Truth, Dare & Dream…
the Atlan Story
Prukalpa Sankar and Varun Banka had a comfortable choice, the rookies were aware of the grim truth and yet the dreamers dared to live their ‘outrageous’ dream
It was 2018. “There was money on the table,” recalls Prukalpa Sankar, sharing her dilemma with us. Her cofounder chips in and adds more heft to the predicament, and the sentence. “In fact, there was lots of money on the table,” smiles Varun Banka, who too was bemused by the unusual situation. “It was a no-brainer. Any sane person would not have entertained the idea even in the wildest dream,” he laughs. “Who would want to voluntarily drag oneself down from 100 to 0,” wonders Prukalpa. “Well, by all means, our choice looked crazy to the outside world,” adds Varun.
Varun is right. It was nothing less than insanity. There was no reason at all for SocialCops to radically flip the business and change the track. The revenues were growing, there was a steady flow of work, the pipeline too looked encouraging, the consumers were immensely delighted, and the employees — including the disruptor founders — had put in their heart and soul in their mission to solve critical problems using data intelligence. So, whoever heard of the baffling move — yes, Prukalpa and Varun had pressed the pivot button. SocialCops was morphing into Atlan — were stunned beyond belief.
There was a valid reason behind widespread shock and awe. Cofounded in 2013, SocialCops was behind the creation of DISHA Dashboard, which converged data from 42 flagship government schemes to one place. DISHA helped officials at all levels explore and assess key government initiatives for any geographic level, at any point of time. When a startup that powered Ujjwala Yojana — a government scheme which provides free LPG connections to women below the poverty line — decides to pivot, it’s indeed hard to comprehend the ‘why’ behind the move.
Five years later, Prukalpa tells us the ‘why.’ “We never intended to build a consulting company,” she admits, who, along with her cofounder, had dared on multiple occasions in their entrepreneurial journey which started from their college in Singapore. The acts of daredevilry, to be fair, were never done to score a brownie point or grab eyeballs or to prove that they were cut from a different cloth. The non-conformists just wanted to listen to their hearts and live their dream.
Take, for instance, the move to dump a lucrative and promising career. While Prukalpa finished her internship at Goldman and was all set to get the job offer, Varun worked at Barclays Capital for six months and then one fine day, the founder from Ranchi played a helicopter shot much like his townmate MS Dhoni. “This was my first ever cold call,” says Varun, recounting the odd and impulsive incident. “Can we meet for dinner? I would like to discuss a startup opportunity,” he called up Prukalpa and shared his plans.
Super Moms, Diligent Kids
Though slightly taken aback by the impromptu act, Prukalpa was game. The fact that she tried her hands twice at startups during her college days and failed on both occasions didn’t deter her a bit. The young woman from Hyderabad, who as a young child would write letters to herself and was dazzled by Steve Jobs and Indra Nooyi, remained unfazed and dared to dream.
The reason probably lied in her genes. Her mother was a genetics lecturer, a radio jockey, a self-taught coder, and had to reinvent herself every three years because of the transferable job of her husband. “She wanted to become an entrepreneur but couldn’t pursue her dream,” says Prukalpa, adding that her mother had invented a device and patented it when she was 21. “And yes, she can even hack,” smiles Prukalpa.
In fact, as a young girl, Prukalpa herself made a promising start as a creator. During one of her school summer holidays, she made a website on Harry Potter. “Back then, my crowning achievement in life was that my website was among the top 10 searched results on Harry Potter,” she exults. Meanwhile, Varun too inherited entrepreneurial instincts from her mother, who used to run a shop in Ranchi and was the primary breadwinner for the family. “She toiled so that I could get quality education,” says Varun, who was moved by the steely resolve and plucky courage of her mother who merged the purpose of her life into her dream of working for a bright future for her son. “One must have a purpose in life. She made me realise this,” says Varun.
Years later in Singapore, a Harry Potter fan and a hustler from a small town bumped into each other on a bus. Little did they know that they shared a common dream, and purpose. “He was the only guy who used to read TechCrunch,” laughs Prukalpa, recounting the hour-long bus ride which turned strangers from the same college into friends. The fortuitous encounter ended on a promising and prophetic note. “We should build something cool. Let’s stay in touch,” both agreed. College ended, both went their own ways — Prukalpa and Varun landed up at different investment banks for their internship — and six months later, Varun made that ‘cold call,’ which led to rekindling of the “let’s build something cool’ talk.
Well, the duo did start with a cool fintech plan. There was only one problem, though. When pitched to a handful of so-called seasoned experts, the idea of peer-to-peer payment transfer was slammed, thrashed and nipped in the bud. Though a few months of hard work and planning went in vain, the greenhorns stayed undeterred and passionately scouted for the next big idea.
No Prizes For Guessing!
