February 15, 2025 • 49 mins
In this episode, Abhishek Kumar, co-founder & CEO of Mygate, takes us on the journey of building India’s largest community management platform. From spending a month working alongside security guards to understand their needs, to scaling Mygate to 25,000+ gated communities, Abhishek reveals the key decisions and insights that shaped their success.
🔥 What You’ll Discover:
✅ How Mygate’s founders lived the user experience to refine their product
✅ Cracking product-market fit and scaling across multiple cities
✅ Transitioning from a zero-revenue model to a sustainable business
✅ Strategic investments from Urban Company & Acko—and what’s next
✅ Leadership lessons: Transitioning from COO to CEO & building a strong company culture
📌 Timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction
1:44 - Abhishek’s Background and Early Days of Mygate
3:54 - The Birth of Mygate
5:22 - Understanding the Problem in Gated Communities
7:15 - Shadowing Security Guards to Build Mygate
11:37 - The Three Phases of Mygate’s Growth
15:13 - Addressing Data Privacy and Security
19:50 - Monetization and Hybrid Business Model
23:28 - Strategic Partnerships with Urban Company and Acko
27:06 - Scaling Payments and New Initiatives
33:14 - The Launch of Mygate Smart Lock
37:15 - Leadership Transition and Company Culture
42:27 - Mygate’s Work Culture and Values
48:26 - What’s Next for Mygate
🔔 Subscribe for more stories from top founders and innovators transforming India’s startup ecosystem.
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👇 Join the conversation – What are your key takeaways from Mygate’s journey? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
#Mygate #StartupJourney #PrimeVenturePartners #Innovation #Entrepreneurship #TechEcosystem #Leadership #GrowthVsProfitability #SmartHomeSolutions
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The three of you had worked as guards.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
The guard is actually was creating a mini economy.
Gated community becoming atheater of commerce was the aha
idea and that's how the nameMyGate came into existence.
We have to really go afterputting MyGate in every gated
community possible.
Go from about 4,000 communitiesto about 25,000 communities.
The revenue was near zero, afraction of a 20 million
(00:25):
households of gated communityusing your product.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
You know the elephant in the room on data and privacy
.
We noticed also a strategicinvestment from ACCO and Urban
Company.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
You cannot be in a community and not use MyGate.
A big credit to all of you guysat Prime who believed in the
thesis that we had 8,000 to9,000 crore of invoices being
raised on the MyGate platform.
The word employee is banned inMyGate.
I will be very disappointed tohire any senior people
externally.
This will be first profitableyear of MyGate.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
All right, abhishek, great to have you on our prime
entrance podcast again.
Thank you, sanjay.
Uh, been wanting to have thispodcast with you for the past 12
, 18 months and you've alwaysbeen dodging me and then doing
podcasts with everybody else, sofinally caught you here, I'm
glad to be here.
It's great to have you.
Maybe we can start a little bitwith your journey, abhishek.
And then also the start ofMyGate the early days.
(01:32):
How did the idea start?
There's still a lot of mysteryaround that, even though it's
been documented a few times, butI'd love for you to share that
with our audience as well.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Sure.
Thanks, sanjay, for having meand, yeah, lovely to share the
MyGate journey.
Quickly about myselfengineering background went to
US for my master's, then cameback Well, I'm sorry.
I worked in US for about 12years.
I had always in my mind to comeback to India and that happened
back in 2009.
Came back, did an MBA fromAhmedabad one-year program,
(02:11):
joined Goldman Sachs and I wasthere for six years from 2010 to
2016.
And founder of MyGate, vijayArasati, also was in Goldman
Sachs, who joined about a yearback, and we had this five years
of common overlap where webecame very good friends, met
each other multiple times and Ithink that's the place where the
initial seeding of you know youget this bug of kuch karte hain
(02:34):
right.
You know the startup ecosystemin that 2013-14 time was
unfolding and we were startingto see lots of interesting sort
of opportunities but did notknow where to jump in.
So that period was three yearsand Vijay left Goldman.
A couple of months later hecalls back or calls me and says,
(02:59):
hey, there's some interestingobservation and idea.
I think this could be a gamechanger.
Interesting observation andidea.
I think this could be a gamechanger, and that's the
conversation that led to mejoining MyGate, which has come
in.
A friend from IHBD also jumpedin the journey and all three of
us started MyGate back in 2016.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Wonderful and it's been quite a journey.
I think we got the privilege ofmeeting you guys.
I remember, in fact, the funnything was probably in the first
20 or so communities onehappened to be my partner, amit
Somani's, and the other wasSripati Ajarya's community, and
(03:39):
you know, that sort of was thestart of how we connected with
you.
And I once visited Amit and Ijokingly gave my name as the
Super Swami, yeah.
And the next day I went toShripati's place and the guy
asked for my mobile number andthe guard said, oh, super
Swami's up.
And then the three of us gottogether we couldn't stop
talking about it, saying, wow,this is sort of interesting here
(04:01):
, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
And of course, none of you guys had a common
LinkedIn network connection withus, but you managed to find one
person and reached out and ofcourse, so what was interesting,
sanjay, is the story in itselfis quite interesting, how
independently all three of yourpartners got to experience
MyGate in your respectivecommunities and that sort of
gave you the idea that somethinginteresting is happening.
(04:25):
I'll just share, because youdid ask what was the reason for
you to start MyGate right, Ithink, some interesting
observations that was happeningaround us.
One, very clearly, we weremigrants to Bangalore and,
incidentally or intuitively, weall chose to stay in gated
communities.
Incidentally or intuitively, weall chose to stay in gated
communities and while stayingthere and Vijay being a keen
(04:47):
observer of what's happeningaround him, we obviously
observed that gated communitiesis becoming a preferred place
for people to stay and later,when we dug deeper, we realized
that it is not just a Bangalorephenomenon, it's just all India
phenomenon, right, especially intier one, tier two cities,
people are preferring to stay ingated communities as they are
(05:10):
moving into these cities foremployment, education and
whatnot.
But and the reason is one of thekey reason is security and
sense of you know, knowing who'scoming in, you know, safe place
for kids to play.
And second is just access toamenities, which public
infrastructure, frankly, arelagging and lacking.
So these two combined with.
(05:30):
The third interesting phenomenais what we saw is just a gated
community becoming a theater ofcommerce, and we started to see
in those days Amazon, flipkart,big Basket were becoming very,
very active.
So the number of footfalls ofexternal deliveries coming
inside the gated committees werestarting to be on the rise and
we saw that the existingsecurity process will completely
(05:51):
break down.
So this unique idea ofconnecting the external visitor
to the guard, to the resident,so that the resident has the
ability to know on theirfingerprint, a fingertip on
their mobile, who's coming andwhat's happening about their
home, was the aha idea andthat's how the name my gate came
into the you know came into, uh, you know, the existence no,
(06:13):
wonderful, I think.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
um, it was one of those ideas at the time which
seemed like a a breakthrough butalso was like, I think the
first reaction was, of course,seems like an obvious thing why
didn't I think about it earlier?
Why wasn't this done before, etcetera.
And I think there was sort ofthat phase where we were sort of
(06:38):
transitioning from, at the most, a feature phone to a
smartphone.
And I think one of the insightsthat you left me with in the
first meeting why we really feltyou guys had done your thinking
of the market because it wasstill with, you know, 20, 30
communities it's not really, youknow, pmf is sort of a strong
(06:58):
word to use was that you knowthe three of you had worked as
guards.
You had the insight that thelong pole into the tent was
really the acceptance by theguards, not by the residents,
because the residents would seethe convenience but if the
guards weren't able to accept itthen they would just say it
doesn't work.
So maybe you can talk a littlebit about that part, right,
(07:22):
because many of theentrepreneurs listening in will
be thinking about how do weestablish BMF?
And you know how do we identifywhat the biggest risk is.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, no, I think it's a great question because we
all have great ideas and wefeel that we can build a product
that will just createdisruption and everybody will,
you know, seemingly adopt it.
You know, without doubt.
But I think the proof of thepudding really comes when you
hit the ground.
For us, you know, we knew thatif this product has to be
(07:51):
successful, our probably theweakest point and maybe the
strongest point would be thesecurity guards, who have to
operate the product in a wayright.
They are key stakeholders.
And so we went in with thatidea of let's just shadow the
guards, work as guards and be,you know, uh, behind them and
sit with them for entire day.
(08:11):
And we did.
We did this for about maybe amonth and I think that was eye
opener from many, many fronts.
So first, obviously, firstaspect was you know, how do you
design an interface that's easyfor the guards to use?
And when we were shadowing andlooking over the shoulders of
how guards operated, they wereused to making the visitor write
(08:34):
in a register and they wouldhave this traditional landline
intercom and they were used tousing the number zero to nine to
call the resident, pick up thephone and say delivery executive
, you know, sanjay, deliveryexecutive from X is waiting and
you would say yes, no, so this,you know, this muscle memory for
them to use that zero to ninewas quite strong.
(08:56):
And that was the idea ofcreating a user interface that
was 70, 80% like a phone dial,right, and we really wanted that
guard just to make the seamlesstransition from a traditional
intercom to use our mobileapplication and only use numbers
.
So that was a very key insight.
And the second multiple insightswe received was we really felt
(09:19):
that the problem statementunfolding or that we can solve
is beyond our originalimagination.
Right, we are first thinkingfrom the perspective of external
visitors and security guard andresidents, but when you shadow
the guards, you realize that theguard is actually was creating
or managing a mini economy.
