3 days ago
Why Founders Who Keep Going Are The Real Start-Up Heroes
Chronicle co-founders Mayuresh Patole and Tejas Gawande
Founders sometimes make it sound as if starting a business is easy. There are endless stories about entrepreneurs who had a moment of inspiration, raised plenty of capital and built valuable businesses, seemingly in a flash. But what about all the founders who spend years struggling to turn their visions into reality? One recent study found that getting a business off the ground is so stressful and exhausting that 72% of entrepreneurs are grappling with mental health issues.
Mayuresh Patole, the founder of presentation software start-up Chronicle, thinks we should talk more readily about the grind of building a business. 'Everyone shares overnight success stories, but not many people talk honestly about the messy middle,' he says. And, by his own admission, the San Francisco-based businesss's journey to date has been rather messy.
After Patole quit the consultancy BCG four years ago, he quickly raised money to get Chronicle off the ground – I last spoke to the company just after it had picked up $7.5 million of funding from Accel and Square Peg. But he felt compelled to scrap the first three iterations of his product because he didn't think they worked. He describes the original version of Chronicle as a 'total waste of time'; even on the third version, he 'got the technical foundations wrong'.
The good news, Patole believes, is that perseverance pays off. Chronicle is today launching the latest version of its software in public beta, opening up the fourth generation of the product for anyone to try. He's confident people will like it – the private beta Chronicle has been running for the past six months has attracted 100,000 sign-ups. Users have ranged from students preparing presentations for university work to marketing executives at blue-chip enterprises including Nike, IBM and the large consulting firms.
'We've built something different and that has taken some time to get right,' Patole says. 'It feels like we're now finally at the start of our journey.'
Co-founder Tejas Gawande agrees – and argues that Chronicle's timing is also spot on. 'What worked in presentations a decade ago falls completely flat today,' Tejas explains. 'Modern audiences are trained by social media to expect information that's visual, scannable and high-impact.'
Chronicle's pitch is that its software enables people to build presentations that deliver those imperatives much more easily. It relies on 'widgets' as the building block for presentations, offering interactive and media-rich designs to help users get away from the traditional slide-based decks that are so widely used today. 'We use artificial intelligence to help you build really powerful presentations,' Patole says. 'It's like having an intelligent partner that actively contributes to the process.'
Will the latest version of Chronicle have the impact that Patole hopes for? Despite his confidence, the jury is out. For one thing, the shadow of Microsoft's PowerPoint looms as large as ever – not everyone is a fan of the IT giant's presentation software, first launched almost 40 years ago, but it is ubiquitous; any new player in this space is confronted by this reality.
Moreover, while Patole and Gawande have been struggling to perfect Chronicle, a significant number of other start-ups have also launched in the space. In February, for example, Accel, one of Chronicle's backers, put $3 million into an Indian start-up that offers AI-supported presentation software. Competitors in the market, including PitchAvatar, SlideDog, Prezi, CustomShow and ClearSlide, all have growing fanbases.
Still, the market continues to grow, leaving the door open to start-ups that can convince users of their merits – and that they offer something different. Market research group ResearchandMarkets says the global presentation software market was worth $6.8 billion in 2023 but expects that to grow almost 15% a year to $15.7 billion by 2029. 'Key drivers include the proliferation of remote work and virtual collaboration, which have heightened the reliance on digital platforms for communication and information sharing,' the analyst says.
Innovators in the sector believe a new approach to presentations is necessary because people now want to consume information in different ways – and because holding their attention is getting harder. Research published by King's College London found that 49% of people believe their attention spans have become shorter.
Patole believes that Chronicle can take advantage of such trends – and that by having the patience to keep going back to the drawing board, the business has ended up with the right product. 'We've stayed true to our original mission to ensure that users never end up with a bad presentation,' he says.
Not every start-up succeeds, but Patole believes Chronicle can prove that the tough times are worth it. 'The last four years have been a wild ride of learning,' he says.
