'At work and home, it's been an amazing journey'

BENGALURU: While doing their engineering assignments together in BITS Pilani in 2003, Yamini Natti and Venkat Malladi had never for a moment imagined that one day they would be founding a startup together. But a decade-long friendship and a common passion to solve a major enterprise problem, drove the two Hyderabad-bred techies to come together in 2013 to start Vymo in Bengaluru.
Yamini went to IIM-Bangalore after BITS Pilani, and then joined consulting firm McKinsey & Co. Venkat went to Columbia University, US, and then joined Google.
During her stint at McKinsey, Yamini realized how difficult it was to get thousands of employees of a company to work towards a goal with consistency. "Our clients included top telcos, insurers and banks. The task to drive all the employees of a client firm to move forward at the same pace invariably proved to be Utopian. I knew that we needed a tool to accelerate an employee's progress from the moment he joins the company till he becomes the perfect sales guy," Yamini says.
She discussed the idea of building a tool with Venkat. Venkat, who was then working with Google's search and location-based services for Android team, offered Yamini help in developing the tool. Thus Vymo was born.
The mobile application collects information from various sources and offers employees contextual recommendations for improving their tasks. "Vymo is actually a Google Now equivalent for enterprises. It's a personal assistant application that predicts what a representative or a manager should do next to drive growth," Yamini says.
The app uses a three-step process. First it looks at the style of work of the best salesperson in a company. It understands his/her methodology, priorities and how he/she conducts meetings. In the second step it understands what is not working for a particular employee. In the final step, the app helps the individual overcome the challenges based on the first salesperson's actions and behaviour.
Vymo was selected among the five best enterprise startups by InTech 50, a panel of chief information officers and venture capitalists. It was recently also selected for Microsoft Venture's accelerator programme. Vymo's clients include Bharti Axa Life Insurance, IndusInd Bank, Jyothi Laboratories, Mars and DuPont. The startup is now planning to expand outside India.
Yamini says the key to their success was building four or five impact-guaranteed features in the mobility solution, instead of incorporating hundreds of features.
Both Yamini's and Venkat's spouses have been very supportive through their startup journey. Yamini has a 15-month-old son. Venkat, who is based in the US, has a six-weeks-old baby. "Our spouses are giving a lot more as parents. I try my best to balance work and home. I take vacations to be with my family. A regular job doesn't give that flexibility. Also, Vymo and my son are aged almost the same. So it has been an amazing time on both sides of my life," says Yamini.