The Story of Salt Technologies

I started my career in October 2009 at Infosys, one of India's largest IT companies. It was the dream job. I was working with global clients like Yahoo, earning a comfortable five-digit salary, and building a stable career path.

But somewhere deep inside, I knew this wasn't my final destination. I wanted to build something of my own. I wanted to create, not just execute.

The turning point came during a trip to Ladakh with friends. Surrounded by mountains and endless skies, we talked about dreams, risks, and what we truly wanted from life. That trip planted a seed. A restless, persistent seed that wouldn't let me settle.

In 2012, I made the hardest decision of my life: I quit my job.

My family was worried. My friends thought I was crazy. But I came back to Pune with a fire in my belly and a plan to build something meaningful.

My friends Manoj and Varun joined me to work on a startup called KiranaMart, an e-commerce platform for local grocery stores. I handled the tech, building the website and back-office systems from scratch.

But reality hit hard. We ran out of money. The startup couldn't scale. We had to make a choice: give up or pivot.

We chose to pivot. Each of us decided to start a services company in our respective fields. Manoj and Varun started a civil engineering firm. I started a tech company.

One evening, while eating vada-pav and sipping cutting chai at a roadside stall, Manoj and I were brainstorming names. The vada-pav tasted bland. Something was missing.

Salt.

That's when I remembered a Hindi story from 6th grade called "नमक सा प्यारा" (As Dear As Salt). The moral? Even an emperor's feast is tasteless without a pinch of salt.

We realized that's what we wanted to be for our clients. Not flashy or loud, but essential. The ingredient that makes everything better.

And so, Salt Technologies was born.

Salt Technologies started as a one-person show. I worked from my bedroom, building a simple single-page website in Java. I had no team, no office, and barely any capital.

But I had determination. I spent nights learning SEO, optimizing the website, and reaching out to potential clients. Within a few days, I got my first inquiry. Within weeks, my first paying customer.

That first payment felt like validation. It felt like hope.

I rented a tiny shared office in a 1 BHK apartment. The computers and desks? Borrowed from friends and family. Every rupee mattered. Every project was a lifeline.

After a few months, I hired my first team members. We were small, scrappy, and hungry to prove ourselves.

By mid-2013, Salt was growing. I was juggling development, client calls, project management, and everything in between. I needed help.

Enter Sujay Bhagwat, my childhood friend. He was working at Syntel, a leading IT company, earning a stable salary. But whenever he had time, he'd help me with creative work and client communication.

I asked him to join Salt full-time. It wasn't an easy ask. He had to leave a secure job, convince his family, and take a leap of faith into an uncertain startup.

But he believed in the vision. He believed in us.

Sujay joined to handle sales, operations, and some part of UI design. With the team growing and roles becoming clearer, we moved from the 1 BHK apartment to a 3 BHK penthouse office. We were no longer just surviving. We were thriving.

We were doing well with client projects, but I still had a dream to build a successful SaaS product. So we built CV Ease, an online resume builder.

We poured our hearts into it. We added team members, designed beautiful interfaces, and marketed it aggressively. Within a year, we had over 10,000 registered users.

But users didn't translate to revenue.

Despite the traction, CV Ease couldn't generate the income we needed to sustain it. We had to make the painful decision to shut it down and refocus on our core business.

It hurt. It felt like failure. But looking back, it was one of the most valuable experiences we had.

We learned about UI/UX. We became WordPress experts. We understood what users truly valued. And we brought all those learnings back into our client work.

Failure didn't break us. It made us better.

In February 2016, Salt Technologies evolved from a proprietary firm to Salt Web Technologies Private Limited. The structure changed, but our brand and values remained the same.

We landed our first major custom WordPress development project. It was a game-changer. We realized WordPress wasn't just a blogging platform. It was a powerful tool for building scalable, enterprise-grade applications.

Our reputation grew. Clients started coming to us not just for websites, but for ongoing partnerships. We introduced retainer services, helping clients continuously improve and optimize their digital presence.

In 2018, we moved to a fully commercial office space. Our team had grown to around 40 people. We were no longer a scrappy startup. We were a legitimate software outsourcing company.

Since 2022, we have established ourselves as one of Pune's best software development companies. Though we remained a tight-knit team, we became unbeatable for quality, speed, security, and SEO.

We doubled down on engineering excellence, adopting modern DevOps practices and advanced security protocols. Our focus shifted from just delivering projects to delivering measurable business impact.

We proved that you don't need to be a massive corporation to deliver world-class software. You just need the right people, the right processes, and an unrelenting commitment to excellence.

Today, more than a decade after that first leap of faith, Salt Technologies is a team of 100+ engineers, designers, and product managers. We've successfully delivered over 800 projects for clients across the USA, UK, Europe, and beyond.

We've expanded our expertise from web development to product engineering, platform engineering, data engineering, AI development, and DevOps. We've opened an office in Austin, Texas, bringing us closer to our North American clients.

But what hasn't changed is our core belief: great software comes from great partnerships.

Every project we take on is an opportunity to create lasting value. Every client relationship is built on trust, transparency, and shared success.

The journey is far from over.

We're still chasing dreams. We're still learning every day. We're still committed to being that essential ingredient—like salt—that makes everything better.

We'll reach 1,000 projects soon. We'll launch that successful SaaS product one day. And we'll keep growing, one partnership at a time.