We have come a long way at IDfy and we turned 4 on the 31st of May. To tell you the truth we have had a serious roller coaster ride in the last 4 years. With many ups and downs and the team at IDfy has helped me be upbeat throughout. Not to mention an amazing early stage VC (Blume ventures), and my personal coach Vivek who invested in us early and believed in us when we hit bottom a couple of years back.
As my first post on the IDfy story, I want to touch upon what makes me want to come to work everyday. When I started IDfy, I was clear, I wanted this place to be an antithesis to every place that I worked at. And more than anything else, even the idea itself, I wanted to ensure that we are a place that doesn't have to worry about attrition, people issues etc. But, honestly, most of the culture was not planned. We created greatness together as a team, right from the first person that we hired.
So we started as an idea in a room in Delhi at my buddy's (Vineet Jawa) house (also my partner in crime at both my startups). We mulled over it for close to 6 months before incorporating it. We hired Kailash, our first employee, even before we incorporated the company. I met him over many single malts at my house in Bandra, I don't even remember most of that conversation, but followed that up with a proper interview in candies, and he was hired. We hired Kaushik Shah (our second employee) as a tech consultant who ended up being our CTO :)
But honestly what made IDfy awesome was a young chap right out of college, Kaushik Srivatsan, who really set the tone for the rest of our 4 years. Inadvertently, he actually set the culture at IDfy and made it brilliant. As CEOs we are married to our ideas, scale, revenues and god knows what else, but personally setting the right culture I think can enable even mediocre people achieve greatness, and at IDfy we have great people so we achieved awesomeness :). Kaushik has now left IDfy to pursue his masters in the US, but even today people at IDfy talk about him almost everyday, and we still maintain that he held us together, and in fact still holds us together. Lot of our stories revolve around "remember when Kaushik did that?"
I remember in 2013 when we hit rock bottom, I told the team that we had 2 months of money left and not too many VCs were interested in investing in us. I told them that I would understand if they looked for a job, and my team almost unanimously answered "doobenge tho saath me doobenge" (if we are gonna drown we will drown together). I have to say that I am privileged to work with a team like this. Honestly the guys at IDfy rock. I have not worked for a company like this, ever. And a lot of this is not me, its really the team here at IDfy.
Then came Vivek and Blume Ventures who believed in us early on, when we didn't even have revenues to show. In fact, Blume and Vivek believed in us more than we believed in ourselves in those early days. We went through rock bottom in 2013, and had about 2 months of money left in the bank, Blume and Vivek came to our rescue again and gave us a bridge round. At this point we were making about rs 50K/month in revenue (to be honest thats nothing). I am not sure what made them believe in us, but all I can say is I am grateful. Post this, there was no turning back for IDfy, we doubled our revenue run rate every quarter, thanks to our amazing customers. We rocked the next couple of years, and continue to rock even now (profitably). We grow much faster today than we ever did before.
Throughout the journey I have questioned myself many times thinking about lost salary, free time etc. Thank god for my Wife, my Team, and my investors, I cant see myself working anywhere else, it is a privilege to work at IDfy, you guys make me want to come to work everyday, and give it my all.
We have built technology which rocks, we have an operations team which punches way above its weight, we have ideas which is going to change the world and the way we look at things, we have a culture which ensures that everyone gives their 150%, what else can a CEO ask for? We rock not because of me, but because of the team and everyone that believed in us (including our customers, who many a times have had to put up with our growing pains).
As we enter a new era at IDfy, where we continue to grow profitably (yes very few startups can say that in India), we are worried about our culture and how we will maintain the amazingness thats IDfy. We are a crazy bunch of people, and almost everyone who meets us at our office can feel this amazing positive vibe, and many wonder how we are able to to this. To tell you the truth, we don't know, but we know one thing, we definitely know how to hire great people. We pay a lot of attention to cultural fit more than anything else, because honestly why would anyone want to work at a company which has great people but no culture? Even if IDfy, tomorrow, does not exist (very unlikely the way that we are growing) I know that IDfy has made a difference in each of our employees lives. In fact, I don't know how any of us can work anywhere else ;)
Hats off to everyone at IDfy as we take this company to the next level. And Kaushik Srivatsan, come back we miss you here.
