We were churning the idea of building a mobile technology almost a year ahead of starting Aquilonis, but we did not want to do something which is difficult to sell. We knew that US is the market which is going to adopt what we are trying to build, but how do we reach companies over there sitting in India. That was the question running in our minds for a long time. We started working on the technology with the help of a couple of technocrats who worked with us at that time till we found our first customer.
 |
| Rahuldev Rajguru |
We were offered $ 1000, a small sum by our customer to begin with. We were excited and we worked in the nights and weekends to make sure we deliver what the customer is looking for. It did work well with us sitting in India and delivering in the US without any reference or track record. Our motivation was sky high. We were still thinking when to quit the job. Those days there weren’t many professionals with diverse mobile technology experience, which was good in a way but was the deterrent factor in us wannabe entrepreneurs as our salary was growing at an astonishing pace. All the time the pendulum of sustaining the business versus remaining cash positive was hanging over us. We thought that it would be easy to start if we get some financial assistance, but we soon realized that it would be more frustrating and would dilute our focus. Then we got a customer who was willing to commit long term as they saw a huge potential in our technology. We decided to quit our jobs and I led by example by quitting the job first followed by my co-founder, Devang Thakkar. Since then Aquilonis not only sustained through the worst economic slowdown but also grew from a single-bedroom company to a 2500 sq feet office today - from a 3 member team to a team of 20 in 2 years.
Funding is a buzzword for every startup and cash is the lifeline on which it starts a bumpy ride with a vision and a dream to succeed. We too were in the same boat when we decided to quit our jobs with fat pay cheques every month. India is a country where you need to physically prove before you utter the word funding, unlike the US, where people (mainly angel investors) believe in your idea and provide you a platform to kick-start your dream. We were very much aware about this scenario and decided not to invest our time behind this mirage. Instead we believed in the saying of some of the great entrepreneurs that, “Your customer should be your first investor.
When we discussed with few people that we want to develop a technology, we were laughed at because they thought that only multinationals and larger organizations can build a technology. During my career, I traveled through many countries and some of those were very small but they had offered some of the greatest technologies the world has ever seen. To my surprise, majority of those were invented by small companies in those days. I got an opportunity to travel to Israel several times and I could see technological innovations coming out from very small companies, not one or two but many. This validated my belief that one needs a mindset to build a technology and not the money or a big name.
I have been traveling to the US since last 10 years and every time I go there I find a lot of innovation in mobile technology. I have seen the US telecom market when they were on TDMA technology and have witnessed the transition to 3G that has changed everything from the way people do their business or their daily lifestyle. Without mobile adoptability this would not have been possible. I spent the last decade of my career only in mobile technology, which helped me visualize it’s potential. These experiences helped us decided to venture into mobile technology and fulfill our dream of innovating something unique.
| Snapshot |
| Name: Rahuldev Rajguru Age: 37 Education: BE + MBA Experience in business: 13+ Leadership style: Trust, Delegation and Accountability Big learning: When we were ready to take the risk, we could have taken it a bit early. We wasted lot of time in planning and thinking. |
| Factsheet |
| Name: Aquilonis Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Domain: Mobile technology and solutions Turnover: (prefer not to disclose the current revenue in public) we would like to become a 100 Cr company in 5 years. Set up in: May - 2008 Employees: 20 Headquarters: Bangalore Website: www.aquilonis.com |
| Business Model |
| Technology licensing and mobile app building |
I talked the idea with Devang sometimes in mid of 2007, he liked it but his immediate reaction was where do we get the money to build it. At that time, neither we had money to build a technology that takes a couple of years nor we had done any research on what we wanted to do. So, this posed the biggest challenge of the need to get the first customer and staying profitable. After slogging late night hours and weekends for a few months we finally decided that one day we are going to make this happen and I was sure our customers would be willing to pay.
We knew we were taking a risk and it becomes an important weighing factor when our salaies are hefty. Indian culture is very protective especially when you have a good position and fat salary, with all luxuries at your doorstep. In such a situation, inviting more opinions would not have made any sense and instead would have caused severe damage to my motivation. I had the buy-in from my wife, which was the most important aspect. The wise thing I did was not to seek what my parents would feel, instead I chose to inform them after putting in my papers so that it doesn’t leave room to explore and go back on my decision. Still they believed in us more than what we could instill in ourselves, this was the encouragement that helped us put the first step in the direction.
We were fortunate enough that we could grow our business in the tough economy where survival was the biggest issue for many companies. It is futile to approach a customer in India when you just have an idea or a prototype of your technology ready. Thankfully for us, our global experience especially working mainly with the US customers came handy.
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
