Vai offline con l'app Player FM !
A masterclass in bootstrapping, learning and staying happy with Kumar Vembu
Manage episode 290198459 series 2912609
Pankaj Mishra
Kumar Vembu’s journey with Zoho during its early foundational years and later building his own startup, GoFrugal, offers some deep insight into India SaaS’ building blocks. Kumar's ability to spot and mentor talent such as Girish Mathrubootham, who is now the founder of Freshworks, India’s most valuable SaaS company, offers lessons in grooming leaders.
In this episode of SaaSBOOMi podcast, I am thrilled to share this masterclass with Kumar in bootstrapping, spotting talent and matching them with their true purpose, and lessons from three different entrepreneurial journeys--Zoho, GoFrugal and Freshworks.
“I used to be a very mischievous and a happy-go-lucky kid. Whenever teachers tried to be strict with me, I became more unmanageable. But whenever a teacher trusted me, I became easy to manage,” Kumar recalls.
“One of the early lessons for me was when you respect and trust people, you get their cooperation, much better than using brute force.”
Over the years, Kumar has watched three different entrepreneurial journeys, starting with his own startup focused on the India market, Zoho before that, and Freshworks’ Girish. You can also watch this video interview I had done with Kumar explaining “the Zoho way and the Freshworks way.”
So what does he think about these different models and what can we learn from each of them?
“Whether to bootstrap or take funding should not be the first question. Building the product, achieving product-market fit and growing the business are more important questions at the start,” he tells me in this podcast.
58 episodi
Manage episode 290198459 series 2912609
Pankaj Mishra
Kumar Vembu’s journey with Zoho during its early foundational years and later building his own startup, GoFrugal, offers some deep insight into India SaaS’ building blocks. Kumar's ability to spot and mentor talent such as Girish Mathrubootham, who is now the founder of Freshworks, India’s most valuable SaaS company, offers lessons in grooming leaders.
In this episode of SaaSBOOMi podcast, I am thrilled to share this masterclass with Kumar in bootstrapping, spotting talent and matching them with their true purpose, and lessons from three different entrepreneurial journeys--Zoho, GoFrugal and Freshworks.
“I used to be a very mischievous and a happy-go-lucky kid. Whenever teachers tried to be strict with me, I became more unmanageable. But whenever a teacher trusted me, I became easy to manage,” Kumar recalls.
“One of the early lessons for me was when you respect and trust people, you get their cooperation, much better than using brute force.”
Over the years, Kumar has watched three different entrepreneurial journeys, starting with his own startup focused on the India market, Zoho before that, and Freshworks’ Girish. You can also watch this video interview I had done with Kumar explaining “the Zoho way and the Freshworks way.”
So what does he think about these different models and what can we learn from each of them?
“Whether to bootstrap or take funding should not be the first question. Building the product, achieving product-market fit and growing the business are more important questions at the start,” he tells me in this podcast.
58 episodi
Tutti gli episodi
×1 Using Growth Marketing & GenAI to Generate 10K+ Leads a Month! | Marketing Nation Podcast E4 47:01
1 GTM Blueprint for Emerging Markets, Sachin Bhatia Exotel, Founder's Deep Dive E23: SaaSBoomi Podcast 1:00:15
1 The Magic of Account Based Marketing - Ankit Oberoi, Zelto | Marketing Nation E3 | SaasBoomi Podcast 50:52
1 Hidden Power: Process of Marketing - Maansi Sanghi, iMocha | Marketing Nation E2 | SaaSBoomi Podcast 52:31
1 Channel Partners in SaaS - Anand Venkatraman, Growthloop | Marketing Nation E1 | SaaSBoomi Podcast 47:23
1 Empowering Hiring 150+ countries: Sagar Khatri, Multiplier | Founder's Deep Dive E21 | SaaSBoomi Podcast 57:26
1 The journey of Ahmedabad's SaaS duo | Founder's Deep Dive E20 | SaaSBoomi Podcast 1:05:32
1 Getting SaaS pricing right (2/2) - Varun Shoor, Kayako | BTS E15 | SaaSBoomi Podcast 1:01:19
1 Magic of Inbound Marketing & SGx - Abhishek Ballabh, ExtraaEdge | BTS E13 | SaaSBoomi Podcast 56:35
1 Zabardast Depositioning & Category Creation - Naveen Goyal, NoPaperForms, BTS E12, SaaSBoomi Podcast 55:19
1 Acing Customer Dev & Partnerships in the US - Kalyan Verma, Almabase | BTS E11 | SaaSBoomi Podcast 51:48
1 The London Bridge that held everyone together - Kovai's journey 1:00:40
Benvenuto su Player FM!
Player FM ricerca sul web podcast di alta qualità che tu possa goderti adesso. È la migliore app di podcast e funziona su Android, iPhone e web. Registrati per sincronizzare le iscrizioni su tutti i tuoi dispositivi.