In the last seven years, we went through a DNA change, says Naveen Tewari

Naveen Tewari, Founder and CEO of consumer technology platform InMobi, believes that transitioning from a business-to-business (B2B) to a business-to-consumer (B2C) company pushes for a massive overhaul in an organisation's DNA. 

“I think in the last seven years or so, as we decided to build the consumer platform on top of our enterprise platform, we went through a DNA change,” Tewari told YourStory Founder and CEO Shradha Sharma during a fireside chat at TechSparks 2024 in Bengaluru.

Tewari believes innovation is key to building a consumer platform. “If you think about the biggest consumer platforms on the planet, they are all the ones that have innovated something. They're not the ones that have copied something. You take YouTube. It was unique in the time at which it came. You take Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, etc. All of them have made something very fundamentally unique.”

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When a company tries to build something new on an existing framework, it has less reasons to succeed, he said. Tewari added that India does not have a single platform that reaches a billion consumers. “I think we will get there, and that will be the first of its kind.”

However, to innovate and evolve a company, the biggest hindrance is not external. Tewari said that companies have a DNA that is built on a certain dimensionality. 

“And I think that's (company’s evolution) not an easy one to go through, because we now have a muscle for B2C; very, very strong muscle for B2B, and that DNA change requires the leadership to essentially say, we are going to bet on something, and you stay at it. I think there are examples of companies having done that, but not that many. So we are very proud of making that big transition.”

InMobi, India’s first startup unicorn, began its journey as a B2B adtech company. Today, it is one of the leading content companies in the country through its Glance and Roposo platforms.