Right, because, playing on theasymmetry information of what
(09:41):
the guard knows about thecommunity, that guard is the
go-to place for real estatebrokers, right, who would
probably incentivize the guardto find out which homes are
available, where are tenantsstaying when they are moving out
?
And, interestingly, in themorning time, from 5 am to 8 am,
these guards would get hundredsof calls from residents just to
(10:03):
check if their maid or cook ornanny has come in and this was a
daily phenomena and I thinkthat was a very interesting
insight and our initial product,initial product really solved
for that, which became a quite ahit when we went to the market
yeah, I remember in one of yourearly angels, amir patak, who
was my co-founder at zip dial.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yeah, when I was checking with him he said I
invested in this company becausethey actually solved a problem
for you know not to be sexisthere but for the woman of the
household.
They wake up in the morning,want to know if my maid is in
the community, if my cook is inthe community, or do I have to
make alternate arrangements?
And to him that was like aninsight or an outcome of a
(10:48):
well-thought-out product that hehad and that was an interesting
point.
So, if you trace the journeynow that the company is eight
years old, close to in theprobably three phases yeah, one
was sort of the early PMFF kindof the time when we met you, and
maybe even the first 12, 24months beyond that 2017, 2018.
(11:11):
And then you went into thismode of a blistering scale up,
went all the way from the 20communities that you were at
when we met to now then 20,000communities and then the third
phase now, which is verydisciplined execution and
monetization and so on.
So maybe you can trace sort ofthe three phases or talk about
(11:35):
the three phases and what someof the key issues were that you
were trying to address and lifein each of those phases.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Yeah, I think each phase truly are very different
from each other.
Each phase has its own set ofchallenges and as founders,
leaders, co-founders, you knowyou have to sort of evolve to
manage each stage.
So the first stage was reallyabout, you know, early 2017,
(12:06):
which is when, in April, youguys came in and saw that
opportunity to, I would say, 18and 19.
So the first three years, largecompany and meaningfully large
(12:28):
company in India we have toreally go after putting MyGate
in every gated communitypossible in a thoughtful way,
right, because we had not raisedenough money.
I mean, we had raised somemoney but not enough money to
completely go blitz in thatperiod.
So that period was aboutproduct market fit, focus, going
from one city to another city,identifying the right set of
people who would come in with along-term vision, attracting
(12:52):
talent.
And, as pre-series A, series Aand later series B happened in
2019, this first three years wasabout one keep evolving the
product as we keep getting moreand more insight, and it was
geographical expansion acrossIndia Post Series B, which is
(13:14):
late 2019, and then the onset ofCOVID happened and we also have
some competition who wasthrowing both money and both
capital and people on theproblem.
It was about going into anexplosive, exponential land grab
(13:34):
, which is go from about 4,000communities and we went to about
25,000 communities from 2020-21.
And that period was where thebrand was quite established.
We scaled exponentially.
We that period was where thebrand was quite established.
We scaled exponentially, we hadlarge teams across the country,
but the challenge was therevenue was near zero.
(13:55):
Right, we had a great brand,great Daomao, but revenue was
near zero.
So the third phase was truly,not just for the investors who
believed in us, but forourselves.
Take those revenueopportunities that we had
imagined when we started MyGatethat if you have the, let's say,
(14:16):
a fraction of a 20 millionhouseholds of gated community
using your product, multiplebusiness opportunities can be
built on top of it.
Using your product, multiplebusiness opportunities can be
built on top of it From 2022 tolast.
You know, 22, 23, 24, lastthree years was really proving
that in a very disciplined way,which is what got us here.
So, yeah, I think this is how Idescribe the three phases and
(14:40):
happy to deep dive in any spaceyou'd like, sure, sure and happy
to deep dive in any space you'dlike, sure, sure.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
So before I get into that and we'll certainly talk a
lot about the monetization andthe recent along the way, the
transition from Vijay to you ashe decided to move on to being
an entrepreneur again, thoughhe's still very actively
involved in everything I can seethe elephant in the room on
data and privacy, right, I thinka lot has been said, written,
(15:10):
imagined and be good to you knowfor you to address the thoughts
that you know you've seen.
Of course, a lot of people haveasked these questions, yes, and
certainly some in the earlydays and some over a period of
time and measures that you allhave also taken.
So why don't we get down intothat, right?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Sure, yeah, I think it's a very important topic and,
you know, I think overall it'sjust sad that in India, you know
, this is not considered to be avery serious matter, to be a
very serious matter.
But to start with, we knew thatour product is such that you
(15:49):
know, when you look at aresident home, right, people
would ask the question that howare you managing your data, or
our data, my data, because youare getting to know who's coming
to my home, right?
So we were very cognizant ofthis question that would come
from the first customer we wouldsign up.
And even prior to that, thethree of us which is both Shayan
(16:10):
, coming from a technologybackground and working with big
data and Oracle and Digit Vijay,with his defense background and
later banking and my bankingbackground and later banking and
my banking background all threeof us, even before starting
MyGate, were quite cognizant andsensitive and client
confidentiality and dataprotection by virtue of being in
(16:33):
defense and banking and workingwith big data.
All three of us, independently,were very sensitive about these
right, I mean Goldman Sachs froma financial institution.
These things are drilled intoyour DNA, right when you join
the company and that's somethingthat is so critical.
So creating a framework whereMyGate is seen as a trustworthy
(16:56):
company and the data ofresidents will be protected and
not be misused is something thatwas very critical for us from
day one.
So we address this frommultiple fronts.
So first, obviously, from alegal framework, the contractual
obligations that we sign withour clients.
Third, internal technologyarchitecture to ensure that
(17:16):
there is enough encryption,masking and data is not being
revealed to people who need notknow that.
And that includes myGateemployees that includes MyGate
employees, to allowing residentsto know through the app
directly who is viewing the data.
Right to be forgotten.
All of these things, frommultiple angles, were taken care
(17:37):
of.
You know, we had ethical thebest of the Indias, or, I would
say, asia's ethical hackersconsulting us and testing our
systems on a periodic basis, ona retainer basis and, lastly,
making ourselves, I would say,ready for the gold standard of
(17:57):
data privacy, which is GDPR.
Of European standards wassomething we did back in 2019.
Standards was something we didback in 2019.
Subsequently with the DPDP Actof India, we are fairly
confident that we have donewhatever is required to give
confidence to our residents andour customers.
(18:18):
The data will not be misused atany stage of our life in the
MyGate.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Terrific.
So who stores the data or howlong is the data stored?
Are there rules around that?
And, you know, are there anylegal requirements for laws that
govern what we do?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
We are broadly governed by the Data Privacy Act
of India.
Nothing specific except thelarger rule in the country.
More importantly, where data isstored, right now we use the
Amazon Web Services to storedata.
To store data, every communityhas the right to get the data
(19:09):
deleted in six months or youknow.
Let's say 18 months or 12months.
They can choose those optionsand I think that's how we
operate.
Yeah, got it.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
So the other part was , I guess, getting to
monetization a little bit rightand the role that advertising
plays and sort of related to thedata side of things.
So maybe a good segue into that, because when it started out it
was an ad-free app and over aperiod of time, of course, it
was a SaaS model.
Then Over a period of time,it's sort of gone into this
(19:41):
hybrid mode of advertising,advertising plus SaaS.
Only you know and the works.
So tell us a little bit aboutthe thinking behind that and
again, how does it relate to thedata that's being used here?
Speaker 2 (19:56):
So I think the space we operate, which is mostly
resident welfare association,which is the legal body that
manages the gated community,mostly are our clients.
Now, rwa, or resident welfareassociation, are nothing but set
(20:16):
of residents who havevolunteered, uh, out of their
own goodness, their personaltime to run the community and
manage the affairs of thecommunity.
So, so obviously you know apretty thankless job, but must
do job, you know, and residentsthemselves volunteer for this.
But this is a nonprofitorganization, right?
(20:38):
So one of the key factors theyhave always in their mind is how
do I protect or save as much aswe can?
So that's the dynamics, right.
And we are offering aworld-class software product to
RWAs, to us, for us or anycompany to be able to do so and
continuously maintain thequality of this product, quality
(21:01):
of service, keep innovating sothat the end residents and they
enjoy the product.
We had to create a win-winsituation that works for us and
works for our clients.
So we introduced a couple ofoptions.
So one we said you can use oursoftware product, you know, sort
of a premium model, but we willhave the right to advertise,
(21:22):
but we'll do it consciously,judiciously, so that the end
residents eventually doesbenefit.
And the other extreme is right.
You can choose to have completead-free experience where you
know none of the residents inthe community will have any ad
Interestingly, I would say theother extreme there are probably
seven or eight communitiesacross India out of 20,000
(21:44):
communities, or 25,000communities, who have chosen for
a complete ad-free experience.
Right, because they feel that,and we also introduced an option
for the resident as anindividual to take a premium
version to have an ad-freeexperience.
In addition, part of creating awin-win situation for us, we
(22:04):
also introduced revenue sharewith communities based on what
we earn from brands.
I think.
Eventually, I think we havecome to a sort of a happy state
where our clients are also happy.
They get a rev share from us,from the brand advertisements.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
So my gate becomes a revenue center for them rather
than a cost center?
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
So my gate becomes a revenue center for them rather
than a cost center?
Yes, absolutely.
They can continue to enjoymostly our product for free if
they choose to, and eventuallythe entire ecosystem wins.
So that's the approach we havetaken so far.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Yeah.
So personally I've tried outall actually.
So I've seen, of course, the adsupported for a while the
community paying the SaaS andthen of course I have also tried
out personally paying for it,just to experience that whole
thing.
