137: How to Build a Large Startup NOT in Silicon Valley with Girish Mathrubootham of Freshdesk

The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan

Back in 2010, Girish Mathrubootham was a pretty successful tech guy, having risen up the ranks of a company to VP of Product Management. But that didn't mean he was immune to bad customer service.

After spending months and months going back and forth with a company on an insurance claim, in the end, all that was achieved was Mathrubootham feeling helpless and frustrated. He took to a popular online forum to air his frustrations, and that was when he got his first taste of what it means to harness social power. His post went viral, with others airing their own frustrations at the same company, to the point where the president of the company stepped in to personally apologize to Mathrubootham.

He began to understand just how antiquated the systems for customer service were, and just how important social media had become in giving a voice to customers who previously had nowhere else to go. He realized that modern companies needed a help desk that not only tracked complaints through traditional channels like email and phone, but also those that came through on social media channels.

The result was Freshdesk, a company that now employs more than 950 people around the world, and has raised more than $150 million in capital from top VC firms. One more super-impressive thing about the story of Freshdesk—it started out as a tiny company based in India, and Mathrubootham had to overcome the challenge of gaining a foothold in the US.

That seven-year journey had its own share of setbacks, but Mathrubootham has managed to rise above each one that the cutthroat tech world has thrown his way, through a mixture of knowing exactly the right kind of person to hire and his own tenacity and savvy for PR.

In this week's episode you will learn:

• What it means to truly harness social power
• What to look out for when you're studying your competitors
• How to turn an attack into the best PR move you'll ever make
• The key to raising millions of dollars from the top VR firms in Silicon Valley
• Why you need to hire based on potential and not on academic credentials
• & much more!