A Harvard graduate, Head of ANAROCK Channel Partner, and founder of ANACITY—a SaaS platform purpose-built for real estate developers, Aayush Puri is navigating India, the Middle East, and Europe with a strategy that seems equal parts discipline, instinct, and data. In this exclusive interview with me, he talks about scaling across three distinct continents, balancing cultural nuances with software fidelity, and why product-market fit is not a destination but a continuous pursuit.
Q1: You’ve scaled ANACITY across India, the GCC, and now parts of Europe. How did you maintain coherence in your offering while adapting to such different markets?
Aayush Puri: Great question. The short answer is: you don’t copy-paste. What worked in India didn’t work in Dubai, and what worked in Dubai doesn’t land in Netherlands. But the core engine, our ability to digitize residential real estate operations end-to-end, is universal. What changes is the interface, the compliance layer, the integrations.
In India, for example, customer service expectations are low but the appetite for WhatsApp-based features is massive. In Dubai, everything needs to be sleek, multilingual, and regulatory-compliant from day one. Netherlands? Data privacy and open APIs are non-negotiable.
We built our platform with modularity in mind. Think of it as a Lego set. The bricks stay the same, but the configuration changes with each geography.
Q2: What’s the most overlooked challenge in cross-border scaling that founders underestimate?
Aayush Puri: Cultural latency. People assume scaling is about sales channels or legal paperwork. It’s not. It’s about how fast your internal team can absorb and localize nuance without creating chaos. We underestimated that in our first expansion.
In Europe, decision cycles are longer, and there’s more scrutiny on data governance. In Dubai, speed is rewarded but loyalty is fickle. In India, price sensitivity meets surprisingly high feature demand. If your team isn’t trained to read these signals and adapt your GTM motion accordingly, you’re setting yourself up to fail.
Q3: You mentioned product-market fit is a continuous pursuit. How do you iterate without cannibalizing your roadmap?
Aayush Puri: The trick is to separate your platform DNA from your delivery skin. Our backend stack and data model stay constant. What we iterate is the presentation layer, the support tooling, the integrations.
For example, in Dubai we added bilingual dashboards because 85% of property managers are non-native English speakers. In India, we prioritized WhatsApp bot integrations, which led to a 60% boost in daily active users.
You don’t change the foundation; you change the access points. That’s how you stay sane while staying relevant.
Q4: What about the economics of scaling across markets? Isn’t CAC wildly different in these regions?
Aayush Puri: Absolutely. Our CAC in Europe is 4x that of India. But our ARPU is also 2.5x higher. So you play the long game.
In India, we acquire fast but monetize slowly. In the GCC, clients are fewer but ticket sizes are larger and renewals more stable. In Europe, adoption is slower, but once you’re in, churn is negligible.
The key is not uniform pricing, it’s uniform LTV:CAC ratios. We aim for 3:1 across markets. Everything else is just input variance.
Q5: What’s been your biggest mistake in this journey so far?
Aayush Puri: Assuming that one sales playbook fits all. In India, we do channel partner-led sales. In the GCC, it’s relationship-led and top-down. In Europe, it’s product-led growth and inbound-driven.
We tried to impose one model early on, and it backfired. Now we let each market teach us how it wants to be sold to. It’s slower initially but creates far more sustainable growth.
Q6: And your biggest learning?
Aayush Puri: Build local trust before global traction. In Dubai, it was one client that opened every door. In India, it was channel aggregation. In Rotterdam, it was an ESG pilot with a housing cooperative.
Start with one use case, nail it, get proof of value, and let that do the scaling for you.
Q7: What would you tell other founders trying to scale internationally?
Aayush Puri: Don’t scale geography. Scale conviction. Know exactly what non-negotiable value you bring, and what you’re willing to adapt. Then hire local, trust slow growth, and let the market show you how it wants to grow with you.
Also Read: Apna Khata Rajasthan: Streamlining Land Records And Online Mutation
