Founders Club: Aakrit Vaish / Co-Founder and CEO, Haptik

Ex: How have things changed ever since Reliance Industries acquired Haptik?

Aakrit: The strategic investment by Jio has helped Haptik secure the support and resources needed to massively scale up operations – enhancing and expanding our Enterprise CX platform that caters to 300+ clients today. This partnership has also boosted Haptik’s existing enterprise business, augmenting our ability to build innovative solutions for enterprise partners across the globe.

Ex: Could you explain Conversational AI in simple terms?

Aakrit: Conversational AI is the term that can be used to describe an AI-enabled chat solution on the brand’s website, app, and any other messaging platforms, and they are widely known as “chatbots”. Brands can leverage the capabilities of a Conversational AI solution to enhance their CX and NPS. We can deploy a Conversational AI solution to reduce customer support costs, boost customer engagement and increase sales.

Ex: How does Haptik stand out in an ocean of similar service providers?

Aakrit: Haptik is the Conversational AI industry pioneer and operates at an unparalleled scale. Haptik also enjoys the trust of some of India’s largest brands. Haptik offers an end-to-end 360° holistic CX suite to our customers. Haptik’s proprietary Natural Language Understanding (NLU) leads the industry with the most human-like conversational experience for our customers.

Haptik enables Enterprise-grade architecture with 200k CCU and 99.9% uptime. Its compliance with GDPR and ISO: 27001 ensures the highest security practices in place for your brand. Apart from having the best-in-class technology, our partners get a top-notch Customer Success team who understands their business goals & objectives and aligns the solution to meet such needs. 

Ex: Why should you add Instagram chatbots to your CX stack?

Aakrit: Messaging is an integral part of Instagram; it helps customers connect with brands personally through multiple avenues like Feed, Stories, Mentions, and DM’s. It is a solid revenue stream for many brands. It boosts sales by accelerating the decision-making process for customers, increases average cart order, improves conversions, and drives repeat purchases. The AI chatbot can collect basic user details such as email, phone number, and intent of reaching out.

Instagram chatbots can answer prices, order statuses, cancellations, and other typical questions. If a customer issue is complicated, it can be automatically escalated to a live person based on their skill sets and current workload, leading to faster responses, lower wait times, and improved customer satisfaction. Instagram chatbots can also be leveraged to drive deeper customer engagement through unique features such as Trigger keyword-based conversations, Icebreakers & Advertising CTA.

Ex: What are the current and emerging trends of WhatsApp e-commerce?

Aakrit: WhatsApp recently launched its new UI elements, a game-changer for the Conversational Commerce space. The new UI elements will boost the adoption of WhatsApp as a substantial revenue generator for multiple brands across different industries. 

WhatsApp also launched Marketing Notifications, known as non-transactional messages, to revolutionize how brands imagine customer engagement. In addition to the new UI elements, WhatsApp has also enabled brands to provide a seamless 3-click payment experience.

Ex: How are small businesses using WhatsApp to drive sales?

Aakrit: WhatsApp has been an asset for every small business. WhatsApp’s products have always prioritized the growth of SMBs. Haptik launched Interakt, a custom WhatsApp solution for small business owners who want to leverage the power of WhatsApp. With the help of WhatsApp Catalogs & Carts, brands can transform WhatsApp into a sales channel by helping customers discover & purchase products here!

The Automated Business Notifications feature enables brands to efficiently manage customer conversations and improve their experience by creating automated workflows. Businesses can also send Bulk Campaigns & Broadcasts to reach out to their customers with relevant communication to build recall and boost sales. Brands can also roll out high-performing, top-of-the-mind notifications to alert users about new product catalogues, back-in-stock goods, and much more. 

Ex: What are Haptik’s plans for growth and future endeavours?

Aakrit: We always think of expansion in terms of three different axis: new geography, new products, and new types of customers. As far as geography is concerned, we’ve expanded into four new countries this past year, all of which are in the development stage right now – North America (USA), South East Asia (Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines), Africa.

The second axis is new products. We have launched three to five new products this year, all beyond the standard chatbot offering. These include AI Agent Assist, Voice bot, Email bot, and two more products are coming up this month. And then finally, the third axis is new types of customers. Before this year, we have exclusively focused on Enterprise Customers. But this year, we launched a product for small and medium businesses, which is called Interakt. Interakt in one year is approaching almost half a million dollars in ARR. It is already contributing to roughly 5% of Haptik’s business, and in the next financial year, it could contribute to maybe 20% of Haptik’s business.