I actually honestly startedmissing the ads so I was too
very reluctantly actually say,well, maybe I should go back to
(23:03):
the ads, because the ads willtell you something about what's
going on in the area and in thecommunity.
Also, you know, coming back tosome of the other milestones
that happened in the companyover the past, say, 24 months,
we noticed also a strategicinvestment from ACCO and Urban
(23:26):
Company, strategic investmentfrom uh echo and uh urban
company.
Maybe you can talk a little bitabout how that came about and
you know what are some of thepartnerships and things
consumers could expect so, uh, Ithink, before specifically
answering about, uh, thosestrategic investment, I think
I'll share overall thesis, right, so overall.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
So overall thesis is we have gone beyond just solving
the problem statements aroundgate and security to practically
becoming the one-stop operatingsystem to run the community.
And what that means is thestatement I have used is you
cannot be in a community and notuse MyGate, because everything
(24:07):
that you need from a communityliving standpoint would be
covered in MyGate, right Frompaying your maintenance service
to booking your badminton court,to connecting with your
neighbor, to selling your oldfurniture, to approving a
resident guest invite andwhatnot.
So that's one step.
While we have a B2C thinkingthere, we also have a very B2B
(24:28):
sort of thinking because at theend of the day, the treasurer,
the management committee and RWAmembers have to also use our
product, then the guards have touse our product and the
external visitors in a wayinteract with MyGate.
So from day one, we had a veryecosystem building approach.
So, while core product is there, we also created a very open
API architecture approach wherepeople can integrate and all
(24:52):
those solutions would be visibleon MyGate app.
For example, access control,boom barrier, e-commerce
integrations where seamlessexpress entry for delivery
executives, home services and soon and so forth.
So while we were doing all ofthese, we had an option.
(25:13):
When it came to home services,we could have done the entire
thing ourselves, but it wouldtake its due course of time to
build a world-class, scalablehome services vertical.
And it was that time when UrbanCompany came in and said why
don't we put a check, and thenwe'll become strategic partners.
Similarly, a similar discussionhappened with the founders of
(25:34):
Echo.
A similar approach was takenand, not to mention, prime has
been our backers from the verybeginning, in every round, every
uh, from the very beginning, inevery round, uh.
So obviously we're, you know, abig credit to all of you guys
at prime who believed in thethesis that we had and continue
to back us up.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
So that's of course, thank you for the the shout out
and certainly it's been aprivilege for us, but we'll come
back to that uh later as wetalk about the journey.
Uh, look, what is interestingwith my gate is also that uh,
everybody who looks at the apphas an opinion of where you guys
should be making moneyeventually and uh, what you
should be giving away, and it'ssort of a company that you know
(26:14):
people uh love to love, love tohate, hate to love.
I don't know what?
yeah, I think you got all thepermutations of that um thing,
um and I'm sure you know asconsumers, you know the first
reaction yeah, okay, fairlysimplistic app.
And suddenly everybody startssaying, oh, they should do this,
they could do this, they couldbe doing this.
And of course I have probablybeen the most irritating person
(26:39):
on that chapter with ideas.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
You should be our chief product.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
I wish you could implement all the things, but
some of these things have reallybeen, you know, quite
significant for the companyright.
And, you know, as a fintechinvestor, you know we've always
looked at you know payments as abig piece.
Maybe you can share a littlebit with the audience the scale
of you know payments that arebeing processed on the MyGate
(27:05):
platform these days.
And then, of course, I wouldlike to get back into some of
the newer products andinitiatives you all have
recently launched as well.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Yeah, so, taking from what Aliyah was saying in the
previous question, the productitself has evolved quite a bit,
where every aspect of communityliving is part of the MyGate
solution, and one of them is theentire accounting invoice
expense management piece, whereevery community has to raise
invoices maintenance invoices orprepaid meter invoices for the
(27:33):
individual homeowners to pay,while this product or solution
was not there in the beginningand it came about in about late
2020.
But in the last four years, asignificant portion of our
portfolio has adopted thissolution and I don't think
(27:54):
there's any doubt in our mindsthat we are probably the largest
player in the ecosystemproviding the solution, and the
payment volume is about nearing4,000 crores worth of
maintenance invoices being paidto the MyGate app and about
double of that is as invoices,which is about 8,000 to 9,000
(28:16):
crores of invoices being raisedon the MyGate platform.
So that's the scale, but Ithink we have just scratched the
surface on this Big focus todrive this further as well in
coming years.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Wow, that's pretty significant.
Now, another ecosystem partneras you talk about, you know,
there's, of course, the resident, there is all the activity that
happens within the community,but you're also the gateway to
the outside in some ways, andthere are a lot of, you know,
domestic helpers that keepcoming in.
(28:50):
There are regional or, you know, hyper-local vendors that are
there that keep coming in andout, whether it's a pharmacist
or you know Kirana shop or whathave you.
Then, of course, now you havethe large D2C brands Sorry, not
the D2C, but the quick commercebrands that are coming in, and
(29:14):
you all have gone about alsoexposing certain APIs and stuff
like that for some of theselarger players.
Yeah, what was the thinkingbehind it and how has it been
received?
Yeah, so this?
Speaker 2 (29:24):
What was the thinking behind it and how has it been
received?
Yeah, so MyGate being afacilitator or helping speed up
the entry-exit of deliverycompanies as an idea started
with the start of MyGate back in2016.
It was only when we scaled.
(29:45):
Sorry, I just got a MyGateinterruption on my phone, sorry,
2016, it was only when wescaled to a significant level,
when the other deliverycompanies truly decided to see
the value of it.
In simplest, simplisticallyspeaking, what it means is you
order any of the quick commerceapp whether it's Zepto, Blinkit,
(30:07):
Zomato, Swiggy, whatnot and themoment a delivery is assigned,
we have an API integration tocheck if it is a MyGate
community and, if it is, theresident gets a pre-approval
notification while the deliveryis on the way and, once approved
, the delivery executive gets anOTP entry code and it just
(30:30):
means that the company and thatindividual saves for each entry
maybe two to four minutesdepending on the situation and
that's a value add for thecompany potentially a couple of
more deliveries throughout theday but also a value add for
(30:51):
this community, because itensures that the delivery
executive that has been assignedby the company is the person
that reaches the gate right,which also is important from a
security standpoint right.
So I think this is somethingthat we had envisioned back in
2016,.
This is something that we hadenvisioned back in 2016, but
truly came into reality, justmaybe two years back.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Yeah, so you're saying made it more secure and
this is something that you hadenvisioned, but it's really now
practical and I guess in thedays of 10-minute delivery and
perhaps 10-minute food, now thetwo to four minutes can be quite
significant.
Absolutely food Now the two tofour minutes can be quite
significant.
Tell us a little bit about thereal estate builders itself,
(31:32):
right, because there's a lot ofit.
I mean, a lot of India is underconstruction, as we all sadly
have to deal with, but from thebuilder perspective also.
I recall there were times whenpeople were actually saying, you
know, even in the salescollateral they would have a
MyGate logo in there and thingslike that.
So how important are thebuilders and the partnerships
(31:54):
with them for you guys?
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Yeah, extremely important.
While RWAs are a significantchunk of our clients across
India, real estate we areclosely linked to the real
estate overall ecosystem.
The more the gated communitieswhich is what we are seeing
happening, the more ourfootprint increases.
(32:17):
We work with builders acrossthe country, in all the cities.
They are also our directclients, build strong
relationship, both from the coreMyGate software solution, where
they would give the opportunityto deploy MyGate when the
project is ready to hand over,to now using our platform to
even advertise for the newprojects, right, which is, you
(32:39):
know, truly adding to therevenue side as well, right?
So on both front, the entirereal estate ecosystem, real
estate builders, developers arevery key and important clients
for us.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
And with respect to some of the newer initiatives.
Recently we saw and it wasquite a surprise to me as well
that it was so advanced in thethought process and thing, but
it obviously had been indevelopment for a while.
Tell us a little bit about theMyGate logs and what that could
(33:14):
lead to over the next few years.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
So about one and a half years back, all of us in
the leadership team sat throughand tried to imagine what MyGate
would be 10 years, right, whilegated community and our focus
on gated community, building forthem and evolving and
innovating in that space asgated communities, will continue
(33:37):
to be our core.
But we truly wanted to sort ofpush that boundary beyond gated
communities as well.
At the same time, look at how,you know, mygate today is seen
as a gated community app.
Right.
But I think if we sort of stepback and say what are we doing
really?
And two things that came out welove solving problems in the
(33:58):
intersection of security andconvenience, because if you look
at security and if you increasesecurity, convenience is
compromised and vice versa.
So there is a healthy tensionbetween these two aspects, which
is security and convenience.
Our thought is we introducesolutions where both are not
compromised and both areelevated.
(34:18):
Now we've been doing that fromthe sense of gated community for
a while and touching the lifeof individuals from many aspects
of great community living.
But the thought was how can weextend the same thesis, same
thought process inside the home?
And while, you know, last fiveyears we have been seeing, you
(34:39):
know iot solution, you knowsmart homes and you manage your
uh heater, ac and curtainsthrough smart devices.
We really felt that, again, fromthe lens of security and
convenience, there is a gap.
There are existing companieswho are providing solutions, but
they are looking at it inisolation, as a piece of
(35:01):
hardware.
We felt that we can build aplatform there where truly we
connect the platform andmultiple devices can connect.
And we started with door.
The same way, we started withthe gate of the community, we
started with the door of thehome and that's the innovation
we did.
We launched our product, panIndia, in October 24.
It's been doing well and youknow we are.
