Article · ~10 min read

Building A Global SaaS Empire: 5 Bets That Paid Off with Freshworks Founder CEO Girish Mathrubootham

Girish Mathrubootham · SaaStr Free Advanced India

Five GTM bets from an Indian founder who reached $600M+ ARR, including spending $45k early to find which inbound channel would scale and later layering field sales on top. The clearest India-origin example of doing global inbound well.

  • Bet one was inbound plus global from day one: 45,000 dollars over two months testing online channels brought 70 customers.
  • They booked 40 domains in 2010, betting on multi-product before the first product shipped.
  • The overlay motion added field sales on top of inbound, closing Burger King, 3M, Schneider, Pearson, and Sony from 2013 to 2014.
  • Burger King was 300 seats against a typical SMB deal of 4 to 5 seats, which is what upmarket actually buys you.
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It answers 3 questions

  1. How did Freshworks sell to the US from Chennai without a US sales team?
  2. What do the very best GTM teams do that everyone else does not?
  3. We are an Indian company selling to global buyers. How do we position so that being from India reads as an asset rather than a question mark?

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