When you imagine business partners, you would imagine classmates from B Schools, or friends. Working with family can always be challenging. And we have seen numerous examples of siblings fighting and parting ways.
They were both driven by the passion to do something on their own and we were pinning to start a business even while cushy job offers were coming their way.
Ace-data.com is the brainchild of Anuuj Medirattaa , which started as a small initiative and has lots of passion. Ace Data is a data protection service that provides backup operations, recovery, compliance, backup assessment, and Cloud-based Backups to their customers. But above and beyond that provides mental peace to clients as they know their data is safe and can be retrieved in case of data loss.
Ace Data is also one of our clients at FlexiBees, having hired multiple part-time and remote-working professionals to assist their existing teams. So we recently caught up with Neeraj Medirattaa, CEO & Managing Director of Ace Data to understand their business and to know what worked well for them and why they choose to hire flexible talent. What ensued was an interesting conversation about how entrepreneurs are passionate and have the chutzpah to keep going even in the face of adversities.
Some excerpts from our conversation:
Can you tell us what you do in simple terms (For our non-tech folks)?
Sure, we are a data protection service provider. That means, we help you back-up important data and ensure you don't lose what you need. And we make sure that it is easy to access and retrieve, when you need it, in case of any disaster. We have cloud-based public data centers that our clients access through their browsers.
For example, as an individual, you would use your computer drive, Dropbox, Google Drive or an external memory unit to create backups for your data. We provide automated cloud backup which is a fully managed comprehensive 24X& service that provides seamless backup and recovery with granularity to complete data recovery on a larger scale for organizations in compliance with various regulatory requirements.
How did it all start? Tell us your story.
We started nearly 26 years ago. We had this crazy idea of giving up comfortable jobs to start something on our own. I think we are entrepreneurs at heart and couldn't have thrived without doing what we do!
Soon after college, we started selling computer consumables, including printer cartridges, etc. But I am not from the field, my knowledge was limited. I am an economics graduate, what did I know about selling computer consumables or software?! But my brother Anuuj is a techie and he complimented my sales skills perfectly!
Nonetheless, we stuck to our guns and later moved on to selling computer peripherals.
In 2000, data storage was the rage. And we started thinking about pivoting in that direction. This decision was a major turning point for Ace Data. Cloud computing was still upcoming, and till this point, we worked with bigger organizations (EMC, HP, etc) as their channel partners. We were implementing backup solutions for them. So this shift was big for us.
Around 2014, we switched to the service model which allowed our clients to pay as they use. We soon became the pioneers in the backup services space. At this time we took a strategic call to faze out all other verticals and focus solely on backup services. This has helped us grow 4x of what we started with.
Tell us about your early career.
MY father passed away early in life. Though I had the responsibility of providing for my family, my mum was keen that we finish our education. She somehow thought that my dad’s sales job was responsible for his early death and wanted us to veer away from it. I used to give my resumes to my mum to post them. When I never heard from anyone, I realized later in life that my mum never posted them! But even as a 15-year-old, I tried my hand at entrepreneurship. I bought and sold materials from wholesale markets, like stationery items, etc., and worked selling clinical and medical instruments.
I started my career with Wockhardt pharmaceuticals as a medical representative. I was in hardcore sales for 6-7 years. I honestly feel that the training I got at Wockhardt helps me even today. I still use and apply the concepts I learned then.
Anuuj completed his education in software technology. And I encouraged him to start off on his own. I was supporting him for about 6-8 months while still managing my job. But he had a falling out with his sales partner. At this point, Anuuj was even considering shutting shop and looking for a full-time position. That’s when I stepped in to handle the sales. Since software development was taking time, I suggested we sell consumables in the meantime to pay the bills.
Is working with family hard? How do you separate work from home?
It is definitely tricky. We are brothers who work and live together. Sometimes a lapse in indiscipline sets in. We tend to take it a bit casually. We assume the other one will take care of it. Also, there tends to be a slight blur in the role definition.
Now we are working on streamlining personal discipline. We want to move away from the dependence on our family and overcome our personal challenges to grow Ace Data to the next level. But with our sales and tech strengths, together we can be a lethal combination!
In terms of difference of opinion, I think it is necessary. Otherwise, there is something wrong. That is how healthy debates and more innovative solutions emerge. We have had very strong setbacks in our business - we virtually closed down a couple of times. I believe that when we go through these kinds of challenges together it only strengthens us.
Can you share a recent success story?
I think our roster of clients is our biggest success story. We cater to big organizations like Fortis Hospitals and have a couple of international clients too. And to cater to these kinds of clients, we need to compete with world leaders and bring our A game! But in the last two to three years, the goal has only been to maintain the status quo, owing to the pandemic.
In 2020, we won the Economic Times: Best Brand and Entrepreneur Of The Year awards.
What is your differentiator?
I think primarily, more than just a service, we provide our customers with peace of mind. Ace Data’s fully transparent and process-driven approach and execution speeds up the entire process, leaving nothing to chance thus, ensuring your absolute peace of mind.
Secondly, our data life cycle management. I think we are the only ones in the industry who have categorized data and given different categories to our clients based on their usage of the data. This helps us manage the data better and gives the client a chance to better segregate their data for optimizing cost and time based on the recovery and retention needs of different types of data..
We are a services company - we deliver the right service to the customer as required, we optimize solutions and provide 100% recovery assurance.
Lastly, our sharp focus. We are focused only on data protection. Backup is our forte. Our competitors offer everything on the list, while focused on creating a niche.
What made you opt for flexible talent and FlexiBees and how has been your experience?
We were already working with remote and part-time talent. We hired talent from various countries all over the world. The pandemic opened up the world to everyone.
Then I saw a post on LinkedIn about FlexiBees and I was curious to explore options within the country. Wanted to try hiring local talent. With the international talent we hired earlier, all communication was via text messages. Though it was effective, I was itching to get on a call to talk to the people who were delivering my work. So, this was a no-brainer for us!
Compared to the previous platform we hired from, FlexiBees gives us exact prices, we can pay as we use or need. The previous platform had only 4 slabs and we had to pick from those. This was a huge plus point for us.
I think FlexiBees is extremely professional and we have hired 6-7 people so far, for Marketing, HR functions (Recruitment), Sales and an Executive Assistant.
The experience has been good and we are really satisfied.
The biggest advantage is that the consultant enables us to free up our time, or the internal team’s time and this can push us to the next level! I think the talent pool that you have tapped into is immense. Finding talent like this on our own is difficult. I would say, even impossible! When people can get job opportunities in MNCs, why would they work with us? We need someone like you. The kind of talent FlexiBees provided us with, really made a difference to our organization to help us transition to a better place on the growth curve.
If you are looking for data protection and recovery services, do reach out to Ace-Data.com
