Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Seattle 2.0, and imported to GeekWire as part of our acquisition of Seattle 2.0 and its archival content. For more background, see this post.

By Kevin Leneway

Last Tuesday I met with the 26-year-old co-founder of a profitable, multi-million dollar startup.  Before most of my S20 posts, I generally have a preconceived notion of the type of story I am going to write, and this one seemed to be a pretty typical case of the twenty-something successful entrepreneur. 
 
This story has been written a thousand times over, and goes a little something like this.  Two roommates graduate from college and decide to delay their entrance into the real world by trying their hand at a startup.  They hit upon that mythical idea that addresses just the right audience at just the right time, and their product is a hit.  Granted, they probably worked really hard and absolutely had natural talents, but the story conveniently overlooks the incredible amount of luck and circumstantial influences that contributed to their success.
 
However, within about five minutes of talking to Kabir Shahani, CEO of the marketing CRM company Appature, I realized that this one was going to be different.  For starters, the idea was not the core catalyst of the company.  In fact, Kabir and his co-founder Chris Hahn started Appature without having a clue what they were going to go do.  After getting to know each other while working at the local startup BlueDot (now Faves), Chris approached Kabir and said “Look – with our complementary skills we can do something great.  Let’s get together and start a company.” 
 
While they didn’t have an exact idea of what they wanted to do, they did have two guiding principles.  First, the primary goal of the company was to get profitable as quickly as possible.  Even though Kabir had previously experience in fundraising (he secured $1.3M for BlueDot back in 2006), they decided to bootstrap the company with only a few thousand dollars.  Second, the business needed to have an environment where they would enjoy coming in to work every day.  Bringing in smart people who were a good cultural fit w
as more important than having the exact skills and experience needed to complete specific tasks.
 
Next, Kabir and Chris began looking for a real problem that a customer would pay them good money to solve.  They went out and talked to people in various industries, and eventually found someone in the health care industry who was having trouble measuring ROI on their marketing spend.  The guys brainstormed on some ideas, and began an iterative process of churning out simple prototypes, presenting them to people at the company, and refining the prototype until they got to a point where the company was willing to buy.
 
From that initial sale, the team started executing like crazy, hiring smart people from within their network and maintaining a laser focus on creating a great product that people were willing to pay for.  Fast forward two years to 2009: Appature has 12 employees, generates several million dollars in annual revenue, and to date has not taken any outside investment.  
 
Kabir isn’t a serial entrepreneur; he’s focused on growing Appature for the long haul.  He has surrounded himself with advisors who started companies around the same age, and still operate successful private and public companies decades later. When I asked Kabir about where he’d like to see Appature in five to ten years, he said he’s looking to grow the company to several times annual sales.
 
Outside of the office, Kabir’s top priority is to spend the little free time he has with his friends, family, and fiancé.  He grew up in the area and remains close with his core group of friends from high school.  During our conversation, he clearly showed a ton of respect for his co-founder Chris, and was constantly downplaying his own efforts to highlight those of the Appature team.  This people-first approach not only creates a good environment for his current employees, it also serves as a great asset for attracting new talent into the company. 

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