The man who turned down venture capital Yes, that is what Mr. Sridhar Vembu, CEO and founder of ZOHO is known as in the entrepreneurial world. Hailing from a modest middle class family and residing in Chennai with a father who was a stenographer and mother, a house wife, Vembu has carved a niche for himself in the IT industry and competing with tech giants such as Google and Salesforce.com.
Sridhar Vembu’s conviction, his discipline and his ability to persevere have all helped him built a unique bootstrapped company. He has turned down acquisition proposals from Salesforce.com and is being looked up for advice and inspiration by many young Indian entrepreneurs. ZOHO Labs today boasts of over 6 million users across the world. ZOHO is possibly India’s most global product tech company.
How did he attain this success? It surely wasn’t easy. Did his education really impact his ideologies? How did studying other countries change him? Having completed his under Grad in IIT Madras and post that completing Electrical Engineering from Princeton University in 1989.Vembu had become interested in knowing how markets in Japan, Singapore and Taiwan are thriving. Being highly motivated and on a mission to fix or at least help ease the pain- points of the nation he headed back to India and started his own venture with his brother which was called Vembu Software.
How did the Vembu brothers get started on this venture? Vembu brothers teamed up with Tony Thomas who has some network management software and was experienced in the area.Did ship always sail through steady waters? The answer is no. In early 2000s the network business saw a huge meltdown the customers came down from 150 to a mere 3. But Vembu ( now being the CEO) , ever the optimist saw this in a positive way and took up the challenge to divert the talent of his team to focus on two directions: First, they took the same network management software that they sold as OEM (Order Equipment Manufacturer) model, and converted it into an Enterprise Model. That gave birth to ManageEngine! Other than that, they also had an on-demand effort, so they put some engineers on that path too. That is how Zoho got started.
Did diversifying their domains help? How did they gain global recognition? They had a range of products that helped companies with their Sales & Marketing, HR & Finance, eMail& collaboration and IT & helpdesk. It competes with the likes of HP OpenView and Microsoft office. By 2003, a lot of the start-ups were gone, and they were the only ones left garnering more customers.
We all face adversities and Sridhar had surely had to face some of his own. Did he give up? Did he lose hope? In the next two years, after the exit of Tony Thomas (Sridhars friend and CEO of AdventNet at the time) to start another venture, Sridhar had to make a lot changes to fight the crisis he was faced with. Not only did they begin using Google Advertising to directly reach out to customers, but they also renamed the company to AdventNet in 2005 and also started their own informal university called Zoho University as well.
Is change always good? The answer is not definite but nevertheless we all need to welcome change. The industry saw a change in the consumer market and as result Sridhar had to reform and adapt. By 2009, the company had been renamed to Zoho Corporation. Zoho Corp changed their direction and with their youngest division of “Zoho.com”, they began offering internet-based software for work, which had become the need of the hour for various companies.
Over a period of time the Zoho Corporation evolved into three divisions: Zoho.com, WebNMS and Manage Engine. Sridhar did not only focus on the monetary returns of his company , he also did his part in making India a passionate youth driven nation by taking identifying talent from schools and training them.
The company now wants to target the Indian cloud market which it foresees and being a multi-million dollar opportunity. Through all of the ordeals that Vembu has had to face, he always remained headstrong and believed in himself whilst ensuring a conducive environment for the growth and nourishment of talent in his university.We surely hope to have Indian entrepreneurs flourish in their won nation too. As he says, “exit is not an option”. Sridhar Vembus story is surely one to tell for years to come.
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