The ‘aha’ moment, interestingly, came in the college lounge. “I wish we could build SocialCops,” sighed Varun, who won a business competition on the back of SocialCops, the concept of linking people and authorities and close collaboration between them for better governance. “Why can’t we do this,” wondered Prukapla. Two-and-a-half hours later, the duo decided to relocate to India.
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The project Gharvapsi, though, had one small problem. Prukalpa and Varun needed money to bootstrap their entrepreneurial journey. Remember, it was 2013. It was not the year and era when ideas would liberally get funded and there would be backers who would say: take the money and explore! Apart from this, there were two more impediments in the yet-to-be started entrepreneurial journey.
First, the segment that the duo was trying to take a stab at was ‘non-exciting’ for the potential funders. Second, the duo didn’t want to take money from their parents to bankroll their venture. So, the money had to be earned and ‘won.’ From crowdfunding to participating in business plan competitions to printing and selling T-shirts, Prukalpa and Varun left no stone unturned in their efforts to raise capital. They earned but they still needed one jackpot. And there was a one — a business competition in the US with a prize money of $10,000. “The amount was sufficient to take care of around a year of expenses in India,” says Prukalpa. Naturally, the partners badly needed to win this competition.
But again, there was a not-so-trifling issue. Travel tickets carried a hefty tag of around $3,000, and the Mavericks just had $4,000 in the bank! Varun came up with a helicopter shot. He signed a job offer, used his joining bonus, bought flight tickets, and won the competition. “That’s how we came to India,” he says.
Roti, Kapda & Missing Makaan
All the hopes of a warm homecoming, though, were dashed in little over a month. The founders had made provision for roti and kapda. What they missed out on was makaan! “It was a crazy one-and-a-half months,” recalls Prukalpa, who couldn’t get a place to stay. “I got rejected by multiple PGs,” she recounts her nightmare. The reason was simple: she was neither a student nor a working professional. “Who would like to rent a house to wannabe founders? Nobody understood startups,” she says. Timely intervention by her mom, who flew down from Hyderabad, fixed the issue.
There were other larger issues to be fixed as well. Despite successfully executing a few initial projects for the municipal departments, the question of identity persisted. The young founders were still 21-year-olds, and the young guns took the onus to prove that they could fire. “We did things to get people to believe in us, and believe that we were a legit company,” says Varun. If winning trust of the stakeholders was a big task, then passing the litmus test of the investors was an equally formidable task.
There were times — and they were more than often — when the conviction of the cofounders was tested to the hilt. Prukalpa recalls one such incident. A pitch meeting lasted for over an hour. Strangely, the guys who ended up doing most of the talk were not the founders but the VC. He tried hard to convince the duo that the idea of crowdsourcing data and using it to solve problems was not a business model at all. “Don’t do this. You two are young guys. Go and study, do MBA, think of some other things,” he said. “You will fail if you continue with this project of yours,” he concluded.
Unsolicited advice irked Varun. “It’s okay if we fail,” he retorted. “It’s our dream. It’s okay if we fail. It’s absolutely okay,” he said. Prukalpa chipped in with her take. “Sir, if we fail, we will only have ourselves to blame. We can’t blame the world,” she said. In fact, irrespective of the outcome, it was a win-win for the founders. She explains. “The fact that we were pursuing our dream was so liberating,” she says.
Meanwhile, in 2018, Prukalpa and Varun were revisiting their dream. And building a consulting company was never ever their dream. “We were growing 2X to 3X year-on-year as a consulting firm. And we were doing amazing work,” she says. But this is not what their goal was when they started. They were not building a McKinsey! They never wanted to.
Five years after the journey, it was the right time to start afresh, and even if it meant starting from scratch — or zero — so be it. The dream and the purpose were much bigger than the business that they duo managed to build. A strong conviction in the vision and a deep desire to build a product made them take the plunge. “There is only one way to jump off the cliff. It’s a jump,” says Prukalpa, who along with her cofounder did the same when they shunned corporate life and embraced the uncertain world of entrepreneurship. It was the right time to do the drill again. The transition of SocialCops to Atlan, explains Varun, happened when the cofounders decided to go back to zero. Enduring companies, he underlines, become enduring when they reinvent themselves multiple times.
The gambit has paid off. Atlan has battle-tested over 100 data projects that have positively impacted the lives of 1 billion citizens, and has improved access to energy, healthcare, and education. From counting every building in the emerging world with satellite data to merging more than 600 unstructured data sources, Atlan has dealt with the most painful data problems firsthand.
So, apart from passion, conviction and an obsession to live the dream, what else is needed to embark on a roller-coaster entrepreneurial ride? The duo take nano seconds to process the data and come up with a unanimous reply. “You just need to be a little naïve and child-like.”
Remember what Albus Dumbledore remarked in Chamber of Secrets? “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
No wonder, Prukalpa and Varun are proud of the choice they made!
