Ajay Y.

Now, I’m back in the founder seat, focusing on building a vertical AI SaaS startup. I will be building this venture in public, sharing my experiences and insights on growth and revenue strategies along the way.

In 2021, I co-founded Simplified, an AI-driven platform designed to support SMB marketing teams with content creation, distribution, and collaboration in one place. We raised over $14M from Khosla Ventures and Craft, scaled to over 17 million users.

I began my entrepreneurial journey as a solo founder, building a marketplace in New York to help people find roommates. This venture raised over $20M in capital, grew to over 5 million users, and reached profitability.

Co-Founder

// 100,000

10 months.
90% happened in 1 month.

9 months felt quiet.
then it wasn’t.

lesson:
keep showing up.
help people.
trust the compounding.

thank you for being here.

Ajay Yadav

Building @ Otto AI | Prev. co-founder @ Simplified AI (20M+ Users), backed by Khosla & Craft Ventures

graphical user interface, text, application

Your production LLM stack is one incident away from chaos.

The real problem is not which model to use.

It is operating LLMs at scale across teams with cost spikes, provider instability, prompt drift, and compliance requirements.

The new Portkey video captures this perfectly.
A boardroom calmly presenting updates while the office is literally on fire.

Portkey is the control layer between your app and every LLM provider, with observability, routing, guardrails, cost tracking, governance, and compliance in one place.

Signals that this is already production infrastructure:
•⁠ ⁠2T+ tokens processed
•⁠ ⁠650+ organizations
•⁠ ⁠1,600+ models behind a unified API
•⁠ ⁠Gartner Cool Vendor 2025 for LLM Observability
•⁠ ⁠10,200+ GitHub stars for the open-source AI Gateway
•⁠ ⁠SOC2, HIPAA, GDPR

Tagging Portkey, plus @1rohitagarwal and @ayush92garg

What hurts most in your LLM stack right now?
Reliability, cost visibility, evals, prompt changes, or governance?

Everyone told me Substack is one of the hardest platforms to grow.

You need to write consistently, send weekly newsletters, be a great writer, or spend money.

I did none of that.

No weekly cadence. Almost no posts. Zero dollars spent.

I also stepped away from the easier channels. I paused LinkedIn. Stopped chasing Twitter.

Because I wanted to test something specific.

If you truly understand growth mechanics, can you crack a platform people call hard without being a career writer?

It took 10 months.

For a long time, it was flat. Quiet. Nothing to point at.

Then the curve bent.

Now it is around 5,000 subscribers. Fully organic.

The lesson is not “write more.”

Platforms are not the game. Distribution is.

If you want the exact playbook I used, comment Substack and I will share it.

—

Aj
Building Otto AI, bookkeeping and taxes for creators

No alternative text description for this image

Sudeep Bhatnagar

Agicent App Company

Working/ Have worked with Brands like TCS (Tata Consulting Services), Gold Gym, Fosters+Partners, HASfit, Wellcure (By Groupon Founders), Agicent is an App development company, chosen by high tech startups and established brands in last 11 years. We are app creators behind famous apps like HASfit, Wellcure, and Aiko & Egor.

We offer complete App and web development services ranging across - app design, app development, quick wireframes and App MVP, web development and we work on both fixed price or iterative/ hourly model.

Following are the major technologies and tools we use -

Native Apps - Swift and xcode, and java and studio (for android)

Crossplatform apps - flutter, react native, angular, ionic

Web apps - angular js, html, css or laravel with php

Backend - node.js, mongodb, mysql, oracle, MSsql

Front End - angularjs, bootstrap, HTML, CSS, Jquery, redux

Infra/ hosting - AWS, Firebase, Azure

Design - Photoshop, Sketch

Testing & QA - Jira, Trello, Appium, Selenium, Manual testing

We've worked across variety of domains in last 9 years, however following are some where we've worked time & again with more perfectness everytime -

Fitness & Health- Our most famous App HASfit with 1 mn users, ketoproject app, low carb menu app.

Photo Video Apps - Aiko & egor, Pregmo, Mybabybod

Elearning - TalentLMS, Questbase, quizo

Healthcare and medical - Wellcure.com, smartirx.com platform, medicalminder, healthyhost.

Ecommerce Apps - Zed axis sales, Kolaveri

Dating - lgbtqtie, deuces, hummingbird, hang

Food & delivery - Easypic, Food Truck nearby

Enterprise - pulse survey, zedaxis sales & service apps

Travel & tourism - quadlabs ticket booking, secret travel deals, hotel booking.

