. This can help to build relationships and create a positive brand image.
    5. Create high-quality, engaging content for your website and social media pages to attract potential customers and show off your expertise in your industry.
    6. Provide excellent customer service and go above and beyond to make sure that your customers are happy. This can help to create a positive reputation and encourage customers to spread the word about your business.
    7. Be transparent and honest in your business practices. This can help to build trust and improve your online reputation.

    Build an Online Presence

    With the rising popularity of the internet, businesses are now looking for ways to increase their online presence. This is because having an online presence can help a business reach a wider audience, increase brand recognition, and generate more leads. Here are some effective strategies for increasing your business’s online presence.

    Develop a Strong Social Media Presence

    Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are some of the best places to start building your online presence. With millions of users, these platforms offer businesses a great opportunity to reach a large audience. You can use them to engage with potential customers, post content, advertise your products and services, and build relationships with your followers.

    SEO Strategies

    Search engine optimization (SEO) is an effective way to make your website more visible on search engine results pages. SEO involves optimising your website’s content and structure to make it more visible to search engines. You can also use various SEO tools to optimise your website for specific keywords and phrases that your target audience is likely to search for.

    Online Advertising

    Online advertising is a great way to reach a large audience quickly and cost-effectively. With platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads, you can create targeted campaigns to reach potential customers who are likely to be interested in your products and services.

    Publish Useful Content

    Content marketing is a great way to build brand recognition and attract potential customers to your business. You can use content to provide useful information about your products and services, as well as build relationships with potential customers. You can publish content on your website, as well as on other platforms like social media, blogs, and online publications.

    Participating in Online Communities

    Online communities are a great way to engage with potential customers and build relationships. You can join forums, discussion groups, and other online communities related to your industry, and participate in conversations. This is also a great way to build relationships with influencers in your industry, as well as to learn more about your target audience. By following these strategies, you can effectively increase your business’s online presence. However, it’s important to remember that it takes time and effort to build an effective online presence. It’s also important to be consistent and to monitor your progress regularly to ensure that your efforts are producing the desired results.

    Conclusion

    Online Business has many advantages for both buyers and sellers. It is a cost-effective way for businesses to reach a larger audience, as there are no expensive storefronts or physical locations that need to be maintained. Additionally, online stores are open 24/7 and can handle a large volume of transactions at any given time, making it easier for businesses to meet customer demands. For customers, e-commerce offers convenience, as they can shop at any time of the day or night, from the comfort of their own homes. Furthermore, customers can compare prices and shop around for the best deals, as well as read reviews and check out ratings of products and services before making a purchase. So shifting to an online medium is both effective and efficient.

    FAQ

    What are the 5 key elements for building a successful business?

    At the core, every business is fundamentally a collection of five Interdependent processes, each of which flows into the next such as

    • Value-Creation
    • Marketing
    • Sales
    • Value-Delivery
    • Finance

    What is the biggest key to success for a small business?

    To succeed in business today, you need to be flexible and have good planning and organizational skills. Many people start a business thinking that they’ll turn on their computers or open their doors and start making money, only to find that making money in a business is much more difficult than they thought.

    What are the 7 pillars of business?

    The 7 Strategic Pillars Of Your Business

    • Financial Growth & Stability
    • Marketing & Visibility
    • Product Offers & Innovation
    • Operations & Efficiencies
    • Scaling & Team Growth
    • Personal & Professional Care & Development
    • Customer & Client Experience

    What are the 4 strategic pillars?

    The 4 pillars of the strategy are Vision, Analysis, Target & Plan. A strategy needs to build on the foundation of an overarching vision that it is meant to achieve. In this sense, it is important to acquire guidance on the vision from the supervisory authorities of the strategy.

  • Top 10 Major Challenges Faced by SaaS Startups

    The advancement of technology has made handling business activities much easier than ever. Using advanced computer software, one can perform all kinds of operations and provide customers with the best possible experience.

    SaaS startups are the companies that offer computer software as a service to other companies in the industry. These companies offer their clients web-based tools or applications that they may use to manage their company more automatically or to improve the efficiency of their own systems.

    These companies are known to offer solutions that allow other companies to take advantage of the latest technology and software without worrying about installation or new updates. There are numerous SaaS businesses providing various kinds of software services.

    In this article, you will get insights into the major challenges faced by SaaS startups and how to respond to these challenges and make your business run smoothly.

    Major Challenges Faced by SaaS Startups

    What is SaaS (Software as a Service)?

    Major Challenges Faced by SaaS Startups

    The growing need for software for the smooth functioning of business activities has provided a great opportunity for aspiring entrepreneurs towards this business idea. But before starting a company, you must be aware of the challenges and hardships faced by SaaS startups. The following are the major challenges faced by SaaS startups:

    Biggest Challenges Managing Software as a Service Applications Worldwide 2021
    Biggest Challenges Managing Software as a Service Applications Worldwide 2021

    Lack of Knowledge and Experience

    As an entrepreneur, it is essential to gather substantial knowledge and expertise before starting any business. This will allow you to tackle any challenge or hardship that you will come across in the beginning phase of your business.

    If you are thinking of starting a SaaS startup then ensure that you have proper business knowledge and experience in that field. Many software service companies have shut down due to a lack of knowledge and expertise in handling problems.

    Do your research properly and learn everything about the business model and how SaaS companies work. The best way is to work for companies that provide software as a service until you gain enough experience and knowledge.

    Not Understanding Market Penetration

    Many young entrepreneurs don’t have enough understanding of market penetration. This can be a major challenge for startups as they must find a means to reach more customers with their services. Selling software can be more challenging as they become outdated when technology advances.

    Competing with the top companies who have an established brand and reputation in the market will be extremely difficult and will bring a lot of challenges. You must have the skills and offer better service to influence clients into using your software services.

    Your products must be innovative and updated, and your services must address the problems faced by the clients. This will improve your brand reputation and make it easier to reach more customers. With the right marketing and promotional strategies, you can easily grow your business.

