Afosto Saas BV

Co-owner

Sanwin Beachwear

Bij Sanwin maken we exclusieve beachwear voor mannen. Bij zowel het ontwerpen en het testen van onze producten zijn we zelf betrokken waardoor we top kwaliteit producten kunnen garanderen. We bieden producten in opvallende kleuren met spannende details. 

Sanwin Beachwear
when looking good just isn't good enough..

Co-founder

F/O 737

The Chesterfield Brand

Development and management of The Chesterfield Brands website.

E-commerce Manager

BoardDesign

Board Design is een jong bedrijf voor en door kiters. Iedere kiter heeft zijn eigen stijl en wat ons betreft hoort daar ook een eigen board bij. Wij willen alle kiteboarders de kans bieden om op een board te varen wat voor en met hun is ontworpen.

Bij Board Design kun je een uniek en kwalitatief hoogstaand board bestellen. Je kunt kiezen uit één van onze ontwerpen,  een bestaand ontwerp aanpassen of je maakt een eigen ontwerp. 

Prachtige designs gecombineerd met een prima kwaliteit. Het beste van twee werelden gecombineerd in één board!

Owner

Co-owner @ Afosto | Helping retailers succeed using SaaS | Chairman @ Sanwin Beachwear | Pilot @ KLM | Kitesurfer

Hi, I'm Sander, a SaaS entrepreneur and pilot with over 5 years of experience in co-owning and growing a software company, Afosto, that helps retailers succeed using smart and scalable software solutions. I'm also the co-founder of Sanwin Beachwear, an exclusive beachwear brand for men, and a first officer at KLM, flying Boeing 737 aircrafts across Europe and beyond.

I'm passionate about creating value for my clients, partners, and customers, and seeing them achieve their business goals and reach new heights. 

I have a knack for online marketing, e-commerce, and investments, and I enjoy learning and sharing insights on these topics. 

When I'm not in the cockpit or the boardroom, I love to explore the world, kitesurf, and camp in my van. I'm always open to connect and exchange ideas with like-minded people, so feel free to reach out to me. 

Let's embark on an exciting journey together!

Sander Kah

Trillbit

Trillbit is bringing SoundAuth (www.soundauth.com), a low-code/no-code product to enable any company to implement simpler and stronger user authentication into their websites and mobile applications.  I am leading sales and marketing activities of company. Things that I am doing at Trillbit:
1. Inbound and Content Marketing
2. Paid Ads
3. Managing team of Outbound sales specialist

Co-Founder

HubCredo

Helping startups and SMEs to build robust sales and revenue pipeline

Strategy and Scaling 

Techstars

Trillbit participated in Techstars Program powered with Western Union and now increasing its global footprint. With this program, we kickstarted our BD in USA market.

Techstars Class of 2019

Ola (ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd)

At Ola, led projects of launching CRM and Customer Complaint Management System and structuring the entire Customer and Driver (Partner) Support. Worked with different business teams for various categories launches and defined the entire support experience for both customers and partners.

Senior Manager

Tata Motors

Led projects of new product development and business launches of commercial vehicle driveline systems. Developed low-cost sourcing for mechanical parts and led the cross-functional teams to deliver cost-optimized manufacturing.

Manager

BARC

Designed a remote controlled robot for accessing high radiation and similar inaccessible zones.

Summer Intern

I'm Shashikant, and this is my journey so far: 

Hailing from a remote village in Jharkhand, where people use to think that getting a job in the railway (as a guard) or police (as a constable) is the biggest career achievement, and where IIT means ITI.

At the 6th standard, I got selected for JNV (Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya), which not only shaped me as an individual but also dared me to dream anything in my life and take any risk.

After my 12th std, when my friends were cracking IIT and medical exams, I was clueless and went to Delhi for my graduation in Arts and UPSC exam preparation. Within 6 months, Mukherjee Nagar showed me the reality of UPSC, and based on seniors' suggestion of building a safety net, I came back to prepare for engineering.

