This Founder Turned Colors Into an million dollar exit - Ep 66

What drives a founder to go back into the grind after a life-changing exit?

In this episode, we sit down with Ganesh, a serial founder who bootstrapped his AI startup to millions in revenue, cracked the toughest enterprise clients like TCS and KPMG, and rebounded from losing 85% of revenue during COVID.

We cover:

- Why he didn’t raise VC early on

- Building an assessment company without asking a single question

- Selling into TCS, Indian Army & QSRs like Universal Studios

- Losing millions in revenue overnight and still surviving

- Exiting to a strategic buyer

- Why he's back in stealth mode building a sales AI company

Timestamps:

00:00 – Intro & how Ganesh and the host met

00:21 – Why build another startup after a successful exit?

01:06 – Spotting the opportunity with generative AI

02:12 – Cisco days & the shift to entrepreneurship

03:00 – Building culture at scale — the early inspiration

04:29 – From network optimization to people analytics

07:13 – Mistake: Building before validating

10:03 – First break via Plug and Play, no customers yet

11:08 – Breakthrough with DBS & positioning as a “cultural DNA” company

12:13 – Landing TCS, Byju’s, KPMG for large-scale assessments

13:25 – Pricing challenges in enterprise SaaS

18:15 – First funding — how Mitsubishi Ventures found them

20:32 – Crazy story of a 12-person Sunday 7AM investor meetingt

26:00 – QSR boom: Universal Studios, restaurant chains, & rapid growth

29:07 – COVID wiped out 85% of revenue overnight

33:00 – Why founder salaries matters even in bootstrapped companies

34:36 – Pivoting back to B2B — TCS saves the business

38:48 – Rebuilding revenue, landing Byju’s, scaling again

43:00 – Learn at Forbes, cultural learning styles, and the acquirer

46:32 – Post-exit reflections on taxes, dilution & what he’d do differently

51:10 – Starting again: the new stealth startup in AI Sales

57:00 – Early adopters welcome: Join Ganesh’s next journey