Omer (00:11.840)
Welcome to another episode of the SaaS Podcast.
I'm your host Omer Khan and this is the show where I interview proven founders and industry experts who share their stories, strategies and insights to help you build, launch and grow your SaaS business.
Today's interview is with Baris Chopra.
Baras is the founder and CEO of Wingify, which makes Visual Website Optimizer a market leading a B split testing tool.
Baris launched and bootstrapped Visual Website Optimizer as a one man software company in 2010 and within two years had over 1000 paying customers.
Baras, welcome to the show.
Paras (00:54.810)
Thanks Omer.
I'm glad to be on the show.
Very excited to talk to you.
Omer (00:59.050)
So I've told our audience just a little bit about you, tell us in your own words a little bit more about you personally and then give us an overview of your product and business.
Paras (01:08.490)
Sure.
So personally, I've been always an entrepreneurial sort of a person.
And when I say entrepreneurial I don't mean in the sense of I've put up a lemonade stand in my locality.
But I was always fascinated by the story of say Yahoo or Excite and all these startups and I was reading them as early as in my 8 and 9 standard in school.
And the reason I got familiar with the startup world was because of this book called Founders at Work.
So it's written by Jessica Livingston and It features about 20 to 30 interviews by different startup founders.
So as I started programming more on computers and started reading more about the folks who were doing their own startups, it just felt very obvious to me that there is this one simple machine which is computer and I can almost take over the world right from my room.
And that that was fascinating.
That what fascinated me and that is what still fascinates me in the power that the technology provides to change the world and impact the world.
And so as far as my background goes, I majored in biotechnology.
It's surprising because today I'm doing an A B testing startup.
But again, the reason I majored in biotechnology is because throughout my school, throughout, throughout my high school days, I was programming so often that I thought I knew everything about computers.
So I just chose a different field altogether.
So in that sense I was very keen at exploring this new and different fields and just carrying through the startup bug.
Throughout my college I did a couple of startup projects before Wingy Fair became successful.
So Wingify was not my first attempt, it was actually my fourth or fifth attempt of doing a startup.
Omer (03:12.350)
Tell me a little bit more about that because you know, we often, we hear the success stories and people often have this misconception that, you know, they got lucky, they had this, they had this big idea that I just can't find and that's why they were able to get this successful business off the ground almost overnight.
But we often don't hear those stories about, hey, I tried and it didn't work and I tried and it failed.
So tell me a little bit about that.
Paras (03:41.350)
Oh, I mean, I just feel there's this incredible amount of iteration involved when it comes to just stumbling across something that works again and again.
You could try so many different things when it comes to doing startup, but getting that exact product market fit, which is to deliver what customers want, it's not a very easy thing to discover.
And especially when you're young and when you're just starting out.
I remember when I was in my engineering college and especially for the people who are entrepreneur who think that they are smarter than other folks, they end up just drinking their own Kool Aid.
So whatever cool idea they get, they usually end up believing in it too much that then later they get disappointed, nobody really cares about it.
So after a lot of such brash attempts of doing something that nobody wanted, I eventually realized that a way better approach is just to ask people what they want.
And that's what I did with Vengify, where I simply talked to lots of people and ask them just very general broad questions.
What are your frustrations?
What do you like?
What do you expect the world to deliver you so as to make your days better, so on and so forth.
Once you start talking to customers and once you start reading on forums, what are people frustrations?
Then comes the hard part of coming up with an idea which was not totally your imagination.
Right?
That idea was driven by more by what the market needed or what customers needed.
So it was a very different way of looking at the startups.
And I feel the insight really comes after you have failed maybe a couple of times doing your own cool idea that never worked out.
Omer (05:42.020)
Are you a developer?
Paras (05:44.020)
Yes.
Omer (05:45.460)
So that can be a blessing and a curse, right?
I mean a lot of non technical people will say, God, if I can only write code, I'd be able to do so much more.
But quite often when you can write the code, it's too easy to just go and build something that you think is a cool idea, right?
Paras (06:00.900)
I mean that's exactly true.
It's a blessing and a curse.
And it's cursed because developers and engineers usually cannot just stop themselves from coding something up if they believe it's a cool or interesting idea.