    Lack of Network Access

    Many startups face difficulty establishing a network in the market. It is extremely crucial for entrepreneurs to build connections with new clients and network access in the industry. This will take time but eventually, you will build a brand image once you have a large network of clients.

    Lack of network access can impact your overall sales and growth of the business. Almost every company is running their business activities using the software. It will not be difficult to influence clients into using your product. You must go prepared with solutions that can solve their existing problems and make business operations easier for them.

    Lack of Funding or External Capital

    Lack of funding is a common challenge for several SaaS startups. An entrepreneur must always look for ways to get funds and external capital for the growth and expansion of their business. Lack of funds and capital can lead to the shutdown of your SaaS startup. You must always look for investors who are willing to invest by purchasing shares in your company

    SaaS startups require money to develop software and hire developers who can provide required services. They also need funds to expand and scale their operations, and initial investment to get started. A business can’t grow or hire employees if it doesn’t have sufficient money or credit to do so.


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    Technical Challenges

    Technical challenges are the major challenges that most SaaS startups have to face especially when there is not enough technical expertise. SaaS startups must create software or applications keeping in mind the problems faced by their target audience.

    An entrepreneur must ensure that his product can provide solutions to the problems prevailing in the market. This will help them to target more audiences, grow fast and build a brand name in the market. A SaaS startup must be prepared with software that features all the needs and capabilities of the clients. Also, it must provide complete security and be dependable enough to prevent any issues in the future.

    Impact of Covid-19 on Software as a Service Spending Worldwide in 2020
    Impact of Covid-19 on Software as a Service Spending Worldwide in 2020

    A Wrong Business Model

    Choosing an appropriate business model is essential for every SaaS startup to succeed. Often young entrepreneurs make this common mistake of selecting a business model that might not be feasible for their business.

    Running a SaaS startup can be difficult as you are dealing with a product which is subject to change anytime, and you must keep up with the pace and come up with solutions that can address all problems of your customers and help them to run the business efficiently.

    An appropriate business model suitable for a SaaS startup allows to identify the client base and help address all their problems with a single solution. It will help a startup to create, deliver and capture the value and form innovative strategies to tackle different problems.

    Weak Management Team

    A weak management team can be a major problem for SaaS startups. The management team is the backbone of any business, if they are not able to handle the daily operations of the business then it’s not possible for any company to succeed. So, in a SaaS startup, it is important to ensure that the management team consists of people with the knowledge and expertise to handle the daily affairs of the business.

    Selling software as a service is not an easy task. An efficient management team can provide the right direction to the business by forming innovative strategies for the growth and success of the startup. This will prevent poor management practices and operational inefficiency within the company and avoid bad decision-making and poor execution of strategies.

    Lack of the Latest Technology

    It is extremely important for SaaS startups to adopt the latest technology in their business so they can compete with their competitors who are well established in the market. Adopting the latest technology is often a major challenge for SaaS startups if they are unable to provide timely updates.

    Selling software as a service is entirely based on technology. They must make use of the latest technology to make their product better so that can address more problems of their clients. Using technology to ensure that your product provides better features and services is a part of the investment process that will reap high returns and will also help to compete with other competitors.

    Selecting Inappropriate Marketing Strategies

    Selecting the appropriate marketing strategies is extremely important for all SaaS startups. Marketing and sales strategies can be different based on several factors. Many entrepreneurs fail to execute appropriate marketing strategies which can lead to the failure of their business.

    For SaaS companies, marketing and sales strategies must focus on their products and services. Highlighting the features of their software will help them to attract more clients and customers. Even if the startup has the best product to sell, it is more important to execute appropriate marketing strategies, so people are aware of the product.

    If a SaaS startup is unable to work out effective marketing strategies then it should think of hiring a marketing agency in order to become successful in the industry.


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    Selecting the Wrong Price

    Product pricing can be tricky. A SaaS startup might want to consider a lot of factors before selecting the appropriate price. Many businesses often fail to make their way in the market as they fail to set the right price for their products and services.

    For startups, it’s essential to set the price low enough to cover all the costs and keep a low-profit margin. Companies that are offering software as a service must keep their pricing flexible based on the needs and demands of their clients.

    It’s important for SaaS startups to have an experienced research team who will do the necessary market research and help determine a budget that one can spend on developing software. Based on this one can select a price of the SaaS product that covers all the fixed and variable expenses and also gives the startup better positioning in the market.

    Conclusion

    SaaS startups face a number of challenges. These range from the technical and business aspects of launching a new company to maintaining a steady stream of customers, as well as overcoming obstacles that come up during the process of building your product or service.

    This article illustrates some major challenges faced by SaaS startups which can lead to failure or shut down of their business. If you are looking forward to starting a SaaS startup then ensure that you are already prepared to face these challenges and have solutions to overcome these obstacles.

    FAQs

    What are SaaS startups?

    SaaS stands for Software as a Service. It is a model in which a company (cloud provider) sells software to users over the internet on the basis of a subscription.

    Which is the best SaaS platform?

    The best SaaS platforms are:

    • Google
    • Microsoft
    • Salesforce
    • Zoom
    • SAP

    What are the top challenges facing the SaaS industry?

    Top challenges facing the SaaS industry include:

    • Lack of Knowledge and Experience
    • Lack of latest technology
    • Lack of funding
    • Lack of network access
    • Weak management team
  • Jop – An All in One Solution to Boost Employee Performance

    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by JOP.

    Building an enterprise and maintaining the startup team to adhere to the business goal efficiently and effectively is one of the biggest challenges in the entrepreneurship journey. Entrepreneurs should always focus to create an environment where teams can perform to the best of their abilities and produce the highest quality work. It is an ongoing process of improving individual and team coordination. JOP provides a solution to boosting employee performance at the company. It offers automated solutions to goal setting and performance reviews.

    Read the success story of JOP, its founders, business model, and more about it.

