These are not quick sales. But the reality now is different. : Wow! Alejandro: Very cool. Sanjay Shah is the founder and CEO of Vistex which is an enterprise software company, providing solutions to drive customer growth and partner relations. Alejandro: To expand on the listening, before we go to the second one, on the listening, how do you, for example, like with employees or when youre going out to fundraise, what is the process of first in-taking the information and then being able to digest and react proactively about it? Shah bought the 14,000-square-foot penthouse for $17 million and in 2017 is working to build out the space. And in general, when youre bootstrapped, youre going to be very stingy with your marketing budgets and your sales budgets. Sanjay brings a high level of passion, energy and skills to address complex business processes for global organizations. : Then after this, you join probably one of the companies that has had the major and probably the biggest impact on you as an employee and also as a founder SAP. That really has helped us grow because we started out with SAP North America first. Sanjay Shah '89 MBAtech entrepreneur, founder, CEO, and chief architect of international enterprise software giant, Vistexjoins us on this episode of Lehigh University's College of Business ilLUminate podcast. : Very cool. How would you differentiate a private equity profile from the venture capital that perhaps the earlier-stage guys that are listening are probably looking at? There are so many constituencies both from a product standpoint, from a technology standpoint, and from a go-to-market standpoint. We felt that we needed to bring in some external expertise to help us grow the subscription part of our business. Sanjay Shah: What have I learned about myself? What was the next thing that youve learned? Alejandro: Wonderful. Alejandro: What have you learned about growth, Sanjay? You have these ideas and visions of growth, and then there is reality unless youre exceptionally fortunate. Photo by Christa Neu. You hear all these nightmare stories of startups that are doing very well, but theyre not able to project or manage the cash flows and their budgets accordingly. We were lucky that in our initial years, our go-to-market partner was SAP, and enterprise software was virtually nascent, and SAP was selling hand over fist. : You guys were bootstrapping this. I actually presented a couple of ideas to my development management and said that we should enhance SAP to perform these functions, at which point they said, Yeah. Yes, he owns a business software company, Vistex Inc ., which is estimated to be approaching $200 million in annual revenue. Then PricewaterhouseCoopers. : Very cool. Sanjay Shah's Gift Combines Vision and Execution. In fact, according to Trump&x27;s most recent . : All right, Sanjay. What does the future look like for Vistex? That has served us well. Alejandro: Then after this, you join probably one of the companies that has had the major and probably the biggest impact on you as an employee and also as a founder SAP. So again, working with SAP, such a gigantic organization has its set of challenges, and there have been several lessons learned. Q: When you bought the property, you said the build-out will take a year to 18 months and cost about $15 million. The companies'. It was a German software company that had been around for 20 years already by the time they came to North America. I believe that if you engineer great product, and then dovetail or piggyback on top of a huge, successful go-to-market organization like SAP has globally, then that would be the recipe for success. Then to ensure that they continue to receive value as they expand their portfolio of products. The first type of software in supply chain that was the first of its kind back then. Its long. We provide the technology that helps customers take their products and services to the marketplace. Sanjay Shah, founder and CEO of Vistex, is photographed Dec. 8, 2014 in the penthouse atop the Trump International Hotel and Tower he owns. : What were some of the key ingredients that you were looking for in a partner? Listen to what everybody has to say. Thats quite a significant amount of employees. You cant just shove things down their throat and hope that they use it. With all this, the list was small, and we found a great partner who we signed up with. Recently the company raised $65 million from Accel-KKR. So something struck me and I said, Well, I cant do it here. Its long. But even despite that, there are enough challenges when youre working with an organization the size of SAP. Sanjay Shah: Its interesting. Alejandro: Now, you have them as a strategic partner, so obviously, the relationship is there. There are so many different constituencies at SAP to find the right balance to bring all of these together for hem to cheer for you. We were able to get into new industries and even upsell to our existing customers. I didnt want to give up much equity. Shah discusses the American Dream, entrepreneurship, bootstrapping, adapting to . My first two hires are still with me and still with the company. : Yeah. : Initially, for the first year, and a little over a year, it was just me by myself. The Founder, CEO and Chief Architect of enterprise software company Vistex, Sanjay Shah is a global businessman who has bootstrapped the company from its conception to its current role as a vital partner to worldwide titans like Apple, Walmart, 3M, Turner, Dell and Bayer. I said to myself, If I work the first shift selling my services, then Ill be able to use that funding to develop what I need to develop on the second and third shift. We didnt have any salespeople on board, so we were engineers doing all of the selling ourselves. Theyre very skilled these days in terms of how they decide what to buy. Everything was very hunky-dory. So then what happens after you make the decision. Thats something that I believe has sold people as well that I always wake up every day worrying about what is it that I need to learn more, and not