StarZero All shows Try the podcast clipper →

Girish Mathrubootham

Co-founder & Managing Partner, Together Fund · 0 appearances on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

founderexecutiveinvestor@mrgirish ↗LinkedIn ↗together.fund ↗

Girish Mathrubootham founded Freshworks in 2010 and led it to an IPO on Nasdaq in 2021. He also co-founded SaaSBOOMi and launched Together Fund to invest in early-stage SaaS and AI startups.

15statements → 11claims → 0claims resolved → —average certainty → —average debate potential →

7 not checkable as stated how the 11 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

11 assertions · 1 opinion · 3 insights · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 11 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 4 are resolved, and 7 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Girish argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Mathrubootham: Freshservice is north of $260M ARR
“So this second product, FreshService, Which we launched in 2014. Today is north of two hundred sixty million dollars ARR.”
Girish Mathrubootham Sep 15, 2023 ▶ 14:21 Building a Global SaaS Empire | Freshworks Founder & CEO Girish Mathrubootham on His Biggest Bets

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
none yet certainty 3
100% certainty 4
100% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

Everything Girish Mathrubootham said on the Official SaaStr Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Opinion
Mathrubootham: Indian buyers hijack product roadmaps, making global expansion impossible
“It's actually much easier to sell to global customers than selling to Indian customers. You know, Indian customers are notorious for hijacking your product roadmap, and you can never sell outside once you start selling to India.”
Girish Mathrubootham Sep 15, 2023 ▶ 1:50 Building a Global SaaS Empire | Freshworks Founder & CEO Girish Mathrubootham on His Biggest Bets
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Mathrubootham: 2011 Hacker News response cemented Freshdesk as Zendesk alternative
“We responded to the website, we exposed what was happening, and the whole internet community, we were on Hacker News, For 30 hours at the top post, and for three days on the top page, the entire community supported us, and from that point onwards, like Freshde…”
Girish Mathrubootham Sep 15, 2023 ▶ 29:12 Building a Global SaaS Empire | Freshworks Founder & CEO Girish Mathrubootham on His Biggest Bets
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Mathrubootham: Freshworks built its second product before reaching $1M ARR
“We actually built our second product when Freshdesk, our first product, was not even a million dollars in revenue.”
Girish Mathrubootham Sep 15, 2023 ▶ 13:17 Building a Global SaaS Empire | Freshworks Founder & CEO Girish Mathrubootham on His Biggest Bets
Insight
Mathrubootham: Invest in a second product immediately after first PMF
“The work that you do in product today is going to help you in revenue two, three years down the line. And especially once you have product market fit in the first product, when the revenue is coming in, that's when you will have the time to actually invest in …”
Girish Mathrubootham Sep 15, 2023 ▶ 15:51 Building a Global SaaS Empire | Freshworks Founder & CEO Girish Mathrubootham on His Biggest Bets
Insight
Mathrubootham: Every PLG or inbound company eventually adds field sales
“Every company that started with PLG or inbound, at some point of time, you can see they will overlay a field sales motion.”
Girish Mathrubootham Sep 15, 2023 ▶ 21:25 Building a Global SaaS Empire | Freshworks Founder & CEO Girish Mathrubootham on His Biggest Bets
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Mathrubootham: Freshworks raised $1M from Accel with $2,100 MRR
“The first round of funding when we had 70 stranger customers from all around the world, Paying us an average of 30 dollars a month, so we had 2100 dollars of MRR, but that was enough to get us a million dollar funding, and that's why I said it's a big bet that…”
Girish Mathrubootham Sep 15, 2023 ▶ 6:09 Building a Global SaaS Empire | Freshworks Founder & CEO Girish Mathrubootham on His Biggest Bets
