Business
Altaf Ganihar is the founder and CEO of Snaptrude, a Bangalore-based SaaS startup that is backed by Accel and Brigade. Altaf Ganihar was working on the Indian Digital Heritage (IDH) Project, constructing a 3D model of Hampi, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, when he realized that 3D design is full of pain points. He built a crude prototype in his spare time and showed it to some architects, who expressed interest in his project. This was a turning point in Altaf's life: he decided to pursue entrepreneurship instead of the safe, conventional path of getting his PhD and becoming a researcher. The first order of business was raising some funds to turn his prototype into an MVP. He turned to his professors and raised a small round, with which he was able to hire some interns and work on his SaaS product for a year and a half. This product helped customers to visualize a space, e.g. a house, apartment, or office, before purchasing it. The product was able to take a 2D floor plan and convert it into a 3D model.Sadly, Altaf soon realized that his SaaS product was nowhere near achieving product/market fit, and was forced to pivot. At this point, the funds he had raised had all but dried up, and he had to let go of his interns. He got a part time job to stay afloat, but things weren't going well for Altaf and his startup. Luckily, he got connected to Brigade, one of the top real estate developers of South India, and they invited him to join their real estate startup accelerator program. This program enabled Altaf to continue pursuing his dream of being a successful SaaSpreneur.Altaf realized that he needed to build his SaaS solution for architects, not buyers. With his newfound realization, he made a product pivot. Instead of converting a floor plan to a 3D model, his new SaaS product would convert a hand drawn sketch into a 3D model.Altaf spent the next few months building the prototype for his new product, and was invited to a conference to show off how it worked. The people at the conference loved it, and soon his startup was getting visibility. Snaptrude was covered by VCCircle, and he was also invited to Disrupt, an annual tech conference held by TechCrunch. This visibility caught the attention of a number of investors, including Accel Partners, who was part of Snaptrude's seed round of funding along with Brigade and a couple of angel investors. With this injection of funds, Altaf was able to hire employees. Today, Snaptrude is a team of 11 sitting out of Accel LaunchPad in Bengaluru, India. They have launched their SaaS product in beta, and are looking forward to revolutionizing and disrupting the architectural 3D design space. VCCircle article: https://www.vccircle.com/this-hubli-boy-rejected-foreign-offers-to-come-up-disruptive-real-estate-software/TechCrunch list: https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/03/meet-the-feature-pavilion-startups-at-disrupt-sf/Altaf's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/altaf-ganihar-54512367/Altaf's website: https://sites.google.com/site/altafganihar2/homeAltaf's Twitter: https://twitter.com/altafganiharSnaptrude's website: https://snaptrude.com/Snaptrude's Twitter: https://twitter.com/snaptrudeSnaptrude's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/snaptrudeSnaptrude's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/snaptrude/