Amit Khemchandani, BIZense, on their latest product Adatrix, an advertising platform using optimization algorithms & adaptive trend based analytics.

Tell us about BIZense.

BIZense is a product startup company that has two key driving factors, innovation and excellence. Our team at BIZense is focused on building a next gen advertising platform for multiple digital touch points and enabling the players in the advertising landscape gain deeper insights into the advertising data streams via our patent pending adaptive real-time trend based optimization technology.

How are you different from other players in this space?

In a single word, we are an “innovation” in the advertising domain via technology. Our flagship product is Adatrix, an advertising platform for multiple digital touch points with the USP of proprietary patent pending optimization algorithms and adaptive trend based analytics.

How did the idea for BIZense Software Technologies come about?

Akhil , who is the other founder of BIZense worked with me in Qwest Telecom prior to our starting BIZense. Priyabrata is the other key member of our company who also worked with us in Qwest. What we initially set out to do, based on our past telecom knowledge and experience was, to build a product in the telecom domain leveraging business rules.

Tell us about your background.

I did my B Tech from IIT Kanpur and graduated in 1999. Started my career with Interra and in 2001 tried to venture out on my own which didn’t work out. Then, went back and joined the corporate world. Finally joined a company TS2 which was a startup in May 2004 to learn the finer aspects of a startup before venturing out on my own. Akhil shares the same entrepreneurial passion and was working on a part-time venture before we started BIZense. He is a B Tech graduate from IIT Guwahati, and is the CTO driving R&D at BIZense. Priyabrata is an IIT Kanpur alumni and has a strong background in statistical analysis and data mining. He heads the analytics at BIZense.

Let us know about the tie-ups that you have.

We have been in talks with Jivox, a video ad network for a partnership wherein our platform would be Jivox certified to serve rich media ads from their network. We are also in talks with a Mobile local advertising / couponing company, Adnomics in Germany for a partnership wherein our Ad server would be used by them in Europe for hyper local ads and coupon targeting. Besides these, PerceptKnorigin which is an existing client of our earlier product version, is interested in migrating to Adatrix. Infact, we have the commercial beta release this weekend and meeting both Percept and Jivox next week. Apart from these, there is a startup Moontara with whom we are in the process of working out a feasible partnership model to integrate their set top box (STB) solution which customizes the TV screens(in retail stores, malls, waiting areas) with in store promotions and ads with our dynamic Ad serving technology.

Where do you see BIZense Software Technologies five years from now? We see BIZense to carve out a niche for itself in the advertising landscape and become an innovative technology leader in the digital advertising domain.

What is BIZense Software Technologies’ revenue model? Have you been funded?

No, we are not externally funded. We have been generating revenues from consulting to sustain our product development costs. Our revenue model includes:

Subscription model for premium platform analytics and lead management features (on a hosted SaaS model)

CPM(Cost per thousand impressions ) for the Ad Server

Revenue share in licensing model in partnerships

What are the challenges that you faced while developing your solutions? How did you overcome those challenges?

The challenges have been many. Most crucial for us were building the right team, boot-strapping and maintaining cash-flows, trying to maintain a balance between generating revenues via consulting and product research & development. We’ve been able to overcome these by maintaining an open and positive attitude and learning along the way; sometimes the hard way.

How big is the team behind BIZense Software Technologies? Are you looking at hiring?

We are a team of 10 comprising mostly of graduates from different IITs. We completed one round of campus interviews in IIT Madras earlier this year and made 2 offers. We are looking to hiring but after we have generated more traction on our product.

Let us know about your expansion plans.

We would be expanding based on our decision to acquire funding this year.

Anything else you want to share with us?

On the previous version of our product which is in production around 150 campaigns, ran with 120K leads generated and tracked from 600K clicks and 60 Million impressions. Overall we see the digital advertising landscape becoming more mainstream with the consumption patterns of consumers shifting from traditional legacy vehicles – the likes of postal mail, magazines, television, newspapers etc. – to a suite of interactive digital mediums like mobile, web, digital TV, digital sign-ages, e-books etc. And this trend is likely to continue. Digital advertising allows measurable ROI metrics which advertisers feel comfortable about. So marketers, who need to measure their campaign effectiveness and are aware of consumer patterns are allocating higher budgets to interactive digital mediums and adapting to shift towards the touch points which their target audiences are engaging with. So this industry might see a shift of more advertising budget allocated to the new and emerging digital devices in the future. Keeping all this in mind, we are building Adatrix with a futuristic vision - a digital advertising platform which could adapt in real-time to prevailing consumer trend patterns, optimize costs and provide insightful Analytics.

Do check out http://www.bizense.com/ for more details and do let us know your thoughts on this story by writing to [email protected]