    JOP – Company Highlights

    Startup Name JOP
    Headquarters New Delhi
    Industry SaaS
    Founder Gaurav Sabharwal, Rakesh Sarin, Vibhu Satpaul, and Grant Crow
    Founded 2020
    Website getjop.com

    JOP – About
    JOP – Core Belief
    JOP – Founders and Team
    JOP – The Idea and Startup Story
    JOP – Name, Tagline, and Logo
    JOP – The Products
    JOP – Business Model and Revenue Model
    JOP – Customer Acquisition
    JOP – Challenges Faced
    JOP – Marketing Strategy
    JOP – Advisors
    JOP – Competitors
    JOP – Tools Used in the Company
    JOP – Achievements
    JOP – Future Plans

    JOP – About

    JOP is a SaaS startup founded in 2020. The products they provide at JOP are goals, engagement, feedback, performance management, agile collaboration, and insights. As for, the services that are offered by JOP are consulting and partnerships.

    JOP – Core Belief

    JOP enables a joyful culture and the realization of full performance potential. JOP, a synergy driven by the common desire to support organizations aspiring to thrive, brings an amalgamation of strong characteristics and values. The combinations of hues used in the brand best elucidate this magical mix of joy, ambition, and optimism – the ulterior values they wish to imbibe through the means of their solution.

    At JOP, they aspire to enable agile collaboration among teams to facilitate strategy execution and performance enablement. Their primary focus is laid on all the core elements required to support agility, team collaboration, performance, and engagement.

    There’s one passion that unites the JOP team – helping organizations that are willing to break the old rules in search of superior performance. They love supporting leaders that experiment with new agile structures and methods as they seek to dominate in today’s disruptive and demanding business environment. Business Performance Enablement should be about facilitating agile collaboration among teams to drive strategic achievement. Together they decided to create a world-class software solution to support aspirational organizations.

    JOP – Founders and Team

    JOP Co-Founders
    JOP Co-Founders

    Gaurav Sabharwal, Rakesh Sarin, Vibhu Satpaul, and Grant Crow are the co-founders of JOP.

    Gaurav Sabharwal is the CEO of JOP. He is responsible for handling day-to-day activities related to operations, marketing, and fundraising.

    Rakesh Sarin is the Chairman of the board. He is the Chief strategy officer who works on strategic planning.

    Vibhu Satpaul is the Chief product officer. He is responsible for the entire product in terms of development, analytics, etc.

    Grant Crow is the non-executive director and serves as an OKR expert and strategic planner.

    JOP – The Idea and Startup Story

    There are many areas from which they got the inspiration for JOP. Founders have been in the industries for a number of years now, supporting and providing digital services for companies in the US, successfully. They realized that strategically they will be able to put a lot more value if they will develop their own products. So it was their decision to create their own products and take them to the market.

    JOP Logo
    JOP Logo

    The name of the Startup is based on the core values and culture followed at the startup.

    Joyful and Energizing: There is joy in dreaming big, respecting the diversity of multi-cultural teams, and performing for meaningful growth. They maximize their energy by experimenting, collaborating, and aligning to boost stakeholders’ value. The Yellow in the JOP logo is a symbolic representation of the aforementioned values that they wish to advocate through the means of their personality and product.

    Customer Success: They make a meaningful contribution for their customers to succeed. The inclusion of Blue in JOP branding is an accurate delineation of the confidence, trust, and wisdom that they wish to foster with their customers.

    Aspirational: They aspire to be the best with a winning attitude, an innovative approach, and taking ownership. The Green in the identity signifies the ambition of growth and success – both for them and their partners/users.

    JOP – Products

    The products ensure alignment, clear ownership, and accountability and allow you to achieve outcomes. The product offers continuous feedback which improves employee engagement and helps retain the best talents in your organization. Their products will also help you have clear quarterly and annual goals. Furthermore, their products will help you be in alignment with company goals and insights into everyone’s work.

    Their products give solutions to problems such as micro management, work-life balance, attritions, lack of vision, transparency, productivity, sales, customer satisfaction, and financial performance.

    They catalyze growth for businesses (startups) and people by intensifying focus on
    high-impact goals, enabling strategy execution and employee engagement, hence enabling 3x growth with alignment. As for innovations, they have effective check-in, actions to manage, and parent linking KRs.

    JOP – Business Model and Revenue Model

    For Indian customers, the price is Rs 250 per user and for their customers outside India, the price is $10 per user. This does not include the consulting cost as they are separate and go straight to the consultant. An onboarding fee may also be charged and the payments are charged quarterly.


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    JOP – Customer Acquisition

    They got their first 100 customers through various mediums such as the founder network, referrals, LinkedIn outreach, and attending events where their ICP was present. Email marketing campaigns and SEO helped them as well in bagging the first 100 customers. They also had strategic partnerships with OKR consultants that helped them further.

    JOP – Challenges Faced

    Starting and scaling businesses is hard. Even after having an experienced startup team, there’s always a new challenge standing in your way while establishing a business. This is one of the reasons they founded JOP. Many companies fail when they are scaling up as they lack an ideal operating framework that is needed by a business to grow and thrive. This is where JOP comes into the picture. It requires a lot of hits and tries at the initial stages to see what works the best. But yes, following some good playbooks for GTM, Sales, Marketing, Product Engineering, and Funding proved to be quite helpful in increasing the chances of establishing a successful business.

    JOP – Marketing Strategy

    JOP has got most successful marketing through LinkedIn. Linkedin outreach helped the business immensely along with the events as they enabled them to get direct access to their ICP (high-growth SaaS startups)

    JOP – Advisors

    JOP team has 2 advisors.

    • Dr. Srinivas Chunduru – Founder at VANS group
    • Mr. Anup Yanamandra – a SaaS specialist.

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    JOP – Competitors

    Some of the top competitors of JOP are:

    • Lattice
    • Peoplebox
    • Fitbot
    • Mesh.ai.

    JOP – Tools Used in the Company

    A few tools which they use to run the startups are:

    • LinkedIn sales navigator
    • HubSpot
    • Apollo
    • SendGrid

    JOP – Achievements

    They are still on their way to achieving their goal of success. My biggest achievement started with their drive to make JOP successful. Their passion to solve business performance problems makes the team keep going.

