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This is a wonderful bootstrapping with a paycheck story of a really smart, scrappy entrepreneur, Suuchi Ramesh, Founder CEO of Suuchi.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Suuchi Ramesh: I was born in India. I spent the first 15 years in Madras, which is Chennai now. My family is in Bangalore, so I went to school in Bangalore. I’m a software engineer. Bangalore has a lot of great technology companies. I came to the United States on a tech job.

My first job was with Intel. I started in Bangalore. I also had the opportunity to work at the offices in Folsom. While it was fantastic, I am glad I left Intel when I did because I could have been there for 40 years and be really comfortable. It was very formative.

Sramana Mitra: What kind of companies did you work at?

Suuchi Ramesh: After Intel, I joined Mu Sigma. Mu Sigma was originally in the predictive data analytics space. When I started, there were about 100 employees. It was still early stage. I was there for 3.5 years. When I left, they had more than a thousand employees.

By then, they were a Unicorn, backed by General Atlantic, Sequoia. I worked closely with the leadership team. They really had a focus on just Fortune 500. I saw how you scale the culture that rapidly. It’s very fascinating to be a part of such heavy growth. I had the opportunity to get close to the data models and data analytics, and also how to grow the company.

Sramana Mitra: What was your role?

Suuchi Ramesh: I was an account manager and then led entire accounts. I spent some time at the home base in Bangalore where I was leading large teams that were a part of delivery.

Sramana Mitra: What years were you at Mu Sigma?

Suuchi Ramesh: I joined in January of 2010, and I left in 2012 of July. I joined another player in the predictive analytics space.

Sramana Mitra: How long did you stay there?

Suuchi Ramesh: I was there from 2012 to the end of 2016. For about six months, I started to sow the seeds for Suuchi. The company opened up their business in the Americas. Even six or seven years ago, these companies were better known for services.

It had a really cool product with the retail analytics space. A lot of fashion companies used it. It was exciting for me to leverage my experience and help them set up a practice in the Americas. I brought on some marquee accounts for them.

It was very interesting because it was an established company. They were also backed by big names. It was really interesting to almost operate a startup within a company that was not a startup. The Americas is virgin ground for them and I was living out of a suitcase for three years.

On the personal side, my grandad was an entrepreneur. My dad’s generation was not able to hold on to that level of success. That company was sold off. I always had a dream of taking things into my own hands. I was very fortunate to have the experience I did.

Our conversation continues here.