And I remember if I would get an idea it in the evening, I mean the next week I would just want to spend it just coding it up, seeing it come alive irrespective of whether it has any value or not.
So you're exactly right.
It's very hard to then distance yourself.
It takes a lot of skill and conscious effort to observe yourself whether it is in the right direction or not.
Omer (06:42.850)
So give me one example of a product that you built that failed before you started.
Paras (06:48.540)
Wing of I sure.
So I, I built a product called Kurumsa.
It was, it was a portal that featured rock bands from Indian colleges.
So I was, I was an engineering student myself and in my college and other colleges nearby there would be new and upcoming rock bands that would come and perform.
And I just thought that there should be portal that aggregates all of these new and upcoming rock bands.
And that was the cool idea.
And that is what I thought was my startup.
I spent maybe one month coding it up and then I launched it.
Tried approaching different bands, tried approaching audiences, but of course there was no business model associated with it.
I just thought it was cool.
I coded it up and it didn't work out because I didn't study how big was the market opportunity and if people were ready to pay for these up and coming rock bands.
And all of that was just very idea driven.
And after a while even I lost interest because it was not having a good amount of growth.
Omer (08:05.070)
Okay, now before we dive into more details about your current business, we like to kick things off with a success quote to better understand what drives and motivates our guests.
What is one of your favorite success quotes?
Paras (08:19.490)
I'm not much of a quote person, but rather what excites me every day is to challenge what's the current best in the world and try to do even better than that.
For example, everybody has lots of role models and I have lots of role models.
I love companies that have scaled tremendously.
I love leaders that have created world, world class products.
And when I, when I wake up, I always question myself, you know, what's lacking in me that I cannot have the same amount of impact on the world or I cannot build the similar amount of great products.
And not just me, what's what, what could it take to build a company, build a team to achieve such great products.
And especially another factor that excites me a lot is to be able to do that from India, in Delhi and not really from Silicon Valley in San Francisco.
So that makes challenge, say 10x more difficult.
But that's what's exciting, right?
To seed an entirely new way of product thinking in India and Delhi and build great products from a location probably nobody expects to.
To see good products coming out from.
Omer (09:36.290)
Absolutely no.
And I think what you're doing is a great example of that.
Tell me, where did the idea for Visual Website Optimizer come from?
Paras (09:47.570)
Like I said, it was for the first time, it was not that much of idea driven, but it was very much market and opportunity driven.
And as I was doing my previous startups which were not working out, I started learning more about marketing because I realized that's how you get traffic on the website, as simple as that.
That's how I started learning about Google Analytics, content marketing, se, all those related aspects to online marketing.
And the first version of Wingify actually didn't work out.
So in the first version of Wingify, which I had built over seven, eight months, it had all features from testing to targeting to analytics, to segmentation and goals.
It was good in theory that you had so much of functionality available, but I didn't really put a lot of thought, onboarding and usability because I didn't realize that those were important aspects.
I was still stuck in the engineer's mindset of building cool things, even though it was very opportunity driven.
I had identified the opportunity, right, but it was still very much driven by what I felt should be in the product.
So the first version was a little bit complex and didn't work out.
And then I just started talking to people who had signed up for and asked them, you know, what's wrong, why you're not using it, what you would want to be doing.
So I had a lot of such conversations and from these conversations it emerged that there was a specific feature which was a B testing which people were really interested in.
But the current solutions in the market, like Google Website Optimizer, they were not really serving their needs.
So I just focused on what people were telling me again and again, that they wanted a better A B testing solution.
And I went ahead and developed Visual Website Optimizer as the world's easiest A B testing tool and ditched the prototype, which I had developed, which had lots of features entirely.
And the focus really proved very helpful because since I was focusing on one feature, I could really put a lot of thought onto onboarding and user engagement parts.
Omer (12:11.170)
So the first version of what became Visual Website Optimizer was called Wing of I.
You spent seven or eight months building that.
Did you talk to people during those seven or eight months, or did you wait until you had the finished product?
Paras (12:29.700)
I did not talk to people and that was my single biggest mistake.
I mean, if I had not spent 7, 8 months coding the version and if I had just shown people this is what I'm trying to build, and maybe even a simple screen or a mockup, I would have gotten feedback much earlier that it was way too complex for anyone to understand.
