My Story.

I'm from India. I came up as an engineer before I ever called myself an AI builder. Years before ChatGPT existed, I was already shipping software people used. That's the only credential I take seriously, mine or anyone else's.

Before Octify, I was an AI engineer. I built enterprise systems for companies that could afford the best builders. One of them was a Fortune 500 beer brand. I built an AI that 5,000+ people on their marketing team use daily to look up information across their internal tools. Another was a digital twin of their consumer base, 2,500 rows of consumer research turned into an AI a campaign team could ask questions to.

That work taught me what real AI looks like when it ships. The version 5,000 people depend on every morning, the one someone files a ticket about when it breaks.

After enough years on the inside, I started looking at the other end of the market. Small and mid-market businesses with the same AI-shaped problems, no access to a real builder.

Here's what I found.

A 6-person business in Texas paid $18K for an AI roadmap. They got 3 PDFs and a Loom. Six months later, nothing in production.

An “AI strategist” sent a 47-slide deck for a $15K engagement. No code attached, no ship date proposed.

I audited 4 AI proposals from “AI consultants” in a single month. 3 of them were ChatGPT wrappers priced at $12K and up. The 4th was a Notion doc dressed as strategy.

That's who shows up when an SMB owner looks for help with AI. The big firms priced them out years ago. The strategists sell decks and call it done.

Meanwhile real builders sit inside Fortune 500s where the rate cards are 5x what an SMB can pay.

So these businesses are stuck. They paid for a roadmap once and got a deck. They want a builder who'll figure out what to build and ship it.

That's the problem I exist to solve.

I started Octify in 2021 to do for small businesses what enterprise builders do for Fortune 500s. Same engineering bar. SMB price.

22 production AI systems so far. A WhatsApp agent for Vachi Storage in Dubai cut customer response time from 60 minutes to 30 seconds. An AI for a real estate business in Miami saves them more than $22,000 a month. There are two of us, me and Lakshay, no middle layer between you and the people shipping your code.

What we refuse:

• Roadmaps. We figure out what to build, then we build it.
• Agencies in the middle. We work direct.
• Demos that don't ship. Everything goes into production.

Run from India. Shipped into the US, EU, and MENA.

We're at $40K ARR, growing on Upwork while we build the outbound and inbound engine. The plan for the next 12 months is to close 15 to 30 more deals and hit $200K to $400K ARR.

I'm writing about AI for SMBs on LinkedIn three times a week. The voice you're reading now is the voice I post in. If you're a small or mid-market business owner who needs AI but doesn't know where to start, find me there.

If you want to work with us, octifytechnologies.com. If you want to say hi, ankur@octifytechnologies.com works.