Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Kashi Ks, Co-Founder of Fitbots OKrs, located in Singapore.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
Fitbots OKRs is a SaaS software company that helps organizations visualize, track & execute strategy in a smarter & better way with data. We help our customers get OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) right with our global network of Fitbots Certified OKR Coaches & Consultants.
We have customers across segments ranging from Global SaaS, Fintech, Edtech, and Security tech; some happen to be fast-growing companies such as OneAssit, IZooto, HealthAssure, and BrightNetwork. We also work with large conglomerates such as Will Group to roll out OKRs.
Tell us about yourself
Fitbots has an interesting story; we started as a career fitness platform and pivoted to organizational fitness with OKRs. My co-founder Vidya & I were colleagues in my prior company Mindtree. We realized in different ways the gap between strategy to execution. Vidya has deep insights into strategy, leadership development & organization development, and I was an enterprise architect building data-driven decisions systems for Fortune 500. We realized challenge leaders have challenges in communicating, aligning strategy, and, importantly, execution with a lack of real-time data to make tactical decisions. The strategy decay and wasted efforts of valuable employees did not make sense to us. We studied various decision-making frameworks before zoning on OKRs. We got into the trenches and coached 100+ teams on OKRs as we started building our OKR software.
What makes Fitbots OKRs special is the translation of deep insights from our OKR coaches. This has helped us evolve to solve real problems in strategy execution. This does result in cheer from our customers as OKRs are well crafted, with alignment established, helping the organization focus on metrics that matter the most. These cheers keep us going each day.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
We were bootstrapped for about two years from when we started; this teaches us a lot. I am proud of many things:
- Our team: Who are relentlessly looking for ways to solve problems.
- Our Customers: Who challenge and cheer for us each day to solve their unique problems.
- Our Investors: Who support and believe we can achieve anything
The biggest achievement of all is how my co-founder & I work with our teams to make this work like a symphony.
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
Creating and building Fitbots OKRs has been immensely rewarding. The hardest thing we faced was a business disruption during COVID when we were just blooming and gaining customers. This forced us to pivot to all digital modes of working, which did result in challenges in some employee & customer churn. Looking back, it also made us stronger & better to solve alignment and execution challenges with OKRs in a hybrid world.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
The Internet is always a great resource for finding most of your answers. Apart from Googling, here are three tips you might want to consider:
- Pick a co-founder and team with diverse skills who are 10x smarter than you; this will help you solve problems faster as they arise.
- Relentlessly focus on core biz metrics, mainly unit economics, PMF, and engagement in user communities. This will help you understand and fix your mistakes faster.
- Peer founders and founders who are just one step ahead of you have a wealth of information & experience that you can practically apply in your context; ask them for help (you would be surprised by their willingness to support you). Advice from mentors & Founders who are very ahead of your stage of growth is often great; it is very hard to apply/execute.
Ignore all advice; follow your heart and use your brains; you will make it.
Is there anything else you'd like to share?
Focus on the road ahead. Your windshield is bigger than your rearview mirror for a reason. Choose OKRs to create an organizational map toward your dream destination.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://www.fitbots.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FitbotsOKRs
Twitter: https://twitter.com/fitbotsokrs
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fitbots/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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