    JOP – Future Plans

    They plan to go hefty with integrations such as slack, notion, etc. In addition to this, they plan to develop the intelligence of their product with respect to insights and nudges.

    FAQs

    When was JOP founded?

    JOP was founded in 2020.

    Who are the founders of JOP?

    Gaurav Sabharwal, Rakesh Sarin, Vibhu Satpaul, and Grant Crow are the co-founders of JOP.

    What does JOP stand for?

    JOP is the abbreviation for Joy of Performing.

    What does JOP do?

    JOP provides software solutions for:

    • Performance Management
    • Agile Collaboration
    • Employee Engagement

    Who are the competitors of JOP?

    Some of the top competitors of JOP are:

    • Lattice
    • Peoplebox
    • Fitbot
    • Mesh.ai.
  • Opinion Shared by Wiztales: Hiring Employees & Getting Clients for Business

    Wiztales is a SaaS startup that helps businesses connect with their teams and audiences to build relationships via virtual events services. The Bengaluru-based SaaS startup is founded by Sumanyu Soniwal. Startuptalky took an initiative to know about their strategy in hiring employees to build a great startup team and how they got clients for business initially. Here is an opinion shared by Wiztales.

    Insights shared by Mr. Utpal Khadagi, the Director of Customer Success, Wiztales.

    How did you get your first client/first 10  for your service-based company?

    Wiztales was founded with the goal of providing tech-driven solutions to the event industry. We began with the idea of bringing experiential tech-based solutions to physical events. But with physical meetings gradually shifting to video calls during the pandemic situation and the growth of the IT sector, businesses realized that virtual events are easier to manage and can give larger coverages. The exposure to the virtual world quickly evolved at this point.

    At Wiztales, we leveraged our technical strength to create a virtual event platform that catered to each individual client’s needs. We soon launched our beta version to event partners and agencies who were searching for a ‘Made in India’ solution. These agencies/partners were our first customers, and we worked closely with them to make this platform as strong and user-friendly as it is today!


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    Hiring initial employees for your company, what to look for in them?

    As a new-age company, we choose people based on their skill set and potential of growing at work, not just their basic track record and past experiences. We look for bright individuals who are self-motivated, disciplined, technologically savvy, and believe in and understand the capabilities of our product. We provide equal opportunities for everyone in the firm to develop and grow with us and believe that talent cannot be judged by work experience. Every individual should be given the time and space to learn at their own pace.

    What are the things a founder must focus on and how to maintain that among so much noise?

    It takes time to produce the ideal product for the market, but I believe that nothing is impossible if we have the desire to achieve it. Working as a team, selecting like-minded teammates, and doing your homework on what needs to be done, who will do it, and how goals can be achieved are the keys to success. A company’s founder must wear blinders and stay focused on the company’s vision.

    As members of the industry, we have to keep tabs on the latest developments. Furthermore, maintaining a calendar and keeping it up-to-date, as well as compartmentalizing duties, can be beneficial to a founder and the company’s growth. We also believe that learning must continue as it helps us to grow as a company. The more we learn, the more we grow in terms of business and experience.

  • What Does an Investor Look Out for in a SaaS Product?

    With dramatic tailwinds and accelerated digital transformation, the SaaS market has grown exponentially in the last decade. The industry has managed to amass a revenue of $104 billion in 2020. By 2022, the market is expected to reach $140 billion, according to Gartner.

    Whether you’ve created a SaaS product to solve a problem or make extra income, it is a valuable asset. However, when it comes to scaling the product, you need investment. But what’s the final checkpoint that the investor looks out for in a SaaS product? It’s vital to understand how valuations and metrics work in businesses.

    Investors think a lot about characteristics that are representative of an early-stage startup. Before they invest in your company, they want to see specific metrics. And so, to help you prepare these, we’ve compiled an overview of the most crucial SaaS metrics. If you adhere to these, your valuation is bound to improve.

    1. Clear Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
    2. AI-powered SaaS Applications
    3. Product-led Growth Strategies
    4. MRR
    5. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
    6. Churn Rate
    7. EBITDA

    1. Clear Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

    When it comes to product building and efficient selling, it’s fundamental to know your target audience. Companies that have an apparent understanding of their target customers have improved chances of success.

    Investors look for a well-defined ICP before investing in the business. Therefore, entrepreneurs should establish their ICP through apparent insights and extensive “Voice of Customer” Research. It’s also essential to build the customer base from a combination of past experiences.

    Some of the most substantial benefits of a clear ICP are:

    • An efficiently targeted go-to-market (GTM).
    • Highly focused product roadmap.
    • Shorter sales cycles and value propositions.

    2. AI-powered SaaS Applications

    Artificial intelligence plays a significant role in advancing modern software to automate work for consumers. At its core, AI-powered SaaS applications can be trained on increasingly larger datasets and be further augmented with customer-specific data. Thus, allowing users to automate tasks and make better-informed business decisions. Consequently, it will propose a unique standpoint to the investors.

    Some SaaS companies developing AI-powered applications comprise:

    • Yalochat – It is a conversational AI-powered platform that allows businesses to efficiently communicate with customers.
    • Zeni – It is an AI application that provides bookkeeping, financial reporting, and invoicing services.

    3. Product-led Growth Strategies

    The product-led growth (PLG) strategy is crucial when it comes to building SaaS companies. It allows the consumers to test the product for themselves. Without the restraint of features, users can effortlessly explore the product and infer its value.

    This not only helps businesses develop consumer-like products but also furnishes lucrative returns. The PLG strategy has become business-critical across all enterprises functioning. Companies adhering to product-led growth have increased chances of being approved by investors.

    The PLG strategy has capitalised on a few trends, including:

    • Reduced sales cycle and buying decisions.
    • Fast employment (due to the cloud-based feature).
    • Easier purchasing (swipe a card and go).
    • Intuitive onboarding and adoption.

    4. MRR

    Monthly Recurring Revenue or MRR is a leading indicator of revenue growth. Hence, it’s a well-received way to appraise SaaS businesses. Investors are more likely to consider the MRR rather than the ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue). Simply because the ARR doesn’t furnish much proof of churn.

