Don’t Underestimate the Power of Your Network: A Tech Startup Journey with DialNexa
Building a successful business does not always mean continuing on the same path. For Aditya Kamat, co-founder of DialNexa, recognising the limits of a services-led model became the starting point for building a new B2B voice AI company.
In this episode of Tech Startup Stories, Aditya joins Natalie Binns to discuss his journey from co-founding HeyCoach, a bootstrapped services business, to building DialNexa, a voice AI platform that helps businesses automate repetitive phone calls across sales, customer success and recruitment.
After managing a large sales team and seeing first-hand how unpredictable a people-led sales model could become, Aditya and his co-founder began exploring voice AI as a way to solve a problem they already understood. What started as an internal project eventually became the foundation for DialNexa, leading them to make the difficult decision to wind down HeyCoach and start again.
The episode explores B2B sales, voice AI, bootstrapping, building a lean startup, co-founder relationships, customer feedback and finding the right market. Aditya also shares why DialNexa is initially focused on businesses in India with high-volume calling requirements, and what it will take to build a reliable AI platform that businesses can trust.
Listen to Aditya Kamat's Tech Startup Stories episode to hear how a founder turned the lessons of a successful services business into a new opportunity in voice AI.
Bootstrapped and Better: A Tech Startup Journey with Athena CRM
Years of working across HR and recruitment technology gave Karen Somal a clear view of where existing systems were falling short. In Season 4 Episode 3 of Tech Startup Stories, she joins Natalie Binns to discuss how that experience led her to build Athena CRM, a recruitment CRM and ATS designed to adapt to the individual needs of its customers rather than forcing businesses into a one-size-fits-all approach.
Karen reflects on the experiences that shaped her decision to build Athena, including lessons from previous business decisions and the importance of staying close to the people using the product. She shares how customer relationships have influenced the development of the platform, why she chose to bootstrap the business and how that decision has allowed her to maintain control over its product vision.
The conversation also explores what it means to build a SaaS business from deep industry experience, from balancing customisation with scalability to understanding what customers genuinely need from their technology. Along the way, Karen offers an honest look at the challenges of building and growing a recruitment technology company while remaining closely connected to its purpose and customers.