Betting on GenAI: How Vikram Built Vyceral Solutions on His Own Terms

When Vikram Ekambaram launched Vyceral Solutions, his AI consulting business, it wasn’t part of some grand, long-term business plan. Just weeks earlier, a corporate layoff had upended his career at 50 and left him reconsidering what he wanted from his next chapter. Rather than return to another traditional role, Vikram saw an opportunity to combine decades of experience in technology and go-to-market strategy with an emerging technology he believed was here to stay: generative AI (GenAI).

His unconventional journey offers a different perspective on starting an AI consulting business: instead of waiting for the “right time” or letting fear talk you out of taking the leap, build on the expertise you already have and realize the right moment is the one you decide to create.

Losing His Job and Gaining an Opportunity

Vikram calls losing his job one of the best things that ever happened to him. At the time, however, he didn’t know it would eventually work out that way. He did know, though, that he didn’t want to return to the same kind of corporate role he had spent years building his career around. He didn’t wait long to decide what came next.

In the roughly two weeks between learning he was losing his job and working his final day, Vikram went from considering his options to questioning whether the answer was something he’d never seriously considered before: working for himself. “As I was thinking about what I wanted to do, I realized that I didn’t want to go back and do any of the jobs that I’d done before. So I thought, “Why don’t I just start my own business?”

Turning 50 years old added another layer of urgency to the decision. At his age, Vikram knew waiting for a hypothetical “right time” no longer made sense: “I thought, if I don’t do this now, I’ll never do it.” At the same time, GenAI was emerging as a major technological shift, and Vikram felt it was here to stay, predicting it would be the next big thing. With decades of experience to draw from and what he saw as a rare opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a transformative technology, the timing began to feel right.

Vikram felt that if there was ever a time to bet on himself, it was now. Even if the business didn’t work out, immersing himself in GenAI would give him valuable experience in a technology he believed wasn’t going anywhere. “Very quickly, I felt like this was the right time, the right technology, and the right opportunity. I felt like I was getting into GenAI on the ground floor. I also knew that if it didn’t work out, all the experience I gained would be very valuable in whatever my next job might be.”

While the risk of starting his own business wasn’t insignificant, neither was the risk of letting this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity pass.

Spotting the Market Gap: How Vikram Started an AI Consulting Business

Vikram’s confidence in GenAI wasn’t based on hype alone. Before losing his job, Vikram worked on the go-to-market team at a company that described itself as “AI-first,” where he noticed a discrepancy in how different teams were actually using the technology.  

While the product teams were experimenting with AI, the salespeople weren’t really using it at all. “This was around 2024, when GenAI had been out for about a year or so. My thought was, if we, as an AI-first company, were not using AI on the sales side, chances are most companies would be struggling with it.”

For Vikram, that gap represented an opportunity. He spent years in technology and go-to-market roles and understood the manual processes businesses relied on. GenAI presented an opportunity to pair that expertise with tools that could help automate some of that work.

It was also different from the major technological shifts he had experienced earlier in his career. Technologies like cloud and mobile often required deeper technical expertise to build with them, but GenAI felt more accessible. “AI felt like something that I, as a fairly technical person but not necessarily a developer, could actually take advantage of myself.”

That accessibility helped solidify Vikram’s decision. He didn’t need to abandon the expertise he had spent decades building to become an entrepreneur. He could use it as the foundation for something new. “GenAI is happening,” he remembers thinking. “I have this opportunity to start something on my own.”

What began as an observation about AI adoption within go-to-market teams ultimately became the foundation for a broader consulting practice. Today, Vyceral Solutions works with B2B software companies looking to automate GTM operations and consulting firms looking to turn their expertise, frameworks, and research processes into AI-powered workflows and products.

As Vikram experimented with GenAI to brainstorm a business name, he wanted one that reflected both his instinct-driven approach to consulting and the people closest to him. Through iterative prompting using ChatGPT, its output “surfaced ‘Vyceral’ — a play on ‘visceral’ that conveyed deep understanding, while forming an acronym (V-Y-C-E) representing his family: Vikram, wife and co-founder Claire (a writer), and sons Yanik and Emil.” In a fitting full-circle moment, Vikram used the same technology his new consulting business would be built around to help name the company itself.

With a clearer sense of his next step, all that remained was making it official.

Finding the Right Business Tools for a New Solopreneur

Vikram knew technology, go-to-market strategy, and the kind of service he wanted to offer. What he didn’t know was how to turn that idea into an official business without getting bogged down by the overwhelming administrative paperwork.

As he researched how to get started, forming an LLC quickly became one of his first major to-dos. Like many first-time entrepreneurs navigating an unfamiliar landscape, Vikram turned to Google and came across ZenBusiness and a familiar face. ZenBusiness was featuring a well-known celebrity at the time, and for Vikram, that made the decision surprisingly simple. “I saw a recognized figure and was like, ‘Oh, done deal.’ If anybody knows about entrepreneurship and setting up businesses, it’s probably that guy. So that was kind of the reason I went with ZenBusiness.”

Rather than becoming another intimidating hurdle, the formation process became a relative non-issue. ZenBusiness acted as a steady, reliable hand behind the scenes, providing the clarity and seamless structure Vikram needed to move forward without spending much time worrying about it. “I think ZenBusiness just made it easy enough that I never really had to worry about it. I had no concerns on that front because the process was pretty seamless. I don’t think there was ever any concern about, ‘Will I be able to set up an LLC? Will there be issues?’ I just assumed it would work—and it just worked. That was the feeling.”