    Big SaaS companies with high MRR can raise a sizable amount of money during seed funding rounds. If small businesses or brands are experiencing rapid growth and meet the criteria of investment, they could be valued using MRR. Below mentioned are the criteria:

    • More than $2M ARR
    • 50% growth year after year
    • Founder involvement isn’t important for the business’s survival.

    5. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

    Customer acquisition cost or CAC is a significant metric to assess marketing and sales cost. It helps measure the effectiveness of your SaaS business’ customer acquisition strategy.

    Furthermore, it analyses the expense incurred (on average) to attain new consumers. CAC also represents the return on investments in sales and marketing. Thus, it is a meaningful metric for potential investors.

    An efficient customer acquisition cost allows the investors to gauge the scalability of your SaaS product or business.

    6. Churn Rate

    The churn rate is the long-term trajectory of any SaaS business. A low churn rate improves the recurring revenue, and growth rate – and curtails the risk of long-term value loss.

    Smaller companies have a higher churn rate because of less sophisticated needs and low demands. Investors would not invest in a SaaS company that experiences a high churn rate. That’s because it signifies you’re losing potential customers – and your company’s retention rate isn’t up to the mark. Hence, the churn rate is a fundamental metric that SaaS business owners need to cater to.

    Ideally, lost customers equal lost revenue. Besides, it’s far more expensive to attain new consumers than it is to retain the old ones. Therefore, businesses should focus on customer retention to improve scalability and performance.

    7. EBITDA

    EBITDA stands for earnings before interests, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation. SaaS businesses that make annual revenue of $5 million will likely use EBITDA.

    It is a substantial measure of core profit trends. This metric furnishes an accurate comparison between companies with different capital investments, tax profiles, and debt.

    Besides, it eliminates extraneous factors, boosting returns. This allows a fleshed-out infrastructure and accelerated growth in your SaaS business. Thus, making it investable.

    Conclusion

    The COVID-19 pandemic has bestowed heavy growth to the SaaS industry. With companies compelled to take their business operations online, the SaaS market has grown fierce – yet competitive.

    Seeking venture capital funding is of paramount importance in any SaaS business. Investors would only plough their money into your business when you can convince them of your company’s commercial viability and growth potential.

    To fight competition, survive, and thrive, you need to stand out from the rest. Thus, there are a few business metrics that you need to take care of. Essential metrics, such as the CAC, MRR, and Churn rate define your company’s scalability and future. Once you cater to these metrics, your SaaS business is ready to successfully attract investment.

    FAQs

    What do investors look for in a SaaS company?

    Low churn rate, Product-led growth, AI-powered SaaS applications, and EBIDTA.

    What is one of the most important metrics in a SaaS model?

    Customer lifetime value is one of the most important metrics in a SaaS model.

    What are SaaS metrics?

    SaaS metrics are different KPIs that companies measure to track their success and customer growth.

  • How Intercom Grew its Customer Base with SEO?

    When we talk about SaaS startups, we can find many names that have performed well in their respective segment. But Intercom is one such company whose growth has outperformed the growth statistics of some of the industry’s biggest names, viz., Hubspot, RingCentral, Zendesk, Shopify, and more. A closer look at the market growth rate highlights how Slack is the only SaaS startup besides Intercom to have witnessed such massive growth. But what exactly added fuel to Intercom’s enormous success? The answer is SEO and content marketing.

    Intercom used killer SEO strategies to become one of the fewest SaaS startups that rakes millions in ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue). At present, the company has an ARR of over $50 million. Keep reading if you’re interested in learning how this company skyrocketed its ARR without spending heavily on advertising and marketing.

    Intercom Leveraging the Power of Dynamic Keyword Insertion
    Targeting Keywords that Bring Intercom the Highest Quality Traffic
    Intercom’s Killer Off-Page SEO Strategy
    Doing SEO Differently: A Thing to Learn from Intercom

    Intercom Leveraging the Power of Dynamic Keyword Insertion

    If you use SimilarWeb, you can find the top websites that drive the most traffic to the Intercom website. The highest share of traffic comes from the Intercom app itself. And the other traffic comes from websites that use Intercom on their website. Let’s take SimilarWeb, for example. This company too uses Intercom to streamline, organize, and personalize their customer communications. Hence, whenever you visit their website and click on the live chat box, you will notice something like this:

    Similarweb on Intercom

    Did you see the “We run on Intercom” at the bottom of the chatbox? This message contains a link to their official website.

    If you visit any company website that uses Intercom, you will find a similar message in the chatbox. You’ll instantly be redirected to a particular landing page that Intercom created for the traffic coming from the respective website when you click on it. The SEO team at Intercom used dynamic keyword insertion in these landing pages to make the messaging more personalized. For example, you can find the name of the company + Intercom that you visited earlier in the landing page’s headline. It is done to enhance personalization for referral traffic.

    Intercom uses the “we run on Intercom” tactic with dynamic keyword insertion to get maximum conversions from the referral traffic. If you’re finding it difficult to convert your referral traffic, you can do something similar.

    Targeting Keywords that Bring Intercom the Highest Quality Traffic

    Intercom has achieved two goals by targeting the right keywords. One is becoming an authority website, and the second is ranking for hundreds of keywords on top of SERPs.

    What makes this strategy unique is ranking for specific keywords that solve one core user problem. Intercom was very clear from day one about focusing more on solving a user problem and not stuffing the blog with keywords to rank for specific keywords. And guess what, it worked excellent for them.

    If you go by the technical SEO terms, it is fair to say Intercom relied on “Semantic SEO.” Semantic keywords are identical phrases or words that are very similar to the primary keywords. When you use terms matching the search query, Google uses its advanced AI algorithms to find the search intent and match the user with the most relevant content piece.

    So if you were unable to rank your website on SERPs and drive organic traffic, you should try replicating this tactic from Intercom that delivered phenomenal results.


