-Sanket Atal, Managing Director at Salesforce India Operations
Team 100X interviewed some of the top investors across the globe about their venture investing journeys, startups, and India. Here, Sanket Atal, Managing Director at Salesforce India Operationsshares her responses.
Q. What is your view on the future of India as a market?
It’s no secret that India has displayed an entrepreneurial streak like no other in the last couple of years. With the 3rd largest startup ecosystem in the world, India is home to 80,000+ active startups(link to stat) who are the torch bearers for innovation in the country. The pandemic along with the government has encouraged India’s startup ecosystem to emerge stronger which we are seeing in terms of our country already hitting the 100+ unicorns goal. With innovative ideas abound, a combination of 3Ts or 3 positive factors – Technology, Talent and Target Markets have come together to create what I like to call an entrepreneurial ‘nirvana’ which could very well provide startups a way to unlock their own hockey stick growth paths. Even here at Salesforce, we have created a self-sustaining economy that helps startups leverage the same 3Ts to build, grow and thrive. Within the Salesforce economy, startups can get ideas from Idea Exchange, grow their solutions on top of our Salesforce platform and cater and sell to a global market via AppExchange. In my opinion, the future looks brighter than ever before and the coming years will bring even more disruptive solutions to change the way we live, consume, connect and communicate.
Q. Top advice you would give to a startup founder?
I’m going to share a little wisdom that served me well and has been a guiding light in my 30+ years career. If you’ve got your heart set on the high-risk, high-reward lifestyle of starting your own business, there’s no shortage of advice heading your way. But NETWORKING I firmly believe is the number 1 muscle we need to develop and actually embrace to advance on the straight and narrow path to success. Secondly, DON’T BE AFRAID TO ASK. As a startup founder, the ability to bite down on preconceived hesitations and being bold enough to ask for help can go a long way. Third, DON’T BE AFRAID TO FAIL. In fact, fail fast- learn from your mistakes and move on. Iterative learning from your failures and mistakes is key to success.
Q. How do you support your portfolio companies?
At Salesforce we firmly believe that technology has the potential to change the world, reimagine economic benefit, and help people connect, do things better, more efficiently and economically. As part of this belief and vision of being enablers of innovation, we launched the Salesforce Startup Program. Through the Salesforce Startup Program we have taken a ground-up holistic approach to act as true catalysts to a startup's end-to-end growth journey. As the unifying layer between the startup ecosystem and the vast Salesforce ecosystem, the program provides startups unified access to our products, marketplaces, joint go-to-market opportunities, opportunities for investments, sustainability initiatives, mentorship and an ecosystem. Essentially, the Salesforce Startup Program through its customized offerings presents startups with astronomical opportunities to accelerate their growth journeys.
Q. Books or Blogs you would like to recommend entrepreneurs.
One of my personal favorites, Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne is a book I definitely recommend all entrepreneurs to read. The book brilliantly argues how a cutthroat and dense market space only creates a red ocean of competitors trying to fight over the same customers and profit pool and how instead, one should strive to find their blue oceans. The book can be incredibly valuable for entrepreneurs to learn methods that can help find uncontested market spaces where they can grow and dominate. Another great read is hands down The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell. It explains how one can influence their magic moment or threshold beyond which products and ideas go viral. Lastly, David and Goliath again by Malcolm Gladwell which points to how one can succeed and win even in the face of what looks like insurmountable odds.
Q. What is your motivation and what inspires you in life?
When I moved back to India, my motivation was simple. I wanted to make a difference in whatever small way to the ecosystem – and that is exactly what I’ve been trying to do. My efforts with the startup landscape is a step in that direction. By virtue of being in an amazing company like Salesforce, if I can enable startups to create amazing products and access global markets then that in itself is a big win for me.
About Sanket Atal:
Sanket has 29+ years of experience in Software Development with Informix, Oracle, CA Tech, MakeMyTrip (E-commerce), and Intuit, working in the US and India with geographically distributed teams. He is execution focused with experience in business strategy, innovation, enterprise architecture, research & development, engineering, operations, program management, and process/governance. He led large Indian operations for US companies with focus on driving value through strategic headcount growth, industry connects, ownership and delivery of key product development, working closely with sales organizations towards business development.
