Hyderabad’s SaaS ecosystem shines at SaaSt 2019

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A well coordinated and focused Kirak effort brought the Hyderabad SaaS companies together on 2nd March 2019 at Novotel HICC. Kudos to all the Volunteers and Telangana State Innovation Cell for pulling SaaSt 2019 together. Tarun Davuluri talks about what went behind the scenes in organizing the event here. The concept of organizing the event drew inspiration from SaaS Bhoomi, an annual conference out of Chennai, billed as Asia’s largest SaaS conference by founders for founders.  

SaaSt 2019 was refreshing for a few reasons

1. The openness exhibited by Khaapit SaaS founders on letting others in on their journey. Talking about success, pitfalls in the journey, opening about failures and sharing tips on To-do’s and Not to do’s.
2. The format of the event was a careful balance of views expressed by companies who are operating on a global scale vs focused on Indian market alone, companies who have raised external capital, bootstrapped companies, companies with one founder or many founders, healthy contribution by VC’s and representation from global SaaS technology providers like AWS and ServiceNow.
3. VC fund to support the event. This shows the strength of SaaS ecosystem in Hyderabad as it’s not entirely dependant on government sponsorship or individual SaaS companies.

Few takeaways from the evening

Abbe diktaich nahin kya (Keep an eye, buddy) – Find your Total Addressable Market (TAM). Without knowing what your TAM is, do not shoot in the dark.

Chillar Nakko (Bid High) – When the product/ offering is ready, always price the product HIGH. Don’t price it downright CHEAP because you are operating from India. Price with confidence on your offering and never trade off pricing power. Operating out of India allows scaling operations without proportional scaling in costs.

Kisko Bechra tu (Know who you are selling to) – Recommended approach to sales. Sales solve ALL problems, not having sales is the PROBLEM.

• Stage 1 – Sell to anyone who is willing to pay for your offering/ service.
• Stage 2 – Go after your ideal customer profile. These are the customers who were your target all along.
• Stage 3 – Sell for profitability
• Stage 4 – Gun for market leadership

Kaiko Keel Paad Ke tere pass Aana (Keep it simple) – When you make a sale, ensure the customer on-boarding to your service/ product is seamless. Any friction in migrating to our offering will force the clients to wonder ‘Is it worth the trouble?’

Paise hona – Kaiku? (Use your funds nicely)– Raising funding is a tough decision. Look for partners who can help you ask the tough questions. Having money in the bank is a MUST. Do not raise more than what you need, you will find a way to spend it.

Jhanda Gaadena (Be Diverse) – When picking up target markets overseas understand that they are culturally different, so what worked in one market will not help you in another. Landing new markets are good but having the strength to stay away or step out from markets, if things don’t work out, is good too. Lite Le.

I represented Gramener on a panel ‘Founders Roadmap: Journey to your first customer and beyond’. Chaitanya C, Co-founder & CIO, Ozonetel, Rohit Chennamaneni, Co-founder, Darwinbox, Ashok Varma, Founder, Report Garden shared the podium with me.

Free flowing conversation covered

1. How did we decide on the number of founders. Gramener had the highest number of founders.
2. How did we narrow down on the idea for starting the business.
3. How did we pick the target market – India vs Overseas.
4. Did we raise external funding and how did we arrive at the decision. Interesting enough 3 out 4 companies were bootstrapped.

Two snippets from leaders in SaaS industry

1. AWS rolled out 1800 significant features released in 2018. 80% of these originated as customer requests. AWS builds for one customer and releases for all customers. Everyone pays the same price
2. ServiceNow platform approach to different customer needs – No code, Low code & Pro Code.

The SaaSt journey is off to a great start, Gramener looks forward to contributing to the SaaSt  journey and the SaaS ecosystem in Hyderabad. Chaltu Ab.

Note: For the uninitiated, all Italics in this article are Hyderabadi language (a local dialect – a fusion of Urdu, Hindi & Telugu).

P.S: This article is written by Sundeep Reddy Mallu, SVP – Product, at Gramener as his experience in the SaaSt 2019 event.