Suresh Sambandam: Entrepreneurial Journey

Suresh Sambandam's Journey

• Suresh Sambandam, is a Chennai-based serial entrepreneur.
• At 19 he became an entrepreneur, later a software analyst with a patent, and then returned to entrepreneurship.
• He is the Founder of OrangeScape, a 15-year-old company, and KiSSFLOW, a four-year-old SaaS startup.
• Suresh comes from a humble background, like Sridhar Vembu and Girish Mathrubootham.
• He completed a bachelor's degree in commerce, taught himself technology, and worked at HP and Selectica.

OrangeScape

• In 2003, Suresh set up OrangeScape, a self-funded Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) business.
• PaaS allows clients to build and manage applications without infrastructure investments.
• In 2012, Orangescape raised $1 million from the Indian Angels Network.
• By 2011, Suresh was a leading pioneer in the PaaS industry and helped the Indian cloud industry go global.
• Suresh focused on building technology rather than marketing which hindered the company and its success.
• In 2011, Suresh raised $1 million from the Indian Angels Network.
• By mid-2013, he was being written off by the industry and had almost run out of money.
• Suresh sold the IP created through OrangeScape for Rs 2 crore to stay afloat until December 2013.

KiSSFLOW

• In June 2013, KiSSFLOW was launched to capture the business workflow management.
• KiSSFLOW simplifies managing multiple apps.
• The company secured a $500,000 deal with a large American corporate in the packaging industry.
• KiSSFLOW follows the “keep it simple, stupid” philosophy for workflow management.
• KiSSFLOW has captured the global business process management market.
• KiSSFLOW serves over 10,000 clients, including Airbus, Danone, Michelin, and Pepsi.
• KiSSFLOW's ARR is running at $10 million.
• With KiSSFLOW, Suresh got the technology, market category, UX, and product-market fit right.
• KiSSFLOW is a market leader in the do-it-yourself, low-code business process, and workflow management software space.
• KiSSFLOW meets the workflow automation needs of every team, department, and organization.
• KiSSFLOW deploys intelligent business process management tools for efficiency, control, and accountability.
• KiSSFLOW now counts clients like Pepsi, Airbus, Michelin, Jet, Casio and Disney.
• All of the selling happens out of Chennai, from a desk.
• The core differentiator is that it is a self-service platform easy enough for business users to configure.
• KiSSFLOW doesn't require expensive consulting services (3x-5x the software cost).
• KiSSFLOW was able to reach 10,000-plus customers using a Desk Selling & Marketing (DSM) model.
• It allows a small team in a city like Chennai to sell to customers across the globe.
• Due to the DSM approach the software is sold in 121 countries.
• The DSM model relies on inbound marketing and forces potential customers to self-select.
• Eliminating significant noise reduces the cost of acquisition.
• The company was able to achieve ROI in 6-9 months compared to the US average of 18 months.

Marketing and Sales

• Suresh believes brand building and image building are important in the startup world.
• Innovation in user experience, sales, and marketing are critical for KiSSFLOW's success.
• Key is not just selling, but also delivering on exceptional customer experience.

Technology

• The platform has over 50 ready-to-use, customizable apps like travel reimbursements and employee on-boarding.
• The software has a drag-and-drop interface with over 14 types of fields, for form creation.
• Users can diagram workflow, set deadlines, create conditions, and model a company’s process.
• Automated workflows help employees work faster than using many apps.
• These involve triggers to skip unneeded steps and create complex workflows with parallel branches.

Market Context

• In 2019, PaaS was an $18.6 billion business market, expected to reach $22.7 billion by 2020.
• SaaS is a $73 billion market globally, poised to cross $100 billion by 2020.
• Similar new-age companies like Bizagi, Bitrix24, NewGen, Podio and Workflow Max compete in the same space as KiSSFLOW.
• NewGen raised $85.7 million, while Bizagi raised $56.7 million.
• Suresh says he is always talking to investors, although he is not planning to raise money.
• KiSSFLOW is growing rapidly, employs close to 200 people.
• Suresh switched to SaaS at the right time, as PaaS is currently the slowest-growing cloud service.