Upstart Startup

01 Sep 2005

Upstart Startup

Re: Randy Altschuler (MBA 1998); Joe Sigelman (MBA 1997)

Topics: Entrepreneurship-General Business Ventures-Business Startups

In 1999, Wall Street bankers Randy Altschuler (MBA ’98) and Joseph Sigelman (MBA ’97) founded OfficeTiger in Madras, India, to serve as an outsourcing shop to perform secretarial services for Wall Street financial firms. Today, the company has five Indian operations, employs 1,500 people, specializes in sophisticated financial analyses, and expects revenues of $100 million this year, according to Business Week (July 11, 2005).

In the beginning, “No one thought it was a viable idea, but we decided to do it ourselves anyway,” said Sigelman, who lives in Madras, while Altschuler does the rainmaking in New York. The company is a committed meritocracy, which can be distinctive in the Indian setting. “We have the best people, be they from the Brahmin caste or the lowest ‘untouchable’ caste,” Sigelman noted. He added that, looking beyond its own humble origins, “We’d like OfficeTiger to be a professional-services firm and outgrow being an entrepreneurial back-office venture.”