bask in the success of what I have learned and what Ive achieved. : You brought this up to 250 million in revenue without taking any type of investors. Thats something that I believe has sold people as well that I always wake up every day worrying about what is it that I need to learn more, and not bask in the success of what I have learned and what Ive achieved. Expenditure allowance: Rs 4,000. What kind of teams do you need? Im not a big social media citizen if you will, but from time to time, I will check LinkedIn. So I was introduced to software quite early on. So I grew up in a very close family both literally and figuratively. When we say we listen, listening not just to our employees who are the closest to our customers and have the best product ideas, but also to our customers. We go in as explorers, not as conquerors because we know that the right kind of input is very critical to the engineering of a product. Then from what I hear, it seems it was more you build it; you build something great and something that people would like to use, and then theyre going to come. I am a fervent believer in skills-based immigration. Perhaps it should be neither, and I should do what Sanjay said would work better. Alejandro: Very cool. Sanjay Shah: Absolutely. Perhaps they will also appreciate it. So in having a degree in finance and having work experience in accounting is not exactly something that would draw potential employers for an operations position. Sanjay Shah: I think in 2001, I was able to land our first customers. /PRNewswire/ -- Sanjay Shah, Founder and CEO of Vistex, Inc., one of the world's leading technology companies, made history today with his purchase of the. Sanjay Shah: We have a very demographic process. Then thats how we came to learn of SAP. : Really interesting here. : Did you recruit other people like talking of bootstrapping and especially in the early days, who were the initial people you got around you to help you out? What did you experience? Thats how I was able to bootstrap. That helped definitely. Alejandro: And you went to Canada. Sanjay Shah '89 presents a symbolic check to Lehigh President John D. Simon '19P and Georgette Chapman Phillips, the Kevin L. and Lisa A. Clayton Dean of the College of Business and Economics. Your email address is 100% safe from spam! Customers are getting smarter, especially in enterprise software, which is where we play. As I said, I was living in a bit of a bubble. I think the industry pivoted that way about somewhere between planning on your perspective five to seven years ago, and the entire industry has pivoted toward Software as a Service. They try to go after high-potential, high-growth, the mature organizations, and we fit the bill on that front. We were looking for a partner that has the chops, that has the history and the stripes to help us with our cloud journey. Supply chain is a more recent term, but back then, it was operations. They want to outsource everything and just consume a service. Sanjay Shah, founder and CEO of Vistex, is photographed Dec. 8, 2014 in the penthouse atop the Trump International Hotel and Tower he owns. Growth is hard, [laughter] to say the least. What does the future look like for Vistex? Fortunately, I had a view from the inside as well, having been one of the earliest employees of SAP. And I joined in an analyst position, which meant I was able to get close to the shop floor. Q&A: Beam Suntory CEO rides whiskey boom at home and abroad , Q&A: FCB Chicago ad agency CEO says big ideas still work on little screens , Q&A: Shinola looks to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., and stakes a claim in Chicago . Listen to what everybody has to say. I think getting the firsthand experience was critical. So without further ado, Id like to welcome our guest today to the show. Other allowances: Rs 30,000 per month. Part of the Storycuts series, this short story was originally published in the collection Little Black Book of Stories. Alejandro: Wow! What were the immediate steps to bring this to life? Thank you, Alejandro. Supply chain is a more recent term, but back then, it was operations. CEO, and Chief Architect, Sanjay Shah, is the WINNER of the 2019 Ernst & Young (EY) Technology Entrepreneur of the Year Midwest Award. Just navigating the politics and creating and developing the value, etc. How do you build and scale a cloud business? For a winning deck, take a look at the pitch deck template created by Silicon Valley legend, Peter Thiel (see it here) that I recently covered. [Laughter] Be a good listener. In 2019, Sanjay Shah led Vistex to accelerated growth opportunities with its first minority equity investment from Silicon Valley-based Accel-KKR (AKKR), infusing up to $105 million to fuel the companys continued dominance. This is pretty cool. Thats how I ended up working for them. What were some of your biggest takeaways because now, you have your own company, but I think that being able to work with such a massive player and understanding the dynamics and how they worked, Im sure that many of those lessons youve applied to how youve built and scale your own business. : Why did you go about bootstrapping rather than perhaps taking a look at financing the operation? I wanted to get some operational experience and work on the operational side of things, operation supply chain, different terms. Maybe I should trust A more than B, so I should do what A said. No. Alejandro: Why did you go about bootstrapping rather than perhaps taking a look at financing the operation? As we would bootstrap, I think it was important I realized that having because we are not spending as much on sales and marketing. Sanjay Shah: I think the next thing Ive learned is always to learn to learn. Photo: Antonie Robertson/The National. So weve been able to constantly grow, not just for a product footprint, but also our customer footprint as we continue to invest. London's High Court had previously dismissed a claim by Skat, Denmark's tax authority, to hear the case in the UK on the grounds it was . What type of selling skills