As my first post on the IDfy story, I want to touch upon what makes me want to come to work everyday. When I started IDfy, I was clear, I wanted this place to be an antithesis to every place that I worked at. And more than anything else, even the idea itself, I wanted to ensure that we are a place that doesn't have to worry about attrition, people issues etc. But, honestly, most of the culture was not planned. We created greatness together as a team, right from the first person that we hired.
So we started as an idea in a room in Delhi at my buddy's (Vineet Jawa) house (also my partner in crime at both my startups). We mulled over it for close to 6 months before incorporating it. We hired Kailash, our first employee, even before we incorporated the company. I met him over many single malts at my house in Bandra, I don't even remember most of that conversation, but followed that up with a proper interview in candies, and he was hired. We hired Kaushik Shah (our second employee) as a tech consultant who ended up being our CTO :)
But honestly what made IDfy awesome was a young chap right out of college, Kaushik Srivatsan, who really set the tone for the rest of our 4 years. Inadvertently, he actually set the culture at IDfy and made it brilliant. As CEOs we are married to our ideas, scale, revenues and god knows what else, but personally setting the right culture I think can enable even mediocre people achieve greatness, and at IDfy we have great people so we achieved awesomeness :). Kaushik has now left IDfy to pursue his masters in the US, but even today people at IDfy talk about him almost everyday, and we still maintain that he held us together, and in fact still holds us together. Lot of our stories revolve around "remember when Kaushik did that?"
I remember in 2013 when we hit rock bottom, I told the team that we had 2 months of money left and not too many VCs were interested in investing in us. I told them that I would understand if they looked for a job, and my team almost unanimously answered "doobenge tho saath me doobenge" (if we are gonna drown we will drown together). I have to say that I am privileged to work with a team like this. Honestly the guys at IDfy rock. I have not worked for a company like this, ever. And a lot of this is not me, its really the team here at IDfy.
Then came Vivek and Blume Ventures who believed in us early on, when we didn't even have revenues to show. In fact, Blume and Vivek believed in us more than we believed in ourselves in those early days. We went through rock bottom in 2013, and had about 2 months of money left in the bank, Blume and Vivek came to our rescue again and gave us a bridge round. At this point we were making about rs 50K/month in revenue (to be honest thats nothing). I am not sure what made them believe in us, but all I can say is I am grateful. Post this, there was no turning back for IDfy, we doubled our revenue run rate every quarter, thanks to our amazing customers. We rocked the next couple of years, and continue to rock even now (profitably). We grow much faster today than we ever did before.
Throughout the journey I have questioned myself many times thinking about lost salary, free time etc. Thank god for my Wife, my Team, and my investors, I cant see myself working anywhere else, it is a privilege to work at IDfy, you guys make me want to come to work everyday, and give it my all.
We have built technology which rocks, we have an operations team which punches way above its weight, we have ideas which is going to change the world and the way we look at things, we have a culture which ensures that everyone gives their 150%, what else can a CEO ask for? We rock not because of me, but because of the team and everyone that believed in us (including our customers, who many a times have had to put up with our growing pains).
As we enter a new era at IDfy, where we continue to grow profitably (yes very few startups can say that in India), we are worried about our culture and how we will maintain the amazingness thats IDfy. We are a crazy bunch of people, and almost everyone who meets us at our office can feel this amazing positive vibe, and many wonder how we are able to to this. To tell you the truth, we don't know, but we know one thing, we definitely know how to hire great people. We pay a lot of attention to cultural fit more than anything else, because honestly why would anyone want to work at a company which has great people but no culture? Even if IDfy, tomorrow, does not exist (very unlikely the way that we are growing) I know that IDfy has made a difference in each of our employees lives. In fact, I don't know how any of us can work anywhere else ;)
Hats off to everyone at IDfy as we take this company to the next level. And Kaushik Srivatsan, come back we miss you here.
