How We Are Growing Our Ad-Tech Agency And Projecting To Close $3M Revenue In FY 2023-24
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?
Hello, my name is Karan Bhardwaj and I am the founder of ExperientialEtc, An Ad Tech Agency. I co-founded this company with my long-time friend, Prashant Pandey in 2017, to create disruption in innovative advertising.
Though we started with Holograms, Drone Shows, Projection Mappings & Sensor Based Activations which were all BTL & Onground in nature, now we have also pivoted towards digital products in the realm of augmented reality, virtual reality, virtual conferences, artificial intelligence, web games & others.
The last couple of years have been really good & we have been scaling up. We have recorded revenue of close to a million dollars (US) for Indian FY 2022-23. This year (FY 2023-24) we should be closing $3 million (US) in revenue.
What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?
I have always been an entrepreneur for the last 2 decades. I had a small stint in the area of advertising in 2010 where I started a small advertising firm name Adometer which was into the branding of personal vehicles.
So I used to get brands to advertise cars. I had this background in advertising, which is why the next time we started to think about what’s the next business to pivot into: Advertising was the first choice.
The only thing that we wanted is some technology to be integrated into it. Introducing Holograms in the country is something that we thought will create a disruption & we are still doing a lot of business on that.
I believe that if you do something with the right spirit & do it consistently, it’s bound to be successful.
Take us through the process of building the first version of your product.
We are a 360-degree agency providing end-to-end solutions, right from ideating & understanding the campaign; integrating the technology that the campaign deserves; & then executing the campaign on- the ground or online.
We offer experiential marketing strategies to a range of brands that want to give consumers unique experiences related to their brand or product. We provide a one-stop solution to brands by offering augmented reality, virtual reality, holograms, 3D billboards, and other technologies to satisfy businesses’ specific requests for campaign inventiveness, as we observe them wanting to explore new promotional methods.
These technologies can be used for a wide range of purposes, including visual branding, one-of-a-kind interactions, data points, product display, immersive experiences, and many other things.
Brands seeking to tap into the latest trends & that want to test out novel audience experiences are of interest, through a dynamic mix of digital and on-ground marketing strategies.
As apparent, we don’t have a product per se, like I said we’re a service-providing company & an ad tech agency. But now we’re pivoting towards productizing our solutions, building a bot called Xbot. This bot is going to be a consolidated solution for all the digital innovations that we have done so far.
It will act as a state-of-the-art robot assistant in a retail store & will have some impressive features. Right from the time a customer enters the store, this bot will give a personalized greeting to the customer because it will be linked to the customer’s social media, understand the emotion & facial gestures, provide the right kind of shopping experience, tell the customer: as to what the customer had shopped last; if there are any promotions or offers running on the same; tell where a particular item is located in the store (in which aisle & shelf); & in helping make the right shopping decision.
The Xbot is due to be scaled up & the prototype is being created as we speak right now after 5 years of the company being in operation & profits. But this is one product that is going to be a SAAS-based product poised to generate recurring revenue for the company.
So as a creative agency, our job is not only to ideate & offer innovative solutions but also to ensure that we deliver what we have ideated by integrating the right technology.
As this was solely a services-based business, we didn’t have to invest a lot of money to start the company. But a lot of time & a lot of late-night drilling went in about where we will get our customers from.
Describe the process of launching the business.
We were lucky to have a good network, thanks to my earlier businesses & right from one month we managed to get some business & also be profitable at the same time.
The entire website was developed by our in-house team. We haven’t outsourced it to date as this is what we do for a living & it wouldn’t make sense if we outsourced it. This is the third version of the website that is live as we speak right now.
Over the last 5 years, we have had 2-3 iterations & we think the current one resonates more with our brand & is rightly describing our business. This was delivered & overseen by our in-house development team headed by our CTO, Sonal Mahendru, who has put this into the right shape. As far as the creatives & the designs are concerned, the in-house design team has given their input.
Right at the beginning of 2017, we started with a team of about 5 people: a couple of designers, 2 people on the ground & 1 in accounts. But since then, different verticals have evolved. As the needs & demands of the brands have increased, we have accordingly kept on hiring more people under different functions.
So the entire launch strategy was about 45 days & we were ready to go at the end of the second month.