Ritesh Agarwal | Top Leaders In Tech & Auto

Ex: 3 habits you think are most important in order to be an effective leader?
Ritesh: For me, it is important to always invest in staying ahead of the curve, learning about things, preparing for meetings, so that I am able to add value to every conversation. Again, super important to be adding purpose to the job of every employee in the organization by driving their passion in the right direction. To be an effective leader, therefore, it is important to be open to new ideas, trust one’s instincts and surround yourself with people who bring more to the table in terms of insights and ideas.

Ex: The next product on your tech-wishlist?
Ritesh: My phone and laptop are my go-to gadgets and I like to keep them updated with time.

Ex: The best tech innovation according to you?
Ritesh: I would say the coming together of technology and hospitality is among the biggest examples when it comes to tech-driven innovation. The hospitality industry, till a few years ago, was human-intensive with every big and small player striving to provide quality services and amenities through its vast resource pool. However, things are taking a major turn and the hospitality landscape is transforming With technology further touching the hospitality experience, both locals and travelers can book a standardized and predictable accommodation in minutes at the touch of their phone in 2-3 simple steps. For companies, this is a great time to innovate and unleash their potential to not just meet the changing requirements of customers, but also to revolutionize old industries to make them relevant to the 21st century.

Ex: Your ideas and views on sustainable technology?
Ritesh: In terms of sustainable technology, we have enabled technology to power every aspect of hospitality from housekeeping to a simplified check-in and check-out process, further resulting in optimum utilization of resources. Our sophisticated renovation process helps in transforming a building within 14 days that saves resources while ensuring sustainable growth in the hospitality sector. We are ardent followers of ‘recycling and reusing’ and many of our assets have design aspects that are powered by this approach. Also, instead of a huge mass of construction work to create properties and thereby add to pollution levels, we acquire existing properties, renovate, and upgrade them.

Jitendra Chouksey | Top Leaders in Tech & Auto

Ex: What were the hurdles and what pushed you?

Jitendra: I do not think funding is that big a deal. Even before receiving the funding, we were a successful bootstrapped company, earning revenue of around 5 million a year. If people don’t believe in you, take that in your stride and work towards building a business that is profitable. Whatever you do, try to solve the problems of your customers.

Ex: What is one truth you believe in that most people disagree with you on?

Jitendra: I do not think there is any since I consider everybody’s opinion and act accordingly. I do not believe myself to be arrogant that there would be something only I would believe in as opposed to anybody else.

Ex: What is the one subject you think aspiring leaders should learn?

Jitendra: Most of the things that you learn as a founder are things you will not find in books. Being in fitness and sports prepares you physically as well as mentally. Sports, especially combat sports, teach you a lot of things that apply in real life. So, my advice is that if you can manage your physical and mental health well, you can achieve anything. Leadership quotes that you live by. I follow Mahatma Gandhi’s quotes and I believe he is one of the best guides to learn from on how to live life!

Ex: What has been your biggest learning in the pandemic?

Jitendra: I have always been someone who never worked from home. These 8 months have been the longest time that I have worked from and worked out at home. This was also the first time I realized that I could work out from home.

Ex: Some productivity apps and technologies you use in your daily life?

Jitendra: Skype, Zoom for managing the team, and GitHub

Ex: How do you plan to scale up?

Jitendra: We are already scaling up. There are millions of people worldwide who need education about health and fitness. We do not sell any products or gimmicks; instead, we teach people how to adopt fitness.

Ex: Who would be your closest competitor?

Jitendra: Our competition is ourselves. We look at what we have done in the past and look to better it.

Ex: What are your plans for introducing your own range of fitness gadgets?

Jitendra: That is not our expertise. Our expertise and USP lies in educating people. We would like to focus on that. There might be a scenario where we might tie-up with a company that specializes in those. However, that is not on our priority list.

Anupam Mittal | Top Leaders In Tech & Auto

Ex: What is one truth you believe in that most people disagree with you on?
Anupam: I believe there are a lot of truths out there waiting to be discovered. Even if most people deny this, there are indeed many things that we are yet to know and yet to figure out. The truths that we believe to be true, aren’t necessarily true. Historically speaking, we always have a perspective of many historical events. But as they say, history is a narrative of the victorious. So it is quite possible that the historical events we know today could simply be propaganda.

