Meet the co-founders of Indorse
Gaurang Torvekar and Avadhoot Kulkarni are the co-founders of Indorse. Both are engineers and have worked as Software engineers in the past. While Gaurang looks after the product and sales, Avadhoot manages marketing. They have acquired a unique perspective, due to a combination of having worked in startups across the world as well as having technical backgrounds!
What inspired you to launch your business and what is the end goal?
We started Indorse because we believed that we could build a world where the only thing that mattered was your skills! One of the inspirations for the idea was the plight of the refugees during the Syria crisis and the fact that as highly educated refugees they were forced into jobs that didn’t accurately reflect their skillsets.
How do you set yourself apart from other businesses in your industry?
Indorse is a Coding Assessment Platform for recruiting, hackathons and upskilling. It leverages a community of leading software developers spread across the globe to assess coding skills and tech capabilities.
Do you have a morning routine or ritual to get your day started on the right foot?
One of the “perks” of working with an international team is that I usually start my day at 7.30 am or 8 am! The only ritual I have is to make a nice cup of coffee before our daily standup.
If you could be in a room with 4 entrepreneurs, who would they be and why?
Bill Gates, Larry Page, Ratan Tata and Sergey Brin. These 4 (amongst others) have always been people I have looked up to through my entrepreneurial journey, and I try to emulate how they built their startups and revolutionary products!
What are your top tips for entrepreneurs wanting to get their business out there?
It’s essential to go out there and take a leap of faith! You should also make sure that you can survive at least for a few months or more on a meagre salary, so make sure that you are ready for the initial struggle!
Another critical factor is to understand the market in which you want to build your product. If you don’t have a good understanding, then get someone experienced as a co-founder or try to talk to as many relevant people as possible to get better insights!
How important is company culture and what is your top tip to get it right?
Company culture is vital for any company, big or small. The right culture within a company is what sets apart the high performers from the low performers. It also affects the productivity of individuals within a team. Culture is also a key metric within industry-standard reports such as the State of the DevOps 2019.
Any new product launches we should know about?
We are launching a new product called Metamorph, which focuses on Performance Management, specifically for Software Developers. This tool incorporates pulse surveys and tech challenges for creating engaged teams and hence understanding where they are falling short, and thus improve together as a team.
How did you fund the launch of your business and what creative strategies did you use to execute a minimal cash flow?
Unlike other companies in the space, we have always maintained a relatively modest profile, and made sure that our cash outflow is optimised for growth. One of the best yet the most straightforward strategies is to have a regular (ideally monthly) check-in on your current cash outflows vs revenues and current bank balance! Doing this in itself helps you stay disciplined and keep a check on the unnecessary expenses.
What’s the most important question entrepreneurs should be asking themselves?
One of the most important questions is about the need and the relevancy of their product. Without a quality product, everything else falls apart, and it also affects the morale and culture within a company.
What would be your top marketing tip, to grow a business that is so niche, yet incredibly timeless?
We, as a team, believe in “Product-led growth” rather than relying on sneaky growth hacks. By maintaining a laser-focus on building a great product, you can make sure that it creates an engine which helps you attain more users, retain the existing ones and hence expand your user base.
