The Power of Persistence in Building Partnerships -- Ayush Singhvi, Founder / CEO of Byldd

GUEST BIO

Ayush is the founder and CEO of Byldd. They’re trying to democratize software entrepreneurship by making it easier (and less capital-intensive) for non-technical founders to start software businesses. Our approach is to build very focused revenue-generating MVPs for bootstrapping founders. We define an MVP as the least complex product you can build that solves a problem well enough that customers are willing to pay for it. Once they manage to get that revenue, we help them take customer feedback, analyze it and use that to drive further product development.

Ayush started this as a side project in 2019 with one engineer and now leads a team of 35 people, with the company making over $50K MRR.

MAIN INSIGHT

To establish trust in partnerships, take a slow approach and requesting a single referral to test the working relationship before expanding.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Identify the people your target audience hangs out with, i.e., professionals that your audience spends time with.
2. Attempt to have conversations with those professionals through LinkedIn, outbound cold emails, or direct outreach.
3. Share updates, success stories, and wins with the professionals to establish trust and credibility.
4. Follow up with them consistently, as 90% of people may not respond or refer someone immediately. Persistence is key in building the relationship.

MORE FROM Byldd

Startups often waste time building non-differentiating features, so Byldd automates that process and focuses on unique aspects of the product to launch new software products and features quickly and cost-effectively.

SIGN UP FOR THE EMAIL NEWSLETTER at forwardlaunchdigital.com/podcast

Transcript

00:00:10.420 --> 00:00:17.230
All right, today I am sitting down with Ayush. He's the founder and CEO of Build. They're trying

00:00:17.415 --> 00:00:22.510
to democratize software entrepreneurship by making it easier and less capital intensive

00:00:22.690 --> 00:00:30.430
for non-technical founders to start software businesses. So they focus on building revenue

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generating MVPs for founders that are bootstrapping. And Ayush actually started this as a side project

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a few years ago in 2019 with one engineer and now he's leading a team of upwards of 40 people

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and the company is doing tens of thousands of dollars in monthly recurring revenue.

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So Ayush, I'm super excited to chat with you and dig into your background.

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I'm really excited to chat. Awesome. So tell me a little bit about why and how you got into founding Build.

00:01:07.215 --> 00:01:15.030
Yeah, so I, you know, I used to work with a bunch of early stage companies several years

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ago and in roles varying from like, just like an engineer to eventually like the CTO of

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these early stage startups.

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And one of the things like common recurring pattern that I observed was that they spent

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a lot of time building things that weren't differentiating for their product.

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You know, for example, we went to like a startup hackathon. And a lot of the time was spent building like very basic, you know, like dashboards, maybe,

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payment processing, authentication, that kind of stuff, right.

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So what I realized is that this is one of the reasons why starting businesses is so capital intensive.

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Founders end up spending a lot of money paying for engineering hours that are spent, especially

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if they're non-technical founders, that are spent in building a lot of these generic pieces of functionality.

00:02:19.950 --> 00:02:26.201
So what we kind of did was we automated that process.

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We have our own IP that kind of writes code for us. And then we have like a really robust kind of boilerplate code base as well that kind,

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of takes care of all of the generic stuff that goes into building a software business.

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And so that means we're only spending like engineering time on things that are unique about that product.

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And what this allows us to do is that we're able to launch the company in 10, 15 grand in a month

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or two months and get it to market, get your initial customers and so on, but in a way that's,

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not as capital intensive as it typically is. And the goal is to bring that amount down even further

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over time and democratize it even further. Wow. That is a really interesting

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value proposition that I haven't heard from really any other companies yet so far.

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Yeah, but that makes a ton of sense. Like if everybody's using the exact same,

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basic code for like a lot of these different software products, you might as well just focus

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on the pieces that make you different as opposed to just every single company having to start from

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scratch with like buildings with a team of engineers from scratch. Yeah. Exactly. There's

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no need to reinvent the wheel. And too many software companies tend to do that when they're

00:03:51.172 --> 00:03:59.892
starting out. Right. Yeah. Okay. Sounds good. So what has been kind of you guys' growth trajectory

00:03:59.892 --> 00:04:06.852
over the years since you started this? Yeah. So most of our growth has come in through referrals.

