In an exclusive interview with CanadianSME Small Business Magazine, Ujwal Arkalgud, founder of Untrap Growth, shares his journey from building MotivBase, a bootstrapped success, to scaling it to a 10x exit. Ujwal discusses the key strategies behind customer-centric growth, the importance of managing product-market tensions, and the role of his Tension Alignment Framework (TAF) in helping businesses align their sales and product strategies. His insights provide a roadmap for entrepreneurs looking to create sustainable, profitable growth while staying grounded and focused on delivering real value to customers.
Ujwal Arkalgud is a successful entrepreneur and cultural anthropologist with a passion for building profitable, product-led B2B technology businesses. He is the founder of Untrap Growth, a company that helps mid-sized businesses achieve sustainable growth, and the former founder of MotivBase, a consumer research technology company that was acquired by Lux Research in 2022. Ujwal possesses a profound understanding of human behavior and what drives individuals, leveraging this insight to create and invest in businesses that establish a strong cultural fit within the marketplace they operate in, thereby quickly unlocking product-market fit to drive efficient operation. He speaks often on the bootstrappers mindset, and is passionate about helping businesses avoid the common ‘silicon valley’ growth traps. He is also the author of two books that explore the intersection of anthropology and business.
Your journey with MotivBase is inspiring, especially with its bootstrapped growth to a successful 10x exit. What key strategies helped you maintain customer focus and profitability during MotivBase’s journey?
MotivBase’s journey was driven by a laser-focused commitment to customer centricity. Determined to revolutionize the consumer insights industry by combining anthropology and AI in 2015, we entered a market where no one else was pursuing a similar approach. Realizing the challenges of immediately reaching mainstream customers, we strategically targeted a niche market consisting of smaller, agile companies. These businesses valued innovation, allowing us to tailor our product to their specific needs and achieve a tight product-market fit. This approach enabled us to efficiently acquire and retain customers, striking a balance between customer lifetime value and acquisition cost. Rather than rushing to expand prematurely, we adopted a strategic approach, evolving at each growth stage. This iterative process allowed us to continuously refine our product, allowing us to gradually scale and eventually exit the business in 2022.
Can you explain the ‘anthropology of sales’ and its role in an effective sales strategy?
The “anthropology of sales” focuses on understanding that buyers constantly juggle competing priorities. Effective sales strategies address these emotional tensions, rather than merely selling features. For instance, insights professionals in large corporations grapple with balancing the desire for research that encourages deeper thinking and layered exploration with the need to present concise findings to executives in five minutes or less. At MotivBase, we had no choice but to figure out how our technology could simplify complex anthropological insights. Otherwise, we were not doing enough to reduce the buyer’s tension, which would have hindered our scale and growth.
The Tension Alignment Framework (TAF) is central to your consulting work at Untrap Growth. How does it help businesses align sales and product strategies?
TAF systematizes the process of achieving product-market fit by increasing awareness of the operating environment and providing new perspectives on a product’s purpose. It does this by identifying and mapping three types of tensions: industry, product, and customer. Industry tensions include forces like the conflict between innovation and playing it safe. Product tensions revolve around balancing powerful features with user-friendliness. Customer tensions reflect conflicting needs, such as wanting the latest tech but fearing its reliability. By understanding these dynamics, businesses can figure out what space they can legitimately occupy today and into the future. This clarity is crucial to unlock short and long term growth and quickly achieve product-market fit.
As an angel investor, what qualities do you look for in founders with a bootstrapper’s mindset?
I prioritize founders with a test-and-learn mentality, who embrace small wins and losses as learning opportunities. These founders remain skeptical of “quick-scale” solutions and understand that sustainable growth requires perseverance and grit. They also have an innate understanding of the financial mechanics of their business. That is, they know how they can create a sustainable, profitable business.
How did keeping ego in check influence your entrepreneurial journey, and what advice do you have for others?
My business partner, Jason Partridge and I avoided decisions driven by the desire for external validation. We focused on building a sustainable business, resisting the temptation to pursue superficial markers of success like employee numbers or extravagant office spaces. This mindset kept us grounded, allowing us to focus on profitability and genuine success. My advice is to focus on creating real value for your customers, prioritize profitability, and stay mindful of the difference between building a successful company and merely appearing successful.
