Get to know: Steelbasis

What inspired you to found Steelbasis?

“As a real estate developer in NYC my team and I experienced the problems that Steelbasis seeks to solve daily. Through more profound customer discovery, I noticed many more people and companies had the same pain points.” - Christian Lessard

“Christian and I reconnected through a mutual friend. We started talking more frequently about Christian's work and how much of a pain everything was in his job. Christian and I saw there were so many problems with how his company required him to manage the stakeholders - after that, we kind of just started working together and things snowballed into more revelations. We learned a lot about the industry. We learned how real estate developers think. We started to validate our assumptions and we developed an innovative business model to make more money and to distribute costs across different stakeholders”- Anshul Nanda

“Before founding Steelbasis with Anshul and Christian, I was actually a pre-med student. I had a large interest in entrepreneurship but I was on a completely different path. As I talked to my Co-Founders more frequently, I realized that entrepreneurship is something I wanted to partake in. When Christian and Anshul were talking to me about their original idea, I realized I experienced similar problems relating to stakeholder management in industries outside of commercial real estate. That realization led me to work full-time on Pegasus.” - Viswas Vuppala

How did your team meet and how do you divide and conquer?

“I have known Christian for about 6 years now and Viswas since high school. I met Christian in college. - It has changed a lot, especially since we added Viswas to our team. Originally Christian and I were spending all our time on product/design + talking to customers. - Once Viswas came on the team, he started to work on the product a lot and I shifted more towards working on the business model, finance, marketing, and sales strategy. - As of now, we are all well versed in everything related to the business, so what we do is have stand-ups every day. We talk about the objectives at hand together and then we just tackle everything that needs to be done day by day.” - Anshul Nanda

Nitin with the University of Miami Herbert Business School Assistant Dean of Programs in 2006 - Nitin was the first student from Nepal to enroll at the university

What do you hope to get out of Lighthouse and acceleration?

“I hope to utilize the foundation that Lighthouse provides us with to have a greater ability to test our assumptions”- Christian Lessard

“In college, I basically just spent all my time developing my business acumen (finance, marketing, sales, design), but I spent little time learning how to lead high-performance teams. Becoming a better servant leader is something I want to see improvement on. In terms of the company as a whole, I want to see our investor networks grow and for us to build a considerable amount of traction and momentum for company growth.”- Anshul Nanda

“I hope to gain knowledge about all components and skills that are required for a Co-Founder to have to build a successful business. I have the least experience of entrepreneurship within my team, so I want to gain the knowledge to catch up.” Viswas Vuppala

“Lighthouse provides a foundation that gives us a greater ability to test our assumptions.”

— Christian Lessard, Co-Founder + CEO

What have been the most exciting moments of your entrepreneurial journey thus far?

“Recently, Steelbasis has started talking with our first client for our software in the context of a sale. This is a very exciting moment for us because it will be our first form of revenue and it will give us a valuable landscape for the future. If we can successfully sell and onboard this client, I know that we will be able to repeat the process.”- Viswas Vuppala

What is your personal approach to entrepreneurship?

Kimberly in Cape Town, South Africa - she’s traveled to more than 40 countries

“Be a 'Renaissance Man'. The term, which got its inspiration from the actual Renaissance, is a way of living that promotes curiosity and engagement in all aspects of life, not just the specific track on your college diploma. This philosophy has been my favorite approach to entrepreneurship, making the experience more rewarding as there is always something new to learn.” - Christian Lessard

“Number one- have an intense focus on the problem and put all your bandwidth to solving it and confirm that the way you are solving it resonates with your customer base. Number two- always acknowledge and analyze potential risks to your company. For me, I am always on high alert and I am always honest with my team if I believe we are not doing things to mitigate risks to starting a business. Finally, continuously brainstorm ways to improve existing processes we have created.”- Anshul Nanda

“What I care about the most in entrepreneurship is really solving problems and creating value within the world. I want to make sure whatever problem I am trying to solve benefits people and I hope that they are grateful for what I will create. I think many other entrepreneurs really focus on the business aspects within entrepreneurship but tend to forget about what value they are creating and what problem they are solving. While there is no right or wrong answer to being an entrepreneur, I personally want to become a thought leader in my industry.” - Viswas Vuppala

What founders or companies do you admire?

“VTS - This is a company that brought a lot of change to the real estate industry in such a short period. Like AirBnB, it is interesting how easy it is to ignore a market segment until it gets disrupted.”- Christian Lessard

“Cart.com, Flowspace, BoxedUp, CloudBees, Shopify”- Anshul Nanda

“Personally, I really admire Bill Gates. After working and becoming super successful with Microsoft, he went on to do tons of philanthropy work through The Gates Foundation. I have a very similar goal to eventually devote my life in Philanthropy after I reach a certain level of success.”- Viswas Vuppala

How can we connect with and support Steelbasis?

You can check out our website and reach out if you or someone you may know may be in commercial real estate that may be able to provide feedback on our product development, deepen our customer networks, and/or help us find our blindspots!

“What I care about the most in entrepreneurship is really solving problems and creating value within the world. I want to make sure whatever problem I am trying to solve benefits people and I hope that they are grateful for what I will create.
I think many other entrepreneurs really focus on the business aspects within entrepreneurship but tend to forget about what value they are creating and what problem they are solving. ”

— Viswas Vuppala, Co-Founder