Scaling A SaaS Business - Example & Case Study

It doesn't have to be big one. You start with that small, you gain that confidence so that you can see how you can extract other systems which can be simple and get that value add and stack one on top of another and eventually your business will transfer. One day you will not even realize.

Hello, it's David Jennings and I'm here to shine a light on some of our clients and their stories to help inspire other business owners. And I'm here with vikam Shetty from 73bit.com maybe just as a way to start Vikim, I don't know if you can tell us a little bit about yourself and your business and what you guys do.

We have a product called AS Pro Bench. It's a proprietary thing that we have. We serve specially in the space of ESG and sustainability. So we help our clients to do corporate sustainability benchmarking and assessment. So normally our clients are either think tanks, big non profits, research organization who are kind of either working a particular sector or the entire industry on responsible investment, responsible fashion, access to nutrition and all the SDG goals if people are aware about it. So what we our software does three primary functions. It's help them to collect non financial data, which is sustainability data, do some basic statistical scoring on top of it automatically which we can configure the scoring. And the third part is create scorecards and reports and dashboards based on the data collected and we can benchmark for peer sector benchmark, region benchmark and all. So normally our clients are domain specialists in ESG and we come as a technology partner and we service them with our products. So it's a SaaS based product. But then because we also work with nonprofit and also we have different variation so we kind of support them with customization and all. But we are focus is purely from Pro Bench so that's what we are.

Perfect. And how long have you guys been around for? At least with this part, because it sounds like you've been in business for a good number of years.

So from day one the product was the same. The company is started in 2007. We acquired the company in 201516 we are still in the same space. So we have identified the niche like we know the riches are in the niches and we have started. We could have done a common dev shop but we focused it. We are bootstrapped. So the growth the trajectory was a bit slow but we were always profitable and we always focused on our space. Our time is a little less but still we are trying to figure out and I just Want to plug in System Energy. The CCF thing kind of unlocked it for me because we have different variation of version of our client. The CCF kind of focused me to kind of pick one particular slice of product packaging in a way that we can offer and then we might be able to increase our target market in that space and maybe we can focus. So but from day one we have been very focused on this niche.

Yeah, I love it. And as you've grown because you said you so grew organically how many team members are you at the Moment?

We are 25 team members including and we have two founders. Co founders.

Yeah. Fantastic. And I'm curious like you mentioned E Myth earlier. How did you come across Systemology? Was that reading the E Myth first and then Systemology or was IT systemology.

Then emyth so first so I've been. I've read emit almost I think 10 times in last 15 years now. I always like it. It's a good read it itself for non business owner as well I think the story story hits you if you have any bug in you then as a part of it as you know we all always had an ad hoc system so one of the system that we have like we are focusing on culture so we have something called as a culture call which is the name is not so fancy but what we do is for the whole year the idea is I speak to each member of my team once a month non work related so that's the. That's the start the essence of that system. So every. So I in a year I talk to each one member 12 times a day. So I just wanted. So I just wanted to help them to understand the culture of what is work and then how why culture is important what team. So each year we used to pick a topic so last year from last year we started this and last year the topic was time management and this year the topic with popular demand like they. They picked the topic so I don't. Yeah it's not top down and they picked system as a. As a topic. Now I. I would say I am a. I'm a student of systems, I'm a practitioner but I was not sure if I can structurally explain them step by step so I started doing my research like Emit was a book but Emyt was a little more on a a 30,000ft level like it's. It was very abstract I wanted something a little more step by step and I started searching go went into Amazon and put the word system and search all the best bestseller and Your book came on the top and I picked seven books in and around system and yours was the one. And I ended up only picking two books and one of which was yours because of the. The steps that was in in it. And that's how I got familiar with it. And this whole year I've been trying to explain or trying to practice though we have. We have taken one CCF as a flow and explained them what is the CCF and trying to get extract the first system. Like I've created subsystem, given each individual a subsystem and kind of extracting it. We are in extraction process and you know one of the aha moment that I just. I mean I just did did it on my own. But one of the aha moment was that the product, the scorecard is the product that I picked up. And I thought like my team knows exactly what are involved when we are serving our clients or the delivery bit of it. But I was so surprised to know there are certain thing that they know but they couldn't understand while in it. And when they documented it, they realize why we picked it and how these pieces are connecting. So yeah, that's how I came across systeminology.

