An inside look at the fast growing product enterprise, MAIA Intelligence

MAIA Intelligence has in a short span of time established its name in the Business Intelligence software domain and has steadily built a market presence for itself. Yourstory.in caught up with Sanjay Mehta, the young CEO and founder of MAIA Intelligence. Sanjay is a serial entrepreneur, who is clearly driven to make his venture a benchmark product enterprise from India. Needless to say accolades have followed him with some prestigious recognitions. The interview here highlights his business and goes on to understand the entrepreneur behind the venture better and see what motivates, inspires and challenges him. Here are the excerpts from the interview: MAIA Intelligence

MAIA Intelligence is a software Product Company in Business Intelligence (BI) Reporting Analytics space with a team of less than 50 technocrats and with a mission to democratize BI and vision to change paradigm in the BI space and make it available to masses. A Microsoft Gold Certified partner, MAIA’s 1KEY BI software solutions have multiple presentation layers catering to the MIS needs of strategic, tactical and operational business users across the enterprise of any industry.

Competitive Advantage of MAIA Intelligence

There are wide choice of reporting tools available in the market, including Business Object, Cognos and SAS, but they are expensive and hence, typically used by only the top officials of a company. There was a need for business intelligence (BI) at almost every level of the organization. MAIA Intelligence was started with the core idea of helping companies to take quicker decisions across all levels of the organization. MAIA has proven that even in the crowded field of business software, there is enough space and scope for an innovative product that will solve a strongly felt pain point at a price that is all too Indian.

Products and Services 

MAIA Intelligence develops and offers product and solutions in BI space based on innovative technology powered by a robust Microsoft stack with a highly experienced technocrat team. MAIA’s flagship product 1KEY Agile BI Suite- Single layer, interoperable, ground up built, comprehensive, integrated, end-to-end Business Intelligence Suite for mid-market and large enterprise customers. Other products are 1KEY FCM, 1KEY Investigator, and 1KEY Touch Dashboard among others.

 Target Audience 

Our Business Intelligence Products help enterprise level as well as small and medium organizations across industry verticals where Key users / user groups have not adopted your BI tools or the users are in a spreadsheet purgatory or the users spend more time on analysis rather than action and other such situations.

MAIA Intelligence offer Enterprise software product & solutions for its corporate customers. We generally target companies having over Rs.100 cr turnover and more than 100 PC users.

Acceptance and Adoption in the market 

MAIA’s 1KEY BI Software has revolutionized the way BI can be deployed. With installation & database connectivity happening in 2 days, organizations are ready to deploy BI from 3rd day with instant dynamic reports. With easy-to-use data presentation layers, Business users can start using their dynamic reports with a couple of hours of training. This was well received and accepted by our potential customers. Till date 1KEY BI has been implemented by over 100 corporate customers and more than 10000 users across the enterprise, SME & OEM customers.

Primarily we have been focusing in Indian markets, as the BI penetration here is still at a very nascent stage in operational layer. BI market is growing and continues to evolve. There's still plenty of room for growth in this market. It has only penetrated 10 to 15 % of the known user base, but there is a vast opportunity for Business Intelligence well beyond today's known markets.

Sanjay can you share some of your challenges as an entrepreneur and as an enterprise, how are you coping with it?

Following are few of the things which sometimes keep us awake at night -

Marketing. How do we get there from here? We are growing rapidly. Sustaining current growth is an ambitious goal, and we want to achieve it in as organic & inorganic way as possible. No small feat.

My startup feels like a juggling act. How do we keep everything in the air — product development, fund raising, marketing, developing a team, keeping the coffee cups clean... Every day we just hope that when we do inevitably drop something that it isn’t the chainsaw.

Vultures. A small company is like a nest of eggs. We’ve got new ideas in a quickly emerging industry. We are always trying to find new ways to hide my eggs so they have time to hatch — increasingly difficult when you also need transparency to survive.

We have grown at break neck speed and constantly have to stay ahead of the curve operationally to take advantage of all the opportunity we have. It’s not just people, but process as well. We need to be an execution machine! All great problems to haveJ It keeps me on my toes.

What is the company’s revenue model? Have you been funded?

MAIA Intelligence has always been channel driven company. It's been our conscious strategy to focus on R&D and marketing of our products and enable partners to fulfil demand. Our initial success shows that the partner-focused strategy is working well. Now we want to widen the partner base to expand the market for our products.

The initial and the only funding was self funding :) with the support of family & friends.

Expansion Plans 

MAIA Intelligence plans to expand geographically with its sales representation in other non-explored regions as well. Also MAIA is looking to tie-up with partners across the globe for delivery and support of the 1KEY BI products and solutions.

Sanjay, how difficult it is to build a product enterprise in India?

Though there are several challenges for the growth of home-grown software product business like:

• Emergence of IT outsourcing, SaaS, etc.
• Higher Entry Barrier due to MNC presence
• Lack of Distribution Network and Global Market Access
• Lack of VC Investments in the Software Product Business
• Lack of Experienced Product Development Talent
• Smaller Base of Domestic Market

However, a maturing ecosystem has helped accelerate the growth of home-grown software product businesses over the past few years.

Sanjay what do you enjoy most as an entrepreneur?

Being an entrepreneur, I like identifying the addressable market space, building a team and nurturing a team to deliver and build value for the clients. My also like to offer a consultative solution to the customer. My efforts and laser beam focus has so far helped me defeat bigger and highly funded competitors in diverse business. My two most precious assets are: time and money. My secret weapon is knowhow to cut through bureaucracy.

I love to make my ventures fast growing and more nimble than any company could ever be. I believe in building a business that will last & this separates me from the opportunist. I invest in brand and future. I believe Surviving is succeeding, and each day that goes by makes it easier to reach our goals.

As a serial entrepreneur what would you like to advise/share with young entrepreneurs just starting up?

The only advice I would like to give to the new entrepreneurs for starting a new business is that do what you are passionate for, with required skills and experience and at the same time the business plan should be able to derive big opportunity for revenue.

Starting a new business is one of the most exciting things that you will experience in your life. It is also one the best decisions that you are ever going to make. Also constantly look for mentorship from a senior Industry veteran who can help sharpen your vision further.

To know more about this phenomenal company, visit http://www.maia-intelligence.com/