Introduction

In this episode of the Founder Spotlight Podcast, we had the privilege of chatting with Anand Sukumaran, the co-founder and CTO of Engagespot. Anand is on a mission to solve one of the most tedious and complex problems for developers—managing multi-channel notifications effortlessly. His company, Engagespot, is empowering developers to save countless hours through a unified notification API that supports multiple channels, such as push notifications, emails, SMS, and even WhatsApp.

Why does this matter? Notifications are the backbone of user engagement in modern applications, yet developers often struggle to build and maintain scalable notification systems. Pre-built solutions like Engagespot are changing the game, and Anand’s journey to building this platform is both inspiring and insightful. Let’s dive in!

Origin Story

Anand’s journey began during his time running a software consulting firm called LogiDots. His team frequently worked on projects for startups and enterprises, and a common pain point emerged—notifications. The complexity of creating reliable messaging queues, retry mechanisms, and scalable infrastructure was consuming months of valuable development time.

"Everything is an API now. If you look at search, there’s Algolia. I thought, why not do the same for notifications?" – Anand Sukumaran

Drawing inspiration from tools like Algolia, Anand realized that notifications could also benefit from becoming a streamlined API. This insight was the seed that eventually grew into Engagespot.

Challenges & Breakthroughs

Winning Over Developers

As a developer-focused tool, Engagespot needed to convince developers to choose their solution over established market players. However, developers are often hesitant to try lesser-known tools. Anand shared a creative approach to surmounting this challenge:

• Building plugins for low-code platforms like Bubble.io and Superbase to attract initial users.
• Investing in content marketing, including blogs that solve common developer problems. When developers searched for solutions, Engagespot's articles ranked high on Google, directing traffic to their platform.

This dual strategy paid off by capturing the attention of developers and introducing them to the benefits of Engagespot before any competitors.

Streamlining Onboarding

Another significant hurdle was onboarding. Many developers signed up for Engagespot but didn’t use the platform due to a steep learning curve. To address this, the team focused heavily on creating a seamless experience:

"We iterated on the onboarding process to make it so easy that developers could send their first notification with just one click—no code required." – Anand Sukumaran

This innovation proved to be a breakthrough as conversion rates improved, with more developers moving from sign-up to active use.

Product & Market Insights

At its core, Engagespot is a notification infrastructure platform for developers. Its standout features include:

• A unified API for managing notifications across email, push notifications, SMS, WhatsApp, and more.
• Support for complex messaging workflows, such as:
  • Sending a push notification.
  • Waiting for a specific time period.
  • If no action is taken, sending an SMS instead.
• Pre-built SDKs for various programming languages, including JavaScript, Python, and React, enabling developers to integrate Engagespot immediately.

With over 1,000 developer sign-ups and organic growth, Engagespot is building significant momentum. Their focus on developer-friendly solutions and cross-channel integration makes them a rising force in the notification infrastructure space.

Leadership & Company Culture

Anand believes in maintaining a close connection with the developer community. To this end, the Engagespot team has built a thriving community of over 2,000 developers who actively share feedback and insights to shape the product roadmap.

"We’re not just building for enterprise customers. We want to create a vibrant ecosystem for all developers—beginners, architects, and DevOps teams alike." – Anand Sukumaran

This community-driven approach fosters collaboration, innovation, and a deep understanding of developer needs, setting Engagespot apart from competitors.

Lessons & Advice

When asked for advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, Anand offered golden words of wisdom:

"Don’t waste time building. Go out and talk to your users. Show them something, understand their problems, and only then write code." – Anand Sukumaran

His journey emphasizes the importance of staying user-centric. By deeply understanding the target audience, founders can build meaningful products that solve real problems.

Future Vision

The long-term vision for Engagespot is bold and transformative. Anand envisions the platform as the first-choice notification solution for developers. He shared plans to:

• Integrate notifications from multiple back-end sources, such as payment processors or user interactions.
• Enhance analytics capabilities with integrations to platforms like Google BigQuery and Redshift, empowering teams with actionable insights.
• Introduce AI-driven two-way notifications, where users can respond in natural language and trigger automated workflows based on intent detection.

Through these initiatives, Engagespot aims to become the backbone of notification management, offering a seamless end-to-end solution.

Conclusion

Anand Sukumaran’s journey with Engagespot is a testament to the power of identifying a recurring problem, understanding user needs, and building a thoughtful solution. From developer onboarding to scalable notification workflows, Anand's insights are invaluable for aspiring founders and tech enthusiasts alike.

Want to dive deeper into Anand’s story and learn more about Engagespot’s revolutionary platform? Listen to the full episode of the Founder Spotlight Podcast today!