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My Learning Through Helping Companies to Scale Up Nilesh Gohil

Many of you have also joined a growth-phase company and been through its roller-coaster ride and learnt (not to leave the path, hopefully!). Much of the learning might be contextual and some may even be painfully frustrating to recall, however, we’re all skilled to take the fruit and leave the chaff. An acute need for people who could help in this crucial phase of a company’s life cycle is felt across the world.

Penned a few thoughts below from my learning through helping companies scale-up:

Now It’s Your Turn

Even after 22 years, I feel like I have barely scratched the surface and have lot to learn. I would love to hear your thoughts and comments.

Have also set up a LinkedIn group (you may join here) that could be used as a discussion platform for more conversations on topics, such as how to instil customer focus, retain people, define KPIs for different roles, recruit for key leadership roles, or design compensation & incentive structures.

About The Author

Over the past 22 years, I have helped multiple tech companies to scale following their bootstrapping phase. An early member of Symbian, which was at the epicentre of the Smartphone ecosystem for over a decade. I professionally grew at Symbian and literally felt the Business Lifecycle through its struggle to survive following the emergent threats from Google (Android) and Apple (iOS). The journey started with my very first opportunity back in 2003 to help Symbian set up its first offshore site. Had limited success initially, however, this learning help us pivot to a better approach and within a couple of years, the site had 200+ product engineering team.

Over the years, I have done so across different domains (Analytics, Digital and Mobile), industries (eCommerce, BFSI, Mobile Apps, HighTech and Telco), functions (Consulting, Operations and Product Engineering) and markets (APAC, India and the EU and US).

I’m currently leading Merkle | Sokrati through a similar growth curve and now we are 1500+ Sokratian in the team with most of the growth since our series B in early 2015. Together, we achieved over 10X revenue growth and improved customer satisfaction (130% NPS lift) while building several new business lines. Merkle/dentsu acquired Sokrati for about USD 125m. This acquisition is a rare event in the Indian start-up ecosystem - it's among the less than a handful of all-cash start-up exits over the past decade (as of mid-2017).

I’m an engineer with an MBA from Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA).

Credits:

Created with an image by Gipfelsturm69 - "climb prussik knot high mountains"