Freshdesk: bringing in freshness in startup world

ABSTRACT

In this Internet age, fresh waves of entrepreneurs are disrupting the startup space with their sheer will to succeed. Freshdesk™(Freshdesk) is one of the leading SaaS (Software as a Service) cloud based customer support software company started in 2010 on a bootstrap basis As of 2018 they had more than 50+ million end users with more than 100,000 installations across the globe powered by digital technologies, tools, and techniques. Freshdesk (now Freshworks™) has $150 Million of raised capital, seven company acquisitions and is on global map with offices across various cities such as Chennai (India), Berlin (Germany), London (UK), Sydney (Australia), and San Bruno (CA, USA). This research article focuses on the evolution of newer type of startups emerging from developing world yet having global ambitions.

Notes

¹ Born Quentin Jerome Tarantino on March 27, 1963, Quentin Tarantino is easily one of the most prolific and recognizable directors of our generation. Tarantino has a unique style of directing which favors an unconventional approach. In “Pulp Fiction,” he employed a non-linear technique and cemented his status as an avant-garde filmmaker.

² N-1 Theory of Pricing in this context means pricing will be based on the number of seats sold or users instead of forcing the clients in choosing a band wherein clients who are in middle or beginning of the pricing band may feel they are over paying, clients at the edge of the band may feel when they want to scale few more users they may have to pay bigger price for small number of seats/users added. Freshdesk created various pricing plans by naming them as “SPROUT,” “BLOSSOM,” “GARDEN,” “ESTATE,” and “FOREST.”

³ Share of Market can be acquired through hunting for new clients from various markets however Share of Wallet from existing clients (acquiring maximum portion of client budget by one market player) can be achieved through the client account mining strategy wherein client focused key account and delivery manager will try to mine the particular client or group of clients by addressing their needs.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Achutha Jois

Achutha Jois is currently a research scholar (Executive) at Indian Institute of Management Kashipur (IIM K), India, he has done his post graduation from Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode. He has masters degree in VLSI system design from Coventry University UK and Bachelors in Engineering from Bangalore University. He started as an IT entrepreneur in 1995, has two successful entrepreneurial exits till now. He has more than two decades of experience in Strategy, IT, Software, Marketing, Branding, Technology, Business Management and teaching. He has couple of patents in his name along with various white papers and industry research reports. He currently runs a software company, a Business School and is also professor in Marketing teaching at ATMA College, Bangalore. His research interests are consumer perception, global branding, education branding, strategy & implementation.

Ramnath Krishnan Pallasena

Ramnath Krishnan Pallasena is a research scholar and is currently doing his Executive Fellow Programme in Management from Indian Institute of Management, Kashipur, Uttarakhand. He completed his MBA from Babson College, Boston, USA and Master of Engineering (Systems and Information) from BITS, Pilani and Bachelor of Engineering from ACCET, Karaikudi. He has 18 years of industry experience and has worked with US-based MNCs like Cadence Design Systems, Mentor Graphics and Schneider National. His research interests include Context-aware systems and Augmented reality.

Somnath Chakrabarti

Somnath Chakrabarti is currently serving as Associate Professor at Indian Institute of Management Kashipur (IIM K). He has teaching and research interests in consumer behaviour, marketing of services, international marketing and B2B marketing. He has done Bachelor of Engineering from REC (now NIT), Durgapur, MBA from College of Business, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, USA (AACSB accredited College of Business in public research University in US) and Ph.D. from Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi). He has published in leading academic journals like Decision (IIM Calcutta), IIMB Management Review (IIM Bangalore), Metamorphosis (IIM Lucknow), International Journal of Advertising, UK (published by World Advertising Research Centre  WARC), International Journal of Consumer Studies, UK (published by Wiley Blackwell) and British Food Journal, UK (published by Emerald), International Journal of Bank Marketing and among other journals. He has published various case studies in Ivey publishing, Canada, Emerald emerging market case studies. He has attended global colloquium in case writing at Harvard Business School Boston and Chennai campuses.