With little sales experience, geeky founder closed six-figures in deals to save his firm

Ashwin Gayam does not come across as your typical CEO. While he looks the part, he is fundamentally a technologist at heart.

His resume bears that out: four years at business school INSEAD serving a technical role, rising through the ranks from software developer to research team leader.

But he had to make a choice at the beginning of 2012: steer his ship or watch it sink. He switched from being the CTO of his company, Fisheye Analytics, to the chief executive.

The move paid off. Eventually, Fisheye got acquired by global marketing conglomerate WPP for a few million dollars with an unaudited revenue of $622,000. They had no external investors.

The situation leading up to his choice was grim. With grand ambitions of being a product company with consultancy and customer support elements, Fisheye sought to raise at least a couple million from venture capitalists.

The company, which was founded in 2009, did not seek angel investments since they were able to pay employees with their first deal. It made no sense to raise six-digit investments from angels when they could easily use the time to secure contracts worth equally as much.

Swimming with sharks on empty stomachs

But getting capital of that magnitude is time-consuming. It meant the company had to stop its sales activities and focus on talks with investors, negotiations over terms, and due diligence.

The effort, which took up half a year, did result in three offers, but the company didn’t accept them. Gayam says:

Some of them basically wanted 50 percent equity for what we were asking. They were taking advantage of us because we were seen as weak.

The company bled as they entertained investors. There wasn’t a right fit to begin with: venture capitalists sought high-risk, high-return businesses with 10x multiples, so they were listening for specific buzzwords in the pitches.

But Gayam felt his approach towards the analytics business wasn’t suited for that – he wanted a more personal touch that traded off scalability for quality of service. The human element, he says, is necessary in this business, and the investors didn’t get that.

At the end of the ordeal, their cash flow dwindled fast – they could only last for four months tops.

Who doesn’t love freebies?

Small fish in a foreign pond

Not seeking acquisition, but got it anyway