Ascend: Stories of Scale

The Secret to Scaling Custom AI Solutions Without Venture Capital

• Season 1 • Episode 3

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How does a bootstrapped AI company scale to 9-figure revenue while serving enterprise and government clients? In this episode, D.R. Sara, CEO of Vidamonti, shares his approach to building mission-critical AI, delivering custom solutions, and fostering trusted partnerships. He explains why one-size-fits-all SaaS models often fail in high-stakes environments, how to maintain operational discipline and credibility, and the critical role of trust, reputation, and human-AI collaboration in successfully deploying AI at scale.


D. R. Sara

CEO/Founder, Vidamonti

D. R. Sara, founder of Vidamonti,  is a seasoned technology entrepreneur and executive with nearly 20 years of experience building and scaling high-impact businesses. He is a global leader in explainable AI for mission-critical operations, delivering tailored solutions for enterprise and government clients. Known for aligning vision with execution, D. R. combines strategic insight, operational discipline, and a focus on results to drive meaningful impact.

Thank you for listening! This podcast is a passion project of AScaleX. Know more about us through the links below:

SPEAKER_00

Some people are trying to build a worse version of the SAS product by spending almost 10 or 20 times more money with AI, which is ridiculous in my opinion, you know. If you are not gonna do better, then why do that? But when it comes to the dynamic environment that gathered this complex intelligence data and I need to translate it into the human level, but they are very sensitive data and they they require a different you know mindset, it's very different. The dynamic environment needs AI more than the SaaS products.

SPEAKER_02

Everyone agrees that AI is now table stake. Do you bolt on a giant SaaS platform or do you work with a small surgical team that builds around your actual business?

SPEAKER_01

TheResara, founder of Vidamonti and a global leader in explainable AI for mission critical operations, live in Data Second Camp. Is joining us today so we can tackle the multi-million dollar question of how you should think about custom AI and what go to market looks like when your company is the silent trusted partner. I'm Angeli. Okay, and I'm Crazy. And this is a send stories of scale. Thank you so much for joining us, Sarah.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you so much. It's lovely to join you, Angelica and Tracy, and I'm happy to be a part of the show.

SPEAKER_01

Awesome. I want to give the audience a little bit more background on UDR. DR Sarah is a serial tech founder with two eight-figure exits and almost 20 years of building companies from nanotech to AI-driven e-commerce, and now leading a groundbreaking startup, Vidamonti, as a founder and CEO. When did you realize AI could become infrastructure for life-saving organizations?

SPEAKER_00

I made a realization in my first startup. You know, the my first startup, uh, it was about um nanotechnology and also like mixed of consultancy. So we were creating uh critical components for aerospace or automotive, like robotic and defense industries is also related with kind of like a little with what we do, thanks to the relationships that we built in that time. Uh, but in that time, also some of the things like during our production times and and and the workflows, we realized that we can actually find maybe different ways to accelerate our processes, you know, because some of the things that really need uh special attention. Let's say that um we had a project with one one of the like very largest companies in the oil and gas industry. They came to us, they had a project in Africa and their pipelines, but um they were like suffering from corrosion and they needed you know immediate solution, but it will take very long time for them to figure it out, and they needed a specific components like fast and longer lifetime, and then we figured okay, their approach is kind of slow. How we can use during that time like machine learning, you know, which is the fundamental of artificial intelligence, and we started to use it and we saw the big increasement operations in time uh in terms of you know time spent, and also it's you know help us to save money, also. And that was the like first time actually we really started to take this very seriously. Hey, this is actually working. You know what? Let's go for it for more.

SPEAKER_01

Well, AA is is a new conversation for many. You were fascinated with automation and human AI collaboration from childhood. Where did that passion begin?

SPEAKER_00

My passion actually started the first time when I was a little boy. I saw um cartoons or animations on TV that like uh robots with like uh smart robots use artificial intelligence or like movies, you know, like from Hollywood and so on. And then I was um very curious uh kid about technology. I was like a little bit uh maybe a like a little bit brady person that would like to, you know, tear things apart and you know create something from it uh differently and uh read a lot of books uh while everybody was reading novels and so on. I was reading just scientific books whole summer all the time and uh it kind of like shaped me the love to do passion and science make me curious about how we as human beings and um AI can collaborate together.