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    Intercom’s Killer Off-Page SEO Strategy

    Every company relies on off-page SEO to get more traffic and engagement on their blog posts or official website, and Intercom is no different. Intercom used the Medium Publication feature to get more reach and shares on the published content. You can still find their publication named Inside Intercom on Medium. But unlike most companies, Intercom doesn’t simply re-publish their blogs on Medium almost instantly after publishing them on their website.

    You can notice a difference of two to eleven months between the actual blog post published on the Intercom website and the Inside Intercom Medium publication. This strategy ensures Intercom keeps getting traffic on old blog posts through Medium. A similar off-page SEO tactic is being followed by Hubspot too.

    But what made Intercom’s Medium strategy work was its selection of topics. Instead of optimizing for search engines, Intercom started publishing optimized content for people. Intercom noticed that opinion pieces, reaction posts, and personal accounts were getting more engagement than the traditional blog post content. It is why they started publishing more on startups, product management, design, etc., and chose topics that would make people read their publication blog posts.

    But writing compelling and engaging blog posts wasn’t the only thing that did wonders for Intercom. The company merged enticing CTAs with every blog post to maximize website traffic. Almost all the Intercom Medium articles had four common CTA links:

    • Intercom blog
    • Other relevant blog links published on the Intercom website
    • The author’s Twitter profile, and
    • The Intercom home page

    Finding platforms where prospects hang out and using the same platform for repurposing content worked great for Intercom. You should try this amazing off-page tactic too.

    Doing SEO Differently: A Thing to Learn from Intercom

    SEO is the best way to make people find your company or products right when they need them the most. It is also a great method to drive consistent free traffic to a website in the short and long term. While many companies are trying their best to ace the SEO game, not everyone managed to crack the SEO code that works best for their website. Luckily, Intercom is not one of those companies. Intercom chose to do SEO in its own unique way.

    After analyzing the Intercom website, we found that the company uses a strong off-site and on-page SEO strategy. From refraining to use keyword stuffing for higher rankings to branching out to other publications to gain more eyeballs- there’s a lot Intercom did to dominate the SERPs for the right keywords and receive consistent traffic. Sure, Intercom also invests in PPC and content marketing efforts, but its prime traffic comes from its SEO efforts.

    Conclusion

    Of all the SEO strategies Intercom uses, we’ve listed above the most relevant tactics that have contributed to Intercom’s massive growth. If you’re a company struggling to improve its SEO efforts, try implementing the above-discussed SEO tactics for visible results.

    FAQs

    Why do people use the Intercom?

    Intercom is a Customer Communications Platform. It helps to target customers with content, behavior-driven messages, and conversational support.

    How many customers does Intercom have?

    Over 25000 businesses are the customers of Intercom.

    What is the revenue of Intercom?

    Intercom has an ARR of over $50 million.

    Who are the top customers of Intercom?

    Top customers of Intercom are:

    • Amazon
    • Lyft Business
    • Atlassian

  • What Does a Non-tech Person Need to Know Before Buying a SaaS Startup?

    Technologies have changed dramatically. It has become a lot easier for small businesses to generate revenue online. As you may know, many startups are trying to make it big in the industry. But buyers need to be careful about which platform they invest in. Some people aren’t tech-savvy but want to own a SaaS startup. If that’s you and you don’t know how to choose the right one, then you can use some tips to find a reliable startup. This will keep disappointment to a minimum and save you time when screening and vetting SaaS startups before making an offer.

    Things to Know Before Buying a SaaS Startup

    How to Buy a SaaS Startup?

    Know what you’re getting into (purchasing a product or a company)

    Global SaaS Market Worth
    Global SaaS Market Worth

    When buying a SaaS startup, it’s important to understand whether you’re buying a product or a company—and how those two things differ in terms of risk and rewards. If your goal is to sell your product as quickly as possible, then buying an established company with paying customers and recurring revenue might be more appealing than starting from scratch with an untested idea. However, if you want to buy into someone else’s vision and grow with them over time—or if you want to change direction quickly based on market conditions—then building something from scratch might be better suited for your needs.

    How is the product built?

    The SaaS startup you’re looking at has a great team. But how do they build their product? If they’re using a proprietary software platform, that’s great. If they’re building their in-house software, that’s even better! It means they do not depend on third parties to keep their business running.

    If they’ve built their product using open source tools or frameworks, that’s fine too, but make sure you understand what it means for them to have done so.

    Are there any dependencies on third-party services or software licenses?

    If you’re buying a SaaS startup, it’s not enough to just look at their revenue numbers. You also need to know if they’re making money and how much they spend on it.

    Are there any dependencies on third-party services or software licenses? For example, buying a SaaS business that relies heavily on Amazon Web Services (AWS) might seem like a great deal on paper, but you might be surprised by how much it costs to maintain the infrastructure in the long run.

    Have they built their technology, or did they buy existing solutions?

    This is another important question because it can tell you if your new startup has already invested in building its technology stack, which means it may have already started paying off dividends.

    How does the product work?

    SaaS Product Working
    SaaS Product Working

    SaaS businesses have many moving parts, so it can be hard to understand what’s going on from the outside. It does not take an expert in software development to know how your SaaS company works—you just need a basic understanding of what makes it tick.

    Before buying a SaaS product, the first thing to understand is how the product works—and whether it’s working. You should know what the company has done with its resources in the past.

    Learn how to value a SaaS business

    You may have a hard time figuring out what a SaaS business is worth if you’re not a tech person. You’re probably wondering how to value a SaaS startup or how to know if the numbers are genuine.

    It’s easy! Just ask yourself:

    • How much money has a startup made in its lifetime?
    • How much money can it make in the future?
    • What are the costs of running the business?

    Understand their business model

    What is it that they do? Do they charge per user? Do they sell subscriptions? Is it based on the number of transactions or the amount of data stored? These are all important questions to ask because they will inform how long your investment will last and how much money you can expect to make from it.

    Next, take a look at their competitors. Who are they competing against? Are they trying to compete with big players like Google or Microsoft? Or do they have an opportunity to carve out their niche where they won’t be competing directly with anyone else? Taking this into account, you will know exactly how much room there is for growth and expansion within that particular space.

