Shantanu Shah: Bangalore Attracts a Lot of Deep Tech Talent in the Areas of Artificial Intelligence That We Work In

Shantanu Shah of Bewgle.

Tell us about yourself?

I love tech! I did my Masters in Computer Engineering from Cornell University, then joined Google in New York and was there for a long time. I worked on Maps, Search and multiple other offerings.

The highlight was when I conceptualized and launched Google OneToday, a social micro-donation platform. It was intrapreneurship, but my first taste at doing something on my own.

What lessons has being an entrepreneur taught you? 

Two key lessons are that there are multiple answers to the same problem. Multiple perspectives and many ways of thinking laterally about the same issue on hand. The second one is patience.

If you could go back in time to when you first started your business, what piece of advice would you give yourself?

It really is a roller coaster! You read about it, you think about it, but now you’re really really going to see the ups and downs.

A lot of entrepreneurs find it difficult to balance their work and personal lives. How have you found that?

It is crucial to enjoy your work and enjoy and be happy as an entrepreneur. A lot of the things must be delegated to make space for personal time.

Give us a bit of an insight into the influences behind the company?

We are swimming in unstructured data about products e.g blogs, reviews, videos, forum posts and so on.

Surprisingly, product analysts (product managers) have typically read less about their own products and about competing products than the typical buyer of their products!

This is because there are no tools to deeply analyse unstructured data at scale. That’s what we are solving.

What do you think is your magic sauce? What sets you apart from the competitors?

Cutting edge AI/NLP and a clear focus on our strengths. We have developed patented algorithms to solve the pain points of our customers at a depth that is unmatched.

How have you found sales so far? Do you have any lessons you could pass on to other founders in the same market as you just starting out?

It takes longer than what you thought it would take. 🙂 Tough lesson, but that’s the way it is. You have to keep going and add as much structure to the process as you can.

What is the biggest challenge you have faced so far in your business, and how did you overcome it?

Covid was the biggest challenge.

There was no hope of sales, no clarity on whether we would survive and no prior references on how to make decisions in such extreme uncertainty.

We overcame it by squarely focusing on survival.

All our team mates made some kind of sacrifice but we pulled through because everyone was thinking about just one thing – how do we survive.

What do you consider are the main strengths of operating your business in India and the specific state you are in over other states in India?

Bangalore attracts a lot of deep tech talent in the areas of artificial intelligence that we work in.

Premier educational institutes like IISc are a huge boon and so are MNCs who work on deep tech here like Google and others.

Pune offers excellent lifestyle and engineering environment, it too has a strong list of both educational institutes and technical work

What (if any) are some weaknesses of operating your business within India and your state?

It is much harder to sell the product overseas from India, however we are now ramping up teams overseas

If you could operate your business in another state in India rather than the State you are in, which state would it be and why?

No, we are fine where we operate from.

India has an incredibly diverse population. How has the affected your consumer base and business?

This is definitely a plus, we are stronger as a result of diversity which leads towards greater empathy towards consumers

Infrastructure is really important to businesses. How have you seen India’s infrastructure improve recently? Do you see new opportunities opening up?

Most certainly. From basics like internet, to clear initiatives like road and other infrastructure, we are heading in the right direction

What do you want to accomplish in the next 5 years with your business?

There’s a vast potential for marketing/product folks to understand their customers. This should lead to reduced product development lifecycles, better pricing and ultimately much happy customers.

And finally, if people want to get involved and learn more about your business, how should they do that?

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