Yes. Have you found like. Have there been other insights or tips that you've picked up along the way? Like I love your idea of having a regular touch base with member and the idea of focusing in then on the critical client flow has been anything that you've done that's just worked very well with your team as a. As a way to get them on board.

Right. So yeah. So one thing that the. The thing with the system is it's like abstraction. Either you get it or you don't get it. You can't like you. You. It's like swimming or something like you can't make them swim. Like they have to swim and they get it like. And you will not know exactly when they get it. You will know if they don't drown they are swimming properly. But that transition is a bit difficult and if you are an instructor it. It can become very challenging. So one thing I was sure from day one is we used to. I used to give assignments. So one once I made. It's not. It was not only talk you have that was. So every two months there is an assignment and they have to complete the assignment. And because I've been a part of a lot of coaching program, I know it's not about the knowledge but how you implement it, how you practically create it that makes the real difference and that's where the learning is because once they do it they will have the real questions and I would be able to either address it or we can discover what the answer could be. And that is where one thing I decided that the people who will not do the assignment I will remove them from the entire process. So there is. It's not a free pass till the end of the year and you can just sit and talk to me and do it. You have to do it. And what I found was people who got it, they were putting in more the effort and they were. The speed of it was increasing very fast and the laggers they were dropping off. But they are, they. They feel the opportunity missed. Now I've got group of people who are fast and now they are kind of collaborating with each other and they are the champions in the way they are not the system champions. For those who don't know system champions go read the book. They will. That's a technical difference here. But they're in the champions in the. In their rallying the system thing and they. I have this bi week, bi monthly call where everyone comes in and they kind of share their experiences and all. And I have seen that the people who rally it, only those people are invited in this college. It's a special group in that sense. And the kind of questions that they come up and the kind of answer the team only gives the answer. That thing I found like it. It kind of made it more organic and I don't have to kind of push or I don't have to put a lot of energy. It's. It's very organic. And I've seen that that like initially you need like few people who kind of are ready to take that plunge and you cannot make the whole transformation. So that's my insight. If I can say I don't like it but that's.

I love that. And have you thought much about when new team members come on board?

Right, right. Brilliant question. So what we also have is all these calls are getting recorded. If there are any special call which has the very values there sequence. I've created a document, it's a Google Doc like so I've kept it so people have access to all the work that people are doing so that they are not participating but they can read on their own. And there are this weekly or whatever this monthly call. So all that access is there. So team is getting access to one thing I have this is personal decision. I've seen that what happens with the new member is there is a Two level of jump. Firstly, they are getting used to their day to day work so they have to do the business part of it and they are just settling it. We have a very open culture, we have a learning culture that's very known. But it takes a little bit of time to people to understand what because they have come from a place where if they miss something they are getting scolded or like they are not happy by the time they realize it takes a little bit of time. So what we have thought is we only get people entered into the culture call or the system after a certain period of time where they kind of first get their feet in ground and in order to implement them on day one, the lead or the manager in our case, they already practice certain systems which in our day to day business, so they are the beneficiary of it. So they don't, we don't teach them what a system is. We tell them these are the set of checklists or these are the set of sops that you need to follow if you get stuck. These are the point of contact. So they kind of get into it as a part of system. So like anyone who joins us first two months is their training system. So there is a set of way. We train our people like they have the skills but they need to understand our product, they need to understand our Scrum methodology and whatever our software development practices that we are following after two months they are getting into the work and they are kind of getting their ropes and that's how. So first they are kind of a beneficiary or they are participant in the existing system that we have, which is ad hoc in many ways as you have four levels. So we are not at the saleable level yet, but we are I think at least I would say in between scalable and the, at the borderline somewhere that I'm pretty confident. And that's, that's how we do the transition bit. And once we, we understand that and then once they get it, the people who are getting the system, they will, they don't leave it then, then everything is system, everything is challenged, the decision matrix is followed. And yeah, I mean I can go.