Ex: What is the one subject you think aspiring leaders should learn?
Anupam: The most important one is, you have to lead by example. Surprisingly, I have seen this more in India than abroad. A lot of times we start assuming that the rules that apply to us may not apply to others. I feel that is a big shortcoming. For
youngsters, it is important to understand that the rules that apply to others, apply to them as well. Secondly, leadership has to be about learning. It should not be about dictating. Leadership is about being humble and vulnerable and accepting that just because you are in a leadership position, you are not invulnerable.

Ex: One book you keep coming back to?
Anupam: There was a book that I read in 1995 called 2020 Vision by Stanley Davis and Bill Davidson. If you read through that book, it gives you a systematic approach to the way things happen in the contemporary world. Everything written in that book has unfolded verbatim. So I find that quite fascinating and I keep revisiting it frequently.

Ex: Leadership quotes that you live by?
Anupam: There are many quotes that I follow since all of them point out to a different aspect of life. While it is difficult to pinpoint a single one that I adore the most, there is one by Roosevelt that goes, “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of
deeds could have done them better.” I also draw a lot of lessons from the Gita.

Ex: What has been your biggest learning in the pandemic especially, with dependency on apps and the digital medium increasing drastically?
Anupam: The biggest thing that I am most amazed by, is our adaptability. The way we have adapted to the new way of life, new technologies and whatnot have really surprised me. To me, it is a deeper statement about the human spirit and our need to conquer everything that is thrown our way. So I think that is the biggest lesson for me in the pandemic.

Ex: Shaadi.com must have seen an influx of activity on the platform in the lockdown, what was the key trend that you noticed during this phase?
Anupam: Unfortunately, finding a life partner in India is seen as a very high-pressure situation. The way matchmaking or marriage works in India is completely different from how it works in the West. All our intent is to take away the pressure that is created by Indians during this phase. We saw a huge upsurge in engagements and marriages during this lockdown period. When people logged on to shaadi.com, they realised it is not just a matrimonial site, but a platform for planned marriages and lifetime commitments. So that worked significantly in our favour.

Deepinder Goyal, Founder and CEO of Zomato

EXHIBIT: What’s the story behind the name “Zomato”?
Deepinder: When we started out in 2008 we were called Foodiebay. One of the reasons why we decided to change the name in late 2010 from Foodiebay to Zomato was that we wanted a powerful brand name. After endless debate over several cups of coffee, we came up with the name Zomato. We decided to keep the idea of food at the center and choose a name that is short, easy to remember and makes people think of food. Zomato’s got a zing to it and is originally a play on the word ‘Tomato’. We also wanted to avoid any confusion with “ebay”; we wanted to be sure that we weren’t taking any chances when creating a brand we wanted to take international at the time. Focusing on brand recall and communicating what we stand for is of primary importance to any consumer internet company, and I think we have got most of it right with Zomato.

EXHIBITWhen did you get your first funding? Was it tough to raise fund or a cake walk for Zomato?
DG: Raising funds for a consumer facing product was far from easy back in 2008-10. When we started out, we had initially raised a small sum of money from our family and a couple of friends to ensure we could hit the ground running. However raising the seed round was difficult; we were struggling at the time to find investors who’d write us our first cheque.

We worked at Bain for a year and a half while dedicating weekends to Foodiebay when we started out. By the time we left Bain, we had already launched in 4 cities (NCR, Kolkata, Mumbai& Pune) and had a handful of clients on board. It was getting difficult to manage both and before one could affect the other, we decided to quit and work full-time on Foodiebay; luckily, by then, we had we also had Gunjan on board to work on the tech side of things.In 2010, Sanjeev and his team saw the potential in what we were building and gave us our first cheque of a Million dollars. InfoEdge has been an investor in Zomato ever since, and still owns majority stake in the company.

EXHIBITZomato has travelled a long way since its inception in 2008. What made you come up with the idea? What’s biggest leap of Zomato since then?
DG: At Zomato, we started out will collecting menus for restaurants around Gurgaon and put up these scanned menus on the office intranet. When we starting see a lot of traction there, Pankaj and I then went on to build this database and soon we had gone live with menus for 1,200 restaurants in Delhi NCR in July 2008, which expanded to 2,000 restaurants by the end of that year. We have now grown our footprint from having presence in 4 cities in India in 2008, to listing over I million restaurants in over 10,000 cities, across 23 countries.

We have come a long way since we started out 8 years ago and as a technology company we need to constantly build further from where we started. We started out primarily as a restaurant search and discovery service on web, and what we’re building today is 100x more complex. Over the past few years, we’ve been extremely focused on building products for our users, and restaurant partners – to help make dining experiences unthinkably easy.

