Gunjan Aggarwal - Founder at Virre

Welcome to another Founder Wisdom pod. We have Gunjan Nagarwal with us today. She's a new founder. It's been 3 months since she started Wire, or Wire, should I say. She's head of data and analytics and a board advisor, worked at a bunch of pretty prominent companies. It has a great corporate background. I see Capgemini, Novartis, and a whole bunch of other great companies here. So Gunjan, welcome to the podcast. Tell us a bit more about yourself, who you are, what you've been up to.

Yeah, thank you, Charles, for inviting me. Hi everyone, Gunjan Agarwal. I have spent 25 years in the corporate world at the intersection of data, digital analytics. As in my last job, I was head of data analytics in the pharma organization. Throughout my career, I changed cities, countries, jobs. One thing realized that every opportunity get unlocked by the relationships. And even if you look at in the AI era, AI is having a lot of intelligence, but the human relationships are becoming more and more important. But we don't have often a framework that how do we network better, how do we build the relationships. That's why I came up with Vaya.ai, which is a platform which help you in nurturing, organizing, and connecting with intention with your professional relationships.

Interesting, and tell me about the jump that you made from corporate to founder, like a lot of people, yeah, they stay in corporate for 25 years, there's no going back, right? It's like golden handcuffs, why did you decide to launch something and what makes you think you can be successful, and yes, other founders that have been doing that for 10 years?

Yeah, Charles, I always take it one day at a time, and I believe that corporate has its own pros and cons, has its own beauty of you learn a lot of things in the corporate. But at that stage of my life, and when I felt there are certain gaps, especially with AI coming up, that gap of human relationship is becoming more and more important. During the COVID when things change, you you started more of hybrid work, you're working remotely. That's where I start feeling that the human relationships are very important. And there should be a mechanism where we focus more on it. Now I live in New York, and you can see that a lot of IRL events are happening more and more and becoming more prominent. So that's where to give the new generation, I feel that this stage of my life, it's becoming important. That's I, with my knowledge, with my experience, I fill those gaps we have and give to the coming generation, to the existing generation, something which they can use as a tool to unlock the opportunities and the career trajectories they are wishing for. Now, when you say about— it is definitely very different experience. In the job, you start at 8 o'clock at one time and you end at one time. But in the entrepreneurship, you have to motivate yourself every day. Not ever— not— you will not achieve the success from day one. But for me, I'm— I feel I'm lucky that I have a good amount of network, which is helping me in all the aspects, whether it's sales, whether it's marketing, guiding me, mentoring me, any— even sometimes emotionally, if you feel low, you call your friend and they help you in that motivation. I truly believe in this project. I truly believe in Vaya. And I already see that the interviews I have taken, I have close to 80 to 100 people who are already using the app in just 2 weeks of launching it. So there is a huge potential which will grow. The challenge what I see is the reach, the more and more people, because so far they were not having a tool. Only LinkedIn was there. LinkedIn is good to make connections, but to convert those connections into relationship, there is no tool which exists in the market. That's where, um, I built Vyre and I believe in that.

Interesting. Yeah, there's so many like social networks out there in New York. You have Chief.com, right? Which is like huge, has a like two decades, uh, track record. It's like woman CEO first, right? Like how will you distinguish yourself from these in the, the capital of networking of the world?

Yeah. So Charles, we complement Chief. Chief is a community where they are bringing people together and there are many such communities in the world. What we say that you meet these people in whether it's an event, whether in your job, or whether outside job for a dinner, or even in these communities like Chief, you forget people. You meet them, you step out of it, you don't remember. And within a week, if you don't remember, you lose that contact, connect. That's where Wire comes in. Whenever you meet, wherever you meet these people, you bring them together in the Wire. In Wire, you organize that those, those connections, you tag them properly, then AI-powered insights you will get. You will get the reminders that whom to reach out, why to reach out, when to reach out, and what is the script you can have. And the beauty of the tool is that it maps with your goals. So it's not saying that go and meet everyone you have met in last 10 days or 1 month or 2 months. It's very focused approach. Because we live in the world of distractions, you know, we keep scrolling reels on the different social media platforms. In that very focused approach, where you want to be, and to be there, what type of network you should have. And when you are meeting those networks, don't lose that network. Very simple.

You say you complement them, right? So are you a software that They use, like, I'm still not clear on what is your distinction. Turn your relationships into your unfair advantage. So is it a software that allows me to speak to the right people in my network?

