Konnect Insights: From 50 Failed Sales to $7M+ ARR – with Sameer Narkar [431]

This is a machine-generated transcript.

[00:00:00] Omer: Sameer, welcome to the show.

[00:00:01] Sameer: Hey, Omer. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me here.

[00:00:03] Omer: My pleasure. Do you have a favorite quote, something that inspires or motivates you that you can share with us?

[00:00:08] Sameer: Sure. I mean, if you're asking about business my favorite quotes are, you know, what matters is, “How intense is your intent.”

[00:00:16] And I, I like the Nike Way, “Just do it.”

[00:00:19] Omer: Love them both.

[00:00:19] That's great. So let's talk about Konnect Insights. What does the product do? Who's it for and what's the main problem you're helping to solve?

[00:00:29] Sameer: What we call about Konnect Insights is an, is an omnichannel customer experience management platform.

[00:00:34] But you know, simply put, what happens in today's world is when, when I'm a brand you know, I could be a brand from any given sector, be it automobiles or FinTech or, you know, airlines, QSR, retail, F and B. People are expressing opinions about me on, on various platforms and, and trying to reach out to me if they have any queries or issues.

[00:00:58] And at the same time when they . Talk about these issues or queries. They are also creating a brand perception about me as a brand. And, and in today's world, the customers can go on any platform. They can go on X Twitter Facebook Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn. They can also go on blogs, forums.

[00:01:20] There are so many review sites. . You know, and every time they talk to talk about me as a brand, they're actually telling all their friends. That, you know, I have a problem with this particular brand and it's kind of creating a brand perception. And no matter if I, if I am, I'm having some brand ambassador talking great things about my product, but if, if if one of my friend, if one of my friend is not having good experience, then, then he's going to take me seriously more than the brand ambassador.

[00:01:50] So, so that's the context on which this product is built. We bring in data from all possible channels all over the web, right from social media which is Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn your Google business reviews sites like Trustpilot Quora. Also data from blog forums. You know that is one source of data.

[00:02:10] We cover all non-voice channels and then we also ensure that your emails are integrated within our platform. Your calls, call center apps, chat bots, you know, every single touch point about a customer gets tracked in our platform as you authenticate your channels. And that's just the start. Beyond this we give you entire customer 360, you know who is talking from, where they're talking, what kind of responses you can give.

[00:02:38] Or assisting the agents. It's built on top of AI. You know, so we, we kind of offer all those features within our platform.

[00:02:45] Omer: So you have I, I, you know, social media listening tools that look out for, mentions for your brand. Some will actually help those brands to actually reply and engage with your customers.

[00:02:56] But you, you, with Konnect Insights, you're doing a lot more than that, right? From what I understand, you are basically collecting data from every single touch point. A call that a call center rep had an email from a customer and, and pulling all that together to give the organization. A really rich and, and comprehensive sort of overview of what's going on with their customers.

[00:03:18] Sameer: Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's very true. And, and all, all these customers also look, also look at, you know return on investments, you know, ROI, what, what's the ROI today? You know it's, it's one thing to actually integrate everything in offer a unified solution, but on top of that, used to really have

[00:03:33] Tools to assist the agents so that the response smartly, you know, integrate AI in such a way that if a query otherwise what it takes 15 minutes, can that be solved in five minutes? Because you have all, all the solutions integrated together. Those are the things that really matter. And if we can reduce that time by one third that means today's agent, their agents with Konnect Insights can actually solve one 50 queries instead of 50 that they were solved Solving with other siloed platforms.

[00:04:02] Which means if in a day they can actually do three times more than than what they're doing. So Asian productivity you know, also giving you all the insights and there's, there's other angle to the product as well, which gives you detailed marketing insights of you know, who is talking from, where they're talking, what is the sentiment, what different product aspects people talk how are you faring against the competition, demographics, information.

[00:04:25] So you get all that in, in one unified product.

[00:04:27] Omer: Great, great. Where are you in terms of revenue, customers size of team?

[00:04:32] Sameer: Still, we, we, we are somewhere around, you know, about 7 million or so. This year we should complete about seven, 7 million. Our, our year ends at, in, in the month of March. But we have done pretty good progress.

[00:04:43] It's about, you know, more than 200% growth that we have seen in the past two years. Our customers we can say that we are fairly there in about, about 30 odd countries today. Started from India where we have the biggest customer base. But, but going, i going forward, we have good customer base in Middle East in Southeast Asia, a few customers in UK and, and Latin.

[00:05:06] So that's how we grew. And talking about our team size, we could, well be around about one 30 our people today.

[00:05:12] Omer: So the business was founded in. 2014, I think. Yeah. And the, you bootstrapped. To get the business going. And you're still bootstrapped, is that right?

[00:05:23] Sameer: That's, that's right. Yeah. We're still bootstrapped I, I, I say this, this, we, we are heavily funded by our customers.

