5 Critical Go-to-Market Lessons from Building an Autonomous Cloud Platform During Crisis
When Suresh Mathew left his 13-year career at PayPal/eBay in 2019 to start Sedai, he couldn’t have predicted how a global crisis would shape his company’s trajectory. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, he shared invaluable insights about building and marketing an enterprise product in challenging times.
- Crisis Can Be Your Secret Weapon
Most founders would consider launching just before a global pandemic to be unfortunate timing. But Suresh discovered an unexpected advantage: “In fact, that was the right time and in fact, it was a favorable time to start a company,” he explained. “You learn a lot of things being alone. You learn a lot of things being in not so favorable situation. But the good thing is the company is so much more stable and can handle some of these adverse situations since it’s born at that time.”
- Fall in Love with the Problem, Not Your Solution
Technical founders often struggle with solution-first thinking. Suresh candidly shared his own evolution: “I like autonomous systems. I like how it works. I like how it helps people. The moment I changed from that to really started loving the problem statement here, then things changed.” This shift from engineering fascination to problem obsession proved crucial for market fit.
- Transform Cost-Cutting into Modernization
In challenging economic times, most companies approach cost optimization defensively. Suresh found a way to reframe the conversation: “With autonomous systems it becomes a modernization initiative. The good thing here is you’re not just optimizing for that day, you are now optimized forever.” This positioning helped transform what could be seen as a reactive cost-cutting tool into a strategic investment.
- Build Trust Through Controlled Autonomy
Enterprise buyers are naturally skeptical of autonomous systems. Rather than pushing for immediate full adoption, Sedai developed a staged approach. “We are an autonomous system. At the same time, we don’t let you run autonomous in the first two weeks,” Suresh explained. “The first two weeks is for the system to learn and recommend certain things. Those are the things that your teams will evaluate.” This approach helped overcome initial resistance and build trust gradually.
- Make the CEO Mindset Shift
Perhaps the most crucial lesson for technical founders is the mental shift required to become a CEO. “Being a CEO, you have to understand your understand and keep your customers as number one,” Suresh emphasized. “They are the ones who know what you should build. You have to really talk to them. You have to make sure that your customers are happy. You need to know what they want even before they tell you.”
The transition requires moving beyond the engineering comfort zone of building solutions to deeply understanding customer needs and business dynamics. As Suresh noted, “You have to be okay taking some of these negative or like, I wouldn’t call it negative feedback, but constructive feedback, you have to be open to probably stopping some of this feature development.”
Community as a Growth Engine
Another key insight was the strategic importance of community building. “Community plays a key role in our success,” Suresh shared. “The good thing about this community is everybody is trying to build the system or make this safer… We take it very seriously and we are actively meeting that community.”
This approach to building in public, with “100% transparency” about what they’re building and when it’s being released, has helped Sedai secure over 20 enterprise customers managing critical cloud workloads.
The journey from PayPal engineer to startup CEO offers valuable lessons for technical founders navigating similar transitions. It demonstrates how embracing constraints, whether they’re from market conditions or customer feedback, can actually strengthen your go-to-market approach. Sometimes, the most challenging circumstances can forge the strongest companies, especially when coupled with the humility to learn and evolve along the way.