So in contrast, the Visual Web Store Optimizer first version I developed in one month only.
And for that I just abstracted a lot of stuff when it comes to colors, designs.
First logo of Visual Web Store Optimizer was just Visual Web Store Optimizer written in Arial.
But I was trying to focus in that one month was the core of the product or core of the problem and not anything else.
And that enabled me to show the core much earlier, within one month and get feedback whether I was in the right direction or not.
Omer (13:26.110)
So once you had that first product, the first version of Wingify built, how did you get the word out?
Who did you go and talk to to get that feedback?
Paras (13:37.320)
The prototype of Wingify that was there, I had gotten a couple of people to try it out.
They were not using it actively, but they were definitely people who had looked at it.
So those were the people.
I went out and just told them that you looked at Wingify, that didn't work out for you.
But take a look at the new product I'm developing.
And more importantly, as soon as the first version, after one month was done, I had started writing articles on different blogs.
I would write articles in Smashing magazine and say marketing profs and lots of other blogs.
And from there I would get a lot of interest for the Visual Web Server Optimizer beta.
And interestingly, the first version, it had a closed beta, so you could not just come and sign.
So it created some sort of an exclusivity where people wanted the beta invites and I was just opening up gradually to get feedback, which was digestible for me.
You know, five at a time or ten at a time rather than hundred at a time.
Omer (14:47.230)
You were writing these blog posts and submitting them to websites or blogs like Smashing Magazine.
Was that something new to you?
Had you been writing that kind of content before?
Paras (15:01.400)
I had not been writing that kind of content before, but I had been writing for a long time and I maintained my personal blog and I loved writing and that's what worked for me.
I would love to just shut off everything, just open up Microsoft Word and type out an article.
In say three and four, three or four hours that gave me as much pleasure as writing code would give me.
Maybe I was unique in that way, but I just tremendously loved writing articles.
Omer (15:33.490)
What did you write about that these blogs would publish?
I mean, you weren't writing about, hey, I have this great product, come and use it.
Paras (15:46.210)
So I concentrated a lot on educating the market on what a B testing was and did not promote visual website optimizer at all in the articles.
Probably it was promoted through the author bio or something else.
But most of the article was primarily concentrated on what, what is a B testing?
How do you do AB testing?
What are the, some of the things you can do a B testing and other parts which were not clear and that part of time.
A B testing was also something of a mystique for a lot of, of people.
And so people were really hungry to learn what this thing a B testing is.
But the key was to write good articles.
I mean, if I were to evaluate, I'm still quite proud of some of the articles I wrote because they were quite comprehensive.
These publications will not just publish any article you give out.
Right.
So to put a lot of thought in, structuring and educating, giving out the right message, that was really important.
Omer (16:50.100)
And were you also learning yourself at the time and about about AB testing and getting deeper into that or was that something that you, was that something fairly new to you as well?
Paras (17:01.300)
Yeah, yeah, sure.
So before doing Visual website optimizer, I mean I had not a lot of familiarity with a B testing.
I majored in biotechnology, but I read a lot.
I mean again, I love to read a lot.
And I would go beyond just the normal stuff.
I would read about psychology of users, I would read about the color theory and I would read everything around how do you increase conversion rates?
You know, I would.
In fact, I remember I had read maybe 10 or 15 research papers through Google Scholar when it came to increasing conversion rate.
So I was digesting a lot of information throughout across different types of sources.
So it enabled me to write articles that give a very unique and fresh perspective and not just reiterate what everybody else was just writing.
Omer (18:00.930)
Okay.
So you would get traffic from those blogs where maybe people would read the article, they'd read about you in the author bio and then click through to your website and there, there would be some kind of opt in for them to get onto a wait list to get notified.
Paras (18:17.220)
Yeah, and another, I mean another thing that worked well was since it was a closed beta, I could promise blogs that I'm happy to give five exclusive coupons to your users to get an early access if you publish this article.
And that was an incentive for blogs as well, because the readers could really get access to an application which otherwise they would have to wait.
So closed beta worked really well in that aspect as well.
Omer (18:50.600)
Oh, I see.