Somehow, I cracked IIT and then graduated from IIT Kgp in Mechanical Engineering. However, I could never get over the fear of engineering drawing (ED) and the concept of manufacturing. What happened funny with me is that I published a research paper on manufacturing optimization during my graduation project, and it got more than 100 citations. Secondly, I got a campus job placement at Tata Motors where daily I have to deal with ED and manufacturing.

At Tata Motors, I was supposed to do engineering research but got drawn to managerial things like TBEM (Tata Business Excellence Model), project management, etc. I used the LMS of Tata Motors and learned about 6-sigma, operations management, and financial courses.

Since I knew I cannot make a long-term engineering career, I tried to do an MBA, and ISB (Indian School of Business) was kind enough to extend the admission offer with some lucrative scholarship. I graduated from there and joined Ola Cabs as a manager, working there for 3 years on various projects. That's where I saw what a burgeoning startup looks like.

Then, bitten by the bug "Hum Bhi kar Lenge," I left my job at Ola and started my own company, Trillbit, with my IIT Kgp batchmates. 4 years of Trillbit was a roller-coaster with lots of learning, bitter and sweet moments. Here, I learned a lot about B2B Sales and marketing. 

Now, I channel my passion for Inside Sales and B2B Sales by training freshers and equipping them to get jobs and build a career. What I realized is that many freshers don't realize that B2B Sales can be a good career path and there is learning involved in terms of tools knowledge and the right skills.

I also work with companies and founders and help build their sales pipeline through structured and data-driven approaches.

Shashikant Burnwal

“My sales team isn’t performing.”
Most founders say this, and it feels like the entire sales team is on a judicial trial.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth:
Most sales teams don’t fail because of the team.
They fail because founders don’t understand that Sales ≠ hustling all the time.

Having worked with 25+ companies in the last 3 years, I’ve seen these three patterns when sales are tumbling:

1. No real sales system

You cannot expect predictable revenue without predictable workflows.
Missing ICP clarity, broken outreach sequences, no dashboards, no enablement, and tools that barely work…
And then we ask the team to “perform.”
I’ve seen many companies with over a million in revenue running processes through Excel sheets, and the team juggling between different tools.

2. No structured training

Most teams get trained only once, usually on Day 1.
After that, everyone is just “figuring it out.”

Great teams win because they have:
-frequent training
-role plays
-frameworks
-ongoing coaching

Sales is a skill. Skills sharpen with practice.

3. No call review culture
 
Founders rarely realise this.
90% of sales problems are visible on call recordings.
When you don’t review, audit, and analyse calls,
You cannot improve messaging, objections, tone, or closing moments.
Call reviews are where real growth happens.

The truth?

Sales performance starts with leadership, not with SDRs.

Give your team three things:
-better systems
-better training
-better feedback loops

Do this consistently, and the same team you call “underperforming” will perform far better than you expect.

What do you think your team needs the most right now to perform better?

#sales #founders LinkedIn #marketing #salesperson #leadership

The hottest role in tech right now? It used to be Engineering.
It used to be Product.
Not anymore.


Today, the real momentum is in Sales and Marketing.
Here is why.

A few years ago, every new grad wanted to code or manage features. But Gen-AI has changed the reality. The barrier to building and launching a product is getting lower every month. Small teams can now ship products at the speed of thought.

People argue that AI will not replace coders, and that is true.
But AI will enable thousands of teams to build similar products faster, which means competition will explode.

And when products look the same, the only real differentiator becomes sales and marketing.

AI is also affecting sales and marketing. Email copies, ad lines, and outreach messages all sound similar. So the people who can sell with originality, build relationships, and drive real revenue?

They’ll be the ones in demand.

We are already seeing this shift in four clear ways:

1. Sales roles are paying more than entry-level engineering
Top SDRs in AI-first companies are earning more than entry-level engineers. If you can sell, you move faster—AE → Manager → Director—and your income compounds with commissions. Sales is one of the few roles where your pay actually reflects your performance.

2. Modern sales have become part selling and part building
AI has turned sales into a creative + technical role. You’re not just sending emails. You’re building automations, writing prompts, connecting APIs, and designing workflows. The best SDRs are mini-operators, part engineer, part seller.

3. Sales gives you access to every corner of the business
Once you understand customers, you can shift into Product, Growth, RevOps, Strategy, or even start your own company. Sales gives you real insight into how businesses actually win.