As a seasoned mobility consultant, I offer following services to my clients (who are mostly start-ups, mobile entrepreneurs, and also enterprises):-

•	Quick App prototyping and App  MVP development. (Initial wireframes to Mockups, polished designs, working MVP App).

•	App development services (iOS, Android, and backend) by myself and also leveraging my agency if project needs more people.


•	Mobility strategy consulting. (idea validation,  app development and marketing costs, target market analysis, development strategy, investment path, business plan creation, app monetization analysis and anything else related to the mobile campaign of my clients).


•	Technology consulting (choosing a tech stack based on investment and future aspects, native or cross platform, web and mobile or only mobile or mobile first, iOS or android first etc).

•	Development team creation, management, and delivery supervision.

Mobile Apps Consultant

- Looking after complete Business Development cycle, primarily targeted to US and European Software Product companies.
- Focusing on Business Expansion in the area of Mobile Apps, functional websites, and SaaS.
- Branding, Marketing, Promotion of our service offerings to target regions, target customers, and target segments.
- Account Management, Customer retention, and bit of Project Management as well.
- Offshore Development set up, involving bit of recruitment and process design.
- Strategic and tactical planning, and implementation focusing towards future growth targets of the company.
- Vendor management, bit of financial and budget planning.
- Responsible for P&L across various business functions.

Co-founder, and Director - Business and Strategy

Zansys Technologies

Was looking after Global Business Development and Marketing activities of the company. Was working towards acquiring new business/ accounts and partners in the regions of EMEA, and US in the areas of Mobile Applications/ VAS, Telecom (VoIP, OSS/BSS, GSM, 3G etc.), and in Custom Development.

Manager - Business Development & Marketing

Nagarro Software

Market and Business Research on Potential customers/ Target market, primarily for Independent Software Vendors, large enterprises in Europe and US region. The job also included managing marketing campaigns (in-house, via vendors, Email based and so on) being the part of the Marketing team.

Marketing & Research Exec.

Imfinity Pte Ltd

sales & marketing, email campaigns, market research, tele marketing campaigns, web promotion

Executive - Sales & Marketing

Flextronics Software Systems

Being a part of the corporate marketing team, I was involved with:

1. Corporate website management.
2. Management of website development and maintenance team.
3. Key Account Management for website/ intranet related projects.
4. HR Portal development, and then maintenance.
5. Coordinating between various business teams, for web based content, promotions, KM etc.

Management Trainee, Engagement Manager

Personal profile - 
- Cofounded Agicent back in 2010 as the CEO, our main business where we help entrepreneurs and startups in creating their digital products (majorly Apps, wearable apps, Web suits) and also extend our marketing and business services to help them build a profitable startup around the App or any other digital product.
- Work as a generalist though main focus is on Marketing, BD and consulting.
- Build, nurture, grow teams across technology, marketing, sales, project management, staff augmentation, Human resources and growth.
- Have knack of finding gaps in markets and use this gift in shaping the digital products to be better and more profitable.
- Love digital marketing, love testing and running and getting results from organic and paid marketing campaigns.
- Keep working on my own ideas (they never cease to pop up in the mind), I *refused* to give up on innovation long back. The only way forward is to change the things to better - truly believe in this.
- Nothing feels better than working with sincere, reliable and go getter people.
- A family man, and if you're my friend then feel free to break a war with anyone and you'll find me by your side.
- Proud of my actual Indian heritage, though mostly a Global Citizen, truly believe in the pursuit of happiness and all the good modern values. For me, Character >> Skills and humility is a big virtue.
- Clients and their trust are everything to me, do my best to make sure they get what we promise.
- Learning always.
- Non Professional loves - Workouts (all kinds), Cinema (Favorites - Godfarther, Pulp Fiction, Goodfellas, Sopranos, Guide (Hindi), Breaking Bad, and the Dollar Triology. 

💡*So would you like to speak further?*

About Agicent - 
🏆 awarded in 2021 as the *Top App Agency for startups* by MobileAppDaily. 🏆

✅ Created 1000 + apps, including HASfit that has millions of active users.

✅ Major clients -  TCS, Panasonic, HASfit, Wellcure, Swaralink, Kredily, NEC.

-S


#HireAppcompany #Appdevelopers #TopAppCompany

We should normalize wearing running shoes and Tees in the events, atleast you’ll walk easily more energetically and meet more people!

What do you think?

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The Battle

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Sudeep Bhatnagar

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