So they would then sort of do a giveaway and say, you know, we have X number of beta, you know, passes available to use this product.
Paras (19:01.800)
Right.
Omer (19:02.120)
And then, and then that help you to create some sort of buzz and you know, generate some excitement around using the product as well, Right?
Paras (19:09.520)
That's right.
Omer (19:10.440)
Great.
Okay.
Okay.
So you're writing this content, you're starting to build up a list, you've got this next version of the product out, which took you a lot less time to build, and focuses purely on, on AB testing.
What happened next.
Paras (19:28.750)
So all this while I was still working for a company, I had not quit my job.
So what's next is that my life just became fully occupied with my job and this Visual Website optimizer product that I was building.
And probably it was maybe 18 hours every day I was consumed by work and my social life on weekends became just almost non existent because I was doing this.
From customer support to coding to design, to even taking demos if it was not clear or people needed explanation and marketing, writing content.
It was a lot of work for a single person to be doing.
And that's why eventually I had to quit my job.
But even when I had quit my job, the product was in free beta.
So it was a small leap of faith for me to quit my job and hope that the product would bring in revenues to sustain myself.
Omer (20:38.800)
How many users did you have the day you quit your job?
Paras (20:44.750)
I think I had about thousand free users and no revenue, no revenue.
I had hope for revenue, but I sort of rationalized that these people are businesses, these people are not consumers.
And if they're using an app that their business depends on, they'll be able to pay something.
And something aggregated over a number of people would at least sustain me.
And my aim was really very humble.
I just wanted to make revenues which were equivalent to my salary, which was a thousand dollars at that point of time.
So it was not a big ambition I was chasing after.
And that's why I was hopeful that I'll be able to make an equivalent amount of money from Visual Web Slope Optimizer as I was doing from my salary.
Omer (21:38.040)
So that was your goal, to get to a thousand dollars a month?
Paras (21:42.440)
That's right.
Omer (21:43.040)
And that would have kept you Happy?
Paras (21:45.560)
Yeah, I would have been very happy.
And something I quoted out, people were now ready to pay.
Omer (21:53.560)
So let's talk about the, you know, the 800 pound gorilla, you know, so there's the Google is already there.
They've got their Website Optimizer tool.
Paras (22:03.000)
It's free.
Omer (22:04.200)
It maybe is not the easiest thing in the world to use.
What gave you the belief that you could charge for your product and generate revenue from it?
Paras (22:18.520)
I think for this time it was really the user experience of the product.
And when I say user experience, I mean not just the interface, but even nuances of the product.
As in, for an example, Google Website Optimizer would ask marketers to upload versions of their web pages on their own servers.
So as a marketer, if I were to a B test homepage and change a headline, I would have to upload another version, which was called B HTML, on my own site.
And what Google Website Optimizer would do, just split traffic between those two versions which were already on your website.
What this meant was marketers were a lot dependent on their developers or the IT team to code versions and upload.
And that defeated the entire point that marketers needed to operate independently and optimize their websites independently.
So with Visual Website Optimizer, it was really marketers who were in charge that they could simply ab test without requiring to know any coding or without being dependent on it.
So that was like a 10x better improvement over Google Website Optimizer.
I was confident I could charge for it.
I mean, of course, if Google wanted and decided to add such a feature, which was, which made marketers independent of IT team, it would have been a different story.
But they didn't do it.
They still haven't done that.
Omer (23:49.420)
Yeah, okay, so what point, when did you end this, the beta program?
When did you go live?
Paras (23:57.580)
I went live in May 2010, about two months after quitting my job.
And in the first month I think I got about $4,000 of revenue, which was four times my goal.
I was really happy.
Omer (24:15.990)
And what was the reaction when you started charging for the product?
Paras (24:19.590)
It's interesting because from day one I had set expectations that this is not a free product, it's a free beta.
And one day paid plans will definitely come.
But I still remember the day I launched paid plans.
Some users were excited about it and they happily paid.
But some users were definitely very disappointed and they also accused and they compared with Google that Google is free.
How can, how on earth can you charge for the product which Google is providing for free?
So there Was a little bit of disappointment with some user base, but that was okay.
Omer (25:01.420)
Okay, so you've got $4,000 in monthly recurring revenue.