4. Performance is visible and rewarded quickly
Hit your quota? Everyone knows. In most roles, great work hides in a Jira ticket. In sales, performance is public, measurable, and rewarded quickly.

Yet many new grads still avoid sales and marketing. They chase titles that look impressive, stay unemployed longer, and miss the fastest path to learning, earning, and growing.

Meanwhile, the sharp ones are taking SDR and marketing roles, learning real business skills, hitting quota, and getting promoted multiple times in their first few years.

#sales LinkedIn #Engineers #Engineering #Marketing #SDR #TechWorld  
#GrowthMindset

Do you know that hundreds of thousands of women in India are quietly helping build AI - even from places most of us would never imagine?


Meta and Google are hiring AI scientists with million-dollar salaries. I am not dismissing their contribution, but there are lakhs of women in remote areas who are also contributing to this AI revolution in their own way.

In fact, according to a recent report, about 20% of AI professionals in India are women today. And that number is expected to grow nearly fourfold by 2027; if we include these women, it will be a really huge number.

So, what are these women doing in AI with limited formal education?
They are doing data labelling - a critical task that helps GenAI models learn accurately.

I was watching Netflix’s “Humans in the Loop” recently - a powerful film about an Adivasi woman who returns to her village, works as an AI data-labeller, and becomes a quiet force in developing AI.

It’s a deeply hopeful story: she contributes to global AI, shaping how machines learn - not because she has a fancy degree, but because she has purpose.

What really struck me was this: technology gives opportunity, not judgment.
AI doesn’t know what school you went to, or how much money your family has. What it sees is the work, the care, the precision. Someone labelling data from a remote village - their job is just as critical as any engineer in Silicon Valley.

Here’s my take: if AI is going to change the world, we need more people like her - women from every background, even those often overlooked.

Technology has always been a great leveller, and it is inspiring to see the contributions of these silent workers in building a technology that will shape our future.

What do you think - do you see more opportunity in AI becoming more inclusive, or are there risks we’re missing?

#meta #AI #ChatGPT #gemini LinkedIn #technology

The cold email tool that went from 0 to $20M ARR didn’t start with a big team or big funding.

It started with one frustrated founder and a broken outreach system.

Back in 2021, when Raul Kaevand was running a lead-generation agency, he ran into a familiar pain: sending more emails wasn’t solving his problem - he needed better deliverability, scale, and a system that didn’t charge by inbox. The tools he used weren’t built for growth.

So he stopped waiting. He built his own outreach engine. That internal tool evolved into Instantly.ai - and it wasn’t a side‐project. Raul shut down the agency to go all in on this SaaS vision.

Here’s what makes Instantly’s journey powerful:

-Bootstrapped, founder-first. Instead of raising big rounds, they reinvested agency revenue to build a product that solved their real scaling issue.

- Value-driven pricing. Unlike many email tools, Instantly offers unlimited inboxes for a flat fee, helping high-volume users scale smartly. 

- Deliverability built-in. They introduced warm-up routines and inbox-placement tools to make sure outreach lands in the primary inbox.

- AI + personalization. They layered in AI-powered workflows, lead scoring, Spintax and personalization, making high-touch campaigns scale automatically. 

- Explosive growth. In just a few years, Instantly’s revenue skyrocketed from $2.4 M ARR in 2022 to $20 M+ in 2024.

- Sustainable scale. Their growth came without huge funding rounds - it came from solving real pain and word-of-mouth traction.

The takeaway?
The best products often start by solving a problem founders personally face. And when you build for your own pain, you often end up helping thousands of others who face the same struggle.

If you run outreach, build a business, or lead a GTM motion - what’s your missing piece right now? What tool would you build if you could?


#InstantlyAI #coldemail #StartupStory #founders #b2b

taplio

The Battle

Sander Kah

Shashikant Burnwal

Followers

Posts

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Performance ScoreShashikant Burnwal's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Sander Kah

Shashikant Burnwal

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Shashikant Burnwal's LinkedIn Performance

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Performance ScoreShashikant Burnwal's LinkedIn Performance