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Zoho grew to be a billion $ company with zero external funding despite of being approached by many VCs
- Competes with likes of Google, Salesforce, SAP, Slack, Dropbox, MS
- Clocks 500 million $ in revenues
- over 80 products & 8000 employees
A thread on Zoho
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- Competes with likes of Google, Salesforce, SAP, Slack, Dropbox, MS
- Clocks 500 million $ in revenues
- over 80 products & 8000 employees
A thread on Zoho
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1996 - After working in Bay Area for few years, Sridhar Vembu starts AdventNet which provides network management solutions to clients in US
Completely self funded the company got benefited from the rise of software industry. Was doing close to 10 Mn $ in revenues by 2000
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Completely self funded the company got benefited from the rise of software industry. Was doing close to 10 Mn $ in revenues by 2000
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2000 - A VC approaches to invest 5 million $ in the company. Vembu refuses as he didn't like the exit clause of the contract. Since then the company has never taken any external funding
Next 2 years go bad for Advent Net because of Dot Com bubble burst
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Next 2 years go bad for Advent Net because of Dot Com bubble burst
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2003 - Manage Engine, a complete IT management system for mid and small sized companies is released
Both Manage Engine and Advent Net start getting good traction in US
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Both Manage Engine and Advent Net start getting good traction in US
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2005 - Advent Net was quick to adopt cloud technology and launched a separate divison called Zoho
The first product was Zoho Writer, an online word processor. This was even before Google docs came into existence
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The first product was Zoho Writer, an online word processor. This was even before Google docs came into existence
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2006 - Google acquires Writely which would become Google docs. Vembu knew it was tough to compete head on with Google. Hence, diversified into other products like Zoho CRM
Zoho Creator is launched which is one of the earliest no code platforms
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Zoho Creator is launched which is one of the earliest no code platforms
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2008 - Advent Net reaches 1 million customers across the world
2009 - Company's name is changed to Zoho from Advent Net. As it would focus more on cloud based softwares which would enable small and medium businesses to run their operations
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2009 - Company's name is changed to Zoho from Advent Net. As it would focus more on cloud based softwares which would enable small and medium businesses to run their operations
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2011 - Zoho has a suite of powerful applications like CRM, People, analytics and Books which compete with the likes of Salesforce, Intuit and SAP
Its inherent advantage lies in the resource cost advantage over the tech giants
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Its inherent advantage lies in the resource cost advantage over the tech giants
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But in terms of the quality of the products, they were as good as their big competitors
Zoho runs Zoho University where they train local students from Tamil Nadu and provide them employment in Zoho
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Zoho runs Zoho University where they train local students from Tamil Nadu and provide them employment in Zoho
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2015 - Zoho has added close to 25 products and 50 mobile apps. Manage Engine was the highest revenue contributor. But Zoho the cloud unit was the fastest growing
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2020 - Zoho reached close to 80 products used by 45 million customers across the globe.
They reached 500 million $ in revenues with a valuation of over a billion $
And became one of the best software companies from India
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They reached 500 million $ in revenues with a valuation of over a billion $
And became one of the best software companies from India
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And this is their billionaire founder, Sridhar Vembu who chose to return to a small village in Tamil Nadu from where he runs the company
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