Thread by @thefaadguy

Meet the man who built a 9000 CR company from a small village. (A thread 🧵)

1. Born in Tamil Nadu's Thanjavur area, Sridhar Vembu was leading the perfect life. He cracked an unbelievable 27th rank in IIT JEE and went to IIT Madras and Princeton. Following that, Sridhar joined Qualcomm as a wireless engineer in 1994.

2. Meanwhile, his brothers started a software company in Chennai, and his friend from IIT Madras had written a draft for networking software. Vembu thought to bring everyone together. He believed he could sell the software in the US. In 1996, AdventNet was born. 🚀

3. The idea was simple ⏩ Sell software to telecom providers. The first product was a Web NMS, which helped businesses to manage operations digitally. The product picked off as it sold the most at a US tech fair, even beating the software giant HP.

4. By 1998, AdventNet clocked 6 CR in sales. The new CEO - Sridhar Vembu, is in command now. By 2000, AdventNet cracked "Cisco" as their first big client. It clocked 50 CR in sales. 📉

5. Seeing the success, an investor approached AdevntNet with 50 CR at a valuation of 700 CR. Vembu turned it down, knowing he was building it for life. AdventNet grew with 115 engineers in India. It started catering to Japan as well. But, the Dotcom crash happened in 2001. 👇

6. AdventNet customers came from 150 to 3. Even their Web NMS platform received saturation. In the meantime, an investor knocked on the door again with an offer to sell the company for 150 CR. But Vembu denied it again. ❌

7. He used the six-month cash reserves saved by not taking his salary over four years. He pivoted and built - Manage engine, helping mid-sized companies to manage their IT needs. The idea became a success as 60% of Fortune 500 companies started using it. 💪

8. During the same time, Vembu bought the domain name "Zoho" from a hospitality company that busted in the dotcom crash. With the new name, Vembu launched what changed his life forever. The sales product - Zoho CRM was born in 2005. 🚀

9. The product had 1 million users by August 2008. By 2009, AdventNet formally became Zoho Corporation as it expanded to over 25 product offerings and 50 mobile apps. By 2015, it touched 12 million users with over 1800 CR in sales. It even disturbed a global giant. 👇

10. Zoho provided the same software at 1/6th the cost of Salesforce. Salesforce accepted defeat and even approached to buy Zoho, but Vembu denied him. With freemium offerings and a strength of 5,000 employees, the big moment for Zoho finally came. 👇

11. On November 8th 2021, Zoho touched revenues of 5230 CR. It became a billion-dollar company by revenue. When everybody was struggling, it flourished in Covid with revenues of 6711 CR and a profit of 1918 CR. 📉

➡️ Today, Zoho has a revenue of 8700 CR at a profit of 2800 CR. With a net worth of 28,000 CR, Vembu still lives in his small village in Thanjavur and rides his bicycle. 🚲