[00:05:27] Omer: Yeah. I like that. Cool. Okay, so let, let's go back to I guess pre 2014, you know, how did the, where did the idea come from? What were you doing at the time?

[00:05:39] Sameer: So, so my background is I'm, I'm a, I'm a software developer. I mean, I, I, I, I did a lot of coding before I, I started this company also, first few models that, that would build in this product.

[00:05:49] I, I did the coding myself for, for about six, seven years. I worked in various companies. I, I was actually in, in finance domain but, but as a software engineer. And, and dev developed apps or products in different verticals. I, I worked in derivatives and equities market when I started my career then, then in mutual funds and insurance and, and build software for, for various companies.

[00:06:12] And then one fine day there was some idea around, around building an app which is what we started our company with. Analytics was part of that app. But eventually the product voted in a way where we focused more on social media analytics to start with, and then the product went on to become a complete omnichannel customer experience platform.

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[00:07:14] Was this like one of those things that you just randomly came across? You know, some idea, I thought it'd be cool to build a product for it. Or was it kind of more like, based on the kind of work that you were doing as a developer, you started seeing these types of issues and, and sort of, you know, the light bulb moment kind of happened.

[00:07:31] Sameer: No, in, in fact it's, it's a very interesting story. So what we are working on, on was more of an app that had some kind of analytics for business owners. And, and that is where we started working on it. But it, it was more of a idea, which was more of a B2C app. And, and I was working on this while I was actually working in some other company.

[00:07:51] So I did not straight away start, you know, jump into the business and started working on the app. While I was doing it, I was kind of doing some market research, going to a few . You know, business owners to ask them about this. And one insight that I got from one of this big restaurant Chen where, where they had their own digital marketing agency, I went to, you know, meet them and they told me that just for the Google Analytics piece, they are paying about 10,000 rupees, you know, which is fairly about say I would say $300 or so.

[00:08:25] For, for the reports of Google Analytics per month. And, and I, and I said, what if I give you a product which can give you all the analytics in one place, will that work for you? And they said I don't mind trying that. So, and, and then I went to some few more agencies just to validate that idea.

[00:08:45] So the first piece of our product that we built was analytics of your, of your own social media channels. And it was pretty simple, you know, just get the numbers from the APIs build some charts around that. It, it was a prototype kind of thing that we built. . And went to the market and said, this is what we have to offer.

[00:09:01] Pay us analysts as maybe, you know say a hundred dollars a month. And I can give you this particular thing. They said, good, fine, but you know, maybe can you add few more things. There, there, there, there about, and, and we started working on it. But it took us more than, more than two years to actually get our first customer.

[00:09:19] Although I, I should have got that customer with whom I validated the idea, but they did not buy. And, and then we started working on it. And obviously, you know, when, when you're building a product like this, you, you need to invest in your servers cloud infrastructure. So those were the challenges.

[00:09:34] But slowly we started to get our first customer, and then from there on we kind of moved on. So those were kind of the early days, how we validated the idea. And I always tell people that, you know, you can always have great ideas. You might think it is a great idea, but unless you go ahead and validate that with the actual customers, not your friends is when you should actually start working on on, on those ideas.

[00:09:58] Omer: Yeah, I mean, two years is a long time to get that first customer. It's not uncommon, especially if you're bootstrapping and, and working a full-time job at the same time that it can take, you know, it can take some time to, to have that breakthrough. I. If you sort of look back at it now, is there something that you feel like, okay, if I, if, if I could go back in time and I was in that situation again, this is what I would do differently to try and close that first customer faster?

[00:10:25] Sameer: Yeah, I, I, I would definitely say that. So, you know, since I was coming from a software background, not, not very sales focused I always had that feeling that, you know, unless you're perfect with your product, you can't do sales and, and sales never came naturally to me. What I should have done back then was with whatever was ready, I should have hit the market more to do sales and, you know, get some money.

[00:10:47] But that, that's the reason we actually took some more time to do our first sales. We can say that, you know, I could have been a better salesperson back then, which I'm right now.

[00:10:55] Omer: Good, good. Okay, great. So it takes two years to, to get the first customer. You're, you're kind of going back and forth, iterating on the product.

[00:11:05] Eventually you, you close the deal. What about getting to those, the, the first 10, how long did that take and, and you know, how easy or hard was that

[00:11:15] Sameer: cr Our, our potential customers are, are brands, you know, mostly B2C brands back then. Where we would reach out to say, an automobiles or, or airlines or banking financial services.

[00:11:27] You have your retail f and b. So these were our potential customers because they would need a social listening product. But just getting meetings with them was very difficult. So what we did was we went through the route of agencies and each of these brands have a, have a social media agency, . And, and back then it, it was not very structured.

