ABSYZ — Anshul & Balesh
ABSYZ Software Consulting is a dynamically growing firm in the salesforce ecosystem. The broad gamut of services that it offers include consulting, implementation, audit, support, staff augmentation and training services.
The name — ABSYZ is derived from the Sanskrit word ‘AB’ that stands for the state of being in the Now or Present, and fused with the word ‘SYZ’ to overlay it with futuristic tones. The name also symbolizes their capabilities in providing with solutions from A to Z, and everything in between. In a short span of four years, they have had more than a 100 successful engagements and implementations. ABSYZ is co-founded by Anshul Jain and Balesh Lakshminarayanan.
With over 10 years of experience and 5 salesforce.com certifications, Anshul is the CEO of ABSYZ. He is an alumni of T.A.Pai Management Institute and has been part of companies like Hexagon Metrology, Infosys and so on. While he is not playing the multi-faceted role of CEO and Consultant, Anshul spends his time responding to queries in salesforce.com answer community, making him one of the Top 15 community experts of all time.
Balesh is the CTO of ABSYZ. With over 10 years of experience in IT, Consulting and Telecoms, Balesh has been a part of many transformational projects for clients across the world. His solutions are focused on long term usability and strong impact on the bottom-line which explains his natural flair for strategy and planning. Balesh has prior experience in companies like Infosys, Alcatel-Lucent and is an alumni of T.A.Pai Management Institute and School of Engineering, Cochin University. He also holds 5 salesforce.com certifications
What is ABSYZ? What is the issue that the venture is trying to address and what makes you confident that it is a winning proposition.
“ABSYZ fills a particularly interesting gap in the service industry by providing high-end consulting and implementation services at competitive rates by leveraging the location and cost advantage without compromising quality. The big system integrators are expensive but for a technology like salesforce.com, skill set is key. Infrastructure requirements for development center are minimal as everything is on cloud. We leverage these advantages and solve the problem if providing high value consulting (similar to Deloitte, Accenture etc) at affordable rates.”
What was the key factor/s that led you to take the plunge?
“Both Co-founders have the right mix of Salesforce.com consulting experience and solid management background. Entrepreneurship was always in back of our mind and at some point we realized that it is easier to make something we know better than start from scratch.”
Where (if) did you meet your other co-founders / business partners? Please describe each one briefly.
“Anshul Jain and I (Balesh Lakshminarayanan) are batchmates and close friends from B-school (TAPMI 2010 batch). Immediately after college, both were placed in a startup, then Infosys and at some point we decided to explore the world on our own. Anshul moved to Intergraph (now Hexagon Metrology) and traveling the world as a business consultant. I was based out of Geneva as Engagement Lead for a key account in Infosys. It was in 2013 that our paths crossed again when Anshul came for his honeymoon to Switzerland. In a small hotel in Lucern, Anshul opened his laptop and we ran through some numbers and before we knew it the decisions were made subconsciously. I came back to India and quit. Anshul quit a month earlier. ABSYZ was already registered and we had started the background work much earlier and then there was no stopping us. We had the right skillset, network and risk taking mindset which attracted customers and talent equally.”
How did you manage the initial capital?
“ABSYZ is completely bootstrapped and initial capital came entirely from our savings.”
What were the first 90 days like?
“First 90 days were like a horror movie. Dark, bleak and scary. In the excitement of entrepreneurship both of us quit our jobs but as first generation entrepreneurs, first time in our life expenses were more than income and montly salary credit sms stopped. First 90 days were mostly full of sleepless nights. We recruited some very good people on the way and were literally paying them from our savings. Then we took a crazy decision of spending more and going to US for a conference (Dreamforce 2014) and that worked for us. It took sometime for the first few clients and invoices to clear but once the cashflow started in about 3-4 months, we were more confident and eventually broke even in a year or so.”
Have you managed to raise any funding — angel / seed, etc?
“None so far.”
What is the revenue stream & profitability?
“We are now a 50 employee company with about $500,000 revenue in 2015-2016. We have started acquiring some long term contracts as well and have close to 20 clients now. We are looking at reaching the $1 million revenue mark before 2016-2017 FY.”
What is your guiding philosophy when it comes to doing business?
“ABSYZ core values are:
- Uncompromising Integrity
- Absolute Credibility
- Best in Class Innovation
- Wow customer experience
- Passion and Courage to experiment
​With an attrition of less than 5%, I am sure we are doing something right which ensures that more and more people are believing in us and joining our success story.”
Where do you see yourself 3 years from now?
“Initially when we started, we were looking at 3-4 years, 30-40 member team and then an acquisition but things changed very fast. Recently we registered ABSYZ Inc in California, we have started working on some products as well and things are looking bright for Salesforce.com as an industry. Thus our concentration for now is to improve our team, skill set and work on our brand. We have started hiring from colleges and looking at a team of 100+ by end of 2017.”