SPEAKER_01

I know you mentioned this also, but how did your you growing up with your fa father around law enforcement show your understanding of government systems?

SPEAKER_00

So my father was a part of the law enforcement and he worked, you know, with like counter-terrorism and organized crime, a little bit even like homicide. But all of these things, you know, the stories that he was, you know, telling us when I was little and to my uh younger brother, it kind of helped me to shape the how is actually like a timing and how the you know the reaching the fast solutions can be very critical and uh important because um saving lives, like capturing the the false fault people you know in the process can save really not just you know millions of lives, but also the stolen money or you know that uh preventing uh people hurting further. And and this these thoughts like created a question in my mind: what can I do to help you know our governments or nations that to do better to save uh lives that even if I can save you know a couple of seconds, I know that I can save maybe hundreds of people, you know. That's that's really shaped me.

SPEAKER_02

It sounds like from your interests and your the stories from your father, it was like either AI innovator um or superhero were your two career choices.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I'm just a human being, but I just want to, you know, make a difference in my own way, and if I am able to help people, even slightest, then I'm sure that that will be a legacy that I can be proud of even if I'm gone.

SPEAKER_01

Let's talk about the product. Can you walk us through what is Vidamonti and who is your typical client?

SPEAKER_00

So um Vidamonti is basically, as you said, is a purely an AI company. So our main focus is mission-critical operations and tasks. Mainly happens in public sector or governments all around the world, or like a pretty large and big multinational enterprises. So, what we do is that we build really a specific uh system that allows us to turn their complex data structure into insights which they can use to improve their organizations in terms of cut costs, save time in their operations, you know, that increase efficiency, enhance productivity, of course, uh combine uh all of this also with neurological and behavioral aspects of their employees as well. And then we we provide all of this in a way absolutely customizable, but also cannot be done with the traditional AI that we have today, because they are very niche, very specific products because they are very dynamic. So today's AI is most suitable for let's say that can be because when we write something in chat GBT, it looks like it's very dynamic, but it cannot think and reason perfectly. So this requires a domain specific expert expertise and also data set. So we have that, and that's how that we can actually provide all of the solution solutions in a matter of time, faster, but also in a higher level. That's how we uh really help organizations.

SPEAKER_02

Amazing. And your who's your typical client?

SPEAKER_00

Most of our business and customers are government actually, so that different government organizations, whether they serve the public sector or like you know, citizenship stuff, you know, like municipalities uh or you know the different like a federal, you know, the agencies, and as well as of course, like uh intelligence uh agencies as well, like services and so on. So they all have very different needs because one of the pros working with governments, when you work with them and you do really a good job, then they can they keep working with you. But the cons of it, it takes really a lot of patience to work with and also a long time, long uh cycles, you know, say cycles. That's why that you need to be very methodological how you approach to different organizations because all of them are not having the same mentality and same mindset to move the needle. So we have to like you know uh adapt ourselves in this dynamic environment and be responsible also according to their needs and whatever they want, which is very extremely hard that cannot be done with a stable organization or static that uh technology is today.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, there there has been a lot of um talks between SaaS and AI native solutions. Why doesn't the SaaS model, in your opinion, work in like mission-critical environments that you guys are operating in?

SPEAKER_00

There is actually quite a debate even right now about the LSAT Angelic. So one of the things is that so the funny point is that if your environment is very statical, it's kind of like stable basically, that doesn't require a lot of changes, but minor changes, which is fine, the the SaaS companies that will handle that. A funny thing is that some people are trying to build a worse version of the SaaS product by spending almost 10 or 20 times more money with AI, which is ridiculous in my opinion. You know, if you are not gonna do better, then why you do that? But when it comes to the dynamic environment, because as you know, when the SaaS products come into the play, they solve only one specific thing or a couple of things. That's it. You cannot really get out of that scope, whatever they solve. But in our case, X organization comes, hey, I need to you know that gather this complex intelligence data and I need to translate it into the human level, but they are very sensitive data and they they require a different you know mindset, and then another comes from the public sector. Hey, that we we we have a fire department, hey, that we we have a lot of fire around in here, and then we need to really decrease our response time because that it will allow also the you know the medical service providers to actually go to the you know the zones and apply you know their services in terms of saving lives. So they are two different things. You cannot do this with the SAS, you know. So that's why it's very different. The dynamic environments need AI more than the SaaS SaaS products. That's not going to work in our case, and that's we saw that thousands of times that that's why that we never focused on the to be a software as a provider, service as a provider, that we we thought we need a dynamic solution and it only can happen with AI.