[00:11:49] You know, if you see in today's world, most agencies would fall under DSU or WPP group or you know, Omnicom or IPG group. Back then, there were a lot of agencies which were scattered Today, they're part of some, some of the other group. So we, we went to those agencies, assure them the product. It was very important for them to have this kind of product for their pitches to the customer.

[00:12:12] Okay. So our first set of customers were agencies. We told them that, fine, you know, you can take our product for free for pitches, but if we, if you win the pitch, then then sell our product. So it, it was a very natural partnership with all digital marketing agencies back then. And, and we worked with them.

[00:12:29] So, and, and we started from India. So, so getting the first 10 customers and even first . I would say 25 to 30 customers. It was not direct to the customers, it was via the agency channel. That's how we actually started our business with, and I'm very thankful for all the agencies who helped us back then.

[00:12:47] Omer: How many conversations did you have to have until you landed? You know. The right number of agencies you needed to get those first 10 or 20 customers.

[00:12:57] Sameer: Okay. In fact much before we got our first customer, I had meetings with all possible agencies here in, in Mumbai, India, where we operate. Again, you know, we, you have to benu when you don't have a lot of money.

[00:13:09] So I, I had some intern work working for us. And I, I was in fact not paying him. I, I was telling him that this is your college internship. Internship. I do not have money to pay. If you wanna work, I'll give you the exposure. You are, you're gonna work directly with me. He agreed for that. And he used to arrange at least five meetings a week for me, if not more.

[00:13:31] And we would go and meet the agencies and, and because social media was . Fairly, you know, new and fairly big back then in say 2014, 15. Everybody wanted those social listening reports and we created very good dashboards. In fact, back then when we were actually presenting our product, we were not even saving data because we are not having, you know enough servers to save all the data.

[00:13:52] So we are actually showing, showing it runtime, you know just fetching the data right there, showing the dashboards. It, it was only when I got the first paying customer who paid us for in advance for three months, . For a total of five brands, you know, that was the biggest deal that we cracked that day.

[00:14:09] I, I bought some decent enough cloud infra to actually start my product. I said my implementation will take 15 days. You have to pay me then only I can give you discounts for five brands. And they had some problem with their with their earlier product, and, and they badly wanted some solution.

[00:14:25] They liked me more than the product, and that's when, when, when we actually took some money that day itself went on to buy the cloud infra. And, and then we started, yeah.

[00:14:35] Omer: So around that time, the product was a, you talked about kind of looking at Google Analytics and giving them . A nice dashboard of their data.

[00:14:45] And then you mentioned social listening. So fundamentally, is that what the product did at that stage? Sort of those two things?

[00:14:54] Sameer: Yeah. Till that time we actually were building, you know, the entire piece of also social response management so they could get the feed and also respond to the customer queries.

[00:15:05] When we are only offering analytics of, say, Google or Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. YouTube analytics, they were saying that we still get this from the native platform. You know, why should we pay for the entire you know, you're just bringing all together. So we worked on getting the social media response management for the customer care team.

[00:15:24] That's when they actually said, okay, now it makes sense to have both the solutions study in one platform. So by the time we actually got our first serious customer, . Is when our product was, was kind of finished product with the social care, plus the social listening, plus the social analytics.

[00:15:41] And then we went on to build also social publishing. So the product was evolved by the time we actually got our first customer, but, but I must have had at least 50 to 60 meetings with potential customer where things did not work for me. Maybe I was a bad salesperson. .

[00:15:56] Omer: Yeah. It's just part of the learning process, right?

[00:15:58] It's just like we all have to go through that. But 50 or 60 meetings of not having a breakthrough. That's hard, man. It's like you gotta, you gotta be super resilient to keep going. .

[00:16:07] Sameer: Yeah, that's true. I mean, , but we are supporting ourselves with other office services. You know, I mean, how, how do we, how do we make money while we're doing this?

[00:16:16] We had no capital, so we were actually doing software services business for a lot of other, you know companies where we would make some money so that we could support ourselves. So when, when people ask me, you know, how did you bootstrap? Because, because you're building a product, you need you, you need survey infrastructure, you need, you need a team, you know, and, and you're again, competing with some of the biggest competitors.

[00:16:38] How, how, how do you still manage to footstep. So my answer to that is, you know, when you, when you look at services companies, you know, there are many services companies, they never get funded, right? You know they, they, they always get money from the customers. So that was my idea, and that if you need to build a product, you need a team, you need maybe cloud infra.

[00:16:58] You also need to pay for data. So how do you make money? You need to find your own ways, because if you invest too much time chasing the investors. And not actually meet your customers then you're going to lose time. So you either have a choice to you can do both, you know, of course, you know, meet the investors also, and also focus on the customers.

[00:17:17] But I was very focused on, you know, getting new customers and to support us. We are actually doing software services business. So if software services . Businesses can, can grow without funding. Then why can't products? Because we can, we are really good at building products, so we should be good at also building software services where we actually supported ourselves, made some money, and that that money we invested in the product.