00:04:07.492 --> 00:04:13.812
So these are founders we've worked with in the past or people from the network of the founders

00:04:13.812 --> 00:04:22.212
we've worked in the past, right? A lot of that has come from like early stage VC and angel investors.

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And the way that's worked out is that these kind of investors have,

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in their network, somebody that's worked with us and they like that work.

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And then they've started like sending, you know, other founders to us that could use their services.

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So these are either founders that are maybe too early for investment.

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And they want to, you know, these investors want to see some kind of validation first.

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So they send those founders to us or even companies they've invested in that need help

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on the technical side they send.

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So that's kind of typically what's worked really well for us over the past couple of years,

00:05:05.134 --> 00:05:11.303
but we haven't done too much in the paid promotional or advertising space yet.

00:05:11.348 --> 00:05:19.639
We run a couple of ads with questionable success, but it's mostly this organic referral-based approach.

00:05:20.962 --> 00:05:26.374
Okay, that makes sense. And it's pretty rare, I think, for SaaS companies

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to be built up primarily on referral base,

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especially for you guys to keep growing and be growing quickly.

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So do you have any tips on how other SaaS founders or marketing executives might get a partnership program

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or a network started that could help them kind of fuel these referrals?

00:05:50.661 --> 00:06:01.174
Yeah, I think, you know, like networking is, especially, you know, when you're really early,

00:06:01.174 --> 00:06:05.534
and the founders doing the bulk of the work, I think networking is a great avenue to explore

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just going to different events and meeting people in the industry and the domain that

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you're interested in.

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I think that really helps.

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And again, it goes back to like doing things that don't scale.

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A really good tactic for like early stage companies. And yeah, I mean, just finding the

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people that work closely with your target audience, right? So it's kind of an indirect way of

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approaching it. But I think that is valuable because there's so much noise with direct

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promotions right now when it comes to like either on LinkedIn or like email marketing or any of

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those. So it really helps to.

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Get a referral in because it like that's just cuts through the noise and immediately puts you

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like a positive light. Yeah, I mean that makes a lot of sense like intellectually I'm just like

00:07:03.309 --> 00:07:08.417
yes it would be perfect if I had like this great partnership program going with all these

00:07:08.417 --> 00:07:12.897
were like referrals coming in and like just people who know my business like promoting me

00:07:12.897 --> 00:07:18.577
but like whenever I've tried to do that like I'll meet people who are like you know adjacent to

00:07:18.577 --> 00:07:22.297
to like, well, for me, I'm selling to like SaaS businesses.

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So like I'll meet people adjacent to SaaS businesses like sell to them or work with them or whatever.

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And they'll say, oh yeah, you know, I can send you referrals.

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And then like nothing happens after that. I feel like that happens like 90% plus of the time.

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So do you have like some kind of tips for maintaining those relationships

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and making sure that they're actually like fruitful

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and that you guys trust each other and that it actually turns into like a really positive

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synergistic relationship?

00:07:50.577 --> 00:07:55.357
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think I share that experience with like 90 plus percent of the time.

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It tends to like not go anywhere, a conversation like that.

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But, you know, the way I understand it is that these, the investing kind of space is very reputation focused.

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It's a small community, relatively small community, and they're very concerned about their own reputation.

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So it's difficult for them to recommend somebody that they haven't verified.

00:08:27.337 --> 00:08:34.337
So that's kind of like the biggest challenge I've seen. And one of the ways we kind of address that

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is we just ask them for like one referral.

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To do an experiment. Just like one company, see how the work is, and then you can like subsequently

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refer us to other people, right? So that's kind of the approach we've taken. It takes time.

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So let's say, you know, they refer somebody a month later, we actually start working on the

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project. Two months later, we launch the company. So it takes like three or four months. And then

00:09:01.154 --> 00:09:06.914
they can actually see the kind of impact of the work we've created. But I think, you know, just

00:09:06.914 --> 00:09:12.234
just taking it slow and making sure that that trust and relationship is established before

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he, like with each individual kind of person who's referring your company is the way to

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go. I don't think there's like a quick solution to this.

