The founders realised that proper product adoption and user experience was something the HR tech space lacked, and if they were able to crack it, they would be able to scale. their employees, making it easier for any company to make the journey from good to great. Their mission was simple – they wanted to help HR practitioners focus on their vital assets i.e. Frustrated with the poor user experience and clunky interfaces present in the existing options, they took it upon themselves to build a solution, paving the way for Keka, a true employee experience platform.
Keka’s journey goes back to 2015 when Vijay Yalamanchili was busy growing his software services business and was looking for the right HR solution to support them. “We had to be creative and work much harder to become the HR tech leader and maintain that narrative in the market,” adds Vijay. In the highly crowded and competitive HRMS market, Keka carved new strategies to build, manage and maintain its workforce in the most optimised way.
It had to compete with established and well-funded organisations. Keka’s bootstrapped journey was not an easy one. “’Veni, Vidi, Vici – We came, we saw, we conquered’ from Julius Caesar pretty much sums up what our team did in terms of disrupting the SME HRTech market,” says Vijay Yalamanchili, Founder and CEO, Keka HR. Keka HR has grown to become the leading provider of HR automation services in the country in a span of just five years.
One such is Keka HR, a company that is thriving without any external funds. As Shark Tank entrepreneur Mark Cuban puts it – “I think the biggest mistake people make is once they have an idea and the goal of starting a business, they think they have to raise money,” this mantra has some takers close to home. Entrepreneurs who are self-made and have bootstrapped their way to success are a rare breed. For decades, startups have raised money from investors to scale their business with hopes to reach Unicorn status and beyond.