Meet Danny Basu and Roger Pakalapatty of Unbiazed

Today we’d like to introduce you to Danny Basu and Roger Pakalapatty.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
As first generation immigrants from India, we had dreams of becoming entrepreneurs from the day we came to the country. Initially, both of us worked for Fortune 500 companies in various technology roles.

Roger became a consultant and helped top management of multiple companies as a consultant, while Danny went in-depth and spent 9 years rising from entry level analyst to managing three international divisions for a large hardware and peripherals company. Gradually, with lots of hard work and dollops of luck, we got breaks, starting small with our first client, a small restaurant in Irvine. Within 3 months, we signed up a cabinet manufacturer, a home remodeling company and an eye surgeon. But our biggest break came unexpectedly, as we were driving home from an unsuccessful pitch, we decided to follow up on one of the big plastic surgery group – it was a national holiday but coincidentally the main doctor was available – he was calling his shortlisted companies, and we were the only ones who answered the call. We reached his office in half hour and gave an hour-long pitch on transforming the medical practice. The rest is history, within a year we had signed on 20+ clients and both of us came on full time and started building our core team. Our motto was simple, we wanted long term clients, and that meant long smart work as our industry is very competitive. Without big sales teams, our customer growth primarily depended on referrals and selective ads, which made us all the more determined to retain our customers. We have been fortunate that our clients remained our best salespersons, which helped us make the INC 5000 list (fastest growing US companies) two years in a row and helped us build successful vertical specializations in medical, home and garden and other industries, and get a coveted Google partner status. In 2014, we launched our second company Unbiazed which focuses currently on AI driven digital marketing and mobile marketing, which are growing at a fast clip. But we have not forgotten our core reason for success, which is client specific customized digital planning and execution.

As our team and services have grown, what has remained constant is every one of our clients still gets worked on hands on by either one of us founder partners, supplemented by specialized work by delegated teams. With the fast pace of technology, a lot has changed in the last 12 years in terms of clients’ needs and requirements. But what will not change is our single-minded obsession on attention to our customers, big and small. Though we have miles to go and mountains to climb, the future never looked brighter. A few years back, we went back to Irvine and had lunch at the same Italian restaurant that had given us our first break, all the way back in 2005. The look of pride and the smile of appreciation of our first client, while we reminisced on the days gone by, were priceless. That is what makes our American Dream all the more sweet, making a small but tangible difference in helping other fellow dreamers reach their goals.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
In 2005, when we decided to take the plunge into entrepreneurship, we thought that our past contacts will help us grow into a successful digital company overnight. We were shocked to find that past relationships were more to do with our corporate positions, and most of the contacts did not work out, outside of empty platitudes. But our hustle and positive mindsets were undiminished as we tried everything, from cold calling to email campaigns to kick start our company.

In a sense the first couple of years of struggle helped us as we realized that we cannot bask on past successes or relationships, stay in the present and try to prove ourselves every day.

We also realized that certain things are beyond our control, like a major algorithm update or a client industry going through a downturn. As the prayer goes, we hope to have the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference.

We also love to continue… if we can help change things for you which we can, a lot of you will be opening a lot of doors. We pray that we always have hope for the future, it helps overcoming challenges a breeze.

Please tell us about Unbiazed.
We are in the business of digital marketing. We strive to be a one stop shop on all things digital. As the world shifts from the era of Yellow Book and Paper Ads, we want to be available as partners to small and large businesses get optimized on the web. Whether it is building content, running digital ads or remarketing campaigns, social or search optimization, or building mobile apps or websites, we want to be flexible and relevant to the changing demands of online marketing.

The good news in our industry is that it is always fluid and changing. Customers are always looking to improve with new features like mobile extensions or a new form of digital ad. The challenge is we cannot ever be complacent, and our role as the cutting edge digital technical partner can be fleeting if we don’t keep progressing and learning new skills all the time. Google partnership helps in this regard, as certification, podcasts and other educational inputs help us learn new skills every day. We also have a number of other partner software integrations which excel in their niches, and allow us to be a one stop provider of digital marketing needs for our clients.

A second differentiating factor is our delivery model, which we have obsessively tinkered and improved for past twelve years. Being knowledge based, our deliver model is not scalable in conventional terms. While standard operating procedures, finetuned over the years, have helped, we also have a nimble flat structure with hands on founder directors, and one of us founders are hands on, accessible and answerable to each and every one of our clients big or small.

Finally, search marketing is a passion for Danny and Roger. The rapid growth and sophistication of digital technology, the exponential rise of Artificial Intelligence in this sphere, fascinates and continues to drive passion for Roger and Danny. We are blessed that we love what we do, and hopefully this shines through in our business working.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
One of the fascinating things in digital marketing is that there is no rear seat driving. There is not much precedence as things change dramatically. Sometimes passion can lead to taking events personally, especially those beyond control. In retrospection, if we were to redo, we would have let go a bit more and enjoy the ride. Easier said than done, though.

Contact Info:

• Address: 3 Pointe Dr, Ste 218, Brea, CA 92821
• Website: www.unbiazed.com and www.intactinfo.com
• Phone: (855) 599.1080
• Email: [email protected]
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IntactInfoDigitalMedia
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Intact_Info
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/intact-info-brea
• Other: https://www.linkedin.com/company/1551526/

Image Credit:
Unbiazed

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