Technology Business Entrepreneurship
Jesse Pujji
Jesse Pujji

@jspujji

16 Tweets 4 reads Jul 10, 2024
Twitter
This man runs a $6B startup from a remote village in India.
It:
• raised $0 funding
• has 100M+ users
• generates $1B+ in ARR
Here’s the bootstrapped story you’ve never heard of:
This man runs a $6B startup from a remote village in India. It: • raised $0 funding • has 100M+ use...
The company: @Zoho 
Founder: @svembu 
Sridhar scaled Zoho to $300M+ in annual profit. The company makes its own version of Google Docs, Salesforce, QuickBooks and dozens of other apps.
But initially, he wasn't even part of the company.
@Zoho @svembu So how did he join Zoho & turn it into a global tech giant?
In 1996, Sridhar's brothers founded Advent, a network management startup. 
They hired Sridhar to lead sales. He crushed it. 
Within 3 years, Advent signed BIG U.S. customers & grew to $10M+ in revenue.
@Zoho @svembu Sridhar was promoted to CEO. Things were looking good... 
But it didn't last.
The 2002 dot-com crash reduced Advent's customers from 150 to 3. 
Thousands of startups went bankrupt. But it didn't. 
Why?
@Zoho @svembu • It had free cash flow (as it prioritized profit over growth) 
• Low operating cost (most employees were from India) 
• No investors (no pressure to chase unsustainable growth)
The Advent team leveraged these advantages to pivot. 
In 2002, they launched Manage Engine, an IT management software. The product was a huge hit. 
But amidst the success, a problem brewed once again. 
Sridhar's brothers left the company due to differences and he was left alone.
@Zoho @svembu He says, “This was the most depressing period of my career.” 
But he didn't give up. 
In 2005, he launched Zoho, the company's cloud software division.
@Zoho @svembu It created productivity software for businesses: CRM, accounting platform, sales and marketing tools, and more. 
Within 3 years, Zoho had 1M+ users.
Seeing its rapid success, Sridhar renamed the company from Advent to Zoho Corp to go all in on the cloud software market.
@Zoho @svembu It worked. 
Zoho grew from 1M users to 100M+ users in 15 years. 
It has 700,000 paid customers across 150+ countries. 
Here are a few reasons for Zoho’s success:
a) Product diversification 
Zoho has 55+ products — from HR and marketing, to finance and sales. 
It offers what you need to run your business. 
So, why pay Typeform AND QuickBooks AND 53 other SaaS? 
Zoho bundles all those 55 SaaS products into one product for a cheaper price.
b) Low employee cost 
Zoho runs Zoho schools. 
It teaches students coding and other skills for free, and then hires them. 
The school has 1600+ graduates — 15% of Zoho's employees.
For every engineer hired from Zoho school, Zoho saves $50K-$80K compared to hiring from the U.S.
b) Low employee cost  Zoho runs Zoho schools.  It teaches students coding and other skills for fre...
@Zoho @svembu c) Affordable prices
Zoho spends <10% of what its rivals spend on marketing.
With low employee and customer acquisition costs, it can keep its prices low.
@Zoho @svembu For example: 
• Zoho's CRM is priced 70% lower than Salesforce, Microsoft, and other CRMs
• Its subscription fees are 40-50% less than the competition
Low prices = more customers
@Zoho @svembu d) High R&D spend 
Zoho spends 60% of its revenue on R&D (versus the competitors'  10-20%). 
It invests in technologies to create new, cheaper products that meet user needs before the competition does. 
This helps the company acquire new customers and retain the existing ones.
@Zoho @svembu That's it! 
Zoho is proof that a laser-focused, bootstrapped company can beat VC-backed competitors. 
If you liked this story, you'll love my newsletter. I show people how to build bootstrapped giants like this one. 
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