Yes, it's a software as a service. It's an app which will be eventually, we are targeting that how the communities can use. In that you upload your connections, like the LinkedIn profiles of the people you have met. When after uploading you start organizing them. So you put those tags that whether, let's say, as a founder, they are investors, they are media people, they are other peer founders or technical people who potentially I can hire. So once you tag them, organize them, you re— the AI will give you recommendation that what is the common element, what type of things you can talk to that person. And then within the app, you can talk to them in— you can reach out to them in 3 ways. You can email them, you can text them, Or you can schedule the call and you can even send them the LinkedIn message. So with all this connectivity, whatever you talk to them, that intelligence comes back and it gives you the next recommendation that now you have spoken to them, there is an opportunity for you. Let's say somebody, co-founder, says that, hey, I can connect you with another investor. So it, it take out those opportunities for you and it recommend that don't forget you have to reconnect with that person at this time. Okay.

Got it. Um, why wouldn't LinkedIn build such a thing?

That's a good question, Charles. I'm heavy user of LinkedIn for years. I have 21,000 followers. I do see a lot of gap over the time by heavily using the LinkedIn, that there is a lot of potential, that new features which can be used by the LinkedIn, but it's not there. But in AI is coming, things are difficult. 85% of the jobs currently are get filled through networking. So it's a tool which you can use with combination of your LinkedIn. LinkedIn is still required. LinkedIn is to make connections. But that AI intelligence layer over that is Vyre, which help you in nurturing those connections. I can't remember my 21,000 people I connected to, but who are my important, especially when I did my career transition, whom to reach out for the help, at what stage, that's where Vajra is helping my people, like founders like me.

And the initial wedge, will it be to find investors? Will it be to find a job? Or would it be to find sales? Will you focus on one of these at first?

Yeah, right now we are focused on communities who can use the app. And second, other, founders and professionals.

When will the tool be available to use, right? Because I have a quote-unquote chief growth officer and he built something for me and like this in like one day. I just upload my full LinkedIn CSV/Social Graph and in like one day he had a tool built for me which I can reach out to people. So when can I actually try your tool?

Yeah, so Charles, last month we did a soft launch. All the people who requested the invite from us, up close to 100 people, we rolled out the tool to them. They are providing, they have provided a good amount of feedback. With those feedback, we made some minor changes in it and we are going to open it soon for everyone to be used. But you can request an invite anytime and so that we have you in our database.

Okay. Are you a solo founder in that one? Are you taking the coding in your own hands?

So my background, I've been, I started my journey as I'm a computer science engineer. I started my journey coding and everything technical hands-on. And over the time, then becoming a leader, I started looking at more at a broader level, that whole omnichannel data analytics, data strategy. But I still have my hands on, but because I have to wear many hats, I've hired some consultants who are helping me in that. But that whole AI prompt engineering, everything, I'm equally contributing to that. Then I also hired the marketing people for the volume which we have to generate across the channels. So I do have a team, but I'm also equally involved in the process.

Out of the hundreds of users, how many actually are paying for the tool and what are the pricing packages?

Yeah, so Charles, right now the tool for those early founding members, we are giving them for 2 months of trial period. So the payment will start once after 2 months because they started just last month. And there are 2 tiers of pricing we have for the founding members. It depends on the number of connects, connections you can add into the tool and certain limitation on the usage of AI and the recommendation. So there is a bracket out there. So based on that, the first is close to $25 and the second one is $49.

Okay, interesting. And say I pay you $49 and my goal is to increase sales, what kind of results can I expect from using your tool?

Yeah, any relationship, Charles, is over the time compounds, like the way 401(k). 401(k). When you start investing in 401(k), 401(k), you don't expect that returns to be on the day one, even one year or 10 years. You get it compounded over the time. That exactly the relationships are. So you start building those relationships, you nurture, and eventually you will start seeing that you are not losing, you're not any of your connections you have built over the time. That's your social currency. That currency is very important. And time to time when you need, let's say you need people to connect you with, refer you somewhere, then you have already the connections. You will not feel shy when you're suddenly calling out of the blue somebody and say that, hey, I need this help. Yeah. Because you're nurturing those connections over the time and they would be high chances of helping you because you have been consistent on that. Or that's the reason you will start seeing impact as soon as possible.

Okay. Um, are you raising capital for that one?

Yes. Now we are in a stage that we need capital. It's because the tool has been rolled out. There are 8,200 people who are already using it. We have proved that point that the tool has the potential. Now, for the scaling purpose and even reaching out to the B2B segment, we are raising the money.

Okay, and what's— how much are you raising and when do you think you'll have revenue?

We are trying for $5 million, uh, Charles, because we need that for the scaling the product plus also the marketing, like 5 is, I would say, the maximum amount. And we, I would say, we need that by end of the year. So that by the time it's right now bootstrapped, we can, we have a runway till for next 2-3 months, we continue on it. But once a tool requires a lot of marketing scale, that's where we need the money.

Okay, and when are you gonna get revenue? Because no investor is gonna pull the trigger on $5 million with zero revenue or a couple of thousands even.

Yeah, Charles, so if you see it's right now 2 months of free, so it means we are expecting from August onwards more paid customers.

