Startup, stay focused with Maha Mahadevan

In this episode, Shiv is in conversation with Maha Mahadevan, CEO of BOSS Solutions - a company providing technology solutions for ITSM, Help desk and 811 ticket management for the damage prevention industry. Maha shares

• His origin story of getting into IT after graduating in electrical engineering
• Getting a call from a friend asking if he would like to start a business
• Wanting to create IT solutions
• How he approached a selling role, that was needed for the startup
• Providing staff augmentation services to start and developing a solution to help with Windows NT migration
• Extending the solutions with additional products, some based on suggestions or requests from customers
• How a ticket management solution could be enhanced to manage a solution for utilities and serving many customers for over seven years
• In hindsight, learning that drastic steps and dropping the old could be very risky - and happy that his bets have proven successful in the longer run
• The context when he chose to become an entrepreneur, and the risks he faced at that time
• His advice: do it as if there is no other option, network and tap into your network
• How to retain confidence, when things may not appear to go the way one would like to
• Being ready to adapt and change, when in uncertain situations
• His personal practices to stay calm under all circumstances
• How to communicate the value of IT solutions - in terms of benefits and not features
• Whom to engage in a customer organization, not just what to communicate
• How he built and kept the team together and stay motivated

Maha Mahadevan is the founder CEO of BOSS Solutions, an Atlanta GA based company providing SaaS solutions BOSSDesk for service management and BOSS811 for Onecall ticket management for the damage prevention industry. The company started off as an IT staff augmentation business and transformed into developing innovative solutions providing SaaS solutions to a sizable customer base across the US. Maha has a bachelors in engineering from the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore and Masters from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He is a regular tennis player and practices yoga. He enjoys traveling and spending time with family and friends.