(35:22):
You know you should lookforward to a host of products in
the next 12 months in thatsmart platform of MyGate that
you are building.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
No secrets being revealed.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
No, I think it's known Video doorbell and a few
other products around securitywill be part of the ecosystem
that we are building.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Wonderful.
I have installed the smart lockand what has the response been?
I think people have been usingit for a variety of use cases.
We put it for the back doorinitially because it was a
slightly complicated front door,but it has been very useful.
And you know, we have everyone,from the maid who comes when my
wife is on harmonic walk, to myson who comes late at night if
(36:06):
he's coming from out of town andearlier.
You know, one had to justscurry down to the door, but now
you can just either turn it onwith an app or enable them with
their fingerprint.
What are some of the thingspeople are saying about it?
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Yeah, overall, I think the response has been
beyond what we had imagined.
So October was the first monthof Pan India launch, where we
were present in AmazonMarketplace as well, and within
six weeks we became one of thebest sellers in the category,
was tagged with Amazon Choiceproduct, our reviews and ratings
(36:43):
significantly increased, ourreviews and ratings
significantly increased and thevolume of sale is also picking
up.
So overall, I don't think, insuch a short span of time, any
brand without having that brandtrust could have achieved this.
So overall, I feel that it'sthe love of the customer, the
(37:06):
trust in the brand, that led tothis kind of response.
So we're doing well.
We'll continue to drive thisagenda with multiple products in
future Awesome.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Great.
So you know, one of the otherthings that happened at MyGate
over the past 15 months was thetransition from Vijay to you as
a CEO, and Vijay is, of course,off doing another super exciting
security startup in the gatedcommunity space again, but kind
of unrelated in the smart lockersegment.
(37:40):
But from a company perspective,as a company that goes through
this transition perspective, asa company that goes through this
transition in an ideal world,where it's obviously it was very
well planned and smooth andamicable, what are some of the
tips you have as other companiesgo through or keep thinking?
Maybe it's reached a stagewhere one of the other founders
(38:04):
is probably much moreoperationally focused, while one
might be more the productthinker and the dreamer and so
on.
So how should founders thinkabout this transition and what
are some of the do's and don'tsand lessons learned?
Speaker 2 (38:21):
and you know, yeah, yeah, well, I was thinking this
is not part of the syllabus.
Yeah, out of syllabus questions.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
I have to say every question was out of syllabus.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
I was thinking that that's a comment.
I'll tell you after the podcastis over.
That this was not the scriptyou'd sent me, but anyway, I
think one thing unrelated toquestion but that has helped is
truly.
You know, we believe thatleaders in MyGate have to do
those roles before they get itRight, and that's bad.
(38:58):
But if you promote somebody ayear later, that's better than
doing a year earlier.
So one thing that I've tried todo is, even before the
(39:19):
transition or anything wasplanned, everybody in the
company we insisted as part ofthe culture that you will not
get a promotion until you are inthe role, right and promotion
just.
And when promotion happens,nothing changes because you're
actually doing it already, right?
I think that probably helped inthis case.
(39:39):
And second was our natural skillsets also helped as well, right
?
So while you know Vijay verywell, right, I think he pushes
the boundary of you know thoughtprocess for all of us.
He imagines and sees theopportunity far ahead than at
least me, you know, and I cansay the same for probably many
(40:02):
in the company.
So, in a way, while thistransition was planned or
discussed with with the board,right, in a way, vijay was a
little bit hands-off from day today but was actually thinking
about what next in my gate.
Uh, you know doing that, uh,moonshot experiments, working
(40:23):
with on new ideas.
So my advice to any of these isthis not these are things not
planned or happens in two, three, six months.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Uh, so, truly, it takes a couple of years before
everybody feels comfortable withthese kind of transition yeah,
and and also, um, I think,outside of that transition, I
think the bigger point youtalked about the culture of the
company, where people have to bein a role you know, have to
prove it before they get thepromotion.
It also is very healthy in thatthey're actually guaranteed to
(40:56):
succeed in the new role, right?
so any of the adjustments.
So, while you know, I think weare in a culture in india where,
because of the opportunity,people tend to get these
promotions sometimes too early.
Yeah, but growing into that,you know, and it has to do with
valuations and startups also.
You, you know, you get apremium 2021 valuation.
Then you have to grow into itand it's not that obvious that
(41:18):
you could and I think, it's thesame thing that applies here to
to individual carriers as well,so it's sort of a very astute
way of running the ship here.
Tell us a little more about theculture of the company, right?
I mean, what do you guys do?
Is it a work from officeculture?
Is there a flexible culture?
How do you manage the fieldoffices?
A little bit about how you guys, you know, keep the team
(41:41):
motivated and excited.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
A bit about the culture of fun and activities in
the company bit about theculture of, you know, fun and
activities in the company.
Yeah, well, you know, I thinkit's quite known and uh, in the
entire ecosystem, not juststartup, any company and and
enough uh said about that anycompany more than structure,
culture is what, uh, you know,can be a both of make the
(42:05):
company or break the company.
So that's not very differenthere.
But and culture of the companyand the value system is
something that all of us, asfounders and the leaders, have
been nurturing very focused fromday one, because we truly
believe that the companies haveto be built over many decades
(42:29):
and the only common thing thatcan stay true and the test of
time are the values and theculture of the organization that
should not change.
So first belief is that I'llstart with the phrase.
The word employee is banned inmy gate.
Right, technically, I am alsoemployed, the company and
everybody else is, but we don'tuse the word employee in
(42:51):
conversations and it's symbolic,but I insist that we do and I
think by now it's been quiteinstituted, because the word
employee means that you'reworking for somebody else.
I believe that nobody isworking for anybody.
They're all in my gate workingfor themselves.
It is just that theiraspirations and their ambitions
have aligned with MyGateambitions and we are in this
(43:16):
journey together.
A company, any startup, earlystages or first few years or
first decade, I think companiessorry to say, but companies will
not be built great in the nineto five environment, especially
(43:36):
when you're trying to figure outthings.
So it's just about that passion, that loyalty that do whatever
it takes, attitude.
But this cannot be forced uponindividuals right.
They have to feel that it isour company or my company.
So first, you have to make thempart of the organization in
terms of giving them stockoptions and you know, at the
same time, make it as a priced,make that currency a priced
currency.
Second, you know, treat or makethem feel that truly they are
(43:59):
driving the organizationthemselves.
Third, when they do well, givethem opportunities to sort of
scale up their individualperformance.
So lately, about six to eightmonths back, I've been publicly,
internally inside the company,making a statement that every
(44:19):
single you know I will be verydisappointed to hire any senior
people externally and with.
This message is importantbecause everybody should feel
that the first I need to begrowing into the roles where I
become that candidate for newopportunity or new roles
whenever it appears.
So that's very important.
Second, trust but verify.
(44:40):
Leaders have to have theability to zoom in and zoom out
any point of time.
So if there is a customer issuehappening, I should be or and I
need to sort of be the rolemodel.
I need to leave everything andask such pointed, detailed
questions that you know thattells that you know I'm not
operating only at superficiallevel and that culture in the
(45:02):
organization is also importantthat, when it comes to issues,
leaders will leave everythingand deep dive and they will
check everything right.
So the trust but verify issomething that I drive as part
of the culture.
Third is around just the values,which is innovation, speed,
excellence and translating intowhat it means right, which is,
(45:23):
if you say excellence, meaningit works, it doesn't work right.
Before the discussion we saidI'll just give you an example
the particular customer whobought our smart lock from the
US is facing challenges aroundmanaging it from the US.
He has a tenant at home, so hewants to give him rights.
So the customer has written apretty detailed email to,
(45:45):
including me, which I personallyresponded, and now this is
something that the organizationhas to personally look into.
So customer centricity is asignificant part, and I believe
that, despite whateverchallenges we have faced, our
focus on product and innovationand service has truly created
the customer love for which weare still around and will
(46:08):
continue to grow.
Uh, yeah, so these are some ofthe points around culture, which
, which truly is, is why my gateis what it is today can you
talk a little bit about some ofthe fun things you all have done
as a team and yeah?
we, uh, you know, I think, uh,we allow people first is is that
(46:28):
let people do mistakes, and itcomes to part of it.
Also, you know, we let leadersacross the cities decide what
they want to do in theirrespective cities.
We get together.
The technology team isespecially fond of cricket, so
they get together and playcricket once in a while.
Leadership team we try to goout and we don't spend too much
(46:51):
on that, but we try to go outand spend some time overnight.
We have a year-end party which,as founders, we get some 30, 40
people together for that aswell.
So, yeah, it's a bunch of thesethings and obviously,
celebrating all the differentfestivities together is part of
what we do.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Superb uh.
So last question from my side.
I think we're just coming up tothe uh 45 minute mark here.
Um, what is the?
What keeps you excited andmotivated over the next uh 12,
24, 36 months, and what?
What should we be expecting formy?
Speaker 2 (47:27):
gate.
One thing that we are prettyexcited.
I mean, last two years havebeen very exciting for us, but
every stage of the journey hasgot us where we are today, right
, so there is no you know.
Somebody in a differentconversation was asking us or
asking me what would you havedone differently?
The answer to that was probablywould have started the revenue
(47:48):
journey a year earlier than whatwe did.
Otherwise I would not havechanged anything.
So today, in the last two years,we have reached a stage where
financially at 25, we will growyear to year full year about 80%
.
We already are cash break evenalmost now 13 months.
(48:08):
We will be generating profitsthis year, so this will be first
profitable year of my gate.
That's a significant milestonethat we are very excited about,
and the same focus of runningthe company in a sustainable,
financially prudent way, at thesame time growing at a
reasonable 50 to 60 percent rateyear and year, is what we are
(48:28):
aspiring to drive in the comingyears.