What are you doing next?
Paras (25:09.650)
I was still doing it alone and I was working from my home, living with my parents and just sitting in a room coding, designing, doing marketing all day long.
And I just did this a lot of times.
And I think one of the things I really focused on and I kept focusing on it since the beta was talking to customers again, I would just hold off a customer every week or so and I would ask them in what ways are you using?
Why did you not use it?
And in the product itself, there were so many channels of engaging users where there would be automated emails that were sent to get customer feedback within the product.
I prodded them to give feedback.
So there was a lot of fight collection of feedback and iteration on feedback and that improved product month over month.
And writing new content also give increase of users and revenue month on month.
So revenue kept increasing.
And simultaneously I started chatting with Sparsh who was in the same college I was, but then he went to Oxford University to do his master's.
So I was in Delhi, was in London.
We started chatting and I said, hey, this is what I'm doing.
He started just getting more and more interested, started remotely contributing as well.
So eventually in January, he quit his job in London and came back to Delhi and joined me as a partner.
And he took over the engineering part as a CTO and I took over all the business stuff as a CEO,
Omer (26:59.940)
what made you decide to bring on a partner?
I mean, a lot of people would maybe look at that at the before they go and start building the business, but you'd achieved a lot by yourself, so why bring on a partner now?
Paras (27:16.740)
Because it was just impossible for me to handle everything.
It was, I mean, initially it worked, but by one point of time they were say 10 and 15 support request or queries every day.
There was a couple of demo requests, there were bugs and all of that.
So as.
As the traction got more and more, it was humanly impossible to address all of that by myself.
And, and earlier I didn't involve primarily because.
Not because I intentionally did not involve anyone else, but because it was very organic for me to code something, write content and just happily do all the functions because it was still manageable.
When I was starting out all by myself, I thought I did not lack in any specific function, be design or be it marketing or be it coding.
So I did not really want anyone's help because of need but ultimately, just because the amount of work that needed to be done was so much, I decided to just have more people join me.
But it was not really because of lack of skills.
Omer (28:32.490)
Do you remember how your revenue grew from that first month, by the way, when you launched and you got that first $4,000, how did you feel?
What was your reaction?
Paras (28:46.020)
Yeah, I felt now I could be independent right now.
More than that, I felt my parents were really happy because they were anxious at my job and I was just stuck to my computer screen all day long, you know, so they were little anxious what's going to happen of paras.
But when they saw that this is not some silly thing I was doing with computer, but it was generating actual revenue, they were really happy.
And I was really happy that now there's at least some window of opportunity where I could become one of the guys in the founders at work who I really admired.
So the possibility excited me more than anything else.
Omer (29:30.450)
And what kind of marketing did you do over the first couple of years?
So you've launched, you were doing the guest posting, the blogging.
Were you doing anything else or just you continued doing more of the same?
Paras (29:43.820)
Primarily more of the same.
I think a lot of marketing happened through mouth because the product was iterated very fast.
And also focus on customer service was tremendous.
And as and when we started expanding the team, everyone in the team did customer support, including all the engineers, including the cto, including the CEO.
So all this combined from the customer orientation point of view, I think it drove a lot of word of mouth.
People were happy about the product, people were happy about the service, so they recommended the product to a lot of other folks.
Omer (30:22.240)
Is there an example that you can think of talking about customer service that you think is a good example of how you guys really went above and beyond and really tried to stand out and deliver this outstanding service to your customers?
Paras (30:40.300)
Yeah, a couple of examples, but one that is very, very striking is I remember when we were eight people, we had about 900 customers.
We just decided to send everyone physical card handwritten by us.
And it was interesting because there was no clear expectation that we'll get more revenue or there was no clear expectation that this would generate anything.
We just felt very grateful that we had paying customers who could provide us with salaries, who could provide us with the opportunity to bring to build a company that was completely bootstrapped.
So we had these customers from about 35 countries, 900 customers, we handwritten a note to all of them and couriered them these greeting cards on Christmas and I think that made the team really happy.
And we then started getting lots of interesting responses that people never expected that the products they are using, the companies would start sending them handwritten cards.
It generated a lot of goodwill.