SPEAKER_01

Let's go into like your go-to market, given that you work with a lot of organizations in government, private sectors, and also like in some sensitive industries. What's your biggest acquisition channel so far? Can we talk about that?

SPEAKER_00

Honestly, the biggest acquisition channels for us that has been firstly the relationships, you know, that we built over time. Uh it started from the first my first company, first startup, you know. So that we had you know the automatized defense and aerospace, you know, clients. So we kept you know always the relationships from that time. I always say this to also to anybody you know who who wants to build a business, keep relationships as much as you know you can. I mean, sometimes you know, some people think, but I don't like that person or something. It's nothing to do with you like the person or not, you know, it's business. If you become friends with that people, great, you know, that's a big plus for you. But at the end of the day, you just do business going to like specific events, you know. Some of these events always are private, not like public events, you know, but you you go to these events, you know, to meet high-ranking you know officials from the governments or even you know the private sector. So that also helps you establish kind of like a ground base basically, which you can put on top of it and improve your relationships because at the end of the day, it's all about communication. I really believe the power of communication. You don't have to like send messages to everybody to every day, but little gestures also helps people that hey, you remember them. It's all about keeping you know your level of enhancement in a in an upscale so then you can be noticeable by those people at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01

That's very interesting because I've I've been seeing this as a trend now. Like we're advancing in technology and AI, but I feel like the go-to market of depending on your f on your product, of course, but I feel like we're going back to the old days of like shaking hands, uh being in front of people, you know, from from tracking back from that during COVID and now going back to that, like conferences, having dinners with people, being in front, building relationships. I think that's really something that you know technology can advance, but relationships will still be always be handled by humans.

SPEAKER_00

Through different events or sometimes like emails or like changing business cards, whatever, what happens is that some of them comes to us, you know. Hey, we have this project. Hey, can you guys like help us have to like figure this out? Because our timeline is really like limited, and we have this budget, so if we can't because imagine, even in the enterprises, certain projects cannot be done internally, it will actually cost you more. The same thing happened when the most companies started to hey, I will build the AI system in-house, but do you know how much money will you spend? Probably five or ten times more, you know, instead of you know going to other roads, like going to another company and let them to do your job. Most of them realized and then they stopped doing that. That's why that both of these you know meetups, you know, the dinners, events, whatever, create automatic referrals and outbound strategy also for us. Then when we know another purple, hey, we we ask them, do you know in this company this person? Or can we reach out to another company? Because if we don't have anything, you know, to reach out, and uh that's how it helps us really to increase our you know business as well. The biggest thing what we do is that we show the hidden points they cannot notice that they even didn't know it exist in their organization, loopholes, gaps that can actually, you know, if they can complete this, you know, fill it up with something better and different, it can help their organizations operate in a way better and a much higher scale.

SPEAKER_02

What's an example of that loophole? Like is there is there one that you would that you could like go into in an ad, you know, in a fun ad or something like that, or that a lot a lot of uh government players can can relate to?

SPEAKER_00

Let's give an example. We had like a project with uh one of the largest, you know, um municipalities or mayor, okay, so uh in in the in the country. What they had is that in the government, especially if you are managing a city, there are so many different data points comes from the different places, right? So either like a public face or well enforcement face, or you know, that the different like federal budgets come into play from different organizations. So, what happens is that all of these you know data points create actually very cutting environment, and it means that when you piled up so many different data sets, it's very hard to manage things. That's why that people complain, oh, government works are very slow. That's one of the reasons why it's slow, because there are so many things, but not many people to handle that. But I would also say the qualification is also an important point in this, you know. Just because some people work in some department, that doesn't mean that people are qualified to handle this kind of information, so you need a different eye, different approach. If you can really increase the circulation of these data points and can increase the you know response rate, what's going to happen? You can allocate all of this you know information into different departments and lesser time, and it will also increase your uh budget allocation and relaxation, what we call it. It means that you will have more money to invest into the public. But if you you know uh bury it yourself into tons of unnecessary work, what's going to happen? Our textilers will go for nothing, we will not see the benefit of it. So, what we have done with the with that you know um city uh officials, we took all of these you know data points, we connected at single hub, but we categorize and label each of them in a different level. So, right now they know exactly you know what pain points that they actually happen in the entire city, you know, whenever a new information comes, because it is very dynamic, it's it should be adaptable, you know. That's why the adaptive AI is very important, but also it should be autonomous. You cannot let many people to work. Let we help these their workforce to work in more critical, more complex projects that will help to do people of the city basically. You know, like why you will think who will build this road? It's already clear who will build that, just allocate that faster, right? Let these people, hey, let's build some another structure or erect another structure, uh, I don't know, a library or something else, you know, like a more uh a science center. Let these people work on this more fun project, so not some boring stuff all the time. And just just help these people basically, how they can serve much better. I think that it should be any organization's aim in the government scale, anyway, you know, like they should work for for us, not we should work for them.

