After Losing Nearly Every Customer, NHANCE NOW Rebuilt Around WhatsApp and Reached $25K MRR

Who built it, and what they built

Nishith Patnaik is the founder of NHANCE NOW, a Bangalore-based company he started in November 2017 with friends and colleagues Alok, Praveen, and Manab. It is his third company after roughly 15 years of entrepreneurial work, including an earlier venture called Vonnex that sold enterprise software and contact center services into Mandarin-speaking China and French-speaking West Africa before an exit.

NHANCE NOW sells a Conversational Automation Platform that lets direct-to-consumer businesses run automated digital stores and contact centers inside messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram. Its customers span retail, electronics, FMCG, insurance, financial services, and education. The company employs 21 people across four co-founders.

Where the idea came from

The founding team were long-time believers in digital-first business. Watching Uber replace a frustrating, traditional cab-booking process with an app-based experience convinced them that messaging and social apps could carry everyday services. Their view, in Nishith's words, is that digital is the new human, and everything they build follows that theme.

The company's first product was not the platform it sells today. It launched with the Digital Experience Card, or DX Card, aimed at retail and electronics brands. After a purchase, the brand would issue the buyer a digital card inside NHANCE NOW's own Android and iOS apps, holding invoices, manuals, how-to videos, service ticketing, add-on purchases, and warranty renewals in one place.

The DX Card stayed an aspirational product until March 2020, when the pandemic hit. The company lost 95% of its customers, 99% of its revenue, and close to a third of its 45-person team.