The timing also aligned with another entrepreneurial milestone in Vikram’s family. His wife, Claire Hilbert, was preparing to self-publish her first book, creating an opportunity for the couple to build something together. “The timing just seemed right for us to form an LLC that was a combination of me doing my consulting work and her publishing her book and being a writer.” They became co-founders, both operating through the LLC and using ZenBusiness to clear away the background chaos.

That work takes different forms depending on the client. For go-to-market teams, that can mean automating time-intensive work like account research, lead qualification, website visitor conversion, and personalization. For consulting firms, it can mean turning proprietary frameworks into AI agents, automating research, or transforming existing services into scalable AI-powered products.

“Every business process today is done manually or has some element of manual work that AI, and GenAI specifically, can help automate. But most people don’t know how to do that. They don’t know how to use the technologies, and everything is changing so fast. So I work with clients to understand what processes they’re trying to automate.”

His relationship with ZenBusiness has continued beyond formation, too. To keep his operations running smoothly as a solopreneur, Vikram relies on ZenBusiness’s Money Pro to handle daily tasks like invoicing and expense management. Meanwhile, automated notifications keep him on top of important deadlines and key business requirements.

By clearing away the administrative noise, ZenBusiness has helped Vikram protect more of his time and focus on what he values most: working hands-on with technology and serving his clients.

Building a GenAI Consulting Business Around Freedom

For Vikram, entrepreneurship’s payoff hasn’t been measured by the size of his company. Instead, building something on his own terms has given him something his corporate career couldn’t: the option to choose. “I get to choose who I want to work with. I get to choose the projects I want to work on. And I’m always working on cool new stuff. That’s the best thing.”

There have been financial benefits too. Vikram says he’s earning more than he did before starting his business. But at this point in his career, work-life balance matters just as much – if not more. “I play golf every morning, so I have the freedom to set my own schedule. I don’t feel that same pressure. I can choose the clients I want. I can work as hard as I want. It has given me freedom from a time standpoint, freedom from a money standpoint, and freedom in terms of ownership and choosing what I want to take on.” That freedom also extends beyond his schedule.

In his previous corporate roles, Vikram found that the further he advanced as a leader, the further he became from the work he actually enjoyed. Advancing in larger organizations meant spending more time managing people and dealing with internal politics, leaving less time to work directly with customers and technology. “In my prior jobs, whenever I got to a level where I had managers of managers reporting to me, invariably I was doing more politics and people management than actually working with customers and doing the fun stuff. Now, I feel like I can get my hands dirty and really work with the technology. The moment you have a huge number of people, you become a manager of managers again. You’re managing people, dealing with people’s problems and politics, and I don’t want to do that.”

Entrepreneurship has reversed that equation. Rather than optimizing his career around the next title or corporate milestone, Vikram can optimize for personal growth, quality of life, and staying close to the technology he loves. In a way, climbing the corporate ladder had moved him away from the work. Building his own business has brought him back to it.

Growing as a Solopreneur – On His Own Terms

For Vikram, growth isn’t about more money, more employees, or more clients. For him, it means the freedom to let growth happen on his terms. “Starting something after I turned 50, I’m not thinking, “This has to be the next big thing,” or “I want to own a company with 100 people,” or “I want to make it big.”

In fact, when Vikram first started, he was adamant about remaining a solopreneur. He wanted to work independently, stay close to the technology, and keep the business simple. Then, his plan changed as demand grew. “When I started, I was very clear that I didn’t want to have anybody working for me. I didn’t want employees. I wanted to be a solo entrepreneur, and that was it. Then, after a year, I realized there was more work than I could do by myself.”

He eventually brought on one person. Currently, he has two people working with him, and for one client, he manages several additional people working on their behalf. While it wasn’t necessarily the growth plan he envisioned, that’s exactly the point. “These things change. But if I could choose, I’d keep it simple. I’m not chasing some big money goal or thinking, ‘I want an exit,’ or anything like that.”

Vikram’s original vision of solopreneurship may already be evolving, but he’s no longer measuring success against a predetermined corporate ladder or even a predetermined entrepreneurial one. Vyceral Solutions can grow, change, or stay small as long as it continues giving him the freedom to do work he finds meaningful. “I tend to say yes to most things and then see where they go. I want the freedom to do that.”

Losing his corporate job at 50 could have felt like a dead end. Instead, it pushed Vikram to reconsider what he wanted the next chapter of his career, and his life, to look like.

Vyceral Solutions may continue to grow and evolve, but Vikram isn’t chasing someone else’s definition of entrepreneurial success. For him, building a business on his own terms means staying curious, saying yes to interesting opportunities, and staying close to the work he loves.

​What started as an unexpected job loss ultimately gave him something his corporate career couldn’t: the freedom to decide for himself what comes next.

Ready to Build Something on Your Own Terms?

Like Vikram, many aspiring entrepreneurs have the expertise to break out on their own but hesitate when they face the unfamiliar administrative mechanics of starting a business. You don’t have to navigate that uncertainty alone.

Whether you’re launching a specialized GenAI consulting practice, setting up an LLC for a creative project, or simply looking to protect your time, ZenBusiness steps in as your trusted partner.

By taking care of compliance and annual reports, automated invoicing, and back-end paperwork through tools like Money Pro, ZenBusiness clears away the background friction so you can find calm in the chaos — leaving you free to focus on your clients, your craft, and designing a business entirely on your own terms.