The tech startup turned scaleup RazrCorp just celebrated its five year anniversary. Silicon Luxembourg caught up with CEO Anshul Gupta to discuss their biggest achievements, the journey so far and his advice for young entrepreneurs.
Congratulations on your fifth anniversary. How does it feel to hit this big milestone?
I came down to Luxembourg in 2016 with a background in scaling and launching digital products in my past jobs. The people were very welcoming and I decided to take the plunge towards being an entrepreneur with my partner Pankaj back in the UK setting up our UK operations.
The different startup mechanisms here in Luxembourg were very helpful in getting the company set up with ease. It feels great to have completed 5 years and grown from 2 people to a nimble team of 81, all thanks to Luxembourg. I feel fortunate to have worked as innovation partners for Tier 1 companies based out of Luxembourg.
What are your 3 biggest achievements over the past 5 years?
My first achievement would be to meet the right people in Luxembourg, especially corporates who trusted us to deliver top-notch digital products. Initially, clients were sceptical about outsourcing back to our India development centre. But time and again we proved we could deliver. My second achievement would be to have built a strong technology and design team in Luxembourg, the UK and India. It takes years to build the perfect team and I am glad we now have that perfect blend of creative and tech thinkers. Thirdly, having developed our tech to a similar level as the major tech companies in Luxembourg.
“The next 5 years will be spent developing the IT services business, hiring more people in Luxembourg and establishing partnerships across Europe.”
Anshul Gupta, CEO of RazrCorp
How has your business developed since moving to Luxembourg?
Initially, we started as a managed services model but later we progressed towards DevOps and Design. Our DevsOnDemand and Build Operate and Transfer models are quite a hit with late-stage startups wherein we manage the core aspects of their frontend, backend & DevOps by leasing them dedicated and extremely skilled engineers. I am not allowed to name them because of NDAs but we are behind some of the best-funded startups in Luxembourg.
What have you learnt along the way that might be helpful for aspiring entrepreneurs?
I learnt from my failures quite quickly and realised the importance of baking the right business model into our digital products. I also learnt that real growth takes time and those good mentors are really important for this. My suggestion would be to focus and build the right product and figure out the right revenue model for your startup. The Luxembourg startup community is very welcoming and gives you quick and easy fame quite easily (which is also needed) but might also veer young entrepreneurs from their goals.
What can we expect to see in the next 5 years?
We are now even more focused than before – after all, we have had some good and bad learning experiences in our journey. We have developed a social commerce platform named xuppi.com and are currently scaling it in the UK and some key European markets such as France and Germany. The next 5 years will be spent developing the IT services business, hiring more people in Luxembourg and establishing partnerships across Europe, as well as scaling and iterating our own product.