And yeah, so the overallambition is make my gate as a
long-term company, put my gatein probably 20 million
households across the countryand and drive multiple business
verticals as part of the overallcompany structure.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
Wonderful.
Well, we are, of course, bigfans and cheerleaders and wish
you and the MyGate team all thevery best and congratulations
again on, I guess, what's nowclose to a nine-year journey.
Yes, so kudos to you and thankyou very much.
Speaker 3 (49:05):
Dear listeners, thank you for listening to this
episode of the podcast.
Subscribe now on your favoritepodcast app for free.
Thank you.
You get your podcasts?
Then hit subscribe and if youhave enjoyed the show, we would
(49:27):
be really grateful if you leaveus a review on Apple podcast.
To read the full transcript,find the link in the show notes.
The three of you had worked as guards.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
The guard is actually was creating a mini economy.
Gated community becoming atheater of commerce was the aha
idea and that's how the nameMyGate came into existence.
We have to really go afterputting MyGate in every gated
community possible.
Go from about 4,000 communitiesto about 25,000 communities.
The revenue was near zero, afraction of a 20 million
(00:25):
households of gated communityusing your product.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
You know the elephant in the room on data and privacy
.
We noticed also a strategicinvestment from ACCO and Urban
Company.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
You cannot be in a community and not use MyGate.
A big credit to all of you guysat Prime who believed in the
thesis that we had 8,000 to9,000 crore of invoices being
raised on the MyGate platform.
The word employee is banned inMyGate.
I will be very disappointed tohire any senior people
externally.
This will be first profitableyear of MyGate.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
All right, abhishek, great to have you on our prime
entrance podcast again.
Thank you, sanjay.
Uh, been wanting to have thispodcast with you for the past 12
, 18 months and you've alwaysbeen dodging me and then doing
podcasts with everybody else, sofinally caught you here, I'm
glad to be here.
It's great to have you.
Maybe we can start a little bitwith your journey, abhishek.
And then also the start ofMyGate the early days.
(01:32):
How did the idea start?
There's still a lot of mysteryaround that, even though it's
been documented a few times, butI'd love for you to share that
with our audience as well.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Sure.
Thanks, sanjay, for having meand, yeah, lovely to share the
MyGate journey.
Quickly about myselfengineering background went to
US for my master's, then cameback Well, I'm sorry.
I worked in US for about 12years.
I had always in my mind to comeback to India and that happened
back in 2009.
Came back, did an MBA fromAhmedabad one-year program,
(02:11):
joined Goldman Sachs and I wasthere for six years from 2010 to
2016.
And founder of MyGate, vijayArasati, also was in Goldman
Sachs, who joined about a yearback, and we had this five years
of common overlap where webecame very good friends, met
each other multiple times and Ithink that's the place where the
initial seeding of you know youget this bug of kuch karte hain
(02:34):
right.
You know the startup ecosystemin that 2013-14 time was
unfolding and we were startingto see lots of interesting sort
of opportunities but did notknow where to jump in.
So that period was three yearsand Vijay left Goldman.
A couple of months later hecalls back or calls me and says,
(02:59):
hey, there's some interestingobservation and idea.
I think this could be a gamechanger.
Interesting observation andidea.
I think this could be a gamechanger, and that's the
conversation that led to mejoining MyGate, which has come
in.
A friend from IHBD also jumpedin the journey and all three of
us started MyGate back in 2016.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Wonderful and it's been quite a journey.
I think we got the privilege ofmeeting you guys.
I remember, in fact, the funnything was probably in the first
20 or so communities onehappened to be my partner, amit
Somani's, and the other wasSripati Ajarya's community, and
(03:39):
you know, that sort of was thestart of how we connected with
you.
And I once visited Amit and Ijokingly gave my name as the
Super Swami, yeah.
And the next day I went toShripati's place and the guy
asked for my mobile number andthe guard said, oh, super
Swami's up.
And then the three of us gottogether we couldn't stop
talking about it, saying, wow,this is sort of interesting here
(04:01):
, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
And of course, none of you guys had a common
LinkedIn network connection withus, but you managed to find one
person and reached out and ofcourse, so what was interesting,
sanjay, is the story in itselfis quite interesting, how
independently all three of yourpartners got to experience
MyGate in your respectivecommunities and that sort of
gave you the idea that somethinginteresting is happening.
(04:25):
I'll just share, because youdid ask what was the reason for
you to start MyGate right, Ithink, some interesting
observations that was happeningaround us.
One, very clearly, we weremigrants to Bangalore and,
incidentally or intuitively, weall chose to stay in gated
communities.
Incidentally or intuitively, weall chose to stay in gated
communities and while stayingthere and Vijay being a keen
(04:47):
observer of what's happeningaround him, we obviously
observed that gated communitiesis becoming a preferred place
for people to stay and later,when we dug deeper, we realized
that it is not just a Bangalorephenomenon, it's just all India
phenomenon, right, especially intier one, tier two cities,
people are preferring to stay ingated communities as they are
(05:10):
moving into these cities foremployment, education and
whatnot.
But and the reason is one of thekey reason is security and
sense of you know, knowing who'scoming in, you know, safe place
for kids to play.
And second is just access toamenities, which public
infrastructure, frankly, arelagging and lacking.
So these two combined with.
(05:30):
The third interesting phenomenais what we saw is just a gated
community becoming a theater ofcommerce, and we started to see
in those days Amazon, flipkart,big Basket were becoming very,
very active.
So the number of footfalls ofexternal deliveries coming
inside the gated committees werestarting to be on the rise and
we saw that the existingsecurity process will completely
(05:51):
break down.
So this unique idea ofconnecting the external visitor
to the guard, to the resident,so that the resident has the
ability to know on theirfingerprint, a fingertip on
their mobile, who's coming andwhat's happening about their
home, was the aha idea andthat's how the name my gate came
into the you know came into, uh, you know, the existence no,
(06:13):
wonderful, I think.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
um, it was one of those ideas at the time which
seemed like a a breakthrough butalso was like, I think the
first reaction was, of course,seems like an obvious thing why
didn't I think about it earlier?
Why wasn't this done before, etcetera.
And I think there was sort ofthat phase where we were sort of
(06:38):
transitioning from, at the most, a feature phone to a
smartphone.
And I think one of the insightsthat you left me with in the
first meeting why we really feltyou guys had done your thinking
of the market because it wasstill with, you know, 20, 30
communities it's not really, youknow, pmf is sort of a strong
(06:58):
word to use was that you knowthe three of you had worked as
guards.
You had the insight that thelong pole into the tent was
really the acceptance by theguards, not by the residents,
because the residents would seethe convenience but if the
guards weren't able to accept itthen they would just say it
doesn't work.
So maybe you can talk a littlebit about that part, right,
(07:22):
because many of theentrepreneurs listening in will
be thinking about how do weestablish BMF?
And you know how do we identifywhat the biggest risk is.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, no, I think it's a great question because we
all have great ideas and wefeel that we can build a product
that will just createdisruption and everybody will,
you know, seemingly adopt it.
You know, without doubt.
But I think the proof of thepudding really comes when you
hit the ground.
For us, you know, we knew thatif this product has to be
(07:51):
successful, our probably theweakest point and maybe the
strongest point would be thesecurity guards, who have to
operate the product in a wayright.
They are key stakeholders.
And so we went in with thatidea of let's just shadow the
guards, work as guards and be,you know, uh, behind them and
sit with them for entire day.
(08:11):
And we did.
We did this for about maybe amonth and I think that was eye
opener from many, many fronts.
So first, obviously, firstaspect was you know, how do you
design an interface that's easyfor the guards to use?
And when we were shadowing andlooking over the shoulders of
how guards operated, they wereused to making the visitor write
(08:34):
in a register and they wouldhave this traditional landline
intercom and they were used tousing the number zero to nine to
call the resident, pick up thephone and say delivery executive
, you know, sanjay, deliveryexecutive from X is waiting and
you would say yes, no, so this,you know, this muscle memory for
them to use that zero to ninewas quite strong.
(08:56):
And that was the idea ofcreating a user interface that
was 70, 80% like a phone dial,right, and we really wanted that
guard just to make the seamlesstransition from a traditional
intercom to use our mobileapplication and only use numbers
.
So that was a very key insight.
And the second multiple insightswe received was we really felt
(09:19):
that the problem statementunfolding or that we can solve
is beyond our originalimagination.
Right, we are first thinkingfrom the perspective of external
visitors and security guard andresidents, but when you shadow
the guards, you realize that theguard is actually was creating
or managing a mini economy.
Right, because, playing on theasymmetry information of what
(09:41):
the guard knows about thecommunity, that guard is the
go-to place for real estatebrokers, right, who would
probably incentivize the guardto find out which homes are
available, where are tenantsstaying when they are moving out
?
And, interestingly, in themorning time, from 5 am to 8 am,
these guards would get hundredsof calls from residents just to
(10:03):
check if their maid or cook ornanny has come in and this was a
daily phenomena and I thinkthat was a very interesting
insight and our initial product,initial product really solved
for that, which became a quite ahit when we went to the market
yeah, I remember in one of yourearly angels, amir patak, who
was my co-founder at zip dial.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yeah, when I was checking with him he said I
invested in this company becausethey actually solved a problem
for you know not to be sexisthere but for the woman of the
household.
They wake up in the morning,want to know if my maid is in
the community, if my cook is inthe community, or do I have to
make alternate arrangements?
And to him that was like aninsight or an outcome of a
(10:48):
well-thought-out product that hehad and that was an interesting
point.