[00:17:40] Omer: So by the time you got the, the product sort of figured out to, you know, to to, to a place where you, you were able to . Sell it to, to potential customers. What was the, what was the competitive landscape like? How many other products were out there? How much of this was, is kind of like a new category and, and people haven't really, you know, got a good solution versus there are already products out there and you're trying to figure out how you can, you know, differentiate and, and kind of find, find a space for your product.

[00:18:10] Sameer: We can fairly say that this, this was, this was a crowded space back then. You know, there were, there were many products out there which were offering these services. Our, our unique value proposition was we are offering everything in one product instead of, you know instead of customers buying three or four products.

[00:18:25] So just in the social space where we were operating back then, and today, of course, we are a complete omnichannel solution, but back then we were a, we were a social suite which could do social care, you know, where responding to the customer queries, where we could do social listening you know, social analytics of your brand and competition and social publishing.

[00:18:46] So I, I divided them into four different categories. And, and the products which were there available, were actually doing, you know, one thing, not, not everything. Also, there, there would be something like a Hootsuite or a Sprout Social Focus focusing too much on, on social media publishing. There could be brand watch, talk Walker on social listening.

[00:19:06] And, and there could be products like simply measured. And, and the products like Social Bakers, which which would focus on social media analytics. We were offering a solution all in one that was our unique value proposition and would say that you, you'll save money with one product instead of going for at least three or four, four products.

[00:19:25] So that's how we kind of showed the unique value proposition back then. But today we kind of tell the entire omnichannel story, not just social. We bring in data from emails, calls, chats, and give you a complete unified view. So over the years, our unique value proposition did change. But now it is not really about saving money on the products and actually saving money on the operations side of things. You know, that's the pitch that we, we do today. So, so things have changed. Back then this was a story now, now the omnichannel and AI is, is a story today. Cool.

[00:19:59] Omer: So when, when when a founder, an early stage founder, is trying to get a product into a market and they're already established incumbents who have been around for years, they often have

[00:20:09] You know, a ton of features that your product doesn't have, and so there's this huge. Gap in, in terms of feature comparison. I, I, when you then say, I'm gonna be an all-in-one, so you don't have to buy four or five products, now you've just 4 or 5X the number of features that you have to potentially compete with.

[00:20:28] So the value prop in terms of all-in-one, great. But did you have have challenges or, or difficulties when people would then look at your product and say, okay, that's great in terms of all-in-one. But I don't have this X, Y, Z or, you know, whatever. Or did you feel like you nailed the, you were able to figure out which were the features that really mattered?

[00:20:50] Sameer: Yeah. Yeah. That, that's, that's very important, you know, be because you, you're kind of taking chances on, you know, few, few, few features that you, that you believe will work, for example. While, while we are offering all the four features, for me, the listening and analytics was, was my personal favorite.

[00:21:08] But as we were working in the market, we believed that social care is, is more important because that's what customers were actually looking for. And we did some insights you know, le let's say we have some set of customers about, say, 40 odd customers back then. And we were looking at, you know, which all features they, they asked for most.

[00:21:27] Where, where do they, where, where, where are the support queries coming? And personally because I love analytics and I love dashboards and I love BI tools my, my focus was more on the social listening and an analytics side of things. I. Whereas our customers were actually preferring more the care side of things, you know?

[00:21:46] And although we did not have good reports on care, which are like, you know, your ticketing or CSAT or NPS, SLAs, we are, we are actually not good enough, you know, to be honest, because we are focusing more on the listing analytics. So the customer queries come and then you don't, you cannot argue with them that you know, this is not how it works.

[00:22:04] You actually have to listen to your customers. They're the best ones to give you feedback of the critical ones, if they're facing some problem, try to work on it. And then you gauge the idea and then you start, you know, focusing on those features that really matter and, and can work in the market.

[00:22:20] Because we can always make the mistake of thinking that this is what I believe is, is, is the best feature of our product versus what the market really likes.

[00:22:30] Omer: Let's talk a little bit about expansion into markets outside of India. I was talking to a founder this morning actually, who is, is early stages in India, has built

[00:22:40] A, a, a great product has had some success with some local companies and now it's like saying, how do I, how do I expand? How do I get into the US market? I don't know, people there, it's not like I can get warm intros or anything like that. And it is a challenge for a lot of founders. You know, they may look at the US market is obviously one place that they want to be.

[00:23:00] There may be in India, there may be in Europe, there may be somewhere else. What was that experience like for you? How did you go about, which market did you tackle first? I mean, obviously you're in 30 different markets now, but how did that, that process start?

[00:23:13] Sameer: The, in fact, you know, from day one when we were actually building the product, we knew it that this can go to, you know, all possible countries if it is working in India for certain set of customers.