Omer (31:51.680)
What did you write in those cards?
Paras (31:54.210)
We just wrote thanks for being a customer.
We really appreciate it.
And since everybody was doing support, everybody knew one or two, I mean everybody knew a customer who had that special interaction.
You start recognizing customers by name.
So as soon as that customer's card came in, we would just write a very personal message because that person would have interacted with the customer quite a number of times.
Omer (32:21.420)
That's great.
So looking back at those early days, what do you think is one of the biggest mistakes that you made?
Paras (32:29.500)
The biggest mistake was probably not growing fast enough.
And I think when I say fast enough, I think we should have expanded the team much faster.
Both on engineering front, marketing front, sales front, all fronts.
Because we had funds available, we had much more revenue than what we were spending.
So clearly it could have made sense to reinvest a lot of it into just growing fast and fast.
But I feel, I mean the reason we did not reinvest is not because we did not want to, but it was a lot of bandwidth tasks.
It was a lot of bandwidth and learning for me because even as an entrepreneur I was growing myself.
I was probably 23, 24 then and I was learning what really a business is, how fast it should be growing.
I was learning ropes of a lot of different things because I had just worked for a one year at another company before Pinkify.
I got off.
And unlike Silicon Valley and San Francisco, where did startup community is very tight and people learn from each other and there's just so much of advice available overall in Delhi.
There was a lot for us to learn by ourselves.
I mean, I remember I didn't even know there's a position like VP of sales or there's a function like product management and all of that, it was just unknown unknowns for me.
And that's why looking back, I know so much.
But I, at that point of time I didn't just know any of that.
And also since we are bootstrapped, we didn't have any investors to tell us you should be doing this and you should be doing that.
The self learning took a lot of time for myself and the company.
Omer (34:19.340)
So how many people do you have now in the company?
Paras (34:22.300)
We have 60 people.
Omer (34:24.860)
Six.
Zero?
Paras (34:26.220)
Yeah.
Omer (34:27.100)
Wow, that's quite some growth.
Paras (34:29.590)
Yeah, it's been interesting every time we had, I mean every time we take an office.
We feel that we'll be in this office for three years, but we end up changing office every year.
This, the current office is probably our fifth office that we moved into.
Omer (34:49.350)
And how many customers do you have today?
Paras (34:51.990)
We have about 3,800 paying customers.
Omer (34:56.699)
Give me some examples of customers that you have that you know, some, some brands or some names that people would know.
Paras (35:03.819)
So our customer base is composed of three, primarily three categories.
One of them is small and medium business.
The other is agencies, the consultants who develop websites for the clients.
And the third is enterprises.
So we work with customers like India on the enterprise, Microsoft, Rackspace, GE and lots of other such brand names.
And we've been lucky to be able to grow 100% year on year for the last four years.
So every year our business has doubled.
So it's been tremendous learning for us.
As far as revenue is concerned, we have very public with it right now we're doing about $8 million in revenue run rate.
Omer (35:55.150)
Did you have any idea that you would be building an $8 million business when you quit your job?
Paras (36:00.990)
No, I didn't.
I did not have the slightest of ideas.
Yeah.
Omer (36:06.430)
And it's still growing, right?
It's not.
Paras (36:08.750)
Yeah, it's, it's still growing.
I mean, we've.
Every quarter we see a double digit growth.
And that's our intention.
Our intention is to keep growing at 100% as long as possible.
Of course, as the base grows, it becomes more difficult to stay in that growth.
But that's where the interesting challenge comes.
If other companies have been able to grow fast, what stops from Wingify from growing as fast?
And that also means every year it's sort of a new learning.
And what I learned in first year is probably not that relevant in second year.
And the same with what I learned last year is not relevant this year.
As the business grows, the nature of challenges just very different.
Omer (36:55.160)
So have you brought on some advisors at this point or how are you dealing with this learning and this growth that that's happening around you?
Paras (37:05.800)
I think now I have a network of entrepreneurs.
I have a network of people within India and outside as well who I just tap into for asking for advice to people who are building businesses who have done that.
And it's a lot of constant learning of people who have done that, reaching out to them and asking, am I doing the right thing?
Or I'm not doing the right thing.
