How To Build An App That’s Worth Buying with Varun Kundra

In this episode of the SaaS Operators Podcast, Varun Kundra, co-founder of AfterSell, talks about how the business was built around post-purchase upsells on Shopify. The core product sits in the window between checkout and the order confirmation page, a moment where conversion rates on relevant offers can hit 5-15% when set up properly, and where the highest-performing stores see the biggest AOV lift. Varun walks through how AfterSell eventually caught the attention of ROKT, a much larger company running third-party offers in the same post-purchase space, which ultimately led to an acquisition.

We talk about the decision to sell at 23 years old, and what drove it. AfterSell had incredible traction, but there’s a belief that the Shopify ecosystem has a ceiling. The list of companies that have scaled to meaningful size inside it is short, Klaviyo, Recharge, a handful of others. The exit to ROKT gave Varun and his co-founders liquidity and something arguably more valuable, a front-row seat to how a larger, well-run business actually operates. Management, performance reviews, culture building, commercial strategy. None of that existed inside AfterSell before the deal.

The back half of the episode opens up into a broader conversation about management philosophy in a fast-moving environment. Rishabh makes the case that a lot of traditional management principles, like giving criticism in private, were built for a world where information moved slowly. That world is gone. Jack and Rishabh talk through what it looks like to run a team where almost everything happens in public channels, why top performers tend to self-select in that environment, and where the ethical lines still hold. Varun ties it back to the meta-skill that survives any wave of technology: learning how to run a business where the value you deliver exceeds what you charge, and what you charge exceeds what it costs to deliver.

00:00 The Journey of AfterSell 02:45 Post-Purchase Upselling Insights 05:42 Building a Business in E-commerce SaaS 08:24 Engagement with ROKT and Acquisition 12:25 Personal and Professional Outcomes 16:13 Philosophical Reflections on Business and Life 24:34 The Evolution of Technology and Business 25:42 Navigating the AI Revolution 27:21 The Importance of Business Fundamentals 29:13 Unlearning Traditional Management Principles 32:13 Adapting Management Styles in a Fast-Paced World 34:17 Public vs. Private Communication in Teams 35:49 The Value of Transparency and Constructive Feedback 39:57 Confrontation and Honest Conversations in Leadership 43:38 Innovating in a Competitive Landscape 49:05 Future Business Directions and Market Trends