Insightful thoughts from our CEO Niranjan 'Niji' Sabharwal
Cofounder & CEO @AgentSync | Enthusiastic about the intersection of business & technology
To raise or not to raise? Given the recent capital market volatility, it has become a much debated topic among both early and later stage founders - especially those challenging incumbents and copycats. AgentSync was bootstrapped for the first 18 months. While that time was a bit painful, it ingrained capital efficiency into our DNA. When we decided to raise capital, we were cash flow positive, but saw a massive opportunity to become a market leader in a relatively short amount of time by accelerating R&D. The cost/benefit was clearly worthwhile - we were also extremely fortunate to have attracted supportive investors that believed in our vision and ability to execute. ➡ Control your own destiny - running a software business is expensive and requires constant prioritization of short term vs long term goals. The constant threat of running out of money will pressure the business to make decisions that favor short term results, a healthy warchest gives you the time and space to focus on long term results – things like enterprise readiness, product hardening, security, and documentation. In addition to the warchest, the braintrust that comes from amazing investors, board members, and the highly experienced personnel you are able to bring on, is priceless as you scale and navigate new territory. ➡ Focus on building and delivering value - subscription pricing is an obvious lever to pull on when attempting to gain market share but it's a short term solve. While lowering your price to beat the incumbent's price can be tempting, you are effectively creating a race to the bottom where the cheapest solution wins. With sufficient funding you can earn your pricing by playing the long game by delivering true value to the customer in terms of proven and documented business outcomes - not everything can, or should, be commoditized. ➡ Win it in the field - we took a different approach to becoming the best by heavily investing in product, engineering, and customer delivery – early and consistently – to keep up with innovation... all of which take capital. As a proof point, we will invest tens of millions of dollars this fiscal year on R&D and about half as much on customer delivery. This strategy paid off big time (our annual revenue eclipses that investment) and we now have a market leading solution with a significant, defendable moat driven by product capabilities and proven customer success. Early stage fundraising can be a game-changer as long as it is done with intention and with the support of investors that believe in your vision and ability to execute.