On and on as that culture changes. And this sounds like this is how you do things now and this is part of your, your business. Have you started to notice any changes or any wins or like is the team more efficient or can they look after themselves more or do they? Yeah. Any insights?

Yeah. So one of the most successful system that we have implemented, which is not no secret in Software world, which is the Sprint. So we have a three week Sprint. A quick summary of Sprint is there is a development cycle of three weeks. The what we are going to do is decided on Thursday. And only that work is getting done and clients are getting updated. That's a Sprint. So it took us some time to implement that system. But we have a velocity which is very rock solid. Like anyone in my team can back that. So which means that if we say our client, you are going to get feature A, B and C in this Sprint, come what may, they are going to get with the quality and the standards because we know our velocity. So if it exceeds our current velocity is 25. So if it exceeds that, we kind of drop it and we say the client upfront. So there are certain areas of work which we have kind of formulated that okay, this is fortify velocity work. So it needs to be split in 3V, three sprints and all. So that is something that we have. We would say we have kind of owned it now. So if we also know if you have junior members, then the velocity, even if a capacity is 25, if you have only junior member working in that sprint due to whatever reasons, if there is a some change. So we are not able to take more than 1010 velocity because we know the capacity of our junior members. But if there is one senior member, the velocity goes on increasing because the design and all on the hand holding so that control that we have. So it has done two things. Firstly, we know for how much work capacity we have. So if you have multiple clients, so we tell them that this is our calendar and these sprints are already booked already. So your chance might get on the fourth sprint. If you want to book it, you book it right now. Or it might go like this is genuine, whatever best quality. Secondly, the value piece of it. So we are pricing by story points. So we have kind of attached the value to it. And it also helps us to forecast our revenue in a way so doing the same kind of work with more predictability, more good standards. This one system is kind of our core. And it's not that we cannot build more system, but the beauty of this system is everyone in the company gets it. Everyone in the company understand the value of it. Nobody challenges it. If client challenges to us, then everyone in the team or at least in the senior people know what answer to do why we do this. And if they are not happy, we can't do. We can't work together and we let go. We are here for the long game. So we Know like this is what we don't want to give you bugs and make you lose. And also one of our USPs, we don't charge for the bugs that we create. So it is free and there is no warranty phase assets like if we have created something, if we have delivered it to you and if it has a problem we will fix it. No questions asked, no money asked.

What I love is that's such an essential part of you delivering your service and you've nailed that piece which enables you to manage expectations, reduce the risk and means that oftentimes you can over deliver for the customer. Before you really dialed that system in, was that something that was just sitting in your head that you were managing or like, or like how was it getting handled before or was it not?

It was not getting handled to be very honest. So earlier if, if earlier we used to do project wise. So if some project would run for three months, some project would run for two weeks, some project would run for six weeks and in that managing people's holiday would become difficult because you can't predict if someone is going getting sick three months from now or not. So right now what happens whenever a worker we don't like, even if it's a big project, we say that what can be done in one sprint. So we work Sprint by Sprint which becomes very manageable. In fact in that case we have like technically I've been doing scrum since almost 20 years now, so I know how it works. But for this particular thing we have added an external agile coach to kind of review step by step because I always found like I, I have become an entrepreneur by books, coaches and videos, YouTube and like these are my source. I have not gone to a business, I've not, I don't have business degree, I don't have an MBA or any sorts. So I've always found when you have an external accountability head or a coach kind of a thing where they, we have worked with that person for three months where that person have kind of sliced and diced each part of it and like if you have to add test how the TDD which, which part of the week the TDD should start. What are the, how the quality checks for a tdd if it is valued or it's not just a tick box service or something. So all those was kind of crystallized and it took us quite a bit time to kind of shape it to the maturity that it currently has. But that's how the transition was done. And then later on once that was done we were still charging them hourly or project basis. But then we kind of because that, because of that system, it gave us the leverage to even change the pricing on value pricing. And that's kind of not only helped us to manage it, but make it more profitable also.