Even, even if the business is say $8 million of revenue, it's still nowhere where I have vision for this business to Be.
And that's why I still feel I've barely begun in terms of learning how to build a large business.
Omer (37:52.180)
So what is that vision?
Where are you?
Where do you want to take this business in the next three to five years?
Paras (38:00.260)
Three for Wingify.
I want Wingify to be able to build products which are world class.
And the company vision is to start associating India with great software products.
So it's my firm belief that what happened to IT services in India?
I mean, India is known for a leader in IT services with companies like Infosys, tcs, wipro and lots of other big companies, that the same thing should start happening with products.
That India should be a place where world class products are built and Wingify should be a flag bearer of that movement.
So really that's my ambition to Wingify to be one of the most respected software product companies based out of India.
Omer (38:56.400)
Yeah.
And I think that's a great vision.
You know, a lot of times I hear people who work with companies like some of the companies that you mentioned in India for IT services and you know, people will sometimes tell me, you know, yeah, you can, you can get people there who are great at execution, but not necessarily, you know, we don't necessarily find people who can be the visionaries or who can build those products and things like that.
And I think, you know, what you've done over the last few years, you've really broken that mold.
Paras (39:31.540)
Yeah, I mean, there's no reason why geography should be a constraint of where software products could come out of.
I could imagine geography as a constraint for say something like a diamond mine or a coal mine.
But in this day and age where software could be launched from even the remotest of places, it's just the way of thinking.
And the way of thinking could be influenced.
Right.
If in India we pick up an iPhone and really admire the user interface, I think we should be able to build a similarly fantastic product right here.
There's just nothing lacking.
So it will take time.
And one thing that has been going really well in Silicon Valley or San Francisco in general, US because they have people who have built and scaled businesses.
And Apple was started in 1976 and Microsoft was started in a similar fashion.
So the Silicon Valley has this cumulative experience of 35 to 40 years of talent that has scaled businesses.
But in India, the product thinking is just beginning to emerge and last, you know, three to four years.
So there's a lot of catching up in India.
But that's what's interesting.
Challenges, right?
And you're able to build an entire ecosystem of product thinkers in India.
Omer (40:54.860)
Yeah, you know, you kind of.
It sort of reminds me of Roger Bannister running that four minute mile where, you know, nobody had done it up until the time that he did.
And then suddenly the year after, I don't know how many, there were countless people who, who were able to achieve that same outcome.
And I wonder if there are a lot of young.
Well, you're pretty young, but younger entrepreneurs in India who are looking at what you're doing who now have maybe a new sense of belief in terms of the companies that they can build as well.
Paras (41:31.510)
Yeah, I mean, even within Wingy Fab, we have had people who have worked here for a while and then went ahead and did their own startups.
And that gives me a lot of satisfaction.
What India really lacks, and for that matter, any geography, I'm not just talking about India, is role models.
People should be able to see and really believe that this is possible.
And I'm sure when Apple came up, Microsoft came up, a lot of other companies would have gotten inspired by those companies.
And now with Google and Facebook, new generation of people in San Francisco and Stanford University are getting inspired.
So it's just inspiration that is trickling down.
And that is where I feel the responsibility of vinge fan myself, to create some sort of, you know, a benchmark for people to look and really strive to go and surpass even going forward.
Omer (42:26.530)
All right, it's now time for our lightning round.
I'm going to ask you a series of questions and I'd like you to answer them as quickly as possible.
Are you ready?
Paras (42:34.940)
Sure.
Great.
Omer (42:35.940)
Here we go.
What's the best piece of business advice that you ever received?
Paras (42:41.820)
I think it is about hiring in terms of hiring the absolutely best people possible and not really closing a position because you need to close this fast.
Omer (42:54.460)
What book would you recommend to our audience and why?
And I know you may, let's say other than founders at work.
Paras (43:01.810)
That's a hard one.
And I read a lot of books.
I mean, I would probably recommend two books and not one.
One is a very recent one and probably there's a bias because it's recent one.
But I really, really loved Peter Thiel's book.
Zero to One.
It's, it's more about philosophy of building a business that, that could become large, you know, rather than specific things.
But the way he thinks, the way he describes things is just tremendously useful.
And the second book is Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Talib.