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Yeah, that makes sense. So on that like initial ask for the potential like partner company

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or I guess VC in your case, to refer you to one person in their network who would benefit

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from your product, is that,

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how do you approach that conversation?

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Are they usually excited to refer you like that one person or does it take a little bit of convincing?

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What do you typically have to do?

00:09:49.834 --> 00:09:57.314
For sure, I mean, not convincing. I think it's more about showcasing what value you can bring.

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And then reminding them that you exist and staying top of mind.

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Right. I think generally in this, like, it's a challenge to quote unquote convince anybody

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to do anything. I think that comes off as very salesy. But yeah, I think the approach

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of like just showing you, look, this is the impact we've had. This is how we've helped

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companies in the past. You know, if you send one person our way, you can see like what

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kind of work we do and then we can have like more long term relationship.

00:10:29.194 --> 00:10:33.394
So are you doing that on like an initial kind of networking call?

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Like, are you showing them like a PowerPoint presentation of like what you do and some

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of the results you had previously? Are you sending them emails?

00:10:40.194 --> 00:10:41.956
Like, how are you following up?

00:10:42.109 --> 00:10:50.094
No, just just like a normal conversation. Okay. On like, we're talking right now. Very simple.

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Yeah. So just having a conversation on FaceTime or WhatsApp or, you know, Zoom.

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And just like an email reminder after some time and like maybe revisit that conversation

00:11:03.474 --> 00:11:05.551
again in the future. So it takes time.








00:11:06.034 --> 00:11:15.474
For sure. So if you had to list this out, like step by step, like let's say I'm a marketer at

00:11:15.474 --> 00:11:21.154
a B2B SaaS right now, and I want to get like a partnership program or like a referral network

00:11:21.154 --> 00:11:25.833
going, step by step, what would you have me do in order to implement that in my company?

00:11:26.877 --> 00:11:34.247
Yeah, so one, find the people that your target audience hang out with. So if you are targeting,

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like, let's say, I mean, whatever it is, right, find find, like, the kind of professional that

00:11:42.567 --> 00:11:47.847
a lot of your target audience spend their time with, and then try to have conversations with

00:11:47.847 --> 00:11:54.167
those professionals. Right, so that's step one, or at least identifying them as step one, step two

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is attempting to have a conversation. That can happen in a couple of ways. LinkedIn, you know.

00:12:02.407 --> 00:12:08.327
Is one way, great way to reach people. Outbound cold emails is also another way to get in touch

00:12:08.327 --> 00:12:17.047
with those people. I'm not sure if like advertising, you know, like search engine advertising or,

00:12:17.893 --> 00:12:23.047
social media advertising would be a good approach in this case. But I think just like direct outreach

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is probably the way to go. Okay. So, and then after you have those conversations with them,

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like, what are some of the things that you're sending in kind of your follow up messages?

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Is it just kind of like, you're sending an email like, Oh, hey, you know, you said you were going

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to refer somebody to us like, you know, don't forget to do that. Or do you have some other way

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of like mentioning it to them? Yeah, I mean, share updates, right? Share.

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You know, success stories that you've had with those people. So if any of you're,

00:13:02.647 --> 00:13:09.607
like, for example, for us, if a company raises, you know, capital from like a well-known investor,

00:13:09.607 --> 00:13:14.607
we share that with like the network of investors that we have, right?

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Like, hey, whatever X, whatever company got into Y Combinator, check it out.

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We built, we helped them build this like, you know, last year, whatever.

00:13:24.607 --> 00:13:32.607
Right. So that kind of thing really helps because it adds that kind of social proof, right?

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Like you have third parties that are verifying the work that we're doing and we're just showcasing it to these investors.

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So I think that's likely the most effective way.

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Just share updates, share stories and wins.

00:13:47.079 --> 00:13:51.729
Okay, that makes a lot of sense, actually. And I could see how that would make them

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see you guys as valuable and like legitimate and then make them trust you more and more over time.

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Do you add them to like some kind of email list or are these all kind of like customized emails

00:14:02.129 --> 00:14:09.971
you're sending out? Right now, it's pretty manual. It's because it's a very small group,

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right? So I don't think we've had the need to automate it before, though. I think that

00:14:15.742 --> 00:14:21.169
it's like probably a good idea to do so sooner rather than later. But it is right now.