do you need? Then slowly over the years expanded to other regions of the globe. A: Not yet. : Of course. What have you learned about yourself as a leader? There are so many different stakeholders. Alejandro: So here you are in 1999. : What have I learned about growth? But you should seek input and feedback from everybody. Just enter your email below. If you engineer good products and show value, then customers will come your way. This whole Cloud Revolution, we feel that we are a bit behind in this regard in terms of being out there and being perceived more as a company that can do equally well with our cloud offerings. Its also massively matrixed. If you like the show, make sure that you hit that subscribe button. Click Here For Sanjay D Shah's Last Known Address 7 Cutters Run, South Barrington, IL 60010 1106 Kingston Ct, Glendale Heights, IL 60139 744 W Bristol St, Elkhart, IN 46514. It turns out that it was a great time to liquidate my stock options because I did that in 99, just before the big crash following. Software maker Vistex announced it has raised $65 million in funding from Accel-KKR, a private equity firm based in Silicon Valley. : There are a lot of people that are on the line that are thinking about venture capital, and angels, and private equity. We dont have venture funding or angel funding to go launch ourselves in a big fashion to let the world know that were out there. How was the growth of revenue overtime during those years? What was the next thing that youve learned? This is only one story. Fortunately, I had a view from the inside as well, having been one of the earliest employees of SAP. : Thats interesting because you have, obviously, the school of thought of you sell it, and then you figure out how to build it and deliver. Employees at Boomerang Commerce rate Guru Hariharan higher than employees at Vistex, Inc. rate Sanjay Shah Once you have built a platform already, how do you accelerate growth versus venture capital is, Do you believe in my potential? Is that right? They were engineers. Those are the revenue streams for us. Everything was very hunky-dory. : No, Im not, but I plan to soon. A lot of our revenue also comes from upselling. There are many paths to progress and success. So our focus is, how can we help our customers succeed even more with our products and offerings? Theres always a question that I ask the guests that we have on the show, and that is knowing what you know now if you had the opportunity to go back and give yourself a piece of advice, to that younger Sanjay that is about to launch the business, what would that piece of advice be before launching a business and why? Theres always some business to be had with on-prem software, but were also getting more aggressive and investing heavily to grow our business in the Cloud as they say; to sell our software as a subscription. And I lasted a full six months and decided that I didnt want to be a professional accountant. The idea was to write the software to address some functions that were not adequately addressed in ERP Systems. : Sanjay, what is the way that you guys make money with this? It's very unique, not just in Chicago or in the U.S., but probably unique in the whole world in terms of how it's laid out. Sanjay Shah: Correct. But I quickly realized that confidence is good; over-confidence is not so good. How do you guys monetize? We were able to land a couple of accounts in the year 2001. Tell us, after this presentation then you speak with your wife or with your family, and you still have to think about the idea of going at it. Sanjay Shah: I was living in a form of a bubble. Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. So I was introduced to software quite early on. We are trying to develop what I call a hybrid model. So those are the challenges. I also spent time working for SAP at their headquarters in Germany in R&D for a couple of years of my six-year journey with them. Do you believe that Im working on something that has a great potential? Private equity, which is more how do you help accelerate growth, which was more our case. My Name is sanjay shah. You shouldnt necessarily follow somebodys footsteps, but just take inspiration and then chart your own path. Vistex also sells its applications to customers who aren't SAP customers. On the one hand, you can say those jobs wouldn't be filled, but then is it fair to the other person who's also doing the job that's legal, that has to pay their share? Shah, 49, Vistex's founder and CEO, recently gave $5 million to his business school alma mater, Lehigh University's College of Business and Economics, with the goal, he said, of helping it better compete with other top business schools. Its important to stay grounded and be a good listener. There are plenty of examples where skills-based immigration has done wonders for this country. They might not have been born here, but they were raised here and they are very productive. When you continue to deliver value for your customers, then they see it. We have a relatively flat organization. Thats the degree I had. Obviously, one step in the wrong direction can be fatal. : Now, you have them as a strategic partner, so obviously, the relationship is there. Overview Company Overview Top Contacts Sanjay Shah overview Vistex overview Vistex top contacts Try the contact number finder tool for free,get started in seconds No Credit Card Required Were going to be learning a lot about building, scaling companies, and also about financing and then venture capitalist versus private equity firms, and also about building super-strategic relationships with larger players. Sanjay Shah: Yes. : Absolutely. Alejandro: How big was the business when you joined them? The idea was to write the software to address some functions that were not adequately addressed in ERP Systems. Then to ensure that they continue to receive value as they expand their portfolio of products. Alejandro: You brought this up to 250 million in revenue without taking any type of investors. 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