Q1. How did the idea of KloudMate come up?

It was during our cloud consulting days, we realised that a more simplified, yet evolved approach to Observability was the need of the hour. The existing isolated processes that customers were practicing, were not efficient for the ever-growing, complicated, distributed cloud architectures. Soon, KloudMate was born, with the idea of correlating data from the three pillars of Observability - Logs, Metrics & Traces, to present powerful intelligence to Developers and Devops teams, help them boost efficiency by debugging in minutes, rather than spending hours, or even days.

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

Once the idea struck, we discussed and got some validation from a few of our existing customers from the consulting business. They were very encouraging and thought it was worth pursuing. Soon enough, we found ourselves writing product notes and user journeys, in a bid to build an MVP, which turned out to be a fully functional platform within 6 months.

One thing led to another, and by the time we were looking to raise our first round of funding, the product was already at par with some large players who’ve existed for a while (if not better).

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

While initially we wanted to bootstrap our way into go-live, it was at the time of hiring Tech resources, we realised that it won’t be a sustainable model. Being a deeptech product like ours, needed top notch developers and devops engineers, and the good ones came at a price. Soon, it was clear that we must look at infusing external capital, not only to aid hiring, but to amplify development, growth and scale.

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

I do not know where to start. To the extent, that we’re not sure anymore if this would have been possible had 100X not existed. We wrote a detailed account of our 100X experience in an article.

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

There were a ton of challenges, whether it was the idea itself, validating it first, or building and then reaching out to users (the classic chicken and egg story). A large part of our confusion got taken care of, once we started working with customers in understanding their pain points with using the cloud, and trying to figure what we could do, to help them overcome them with ease.

It was also a major revelation for us. That in the developer tools and cloud-tech space, there is so much to be done. That every little problem faced by users can literally be built into a meaningful full-scale product, with the potential of going global. That every small use-case can potentially create a new category, and also lead it.

Q6. What stage is your startup at present?

KloudMate is currently in public beta. Users can signup and go through a self- discovery and implementation process, while our Sales teams are engaging with enterprises to tailor plans specific to their needs. This is a crucial juncture for us, as we’re currently seeing a few tens of developers from across the world signup every hour, and devising a watertight, customer success process is what we’re spending a great amount of time on.

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

Our goal is to achieve certain internal north star metrics in terms of user growth, revenues and NPS scores. These will not only help us further validate our product proposition, but also allow us to make development efforts to reach a state of maturity, that makes it easier to find product-market-fit.

Q8. What keeps you motivated & keeps you going?

KloudMate is what keeps me going, and doesn’t let any of us sleep at night. Knowing that it can become synonymous with Observability, a tool that can redefine the very approach, and help change existing, primitive processes employed by developers and devops teams. We’re fortunate to be living in times where you can build amazing products and sell to global audiences, without having to traverse boundaries. This is the best time to build, and the ever-evolving technology landscape is what keeps us afoot, in always learning, and in trying to constantly deliver the best, to our customers. I’m very sure that’s all the motivation I need.

Q9. Your message for Startup founders building in the EnterpriseTech sector? 

With the advent of Cloud and SaaS (as a business model), Enterprises have never been more welcoming of newer technologies and tools that can help them improve process flows, boost team productivity, or enhance ROIs. As long the ICPs and their corresponding communication strategies are mapped out, getting into enterprises has never been easier. A lot of enterprise-grade concerns, such as security, data integrity or compliance, things that have hitherto been extremely difficult to build and accord with, have now become a lot easier to deal in, what with the emergence of cloud technologies like Serverless.

About Pranab:

Pranab Buragohain is a Co-founder and Chief of Marketing at KloudMate. Prior to starting up, he's worked with some of India’s largest telecom and cloud players for nearly two decades. He swears by the power that the internet vests upon us, and loves new-age conquest marketing, with an ever-evolving technology landscape.

In the past, Pranab, with his friends-cum-current co-founders Bidyut Baruah and Amitava Saha, ran a successful AWS cloud  consulting business, before finally deciding to transition into being a product company.

In his free time, Pranab loves scaling mountains in Himachal, or playing a gig or two with his (now almost defunct) rock band.