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Mathrubootham: Freshworks hired zero Ruby on Rails devs until employee 69
“Till employee number 69, we did not hire a single programmer who actually knew Ruby on Rails. We hired great programmers and figured out that, okay, they can learn Ruby on Rails and then contribute.”
Girish Mathrubootham Sep 15, 2023 ▶ 10:23 Building a Global SaaS Empire | Freshworks Founder & CEO Girish Mathrubootham on His Biggest Bets
Assertion Supported
Mathrubootham: Freshservice is north of $260M ARR
“So this second product, FreshService, Which we launched in 2014. Today is north of two hundred sixty million dollars ARR.”
Girish Mathrubootham Sep 15, 2023 ▶ 14:21 Building a Global SaaS Empire | Freshworks Founder & CEO Girish Mathrubootham on His Biggest Bets
Insight
Mathrubootham: Celebrate employee craftsmanship instead of pushing revenue metrics
“They're important for the board, but you cannot push down the metrics to the people. So you have to celebrate your employees for making biryani. So like if your marketer is writing a brilliant blog post or your AdWords person is coming up with a creative campa…”
Girish Mathrubootham Sep 15, 2023 ▶ 18:57 Building a Global SaaS Empire | Freshworks Founder & CEO Girish Mathrubootham on His Biggest Bets
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Freshworks landed Burger King, 3M, and Sony through inbound leads in 2013-2014
“Like even as early as 20 13 and 14, we had closed Burger King, three M, Schneider Electric, Macmillan Publishing, Pearson, Sony, all of these customers actually came inbound.”
Girish Mathrubootham Sep 15, 2023 ▶ 20:20 Building a Global SaaS Empire | Freshworks Founder & CEO Girish Mathrubootham on His Biggest Bets
Assertion Supported
Mathrubootham: 31 startups have been founded by Freshworks alumni
“Like we have 31 startups that have come out of Freshworks.”
Girish Mathrubootham Sep 15, 2023 ▶ 2:46 Building a Global SaaS Empire | Freshworks Founder & CEO Girish Mathrubootham on His Biggest Bets
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Mathrubootham: 40% of Freshworks revenue comes from inbound SMBs
“We have 40% of our revenue. It's completely SMB customers, a hundred percent inbound.”
Girish Mathrubootham Sep 15, 2023 ▶ 3:38 Building a Global SaaS Empire | Freshworks Founder & CEO Girish Mathrubootham on His Biggest Bets
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Mathrubootham: Freshworks' early CAC was 80% marketing and 20% sales
“Our sales, if you look at our early years, our sales cost would be like 20% of the CAC. Marketing would be 80%.”
Girish Mathrubootham Sep 15, 2023 ▶ 12:56 Building a Global SaaS Empire | Freshworks Founder & CEO Girish Mathrubootham on His Biggest Bets
Assertion Supported
Mathrubootham: Freshservice is outgrowing flagship Freshdesk
“Our second product is actually the fastest growing product now, better than our first flagship larger product.”
Girish Mathrubootham Sep 15, 2023 ▶ 16:53 Building a Global SaaS Empire | Freshworks Founder & CEO Girish Mathrubootham on His Biggest Bets
Assertion Supported
Freshworks generates 60% of revenue from mid-market and enterprise customers
“So today, 60% of our revenue for Freshworks Comes from mid-market, ah, what we call as mid-market enterprise companies, which is companies from two 50 to 5005 thousand and above enterprise.”
Girish Mathrubootham Sep 15, 2023 ▶ 22:32 Building a Global SaaS Empire | Freshworks Founder & CEO Girish Mathrubootham on His Biggest Bets

Played on the show (1)

Episodes where a recording of Girish Mathrubootham was played rather than Girish taking part, or where the tape carries an address with nobody putting questions to them. Listed because the words are on the record, kept out of every score on this page because they were not said on this show. We read this off the tape: who was spoken to, who was asked something, who answered whom.

EpisodeDateOn tapeWhat it is
Building a Global SaaS Empire | Freshworks Founder & CEO Girish Mathrubootham on His Bigge Sep 15, 2023 26m aired address
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 400 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.

Try the podcast clipper Learn more