A case study on entrepreneurial journey of Impulsesoft & Amagi

Abstract

This project tracks the entrepreneurial journey of Impulsesoft Ltd. a Bluetooth solutions provider based out of Bangalore. Their experience in starting up, challenges faced in being a high tech provider out of India, funding and customer acquisition strategies, recruitment issues and other major points of the journey are documented. SiRF a Silicon Valley company majoring in GPS devices ultimately acquired the company for a handsome amount. Thereafter, the founders of Impulsesoft have started up another enterprise called Amagi in the media space. This project covers the lessons that were learnt during the Impulsesoft days and their applicability in starting up a company in a different yet technology enabled space. We see this experience being relevant especially to the second time entrepreneurs who can leverage their past experience in starting up a new venture in the current economic scenario. The case study is envisioned to be a multiple part document wherein the case moderators provide only one part to the students at a time. It is modelled similar to the Cold Opportunity: The ICEHOTEL case study published by Darden Business Publishing (University of Virginia). The parts are based on the major inflection points the company faced. The first part narrates the story of Impulsesoft from inception to right before the dotcom bust and economic crisis. The second part provides the entrepreneurs’ response the change in the external environment. Finally, the last part discusses the company’s entry into a niche market again as a response to change in industry dynamics. We would like the case readers to speculate on the possible outcomes and then be provided with the next part of the case to see how their answers would match up with what actually happened in the past. Mainly because in the case of a startup the entrepreneur has to take decisions based on limited amount of data available with no company knowledge passed down by predecssors. This further enhances the importance of the strategic inflection points. The multipart feature also enables the case practitioner to delve into comprehensive aspects of entrepreneurship which can be dealt with over the duration of the course as deemed fit. We have provided teaching notes at the end of the case study which can be used by the case practitioner to provide specific examples to explain entrepreneurship concepts. The notes include analysis on effectual entrepreneurship, recruitment, pricing and product definition strategies for a start-up as well as mapping of the company to the opportunity identification matrix and successful entrepreneurship framework.