The Ledger
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Mathrubootham: No enterprise software company has successfully transitioned down to SMB
“Oh, start high and go down never, never works. In the history of software, you can tell me which company has succeeded in starting at enterprise and actually winning in SMB. It's not happened. But if you look at many companies, including Salesforce and Freshwo…”
Users will replace Google search with ChatGPT for software product discovery
“तो यही भविश्य है लोग खोज के लिए Google पर नहीं जा रहे हैं बलकि चैट GPT पर जा रहे हैं इसलिए हमें वह करने की जरूरत है”
No Indian venture capital fund focused specifically on B2B before Together Fund
“उस समय एक भी VC फंड नहीं था, जो B to B पर focused था”
Mathrubootham: Generative engine optimization will replace SEO for software marketing
“Now we have generative engine optimization, right? Like if a lot of people are going to go to ChatGPT and ask about, hey which software should I use? How do we make sure that the AI models are trained to tell customers that Freshworks is a great product? So, s…”
Mathrubootham: The 2020s will be the decade of India as a product nation
“This is the time. I would now say now is the time for Indian tech product companies, and this is going to be the decade of India as a product nation.”
The 2020s decade will see massive success for Indian tech product companies
“अब मैं यह कहूंगा कि अब भी भारतिय तकनीकी प्रॉडक्ट कमपनियों के लिए समय आ गया है और यह दशक भारत का प्रॉडक्ट क्षेत्र में सफलता पाने वाला है”
Mathrubootham: India has over 6,000 SaaS and AI startups in 2024
“This year, there are over, I think, 6000 companies startups in SaaS and AI in India, 1600 of those founders were attending our event.”
Together Fund is India's only operator-led SaaS and AI fund
“Even today, we are the only operator led fund in India, and we are the only fund that's focused on SaaS and AI investments only.”
US SaaS startups spend two-thirds of customer acquisition costs on sales
“अमेरिका में CAC, दो तिहाई sales, और एक तिहाई marketing होगा, क्योंकि salesperson बहुत महेंगे होते हैं, अगर आप San Francisco में बैठे हैं, या उस मामले में London में भी”
SolarCity paid Freshworks $1M annually across 13 separate team accounts
“बेशक, यह एक enterprise व्यापक सौधा नहीं था, लेकिन यह बड़े enterprise की एक team के लिए था, जैसे अगर आपको याद हो, Tesla ने जिस company को खरीदा था, वो दूसरी Elon Musk company Solar City थी, तो हमने तेरह अलग-अलग टीमें इसका उप्योग कर रही थी, वे हमें लगभग एक मिलिय…”
Freshworks generates 87% of revenue from customers paying over $5,000 annually
“اور دو ہزار سے ادھک گراہک ہمیں ہر سال پچاس ہزار ڈالر سے اوپر کا بھکتان کرتے ہیں اس لئے ہمارے پاس SMB گراہکوں کی ایک لمبی لائن ہے مجھے لگتا ہے کہ ہماری کمائی کا ستاسی پرتیشت ان گراہکوں سے آتا ہے جو ہمیں سال آنا پانچ ہزار ڈالر سے ادھک کا بھکتان کرتے ہیں”
Freshworks' ideal mid-market customer size is 500 to 5,000 employees
“हमारे लिए सबसे अच्छा स्थान पांच सौ से पांच हजार कर्मचारियों के बीच में हो सकता है।”
Freshworks under-hired software engineers relative to sales during its 2015 growth
“दो हजार पंद्रह में हम वास्तव में बहुत तेजी से बढ़ रहे थे और हम sales team को nuket कर रहे थे और sales का पहिया engineering के पहिये से तेज घूम रहा था. हमने जरूरत मताबिक engineers को hire नहीं किया”
Freshworks' second product, Freshservice, reached $1.5M ARR in its first year
“और वह product पहले वर्ष में डेड़ मिलियन और दूसरे वर्ष में छे दशमलव पाँच मिलियन तक पहुँच गिया”
India currently has approximately 6,000 SaaS and AI startups
“लगभग छह हजार कंपनियां, स्टार्ट अप्स, भारत में सास और AI में”
US SaaS customer acquisition cost is two-thirds sales, one-third marketing
“So in the US, the CAC would be two thirds sales and one third marketing because salespeople are so expensive if you're sitting in San Francisco and, or even London for that matter.”
