Building a New Age AI Services Company: Cognida CEO Feroze Mohammed (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: So, talk about what you pitched to your first clients and how you got them. Where does this begin? Feroze Mohammed: Sure. I think even before we started, one thing we learned from our journey in Sierra Atlantic and later with Hitachi is to play the game only when you have an unfair

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Building a New Age AI Services Company: Cognida CEO Feroze Mohammed (Part 1)

IT Services is going through a profound shift. Huge opportunity for more companies like Palantir to be built. This discussion parses the nuances of building such ventures. Needless to say, VC money is now going to flood into this model.

Three Co-founders Bootstrapped with a Paycheck, Now at Over $50M Revenue: Ganesh Shankar, CEO and Co-Founder of Responsive (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: All right. Well, it’s an amazingly great story, I think, and there’s a lot to learn from it. I’m really looking forward to publishing the story. So, congratulations. Great job. Really great job with execution, and I take it you’re basically operating with direct sales, right? Ganesh Shankar: Correct. It is operating with

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Three Co-founders Bootstrapped with a Paycheck, Now at Over $50M Revenue: Ganesh Shankar, CEO and Co-Founder of Responsive (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: This is something we reinforce all the time in 1Mby1M. Do not chase investors, chase customers. If you get customers, investors will chase you.

Three Co-founders Bootstrapped with a Paycheck, Now at Over $50M Revenue: Ganesh Shankar, CEO and Co-Founder of Responsive (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Until that million dollar point where you brought in institutional capital, did the three of you fund the company through your own savings?

Three Co-founders Bootstrapped with a Paycheck, Now at Over $50M Revenue: Ganesh Shankar, CEO and Co-Founder of Responsive (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Okay, got it. You just took me through a bit of the pricing and ROI analysis. What did you price your product at?

Three Co-founders Bootstrapped with a Paycheck, Now at Over $50M Revenue: Ganesh Shankar, CEO and Co-Founder of Responsive (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: So, you got to prototype in a bootstrapping with a paycheck mode. Your two co-founders who were doing the design and implementation work, stayed on working in a bootstrapping with a paycheck mode. You quit and went full-time. Then you got to a release in June of the next year, in six months.

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Three Co-founders Bootstrapped with a Paycheck, Now at Over $50M Revenue: Ganesh Shankar, CEO and Co-Founder of Responsive (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Got it. Let’s go back to when you started the company. What was the premise of the company? What were you going to do?