[00:23:25] See, see my belief is like this, like let's say if, if I have 5 customers today. And, and if they're enterprise customers and they, if they have opted for our product, that means the product is a right fit. Then if I have fi I will definitely have 50 customers. You know, I just need to figure out a way to reach out to those potential customers.

[00:23:46] If I have 50, I'll definitely have fine it, you know, I, I need to reach out to those customers. Now that is a difficult part. You know, first you, first you have a product, . And then you want the world to know about it. And when you say, you know, the world should know about you, you cannot directly jump to the market.

[00:24:04] Which, you know, you feel that that will work. And, and I've seen a lot of in fact today, you know, I, I'm part of a lot of groups where we found where, where the founders meet and all. I have seen stories of the most funded customers of for, sorry, most funded SaaS startups. Well, the first thing that they did after getting money was spend that on ads.

[00:24:26] And, and how did they made the investors interested by saying that, you know, we have this solution. We want to expand in the us give us money, and then they have to justify spending that money and they spend a lot of monies on, on, on, on ads trying to reach out to the US market. And this is story that I've heard from at least four to five founders.

[00:24:45] Now, even if you're bootstrapped right, I mean straight away, you don't, you shouldn't think of jumping into the market with, with direct sales. The best way to do is find out the channels which will take your product. And, and that's the easiest way to do it. And, and what we did was, we, we kind of try to partner with CRM companies contact centers say chat bots and marketing automation tools, you know and, and we define something called S four Pillars of omnichannel customer experience.

[00:25:16] Every single brand wants a CRM. Every single brand wants a contact center, wants a live chat. They want marketing automation tools and they want social listening tools, right? Every, every single brand has it. But one product cannot full com fulfill that story. So we, we send that, let's reach out to the biggest CRM companies in the world.

[00:25:38] Maybe Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics try to come on their app marketplace and from their reach out to their partners and try and do some early sales which will not be then limited only to India. That, that, that's the question that we asked. What are the best, what are the best chances for us to get a new customer in, in a country that we have no presence?

[00:26:00] This is the best way to go. And we call that as an ISV partnership And with some initial sales from, say, from, say, Salesforce or Genesys, Avaya, you know, some chat bot companies, some marketing automations, or what we did was then we tapped their partners. You know and, and their partners were introduced to this product we understood the gap.

[00:26:20] Of course, we had some competition with the likes of, say, say, Sprinklr or Sprout Social. We obviously have, have that competition, but then partners have something of their interest to sell our product along with or say a CRM or contact center. So that's how we kind of, you know got into different countries and wherever we did more business via the partners is where we actually had our own sales people to work.

[00:26:42] And, and to be honest, I have, I've spent some money on ads, but it, it didn't really never worked for me. But, but the partner channel, the ISV channel is the best way to expand. If, if the product is the right fit for that partner then, then, then you'll do business.

[00:26:58] Omer: How easy or hard was it to get these ISVs on board?

[00:27:01] I mean, you know, one of the things I've seen and, and even personal experience we're trying to set up these kinds of partnerships is that. First of all, you've gotta figure out who to, who to go and potentially partner with. You've gotta reach out to these people. Maybe the response often is like lukewarm because they've got a million other things to do, and adding on to some new unknown partnership is not, you know, top of their list.

[00:27:22] And I, then you, you know, you're gonna kind of, actually, once you do get somebody interested, it can take forever to actually get something to a point where it's, you're actually executing on this idea. So what was that experience like for you? Were people resonating? Were, were people responding? Like, were they excited when they heard about this idea?

[00:27:42] Sameer: Oh, no. I mean, it's not that easy. In fact, you know, if you directly reach out to say, let's, let's look at this way. There's, there are so many partners of Salesforce. There's so many partners of Zendesk or FreshWorks. You get a list of those partners who try to reach out to them. They're already doing great business with you know, with the, with the likes of Salesforce.

[00:28:02] In fact, these companies give them leads and they're very much busy with the implementation and stuff like that, so it's, it's not an easy thing to do really. But, but once you get on their marketplace, like Salesforce has an app, ex app exchange that's when they actually take you seriously. If you get in into the app marketplace of, let's say Genesis or, or a Nice, which are bigger contact centers.

[00:28:24] Once you're there in that marketplace, that's when the when the partners take, take you seriously. And if you get an introduction from from, from the ISP directly again, the partners would be interested. So it's, it's a difficult process. We, we actually have a team of 5 people dedicated to, to get the partners, to get our product introduced to them.

[00:28:45] Then it gets to the nurturing team of the partnership team. And I'll, I'll tell you, I mean, we could probably have today 90 partners with whom the agreements have been signed. But we, we might be hardly working with 20 odd partners. Whereas we are still nurturing those 70 partners where they can give us the first deal.

[00:29:06] And once they, once they see the money with the first deal that's where they're interested. So again, once you have partner on board, you actually have to work for them for first two, three deals. You find the lead, okay, but you don't close directly. You give it to either partner, nevermind.