The legal structure of the company is a private limited company.
Once we have rendered our services to a client, we ensure that we collect customer feedback. We create a testimonial video & send it to other clients as well. We also ensure to take a thorough shoot of every campaign that we do & publish it on social media & our Youtube handle as well.
The same video is then sent back to the client to remind him of how we have fared in his execution & in similar executions that we have done for other clients. Hence, one customer becomes a repeat customer for us every time he thinks of doing something innovative. We are on top of his caller list FOR DOING ANYTHING EXPERIENTIAL.
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
So the only thing that has worked & has distinctly put us in a different basket as compared to a competitor, is the way we ideate for clients. All these brands come to us not only for the integration of technology that they have seen elsewhere because we have done most of them but also as to how to wrap the communication message of the brand along with the campaign & then use it as a technology to amplify it, which is what is our USP.
Word of mouth & a little bit of LinkedIn is all that we do for advertising & marketing our own company. There is nothing much that we do as of now.
We were (say it fortunately or unfortunately), the first contestant to walk in Shark Tank India. Not only was it the first ever experience for us to appear on such a platform, but it was also the first-ever experience for the sharks to interview a contestant.
Though we were aired about 5 months later when the show was first shot (the show was shot in October 2022 & aired across the country in February 2022), where our pitch was featured in the season’s second last episode, those 5 months had anyway put us on a scale, on a canvas where our brand was pretty much visible.
I think the airing happened right in time as our SEO efforts had started to take off & the brand had already got its due credibility in the industry. After we got aired, not only did our website traffic increase but also the Linkedin connections started increasing and a lot of brands reached out to us.
Even smaller brands (startups) looking to do something innovative with the integration of technology also reached out to us. We were overwhelmed to receive this kind of response wherein even smaller brands were bold in experimenting with their marketing activities. Not only did the shark tank experience bring credibility to the brand, but over some time, it has brought personal credibility to the founders & also increased business to quite an extent.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
The future looks exciting as now we are a team of 60 people. We are scaled to go about a team of 100 people in the next year itself. We have been profitable year over year, since we have pivoted to digital more now, initially, it was mostly on the ground, but now it’s mostly digital.
So with the advent of Xbot, not only our topline is going to increase, but also our gross margins are going to increase. So that being said, ExperientialEtc is going to be the only brand in the country in the next couple of years that has the clients, which has the technology & also the creative edge.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
We have been lucky to not have made a lot of bad decisions early on. Because we kept evolving, there was no set pattern for us to follow ‘As to how to run this business’. As the name ‘ExperientialEtc’ implies that the business itself is about creating experiences & every experience that we have created was kind of new.
While we were learning, there were some mistakes but we managed to take care of those mistakes within the delivery timeline & capitalized on the same learnings we had, on the next campaign. With that, we had a lot of luck coming in as well because right at that time, the ad tech industry in India was booming & every new brand was looking for doing something innovative.
Augmented reality boomed: so we did a maximum number of filters, Virtual reality boomed: so we did a lot of VR 360 experiences, even the latest entrant to this is the Metaverse. So when the metaverse came into this, we started to do a lot of campaigns in that as well.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
For accountancy we use Zoho, For HR we use Keka. Our Design Team uses a lot of software: Photoshop, Illustrator, Blender, Maya, Cinema 4d, After Effects, Premier, Marvellous Designer, Houdini, Realflow, Zbrush, and X particles.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
I have not yet spent a lot of time reading books & that is something that I regret. But I am always inspired by entrepreneurs around me & I want to ensure that I keep learning from their entrepreneurial journey. I follow each & every startup as to what they’re up to & how I can learn from their learnings & implemented strategies.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
The only advice that I would give to any entrepreneur is that idea means nothing. It’s all about Execution which means everything & even in the execution the main thing is to KEEP GOING. Consistency, Spirit & Guts That’s my motto. I believe that if you do something with the right spirit & do it consistently, it’s bound to be successful.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
We have a lot of demand for our services, but the supply has always been a challenge for us. To service this incoming demand, we are looking to expand our delivery team. We are a team of 60, out of which 45 are in delivery. We want to add a total of 20-25 people to our design team, Onground Team & Developer Team this year itself.
Where can we go to learn more?
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