Yes, but it's only 100, right? Like the users. So let's say, I don't know, 10% convert on that on $25, that's $2.5K of revenue.

Yeah.

You're asking for $5 million. I'm just asking how will you make yourself attractive to investors in that tough market? It's a tough fundraising market.

Yeah, so that's where we are going out in more customer acquisition. A lot of marketing initiatives are there. We recently did a Tech Week event where we got 400 people signed up for that. And we rolled out for, we have sent them the details, the demo and everything so that they can also sign up. So we have potential more events coming up, more of marketing scale. Definitely we are targeting that this year at least we should have 10,000 active customers on our platform.

Yeah, and the website, I feel you should communicate like very quickly how you're different, right? With the social graph, like if I feel there's like too much word, not enough graphs in there just to, convey and communicate like what you guys do? 'Cause again, this has been attempted like so many times, not even in the AI age, right? Like before AI was a thing. Why? 'Cause LinkedIn is not suggesting this function to your network, right? LinkedIn, you're sort of moat against LinkedIn. Like LinkedIn's too lazy to do that. They've been acquired by Microsoft and they're not doing anything with that platform. It's been stagnating for years. Although it is growing ironically because LinkedIn has a network mode, right? Like it's just like X, people won't go out of X 'cause everyone's in there, but yeah, still a crappy platform, still low innovation. Elon hasn't changed much since it's got acquired. I feel if you could just be like, your network is your network type of thing and show that, yeah, your bank account is sort of like who you hang out with or who you know, and, give people a quick way to monetize their network while not sounding salesy, right? And just be like, hey, add value to this guy, send this guy there. A highly innovative approach, right? Which would require human taste, I feel, which you might have, right? And AI can scale that human taste and that could be interesting, which is a— Yeah.— tough market to be in, right? And then there's all like these Gen Z folks coming out of Y Combinator and moving super fast. And I think you still have an advantage against them because they're sort of awkward with other humans and you spend a lot of time in corporate, like finding commonalities and growing your network, right? But yeah, I'd love to see all of that as an investor if I'd pull money into you.

Yeah, that's a great point, Charles, which you raised, that there have been a lot of tools being built around it. I evaluated everything before even I start my build, and I realized that most of those tools were— even LinkedIn, the new progress is more for sales professionals, that they believe that only salespeople need that relationship. After COVID and with the AI era, that's changing. Everybody needs it. Because you need— when I go to any AI event, everybody talks about AI agents. AI agents you can implement if you have a job. To get that job, you need to have this social currency. So that's where what people, human relationships are changing in this world. And all the previous CRMs, personal CRMs I evaluated, and they all were very transactional in nature. So think of a glorified database. But there is no intelligence that when to reach out, why to even reach out, why should I even talk to Charles? That's where you have to map every time you spend in the network. I go to different conferences and events, and sometimes I feel overwhelmed. But what I did was I stepped back. I said that these are my goals, these are the type of people I'm going to meet before even I designed Vaya. And I see that my time, every minute I'm spending in those networking events become more productive. Yeah. But that you can only scale if you have a framework and tool in hand, you just can't do it on paper every time. So that's where The Wire comes in.

And the first wedge, is it gonna be finding a job? Like, because if you go with investors and sales and finding jobs, like you need focus, right? So the first purpose will be finding a job, correct?

Yes, that's exactly our initial founding members are giving us the feedback that how do we narrow down even on our personas and job Job seekers and the founders are the top two personas we have.

But I would rather you go after one, like just job seekers or founders, you know, pick one, cuz both are sort of diametrically opposed in so many ways. If you pick like job seekers, who would be your first ICP, your first ideal customer persona, their titles, their industry, their location, et cetera?

So I would not tie to the location, but I feel the mid-professionals speak from the range of 50s. That's the thing. I would not go for age group higher than the 50s because during my interview process, when I spoke, 90% of them, they said that we don't need a tool like this. We can manage of our own because they came from an era where the relationships are built more natural. So I would go for that range of mid to 40s type of a thing. And the second location, as of now, we are more in US. But not in a particular center. I am based out of New York, so my— most of my events are happening in that geo.

Job titles, uh, size of companies also, if you could comment on that.

So job titles can be anything like from associate directors, directors, EDs, VPs. That's a maximum range I look at, from manager to VP, not below that associate or not even higher than that, because higher they have more of executive recruiters, so there are a lot of people working for them. So that's a range I'm looking for. Industry, it's industry agnostic and location agnostic.

Got it. I would even probably start with some specific industries and some specific job titles because there's some particularities for each, right? So I, I, I, as investors, we just love focus. And as a sales guy, I love focus and one ICP and then testing the next. Um, Gunjan, thanks for being on today. Where can people find out more about you?

So my, uh, wire.ai is our website, and then on the LinkedIn by Gunjan Agarwal. So there's the two places you can find, and there are other Instagram addresses.