Freshworks' $50K accounts often originate as SMBs adopting multiple products
“Pretty much all of our 5000 dollar customers probably started off paying us hundred dollars or 50 dollars or whatever, and even some of our 50,000 dollar plus customers are actually SMB customers who have adopted three, four products from us.”
Freshworks has two product lines surpassing $300M in ARR each
“We are second product recently crossed three hundred million dollars in ARR. So now we have two product lines north of three hundred million in ARR.”
Freshworks mandates transparent website pricing over contact sales gates
“So now we make a philosophy that our pricing will be open. It will be on the website. So that's the company policy, right?”
Skipping reference checks on investor-referred executives was a costly mistake
“Number one, I did not do ref ref checks on candidates who actually came through like investor referrals. So Costly mistake. I should have talked to people who reported into those leaders and got a style of their management style.”
Mathrubootham: Indian talent dynamics lead CS engineers into non-technical roles
“In the context in India, you have to understand this. Everybody finishes computer science engineering and then figures out what they want to do in life, right? So, so I have folks working in sales and pre-sales and marketing who are all computer science engine…”
Freshworks acquired 100 customers in 100 days before raising external capital
“फिर हमारे पास सौ दिनों में सौ ग्रहक थे, दो सौ दिनों में दो सौ ग्रहक यहां तक कि हमने अभी तक कोई भी फंड नहीं उठाये थे, इसलिए हम एक अच्छी शुरुआत कर चुके थे.”
Freshworks' early Indian traction came from digital-native startups like Flipkart
“भारत में हमारी शुरुआती सफलता डिजिटल नेटिव स्टार्टअप के साथ भी थी और यह सब फ्लिपकार्ट दुनिया की ई-कॉमर्स कंपनियां”
Freshworks faced 600 helpdesk competitors when launching Freshdesk
“जैसे जब हमने fresh desk शुरू किया था, बाजार में पहले से ही छे सो help desk मौजूद थे”
A quarter of early Freshdesk customers used it for internal IT support
“सेईस या पच्चीस प्रतिशत हमारे ताजा डिस्क ग्राहक वास्तव में इसे इंटर्नल आईटी सपोर्ट के लिए इस्तेमाल कर रहे थे”
Freshworks operates a software academy to train and place underprivileged youth
“ہمارے پاس ایک سوفٹ ویئر اکیڈمی ہے جہاں ہم ان بچوں کو لیتے ہیں جو اپنے کالج کا خرچ نہیں اٹھا سکتے اور انہیں سوفٹ ویئر سیکھنا ہے اور پھر ہم انہیں کمپنیوں میں رکھتے ہیں”
Freshworks acquired 100 customers in 100 days before raising external capital
“May we launched our beta version with 500 people trying our product. By August we had, like, 70 customers. So we had, A hundred customers in hundred days, 200 customers in 200 days. Even while we were like, we have not yet raised funds.”
Freshdesk launched with pricing tiers below competitors' entry-level plans
“So our product was priced at nine dollars, 19 dollars and 29 dollars per agent per month. That was the highest. Our competition, the lowest price was 29 dollars a month to get started, right?”
Freshworks' first seven customers spanned four different continents
“We had seven customers. When we had seven customers, I think they came from four different continents. First customer was Atwill College from Perth, Australia.”
Freshworks launched into a market with 600 existing help desk products
“When we started fresh desk, there were 600 help desks already in the market.”
Freshworks has 67,000 customers and 2,000 paying over $50K annually
“See today, Freshworks has over 67,000 customers. And more than 2000 plus customers actually pay us over 50,000 dollars a year.”
87% of Freshworks' revenue comes from accounts paying over $5,000 annually
“Like 87, I think 87% of our revenue comes from customers who pay us over 5000 dollars a year.”