Wow, I love that insight and I think there's a key takeaway there for anyone who's listening is this idea of like it's one of the core philosophies of systemology. First capture what you're currently doing. That becomes the base level. And then what, what you shared there Viking was you're kind of talking about the optimized phase for that particular process. When that then becomes the shortcut, then hiring the consultant who knows how to make that world class come in re engineer it and then put it back in the machine. So I, I love the way that you articulated that because that's a perfect example.

In fact I will take this one step further. The core thing that, that's why I love the book in the way is now I am kind of the, the current experiment that I'm running or the current work that I'm doing where we are critical client flow, the, the scorecard piece that I'm trying to do. I want to kind of create this system in a way where I can open up a sales pipeline where I have a continuous inflow of new client who we can fulfill on not on a larger scale, but at even a smaller scale. But I want to scale it like where we can kind of give services to maybe four clients a month continuously for a year. So that adds another 40 to 48 clients that kind of change the business dynamics altogether. The delivery, the system is there. Our product is rock solid to handle these kind of. So if I can do that transition on the front end also because the back end is almost kind of. It will keep on growing. It's. There is the optimization and the improvement is a never ending.

It's.

It's like a lifestyle. Like you just can't go gym for a month and be healthy for the rest of life. The system mindset is the same thing. It's. It's a business mindset. You have to keep on doing that and so that you can keep growing, you can keep adding new technologies. I mean the AI world is exploding. So we would like to leverage that piece as well into our business model and servicing and all. But once you have this space, time and approach from the frontline that will also kind of help us. And that's where I'm specifically for, for this Experiment. I'm using the steps in the books to do that part of it.

Yeah, perfect. Well, I think in the tail end I don't know if there's any final things that you'd like to. To add. Yeah, I just like to say a huge thank you for your time and we can point people to the73bit.com I know you've got a podcast over there. So I don't know if you want to give us a shout out for that and then if there are any final things you'd like to leave us with.

I mean I will leave it to. With the very simplest thing. So for people who.

Who.

Who get scared with the word system like because people get scared the last. It's. It's also my plugin. It's also my. The thing that I want you to go speech. But I've used Systeme IO for that as well. So the thing I'm talking about is my podcast. We have already recorded 98 episode and two episode away from 100. And I have a well articulated system in which I invite my guest, I start my recording. In fact the style of how David record this video and my style is almost similar. My is only audio only. So if you have any people who wants to who are in the space of ESG sustainability and they are looking for a broader idea go to 73bit.com podcast and they will take it will take you to the our podcast and you can share it with them. And we are not selling anything there. It's pure community building and it's only knowledge sharing. What David is trying to do here at a very smaller scale we are also trying to do that so there is no backend that is even in the CT of that is to only promote that podcast. So that that podcast has a lot of guests in the space. University experts and business expert. Everyone is there. So that's the only thing that I want to share and the reason I told Systeme I.O. to use that that I'm so confident that I can run. I've been publishing episode every week for last one year. You can check the timeline there and not a single week was missed. And I'm so confident now I'm on the verge of arrogant. I don't want to go there but I'm so confident that I can do this for the next 10 years without missing a date. Because that system is so. Well, worse. Like it's. It's practice. I've done this for more than 50 times and it doesn't have to be big one, you start with that small, you gain that confidence so that you can see how you can extract other systems which can be simple and, and get that value add and stack one on top of another, and eventually your business will transfer. One day you will not even realize. That's it.

Yeah. Well, I think I just love you being a shining example for other business owners. You're a little bit further down the track. You've built a systems culture, and once you see it, you can't unsee it. Like, no matter what business you end up building, this is now just how you do things. And I love just the way that you explain it. That's very clear to me.

That's also a function of a system. I've been explaining this the whole year to 25 members. You can understand, but it's month nine, so already, I think 250 times I've been explaining this to all my team members. So this is the output of that. That is the best.

I feel like that's a good takeaway for people. Almost like to make sure it goes into your DNA. So thank you so much for your time.

Vigam, thank you so much. Thank you so much for inviting me and allowing me to share our story and it was really a pleasure to be in this podcast.