How to start a software company to get acquired with Gaurav Mantri
Gaurav Mantri was born in India and moved to the US in 1999. He worked in a corporate job and dabbled in start ups during the dotcom era, but he eventually decided to move back to India to build a software company, Cerebrata. Cerebrate was eventually acquired by Red Gate Software. Gaurav shares his story of success, and some failures along the way. Listen to the episode to hear how he walked away from a deal with Celebrata at one point; how he didn’t negotiate for more money when they came back to the table, and how he lost more than $100,000 in failed products.
You can learn the following in this episode:
How SDS Client came about
Why he chose to build Microsoft applications
What he learned from his failed start up
Why he never ended up getting a green card
How he ended up choosing where to move to in India
Exactly what on the professional front, made him move to India
How active.com became part of his work
The story of generating revenue when he moved to India
Why everyone in his organization was afraid of getting called to the spare room
How the first product was created
What Azur does and who uses it
How a blog post impacted his product
How free products can lead to paid products
Ways Gaurav was bad at marketing
How to find the right market for your products
How a product failed and lost more than $100,000
How he entered a contest to better his company
His strategic reach to Red Gate, in hopes that he could learn a lot
How he avoided financial negotiations when he was acquired
How a celebration ate up the profits of his company
Resources to help you professionally
Be sincere when you seek help
Resources and Links Mentioned: Red Gate Books
Connect with Gaurav: gauravmantri.com - his blog