Reliance launched at two cents a minute. My purchase price alone was eight.<\/p>\n
No version of that business survived. Every customer I had was an Indian in America calling home. Exactly who Reliance had come for.<\/p>\n
Staten Island, 2005. Drove out to the vendor who sold me routes into Africa and everywhere that was not India.<\/p>\n
Not a sales call. I wanted him to hear it from me.<\/p>\n
At some point I showed him the software. The routing engine I wrote at night because a MERA softswitch cost thousands I did not have.<\/p>\n
Showed it the way you show someone a scar. Look what I spent two years on. Look what it is worth now.<\/p>\n
He looked and said nothing.<\/p>\n
Ten days of silence.<\/p>\n
Then a call. Lets meet once.<\/p>\n
He asked me to show it again. Then to test it. I gave him a login. He ran it a week.<\/p>\n
When we met after that, he wanted the whole thing.<\/p>\n
His business was Africa. Reliance had never touched him. The engine that had just become worthless in my market ran perfectly in his.<\/p>\n
What I learned later is the part that stayed. He was already midway through licensing a softswitch and buying Cisco gear. What he paid me was a third of that.<\/p>\n
I showed him proof of wasted nights.<\/p>\n
He was reading an invoice he no longer had to pay.<\/p>\n
What have you built that would be worth more inside somebody else’s company than it ever was in yours?<\/p>\n
Krishna Lakamsani | Entrepreneur \u00b7 Venture Studio Founder \u00b7 Investor. Writing at the intersection of AI, capital, and the future of work. For founders who build what’s next. #MyLifeLessons #Reflections #InspireFounders #BuildInPublic #AiImpact<\/p>\n
Krishna Lakamsani | Entrepreneur \u00b7 Venture Studio Founder \u00b7 Investor. Writing at the intersection of AI, capital, and the future of work. For founders who build what’s next. #MyLifeLessons #Reflections #InspireFounders #BuildInPublic #AiImpact<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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