We have diversified our product offering beyond just search and discovery to adding a social layer, then expanding into adjacencies such as online food delivery, table reservations, white label apps for restaurants, Zomato for business – a marketing tool for restaurant owners, and now our own point of sales system for restaurants.On the business front – we have had a very successful launch of our food delivery business in India and the UAE over the last year. We operationally broke-even in our businesses in India, the Middle East (UAE, Lebanon and Qatar) and Southeast Asia (Philippines and Indonesia) earlier this Feb. If the revenue growth continues as we expect it to, we aim to operationally break-even as a global business by Dec 2016.

EXHIBIT: What is your opinion about the future of the Food-tech industry in India?
DG: For the past two years, the food tech space has seen a lot of activity from both entrepreneurs and investors. We’ve seen a conscious effort and the biggest strides along three fronts.One – rising digital adoption amongst restaurants to help them create great dining experiences. From cloud based POS systems which help restaurants with inventory and menu management, better customer insights to using digital platforms to communicate and reach out to their potential customers, the most successful restaurateurs are able use a suite of tools available to them to enhance customer experience around great food. We’ve also seen dark/cloud kitchens grow in the recent past and the sector today has the capability and infrastructure to see more of such scalable concepts grow.

Two – building stronger communication channels between restaurants and users. Convenience services such as online ordering and table reservation have made the whole ordering in or dining out experience as seamless as possible for both – the users, as well as the restaurants.While we’ve seen a lot of food-tech start-ups mushroom and help grow the market overall over the last couple of years, it is now also great to see an increasing effort on getting the business fundamentals right with more companies and investors largely focused on building the food-tech space in India for the longer term.

The focus on digitisation of discovery, communication, delivery, reservation and restaurant operations overall will help in creating greater dining experiences for users. We will also see convergence of these business models in different forms to provide greater value to both merchants as well as the users in the near future.With more and more players entering the market, what will set one apart from the other is the overall customer experience and unit economics. All metrics of customer adoption of a product, the frequency of use and the end conversion will be driven by the quality of service a product offers. In any business, you are only as good as your customers think you are.

EXHIBIT: What’s the most common trend among Zomato users?
DG: We get most of our traffic when users are looking to make a decision about ordering food or eating out, i.e. just before lunch and dinner hours. I think a common trend among most Zomato users is that they are extremely passionate about food, and they like the discovery aspect the product allows for by providing them all the information they need to be able to make an educated choice on where to eat or what to order.

EXHIBIT: Blend of technology and food – that’s Zomato in a single phrase. How do you justify this?
DG: Well, that’s rather self-explanatory, isn’t it?

EXHIBIT: Tell us some unknown facts about yourself.
DG: My first startup back in 2005, was an online food delivery website called Foodlet. It was probably the first online food delivery business in India.

EXHIBIT: Tell us about some inspirational books that you have read and would recommend.
DG: The last book that I read and was inspired by was Leading by Sir Alex Ferguson. The other two books that stuck a chord with me at different points of my entrepreneurial journey were Peter Thiel’s Zero to One and The Hard Thing About Hard Things, by Ben Horowitz. On a personal note though, I enjoy collecting the Classics for my home library.

EXHIBIT: Inspirational tips to the startup founders who are trying to come up with innovative ideas like yours.
DG: I think when you start building something for the right reasons – you have identified a gap that you want to bridge, or have identified an even more efficient way of doing something that already exists; if you can do this with focus, on the right foundation, and can build a good team around your idea that shares your vision – that’s half the battle won.

The modern customers and businesses rely heavily on the internet to find products and services they need, and people will love a service if it makes their lives simpler. Multiple players will definitely continue to emerge because of the massive potential and reach of the internet. However, what’s going to set a particular player apart is not just a unique product and service offering, but also a real and sustainable business model built around sound unit economics.

EXHIBIT: Talking of India, and adjacencies – how big do you think is the food delivery market?
DG: While the food delivery market in India is huge (between the organized and unorganized segment it has been pegged between $1.4B – $2B), the online food delivery segment still has a lot of room to grow. The normal human behaviour for ordering food is still to pick up the phone and call. So our largest competitor in this segment is still the phone.

As of now, our online food delivery business is growing at a healthy 30% month-on-month, we recently crossed 33,000 orders a day across India and UAE – and this is with only 2.5% of our active user base searching for restaurants having placed orders online.

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