Q1. How did the idea of BHyve come up?

BHyve is a fruit of the lived experience of the founders. While working in large, global organizations, we realised that the biggest untapped opportunity for organizations is the sitting wealth of knowledge - some scattered, some undocumented. We realised that by making it visible, and centralised, the organization can unlock new productivity and efficiency, and have employees leverage the most of collective capabilities of the group. That's when, inspired from the ways Bees use hive intelligence, we ideated BHyve.

Q2. What made you start working on BHyve and executing this idea?

We did lots of reading, and spoke to people who said this was a real problem, that they were solving to some extent at their end. We also met organizations who wanted to solve this problem, but didn't know how to. That gave us the encouragement to start sketching out a solution. The pandemic, however, became our moment of truth, when we realized that the gravity of our problem became 10x, and we had access to the right technology to solve this at scale. 

Q3. When did you realise the need to raise Venture Capital - Seed funding?

The first company that showed interest in us was Aditya Birla Hindalco. Their needs matched our value proposition, and they were keen to buy this product. For us, that green signaled a potential business opportunity. So we realised that the next thing we needed of this puzzle was capital - the funds to hire the right talent who can build this app. That's when we decided to go for funding. 

Q4. How has 100X helped you at the beginning of your journey?

• Capital access - our first check came from 100X.VC

• Access to angel investors - we raised $200K from the angels who discovered us on the 100X.VC platform

• Early customers - 2 out of our first 4 customers came through to us from the connects of 100X.VC

Q5. What challenges did you face & how did you overcome them?

• BHyve is a category-creation product for the majority of the Indian market. This means we have to educate our customers about the value of efficient knowledge management. We do this through our marketing efforts, and through the relationships our sales team builds with our target buyer groups. 

• Today's market is filled with productivity tools and enterprise is filled with technology. So breaking that clutter, and showing real value is a huge challenge. I'll say we are a work in progress on that front. 

Q6. What stage is BHyve at present?

• BHyve currently has 12 customers, as a horizontal SaaS Enterprise AI product. We have recurring revenue and an NDR of 140%. We're starting to see inbound traction from established large organizations and building a team that can support this growth. The next big thing for us is exploring Generative AI as a way to make knowledge the most valuable asset of all organizations. 

Q7. As founders, what are your goals for the next 1-2 years?

• Getting to $150K ARR with focus on medium and large enterprises

• Getting to 200% NDR

• Breakeven

• Launching a set of Generative AI capabilities to solve for higher order KM problems 

• Raising the next round of funding

• Building a rest of the world pipeline for the "selling from India" model

Q8. What keeps you motivated & keeps you going?

• Our users. I spend a lot of time looking through their requests, their usage patterns, testimonials - and it's incredibly reassuring that they see value in our work, and that it solves challenges they encounter at work. This is fundamental

• Our team. We're very fortunate to get to work with very talented, passionate, and incredibly hardworking people - who genuinely care and want to see BHyve thrive. Their ideas keep me excited and motivated

Q9. Your message for Startup founders building in this sector?

• Make sure you feel passionately about a problem (especially at early stage). A lot of investor, client and employee conviction comes from this passion

• Keep learning. You'll never know enough about your customers and users. Do your value proposition and problem articulation every so often, so you know you're going deep into the domain

• Enterprise SaaS is tricky because while there are playbooks, they are not specific to your problem, industry or scale. So be wise in how you replicate or ideate

• Its a marathon, so don't burnout. Work on physical, mental, emotional wellbeing, so you can focus and steer your ship well.

About Ketaki Ogale:

Ketaki Ogale is a co-founder at BHyve. She has nearly a decade of product marketing experience, having words for and with Fortune 500 companies globally. At BHyve, she leads Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success; and likes spending most of her time listening to user stories and challenges. Outside of work, Ketaki enjoys food and adventure sports.