Bootstrapping an AI Startup to $10M from Boise, Idaho: Christian Perry, CEO of Undetectable AI (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: And you said you started mostly with small businesses and gradually built the enterprise business as well as the licensing and white labeling business. So in the small business category, what was your go-to-market strategy? How were you acquiring customers? How were the customers finding you?

Bootstrapping an AI Startup to $10M from Boise, Idaho: Christian Perry, CEO of Undetectable AI (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s get to the exciting Undetectable AI story. What was going on in your mind? What problem did you want to solve, knowing that ChatGPT was taking off around you?

Building a Venture Scale FinTech SaaS Startup: Mike Whitmire, co-founder and CEO of FloQast (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: And how long did that $6.5 million last?

Mike Whitmire: We did extremely well in 2016 and the first half of 2017. We more than tripled our recurring revenue. Then we were approached proactively about raising another round. The investor was great, the terms were strong, and I was ready to scale further. We fielded a few term sheets, found the right partner, and raised our Series B—$25 million led by Insight.

Building a Terrific EdTech Venture in India: Pallav Pandey, CEO of Uolo (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: This is very interesting. The way you’ve stepped through the line of thinking of why you’ve arrived at these decisions is very instructive. Where are your schools?

Pallav Pandey: All over India. These schools are very different from typical SME clusters. SME clusters are very local. That is not how schools are. Schools are evenly distributed across India. The only way you can go and cover schools is if you figure out a telephonic way to reach out.

Sramana Mitra: Definitely.

Building a Terrific EdTech Venture in India: Pallav Pandey, CEO of Uolo (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Education is the only passport to get to the next level.

Pallav Pandey: Absolutely. Everybody in India is very clear that if I have to go to the next level, it is my child who can take me there if educated properly. People are spending on education. If you are able to do EdTech in India at a thousand rupees per annum, then every single family is going to buy. We didn’t know how exactly it will play out. Blume got excited, so they put in some money.

Building a Terrific EdTech Venture in India: Pallav Pandey, CEO of Uolo (Part 4)

Pallav Pandey: Then we had another divine intervention, I would say. He started collecting whatever money was due from schools so that he can pool up whatever was left. He said, “There is one school in Delhi which was opposite to your house. They were supposed to pay us some amount. They’re not paying us. They want to meet somebody senior.” The principal was insisting on it.

I met the principal. She said, “I’m very sorry to hold your payment to meet you.” She thought I was the founder. She said, “I really wanted to meet you. We love your product. This is how we use it.” It was a very simple ERP. Think of like WhatsApp for schools so they can do the parent-teacher communication via the app. She said, “I will refer you to a school I used to work with. We have three branches in our current school. Before referring you, I wanted to know who these guys are.”

Building a Terrific EdTech Venture in India: Pallav Pandey, CEO of Uolo (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: I have coached and mentored hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs. As a rule, I advise people not to follow this principle of releasing a free app or any kind of free service thinking that we will figure it out later. I want you to hypothesize that you are going to do a free app and it’s going to get a number of users. What is your premium service?

I don’t actually like freemium. I like free trial. Something you use for three months for free and then you pay for it. If that is a viable go-to-market strategy, do this business. Otherwise, don’t do this business. This is my mantra.

Building a Terrific EdTech Venture in India: Pallav Pandey, CEO of Uolo (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What you did had a major impact.

Pallav Pandey: They did that and they swept the election. While we were consulting them, something crazy happened. There was a batchmate of mine in the US. He was consulting for McKinsey. He was after my life. We were doing some interesting stuff, but it was person-dependent. I was also getting tired. Not to mention that the people I had to work with were not great people to work with and look up to in life.