[00:29:21] You might lose 25, 30% of the, of the commission. But then once that partner sees that, you know, we are, we are working for them and we, we actually get the lead, our people do the demo we close the deal, and yet we give commission to the partners . So if you, you really have to build that win-win model.

[00:29:40] So that they get the first set of customers because of us, and then they start bringing you business. So there are two things to it. One is to convince the partner to, to become a partner. After they get a partner, you should have a very good plan to how to, you know, work with them.

[00:29:55] Omer: I, I like that. I think, I think, you know, some founders might look at that type of situation and say, why, you know, I can't afford to give up 25, 30 % of potential revenue on this deal.

[00:30:06] If, and especially if I'm doing the work, I'm finding the lead on my team's doing the demos and so on. I. Like, why not just go directly and, and do that? But the, the picture I sort of had in my mind was, it was almost like you were going to one potential partner, and it might take forever to get this thing going and you're having to do a lot of work.

[00:30:26] But once this, this sort of flywheel starts spinning and they see the value and they understand, you know, they see money coming in, they understand how to sell this thing. It starts to take care of itself, and then you can move to another place and try to get another flywheel spinning and so on. And in the long term, it turns out to be a better approach because then you're not having to, you know, bring in all the leads and, and sell and do everything yourself.

[00:30:50] Sameer: Yeah. It, it can always be a lean, moderate because even though we have our sales people in, in certain parts of the world. We only do business via partners, you know, outside India, we don't do direct business. We do it via partners. So our salespeople can be, you know, one or two people in that, in that country.

[00:31:08] But if I have like seven, eight good partners, it is having, let's say if those seven partners put two people to work for you, then you are actually having a team of four in plus your own two people. I mean, it's a team of 16. You can either have 15 or 16, your people. Working directly or take the help of partners, you know, net, net you'll actually save money if you start giving commission to the partner.

[00:31:31] So it's a win-win. It's a win for partner, it's win for you, it's win for the customer.

[00:31:35] Omer: I'm curious, when you talked about getting those initial customers in India, you worked with agencies and through them sold the product. You didn't, when you talked about the US market and going in there, you didn't mention agencies.

[00:31:50] You talked about these ISVs and chatbots and CRMs and things like that. Did you try the agency route as well, or was there a reason you didn't do that?

[00:31:58] Sameer: No, no. We, we tried, we tried the agency model as well. I mean, logically it was the second step for us, you know, after getting the . Agencies in India, it was very logical that if I have relations with my DENSO India team with, with the WPP India team the next tech next thing is to get the US counterparts to work for you.

[00:32:19] That's very logical. And, and we tried that. We tried that for, for years. We tried that. But, but somehow it didn't work. I, I don't know exactly the reason. Maybe my commitment was not good enough. But when you're trying 10 things and you know, out of which four or five work for you, you then focus on the, on the things that are working for you and then not the ones that are not working.

[00:32:38] So we should have given more efforts to find the agency route to actually do business in the US and other markets. But because ISVs work, then we kind of change that model. And started working with the iscs and the partners.

[00:32:52] Omer: The other potential growth channel I, I've seen work, sometimes not work, has been events.

[00:33:00] It's often, you know, and especially it can, it can work if you're a US based founder, but also, you know, if you're, if you're in, in another country, events can be a potential great way to get face time with those. You know, those, those customers, those people you wanna sell to potentially have more deeper in depth conversations, even if it is somebody walking through, you know, and, and kind of walking past your booth, getting a five, 10 minute conversation can be really meaningful versus, you know, sending a, a cold email.

[00:33:31] But it, there's, for some finals it's work. Some, it's just been like something they can't figure out how to get going. What, what did you try that

[00:33:40] Sameer: I. Yeah, yeah. We, we do events and, and even our learnings with events is, and after doing events for the last three years, when, when we were really active doing events and, and it's also big investment, you know, because events take a lot of money also to so, so to, so to decide as a founder that shall I invest in this particular event or not, is also a big decision.

[00:34:03] And specifically especially if you're a, if you're a bootstrapped founder. So, so when we did some initial events maybe three years back what, what we learned was if it's a very massive event and then there are some events like Tex and Leap in, in Middle East you, you can hardly make a mark, you know?

[00:34:22] Whereas if you do smaller events where there are about say a hundred or attendees and there are four or five sponsors. And you get to speak on stage and have a booth those kind of events work and, and even better other events. We call those events as bespoke events where you are actually calling 30 odd potential customers.

[00:34:45] Have two or three, your, your own set of customers and letting the customers meet the prospects and talk about your product. Those are the best ones. Because because these are very highly qualified leads and, and you don't generally call anyone like, you know, 20, 30 prospect just by, you know, call you actually had some traction with them.

