It's not every day that a startup business gets huge shoutouts from a billion-dollar manufacturing company, much less presentations to other businesses about the game-changing nature of that startup's software.

Five years after Rupesh Agrawal launched Amla Commerce, that's exactly what's happening for the Milwaukee developer of business-to-business software.

At its most recent user event, Bradley Corp. presented a seminar on how the Milwaukee manufacturer of commercial plumbing fixtures and washroom accessories has adapted Amla Commerce's core product, a business-to-business account management tool called Znode, to create customized, detail-filled e-commerce interfaces for each of its customers.

It's not just happening within a Milwaukee bubble. Other customers who shared their uses and enthusiasm for Znode at past gatherings included Staples Promotional Products and Hyster-Yale Group.

They all have focused on the same message: Amla Commerce and Znode are leading a sea change in the fast-growing world of business-to-business e-commerce.

Dave Leannah, Bradley's vice president of information technology, said Znode was one of two options under consideration when Bradley needed to update its site. The other was an upgraded version of their previous site, provided by Magneto. Despite Amla Commerce's startup status, the company looked in to Znode in part based on another company's recommendation.

The chance Leannah and Ron Flynn, Bradley's manager of web systems and integration, took by convincing the company to select Agrawal and Znode exceeded expectations, Leannah said. Znode allowed the company to create a fast, "frictionless," user interface that is a massive improvement over its former system, he said.

"I know Rupesh is super proud of it," Leannah said. "We are, too. You always have that thought in the back of your head like, oh, you know, I pushed hard for this. They trusted me and bought into this. Did we do the right thing? Yes, we did. And many other companies are saying the exact same thing."

Interface can be customized

On its face, the software doesn't seem all that special to the untrained observer. Customers log in, they select items from within a customized catalog that is priced based on pre-negotiated deals. Inside the interface they can interact with their sales and distribution contacts, find product specifications, check the status of shipping and make adjustments on the fly.

A key feature of Znode is that it's "headless," Leannah said. That means it's the high-speed data engine that runs behind a user interface, pulling a large suite of other systems together into a seamless package. Companies can customize the interface to individually match the needs and interests of as many end users as they do business with.

That allowed Bradley to design a site based around contractors and distributors, while Staples could create hundreds of stores for its promotional merchandise customers, and a company like Tommy Hilfiger is able to set up an unlimited number of consumer facing, school-specific sites for its school uniform business, Global Schoolwear.

That flexibility has helped Znode achieve customer growth of nearly 60% a year, and it sets the stage for even faster growth in coming years, Agrawal said.

"Four years ago, it was a brand new product," he said. "We just had our customer event in Milwaukee and it was amazing to see how many partners and customers came in and how much love they have for our product. That gives us the energy of, boy, we have just started."

A serial entrepreneur at the helm

Agrawal came to Milwaukee from India in the 1990s to study at the Milwaukee School of Engineering. After graduating in 1999, he worked as an e-commerce developer for Brady Co. until the birth of his son, Vishrut, prompted him and his wife, Smita, to decide to return to India in 2003.

He returned to Milwaukee two years later and offered to work for Brady Co. as a consultant. His first company, an e-commerce consulting firm called Zeon Solutions Inc., was born. By the time Agrawal sold Zeon to St. Louis-based Perficient Inc. for $35.7 million in 2015, the company had grown to about 400 employees with annual sales of $23 million.

After completing the sale, Agrawal considered retirement, briefly. Instead, he jumped at an opportunity in 2017 to buy Znode, which was owned by a Yellow Pages publishing company that was going through bankruptcy.

Znode had been one of five platforms on which Zeon created e-commerce interfaces, and, Agrawal said, it was his favorite. He said its value included an established name, an existing customer base and a software product with big, untapped potential.

"We redid the whole platform. We rewrote everything," Agrawal said.

Znode accounts for about three-fourths of Amla Commerce's annual revenue, he said. The remainder comes from Artifi Labs, a software company he started in 2014 with other Zeon engineers that allows an e-commerce company's customers to design items, choosing colors, logo placements and more. The software, which can be standalone or interfaced with Znode, can eliminate much of the back and forth that otherwise goes into producing a custom product order.

Artifi's customers include Camelbak, EZ Up, and other national brands.

Looking ahead to future growth, a time to have fun

Amla Commerce isn't a high profile company. Its offices, tucked into a relatively nondescript, second-floor space in the Milwaukee County Research Park, belie the company's reach and the big names that it works with.

The company employs more than 220 people, including about 20 customer-facing employees in the United States who are focused on sales, product vision and design. The majority of Amla Commerce's employees are in India, where they work in development and support roles. Agrawal estimates the company needs to hire another dozen employees in the United States and 50 in India, where, he said, he's had success hiring engineers and other skilled workers who are in short supply in this country.

"They are employees, so the global model is working incredible for us. It gives us a lot of velocity and speed and and we are able to continuously develop more competitive edge," Agrawal said.

Amla Commerce has thus far achieved success without taking on outside investors. Agrawal doesn't expect that to change any time soon, though he acknowledges that may become necessary as the company grows. He declined to release the company's annual revenue, focusing instead on the growth of its customer base.

"We want to become the number one B2B e-commerce platform for both mid-market and large enterprises," he said. "We feel, competitively, companies have taken a decade to get to where we are in four years and now we're trying to accelerate everything."

He said the coronavirus pandemic drove massive growth in e-commerce, and many companies learned their online sites had not kept up with the evolution of e-commerce and needed to be upgraded.

But turnover is slow due to the expense of implementing a new e-commerce system.

"The biggest challenge is companies need time to make a switch −those are long sales cycles," he said. "Even though our platform could be way better and is available, people have already invested so many millions of dollars in the other technology. But, ultimately, it is happening. It might not happen as fast as I would like, but it is happening."

Asked if he expects to sell Amla like he did Zeon, Agrawal smiled and reflected on the hard work that went into switching from a service and consulting focus with Zeon to developing and selling a product like Znode.

"The last four years work a lot of hard work," he said. "This year is more fun, because we've got a great product. We've got great customers. So right now the next five years is about fun and growth and enjoying that growth."

Contact Karl Ebert at kebert@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @karlwebert.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee Amla software lands deals with Staples. Hilfiger, Bradley