From Services to Product: Inside Sciencey’s Pivot from Crosslink to Banking Infrastructure
The metrics looked good. The business was profitable. Customers were happy. Yet something wasn’t right.
In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Sciencey founder Ankit Ratan revealed the counterintuitive decision to leave his successful services company, Crosslink, to build a banking infrastructure platform. His story offers valuable insights for founders wrestling with similar pivots.
The Services Trap
After seeing the inefficiencies in enterprise financial institutions firsthand, Ankit launched Crosslink to provide data analytics services to large enterprises. The company found success, but something was missing.
“It was going well in the sense it was financially a good company. It was solving problem, having customers, but it was turning out to be a services business,” Ankit explained. “And to be frank, I was too young to do a services business. I didn’t have my heart in it.”
Finding Conviction Through Education
The pivot’s catalyst came from an unexpected source. “In 2015, I was in the middle of thinking about whether to continue with this or quit it. And on the side, actually, I interestingly was doing a coursera course on entrepreneurship,” Ankit shared.
As part of a case study, he created a concept called Sciencey. “Somehow I kept building greater and greater conviction on that,” he recalled. The idea resonated strongly enough that he began assembling a new team.
Building the Founding Team
Rather than trying to transform Crosslink, Ankit started fresh. He brought on two key co-founders: “My other Co-Founder, Arpit, who is a lawyer, he joined us, then our CTO. He dropped out of college and joined us. And by 2016, we had at least the founding team full time working on this.”
Identifying the Right Problem
The pivot was driven by recognizing a fundamental shift in banking. As Ankit explained, “Banks are probably undergoing once in a lifetime change, which probably was only seen in the last millennium.” This transformation wasn’t just about internal digitization – banks needed to distribute their products through new channels like Google and other ecosystem players.
From Services to Platform
Instead of offering consulting or custom development, Sciencey built a single stack combining fintech APIs and workflow tools. This approach has driven remarkable growth – they now process “15 to 20 million journeys a month” on their platform, with current ARR of $15 million and 100% year-over-year growth.
Lessons for Founders Considering a Pivot
- Financial success doesn’t equal fulfillment. Crosslink was profitable but didn’t align with Ankit’s long-term vision.
- Look for fundamental market shifts. The banking industry’s digital transformation created an opening for new solutions.
- Start fresh when needed. Rather than trying to transform Crosslink, Ankit built a new team around the new vision.
For founders wrestling with similar decisions, Ankit’s experience suggests that the hardest part isn’t identifying the opportunity – it’s building the conviction to act on it. Sometimes that conviction comes from unexpected places, like a Coursera course.
The results validate the decision. Sciencey has grown to process millions of customer journeys monthly for major global banks, proving that leaving a profitable services business for an unproven product vision can pay off when the market timing and team alignment are right.