[00:35:06] They have seen your product, or they are at a, at a very high stage of getting closed. Bring those customers for, for this very small event and let your customers also be there. That's where the maximum sales happen. So smaller, smaller events with 30 odd prospects. Good for sales. Little bit large events where you are one of the sponsors and, and you are having you know, keynote opportunity and the booth.

[00:35:32] Good for sales, good for marketing, but not so much for sales. I would say good for market and the bigger events is waste of time, waste of money, . So that's a learning. Over the years

[00:35:43] Omer: I. And, and you, you think it's a waste of money because you sort of get lost in the noise of the big events. And, and that's to get noticed, you just have to spend a ridiculous amount of money.

[00:35:51] Sameer: That's true. And, and people get tired in such big events, you know, I mean, the potential customer will take your card. You might feel that great, you know, we, you, we did a great demo or so. But when they go back home, they have actually met, you know, 50 other vendors and they're tired. And they don't open your emails.

[00:36:10] So bigger events do it for branding or so still because you, you cannot miss the opportunity of meeting a, meeting a large audience, but the sales will never come from, from bigger events.

[00:36:21] Omer: Right. Were these events, were you talking, were you talking directly the . The, the customer, the brand at these events or were you going to events where you could Konnect with ISVs or both?

[00:36:34] Sameer: Both. Both. So in the bigger events, yeah, I missed that point. So when you, when you go for bigger events, you can obviously meet the partners and ISVs. That's where, where, where it really works. But the smaller events that it work with, with, with direct sales. I mean, even if, even if you're doing direct sales, doesn't mean that, you know, we are not doing it via the partners, but they're not.

[00:36:53] But they're understanding what Konnect Insights is we are pitched to them. And if you're doing business outside India, then we'll say, fine. You know, we'll have the local partner come and meet you to close the deal. And that's how we kind of work with them.

[00:37:04] Omer: And, and so with, with customers in 30 Markets today.

[00:37:08] How, how is the team distributed? Are you, are you hiring more people in, in those markets? Are you able to keep most of it running from India? How, how, how is it set up?

[00:37:18] Sameer: So, so we have now four registered companies. So we are registered in India, Singapore, UA, and us. We have our teams in say Saudi Arabia.

[00:37:28] We have someone in Singapore we have someone in Brazil who operates from the, from the Latin market. Most, So product, hiring, customer success solutions, consultants, all in India, outside India, only salespeople even the BDRs. They operate from India and, and India. We have our offices in three locations Mumbai, Delhi, and Chennai.

[00:37:49] So that's where our SDRs and, you know, solutions consultancy outside India, only salespeople, and they, they work only with partners.

[00:37:58] Omer: Great. So it's been quite a journey you know, from 10, 11 years ago to being in a full-time job, having an idea, building a product, waiting patiently two years for that first customer having those 50 or 60 meetings with people and getting no breakthrough through to, you know, closing the year at, at, at over 7 million in dollars in, in revenue. If you sort of look back at this journey over the last decade is there like one big takeaway, one lesson or something that you wish you had maybe done differently?

[00:38:29] Sameer: Yeah, I mean, as, as I told back in early days, I should have been a little more aggressive with sales. The partnership and the international expansion really happened in last three years or so. Before that it was covid times, so, you know, even during Covid times, we did some business in, in, in outside India.

[00:38:48] We had few customers in, in the Middle East that we guidewire our contact center partners, but there was no focus as such to growing the international market. We are still focused on, on making great product. Maybe pre covid we could, we could have started you know, our international expansion, but it, but it started late, but then the growth was very fast, you know, so no regrets on, on that side of things.

[00:39:13] I mean, we, we had an evolved product. We had integrations built with so many other apps. And, and the sales is happening naturally. So we are growing at about, say, you know, 200% not bad. Maybe next year looks much more promising. So no regrets on that side. But maybe back then, early days we could have been more aggressive in sales.

[00:39:32] Omer: I. Yeah, I'll, we, we, I'll follow up with you and see where you are and, and when you hit that $10 million mark, that'll be a nice milestone to, to hit.

[00:39:44] Sameer: That's true. That's, we are very close to that. We are very close to that. Our targets for the next year are basically more than 15 million. And we hope we should achieve that.

[00:39:52] Yeah.

[00:39:53] Omer: Great. All right. Let's let's wrap up let's go into the lightning round. I've got seven quick fire questions for you. Okay. What's one of the best pieces of business advice you've received?

[00:40:04] Sameer: Well, the best business advices that I received in early days was if, if you have the right product fit money wouldn't be a challenge.

[00:40:12] And you need not be ready with everything as you go along. Things will work out for you. Just do not hesitate to take the right step if you want, if you believe that this is the right thing to do. But money is the challenge. Do not hesitate to actually go ahead and invest.

[00:40:27] Omer: What book would you recommend to our audience and why?

[00:40:30] Sameer: A few good books that I read. One is definitely the one by, Predictable Revenue. It's by one of the employees of Salesforce. I, I'm not getting the name right now. There's the, another book is Never Split the Difference. If, if you really wanna know a lot about negotiations and you know how to go about it, I would highly recommend this book.

