Episode 113 | Building a Resilient Brand with Madhav Srinath
In April 2020, when the rest of the world was shutting down, Madhav Srinath was gearing up to launch his company.
With a Bachelor's in Industrial Engineering and a Master's of Science in Computer Science, Madhav brought his background together to found NexusLeap: an analytics consulting company that specializes in equipping companies with scalable decision-making tools, helping them become more efficient and cost-effective.
Madhav has deep technical expertise in data warehousing, business intelligence, and cloud application management. Before founding NexusLeap, he served on Microsoft's advisory board for their Artificial Intelligence product offerings in the cloud and has held several analytics leadership positions in consulting and product companies.
What started as a one-man show has turned into a successful company that not only survived the pandemic, but has grown tremendously since.
Turning Tough Times into Opportunity
Before founding NexusLeap, Madhav was working as a sought-after consultant and helping a friend with fundraising for his Virtual Reality company. When Covid hit in early 2020 and the rest of the world hunkered down, Madhav decided to use it as an opportunity to get ahead.
When a client came to him for help solving a complex problem, he jumped at the chance. What started out as a solo consultancy grew quickly into NexusLeap.
Madhav freely admits that there may have been better times to launch a company – but with support from his wife (who joined the company a year later as their full-time COO), he was able to build solid foundations.
NexusLeap made the most of uncertain economic times to help their clients come out the other side stronger than ever. Since then, they’ve grown steadily year over year.
The Power of “And”
Madhav is a firm believer in the power of differentiating your brand based on “and’s”. It’s not enough to be good at one thing; for a powerful differentiator, you need to bring multiple specialties together.
For example, NexusLeap builds technical infrastructure and collaborates with business functions. Lots of companies build tech infrastructure, but it’s marrying the two together that makes NexusLeap so unique. Madhav knew that in most companies, the tech and business teams were siloed. He wanted to find a way to facilitate collaboration between the two. NexusLeap helps companies bridge that gap, so that their entire organization speaks the same language and is driven by the same incentives.
Leveraging Your Personal Brand to Grow Your Business
Although NexusLeap started out as Madhav’s personal brand, the current priority is growing the company brand so that it can stand independently. As a respected name in the industry, Madhav uses his personal platform to help his network learn more about the company.
As a startup founder, Madhav wears a lot of different hats. Spending dedicated time on marketing and brand identity tends to take away from other areas of the business, which is why he prefers to let it happen organically.
When Madhav posts to LinkedIn, for example, it’s to share client results or how proud he is of his team’s work. He encourages all of his employees to do the same. And since they’ve spent time building long-term relationships with every team member, the result is that NexusLeap effortlessly attracts new clients and talent. They’ve built a brand that’s known for resilience, excellence, and loyalty. If you’re trying to grow your business’s brand visibility, think about what values you want to portray through your content.
Enjoy this episode with CEO and Founder Madhav Srinath…
Quotes
“From a differentiation standpoint, I always believe in the power of ‘and’s’. If I’m good at building cloud infrastructure, that’s great but there are a lot of people that are good at that. But what is the and? If I’m good a building cloud infrastructure and collaborating with business functions, all of a sudden there’s this really dangerous combination that very people can compete with.”
“I think what we do really well is it’s not one or the other, it’s one and the other.”
“There were probably better times. But it’s one of those things, when you create a surface area for luck, when you see the opportunity and you’re able to do it…you have to go for it without thinking about it too much logically.”
“Companies are led by business problems, that’s what strings them along. The value is had by solving that business problem. Technology generally enables those problems to be solved, but companies have such a hard time bridging that gap.”
“As we grow, I see more and more of my team members filling in those gaps I left behind. As a human being, there are weaknesses I have in addition to my strengths. So it’s cool to see my team members fill in those gaps and make the brand bigger and bigger.”
Links mentioned in this episode:
Visit the NexusLeap Website: https://nexusleap.com/
Connect with Madhav Srinath on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/madhavsrinath/