00:14:22.124 --> 00:14:29.169
Yeah. Yeah, sounds good. So yeah, so to summarize the steps, first you want to find the people your

00:14:29.169 --> 00:14:32.855
target audience are hanging out with. You want to attempt to have a conversation with them,

00:14:33.116 --> 00:14:38.529
probably through some kind of outbound, maybe on LinkedIn or somewhere else. And then you follow,

00:14:39.094 --> 00:14:44.929
up. You have a conversation with them. You ask them to like send you a referral from the network

00:14:44.929 --> 00:14:49.169
and you tell them a little bit about what you do and some of your credentials or previous,

00:14:49.729 --> 00:14:55.409
successes you had. And then you can follow up with them later just to send them updates about

00:14:55.409 --> 00:15:01.729
what's going on in your company and successes that you're having just so they can see that you guys

00:15:01.729 --> 00:15:05.009
are successful and they start to trust you and that develops the relationship more.

00:15:05.767 --> 00:15:14.209
Right, exactly. Right. So in finding the people that your target audience are hanging out with,

00:15:14.419 --> 00:15:20.289
Do you have different ways of doing that or are there like tips you would give to people

00:15:20.289 --> 00:15:27.328
to find some of these different professionals or find some of these different opportunities.

00:15:28.651 --> 00:15:34.536
I don't think so. I think it's really like industry specific.

00:15:36.699 --> 00:15:42.696
You know for us like it's pretty easy to make that connection. Okay, we want to work with

00:15:42.696 --> 00:15:49.976
like startup founders. A lot of startup founders try and work with angel

00:15:49.976 --> 00:15:55.576
investors and early stage venture capital companies. So that connection was like pretty

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easy to make. It really depends on the industry. I don't think there's like a set.

00:16:04.174 --> 00:16:08.536
At least I can't think of like a set pattern or like a methodology to doing that.

00:16:09.620 --> 00:16:17.096
And did you say something like 90% of people like are not gonna follow up with you like right away

00:16:17.096 --> 00:16:21.233
or like don't end up following up with you at all after you have that first conversation?

00:16:21.593 --> 00:16:29.816
For sure. It's a very slow process. So like most people will, you know, forget it. So,

00:16:29.816 --> 00:16:33.416
you know, one of the challenges of doing this, like taking this approach is that there's no

00:16:33.416 --> 00:16:41.016
like clear benefit to these investors. That's like immediately, you know, redeemable, right,

00:16:41.016 --> 00:16:47.816
for example. So what kind of the end goal is that like they recommend somebody to us, we

00:16:47.816 --> 00:16:53.816
we help them kind of build a product, validate it, get some initial revenue.

00:16:53.816 --> 00:17:00.136
And then that person ideally goes back to that investor and the investors, you know,

00:17:00.136 --> 00:17:02.376
likes the business and is able to invest, right.

00:17:02.376 --> 00:17:10.278
So that's kind of the goal for them. And it's kind of a, you know, you can see it's kind of like long winded.

00:17:10.936 --> 00:17:19.379
So that's why this kind of approach, it's difficult to get repeated success here because

00:17:19.739 --> 00:17:22.296
they lose interest fairly quickly.

00:17:24.015 --> 00:17:33.225
Yeah, like 90% of people tend to like not do this kind of referral or not do what we discussed on

00:17:33.225 --> 00:17:39.545
a phone call, but that's okay, right? Like over time, as long as you stay top of mind that over

00:17:39.545 --> 00:17:46.265
time, like that a lot of those 90% will end up like actually sending you somebody that can work

00:17:46.265 --> 00:17:52.471
with you. Okay. Okay. So the money's in the follow-up is what you're saying. Yeah, exactly.

00:17:52.741 --> 00:17:56.425
Exactly. Okay, that makes sense. That makes sense. I think maybe that's where a lot of people are

00:17:56.425 --> 00:18:01.545
getting like stuck because maybe they're trying to start partnership networks and then it seems

00:18:01.545 --> 00:18:07.065
like you know this isn't really going anywhere. But maybe it's more about like investing in that

00:18:07.065 --> 00:18:12.265
follow-up piece more so than it is about investing in kind of that outreach and networking piece.