Again, he shows how there's so many cognitive biases that come to picture when we think about a lot of stuff and that it's so easy to get fooled by the data we have in front of our opinions we have.
Omer (43:51.410)
Tell me the title of that book again.
You broke up a little bit.
Paras (43:54.650)
It's called Fooled by Randomness by Naseem Taleb.
Omer (43:58.730)
What's one attribute or characteristic in your mind of a successful entrepreneur?
Paras (44:05.130)
I think it would be patience or perseverance as people like to say.
Really cracking a business that could scale tremendously.
It takes a lot of patience.
And the way I look at it is say an example of Apple where Apple was on brink of bankruptcy at one point of time, but today it's the most valuable company in the world.
And this just means that, you know, coming everything together might take just a lot of time.
You just have to have patience and you just have to be ready for the right opportunity to arrive when you take advantage of it.
Omer (44:45.680)
What's your favorite personal productivity tool or habit?
Paras (44:50.570)
So on the Gmail I use a product called Active Inbox.
Again it's really a getting thing done sort of tool.
But earlier when I would used to email people and I would send lots of email, as I would delegate or send email to people to ask for feedback or something else, I would probably not be able to follow up with all of them.
And what happened was I would be in a constant state of anxiety whether everything was being taken care of or what I had asked for, did I get or not.
So with that plugin you can simply say I'm expecting a reply for a specific email.
And then that means once you've sent an email it goes off your mind and you can just carry on with the other day.
The second productivity tool would really be a notebook for me where if there's something going on in my mind, I would just write it down and forget about it.
And it just takes a lot of load out of mind and let you concentrate.
Omer (45:52.560)
If you had to start over tomorrow, how would you go about finding that next business idea?
Paras (45:58.960)
Interesting, that's a good one.
And I'm probably doing that right now as we are building out a mobile product.
In fact not a mobile product, but just researching the mobile space on what could be next.
And the way I would do is to make it totally customer oriented.
So even with the visual website optimizer I had spent one month developed a prototype.
But this time I would not even maybe develop a prototype and just talk to lots of customers to understand what's the problem space.
And when I say problems, it really means thinking about what are the challenges and problems rather than a solution.
Because what happens is that even if you propose a solution, people will not be able to cope with.
How can.
How can their problems be solved, but they can really come up with what problems they face.
Omer (46:54.880)
What's an interesting or fun fact about you that most people don't know?
Paras (47:00.770)
Interesting, probably.
I mean, it's on my Twitter bio.
But maybe many people who would read my, you know, startup post or something may not know that I am a nihilist.
And by nihilist I mean I believe there is no meaning to life, you know, and there is no larger purpose, that mankind is there just existing out there.
So sometimes a lot of people, when they come across this fact and they ask, how do you reconcile doing a startup and being a nihilist?
And it's an interesting problem for them as well to think about how can a person not believe in anything but still do a startup?
Omer (47:48.500)
Okay, and finally, what is one of your most important passions outside of your work?
Paras (47:54.070)
I really love reading about.
I love reading and thinking about the philosophical aspects.
So I would read about and both philosophy, cosmology and evolutionary biology if I were to say these were the three subjects I'm really interested in.
Omer (48:14.230)
All right, those are great answers.
Paras.
I want to thank you for joining me today and talking about Wingify and Visual Website Optimizer.
I really appreciate you sharing your experiences and insights with our audience.
And thank you for letting us get to know you a little better personally too.
If folks want to find out more about Visual Website Optimizer or they want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?
Paras (48:36.460)
Sure.
For checking out Visual Website Optimizer, they can go to vwo.com and they can also sign up for a free trial.
We don't ask for a credit card or any payment information.
So you can go ahead and try out the product for 30 days without.
Without any commitments of anything or sort.
And to reach to me, just email me.
It's paras P A R A S wingify.com W I N-I F I.com Awesome.
Omer (49:08.780)
Thanks again, Paris.
And I wish you continued success.
Paras (49:11.820)
Thanks Omer.
Really, the time flew.
I did not notice.
I really enjoyed talking to you.
Omer (49:17.260)
It did.
Paras (49:17.780)
Cheers.
Omer (49:18.180)
Thank you.