So, if you trace the journeynow that the company is eight
years old, close to in theprobably three phases yeah, one
was sort of the early PMFF kindof the time when we met you, and
maybe even the first 12, 24months beyond that 2017, 2018.
(11:11):
And then you went into thismode of a blistering scale up,
went all the way from the 20communities that you were at
when we met to now then 20,000communities and then the third
phase now, which is verydisciplined execution and
monetization and so on.
So maybe you can trace sort ofthe three phases or talk about
(11:35):
the three phases and what someof the key issues were that you
were trying to address and lifein each of those phases.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Yeah, I think each phase truly are very different
from each other.
Each phase has its own set ofchallenges and as founders,
leaders, co-founders, you knowyou have to sort of evolve to
manage each stage.
So the first stage was reallyabout, you know, early 2017,
(12:06):
which is when, in April, youguys came in and saw that
opportunity to, I would say, 18and 19.
So the first three years, largecompany and meaningfully large
(12:28):
company in India we have toreally go after putting MyGate
in every gated communitypossible in a thoughtful way,
right, because we had not raisedenough money.
I mean, we had raised somemoney but not enough money to
completely go blitz in thatperiod.
So that period was aboutproduct market fit, focus, going
from one city to another city,identifying the right set of
people who would come in with along-term vision, attracting
(12:52):
talent.
And, as pre-series A, series Aand later series B happened in
2019, this first three years wasabout one keep evolving the
product as we keep getting moreand more insight, and it was
geographical expansion acrossIndia Post Series B, which is
(13:14):
late 2019, and then the onset ofCOVID happened and we also have
some competition who wasthrowing both money and both
capital and people on theproblem.
It was about going into anexplosive, exponential land grab
(13:34):
, which is go from about 4,000communities and we went to about
25,000 communities from 2020-21.
And that period was where thebrand was quite established.
We scaled exponentially.
We that period was where thebrand was quite established.
We scaled exponentially, we hadlarge teams across the country,
but the challenge was therevenue was near zero.
(13:55):
Right, we had a great brand,great Daomao, but revenue was
near zero.
So the third phase was truly,not just for the investors who
believed in us, but forourselves.
Take those revenueopportunities that we had
imagined when we started MyGatethat if you have the, let's say,
(14:16):
a fraction of a 20 millionhouseholds of gated community
using your product, multiplebusiness opportunities can be
built on top of it.
Using your product, multiplebusiness opportunities can be
built on top of it From 2022 tolast.
You know, 22, 23, 24, lastthree years was really proving
that in a very disciplined way,which is what got us here.
So, yeah, I think this is how Idescribe the three phases and
(14:40):
happy to deep dive in any spaceyou'd like, sure, sure and happy
to deep dive in any space you'dlike, sure, sure.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
So before I get into that and we'll certainly talk a
lot about the monetization andthe recent along the way, the
transition from Vijay to you ashe decided to move on to being
an entrepreneur again, thoughhe's still very actively
involved in everything I can seethe elephant in the room on
data and privacy, right, I thinka lot has been said, written,
(15:10):
imagined and be good to you knowfor you to address the thoughts
that you know you've seen.
Of course, a lot of people haveasked these questions, yes, and
certainly some in the earlydays and some over a period of
time and measures that you allhave also taken.
So why don't we get down intothat, right?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Sure, yeah, I think it's a very important topic and,
you know, I think overall it'sjust sad that in India, you know
, this is not considered to be avery serious matter, to be a
very serious matter.
But to start with, we knew thatour product is such that you
(15:49):
know, when you look at aresident home, right, people
would ask the question that howare you managing your data, or
our data, my data, because youare getting to know who's coming
to my home, right?
So we were very cognizant ofthis question that would come
from the first customer we wouldsign up.
And even prior to that, thethree of us which is both Shayan
(16:10):
, coming from a technologybackground and working with big
data and Oracle and Digit Vijay,with his defense background and
later banking and my bankingbackground and later banking and
my banking background all threeof us, even before starting
MyGate, were quite cognizant andsensitive and client
confidentiality and dataprotection by virtue of being in
(16:33):
defense and banking and workingwith big data.
All three of us, independently,were very sensitive about these
right, I mean Goldman Sachs froma financial institution.
These things are drilled intoyour DNA, right when you join
the company and that's somethingthat is so critical.
So creating a framework whereMyGate is seen as a trustworthy
(16:56):
company and the data ofresidents will be protected and
not be misused is something thatwas very critical for us from
day one.
So we address this frommultiple fronts.
So first, obviously, from alegal framework, the contractual
obligations that we sign withour clients.
Third, internal technologyarchitecture to ensure that
(17:16):
there is enough encryption,masking and data is not being
revealed to people who need notknow that.
And that includes myGateemployees that includes MyGate
employees, to allowing residentsto know through the app
directly who is viewing the data.
Right to be forgotten.
All of these things, frommultiple angles, were taken care
(17:37):
of.
You know, we had ethical thebest of the Indias, or, I would
say, asia's ethical hackersconsulting us and testing our
systems on a periodic basis, ona retainer basis and, lastly,
making ourselves, I would say,ready for the gold standard of
(17:57):
data privacy, which is GDPR.
Of European standards wassomething we did back in 2019.
Standards was something we didback in 2019.
Subsequently with the DPDP Actof India, we are fairly
confident that we have donewhatever is required to give
confidence to our residents andour customers.
(18:18):
The data will not be misused atany stage of our life in the
MyGate.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Terrific.
So who stores the data or howlong is the data stored?
Are there rules around that?
And, you know, are there anylegal requirements for laws that
govern what we do?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
We are broadly governed by the Data Privacy Act
of India.
Nothing specific except thelarger rule in the country.
More importantly, where data isstored, right now we use the
Amazon Web Services to storedata.
To store data, every communityhas the right to get the data
(19:09):
deleted in six months or youknow.
Let's say 18 months or 12months.
They can choose those optionsand I think that's how we
operate.
Yeah, got it.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
So the other part was , I guess, getting to
monetization a little bit rightand the role that advertising
plays and sort of related to thedata side of things.
So maybe a good segue into that, because when it started out it
was an ad-free app and over aperiod of time, of course, it
was a SaaS model.
Then Over a period of time,it's sort of gone into this
(19:41):
hybrid mode of advertising,advertising plus SaaS.
Only you know and the works.
So tell us a little bit aboutthe thinking behind that and
again, how does it relate to thedata that's being used here?
Speaker 2 (19:56):
So I think the space we operate, which is mostly
resident welfare association,which is the legal body that
manages the gated community,mostly are our clients.
Now, rwa, or resident welfareassociation, are nothing but set
(20:16):
of residents who havevolunteered, uh, out of their
own goodness, their personaltime to run the community and
manage the affairs of thecommunity.
So, so obviously you know apretty thankless job, but must
do job, you know, and residentsthemselves volunteer for this.
But this is a nonprofitorganization, right?
(20:38):
So one of the key factors theyhave always in their mind is how
do I protect or save as much aswe can?
So that's the dynamics, right.
And we are offering aworld-class software product to
RWAs, to us, for us or anycompany to be able to do so and
continuously maintain thequality of this product, quality
(21:01):
of service, keep innovating sothat the end residents and they
enjoy the product.
We had to create a win-winsituation that works for us and
works for our clients.
So we introduced a couple ofoptions.
So one we said you can use oursoftware product, you know, sort
of a premium model, but we willhave the right to advertise,
(21:22):
but we'll do it consciously,judiciously, so that the end
residents eventually doesbenefit.
And the other extreme is right.
You can choose to have completead-free experience where you
know none of the residents inthe community will have any ad
Interestingly, I would say theother extreme there are probably
seven or eight communitiesacross India out of 20,000
(21:44):
communities, or 25,000communities, who have chosen for
a complete ad-free experience.
Right, because they feel that,and we also introduced an option
for the resident as anindividual to take a premium
version to have an ad-freeexperience.
In addition, part of creating awin-win situation for us, we
(22:04):
also introduced revenue sharewith communities based on what
we earn from brands.
I think.
Eventually, I think we havecome to a sort of a happy state
where our clients are also happy.
They get a rev share from us,from the brand advertisements.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
So my gate becomes a revenue center for them rather
than a cost center?
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
So my gate becomes a revenue center for them rather
than a cost center?
Yes, absolutely.
They can continue to enjoymostly our product for free if
they choose to, and eventuallythe entire ecosystem wins.
So that's the approach we havetaken so far.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Yeah.
So personally I've tried outall actually.
So I've seen, of course, the adsupported for a while the
community paying the SaaS andthen of course I have also tried
out personally paying for it,just to experience that whole
thing.
I actually honestly startedmissing the ads so I was too
very reluctantly actually say,well, maybe I should go back to
(23:03):
the ads, because the ads willtell you something about what's
going on in the area and in thecommunity.
Also, you know, coming back tosome of the other milestones
that happened in the companyover the past, say, 24 months,
we noticed also a strategicinvestment from ACCO and Urban
(23:26):
Company, strategic investmentfrom uh echo and uh urban
company.
Maybe you can talk a little bitabout how that came about and
you know what are some of thepartnerships and things
consumers could expect so, uh, Ithink, before specifically
answering about, uh, thosestrategic investment, I think
I'll share overall thesis, right, so overall.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
So overall thesis is we have gone beyond just solving
the problem statements aroundgate and security to practically
becoming the one-stop operatingsystem to run the community.
