Sanjay Vyas, CEO and Co-founder, Diyotta
Having spent over 20+ years in Data Management and Information Systems, Sanjay Vyas has built a strong passion for data architecture and management.
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Updated November 2026. This was first published on 22 November 2022. The idea is the same. Any number below is what the original piece said then. It is not a new count. This is a record of a conversation from that day. No new quotes were added.
Key takeaways
- Having spent over 20+ years in Data Management and Information Systems, Sanjay Vyas has built a strong passion for data architecture and management.
- He co-founded Diyotta with one goal — to build disruptive technologies and take Data Integration to the next level to address modern-day challenges.
- Sanjay and his co-founders were project managers and solution architects at a global communications company in the heyday of the data warehousing appliance when they finally said enough is enough.
Having spent over 20+ years in Data Management and Information Systems, Sanjay Vyas has built a strong passion for data architecture and management. He co-founded Diyotta with one goal — to build disruptive technologies and take Data Integration to the next level to address modern-day challenges.
Sanjay and his co-founders were project managers and solution architects at a global communications company in the heyday of the data warehousing appliance when they finally said enough is enough. In 2011, they started Diyotta as a side project to develop a new data integration architecture that could easily connect to data sources, use the processing power of modern data lakes and data warehouses, and adapt to new and changing technologies. Their startup story is not unlike many we’ve heard. After several months of coffee shop meetings, late-night deliberations, and successful prototypes, they finally left their day jobs and focused full-time on building their company. Their initial team included 15 developers working in a rented space in a gym. After 11,000 collective hours, they launched Diyotta 1.0 and sold their first license in October 2011. Today, Diyotta has been successfully acquired by ThoughSpot.
I am happy to be a part of a company that is changing that. Diyotta is a data integration technology that captures and moves enormous volumes of data from the many systems and applications that create it to the systems where it all comes together to be manipulated and analyzed by people and machines.
Tell us a little bit about your past before you started Diyotta and what made you start this successful entrepreneurial journey?
Right from a young age, I wanted to be and start an enterprise. Becoming an entrepreneur doesn’t happen overnight. One must have a zeal and passion for succeeding — which one may acquire overtime or be born with it. In my case, I believe I had that attitude right when I was young. I was not that normal kid who did things as expected. I was a risk-taker, and if 100 people took a left turn, I took a right. Even today, I like challenging the status quo. It was almost like an epiphany when I met the other two founders who incidentally were in the same situation as mine. That’s when our energies collided, and we conceptualized what soon became Diyotta. The timing of our collaboration was perfect because the industry witnessed a paradigm shift — moving from traditional data storage and processing to a more modern outlook with Hado and BI Data. We discussed with our families about quitting our jobs and commencing this new journey.
I would like to know about Diyotta’s product, what it offers, and the technologies that empower it.
As I had spent 15 years in the data architecture field, witnessed the evolution of data management, data practices, business intelligence, I came to the realization that there was an acute gap in how the data was processed. And this exact thought was what gave birth to Diyotta. We were looking at a system that will evolve and remain modern as data volumes become larger. The only way to do this is by separating the logic and data. Diyotta’s product was changing the equation - which was - generating the processing instruction and sending them to where data is residing thereby using the compute power of the destination system.*** I think this idea was what was revolutionary about the product. This approach according to me was an architectural revolution. And after all these successful years, Diyotta has been acquired by ThoughtSpot.
When you started Diyotta, what were the major challenges in terms of competition, human resources, and the market size?
In the world of startup and enterprise B2B nobody wants to put their risk on new technology. They want to make sure that the technology is mature. if it is a new concept, people sure like it but when it comes to deploying it, they want to take a look at the longevity cycle and how far the system is mature. When you bootstrap, you need to take care of sales, marketing, and every other sector***, But, you don’t have enough revenue. When you are trying to hire - you find that people don’t understand the startup concept, or assume that they will never be paid. We took care of this challenge by going after people who work for passion and not money entirely. We found people who wanted to add experience to their resumes and not just big brands. As far as competition is concerned, we were pretty much non-existent for a long time. Unless and until you hit the news, spread the word, and make people you exist, I don’t think the big companies and competitors really care.
