Freshworks started as Freshdesk in Chennai in 2010 and decided early that inbound would be the engine, not field sales. Girish Mathrubootham has said they spent roughly 45,000 dollars out of about 85,000 dollars of capital testing online channels to find the one that would scale, and came out of it with around 70 customers. Their first customers came from four continents, the very first from Australia, so the team was doing product, marketing, support and desk based selling from one office in Chennai. Field sales came later, layered on top of inbound once they wanted bigger deals, not instead of it. The lesson founders take from it is that inbound plus desk based selling can carry you a long way before you need people on the ground in the buyer's timezone.
2 hand-picked resources, 2 India-specific, 2 link-checked. Pick how you want to dig in.
Why we picked it The talk version, where he walks through the early channel testing and the numbers behind it. Worth watching if you want the tone and the hesitations, not just the summary.
On SaaStr (YouTube) by Girish Mathrubootham Conference talk
Why we picked it This is Girish naming the actual bets in order, including betting on inbound while going global and only later overlaying a field motion. It is the clearest public account of the Chennai to global sequencing.
From SaaStr by Girish Mathrubootham Long read
Open saastr.com →How gtm teardowns reads from a different seat.