And what that means is thestatement I have used is you
cannot be in a community and notuse MyGate, because everything
(24:07):
that you need from a communityliving standpoint would be
covered in MyGate, right Frompaying your maintenance service
to booking your badminton court,to connecting with your
neighbor, to selling your oldfurniture, to approving a
resident guest invite andwhatnot.
So that's one step.
While we have a B2C thinkingthere, we also have a very B2B
(24:28):
sort of thinking because at theend of the day, the treasurer,
the management committee and RWAmembers have to also use our
product, then the guards have touse our product and the
external visitors in a wayinteract with MyGate.
So from day one, we had a veryecosystem building approach.
So, while core product is there, we also created a very open
API architecture approach wherepeople can integrate and all
(24:52):
those solutions would be visibleon MyGate app.
For example, access control,boom barrier, e-commerce
integrations where seamlessexpress entry for delivery
executives, home services and soon and so forth.
So while we were doing all ofthese, we had an option.
(25:13):
When it came to home services,we could have done the entire
thing ourselves, but it wouldtake its due course of time to
build a world-class, scalablehome services vertical.
And it was that time when UrbanCompany came in and said why
don't we put a check, and thenwe'll become strategic partners.
Similarly, a similar discussionhappened with the founders of
(25:34):
Echo.
A similar approach was takenand, not to mention, prime has
been our backers from the verybeginning, in every round, every
uh, from the very beginning, inevery round, uh.
So obviously we're, you know, abig credit to all of you guys
at prime who believed in thethesis that we had and continue
to back us up.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
So that's of course, thank you for the the shout out
and certainly it's been aprivilege for us, but we'll come
back to that uh later as wetalk about the journey.
Uh, look, what is interestingwith my gate is also that uh,
everybody who looks at the apphas an opinion of where you guys
should be making moneyeventually and uh, what you
should be giving away, and it'ssort of a company that you know
(26:14):
people uh love to love, love tohate, hate to love.
I don't know what?
yeah, I think you got all thepermutations of that um thing,
um and I'm sure you know asconsumers, you know the first
reaction yeah, okay, fairlysimplistic app.
And suddenly everybody startssaying, oh, they should do this,
they could do this, they couldbe doing this.
And of course I have probablybeen the most irritating person
(26:39):
on that chapter with ideas.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
You should be our chief product.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
I wish you could implement all the things, but
some of these things have reallybeen, you know, quite
significant for the companyright.
And, you know, as a fintechinvestor, you know we've always
looked at you know payments as abig piece.
Maybe you can share a littlebit with the audience the scale
of you know payments that arebeing processed on the MyGate
(27:05):
platform these days.
And then, of course, I wouldlike to get back into some of
the newer products andinitiatives you all have
recently launched as well.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Yeah, so, taking from what Aliyah was saying in the
previous question, the productitself has evolved quite a bit,
where every aspect of communityliving is part of the MyGate
solution, and one of them is theentire accounting invoice
expense management piece, whereevery community has to raise
invoices maintenance invoices orprepaid meter invoices for the
(27:33):
individual homeowners to pay,while this product or solution
was not there in the beginningand it came about in about late
2020.
But in the last four years, asignificant portion of our
portfolio has adopted thissolution and I don't think
(27:54):
there's any doubt in our mindsthat we are probably the largest
player in the ecosystemproviding the solution, and the
payment volume is about nearing4,000 crores worth of
maintenance invoices being paidto the MyGate app and about
double of that is as invoices,which is about 8,000 to 9,000
(28:16):
crores of invoices being raisedon the MyGate platform.
So that's the scale, but Ithink we have just scratched the
surface on this Big focus todrive this further as well in
coming years.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Wow, that's pretty significant.
Now, another ecosystem partneras you talk about, you know,
there's, of course, the resident, there is all the activity that
happens within the community,but you're also the gateway to
the outside in some ways, andthere are a lot of, you know,
domestic helpers that keepcoming in.
(28:50):
There are regional or, you know, hyper-local vendors that are
there that keep coming in andout, whether it's a pharmacist
or you know Kirana shop or whathave you.
Then, of course, now you havethe large D2C brands Sorry, not
the D2C, but the quick commercebrands that are coming in, and
(29:14):
you all have gone about alsoexposing certain APIs and stuff
like that for some of theselarger players.
Yeah, what was the thinkingbehind it and how has it been
received?
Yeah, so this?
Speaker 2 (29:24):
What was the thinking behind it and how has it been
received?
Yeah, so MyGate being afacilitator or helping speed up
the entry-exit of deliverycompanies as an idea started
with the start of MyGate back in2016.
It was only when we scaled.
(29:45):
Sorry, I just got a MyGateinterruption on my phone, sorry,
2016, it was only when wescaled to a significant level,
when the other deliverycompanies truly decided to see
the value of it.
In simplest, simplisticallyspeaking, what it means is you
order any of the quick commerceapp whether it's Zepto, Blinkit,
(30:07):
Zomato, Swiggy, whatnot and themoment a delivery is assigned,
we have an API integration tocheck if it is a MyGate
community and, if it is, theresident gets a pre-approval
notification while the deliveryis on the way and, once approved
, the delivery executive gets anOTP entry code and it just
(30:30):
means that the company and thatindividual saves for each entry
maybe two to four minutesdepending on the situation and
that's a value add for thecompany potentially a couple of
more deliveries throughout theday but also a value add for
(30:51):
this community, because itensures that the delivery
executive that has been assignedby the company is the person
that reaches the gate right,which also is important from a
security standpoint right.
So I think this is somethingthat we had envisioned back in
2016,.
This is something that we hadenvisioned back in 2016, but
truly came into reality, justmaybe two years back.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Yeah, so you're saying made it more secure and
this is something that you hadenvisioned, but it's really now
practical and I guess in thedays of 10-minute delivery and
perhaps 10-minute food, now thetwo to four minutes can be quite
significant.
Absolutely food Now the two tofour minutes can be quite
significant.
Tell us a little bit about thereal estate builders itself,
(31:32):
right, because there's a lot ofit.
I mean, a lot of India is underconstruction, as we all sadly
have to deal with, but from thebuilder perspective also.
I recall there were times whenpeople were actually saying, you
know, even in the salescollateral they would have a
MyGate logo in there and thingslike that.
So how important are thebuilders and the partnerships
(31:54):
with them for you guys?
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Yeah, extremely important.
While RWAs are a significantchunk of our clients across
India, real estate we areclosely linked to the real
estate overall ecosystem.
The more the gated communitieswhich is what we are seeing
happening, the more ourfootprint increases.
(32:17):
We work with builders acrossthe country, in all the cities.
They are also our directclients, build strong
relationship, both from the coreMyGate software solution, where
they would give the opportunityto deploy MyGate when the
project is ready to hand over,to now using our platform to
even advertise for the newprojects, right, which is, you
(32:39):
know, truly adding to therevenue side as well, right?
So on both front, the entirereal estate ecosystem, real
estate builders, developers arevery key and important clients
for us.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
And with respect to some of the newer initiatives.
Recently we saw and it wasquite a surprise to me as well
that it was so advanced in thethought process and thing, but
it obviously had been indevelopment for a while.
Tell us a little bit about theMyGate logs and what that could
(33:14):
lead to over the next few years.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
So about one and a half years back, all of us in
the leadership team sat throughand tried to imagine what MyGate
would be 10 years, right, whilegated community and our focus
on gated community, building forthem and evolving and
innovating in that space asgated communities, will continue
(33:37):
to be our core.
But we truly wanted to sort ofpush that boundary beyond gated
communities as well.
At the same time, look at how,you know, mygate today is seen
as a gated community app.
Right.
But I think if we sort of stepback and say what are we doing
really?
And two things that came out welove solving problems in the
(33:58):
intersection of security andconvenience, because if you look
at security and if you increasesecurity, convenience is
compromised and vice versa.
So there is a healthy tensionbetween these two aspects, which
is security and convenience.
Our thought is we introducesolutions where both are not
compromised and both areelevated.
(34:18):
Now we've been doing that fromthe sense of gated community for
a while and touching the lifeof individuals from many aspects
of great community living.
But the thought was how can weextend the same thesis, same
thought process inside the home?
And while, you know, last fiveyears we have been seeing, you
(34:39):
know iot solution, you knowsmart homes and you manage your
uh heater, ac and curtainsthrough smart devices.
We really felt that, again, fromthe lens of security and
convenience, there is a gap.
There are existing companieswho are providing solutions, but
they are looking at it inisolation, as a piece of
(35:01):
hardware.
We felt that we can build aplatform there where truly we
connect the platform andmultiple devices can connect.
And we started with door.
The same way, we started withthe gate of the community, we
started with the door of thehome and that's the innovation
we did.
We launched our product, panIndia, in October 24.
It's been doing well and youknow we are.
(35:22):
You know you should lookforward to a host of products in
the next 12 months in thatsmart platform of MyGate that
you are building.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
No secrets being revealed.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
No, I think it's known Video doorbell and a few
other products around securitywill be part of the ecosystem
that we are building.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Wonderful.
I have installed the smart lockand what has the response been?
I think people have been usingit for a variety of use cases.
We put it for the back doorinitially because it was a
slightly complicated front door,but it has been very useful.
And you know, we have everyone,from the maid who comes when my
wife is on harmonic walk, to myson who comes late at night if
(36:06):
he's coming from out of town andearlier.
You know, one had to justscurry down to the door, but now
you can just either turn it onwith an app or enable them with
their fingerprint.
What are some of the thingspeople are saying about it?
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Yeah, overall, I think the response has been
beyond what we had imagined.