    Plan for a lot of work ahead

    Once you’ve found the right SaaS startup, you’ll need to plan for a lot of work ahead. You might have to hire new staff or train your current employees to use the product, which can be costly. Also, consider the time it will take to train your customers on how to use the product—this can be even more time-consuming than training your staff!

    Make sure the product is fit for its purpose

    What does this mean? It means that you need to ensure that your SaaS startup will be able to deliver what you need it to and that it will not have any issues along the way. You also need to ensure that your SaaS startup will be able to keep up with demand and won’t have any issues scaling up when necessary.

    Be prepared to develop a marketing strategy

    When buying a SaaS startup, you need to be prepared to develop a marketing strategy.

    Your first step is to understand how your target customer uses the product. What are their pain points? How do they currently solve them? What do they want to see improved? Then you can start developing your marketing plan around those goals.

    As a non-tech person, you may not know about SEO or SEM yet—but that’s okay! You can still have a say in what the marketing looks like and what channels are used for outreach.

    Don’t assume that the numbers are true

    One of the biggest mistakes that people new to SaaS make is assuming they can trust the financials provided by the company they’re buying. Most SaaS startups are private companies, so there’s no way for outsiders to verify those numbers—and even if there were an outside auditor, those auditors might not have experience with this type of business model, so they wouldn’t be able to tell if everything was on the up-and-up anyway!

    Talk to at least three existing customers

    Before investing in a SaaS startup, we recommend talking with at least three existing customers. When you do this, make sure they are people who are using the product in real life and not just company employees or investors—that way, you’ll get a more accurate picture of what using the product is really like.

    Inquire about their experiences with the product & company and what they like/dislike about it. Also, ask them what they would change about it if they could (though remember: this doesn’t necessarily mean that the startup will change their product based on your feedback).

    If any features are missing from the product that they think would be useful, ask them how important those features are to them personally—not just in terms of how often they use them but also how much value they would add to their business if added to the product overall.

    Inspect their revenue

    Indian SaaS Industry Expected Growth till 2026
    Indian SaaS Industry Expected Growth till 2026

    Revenue is the most important thing to look for. Revenue is the biggest indicator of how well a SaaS startup is doing. If you’re buying it, you want to ensure that it’s making money and has been making money in the past. If it hasn’t been making money, it might be time to move on from that company.

    Look for revenue growth and revenue stability

    What does this mean? It means you want to see if the company has consistently made money for the past few years. If they’ve been doing well over the past 4 or 5 years, that’s great! But if not, ask yourself why.

    You want to see steady growth over time—preferably, that growth has been accelerating. In addition to growth, you also want to see that the company is making money. The goal is not just to grow as fast as possible; it’s also to make sure that the business model works and can be sustained long-term.

    Conclusion

    Buyers, beware, SaaS startups can be complicated to evaluate and run.

    Frankly, there is a lot to look into when you’re looking at buying a SaaS startup. There are products to demo, contracts to review and establish, and many other details that probably won’t occur unless you’ve worked with SaaS products before. But if you want a great return on your investment, you need to be aware of all these factors (and more) before buying into a SaaS startup.

    FAQs

    Why do startups acquire other startups?

    Acquiring a startup helps in getting more market share in startup the companies are dealing in.

    How to value a SAAS startup?

    Saas startup is valued based on these values:

    • Annual Recurring Revenue
    • Growth Rate
    • Net Revenue Retention
    • Gross Margin

    Can a non-technical person be a founder of a company?

    Yes, there are many successful startups that were built by non-technical founders.

    Is there any marketplace to buy SAAS Startups?

    Marketplace to check for buying SAAS startups are:

    • FE International
    • Quiet Light Brokerage
    • MicroAcquire
  • Appknox – Enterprise Mobile Application Security to Help You Secure Your Business

    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Appknox.

    Post-covid, the global mobile application market size is growing at a high pace. With the growth of applications, their security concerns have also become high. Regular threat assessments are needed to determine the best approaches to protecting a business against different threats. Appknox offers plug & play mobile app security solution to protect business.

    Appknox is a cyber-security platform that helps business with its testing solutions to protect their data and their customer’s data from threats. It has been listed in Gartner’s list of top mobile app security testing solutions.

    Appknox – Company Highlights

    Startup Name Appknox
    Headquarters Bangalore
    Industry Application Security/ Cyber Security
    Founder Harshit Agarwal and Subho Halder
    Founded 2014
    Total Funding Raised $650K
    Website appknox.com

    Appknox – About
    Appknox – Industry
    Appknox – Founders and Team
    Appknox – The Idea and Startup Story
    Appknox – Name, Tagline, and Logo
    Appknox – Products and Services
    Appknox – Business Model and Revenue Model
    Appknox – Customer Acquisition
    Appknox – Challenges Faced
    Appknox – Growth
    Appknox – Funding
    Appknox – Advisors and Mentors
    Appknox – Competitors
    Appknox – Tools Used in The Company
    Appknox – Future Plans

    Appknox – About

    Appknox is a Bangalore-based mobile application security platform. It was founded in 2014 to provide mobile application security. They provide innovative security solutions for securing businesses and consumers on a global scale. Several enterprises, developers, and researchers use their security testing solutions to detect threats.

    Appknox – Industry

    The Mobile App Industry has seen exponential growth amongst millions of consumers who are adopting mobile technology to stay connected. As new technology and innovation are getting advanced, the requirement for security is more critical. Technology is evolving successively, neither traditional nor current methods of security surveillance cut the threats it is coming up with. The future of mobile app security industry calls for forward-thinking in order to be able to combat the innovatively designed attacks on businesses and financial institutions.

    The post-COVID 19 global application security market size is expected to grow from USD 6.2 billion in 2020 to USD 13.2 billion by 2025, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 16.1% during the forecast period.

