Raghu Chejarla and Susie Ruddarraju are the husband-and-wife team behind HighCloud Solutions, an IT consulting and staffing firm in St. Paul, MN. Securing more supplier contracts is central to HighCloud’s growth, but most large institutions require suppliers to have expensive certifications to do business with them. With a $125,000 zero-interest investment from the Abbott-LISC Initiative to Support Diverse Businesses in Health, HighCloud secured the accounting and cybersecurity certifications it needs to compete.
Raghu Chejarla and Susie Ruddarraju are the husband-and-wife team behind HighCloud Solutions, a St. Paul, Minnesota-based small business that provides IT consulting and staffing services to government, nonprofit and commercial clients. The couple had always worked for other companies – he as a software engineer, she as a human resources specialist – before making the decision to work for themselves.
“We were looking for flexibility and the ability to work remote because we were just about to start our family,” says Ruddarraju, who co-founded HighCloud with her husband in 2015, long before the Covid-19 pandemic made remote work more commonplace.
When the couple struck out on their own, neither had any formal education in running a business. But as children of entrepreneurs – Ruddarraju’s father owns an aquaculture business and Chejarla’s father founded a pharmaceutical company, which eventually closed – they understood from the start that there would be ups and downs. They kept in mind the lessons their parents had learned. One is especially top of mind.
“I learned not to go too big too fast,” says Chejarla, who leads the software development side of the business, while Ruddarraju handles the staffing side.
It’s evident that the pair have ambition to spare. But they are very deliberate about expanding their business. While most existing clients are in Minnesota, HighCloud recently secured its first federal contract and is poised for expansion. In fact, a new growth plan is designed to catapult the company from its current $1 million in annual revenues to $10 million in five years.
“It's an aggressive growth plan, but we have a robust strategy,” says Chejarla. “We are taking one step at a time and breaking down the action plan by every month and every quarter.”
Securing more contracts is central to HighCloud’s growth plan. One challenge to overcome: most large institutions require expensive certifications to do business with them. That’s where the Abbott-LISC Initiative to Support Diverse Businesses in Health came into play, providing a $125,000 zero-interest investment to help HighCloud get the accounting and cybersecurity certifications it needs to compete.
“The fact that we are not paying interest to LISC is huge for us,” says Chejarla, whose business loans from other sources come with interest. “We don't need to worry about that interest taking a huge chunk of profit away.”
Having the right people in place to do the job is also critical to HighCloud’s success.
“We spend a lot of time to recruit the talent and we are more than capable to deliver to our customers,” says Ruddarraju. “We treat all our employees as our family. Our goal is to keep that family culture moving forward as we grow.”