So October was the first monthof Pan India launch, where we
were present in AmazonMarketplace as well, and within
six weeks we became one of thebest sellers in the category,
was tagged with Amazon Choiceproduct, our reviews and ratings
(36:43):
significantly increased, ourreviews and ratings
significantly increased and thevolume of sale is also picking
up.
So overall, I don't think, insuch a short span of time, any
brand without having that brandtrust could have achieved this.
So overall, I feel that it'sthe love of the customer, the
(37:06):
trust in the brand, that led tothis kind of response.
So we're doing well.
We'll continue to drive thisagenda with multiple products in
future Awesome.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Great.
So you know, one of the otherthings that happened at MyGate
over the past 15 months was thetransition from Vijay to you as
a CEO, and Vijay is, of course,off doing another super exciting
security startup in the gatedcommunity space again, but kind
of unrelated in the smart lockersegment.
(37:40):
But from a company perspective,as a company that goes through
this transition perspective, asa company that goes through this
transition in an ideal world,where it's obviously it was very
well planned and smooth andamicable, what are some of the
tips you have as other companiesgo through or keep thinking?
Maybe it's reached a stagewhere one of the other founders
(38:04):
is probably much moreoperationally focused, while one
might be more the productthinker and the dreamer and so
on.
So how should founders thinkabout this transition and what
are some of the do's and don'tsand lessons learned?
Speaker 2 (38:21):
and you know, yeah, yeah, well, I was thinking this
is not part of the syllabus.
Yeah, out of syllabus questions.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
I have to say every question was out of syllabus.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
I was thinking that that's a comment.
I'll tell you after the podcastis over.
That this was not the scriptyou'd sent me, but anyway, I
think one thing unrelated toquestion but that has helped is
truly.
You know, we believe thatleaders in MyGate have to do
those roles before they get itRight, and that's bad.
(38:58):
But if you promote somebody ayear later, that's better than
doing a year earlier.
So one thing that I've tried todo is, even before the
(39:19):
transition or anything wasplanned, everybody in the
company we insisted as part ofthe culture that you will not
get a promotion until you are inthe role, right and promotion
just.
And when promotion happens,nothing changes because you're
actually doing it already, right?
I think that probably helped inthis case.
(39:39):
And second was our natural skillsets also helped as well, right
?
So while you know Vijay verywell, right, I think he pushes
the boundary of you know thoughtprocess for all of us.
He imagines and sees theopportunity far ahead than at
least me, you know, and I cansay the same for probably many
(40:02):
in the company.
So, in a way, while thistransition was planned or
discussed with with the board,right, in a way, vijay was a
little bit hands-off from day today but was actually thinking
about what next in my gate.
Uh, you know doing that, uh,moonshot experiments, working
(40:23):
with on new ideas.
So my advice to any of these isthis not these are things not
planned or happens in two, three, six months.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Uh, so, truly, it takes a couple of years before
everybody feels comfortable withthese kind of transition yeah,
and and also, um, I think,outside of that transition, I
think the bigger point youtalked about the culture of the
company, where people have to bein a role you know, have to
prove it before they get thepromotion.
It also is very healthy in thatthey're actually guaranteed to
(40:56):
succeed in the new role, right?
so any of the adjustments.
So, while you know, I think weare in a culture in india where,
because of the opportunity,people tend to get these
promotions sometimes too early.
Yeah, but growing into that,you know, and it has to do with
valuations and startups also.
You, you know, you get apremium 2021 valuation.
Then you have to grow into itand it's not that obvious that
(41:18):
you could and I think, it's thesame thing that applies here to
to individual carriers as well,so it's sort of a very astute
way of running the ship here.
Tell us a little more about theculture of the company, right?
I mean, what do you guys do?
Is it a work from officeculture?
Is there a flexible culture?
How do you manage the fieldoffices?
A little bit about how you guys, you know, keep the team
(41:41):
motivated and excited.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
A bit about the culture of fun and activities in
the company bit about theculture of, you know, fun and
activities in the company.
Yeah, well, you know, I thinkit's quite known and uh, in the
entire ecosystem, not juststartup, any company and and
enough uh said about that anycompany more than structure,
culture is what, uh, you know,can be a both of make the
(42:05):
company or break the company.
So that's not very differenthere.
But and culture of the companyand the value system is
something that all of us, asfounders and the leaders, have
been nurturing very focused fromday one, because we truly
believe that the companies haveto be built over many decades
(42:29):
and the only common thing thatcan stay true and the test of
time are the values and theculture of the organization that
should not change.
So first belief is that I'llstart with the phrase.
The word employee is banned inmy gate.
Right, technically, I am alsoemployed, the company and
everybody else is, but we don'tuse the word employee in
(42:51):
conversations and it's symbolic,but I insist that we do and I
think by now it's been quiteinstituted, because the word
employee means that you'reworking for somebody else.
I believe that nobody isworking for anybody.
They're all in my gate workingfor themselves.
It is just that theiraspirations and their ambitions
have aligned with MyGateambitions and we are in this
(43:16):
journey together.
A company, any startup, earlystages or first few years or
first decade, I think companiessorry to say, but companies will
not be built great in the nineto five environment, especially
(43:36):
when you're trying to figure outthings.
So it's just about that passion, that loyalty that do whatever
it takes, attitude.
But this cannot be forced uponindividuals right.
They have to feel that it isour company or my company.
So first, you have to make thempart of the organization in
terms of giving them stockoptions and you know, at the
same time, make it as a priced,make that currency a priced
currency.
Second, you know, treat or makethem feel that truly they are
(43:59):
driving the organizationthemselves.
Third, when they do well, givethem opportunities to sort of
scale up their individualperformance.
So lately, about six to eightmonths back, I've been publicly,
internally inside the company,making a statement that every
(44:19):
single you know I will be verydisappointed to hire any senior
people externally and with.
This message is importantbecause everybody should feel
that the first I need to begrowing into the roles where I
become that candidate for newopportunity or new roles
whenever it appears.
So that's very important.
Second, trust but verify.
(44:40):
Leaders have to have theability to zoom in and zoom out
any point of time.
So if there is a customer issuehappening, I should be or and I
need to sort of be the rolemodel.
I need to leave everything andask such pointed, detailed
questions that you know thattells that you know I'm not
operating only at superficiallevel and that culture in the
(45:02):
organization is also importantthat, when it comes to issues,
leaders will leave everythingand deep dive and they will
check everything right.
So the trust but verify issomething that I drive as part
of the culture.
Third is around just the values,which is innovation, speed,
excellence and translating intowhat it means right, which is,
(45:23):
if you say excellence, meaningit works, it doesn't work right.
Before the discussion we saidI'll just give you an example
the particular customer whobought our smart lock from the
US is facing challenges aroundmanaging it from the US.
He has a tenant at home, so hewants to give him rights.
So the customer has written apretty detailed email to,
(45:45):
including me, which I personallyresponded, and now this is
something that the organizationhas to personally look into.
So customer centricity is asignificant part, and I believe
that, despite whateverchallenges we have faced, our
focus on product and innovationand service has truly created
the customer love for which weare still around and will
(46:08):
continue to grow.
Uh, yeah, so these are some ofthe points around culture, which
, which truly is, is why my gateis what it is today can you
talk a little bit about some ofthe fun things you all have done
as a team and yeah?
we, uh, you know, I think, uh,we allow people first is is that
(46:28):
let people do mistakes, and itcomes to part of it.
Also, you know, we let leadersacross the cities decide what
they want to do in theirrespective cities.
We get together.
The technology team isespecially fond of cricket, so
they get together and playcricket once in a while.
Leadership team we try to goout and we don't spend too much
(46:51):
on that, but we try to go outand spend some time overnight.
We have a year-end party which,as founders, we get some 30, 40
people together for that aswell.
So, yeah, it's a bunch of thesethings and obviously,
celebrating all the differentfestivities together is part of
what we do.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Superb uh.
So last question from my side.
I think we're just coming up tothe uh 45 minute mark here.
Um, what is the?
What keeps you excited andmotivated over the next uh 12,
24, 36 months, and what?
What should we be expecting formy?
Speaker 2 (47:27):
gate.
One thing that we are prettyexcited.
I mean, last two years havebeen very exciting for us, but
every stage of the journey hasgot us where we are today, right
, so there is no you know.
Somebody in a differentconversation was asking us or
asking me what would you havedone differently?
The answer to that was probablywould have started the revenue
(47:48):
journey a year earlier than whatwe did.
Otherwise I would not havechanged anything.
So today, in the last two years,we have reached a stage where
financially at 25, we will growyear to year full year about 80%
.
We already are cash break evenalmost now 13 months.
(48:08):
We will be generating profitsthis year, so this will be first
profitable year of my gate.
That's a significant milestonethat we are very excited about,
and the same focus of runningthe company in a sustainable,
financially prudent way, at thesame time growing at a
reasonable 50 to 60 percent rateyear and year, is what we are
(48:28):
aspiring to drive in the comingyears.
And yeah, so the overallambition is make my gate as a
long-term company, put my gatein probably 20 million
households across the countryand and drive multiple business
verticals as part of the overallcompany structure.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
Wonderful.
Well, we are, of course, bigfans and cheerleaders and wish
you and the MyGate team all thevery best and congratulations
again on, I guess, what's nowclose to a nine-year journey.
Yes, so kudos to you and thankyou very much.
Speaker 3 (49:05):
Dear listeners, thank you for listening to this
episode of the podcast.
Subscribe now on your favoritepodcast app for free.
Thank you.
You get your podcasts?
Then hit subscribe and if youhave enjoyed the show, we would
(49:27):
be really grateful if you leaveus a review on Apple podcast.
To read the full transcript,find the link in the show notes.
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