Girish Mathrubootham is the founder of Freshworks, a successful software company. From frustrating customer service experience to generating a revenue of $3.43 billion.
Early Life
Girish Mathrubootham was born on 29 March 1975 in Tamil Nadu, India. He grew up in poverty and faced numerous challenges. Since childhood, he has been passionate about technology. After completing a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Madras University, he pursued an MBA from the prestigious Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.
In 1995, he moved to the United States in search of new opportunities and began working as a venture capitalist. He co-founded numerous successful software firm, which includes the cloud-based customer interaction platform Freshworks, formerly known as Freshdesk.
Launch of Freshworks
Before establishing Freshworks, Girish gained knowledge in the software industry. Later, in 2001, he joined Zoho Corporation as a PreSale Engineer and became the Vice President.
Until 2009, he managed customer service and product strategy. After recognizing that he should build something in the customer support market support, in 2010 he quit the post of Vice President to establish Freshworks.
Girish found a domain name, freshdesk.com, that was about to expire. He back-ordered to buy it on GoDaddy, and after a month, the domain was finally transferred to him. He changed the domain name to Freshworks.
With the aim to simplify customer support through an intuitive, cloud-based platform, he teamed up with one of his colleagues, Shan Krishnasamy, who was an expert in techie, to begin the startup.
The company was first initiated in Chennai, India, and soon became popular for offering cloud-based customer support services to all types of companies. They have a product suite that helps companies manage IT services, messaging, customer support, and sales.
Build a Successful Company Culture
Girish is a great leader of Freshworks who keeps encouraging his employees and values company culture. Mathrubootham’s positive and productive workplace environment led him to achieve success in the startup. With over 50,000 customers worldwide, such as Cisco, Hugo Boss, and Honda, Freshworks has raised over $250 million in funding. Under his guidance, the company continued to expand and come up with new and innovative ideas.
Challenges
In the beginning, Girish struggled to achieve success. In the path of his success, he encountered numerous obstacles like limited funding, competitors attracting customers, and more. Despite this, he stood strong, and with a focus on providing good customer service through his user-friendly solution, he continued to work hard to establish their customer engagement platform.
Awards and Recognition
For his great leadership and success, Girish received numerous awards including:
- Entrepreneur of the Year in 2019 at the Economic Times Awards for Corporate Excellence.
- Forbes Cloud 100 list in 2019, 2020, and 2021.
- India’s Innovative Companies by Fast Company in 2016 for one of the business today’s coolest startups.
- In 2021 the brand was recognized as the fastest growing company in America.
Net Worth
In 2020, the business made $250 million while losing $57 million.
In late 2021, their market value was $13 billion.
Future Plans
Freshworks is looking ahead to expand its product portfolio and market reach by entering into new markets by leveraging its brand reputation and existing market products. They are also partnering with other companies like technology firms and service providers to reach a wider audience and offer new products and services.
In addition to forming partnerships, they acquire innovative companies. Some recent acquisitions Freshworks includes are Pipemonk, Konotor, Joe Hukum, OneKlikStreet, and Zarget.
