CA co-founded startup focussed professional services firm: 3k+ clients, 80+ team, revenue ₹7.5 Crores

• Hi, I am Sambhav Mehrotra, co-founder of Startup Movers, a firm helping startups and MSMEs in everything finance and legal.
• When we started in 2013…there was no practice focused only on startups!
• Fast forward, we’ve built a team of 100, served over 3,000 startups, and generated nearly INR 7 crores in revenue this year!
• Entering this space is anything but easy, yet, we see a tremendous opportunity ahead.

Backstory

Since my father was a Chartered Accountant, I always wanted to be one. Unfortunately, I lost him while pursuing my CA.

Fast forward to 2008, I qualified as a CA on my first attempt. Then came the tough question: “What now?”

I considered starting a traditional CA practice but wasn’t fully convinced.

What next? I began working at a US tax firm, but shortly after, the 2008 financial crisis hit, and the company shut down its India operations.

With job security uncertain, I thought, “Let’s start my own practice. Just in case.”

In 2009, I met a family friend launching a venture similar to Byju’s, which had raised about $20-30 million from top VCs.

I joined them as a consultant.

While things didn’t go as planned for them, the experience gave me a glimpse of what was on the horizon for India: The Rise of Startups!

Identifying startup challenges

Fast forward to 2013, I was introduced to 91Springboard, a co-working space that set up its office in Delhi.

I joined them and worked closely with the founders who were ex-Cornell, IIT, and IIM graduates. Great experience!

Also, their first 200-250 members were all startup founders.

I noticed a major gap: startups often fail due to neglecting core areas like legal and finance.

That was a lightbulb moment for my colleague now co-founder Manoj Singh Sajwan and me at 91Springboard.

We asked ourselves, “How can we help these founders scale faster and assist them with those areas of the business?”

In 2013 we started Startup Movers – to be every startups partner in Finance, from Start to Scale!

What next?

Scaling our professional services firm

In the early days, we jumped at every opportunity that came our way, taking on anything and everything!

We have done very small ticket sizes compared to what other peers would have done in the market.

Always prioritizing the needs of the founders and adapting to the challenges they faced – We built our progress with this mentality!

Compliance

Founders realised they had to navigate the complexities surrounding Company Law.

And from day zero the idea was to help the startups with Compliance and ensure all necessary aspects.

For instance, starting an e-commerce business, especially with foreign links, involves navigating Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) guidelines and GST implications.

Advice on compliance can be an expensive affair. Founders may face substantial initial costs, ranging from INR 5 to 10 lakhs. That is where we added value!

Registration and compliance services have high ROI, but they are also volume-driven. With less volume, there is a challenge in sustaining a viable model

Valuation

By 2012-2013, founders had learned about the necessity of multiple valuation reports (two or three).

(Valuation and Compliance were key verticals we focused on during our early days.)

Incorporation services

Fundraising

We assist startups with fundraising.

High-impact funding services

Our highest-impact services revolve around funding, particularly in complex situations where immediate access to funds is crucial.

We understand that founders may need money quickly, and we aim to facilitate that process efficiently.

Accounting and Virtual CFO services

Secretarial services

As startups received more funding – Secretarial services were a natural requirement for funding activities.

Our entire secretarial team includes individuals who began their journey as interns and are now leading teams of 23 people under their guidance, offering services across India.

Legal and other support

Legal support was also an essential service that needed to be incorporated into our offerings.

We began working with various specialists to ensure comprehensive support for founders:

• Valuers
• Company Secretaries
• Lawyers
• HR consultants

This approach allowed us to curate a one-stop solution for founders.

Also read: Quit the Big 4, founded a startup-centric CA Firm & built a 100-member team in just 7 years: ‘Money’s in the Niche.

Timeline of our growth

2013-2014: The early days

In 2013, startups hadn’t yet made a big impact in India (total funding was just USD 1.2 billion!), but we decided to take the leap.

We opened our first office in Delhi, and our first client was on Sona Road in Gurgaon, at the far edge of the city.

It was a small retainership, requiring us to travel weekly. Though it wasn’t profitable, those early clients were invaluable learning experiences.

Most of our initial customers came through 91Springboard, and they’re still with us today – one even got acquired in a great deal!

2015: Bangalore office 

We quickly realized that Delhi NCR wasn’t the right market for us.

Bangalore, however, was buzzing with energy as the startup hub of India.

In 2015, we brought on our third co-founder, CA Sridhar Subramanian, a seasoned CFO of a listed SaaS startup. He was excited and said, “This looks promising. I’d love to help you in the city.”

Sridhar hit the ground running, working closely with the founders.

Within six months, he built the Bangalore market – what took us two years in Delhi.

This is when we started gaining serious traction, primarily through word-of-mouth referrals.

2016-2017: Finding our focus

By now we figured out our Minimum Viable Product.

Initially, we based our model on digital marketing – we thought the leads would flow, but they didn’t materialize as expected.

2018-2020: Growth and challenges

From 2018 to 2019, word-of-mouth and founder referrals continued to drive us.

That year, we implemented a CRM for the first time, setting the stage for growth. But then COVID hit, changing everything.

Had it not been for the pandemic, we believe we’d be 3-4 years ahead of where we are now.

Still, we’re grateful to have weathered the storm.

2021: Surviving Post-COVID

The post-COVID period was tough, with a global market slowdown.

