The tech startup story behind MindTickle raising $27 million in Series B funding to accelerate product innovation.

When someone hears the word “sales,” it certainly doesn’t inspire the thought of “fun”. Krishna Depura, co-founder, and CEO of MindTickle, aimed to address this when he launched the company in 2012: to have fun at work while learning and solving real-world problems. He and his co-founders wanted to create something that provided the flexibility for creativity, continuous challenges for growth and solved hard problems.

MindTickle focused on this avenue after they realized they were able to make the greatest impact in sales and enterprises. When a salesperson joins a team, they need to gain new skills and product, industry and competitor knowledge. In fact, over the last 15 years, 52% of Fortune 500 companies have disappeared; the ones who survive recognize the importance of shifting the conversation from product to relationships – essentially, reinventing their sales behavior.

Today, MindTickle offers the industry's most comprehensive sales readiness solution for closing the knowledge and skill gaps found in customer-facing teams. They make learning fun through on-demand online training, bite-sized mobile content, gamification, coaching and role-play with a data-driven approach, reaching enterprise customers such as Forescout, HPE, and AppDynamics, resulting in a 75% reduction in representatives’ time-to-productivity.

I speak with Krishna regarding his inspiration for MindTickle and how it’s evolved with time to make sales fun and interactive for sales teams using technology and data-driven decisions.