Bootstrapping Capillary - GES KGP 2012

PowerPoint Presentation: 

The Capillary Journey Aneesh Reddy Co-Founder & CEO

Quick Introduction: 

Quick Introduction Aneesh Reddy B.Tech 2006, IIT Kharagpur RK Hall, Manufacturing Sc. & Eng Founded the Entrepreneurship Cell of IIT Kharagpur in 2005 Founding Governor of the Technology ROBOTIX Society SSM of RK 2006, got Vinod Gupta to give a Rs 60 lakh donation to renovate RK Published 2 International Journal Papers, applied for 1 international patent while at KGP Had a MS call from MIT/ job offer from ITC Limited Worked with ITC for 2 years in Bangalore and Kolkata Started Capillary in Kolkata in Aug 2008, with Krishna Mehra, Ajay Modani (Both RK, 2006)

About Capillary: 

About Capillary Founded: Aug 2008 (Krishna + Ajay + Aneesh) Cloud Based Customer Engagement Solutions for Retailers One of India’s fastest growing product companies with a global footprint India | UK | Middle East | Singapore | South Africa Largest in India, 20 million end consumers on the platform across 6000 stores Team 180 Burning Souls Over 50 IIT/ BITS alumni with work experience in Google, Oracle, Microsoft, Fair Issac , ITC, P&G, dunhumbvy , Cisco, Dell 35 IIT Kharagpur B.Tech’s / PhD’s Some Awards and Recognitions Nasscom ‘League of 10’ Product companies in India 2011 Winners of the TIECON Entrepreneurial Excellence Awards 2011 Winner of TechSparks 2011

over six thousand stores, 20+ million consumers in india, UK, middle east, singapore, africa retailers use Capillary’s Platform: 

over six thousand stores, 20+ million consumers in india , UK, middle east, singapore , africa retailers use Capillary’s Platform Lifestyle: Consumer Durables & Electronics: Multi Brand Outlets: Health & Wellness: Food & Beverages: Quick View: Clients

Flow: 

Flow Starting Up – Boot-strapping Founding Team Money Idea Getting Some Traction – Validation First client Quick Execution Establish a business model Raising Angel/ Series A Take money from the right people Get good advisors Scaling up Important Comments

Starting Up: Team : 

Starting Up: Team Most Important thing for a startup is the team Make sure you know your co-founders well, and share a good working relationship If you are looking at Technology, make sure you have a good tech co-founder Rome was not built in a day: Startup’s take a lot of time and effort, and be sure that the team is willing to spend that time and effort Make a complimentary team Krishna ( B.Tech CSE, IITKGP ‘06; Miscrosoft Research) Ajay ( B.Tech , IITKGP ‘07, Danieli ) Aneesh ( B.Tech Manu, IITKGP ‘06; ITC Limited) Technology/ Operations/ Sales

Starting Up: Money: 

Starting Up: Money Bootstrapping Founders + Small team (Interns) Monthly cost of about Rs 1 lakh or so Try and Raise Rs 10 lakhs or so Running Expenses by doing Projects / Free-lancing Strict NO Focus is very important Don’t spend your crunched resources doing other projects Source of Bootstrapping money TIETS Founders Savings Friends and Family Early Angels (Hard to find in India) Capillary: Rs 10 lakhs from IIT, 4 interns from DA-IICT

Starting Up: Idea: 

Starting Up: Idea The Million Dollar Idea We had none! Mostly out of college and early in your career you won’t have one either! Choose the sector well: Mobile & Retail: Both booming in India Getting to the Idea: Fast Failures Traffic Information System on Mobile with Kolkata Police, DealHunt (Aug ‘08 to Mar ’09) Spoke to 50+ Brand Managers/ Retail Owners Listen to your target audience – not everyone : 10 interesting pain points Recession : Customer Loyalty? Is the market big enough? Atleast $100 million, if you want to grow real big probably a $1B+ Market

Idea: Order of Listing: 

Idea: Order of Listing Ideas which tend to fly faster Improve Top-line/ Bottom-Line Cut Costs Quickly Quality Improvement

Validation/ Execution: First Client: 

Validation/ Execution: First Client Part Validation: First Client True Validation: When client sees a ROI Please execute fast: Do not spend a very long time building something Quick and Dirty works Continuous improvement, and quick pushes is better Product Idea Mobile Based Engagement Solution First Key Success Launched with John Miller(Future Group) – March ’08 (2 months for a Beta!) Battle testing – Product improvement (Still improving!) Clients 2 – 3: Numero Uno; Indian Terrain Madura Garments – PETER ENGLAND – Jun ’08 More brands from Future Brands

Validation: Business Model: 

Validation: Business Model As engineers we love the products we build, but the business models are equally important if not more Innovation need not be only on the product it can be on business models also Some Business Models which are changing the world now Software/ Solution as a Service Success fee based Freeium Models Our customers could not afford an upfront software/ server costs, so we did everything on the cloud and charged a per store per month fee

Raising Angel/ Series A: 

Raising Angel/ Series A Right time: Have initial traction and Revenue is trickling in Have a number of customer sign up’s Participate in events/ competitions No one is going to steal your idea Also an Idea is only as good as it is executed Number of Angel Funds Indian Angel Network Mumbai Angels A number of Angel Investors willing to take risks Angel List in the US Capillary won Qprize in Sep ’09 We have raised $1.5 million in angel money from 17 angels/ advisors

Raising Money/ Right Advisors : 

Raising Money/ Right Advisors Raise money from the right people Its what an angel brings on board beyon the money that is more important Get the Right Advisors Get the right advisors in the specific field Advisors in the same field add a lot of credibility and also provide you the right contacts to scale business up Go through references, don’t cold call/ cold email Advisors don’t come free Perseverance is very important Please raise a little more than what you need, you will make mistakes!

Challenges in India: 

Challenges in India People Risk averse How can I take a salary cut? Stocks have no value Recession helped us! Recruited from BITS and IIT Clients Few clients have large scale Not Early Adopters A lot of nuisance competition – need an extremely differentiated offering

Scaling Up: Execute!: 

Scaling Up: Execute! More People Your People are your brand! At full salaries Do not compromise on people 20% - 30% hike over Yahoo; Oracle; P&G; Cisco More Clients and Business Focus on business Allot responsibilities individually between the founders/ team Dream Big A number of India product companies are hitting international markets and doing very well Druva , Via, Fusion Charts, InMobi etc

www.capillary.co.in: 

www.capillary.co.in Thank You! /capillarytech