SPEAKER_01

Great. So let's talk about like growth um of Vidamonti um DR. You've built a nine-figure AI company largely without you know um funding and without the public hype in high security sectors such as you've mentioned government and banking. Do you think having that visibility can do more harm than good? Is that more of a did you actually decide it to be like, hey, we can't be that loud in terms of marketing because of the sectors that we work with? What are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_00

I will actually tell you what I tell most people, you know. In the world, you know that most powerful people or most influential people are not the ones we see on the internet or on the social media or newspapers, magazines, and so on. The most powerful people are the people who act like a shadow, basically, and stays behind. They hold the strings of what's actually happening around the world. In terms of you know, hype and so on. If you want to be famous and so on, go for the hype. You know, for me, I don't care about the hype. I am hype by myself, you know, so I don't need someone's approval for that, you know. I don't care about to go some certain magazines or certain stuff, and uh even for example, I don't go to every podcast too. I joined this because I see the value of it, you know. So, and I'm very frank and direct about this. That's why that it's really depends. Can you afford it? Can you afford the hype? I think that's the the most realistic question would be. Some people think that oh, the hype came famous. I'm I'm in, you know, X, you know, the platform very well known. They wrote an article about me. Cool. But do you know that how many of these people afterwards they fight with existential crisis and as well as imposter syndrome? Like myself, even right now. I feel sometimes like I did nothing. I always say that this quality versus quantity. You know? For me, quality is much more important than the quantity.

SPEAKER_02

One thing that I wanted to touch on, something that really trips people up in that buyer journey is who is that? Who is that key player that you need to get to? So hard in the B2B space, right? You gotta figure out everybody's got different titles and different organizations. But when it comes to that governmental space, how do you make sure that you know who all the stakeholders are and you're getting to that that right person?

SPEAKER_00

Well, it's it is actually, you know, sometimes it starts from one person, basically, you know. So that let's say that there is an ex-person is working, you know, in a certain department that you want to contact with. Sometimes it may not be related with the department too. But the key is that targeting the that that very specific persona, and once you reach that person, then you you basically have to design it, okay? So that when you design this process, what happens is that X person, you know, takes you to the Y person, takes you to the Z person, and then it just keeps going like this until that you reach where you want to go. Obviously, the cycle sometimes can be very long, but also super fast to compare to B2B, you know. It is because in the government is all about sometimes just a phone call. Some you know, high-ranking official calls and other things, it's called order, you know, not a request. So when it's an order, what you do? You have to obey the order. But in the B2B, it's not order, it's a request mostly. Even if you are the CEO, I call maybe my engineer. Sure, they will do it, maybe what I say, you know. But still, it's not like a military that you can order it, you have to say please, you know. So, because it's the is the polite way to do it, and also it's the right way. I love polite people anyway, you know. So, and that's why it's a little bit different, you know. There's the the the number of the people sometimes in the B2B, in my opinion, it's more tiresome. The length of it.

SPEAKER_02

Right, and it's like mission critical. They're they they know how to move quick and how to pivot quick.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. Well said, because that's why it's called mission critical, right? There is no time, tic-tac, so what are we gonna do? We have to reach the guy so fast. You know, that's the only way to to keep things moving forward.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you so much, DR, for joining us today. Um, it was really amazing to get to know you and all the things, the great things that you guys are doing at Vidamonti, um, and for joining us in this podcast.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you so much so much.