From Pune to Hyderabad- How this duo of engineers redefined the Business Intelligence startup

• ByStartupStory     |    January 15, 2022

“My business partner and I tried our hands on multiple enterprises but they didn’t take off to the journey that we intended to. We failed, fell but didn’t give in to the curveballs that life threw at us. We shrugged away our failures and launched a venture that we love and the rest is history,” said the co-founder of Helical Insight, Nikhilesh Tiwari in an exclusive interview with Startup Story Media.

The world of technology is ever evolving. With advanced technology, complex software and the numerous advantages of artificial intelligence, the business world has experienced significant changes over the years. However, with a dynamic pace of the business environment, multiple business intelligence (BI) frameworks keep getting obsolete and cumbersome to adopt. In an attempt to ensure that organisations have a full-fledged evolving BI framework to address business needs, Helical Insight was conceived.

Founded in 2015, Helical Insight is a smart Open Source Business Intelligence Framework which has an inbuilt workflow model and is powered by machine learning. The company also provides Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing services to its clients over multiple platforms such as Glue, Quicksight, Pentaho, Jaspersoft, Talend and Kettle to name a few. Its smart BI framework allows individuals a one-stop solution to all their business analysis needs, thereby eliminating the need to constantly update their software.

From Partners in Crime to Business Buddies

Founded by school best friends, Nikhilesh Tiwari and Nitin Sahu, Helical Insight was a venture that the two took up after the failure of multiple collaborative projects. While Nikhilesh completed his graduation from Pune University, Nitin pursued his engineering from KK Wagh College. The duo parted their ways in college and paved the way for their corporate careers. With over a decade of experience in BI, Nitin has garnered his experience from prominent MNCs such as Wipro. On the other hand, Nikhilesh has had over a decade of experience in sales and operations.

The duo reconnected during their MBA in Symbiosis and thereafter worked towards building an edtech startup and a healthtech startup both of which failed. However, not giving in to the challenges brought forth, the engineers turned back to what they knew the best and initiated a venture which would offer BI solutions to its clients.

Discussing the inception story of the startup, Nikhilesh Tiwari said, “When Nitin and I failed with our two ventures we were heartbroken but our love for entrepreneurship drove us back to our fundamentals and we started Helical. In 2013, we took an office space in Hyderabad and decided to come back to our roots of data warehousing and BI since we had worked extensively in this segment. Initially we had a relatively small team of 2-3 members but our determination and passion helped us drive sales and growth consequently.”

Decoding the business model

Rising from a humble defence background, the two engineers had a mammoth task of not only developing software but also devising a successful business strategy which would drive sales. Luckily for them, their extensive knowledge in the field of BI and data warehousing came handy. Catering to the B2B segment, Helical Insights is being used by more than 50 clients currently and is growing.

Elaborating upon the software that the startup utilizes, Tiwari highlighted, “The BI framework that we have developed is an Open Source Business Intelligence Framework that allows our clients to easily utilize the software and derive insights from their data. Furthermore, it’s incredibly simple for clients to utilize our software as it comes with a self service no code drag drop interface. The customer has to download our product from our website, connect their database with the software and then start analyzing. The great thing about our software is that as and when the data is updated, the analysis also gets updated to ensure accurate data analysis. Our software can be used by any customer from any sector who is generating data and wants to create meaningful reports dashboards and analysis from it.”

The Hyderabad based startup also has plans of integrating machine learning, NLP and statistical algorithms into the product in the coming releases.

Battling Adversities

The ever evolving world of technology brings forth a myriad of challenges for almost all technology oriented startups. From small hiccups along the operational journey to battling the fierce competition, Helical has done it all. Furthermore, the onset of the global pandemic which led to a nationwide lockdown had serious repercussions for businesses across the globe with the GDP falling to a negative. While various businesses drowned in this devastating thunderstorm of adversities, Helical Insights was able to keep itself afloat during this tenure owing to its dynamic business strategy.

Talking about how the startup overcame the curveballs along its journey, Nikhilesh laughed away and stated, “It is customary for startups to experience hiccups during their life and so did we. When we initially started off we did not see a lot of traffic on our platform and we wondered if this venture would turn out like the ones in the past. However, we overcame that challenge and are now serving more than 50 clients across the globe including US, Israel, Middle East and more. When Covid struck, we did experience business losses but being a tech startup that too in the B2B space, our venture did not witness a massive hot during the same. Rather, we were able to become profitable during that time. I firmly believe that the outcome depends upon the strategy one has in their head.”

Words of Wisdom

When asked to say a few words to the young entrepreneurs in making, Tiwari replied, “Throughout my journey I have learnt a few major lessons. The most important one being resilience. As an entrepreneur it is important for you to understand that things will not always hit the right chord the first time around. It is essential to be resilient and patient in order to achieve the goals and aspirations one has.”

With an expansive network of over 50 MNCs under its bag, Helical Insights is out on a journey to further expand geographically and bring forth an updated version of their software in the coming year. A strong team, mindful insight and heart of steel is all it takes to conquer the world.

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