A masterclass in bootstrapping, learning and staying happy with Kumar Vembu

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.