[00:40:52] There's another book that I really like, not related to business, but something that, that'll help you in, in your life. I have read that book at least five times so far it's, it's, it's Zen and The Art of Happiness. That's one of my favorite book.

[00:41:05] Omer: Nice. The Never Spit the Difference is, Chris Voss and don't know if you've, you've seen masterclass.com

[00:41:14] Sameer: of Chris was I've seen him. I've seen that.

[00:41:16] Omer: Yeah. So he has a masterclass now on there and, and I just I just signed up for Masterclass again recently and it's it's genius the stuff that he goes on about in terms of negotiation strategies. And this guy came from being a. You know, a hostage negotiator, right? So it's like amazing stories, but in many ways you sort of realize, oh, actually, you know, the stakes on this kind of situation I'm in trying to negotiate is nothing compared to what, you know, this guy has a sort of experience, but really fascinating just hearing him talk about that stuff.

[00:41:49] Sameer: Very, very good book. And, and, and in fact, I subscribed to that masterclass also. It's on Netflix or Amazon Prime. This was during Covid Times and I subscribed for it. After reading the book again, I subscribed for the masterclass.

[00:42:01] Omer: Yeah, it's great. What's one attribute or characteristic in your mind of a successful founder?

[00:42:07] Sameer: I think perseverance, patience, perseverance, great resilience, tenacity. You need all of that along with the capabilities of you know, building a product.

[00:42:15] Omer: I. Yep. And you shared some good examples of perseverance with your story. What's your favorite personal productivity tool or habit?

[00:42:23] Sameer: I, I still keep it simple.

[00:42:24] You know, I'm, I'm mean, of course, we, we use a few tools out there, but I'm still a notepad, , not bad person. , I have like five, six items to deliver. I mean, I'll work in the night. With just spend my 10 minutes to plan my next day, and I just go ahead and execute that plan. That's at the end of the day.

[00:42:43] Your yearly targets, your quarterly targets, your monthly targets, they come down to how best you work on that particular day. So keeping things simple.

[00:42:53] Omer: Yeah. Love it. What's a new or crazy business idea you'd love to pursue if you had the time?

[00:42:59] Sameer: I, I have something that I'm, I'm thinking of, you know, I mean that's not to do with technology or something of that sort.

[00:43:05] I, I believe in India, we, we are very passionate, cricket, cricket loving country, sports loving country. But we are not so good at football. I mean, soccer. Have some crazy idea of bringing some good talent from, from Africa and South America to India and, and promote cricket in those countries. Let's see if I, if I one fine day achieve in my getting into that.

[00:43:28] Omer: A cultural sports exchange.

[00:43:30] Sameer: Yeah. Sports overseas. Yeah.

[00:43:32] Omer: Well, what's an interesting or fun fact about you that most people don't know?

[00:43:36] Sameer: I, I. I spend a lot of time researching about space. I, I do love to watch the night sky. I, I, I was good in my engineering day, so I fairly understand the concepts of physics, but I do a lot.

[00:43:50] I do a lot. I do watch a lot of, videos on in this subject, trying to understand the theory of relativity, maybe.

[00:43:58] Omer: Cool, cool. And, and finally, what's one of your most important passions outside of your work?

[00:44:02] Sameer: I, I, I was a good sportsman, you know, I played I played cricket. Well, I I was a very good chess player.

[00:44:07] I played football also, so, yeah, I, I mean, for all my friends who, who know me from my college days, they would remember me as a sportsman. So I, I would definitely love to. Still play cricket and play football and chess. So yeah, that's what I do.

[00:44:21] Omer: Love it. Great. Well Sameer, thank you for joining me. It's been a pleasure kind of unpacking that story over the last decade and sharing hopefully some useful lessons for other people who are listening. If people wanna check out Konnect Insights, they can go to konnectinsights.com. That's Konnect with a K. And if folks wanna get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?

[00:44:43] Sameer: Well, they can connect with me on, on LinkedIn, just search for Sameer Narkar or, or Twitter.

[00:44:48] You know, my handle is @sameernarkar on Twitter and you connect with me on LinkedIn or visit our website talk to our chat bot. It's we, we kind of released a new chat bot on our, on our, on our website and built on top of AI. With a, with an AI agent. It's one of the best chat bots that we believe and has a good sense of humor as well.

[00:45:10] You, we maybe try, you, you can try that as well. .

[00:45:13] Omer: I, I'm gonna try that out too. Cool. And we'll include those links in, in the show notes as well so people can find them. Great. Well thank you so much appreciate your time and I wish you and the team the, the best of success.

[00:45:26] Sameer: Thank, thank you so much, Omer.

[00:45:27] Thank you for having us here.

[00:45:29] Omer: My pleasure. Cheers.