We See Heyo Scaling To A Million Businesses Across India In Next 3-5 Years: Co-founder Rimjhim Ray

Her father was a medical practitioner working at a very senior level of a large public sector company, but she was also bequeathed with an entrepreneurial legacy from her father’s grandparents (the Ray Burmans), a leading name in the city’s business circles, pioneering retail business in this part of the country.

With a strong background in engineering and management and a passion for writing, she has had exciting stints with tech biggies and a top advertising agency, before founding her own company. She has never looked back since then. Over these years she has successfully created and exited companies. In her current role as co-founder of Heyo, her aim is to help a small business turn every customer conversation into a sales or commerce opportunity leveraging the power of AI.

Speaking to Bizz Buzz, Rimjhim Ray, Co-founder, Heyo, Partner, Goa Angel Network, narrates her entrepreneurial journey, how she is building her own company, how she is helping other startups grow and much more

Be it in technology space (IT) of advertising, you were doing well for yourself, working with some of the leading companies of the world. What was it that made you leave your job and start your entrepreneurial journey?

I come from an entrepreneurial legacy. My father's grand-parents, the Ray Burmans have been leading business people of Kolkata. They were pioneers in retail. My father did not follow the business path but I often heard stories of entrepreneurship from him or his grand-parents/ cousins, which inspired me.

I also studied and worked in London which is probably the most entrepreneurial city in the world. The city stoked my passion for entrepreneurship. I remember when applying to London business School or Imperial London MBA, I talked about being an entrepreneur in my MBA essay. Back in India working in Mumbai I decided to quit the corporate safety and launch my own firm.

How has been the journey so far, with all the turns and twists?

It has been a roller coaster ride. I have built two startups, exited one, raised funds, invested in some fantastic startups and co-building the third right now. Have seen difficult days, even sold our car to raise our first capital but have also seen the highs including building Spotle.AI in India that was recognised by Nasscom India AI, filed patents and helped place over a million students.

At Heyo, we are building technology that actually helps boost revenue of India’s 6 crore small businesses. I enjoy solving big problems with tech and while there is a lot to be done, am happy we are able to build for the real Bharat.

There can be two types of entrepreneurs - one who spends some years in jobs and then get into entrepreneurship, and another who sets out on an entrepreneurial journey right from the beginning. Which one, would you say, is better? Or, would you say, there is no one size fits all strategy?

I would say there's no one size fits all. You can come from an entrepreneurial family or ecosystem in which case launching a business right away is the most natural choice. For others working in corporates, for a few years to build the experience and accumulate your seed capital to startup makes more sense. For first generation entrepreneurs I do recommend working for sometime in a company or even a startup as it gives you very valuable insights, networks and experience to leverage while starting on your own.

You had brought in AI, at a time when it was not as talked about as it is now. Tell us your experience of floating, running and eventually exiting out of Spotle.AI?

I am a technologist at core and spent the first years of my career as a software engineer building some very challenging projects including open wifi, mobility and media systems for some of the largest companies in the world. I had an early entry into mobility, big data thanks to my tech career in the US and the UK. When AI was just making its mark, I started tinkering with it. With a fantastic group of co-founders Jyotirmay Kanthal (Jadavpur University, ex-IBM) Mousum Dutta (IIT, Ex SaS), Taj (who has been a techpreneur from age of 20) we decided to use AI to solve a large challenge - careers and hiring for students and early stage professionals.

We achieved some amazing feats at Spotle - scaled to a million students, 3500+ campuses and companies across India, Singapore, the US. We raised funds from key investors. In 2022 when edtech funding had hit a wall we decided to pivot to a B2B platform licensing our AI to big4 consulting houses and governments. I had my eventual exit then.

How and when did Heyo happen?

In 2022 I was looking for my next adventure after exiting Spotle. I happened to meet Ankit (Jain) who had been running MyOperator, India's largest cloud communications platform for eight years. He was toying with the idea of Heyo, which can help the smallest of business scale their customer engagement and growth through a smart number. I had started my career in telecom in Ireland. Here was my opportunity to go back into telecom tech and again solve for a large problem.

Also for me the kind of co-founder you work with is the most important factor deciding your success or even survival. I loved Ankit’s vision and his pitch to build a rocket ship together. That's how I came onboard Heyo as a co-founder to build Bharat ka business number.

In between you co-founded and/or invested in some other companies. Tell us briefly about these investments. How do you take a call on such investments?

I am a partner at Goa Angel Network. We have invested in over 15 startups mostly in seed or pre-series A stage. Individually, I have backed a few select startups. I usually look at 3 factors - conviction in the founders, initial traction which shows early signs of idea market fit and ideally a diverse team with a multi-dimensional perspective.

Has your other passion or love - writing- taken a back seat while pursuing your entrepreneurial journey?

Unfortunately yes. I wrote ‘7 women 7 secrets’ in 2017 which went on to be a Times Books bestseller. While I have wanted on to follow on with a novel that traces the journey of a dreamer from India's partition to a deeply divided India. But all I have managed to write in last few years are business plans, pitch decks and a few cheques and lines of code in between. I am sure, I will have that time someday to go back to my love for writing.

What are your plans with Heyo? Where and how do you see this company, say 3 years down the road?

We see Heyo scaling to a million businesses across India and emerging economy markets like Asia Pacific, EMEA, LATAM in next 3-5 years. Heyo today supports millions of business-consumer conversations every month. Our aim is to help a small business turn every customer conversation into a sales or commerce opportunity leveraging the power of AI. Our commerce bots are already helping small and medium businesses sell right on chat. We see this scope expanded to millions of users, driving billion dollar conversational commerce outcome for them.

With TiE, Women's Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industries, Goa Angel Investors, your hands seem to be full. How would you like to promote and foster the startup ecosystem?

We often think everything an early stage entrepreneur needs is funds. That's actually the last thing you need. You need so many things first - clear idea of the problem you want to solve, will people even pay you to solve that problem, the team which can help you solve. I think this is where experienced entrepreneurs can step in and mentor founders to help them avoid the mistakes that we often made. In the next step connecting to funds and market would be critical. This is where I want to play an active role especially for the Bengal entrepreneurship ecosystem. This is my way of paying tribute to my great grandfather Ashwini Kumar Ray Burman, who conceived the idea of a departmental store in the 1930s. Founders are dreamers, risk takers. Let's make the world a little safer and easier for them.