MobileAppDaily had the pleasure of organizing an exclusive interview with one of the most influential young entrepreneurs, Piyush Jain, CEO and Founder of Simpalm, one of the leading tech companies existing today. Piyush is a P.hd. holder from Johns Hopkins University who pursued his passion for being an entrepreneur and founded Simpalm in 2009. Through this interview, we got to know that Piyush is motivated by his dreams, and being an entrepreneur was his passion before he even finished his studies. With time, Piyush has led this famous software designing and development company to touch many milestones of success, and throughout his journey, he has experienced plenty of ups and downs. Through this interview, Piyush is sharing his experience with the world in an attempt to guide aspiring entrepreneurs of the future.
I am doing awesome. I am happy we are over the Covid slowdown, we are back to working from the office for the most part.
I wanted to be a techpreneur since I was in my undergrad, I have had a passion for technology and entrepreneurship. Once I completed my Ph.D. from Hopkins, I did not go for a six-figure job like my other friends were going for. I went for my dream of being an entrepreneur. Right after my research on Rocket Engines with NASA, I jumped into the startup world to learn everything about building a tech company. I joined a tech startup in Maryland at very low pay, because I wanted to learn all aspects of leading a company. CEO of the company, Marc Potash, became a great mentor for me, he is still a good friend.
Working with a startup company gave me the opportunity to wear multiple hats in Sales, Business Dev, Technology, and customer support. In 2-3 years, I learned a lot. It was around 2009 when I saw an opportunity in the market. Smartphone adoption was increasing, and there were not enough app developers in the market. I sensed the opportunity and decided to launch Simpalm to help companies build mobile solutions. Simpalm is a combination of SIM+Palm; SIM in the hand, meaning mobility in the hand. I launched Simpalm in 2010 to fulfill my dream of building a tech company. This was another jump I made, I was risking my well-paying job, but I knew I would be able to make it. It took me around 3-4 months to get my first client, thereafter I never looked back. Now we are a team of around 60 professionals working in product development and team augmentation. We have offices in DC, Chicago, and India.
When I started Simpalm, I did not have much background in the software development business, I had to learn several domain expertise in the IT world. Most of the founders of my competing companies had experience in the space, they had worked with bigger IT Consulting and Outsourcing companies. For me to acquire deeper expertise in outsourcing businesses was a big learning curve. It took me a few years to understand the nitty-gritty of space. I lost some good opportunities in the beginning, but later on, I was at par with my competitors.
Entrepreneurship is about facing new challenges every day, knowing that I am living my dream keeps me motivated to face all the hurdles. When I look at the team and the brand I have created, that gives me the boost I need to fight new hurdles. I have two kids, but Simpalm is my creative kid. I love seeing it growing and overcoming all the challenges.
So far, we have worked across various verticals. Now we are looking to expand into the Construction, Nonprofits, and Advertising industries.
People are our most important ingredient for success, and our process, values, and ethics keep everyone together and happy. We are a process-driven company, our well-defined processes allow everyone to hold each other accountable and set the right expectations. We follow a 4 Ps (People, Process, Price, and Product) philosophy. Our employees are treated like family members, we don't have much hierarchy in the company and have an open-door policy. We continuously train our team to upskill. We work with our clients as a partner, as their extended team. We provide the right recommendations to our clients in terms of the product feature and budgeting to make sure they have the right ROI for their investment.
My suggestion for other entrepreneurs is to not worry too much about evolving technologies, this happens all the time. Any new technology is an opportunity, whenever new tech comes into the market, like AI/ML, I always analyze how it impacts my business and how I can use it to improve our work. Don’t allow the emerging tech to completely move away from your core strength. Build the core and use new tech to make the core stronger.
Teaching. I absolutely love it. I have done teaching during my Ph.D. as well, I think this is my second passion. I love teaching Physics, Math, and Technology.
I have three tips for all aspiring founders: Discipline, identify the core offerings, and be ready to experiment. Discipline is very important for daily routine no matter if you are having a good day/bad day. Once you know the core offerings of your product or services, focus on growing that, don't try to add many services or products until your core offerings grow to critical size. As an entrepreneur, you will have to perform various experiments and measure the outcome. These experiments can be in marketing strategy, biz development, sales, operations, product development, and any other function. Don't shy away from experimenting. Once you have an experiment with successful results, you can give it to your team to scale up.
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She is a writer and content marketer at MobileAppDaily. Her knack around the mobile apps is merely splendid. Her experience in the tech industry has assisted her in churning out the best and more importantly, unbiased mobile app reviews.
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