Co-founder of Freshdesk reveals why it is lonely at the top

Entrepreneurs face a plethora of challenges while starting their own ventures. Overcoming obstacles and timely guidance makes them as tough as Teflon.

Girish Mathrubootham, cofounder of Freshdesk-a cloud-based helpdesk software company- shared with Economic Times his journey and what he learnt at his previous company-Zoho.

Freshdesk, which supports customers and competes with firms like Zendesk, was founded in October 2010 by former Zoho executives Mathrubootham and Shanmugam Krishnaswamy.

When asked why he was against venture funding, Mathrubootham said, “There are pros and cons to both approaches. The difference in the ideology is-Do you want to be rich or do you want to be the King? In a bootstrapped venture, you have the freedom to do what you want and not chase growth. A VC-funded company is like a rocket ship, designed to grow fast and try and create substantial wealth for investors, founders and employees in a reasonably short period of time.”

He said that bootstrapping was not a viable option for them in the early days.

“When we were approached by VCs, I was curious to learn this new way of building a business. And I am glad I took the decision to get VC funded because I was able to meet some really smart people in the world and learn from them,” said Mathrubootham.

Talking about wealth creation, Mathrubootham says for him, wealth creation extends to employees as well and dreams that his employees will own BMWs one day.

“Wealth creation to me means creating wealth not only for founders and shareholders, but also for all the employees who are passionately building the company along with us. When I started the company I told my wife that I am not starting a company for me to buy a BMW, I am starting a company so that all my employees can buy BMWs,” he said, who credits his family for shaping him as an entrepreneur, who allowed him to give freedom to do his own thing.

When it comes to individuality, every entrepreneur wants his firm to stand out from the crowd. So what will Mathrubootham do so that his company doesn’t become like Zendesk of tomorrow?

“Our mobile app (software development kit) for customer support and social support features are the best in class in our industry. We are working on several interesting areas that we believe will shape the future of customer support in the coming years,” he said.

Keep aside all professional engagements, at the end of the day one needs a friend with whom you can discuss everything. Mathrubootham says it is difficult to share things freely at one point of time.

“It is very, very lonely. There are many things that you can't share freely with people who you consider as good friends in the team. There are a lot of stressful situations when you have to absorb everything and ensure that your people are protected from unnecessary external pressures. I think I have formed a great relationship with our early investor and first board member, Shekhar Kirani from Accel Partners. There have been so many occasions where I have asked him to advise me as a friend or what he would have done if he were in my shoes,” he said.

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