From A Bootstrapped Business To A 9-Figure Empire: I still remember the first time I met with Abhyank, I’m still amazed by the simplicity of this person, it never felt like talking to a CEO who manages two companies at the same time with utmost sincerity and smoothness.
The work environment at his office is so amazing and so entertaining, but there is no compromise with the work. Everyone gives their 100% in the work and Abhyank is ready to help each and every one. I was intrigued by all these and my curiosity pushed me to know more about the founder,
It was fortunate that I got to work in close association with Abhyank and got a chance to know about him, his work ethic, values and principles. A successful founder can teach you many things from their experiences.
About Abhyank Srinet
Abhyank Srinet is the founder and CEO of a million-dollar Indian startup, MiM-Essay and MentR-Me which specializes in education consultancy. Abhyank is himself an alumnus of a top foreign school, ESCP. He graduated with Masters’s in Management (MiM) program.
Abhyank’s entrepreneurial journey started during his study days only at ESCP and He founded the company MiM-Essay, he managed his studies and allotted enough time to both his studies as well business and with his consistent efforts and the distinct approach he grew the business up by 400% within two years.
Currently, Abhyank is managing two businesses, along with MiM-Essay he is also working on MentR-Me which is a dedicated student portal to aid them with their dreams to study abroad with the use of advanced profile evaluation and school selection.
Core Principles, Bootstrapping Journey, Funding And Business Model
Ques1. With so much neck to neck competition in your domain, how were you able to differentiate yourself from others? Was it distinctive strategy or values that set you apart from the crowd?
Ans1. I guess there was nothing distinctive thing that we followed, we just followed a customer-centric approach. We always treated the customers as our own family members. Whenever we received any grievances from even a customer or if any of our customers were not satisfied then we would all become so restless and try to figure out what we could do to solve their problem.
There is one thing that I strongly believe in, that there is no perfection in this world, but there are alot of betters. So, I never wanted any perfection, but I always made my team look for the betterment of everything. Being good is valuable but when you look for improvements and try to make things better, that is priceless. So we always look for a better way to serve our customers and not just this I always make my team make improvements in their skill set as well as their overall self.
Upskilling is something we strongly believe in, and I make sure that my people constantly upgrade themselves even if they don’t like it. So, I guess that is something that helped us alot.
Ques2. What is the valuable piece of advice that you would like to give to others, is there any golden bullet to boost up in the process, to have fast results?
Ans2, In my opinion, and what I have learnt in this journey is that when you create something big, there is no golden bullet, you have to go through the process with a lot of dedication, hardwork and obsession towards what you are doing. There is no trick to an overnight success. The only thing that will help you enjoy the process would be your obsession.
You have to be obsessed with your work, there is no black and white, and there is nothing like work-life balance, the life is in greyscale and you have to deal with the things in this way only. You have to be obsessed with your work, you have to be obsessed with creating values, and creating new things.
Learning should be something that you should always cling to because this is the only way to improve the outcomes, you need to keep on training your leaders, and your team to speed up the process a little. If you are passionate, if you are obsessed with your work, then it will definitely work out one day, but you need to be patient, it took us almost four years, so there were four years of immense hardwork, dedication and focus.
If anyone can do this, then they can also be successful.
Ques3. Have there been any ah-ha moments if you look from your business perspective? Also, are there any plans to exceed your funding for your business?
Ans3. Now that I look at it, the ah-ha moment in this journey has been when we saw our competitors raising funds, and then we also felt like we too needed some funds, but then we talked to some people and realized that for a business, funding is required when you are not profitable, funding comes at a very later stage.
Being value-based it was never a need to raise funds as we always took calculated risks and never made any unnecessary risky investments. Playing it safe wouldn’t be something that defines us, I would rather say we took strategically risks, we always analyzed if the loss that we may incur, is bearable or not and that helped us a lot to generate good ROI and also helped in retaining profits.
One more important thing in which we invested were new people, new items, new tools and softwares. Overall whatever is needed by a business. In my opinion, risks are essential but not necessary. When you are in the education industry, each and every action and decision is going to affect the education of the other person. We did a lot of experimentation and see what works and what does not. When we arrived at more profitable things, we stuck to them. So rather than looking out for funds, we looked for more profitable things through experimentation.
There is one more advantage that bootstrapping has, and that is the control that you have over your business, this control is not there when you have a board of investors in front of you. Your decisions are your own. We experimented with our own funds and looked for what worked the best.
And now, we are planning to exceed some funds in our new business model that is MentR-Me, although it is already doing well there is still some room for development as it is a different business model which is a deferred revenue model, so for that, we may need new funds and we are already in talks with some people in this regards.
Ques4. Were there any specific tools that you used in your journey? If yes, what were the tools that were the most helpful?
Ans4. In my opinion, the tool that helped us alot in this journey was innovation. Our main focus has always been to find out new and innovative ways to provide value to our leads. We also made some tools through which they can serve themselves, and if they find it valuable, they come to the call.
No one is going to take services from you if you do not provide them with the necessary information, our motive was to make them believe that, “ok, this one is working out for me, I can take this”. Our free services have been giving us many leads, it is a constant working and developing process.
In the early stages, we didn’t have any tracking systems, and we were missing out on some important data such as what was the source of the lead, who took the call, and the number of follow-ups done. With the help of innovation now we have access to all these data. I am personally involved in all this as I am in love with building new tools and new stuff.
Ques5. Every business faces some unpleasant hiccups in its journey. What were your unpleasant hiccups in your journey?
Ans5. Creating something that provides value is not a task, it is a journey. And in order to create something you need to constantly learn and improve. Sometimes what we think are our worst times, eventually, turn out to be the best ones.
Another thing that we have learned is hiring. Yes, hiring is also that we have learnt through experience over time. Most of the other people out their hire on the basis of skills, but that is something that I do not look for in a person. In my opinion, skills are something that can be taught over time. If the person is learning-oriented then he will eventually develop the necessary skills. The eagerness to learn is the value that is most important. That is why we do value-based hiring, not skill-based.
The third thing that is important is prioritization, in the initial days, we didn’t plan and prioritized and as a result of it, we wasted a lot of time on the wrong things. You need to allocate your time to your work with great diligence, by doing this you will never miss out on the important things and will not waste your time on wrong things.
Ques6. Do you have any plans for the funding?
Ans6. That is the most fortunate part, that we have never had any need of funding, we are a completely bootstrapped business. Being self-sufficient has helped us a lot, and for any business, it is very important that you understand this thing as soon as possible, You need to be cautious about your money. I feel like when a business receives funds, they become somewhat ignorant and take unnecessary risks.
Luckily, I have some really good friends that helped me a lot when I started this business. We have assigned particular tasks to a particular person. For example, We have Abhiyudaya who handle all the tech part, and then there is Rohit who is responsible for all the operations and dashboard creation. And finally, I personally handle all the sales and marketing parts. Working like this with diversity and proper plans, helped us to grow our business multifold without the need for funding. There is one more thing that we avoided and that is burning the funds. Instead, we kept on trying the short experiments and that thing I guess gave us large benefits.
This year I have seen a two times growth in our team. We have now reached a model of a deferred revenue system. So now, I feel like is the right time to raise funds. Our company has multiplied now, for which I guess there is a need for funds, otherwise, if your business is profitable and it is functioning well, then I guess there is no need to raise any funds.