00:18:13.078 --> 00:18:18.745
Yeah, yeah and it's you know it's a lot about like establishing trust by sharing success stories.

00:18:19.352 --> 00:18:24.905
They'll trust you if they know that the companies you've worked with have been backed by like

00:18:24.905 --> 00:18:30.745
Google and things like that, or the companies you've worked with have like, you know, made

00:18:30.745 --> 00:18:34.665
like $100,000 in revenue after like three months of launch.

00:18:34.665 --> 00:18:40.565
So like that kind of stuff really establishes the trust that they need to see before they

00:18:40.565 --> 00:18:43.766
send somebody from their network and put their reputation on the line.

00:18:44.505 --> 00:18:49.165
Yeah, that makes sense. Are there any pitfalls that you've come across

00:18:49.165 --> 00:18:50.925
or that other people might come across

00:18:50.925 --> 00:18:55.640
as they try to build up a partnership network and keep it going?

00:18:56.965 --> 00:19:02.325
Yeah, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head, right? it's difficult to.

00:19:04.400 --> 00:19:11.068
There's no like, you know, it's the results aren't proportional to the effort initially, right?

00:19:11.068 --> 00:19:19.308
It takes the kind of like compound over time. As you get like one partner, that partner will bring in some business, but like you

00:19:19.308 --> 00:19:22.868
have to talk to 100 people to get like one partner.

00:19:22.868 --> 00:19:29.428
And I keep following up with them and so on. So that's really the pitfall people like reach out, they get like a verbal promise, and then

00:19:29.428 --> 00:19:34.228
just waiting and expecting something to come their way, but it rarely happens like that.

00:19:34.228 --> 00:19:40.228
Those people have probably forgotten about you by the next hour. So that follow up and,

00:19:41.268 --> 00:19:47.028
just being top of mind is important. So as the founder, are you reaching out yourself?

00:19:47.133 --> 00:19:51.028
Or do you have people on your team who do some of this follow up as well?

00:19:52.346 --> 00:20:11.349
I have been reaching out myself, but you know, we've recently started hiring like a marketing team, working like marketing team members and it's about to get shifted that responsibility is about to get shifted to one of those team members. members.

00:20:12.028 --> 00:20:16.628
Right. Sounds awesome. Well, I really appreciate this conversation, Ayush.

00:20:16.628 --> 00:20:21.108
And as we're wrapping up, I would just like to ask if there's anything you want to promote,

00:20:21.108 --> 00:20:26.329
anything you have going on or anything or anywhere you'd like people to be able to get in touch with you.

00:20:27.698 --> 00:20:36.468
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they can get in touch with me through my email, which is ayush at bell.com or on the website.

00:20:36.468 --> 00:20:45.748
There's a form for anybody to reach us. In terms of promotion, not really, but if you're looking to build a business in a way

00:20:45.748 --> 00:20:54.028
that's sustainable and kind of in a way that limits your risk, helps you understand your

00:20:54.028 --> 00:21:02.388
market, build products in a way that doesn't have you spending six months building something

00:21:02.388 --> 00:21:08.388
and then bring it to market only to realize that it's not going to work, reach out to us.

00:21:08.388 --> 00:21:13.573
We have a methodology of doing this and we've done it with a lot of people very successfully in the past.

00:21:14.410 --> 00:21:16.958
Let's see where that goes.

00:21:17.848 --> 00:21:24.781
Is your company only for early stage founders building a product for the first time or can

00:21:24.853 --> 00:21:31.605
people use it to add an existing functionality or new features to their existing products?

00:21:32.208 --> 00:21:40.728
For sure. We work with startups in all stages, right? So many of them, I would say about half of them

00:21:40.728 --> 00:21:41.768
are early stage founders,

00:21:41.768 --> 00:21:49.159
and then the other half are like established companies that want to kind of augment their, you know,

00:21:49.488 --> 00:21:52.688
existing development teams or use us as their development team,

00:21:52.688 --> 00:21:55.271
like their product team to help them like scale up better.

00:21:56.088 --> 00:22:00.511
Okay, makes a lot of sense. Thank you so much, Ayush, for sharing all your tips and insights.

00:22:01.568 --> 00:22:04.408
It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.