We didn’t lay off any team members and ensured everyone’s salaries were paid on time. We persevered.

2022-2023: Pivoting for the future

Realizing we couldn’t maintain the same pace, we began deploying our accruals and focused more on branding, restructuring, and internal optimization.

These efforts gave us a renewed push and set the foundation for future growth.

2023-2024: A decade of growth

Over the last 10-12 years, we’ve built something special. What sets us apart is our ability to integrate ourselves into a founder’s or startup’s journey, truly becoming a part of their success story.

Revenue

It was more of a wealth-building journey. We knew we had to invest time, with minimal cash flow at first, but the real rewards would come later…and they did 10 years later!

• 2017: Our revenue stood at around INR 50 lakhs.
• 2019: By 2019, we doubled to INR 1 crore.
• 2021-2022: Despite a dip to INR 80 lakhs during 2021-2022, we rebounded to INR 1.4 crores, and then surged to INR 3.5 crores.
• 2023-2024: We hit an impressive INR 7 crores.

Our revenue is typically split evenly between Delhi and Bangalore, around 50:50, though it sometimes fluctuates to a 60:40 ratio.

Profit margin

We estimate our profit margin – 20-25%, typical for the service sector. However, due to redeployment, it’s currently around 10-15%.

This figure may change as the market is dynamic.

Diverse clients we serve

Startups: We work with early-stage startups/cockroach startups and in most cases, we work with them through their growth journey.

SMEs / MSMEs: We work with MSMEs whose approach to working is different compared to startups. MSMEs typically have standardized protocols already in place or will need to build those standardized protocols.

Venture Capital firms: We also worked on multiple deals for VCs such as Antler, Matrix, and many more.

Listed clients: We now have listed clients who were startups when they started with us. Startups are characterized by continuous scaling, disruption, and experimentation.

Biggest challenges

No venture’s journey is complete without a set of challenges, right? We also faced it.

Accepting lower fees

Back then there were Big 4s, then mid to large Indian firms but beneath that, there’s a vast white space to serve startups at an affordable price point.

We aimed to fill that gap – priding ourselves as affordable, high-quality service providers. BUT…It ended up positioning us as low-cost service providers.

It wasn’t easy to convince founders that we were delivering high-level services, especially when our pricing didn’t align with that perception.

Changing that perception was a significant challenge that we could have addressed early on, I believe.

Startups are a tough market

We usually work with early-stage to pre-series A founders and this market is not at all lucrative or easy.

They need top-notch services but do not have immediate cash to pay!

You have to have a philanthropic mindset when working with startups.

Of course, once they raise an investment, it becomes much easier. In the long run, it all pays off!

Building the team

We couldn’t afford high-paying talent initially. So we hired interns, trained them exceptionally well, and allowed them to work directly with founders and understand the ecosystem.

Many of our current managers started as interns, learned over 3-4 years, and now manage teams of 10-12 people.

Eventually, we brought in a few senior employees. But again back in the day, it was tough and even today it is tough!

What we could do better?

Brand visibility: Making noise in the market is something I wish we had done sooner.

Imagine you’ve solved something that nobody else in the ecosystem has tackled and you stay quiet!

Those stories need to be shared through knowledge posts or whatever means. Even the smallest of wins should be communicated to your audience.

Networking: Network as much as possible and start as early as you can. But remember, networking with the expectation of getting something back will never work. Always network to add value.

Network with Cockroach startups and businesses.

Digital marketing: Google Ads didn’t work well for us, but it might work for you.

Referrals: Referrals from founders worked the best for us.

Also read: This CA and former Partner at BDO UAE is now helping startups and businesses with mentoring and angel investing

Future plans

Expanding to different locations

• We recently opened an office in Goa.
• Plan to expand to Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai, and Pune within 15 months, with a team of 1-2 people in each location.
• Aim to enhance presence and showcase integrity and transparency.
• The next focus will be on tier 2 cities: Chandigarh, Jaipur, Bhopal, and Ahmedabad.

Cockroach startups

We are very lucky to be around a lot of cockroach startups. They are profitable but not pursuing unicorn status.

These startups generate revenues between INR 10 to 100 crores, with margins of 10-15%.

In our portfolio, about 80% of startups are “cockroach startups.”

Fundraising & leverage tech

In 2019 and 2022, we explored raising external funds for Startup Movers but chose not to dilute our equity.

Instead, we pursued MSME loans, which have significantly fueled our growth.

Looking ahead, we may consider external funding to achieve our goal of 10x growth.

To support this ambition, we recognize the need to leverage technology (similar to Pilot.com and its like) to enhance our services and scale effectively. This is surely a Billion $$$ market!

Can a startup-centric practice be lucrative?

Yes, we are in a better place, now, but it was a decade-long journey!

Many who entered this domain eventually pivoted to funding, as new VCs and micro VCs or consolidated with other firms!

It’s a time-consuming and thankless job, but we prefer working closely with founders, which is why we’ve stayed in it for so long.

India is experiencing a demographic dividend, characterized by a larger working-age population (ages 15 to 60) compared to non-working-age individuals (children and the elderly).

This shift will lead to a surge in the number of startups, creating even more avenues for growth.

Using technology to provide these services can be a billion-dollar opportunity!

Would you start a firm focussed on providing services only to startups?