WebEngage Turns 5. Happy Anniversary, My Love
Today, the starry eyed boys, with humble beginnings, turn 5 old inhabitants of the wisdom kingdom.
Today, my goals and ambitions are 5 times fiercer than what they used to be an year ago.
Today, reflecting back on the last 5 years of my life, I am a very happy and proud man.
Hey WebEngage! Happy 5th anniversary, my love. It’s been so fulfilling to see you grow each day.
It’s been one hell of a ride. I have a lot to talk about the journey. I am gonna save it for later though — when Ankit and I finally deliver a global SaaS enterprise that you can benchmark against the behemoths. It might take us another 5 years to get there. The good news is that with each passing day, we are getting younger, wiser and more aggressive about this goal.
I, usually, suck at acknowledging people’s contribution towards building this company. With this post, I intend to change that. Here are some key contributors that have helped build the brand you love and admire -
1. Team
I am making this confession public for the first time in my life — I’d never want to work for a boss like myself.
I am that guy who believes in, and ruthlessly practices, “good is not good enough”. I am that guy who keeps moving targets and goals upwards, as soon as the last set of goals are met. In this process of meeting and setting goals, I always forget to acknowledge the blood and sweat that has gone into meeting last set of goals. If you are a team member reading this, please be aware that I love you as much as I love the company we are building together. You make WebEngage happen. And, nobody knows it better than I do.
There’s something Ankit and I have done right. We are now a team of 70+ amazing men and women. 8 out of our first 10 hires are still with us. Overall attrition has been less than 1%. All of this, in a market where b2b startups are not considered sexy and prospective employers would throw money like cheese balls to acquire employees. Huh!
Our culture code, ethics and guiding principles are talked about in very high regards. For me, it is very humbling and rewarding. If not for a team that believes in our core values, it would have been impossible to deliver on the promise of building a great company.
2. Customers
Today, our subscription contracts with the likes of MakeMyTrip, eBay, Yatra, Avaya etc will also turn 5 year old. These were the very first set of enterprise customers who signed up for WebEngage as soon as we launched. They continue to be great users of our product. Our new avatar is helping us go a step further with our customers. Within 3 months of launch, our b2c marketing cloud has become the communication backbone for companies like Flipkart, Veritas, Taj Hotels, Pluralsight, Dream11, Housejoy etc.
If you are a customer reading this, we exist because of you. Thank you.
We have made our mistakes — critical bugs leading to erroneous outcomes in reports and functionality, scaling woes and unusable features. We have learned from our customers and they continue to shape our product vision and roadmap.
3. Investors & Partners
Jul 15 — Jun 16 (12 months) was a very tough phase for us. We were going through a re-build phase of the product and organization. If you have done this before with thousands of paying customer on-board, you’d know what I am talking about. We had to let some really large customers churn because of a different focus. Overall, the phase was turbulent. I am super proud to have the likes of GTI Capital, Blume Ventures and IAN (Rajan Anandan + other angels) as our investors who have been supportive of all our (silly and great) decisions ever since.
WebEngage has a strong partner network comprising several small and mid-sized agencies who deliver great marketing automation experience to their clients via our product. Most of these businesses had no incentive to do so for the longest period of time. I thank each one of them to take our product to nooks and corners of the world where I couldn’t even have dreamt of us going.
A special thanks to Aneesh and the team at Capillary for being an incredible partner. Our relationship is kicking some serious ass for both the companies. The hard work put together is starting to reflect on our respective P&L statements. Respect and kudos!
4. Competition
I know you find this amusing. So, do I.
No matter who you are — that big fat enterprise or that recently_funded_cute_startup — thank you! You are the reason we continue to build a great product and experience — something that your customers sorely miss in you. Unless you have been living in the cave, you’d have noticed that we have started drilling a hole in your wall already. I’ll meet you on the battleground.
5. You, friends, family and the ecosystem
The fact that you are reading this post, makes you a part of my story. A big thanks to each of you for being a believer. I couldn’t have done this without you. You have my promise — the best is yet to come.
Onwards and upwards.
- Avlesh
