Bootstrapping an AI Chatbot Startup with a Paycheck: Ankush Sabharwal, CEO of CoRover (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: How much money did you make this way – from advertising?

Ankush Sabharwal: It’s more money than we would have made through subscription.

Sramana Mitra: Really?

Ankush Sabharwal: There are four million users on the website and more in the app every day.

Sramana Mitra: Traffic volume was very large. You just created a way to monetize that traffic for both of you.

Bootstrapping an AI Chatbot Startup with a Paycheck: Ankush Sabharwal, CEO of CoRover (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: You were working at Ultisource when you negotiated with Indian Railways?

Ankush Sabharwal: Yes. In the appraisal cycle when I was about to quit the company, I got the highest rating. I was Group Manager that time. When you’re the manager’s manager, you hardly get the highest rating in appraisals.

Bootstrapping an AI Chatbot Startup with a Paycheck: Ankush Sabharwal, CEO of CoRover (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Going back to 2016, there were these platform providers but there were also these other startups that had full applications. Where was the gap? What is the justification of starting CoRover at that point?

Ankush Sabharwal: There were two sets of companies. One was the platform companies and the other is the implementation companies.

Bootstrapping an AI Chatbot Startup with a Paycheck: Ankush Sabharwal, CEO of CoRover (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What was the concept? What were you going to do? How did you come up with that concept?

Ankush Sabharwal: The product suites that these banks have are the same. They have savings accounts, checking accounts, and current accounts. I have not seen very innovative products from banks. The functional products are the same and the technology is also from the same provider. Still, in consumer’s mind, this is the top bank. In the consumer’s perception, this is number one, number two, and number three. What makes a bank or any service provider number one?

Bootstrapping an AI Chatbot Startup with a Paycheck: Ankush Sabharwal, CEO of CoRover (Part 1)

It took Ankush and his cofounders two years to launch their first customer, The Indian Railways. During this time, the founders held on to their jobs, diligently fulfilling their responsibilities while also pursuing their dreams.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s go to the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? What kind of background?

Bootstrapping an AI-Powered Security Startup to $10M+ in Revenue: Osprey Security CEO Rohit Anabheri (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: These two customers that you were able to place the MVPs into pilots with, how long did it take you to turn them into paying customers?

Rohit Anabheri: About three to six months. They wanted to ensure the stability of the platform.

Sramana Mitra: What is the average deal size?

Rohit Anabheri: Six figures.

Bootstrapping an AI-Powered Security Startup to $10M+ in Revenue: Osprey Security CEO Rohit Anabheri (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How long did it take you, and what was the trajectory? How many customers did you work with in the beginning? As you started to productize, what was the timeline?

Rohit Anabheri: The first year is always a struggle. It was completely bootstrapped by me and my co-founder.

Bootstrapping an AI-Powered Security Startup to $10M+ in Revenue: Osprey Security CEO Rohit Anabheri (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Did you have a customer with whom you validated this with?

Rohit Anabheri: This has been my mantra. Find your customer. Know their problems and fix their problems. We did it very organically. We knew what the gaps were. Then what we did is documented them and went to the people to validate.

Sramana Mitra: Who are these people?