Article · 9 min read

The Freshdesk Story: Where and How it All Started

Girish Mathrubootham · Freshworks Free Beginner India

The founder's own account of entering an existing category (help desk) against Zendesk rather than inventing a new one, and winning on price and simplicity for SMBs. The clearest India example of segment choice beating category invention.

  • The idea came from a Hacker News comment about Zendesk raising prices 60 to 300 percent.
  • The founders quit in October 2010 and ran a six person team on roughly 5K dollars a month, paying 30 to 50 percent of market salary.
  • About 350 to 400 dollars of ads across Google, Facebook and LinkedIn produced more than 150 valid signups.
  • Talking to SMB customers pushed multiple support emails, SLAs and business hours ahead of social integrations.
Open on freshworks.com ↗

It answers 5 questions

  1. Should we create a new category or just say we are a better version of something that already exists?
  2. Buyers keep comparing us to a big incumbent. How do I even respond in a first call?
  3. Our competitor's category is bigger and better funded. How do I carve out a segment we can actually win?
  4. How do the best Indian companies compete against a US incumbent without pretending to be American?
  5. How do the best companies use founder story as a durable moat rather than a launch stunt?

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