    Appknox – Founders and Team

    Harshit Agarwal and Subho Halder, Co-Founders, Appknox
    Harshit Agarwal and Subho Halder, Co-Founders, Appknox

    Harshit Agarwal and Subho Halder are Co-founders of Appknox.

    Harshit and Subho have been friends since 2008. They were in the same college. Subho, and three other buddies formed their Counter-Strike Clan during the first month of school. They shared rooms after graduation. Harshit worked at a startup while Subho worked at TCS and was a cybersecurity enthusiast. He used to conduct a lot of mobile app security training.

    Harshit Agarwal - Appknox Co-founder
    Harshit Agarwal – Appknox Co-founder

    Appknox – The Idea and Startup Story

    Around 2013 December, Harshit and Subho, both started having conversations about starting their own startup. The reason for it being a massive attraction which was developing on the mobile app front, they wanted to exclusively focus on the mobile security side. They started working on the idea and were accepted at JFDI in Singapore for their incubation program. That’s when they were officially into working on Appknox full time as their start up.

    Around 2014, they could see a trend where Mobile would have become the primary way of consuming internet services. A lot of companies were expanding on the growth of the mobile side and Appknox was going mobile-first. With that, businesses would be worried about their applications’ security and founders wanted to solve this for enterprises and businesses. They launched their product in 2016 aiming to keep these businesses’ applications secured.


    The Importance of Cyber Security Software for companies
    Cybersecurity is critical because it guards all types of data against theft and loss. Sensitive data, protected health information (PHI), personally identifiable information (PII), personal information, data, intellectual property, and governmental and industry information systems all fall under thi…


    Appknox Logo
    Appknox Logo

    Appknox was started initially with the name XyScan. Eventually, it was becoming hard to create the brand with it and founders were exploring to rename. They were selected for JFDI, Singapore an incubator and one of the startup Co-Founder helped them with name. It resonated with Fort Knox.

    Their Tagline – “Proactive Always” was from the marketing team and the logo was built by a Fiverr designer.

    Appknox – Products and Services

    Appknox is a leading mobile app security platform, assisting businesses and organisations in securing their mobile apps.

    Appknox uses a System + Human strategy to assist organisations secure the security of their mobile applications. They are solving the biggest problem of businesses and enterprises for their apps security.

    Using Appknox automated SAST, True DAST, and API level testing, companies can execute an initial level of security test on a mobile application in under 90 minutes.

    They can then enlist the help of mobile security professionals to run manual business logical checks on the app.

    Appknox – Business Model and Revenue Model

    Appknox is a SAAS product where businesses use the Appknox platform for continuous security testing. Appknox business model is pay as you use and unlimited scans using Appknox platform. Appknox also offers enterprise friendly on-premise services.

    Appknox works with a lot of channel partners in LATAM, GCC and SEA. They enable their channel partners with pre-sales and post-sales support.


    How do SaaS Startups Make Money? | SaaS Revenue Model
    In this article, we’ll look at the revenue model of SaaS, how do SaaS businesses make money, and three phases of the SaaS Revenue model.


    Appknox – Customer Acquisition

    The initial launch of Appknox was a closed Beta that they launched for their first beta users. They had a few of the companies like PayTM, Freecharge, and a few other internet services companies that they had onboarded as their first 10 customers. They used to get connected with them through Tech events and LinkedIn in earlier days. Their first 50 customers were all outbound and that led us to a few media coverages. They detected an issue in Ola in 2016 and spoke about it. This further helped us in getting a few inbounds as well. As they grew from 50 to 100, they strategized their focus from enterprises and Banks.

    Appknox – Challenges Faced

    They started working with a lot of Internet companies in earlier days and it seemed to be working at the start. Bit the issue they faced was that these were themselves growing companies and required VAPT for probably once a year while they figure other growth parameters. That was not the ICP they could grow a lot as ACV is not very high and also a high level of attrition as a lot of those companies ended up shutting down so was building a leaky funnel for us where CAC is high and LTV is low. They moved to enterprises to cover this and that lead to very little churn for us and eventually, growth started showing.

    Appknox – Growth

    Appknox operates out of Singapore and India. They are a profitable business growing at 2X YOY. Appknox has major clients in SEA, GCC, LATAM and India. They have channel partners which are majorly MSSPs who offer Cybersecurity services over and above Appknox Platform. Appknox has helped 500+ Businesses to secure their mobile application.

    They are looking at building their product expertise by making mobile app security a seamless process. They are looking at growing in the US, Europe, and other regions.

    Appknox – Funding

    Appknox has raised a funding of $650 K in 2015 from Jungle Ventures.

    Date Stage Amount Investors
    2015 Seed Round $650 K Jungle Ventures

    Appknox – Advisors and Mentors

    Key people who advises Appknox team are:

    • Tiang Lim Foo – Venture partner, Next Billion Ventures
    • Priyam Bose – Global Head -Developer Products, Truecaller
    • Prasanna Krishnamoorthy – Partner, Upekkha Catalyst
    • Thiyagarajan Maruthavanan (Rajan) – Partner, Upekkha Catalyst
    • Sekhar Nair – Partner, Upekkha Catalyst

    Appknox – Competitors

    Some of the top competitors of Appknox are:

    • Datatherom
    • Nowsecure
    • Appdome
    • Redhunt

    Appknox – Tools Used in The Company

    Tools they use to run their startups are:

    • Slack
    • Pendo
    • Adroll
    • Fitbots
    • Superbeing

    Appknox – Future Plans

    Appknox is working for the release of a security dashboard that will help security researchers performing manual testing on mobile applications to use Appknox SAST/DAST and API Scan results to speed up the entire testing process. Along with it, Auto fuzzing for DAST and CI/CD are two other features that they are enhancing to smoothen up the entire security testing process.

    FAQs

    When was Appknox founded?

    Appknox was founded in 2014 at Bangalore.

    Who is the founder of Appknox?

    Harshit Agarwal and Subho Halder are co-founders of Appknox.

    Who are the competitors of Appknox?

    Some of the top competitors of Appknox are:

    • Datatherom
    • Nowsecure
    • Appdome
    • Redhunt