Bootstrapping with Services from Michigan: Amjad Hussain, CEO of Algo.ai (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: At the very beginning, when you got this customer, what did you do for them? What did you propose to them that you were going to do that got you that customer?

Amjad Hussain: They had a need for a very specific warehouse management application for complex product categories that had a lot of SKUs and a lot of seasonal demand. We had tremendous knowledge not only of that domain but how to forecast demand at an in-store, item location level, and how to do smart replenishment and many other associated functions.

I think it was a combination of very strong technical and B2B domain knowledge and that some of the people in this first client company knew of our >>>

Bootstrapping with Services from Michigan: Amjad Hussain, CEO of Algo.ai (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: You came to Michigan straightaway?

Amjad Hussain: Yes, just because of where I landed my first job. I came to Detroit and I have lived here for 23 years. This is the longest that I have lived in any given place.

Sramana Mitra: What job did you come with?

Amjad Hussain: Since all of my training was in artificial intelligence, the very first thing that I did was I worked for a small engineering firm. They had some challenges and projects where my skills were relevant. I worked for a few employers. I eventually became the CIO of a company. >>>

Bootstrapping with Services from Michigan: Amjad Hussain, CEO of Algo.ai (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

I am always thrilled to see great entrepreneurship in various parts of the world that are off-center. Well, here’s a great one from Detroit.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Amjad Hussain: I was born in a very small village of Pakistan.

Sramana Mitra: Where in Pakistan?

Amjad Hussain: A town about a hundred km south of Lahore. >>>

How an IT Services Startup Wants to Disrupt Itself in the AI Era: Sanjay Jupudi, CEO of Qentelli (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How big is the work force?

Sanjay Jupudi: We just touched 250 people.

Sramana Mitra: How many customers are you servicing?

Sanjay Jupudi: About 30 customers. The good part of what we have done is when we go to customers, we are doing a lot of work for customers instead of just touching the surface.

Sramana Mitra: That’s great. Landing a customer and growing the customer is a good way to build a business. I think it’s good 

>>>

How an IT Services Startup Wants to Disrupt Itself in the AI Era: Sanjay Jupudi, CEO of Qentelli (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Tell me a little bit about this process of brainstorming about what you were going to focus on in the next company. What was the process with coming up with where you were going to place your bet?

Sanjay Jupudi: There was a quality assurance company that was hiring people to test applications. If you need testing services, I have 10 people and they’ll manually write all the test cases. When Agile started, a lot of clients were saying, “Testing function is slowing us down. Our people are developing code and then we have to wait three weeks for the testing to be complete.”

What they did was they wrote code to test code. Once the user story is developed, all the testers get together and they start testing in the waterfall way. After that, the code goes into production. You’re losing time and there’s a lot of frustration. It’s an inefficient process. There is potential to release faster >>>

How an IT Services Startup Wants to Disrupt Itself in the AI Era: Sanjay Jupudi, CEO of Qentelli (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

AI will disrupt outsourcing services companies in a very big way. We talk to Sanjay on how he plans to prepare.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s go back to the very beginning of your personal journey. Tell me where you’re from, where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background. Since this is a co-founder story, it would be great if you could also bring a little bit of Prasanna’s story.

Sanjay Jupudi: I’m from India.

Sramana Mitra: What part of India? >>>

Bootstrapping a Virtual Company to 5 Million Plus: Nick Shaw, CEO of Renaissance Periodization (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: The bulk of the business is this one-time fee to buy the chart that you’re providing.

Nick Shaw: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: What do the 26 coaches do then?

Nick Shaw: They do more detailed one-on-one coaching.

Sramana Mitra: There is a subscription business that is more detailed one-on-one coaching.

Nick Shaw: Yes. There are three tiers. The first tier is about $20 where you can buy our ebooks. You read it and you can do things >>>

Bootstrapping a Virtual Company to 5 Million Plus: Nick Shaw, CEO of Renaissance Periodization (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Do you feel comfortable talking a bit about what it cost to get this kind of endorsement? How do you evaluate which influencer relationships should you take on versus not?

Nick Shaw: Something really important is making sure it’s a good match in terms of our brand. We’ve done some experiments. We’ve worked with some influencers that have a ton of followers. We just don’t get much in return. What we found was maybe their followers don’t match up with our brand. We have a lot of Ph.D.’s and registered dieticians.

A lot of times, some of these influencers’ followers demographics just don’t match up with that. We’ve seen that there’s not a lot of return in cases >>>