How did you onboard the first few customers and from there on what strategies did you adopt to scale up the company?
For a startup, their first customers are everything. You learn a lot from the first few guys- from how you want to sell your product, deploy it, how you want to price it, documentation around the product, packaging, and support. For them, you are a product and you cannot make excuses just because you are a startup. Your product and service delivery has to be top-notch. That’s where scalability comes into the picture- build a strategy and a support team. When you actually start making sales, is when you will realize several newer challenges that might crop up and you ultimately learn from it all.
Between starting up and scaling up a start-up, what do you think are the most common mistakes an entrepreneur makes, and tell us about a few mistakes you made in your journey?
The ability to make decisions quickly — can lead you in the right or not so right direction. When we started, we had to deliver our first POC with our only client — Clarity Telecom. I quickly decided to spend the time and effort to fly to their head office in Kuala Lumpur. If I had evaded the decision-making process or waited for them to make the call, things might have gone the other way.
In the early days, I religiously followed a leading analyst firm in the US. All the clients we approached asked us whether we are approved by the analyst firm. So, I decided to speak to the officials at that firm to take things forward.
I must say that they were very encouraging. they also agreed to provide product direction, keep us updated with the latest trends, etc. We signed a two-year contract at a huge price. We didn’t have that kind of money back then. They offered several other services, and everything cost a lot of money. You may be of the opinion that some companies may help you; instead, they can mislead you. My response to the question is a two-point answer: do not get advice from people you don’t know. Second -only take the direction with your solicitation. Now I realize that I should not have listened to that analyst firm.
You successfully scaled up and sold your company, tell us how did it come about and how difficult it was to make such a decision.
For any entrepreneur, this could be something they thought about when they started the company. If you are an entrepreneur and you don’t have an exit strategy then you are not an entrepreneur. You know it is your baby that you have to give away someday. That’s the bitter truth and every entrepreneur has to have that mindset. Everything you do for the company, you need to make sure your company can be sold on the marketplace and is sellable. I mean this not from a material aspect but more to do with present ability and finances. Are you capturing your goal, checking the balance sheet, revenue evaluation, how you position yourself, the company’s growth and work cycle? Always ask yourself - if someone is looking at your company, how they will value it?
How do you, as a leader, ensure that the customers and the employees both remain satisfied most of the times. obviously is a very difficult objective to achieve and maintain.
Customers will always ask you for something and you need to find solutions for the problems. There have been times when we have had all hands on deck to complete tasks. End of the day, your success is based on your customer’s success.*** That’s the thought I have ingrained in the members of the company. The customer-centric approach is what defines us. Companies like Amazon run with a complete customer focus and they are such winners. Whether it is buying a product, customer support, or returns - everything about them is about their customers. But having said all that, you need to make sure that you don’t put your team under the bus. They are part of the family, they are part of the game and they matter. You have to take care of your people and they need to feel the ownership of the company for them to put their heart and soul. I personally would spend one on one with several employees and make them feel included.
What do you think Diyotta’s roadmap looks like in the next five years to come? #
We have been acquired so there is no roadmap for Diyotta anymore.
What message do you have for entrepreneurs that are starting out? What should be the best practices they should follow to ensure they are on the right track?
I would tell them to bootstrap as long as they can. Diyotta is the most prominent example of that***. If you, as an entrepreneur, are trying to keep the process organic, then the only way to do it is by bootstrapping.*** Bring in external funding only when you are looking to scale the business. Otherwise, bootstrap as long as you can.
The last question: what do you think about cryptocurrencies? #
I am not an expert on this but there is a demand and there could be some hype too. People are investing without knowing what it is. But there could be a time when it becomes a more accepted way of doing transactions when it becomes more visible. There are a few positive and negative aspects of it but one should look at the positive rather than the negative.
Questions and answers #
What is the main point? #
Having spent over 20+ years in Data Management and Information Systems, Sanjay Vyas has built a strong passion for data architecture and management.
What else did the original piece say? #
He co-founded Diyotta with one goal — to build disruptive technologies and take Data Integration to the next level to address modern-day challenges.