Sandeep Kumar quit his job working for an Indian consulting company to start a software company in 2005 when product-focused startups were not common in India. For the next 10 years, they experimented with product features and customer profiles until they finally found an important buyer with budget power who needed their must-have software.

ProductDossier is now a comprehensive platform for enterprise consulting and IT services companies in India to manage project financials, project resources, and new opportunities in one system. Over 50 large consulting companies in India use ProductDossier to manage their global project portfolios to ensure high-quality and profitable project delivery.

The company has 100 employees and is growing steadily without any outside funding. Sandeep shares the important lessons he learned in his 15-year journey about product-market fit, building trust with big Indian customers, developing a great organization, and thinking big.

In this episode, Sandeep explains:

• What it was like to create a startup software company in India 15 years ago when it wasn't common to create product-focused software companies there
• The critical product-market fit lessons learned to eventually build a must-have software for buyers with decision-making power in a specific industry
• How their vertical focus and product feature depth enabled them to sell to their first large enterprise companies as a small startup
• What's happening in the SaaS startup scene in India right now and how startups are perceived there
• The advantages of not having big outside funding too early, include strategic flexibility, attracting the right talent, and patient growth
• How he defines work-life balance and how he manages time with his family

Read the full interview transcript and check out other interviews at practicalfounders.com.